 The Dazu
Rock Carvings are a series of Chinese religious
sculptures and carvings, dating back as far as the 7th
century A.D., depicting and influenced by Buddhist,
Confucian and Taoist beliefs. Listed as a World Heritage
Site, the Dazu Rock Carvings are made up of 75 protected
sites containing some 50,000 statues, with over 100,000
Chinese characters forming inscriptions and epigraphs.
The sites are located on the steep hillsides within Dazu
County (near the city of Chongqing, China), with the
high points being the carvings found on Mount Baoding
and Mount Beishan.
The earliest carvings were begun in 650 A.D. during the
early Tang Dynasty, but the main period of their
creation began in the late 9th century, when Wei Junjing,
Prefect of Changzhou, pioneered the carvings on Mount
Beishan, and his example was followed after the collapse
of the Tang Dynasty by local and gentry, monks and nuns,
and ordinary people during the Five Dynasties and Ten
Kingdoms Period (907-65). In the 12th century, during
the Song Dynasty, a Buddhist monk named Zhao Zhifeng
began work on the elaborate sculptures and carvings on
Mount Baoding, dedicating 70 years of his life to the
project.
The carvings were listed as a World Heritage Site in
1999, citing "…their aesthetic quality, their rich
diversity of subject matter, both secular and religious,
and the light that they shed on everyday life in China
during this period. They provide outstanding evidence of
the harmonious synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism and
Confucianism." |
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