Dazu Rock Carvings
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How it came to be
The Dazu Rock Carvings are Buddhist and other religious figures cut into steep hillsides in Dazu District, Chongqing. The earliest were made in 650, early in the Tang dynasty. The main period began in the late 9th century, when Wei Junjing, prefect of Changzhou, started carving at Beishan, and after the fall of the Tang local gentry, monks, nuns and ordinary people carried on.
In the 12th century, under the Song, the monk Zhao Zhifeng began the carvings at Baodingshan and spent 70 years on them. Baodingshan lies in a U-shaped gorge, and its large western group runs for about 500 m. Five sites are inscribed: Beishan, Baodingshan, Nanshan, Shizhuanshan and Shimenshan. They show Tantric Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian figures, and at Shizhuanshan the three appear together.
UNESCO calls them the high point of Chinese cave temple art from the 9th to the 13th century and notes how they show everyday life. Long closed to visitors, they were opened to Chinese travellers in 1961 and to foreigners in 1980. They were inscribed in 1999.
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