The Dunhuang Grottoes

摘要

Recently, I had the good fortune to go on a visit to China. I spent two days in Shanghai, and I was to go to Beijing, for meetings. I felt, however, that this was the standard itinerary of all Indian Government officials. I wanted to do something different, and to see some unknown part of this vast country, far away from Shanghai. Buddhism was taken long ago to China, by Chinese monks, and it flourished and expanded there, and beyond, with regular sustenance from the monks of Nalanda University, and other great teachers, from India. While it almost disappeared later in India, Buddhism was sustained in Tibet and China. They watered the plant of this great faith, with the teachings and scriptures which the monks had brought from India. The Silk Route, east to west, right up to Europe, from India, Iran and the Middle East is well known. I had read of a famous set of Buddhist caves, much like those in Ajanta and Ellora in central India, deep in the Gobi desert, far west of Beijing, in a place called Dunhuang.