The largest and best preserved Buddhist cave site in China is located near Dunhuang, a small oasis community in northwestern Gansu province. Cave 254, which is completely decorated with painting and sculpture, is one of the earliest extant at the Mogao caves, and was probably constructed sometime between 475-490 A.D. The methodology of past scholarship has been to isolate and analyze specific elements of a cave, for example a single visual motif or painting style, and relate these to distant sources in India, Central Asia or other areas of China. Past scholarship has for the most part overlooked both the role of choice and the role of local circumstances in the formation of style.; My study seeks to understand Cave 254 and its art in terms of its local context. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that local factors order and condition the range of choices in subject matter and style available for the imagery, and that these contextual factors must be understood in order to fully explicate the art. Thus, the methodology employed in my dissertation will be that of a case study--an intensive, contextual examination of a single case.; The study concludes that a local Han Chinese elite class, who were the most likely sponsors of Cave 254, also probably formed the leadership of the monastic community that planned and oversaw the construction and use of the cave. This local elite class had existed in Dunhuang for many centuries before the construction of Cave 254. The function of the cave was also a significant factor in its formation because the cave served as a visual aid to Buddhist practices such as visualization, the recitation of the names of multiple Buddha groups, circumambulation and other devotional rituals. The cave and its imagery were thus created within a complex matrix of local circumstances: those related to local artistic traditions and the process of creation, those related to function and Buddhist practices, and those related to local elite ideological needs.; The architecture, sculpture and painting in Cave 254 are primary evidence of the choices which were made. The dissertation is an attempt to illuminate the intricate interplay of local circumstances in the decisions reached and ultimately to understand Cave 254 in terms of these choices.
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