The emblem of China Post is a 1,700-year-old brick painting.
Since Wang Han's poem, the cup holds a 1,300-year mystery.
Dunhuang's oldest comic strip is on a Northern Wei wall.
A monk saw golden light. From that, a thousand-year cave was born.
One monk saw 'a thousand Buddhas of light' — and from it began a thousand years of cave art.
A deer saved a drowning man. The man sold the deer out. This tale of good and evil was painted on a Northern Wei wall.
A starving tigress and her seven cubs. The prince leapt from the cliff. For a thousand years the painting has quietly watched us.
To save one dove, a king offered his own flesh. Indra's trial endures on a Dunhuang wall.
Five hundred men, eyes gouged, cast into the wild. What saved them was not the sword but the Buddha's compassion.
Dunhuang's most famous pose: a musician swings the pipa behind her back and weaves heaven's music with her fingertips.
Four lines hold a thousand years of wine, cups and war — words born right here at Jiayuguan.
A homeland lost to Tibet. One general rose and rode through the desert night.
At the start of the pilgrimage stood a Hu man named Shapanduo — said to be the prototype of Sun Wukong.
In 1900 a Daoist tapped a wall. What emerged was more than fifty thousand manuscripts — an encyclopedia of the medieval world.
Asked even for his own head, the king offered it with a smile.
Asked for his sight, the king drew out his own eyes and gave them.
Begged for the kingdom's white elephant, the prince gave it gladly — and was exiled.
A youth cares for his blind parents in the mountains — until a king's arrow finds him.
Blinded by his own brother, the elder prince still brought home the wish-gem.
To save fish in a drying pool, the elder had elephants haul water.
A life conceived in water a deer drank. The daughter would become mother of a kingdom.
Rather than break his vow, he chose death. Dunhuang's most piercing tale of a young man.
Her husband's clan followed heretics. She climbed the tower and called the Buddha — his disciples came riding the sky.
In the same cave, another 'feeding the tigress' — and within it, the soul of Northern Wei.
'For the Dharma, I would drive a thousand nails into my body' — so said the king.
The king lit a thousand lamps upon his own body to hear the Dharma.
The girl's grief over lost love is the longest echo in the murals.
One repays kindness; one repays it with harm. The brothers on the wall are two faces of humanity.
In Queen Maya's dream, a six-tusked white elephant descended in light.
On the eighth of the fourth month, holding a sala branch, the queen bore a radiant child from her side.
Each time the prince left by another gate, he saw another suffering of life.
While all slept, the prince mounted his horse and passed beyond the gates.
Fasting upon fasting, the prince was reduced to bone and skin.
The night Mara's army drew its bows, the prince simply touched the earth.
To five ascetics the Buddha spoke his first words.
Beneath twin sala trees, the Buddha lay on his right side.
Losing the Buddha, kings wounded their own bodies in grief.
Was there ever a longer 'life in pictures' on any wall?
Judged and punished, the five hundred had their eyes gouged and were cast into the wild.
To the five hundred crying in darkness, the Buddha wafted healing balm.
Husband lost, children lost — still she walked on.
A white dove falls into King Sibi's lap, and the hungry hawk that pursues it will not leave. To save that tiny life, the king of the Northern Wei turns the blade upon himself.
One woman's life reads like a picture scroll torn apart and pieced back together. Her husband dies, her children perish young, and fate pushes her to the brink again and again.
A contest of powers with fire and water sharing the same sky. Six heretics face a disciple of the Buddha at Sravasti, where treasure mountains, lions, and gales all speak the language of the supernatural.
A caravan of foreign merchants enters a deep mountain gorge when blades flash and robbers block the road. In that extremity, there is nothing to do but press palms together and call the name of Guanyin.
Deep within the prison, shackles hang heavy. The wronged man closes his eyes and recites the name, the chains shatter link by link, the jailer stands astounded, and Guanyin appears in the air.
The music of early Tang still seems to hang upon the wall. On the north wall of Cave 220, a grand dance and orchestra play out within the Medicine Buddha's transformation.
The painters of High Tang carried the future's Tushita heaven into the desert. Cave 445's Maitreya transformation unfolds the three assemblies of the Dragon-flower Tree in a vast composition.
For the first time, Sui-dynasty painters carried the whole Lotus Sutra onto a cave ceiling. Cave 420's transformation is an early attempt to give this Mahayana scripture visible form.
A layman and a bodhisattva debate the Way across a ten-foot chamber. Cave 103's Vimalakirti transformation is a superb footnote to the High Tang's "sashes stirred by wind."
The emperor himself comes to hear the Dharma. The imperial procession in Cave 103's Vimalakirti transformation is a monument of High Tang figure painting.
In Cave 172, the illustration of the Amitayus Meditation Sutra unfolds the sixteen contemplations and the nine grades of rebirth across a golden panorama of the High Tang.
In Cave 85, the illustration of the Gratitude Sutra carves the word "gratitude" into the late Tang wall through the harrowing tale of Prince Sujāti, who cut his own flesh to save his parents.
