TheKumturaThousand-Buddha Caveslie 30 kilometers to the southwest of the Kuqa Prefecture in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
Kumtura in the Uygur language means the beacon tower in the desert. The groups of grottoes are distributed on the piedmont of the mountain on the east bank of the Weigan River or on precipices, and are divided into two parts, the south and the north parts, with a distance of 3 kilometers between the two parts. The grottoes are more concentrated in the north part, about 80 of which have been numbered. However, less than half of the grottoes and frescoes are comparatively well preserved. The grottoes in the north part are distributed over the east bank of the river and among some villages, and 32 of them have been numbered. Less than ten have been comparatively well preserved.
The grottoes were first chiseled in the fourth century. When the Buddhism was introduced from India and some other places to the Qiuci (an ancient state in the Western Regions), the Qiuci people assimilated the essence of the foreign arts and created their own artistic forms with both the characteristics of the times and the national styles based on their traditions. The frescoes of the early stage in the grottoes were completed in the Southern and Northern Dynasties (386-581), while the frescoes of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) are concentrated on expounding scriptures with pictures, which is very similar to those in the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. The frescoes of the last years of the Tang Dynasty were always mingled with prefaces in Chinese characters and the Uighur characters. The painting ofJiazi Benshenin the No.46 grotto was sketched out with comparative thick lines and smeared smoothly inside with ochre, which is full of three-dimensional effect. The Qiuci artists, from their own experiences, drew the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas in the Qiuci clothes that are overcoats with two drooping collars. As for the painting skills, the strokes are renowned as strong and tight like twisted iron wires. For instance,the Sad Bodhisattva of the Nirvanain the No.32 grotto, drawn with smooth and gentle strokes, is the representative work of this style.
The frescoes of the Tang Dynasty there are similar to those in the Central Plains (the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River) in terms of content and style. The frescoes were not only drawn with the rich and changeful lines, but also unevenly dyed. The two methods were so intrinsically integrated as to form the unique style of painting. The artists made a perfect combination of the realism and romanticism with their abundant imagination in the huge paintings on the stories such asThe Pure Land in the West,The Medicine God in the East,Maitreya (Laughing Buddha)and so on. As for the mode of painting, they created the images of the Buddha and Bodhisattva as being elegant and dignified, tender and serene, and full of human kindness. For instance, the Flying Apsaras in the painting ofMedicine God in the East, wearing flower hats and colorful ribbons, dance against the wind in pairs, graceful in the air, pretty and charming, which display their yearning and aspiration for the future life. While in the painting ofSad Bodhisattvain the No.36 grotto, some figures are drawn with tight and smooth strokes lines, others with the mixtures of thick and thin lines, and are slightly dyed, which make the figures appear tall and graceful. These magnificent gems of ancient art not only are the crystallization of the wisdom and art of the ancient Qiuci people, but also provide very precious materials for the research into the development history of the economy, characters, architecture, dancing, and industrial arts in Xinjiang.
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