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The Mogao Grottoes
- Cave 023

The Mogao Grottoes Cave 023 High Tang Dynasty(A.D.713-766)


Located in the middle section of the Southern Area of Mogao, this cave was constructed in the High Tang and renovated in the Middle Tang and Five Dynasties. The main chamber has a truncated pyramidal ceiling with a large lotus pattern in the ceiling center. Four illustrations of the Maitreya sutra, the Universal Gate of the Avalokitesvara sutra, the Amitabha sutra and the Usnisa Vijaya Dharani Sutra are respectively painted on the west, south, north and east slopes. The west niche has a grouping of seven -stucco figures renovated in the Qing dynasty. The stories start on the north wall, then continue on the east wall and end on the south wall. All represent the episodes in the Lotus Sutra. The corridor has a flat ceiling, on which part of the illustration of Defeating Mara has survived. Those paintings of the Five Dynasties on the south wall of the corridor are about the god of the sun in uncertain Esoteric Buddhist scriptures, and the others are all damaged. Part of the thousand Buddha motifs of the Five Dynasties has survived on the ceiling of the front chamber. The space above the entrance wall is filled with draperies and Buddhas in meditation of the Five Dynasties (with a Tangut inscription). To the south side of the entrance is part of a heavenly king (most blurred). The space on the entrance door was originally filled with draperies, an apsara and a heavenly king of the Five Dynasties, and now almost all of them have been covered. The cell in the south wall of the front chamber is numbered cave 24.

PANORAMA


CAVE INFORMATION


CAVE NUMBER:
The Mogao Grottoes Cave 023
LOCATION SPECIFIC ORIGINAL:
LOCATION:
Dunhuang
CONSTRUCTION TIME:
2011
DATA CREATION:
Dunhuang Academy