In Cave 85, the Lankavatara Sutra illustration places the Buddha on a lonely island in the sea, where clouds and divine dragons dance through a scroll of late Tang fantasy landscape.
In Cave 158, the Deva Questions Sutra illustration freezes a serene assembly beneath jeweled canopies and banners, a moment of mid Tang solemnity and calm.
In Cave 148, the Golden Light Sutra illustration mirrors the High Tang empire's deep prayer for peace and prosperity through the grand assembly of devas and dragon kings.
In Cave 231, the Avatamsaka Sutra illustration unfolds the sutra's interpenetrating infinitude into a Lotus Treasury World one can gaze upon.
Through the blue-green landscape of Cave 237, Manjusri comes riding a blue lion; where the auspicious clouds part, wisdom begins its journey.
Facing Manjusri across Cave 237 stands Samantabhadra. A white elephant moves slowly through the landscape, solemn and serene.
Cave 45 is a masterpiece of High Tang. Avalokitesvara stands upon a lotus, and around her unfold the many tales of rescue.
The Ksitigarbha illustration in Cave 148 spreads the six realms of the dark below, giving shape to a vow that hell not be emptied alone.
In the Raudraksa contest mural of Late Tang Cave 9, water and fire collide head-on — a jewel mountain breathes flame while floodwaters roll backward, turning a duel into a struggle of heaven and earth.
The Ghanavyuha illustration of Mid-Tang Cave 361 sets the Buddha within a land ringed by stately pavilions, its walls full of blue and green, like a pure dream held perfectly still.
The Ajatasatru scene of High Tang Cave 33 turns a kingdom's prison cell and a mother's hidden meal into the prologue of a Pure Land sutra.
High Tang Cave 172 divides the Sixteen Visualizations into small scenes meant for contemplation, moving from sun disc and water's surface toward the heart of the Pure Land.
The four flower-scattering apsaras of High Tang Cave 320 fly toward one another in pairs, blossoms falling from open palms and clouds streaming around them — the lightest stretch of sky in the grottoes.
On the ceiling of early-Tang Cave 321, two apsaras dance toward each other — one plucks a pipa, the other sounds a bili — weaving string and reed into the sweep of their ribbons.
In Western-Wei Cave 285, an apsara holds a konghou harp across her body, ribbons like clouds, fixing the “slender-boned, refined-featured” spirit in the cave's dimness.
In Western-Wei Cave 285, an apsara half-kneels on a cloud, cradling a four-stringed pipa, holding the dynasty's coolness and celestial warmth in a single moment.
At the center of Sui-dynasty Cave 407's ceiling, three hares chase each other in an endless loop, ears shared; around them, apsaras circle, spreading a revolving heaven overhead.
Around the lotus ceiling of early-Tang Cave 329, apsaras ride clouds and dragons, offering lotuses, spreading a canopy-like dome into a vision of paradise.
In Northern Zhou Cave 428, an apsara descends bearing an offering tray. She dives earthward, her robes streaming in a wind a thousand years old.
The kalavinka, with a human head and a bird's body, is the sweet-voiced bird of the Pure Land. In the mid-Tang mural of Cave 158, it spreads twin wings and clasps an instrument, singing an unending song for the Buddha who has passed into nirvana.
In early Tang Cave 220, on a round rug, a dancer spins like the wind. Her ribbons whip into a full moon as music surges all around — the most dazzling instant of the Silk Road's splendor.
In Western Wei Cave 249, between the balustrades of a heavenly palace, a row of musicians sits leaning on the rail. The sound of sheng, flute, and xiao rises in turn, as if to pierce that high celestial court and descend to earth.
In Sui-dynasty Cave 276, a bodhisattva leans slightly forward and blows a set of panpipes. His robe-lines flow like water, his music like wind, drifting quietly through the still cave.
In the corridor of late-Tang Cave 156, a resplendent cavalcade sets slowly into motion. This is the procession of Lady Song, wife of the Guiyi Army governor Zhang Yichao—one of Dunhuang's most vivid secular paintings.
On the south side of Cave 98's east wall stands a donor portrait nearly three meters tall. Crowned with an imperial diadem and robed in dragon garments, he is Li Shengtian, King of Khotan in the Five Dynasties period.
Among the donor figures in Cave 409, a Uyghur noblewoman draws every eye. Her peach-shaped coiffure crowned with a phoenix hairpin and her Uyghur court dress make her like a breath of splendor blown in from the steppe.
On the wall of mid-Tang Cave 159, a Tibetan king (btsan po) in a tall red felt hat presses his palms together before the Buddha. Attendants raise an umbrella, monks and layfolk file behind—a solemn scene from Dunhuang under Tibetan rule.
In the corridor of High-Tang Cave 130 hangs a group portrait hailed as the finest of Dunhuang's court-lady paintings. At its center, jeweled and trailing her long skirts, stands the Lady Wang of Taiyuan, wife of the governor Yue Tinggui.
