Kucha Ancient Kingdom is located in the transportation hub on the ancient Silk Road. It was once the center of politics, economy and culture of Western Regions. Buddhism was first introduced from India to Xinjiang and then to the Central Plains. The geographical location of Kucha determines that it becomes a center of "Western Regions Buddhism".
Kucha first appeared in " Han Shu " by Bangu : Kucha Kingdom, the king of Yancheng, and went to Chang'an for 7,480 miles. There were 6,970 households, 81,317 people, and 21,76 victorious soldiers. ...South and Jingjue , southeast and Qiemo, southwest and halide, north and Wusun , west and Gumo. Can cast and have lead. It is 350 miles east to Wulei City, the capital of the capital.
Kucha ancient country has become a great country in the Western Regions after Eastern Han . It is centered on Kuqa, starting from Luntai in the east, ending at Bachu in the west, relying on Tianshan in the north, and facing the Takramagan Desert in the south. Now the Kuqa, Baicheng , Xinhe, Shaya , and Luntai County in Xinjiang were all the territories of Kuqa in the ancient Western Regions, and its sphere of influence can be seen.
Kucha is the only intersection of the four major civilizations of ancient India, Greece-Roman, Persian , Han and Tang in the world. It is also a key transportation hub between China and West on Silk Road .
The ancient Kucha country guarded the throat of the middle section of the North Silk Road, connected the trade between the East and the West, carried the civilizations of the East and the West, and occupied an important position in the world economy and cultural history. Today, there are a large number of cultural relics containing ancient Indian Gandhara , Kucha, Tufan, and Han civilizations in the Central Plains.
In today's Kuche, Baicheng, Xinhe and other counties, the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, which stretches 250 kilometers east-west, there is a cave community composed of nearly 600 ancient caves. This is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural exchange and gathering of Kucha, an ancient city-state in the Western Regions, left behind after the prosperity of Kucha.
Around the 1st century AD, Buddhist scriptures on the Silk Road were introduced to the Western Regions. The good Buddha in Kucha made it the center of the spread of Buddhism and Buddhist art in the Western Regions. Monks from all walks of life also chose beautiful treasures here, digging holes and opening caves, reciting scriptures, and worshiping gods. Therefore, there are the remains of the grottoes in the Kuqa and Baicheng areas today. After the 9th century AD, Islam spread eastward, and Kucha Grottoes gradually became abandoned with the decline of Buddhism.
There are seven main places in the Kucha Grottoes that are preserved. They are the Kizil Grottoes in in Baicheng County; the Kumutula, Senmusem, Kizilgahamazabeha Grottoes Subash Buddhist Temple in Xinhe County, and the Tohulak Eken Grottoes in Xinhe County. Among them, the Kizil Thousand Buddha Cave is one of the four major grottoes in China and is a treasure house of mural art second only to the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in my country. (There is a saying that four major grottoes is Mogao Grottoes , Yungang Grottoes, Longmen Grottoes , Maijishan Grottoes , and there is another saying that MOGAO Grottoes, Longmen Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, and Kizil Thousand Buddha Cave)
From the regional changes of Buddhist grotto art , the Kucha Grottoes represented by Kizil Thousand Buddha Cave is a "transit station" for Buddhist culture to move westward and eastward. It is an important link in the chain of Buddhist grottoes starting from India and Afghanistan in the west, and ends at Dunhuang in the east, Maijishan , Longmen , Yungang, etc. It is the crystallization of the integration of Eastern and Western cultures and arts. Because in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the main statues in the grottoes were robbed by foreign cultural invaders and basically disappeared. The total area of murals preserved in the existing caves is nearly 20,000 square meters.
From the elegant and gorgeous Buddha statues and a large number of nude painting art in Kucha mural , it can be seen that the early Kucha Grottoes art was obviously influenced by ancient India, Greece and Central Plains cultures, and in the later period, the "Tang style" was rich, and it was closer to the Central Plains in the content and the style of
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Buddhist disciples use grottoes toward Buddha, hoping to last forever, but different people take their needs from grottoes.The original concave-convex and convex smudge method in the art of grottoes allowed painters who did not come to "pilgrimage" to spread to the Central Plains, causing a great revolution in the color composition of Chinese paintings. The iron wire drawing law enriched the traditional line drawing techniques of the Central Plains; the engraving method not only created the famous Central Plains painter Wu Daozi , but also spread among folk paintings, promoting the development of figure painting in the Central Plains. Similarly, dancers draw new vocabulary from the grottoes. After absorbing rich artistic nutrition, Kucha murals have formed their own unique style. The characters are vivid and vivid, with a strong sense of three-dimensionality, and the composition of the picture is full of pattern and decorative. The original single diamond painting style shows a complete story with typical characters, plots and precise scenery in a limited space, creating a dramatic stage effect, and can be called a strange flower in my country's grotto art garden.
There are so many Buddhist stories in the cave murals, ranking first in the country. Although it promotes religious content, the painters and painters cleverly integrate real life into it, allowing us to see all aspects of social life in the ancient Western Regions. The graceful, dignified, gentle and peaceful Buddha statues reveal worldly human feelings. The graceful music and flying in the sky embodies the imagination of people at that time. The warriors wearing armor and riding horses, Kucha wearing double-collared coats, the Uighurs, Mongolian princes and nobles, and the princes in the "Salute Picture" are all different images of various ethnic groups living in the Western Regions. Those farmers and pottery craftsmen holding Kantuman and driving cattle to plow the land are all true portrayals of ancient Xinjiang social life. The various animal images record the ancient animal communities here. Pavilions, terraces, mountains, rivers and trees present the living environment of ancient Kucha. A large number of ancient ethnic characters and Chinese inscriptions, and unearthed cultural relics such as Han Qian and Tang coins in the cave show that Xinjiang has been an inseparable part of the motherland since ancient times, and it also proves that all ethnic groups in ancient Kucha, including the Han people, have jointly created the splendid Kucha culture .
Kucha Grottoes murals also retain an image record of Kucha Music and Dance . Through its graceful and graceful manner, people can explore the source and understand its profound influence on today's Uyghur people and even Central Asian music and dance.
Although the Kucha Grottoes have become history, they leave valuable inspiration to people-only develop and to achieve glory through openness, communication, absorption, abandonment and integration; otherwise, they will be eliminated in the screening of history.
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