The Mogao Grottoes (Peerless Caves) or Thousand Buddha caves are situated close to the modern day city of Dunhuang. The volume of military, economic, cultural and religious activity to pass through this desert crossroads from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries paved the way for one of China’s earliest Buddhist centers.
A Tang dynasty inscription describes how the monk Lei Zun with his vision of a thousand Buddhas convinced wealthy donors to fund the first temple in 366 A.D. It was a cave temple of Indian design. Mogao emerged as a religious center where foreign monks from India and Central Asia came to meditate, translate sutras and study Chinese before heading further inland. By the fifth century the collection of brightly colored cave temples had increased. Their original purpose was for spiritual quest with the paintings used to facilitate meditation. Over time they became a medium to promote Buddhist ideas to illiterate audiences. Hundreds of years of political and cultural synthesis gave the caves increasingly varied roles including solidifying the power of emperors with questionable rights to succession. Others suggest that wealthy traders sponsored the caves to ensure their safety on harsh desert crossings along the Silk Route. It also appears that many of the patrons were members of the local political elite, motivated by prestige. Some caves even evolved into clan halls. The community reached a peak of over a thousand caves during the Tang dynasty (618-907). Today 492 caves have survived containing what is arguably the greatest collection of Buddhist works in the world and an incomparable study on the evolution of Buddhist art through the centuries in China. Perhaps even more importantly it provides unparalleled insight into a multicultural society that linked a corridor between East and West for a thousand years, enabling us to trace the history of transcontinental relations and the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia. In 1987 the Mogao caves became a UNSECO World Heritage site.