Dazu Rock Carvings

The general term of "Dazu Rock Carvings" refers to all the cliffside carvings in Dazu County, some 165 kilometers away from Chongqing municipality. under the conservation and protection, there are 75 spots of cliffside carvings composed of more than 50,000 statues and over 100,000 Chinese characters of inscriptions and epigraphs.

Dazu County, located in the Southeast of Sichuan province, 271 kilometers away from Chengdu to her west and 167 kilometers away from Chongqing to her east, has the population of over 900,000 and the area of about 1400 square kilometers. Founded in the first year of Qianyuan in Tang dynasty (758 A.D), Dazu County has thus far enjoyed her history of more than 1240 years.

The Dazu Rock Carvings was built in the first year of Yonghui in Tang dynasty (A.D.650), and had continued until Ming and Qing dynasties. Through the Five Dynasties the work entered its prime time and distinguished itself during Northern and Southern Song dynasties. Among the Dazu Rock Carvings), key site protected at the national level for its cultural and historic value, have five places including Beishan, Baodingshan, Nanshan, Shizhuanshan and Shimenshan Rock Carvings--in which most figures are concentrated, and which contain statues and figures of the highest artistic value and most exquisite technique.    

Beishan Rock Carvings niche 136, the cave of Prayer wheel, which is known to artists as the elite and the very representative of carvings in song dynasty. Not merely are the figures in it, which remain intact very nicely constructed the carvings exquisite the rock carvings is also reputed as "collection of oriental Beauties" for the various personified gods and goddesses.  In particular statue of Samantabhadra has characteristics of the oriental woman, and its expressions are gentle soft refined natural and poised .The statue is praised for "The Oriental Venas". In addition the stele of book of Filia Piety with 22 chapters has been said by historians to be the "only engraving on the world".

The Baoding carvings are to the northeast of Dazu City, amongst beautiful mountains. Buddhist disciples have traditionally brought incense to the sacred place and there is a saying ‘look up towards Emei, look down towards Baoding.' The Song-dynasty Emperor Zhao Zhifeng was the instigator of the many Buddhist carvings in this region. Some thirteen places on the mountains hold around ten thousand sculptures that were accomplished over seventy years, from 1179 to 1249. The largest in scale are the Great Buddha Bay and the Small Buddha Bay. In addition to displaying Song dynasty sculptural art, these are of interest for their narrative appeal: they tell about the birth of Buddha, about the nature of change, about heaven, hell, cause and effect, and especially about people. Normal people, including farmers, are shown working in the carvings, also singing and dancing, drinking wine, pursuing the various tasks of daily life.

Nanshan Rock Carvings is the representative of Taoist stature. Of these, niche 5, the cave of Taoist Trinity, which is the material data ever produced in the Song Dynasty to demonstrate the system of Taoist gods in a most complete and most systematic way is of extremely great religious historic and artistic value.

Shizhuanshan Rock Carvings are representatives of spots of tripartite arrangement of Buddhist Taoist and Confucianism statures rarely seen in grottoes as the niche of Confucius and the niche of Lao Zi.

Shimenshan Rock Carvings are integrations of Buddhist and Taoist statues with the caller revealing most typical characteristics. The statues of the God of Farsighting standing on the left side of the entrance to Niche 2 housing the Jade Emperor for instance has eyes as big as a pair of bronze hells as it they could see as far as a thousand li, while the statue of the God of Farhearing standing on the right side of the entrance has an ugly look and two open ears as if he were listening carefully. Both of the statues have strong muscles and exposed arteries and veins carved in an exaggerated way.