The Longmen Grottoes

Located in Luoyang City, Henan Province, Longmen Grottoes is the world's largest treasure house of stone carving art with the largest number of statues. It has been rated by UNESCO as "the highest peak of Chinese stone carving art", ranking first among the major grottoes in China.

Longmen (The Dragon Gate) was excavated by Dayu during the flood control, and the legend of fish leaping over the Dragon Gate also occurred here. Its grottoes began to be excavated during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and finally ended in the late Qing Dynasty. After more than 10 dynasties, it has been built for over 1400 years, making it the longest built grotto in the world. There are 2345 existing cave niches, with over 110000 statues. During construction, a large number of colored paintings were used, but most of them have now faded

Most of the statues in the Longmen Grottoes were built by royal nobles, making them the only royal grottoes in the world. The main sculptures include the Lushena Buddha carved by Empress Wu Zetian according to her own appearance, the Guyang Cave carved by Emperor Xiaowen for Empress Dowager Feng, the statue of the grandson of Lanling in the Ten Thousand Buddha Cave, the Binyang South Cave built by Li Tai for Empress Changsun, the Jingshan Temple carved by Empress Wei, and the Infinite Shou Buddha built by Gao Lishi for Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. He also experienced the opening of grottoes by foreigners such as Tianzhu, Xinluo, Tuhuoluo, and Kangguo, and discovered European patterns, ancient Greek stone pillars, etc., making it the world's most internationalized grottoes.

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