Along a sandstone cliff west of Datong, in China’s Shanxi province, generations of craftsmen turned a mountainside into one of the greatest galleries of Buddhist sculpture in the world. The Yungang Grottoes hold tens of thousands of figures—from colossal seated Buddhas taller than a house to niches no bigger than a hand—carved more than fifteen centuries ago at the height of the Northern Wei dynasty.
Together with the caves at Longmen and Mogao, Yungang ranks among the supreme achievements of early Chinese Buddhist art, and it records a pivotal moment when a foreign faith took visible, monumental root in China.
