The Thousand-Buddha Cliff ( Chinese : 千 佛 崖 ; pinyin : Qiānfó Yá ) is a historical site of mostly Tang dynasty rock carvings in central Shandong Province , China . Along a cliff face of 63 meters length, over 210 statues and 43 inscriptions have been reported. Most of the statues were carved during 618–684.
6-466: The Thousand-Buddha Cliff is located near Liubu Village , in Licheng District , under the administration of Jinan City, about 33 kilometres southeast of the city of Jinan proper and eight kilometres east of Zhonggong Town . It stands immediately to the west of the site of the former Shentong Temple ( Chinese : 神 通 寺 ; pinyin : Shéntōng Sì , meaning "Supernatural Power" Temple), which
12-449: Is now in ruins. The cliff is oriented in the north–south direction. 36°29′23″N 117°06′26″E / 36.48972°N 117.10722°E / 36.48972; 117.10722 The first Buddha sculpture is said to have been carved into the cliff by a 70-year-old monk named Sha Dong in the year 619 AD. After a hiatus of 25 years, two more Buddhist sculptures were added by another old monk named Ming De. Because Ming De felt his life
18-413: The capital of Shandong Province , East China , covering part of the eastern suburbs. It has an area of 1,303.88 km and has 1,124,306 permanent residents as of 2010 . The Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport is located in the district's northern reaches. The largest county-level division of Jinan by permanent resident population, it borders Zhangqiu District to the east, Changqing District to
24-404: The emperor, government officials, and famous monks. Among those are statues of Princess Nanping ( 南平公主 ), the daughter of Emperor Taizong of Tang and her husband Liu Xuanyi. Licheng District, Jinan Licheng District ( simplified Chinese : 历城区 ; traditional Chinese : 歷城區 ; pinyin : Lìchéng Qū ) is one of 10 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Jinan ,
30-581: The sole purpose of the statues was prayer and not the expression of political opinions. Despite these difficulties, the work of carving the sculptures into the cliff was continued by other Buddhists and eventually the Thousand-Buddha Cliff became the largest collection of Buddhist cliff statues in Shandong. Besides the Buddhist sculptures, there are also secular statues depicting nobility such as relatives of
36-491: Was coming to an end at the time, he also donated money towards the carving of additional statues. However, in the year 657 AD he was still alive and continued to carve more statues and inscriptions into the rock face. Because the Tang dynasty's official policy during the time was to encourage conversion to Taoism , the carving of Buddhist statues implied a political risk. Hence, the inscriptions left by Sha Dong and Ming De point out that
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