In the early-Tang Cave 220, the Zhai family patrons stand in orderly ranks on either side of the east wall's doorway, their name cartouches still legible. Incense smoke and family names from thirteen centuries ago linger on the plaster.
In the Five Dynasties Cave 98, the patron portraits of the Cao clan—governors of the Guiyi Army—unfold on a grand scale, canopies raised high and retinue marshalled. The power and faith of a corner of the Hexi corridor are distilled onto these walls.
At the center of the Sui-dynasty Cave 407 ceiling, three hares share their ears, nose to tail, chasing into a ring with no end. A lotus upholds a riddle of eternity and coexistence.
At the center of the Western Wei Cave 305 ceiling, a great lotus unfurls from above while apsaras dance at the four corners and honeysuckle borders ring the walls. This is heaven—and a cool, clear state of mind.
On the Five Dynasties Cave 400 ceiling, a coiling dragon occupies the center while a phoenix faces it, clouds unfurling like a sea. Auspicious vapor rises from the vault, guarding the peace of the land.
On the ceiling of Cave 329 at Dunhuang, grapevines and pomegranates intertwine like a basket of midsummer carried along the Silk Road. This Early Tang ceiling brought the fragrance of Western fruit into the Buddhist firmament.
Along the decorative band of Cave 427, acanthus scrolls and lotus blossoms alternate like a flowing chant. Cool green and warm gold move back and forth within a narrow strip, telling of the meeting between Western motifs and the Buddhist Pure Land.
On the ceiling of Cave 285, valances hang low and pearls are strung in bands, as if a sumptuous canopy had been raised for the divinities. Persia's gleam and China's drapery meet here, weaving an early chapter of the Silk Road.
In Cave 220, lotus and vine run on without break, head meeting tail in a line without beginning or end. Once a single thread is drawn, all things grow. This interlocking lotus is Tang China's graphic hymn to ceaseless life.
At the center of Cave 61's ceiling, a single rosette opens in stately composure, ringed by smaller blossoms like stars around the moon. These mutually sheltering circles are, in a turbulent age, the most devoted gaze people fixed upon wholeness.
Across the west wall of Cave 61 unfolds a Five Dynasties map of Mount Wutai, gathering the sacred realm of Mañjuśrī into a single vista. Temples and pagodas climb the ridges, pilgrimage roads wind through the valleys, and tiny travelers file toward the peaks.
In Cave 217, the High Tang blue-green landscape builds whole walls of mountains from azurite and malachite — a spring that mineral pigments keep forever fresh within the cave.
In the Western Pure Land tableau of Cave 172, jeweled pavilions rise tier upon tier, their verandas and flying eaves mirrored in the treasure pond — the High Tang's most splendid imagining of paradise.
In the Maitreya tableau of Cave 445, a majestic banner rises tall, its streamers stirring in the wind — a vision of the peace that will come to earth when the Buddha of the future descends.
On the High Tang walls of Cave 148, a city of the Tang dynasty is ringed by ramparts, its gates thrown open, and a stupa rises from within. It is a picture of earthly order and the height of faith.
Mount Wutai, the abode of Manjushri, unfolds across the west wall of Mogao Cave 61 as a vast landscape map.
In a corner of the Lotus Sutra transformation in High Tang Cave 23, a farmer tills his field in the rain.
The blue-green landscape of Cave 217 is a High Tang travel scroll unfurled across the wall.
In the Maitreya transformation of Cave 445, a High Tang countryside unfolds, where the curved-shaft plow turns the hope of a good harvest.
On the ceiling of Western Wei Cave 249, amid mountain forests, the chase between hunter and tiger is frozen into eternal motion.
In the banquet mural of High Tang Cave 23, guests sit around low tables amid cups and dishes while an attendant bends to pour wine. The aroma of Dunhuang's grape wine rises from a scroll a thousand years old.
In the Maitreya sutra illustration of High Tang Cave 445 a lively wedding unfolds: the couple bows in the hall, curtains hang low, and flower candles burn bright. Borrowing a legend of the future Buddha's land, the painter captured the full joy of a Tang marriage.
The music-and-dance mural of Early Tang Cave 220 is among the most glorious symphonies in Dunhuang. The orchestra, holding pipa, konghou, bili and paixiao, plays the overture of a golden age for the dancers at the center.
In the procession mural of Late Tang Cave 156, beyond the fluttering military banners, runs a road of acrobatics — pole balancing, handstands, sword dancing — a scene of great festivity. It is the grand celebration after Zhang Yichao recaptured Dunhuang, preserved stroke by stroke by the painter.
In a mural of Five Dynasties Cave 61, a camel caravan crosses the boundless Gobi, its bells faint amid the windblown sand. It is the most ordinary, and the most moving, sight on the Silk Road.
On the wall of Cave 296 at Dunhuang, a camel caravan laden with goods moves slowly westward. The figure of a Hu merchant leading his camels freezes the everyday life of the Silk Road a thousand years ago.