TheBezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves (Chinese:柏孜克里克千佛洞;pinyin:Bózīkèlǐkè Qiānfódòng;Uyghur:بزقلیق مىڭ ئۆيى) is a complex of Buddhist cave grottos dating from the 5th to 14th century between the cities ofTurpan andShanshan (Loulan) at the north-east of theTaklamakan Desert near the ancient ruins ofGaochang in theMutou Valley, a gorge in theFlaming Mountains, in theXinjiang region of westernChina. They are high on the cliffs of the west Mutou Valley under the Flaming Mountains,[1] and most of the surviving caves date from theWest Uyghur kingdom around the 10th to 13th centuries.[2]
There are 77rock-cut caves at the site. Most have rectangular spaces withround archceilings often divided into four sections, each with amural of theBuddha. The effect is of the entire ceiling covered with hundreds of Buddha murals. Some murals show a large Buddha surrounded by other figures, including Turks, Indians, and Europeans. The quality of the murals varies with some being artistically naive while others are masterpieces of religious art.[7] The murals that best represent the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves are the large-sized murals, which were given the name the "Praṇidhi Scene", paintings depictingSakyamuni’s "promise" or "praṇidhi" from his past life.[8]
James A. Millward described theoriginal Uyghurs as physicallyMongoloid, giving as an example the images in Bezeklik at temple 9 of the Uyghur patrons, until they began to mix with the Tarim Basin's originalIndo-EuropeanTocharian inhabitants.[9] However, according to a genetic study of early Uyghur remains from theUyghur Khaganate in Mongolia, the Uyghurs were actually predominantly West Eurasian, being modelled as genetically similar to the IranianAlan andSarmatian people, with significant East Eurasian admixture. The east–west admixture in the Uyghur Khaganate was said to have taken place around the year 500 AD.[10] Buddhist Uyghurs created the Bezeklik murals.[11] However, Peter B. Golden writes thatthe Uyghurs not onlyadopted thewriting system and religious faiths of theIndo-EuropeanSogdians, such asManichaeism,Buddhism, andChristianity, but also looked to the Sogdians as "mentors" while gradually replacing them in their roles asSilk Road traders and purveyors of culture.[12] Indeed, Sogdians wearingsilk robes are seen in thepraṇidhi scenes of Bezeklik murals, particularly Scene 6 from Temple 9 showingSogdian donors to the Buddha.[4] The paintings of Bezeklik, while having asmall amount of Indian influence, is primarily influenced byChinese andIranian styles, particularlySasanian Persian landscape painting.[13]Albert von Le Coq was the first to study the murals and published his findings in 1913. He noted how inScene 14 from Temple 9 one of the West Eurasian-looking figures with green eyes, wearing a green fur-trimmed coat and presenting a bowl with what he assumed were bags ofgold dust, wore a hat that he found reminiscent of theheadgear ofSasanian Persian princes.[14]
The murals at Bezeklik have suffered considerable damage. Many of the temples were damaged by the local Muslim population whose religionproscribed figurative images of sentient beings; all statues were destroyed, some paintings defaced, and others smeared with mud,[17] the eyes and mouths were often gouged out due to the local belief that the figures may otherwise come to life at night.[18] Michael Dillon considered Bezeklik'sThousand Buddha Caves is an example of the religiously motivatediconoclasm against the depiction of religious and human figures.[19] Pieces of murals were also broken off for use as fertilizer by the locals.[17] During the late nineteen and early twentieth century, European and Japanese explorers found intact murals buried in sand, andmany were removed and dispersed around the world. Some of the best-preserved murals were removed by German explorerAlbert von Le Coq and sent to Germany. Large pieces such as those showing the Praṇidhi scene were permanently fixed to walls in theMuseum of Ethnology in Berlin. During theSecond World War they could not be removed for safekeeping and were thus destroyed when the museum was caught in thebombing of Berlin by theAllies.[17] Other pieces may now be found in various museums around the world, such as theHermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg,Tokyo National Museum in Japan, theBritish Museum in London, and the national museums ofKorea andIndia.
A digital recreation of the Bezeklik murals removed by explorers was shown in Japan.[2][20]
^Hansen, Valerie (2012),The Silk Road: A New History, Oxford University Press, p. 98,ISBN978-0-19-993921-3.
^"箜篌故事：凤首丝绸之路上的凤首箜篌" [Konghou Story: The Phoenix-headed Konghou on the Silk Road] (in Chinese). 23 August 2016.图4 柏孜克里克第48窟中的凤首箜篌 公元十世纪 (translation: Figure 4 The phoenix-headed Konghou in Cave 48, Bezeklik, 10th century AD)
^Jeong, Choongwon; Wang, Ke; Wilkin, Shevan; Taylor, William Timothy Treal (November 2020)."A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia's Eastern Steppe".Cell.183 (4): 890–904.e29.doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.015.PMC7664836.PMID33157037. See figure 4. "The high genetic heterogeneity of the Early Medieval period is vividly exemplified by 12 individuals from the Uyghur period cemetery of Olon Dov (OLN; Figure 2) in the vicinity of the Uyghur capital of Ordu-Baliq. Six of these individuals came from a single tomb (grave 19), of whom only two are related (OLN002 and OLN003, second-degree; Table S2D); the absence of closer kinship ties raises questions about the function of such tombs and the social relationships of those buried within them. Most Uyghur-period individuals exhibit a high but variable degree of West Eurasian ancestry—best modeled as a mixture of Alans, a historic nomadic pastoral group likely descended from the Sarmatians and contemporaries of the Huns (Bachrach, 1973), and an Iranian-related (BMAC-related) ancestry—together with Ulaanzuukh_SlabGrave (ANA-related) ancestry (Figure 3E). The admixture dates estimated for the ancient Türkic and Uyghur individuals in this study correspond to ca. 500 CE: 8 ± 2 generations before the Türkic individuals and 12 ± 2 generations before the Uyghur individuals (represented by ZAA001 and Olon Dov individuals)."
^Peter B. Golden (2011),Central Asia in World History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 47,ISBN978-0-19-515947-9.
^Sims, Eleanor, Boris I. Marshak, Ernst J. Grube, (2002),Peerless Images: Persian Painting and Its Sources, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 154,ISBN0-300-09038-2.
^Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen; Lewis, Bernard; Kramers, Johannes Hendrik; Pellat, Charles; Schacht, Joseph (1998).The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill. p. 677.
Kitsudo, Koichi (2013). "Historical Significance of Bezeklik cave 20 in the Uyghur Buddhism" inBuddhism and Art in Turfan: From the Perspective of Uyghur Buddhism: Buddhist Culture along the Silk Road: Gandhåra, Kucha, and Turfan, Section II. Kyoto: 141-168 (texts in English and Japanese).
Polichetti, Massimiliano A.. 1999. “A Short Consideration Regarding Christian Elements in a Ninth Century Buddhist Wall-fainting from Bezeklik”.The Tibet Journal 24 (2). Library of Tibetan Works and Archives: 101–7.https://www.jstor.org/stable/43302426.
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![Details from Praṇidhi scene No. 5. Buddhist monks of Tocharian[21] or Sogdian[4] origin on left, and East Asian on right](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aCentral_Asian_Buddhist_Monks.jpeg)
