The sacred oasis

The thousand Buddha caves of Kansu, often called the Tun Huang Caves after the nearest oasis city, form a fabulous gallery of Chinese art. The first cave chapel was, according to tradition, excavated there in the fourth century A.D. For 1,000 years there was more or less continuous excavating and painting. Restoration and redecoration were carried on until quite recent times. Traces the artistic influences--Indian, Persian, Greco-Roman, and Central Asian--which, abssorbed and transformed by the Chinese, formed the sculptures and wall-paintins of the caves.