Tour of Mogao Cave 257 with He Yulei

This is cave 257 of Mount Akragas. The cave was excavated between 465 CE to 500 CE, during the middle reign of Northern Wei Dynasty. The structure of this cave is very typical among caves of this period. With a Chinese-style gable in the anterior part, and with an Indian-style chatiya in the lower main chamber. Chatiya refers to Asian Indian Buddhists, who designed this structure for them to do the circumambulation, and to worship Buddhist icons. The central pillow behind us, with niches and sculptures on every face, reminds us of the same functions. All fantastic wall paintings and sculptures in this cave are original from Northern Wei Dynasty, over 1500 years old. In this period, Jatak stories were quite prevalent in China. According to Buddhist classics, there are altogether 547 Jatak stories, and each of them telling a story about Buddha Shakyamuni's previous life. But the one I'm talking about now is almost known by everyone in China. It's the Jatak of the Nine Columns. This story is hidden behind the central pillow. But it's not possible for us to get any closer, because the space behind the central pillow is too natural, and it's too risky if we squashed in there. In this case, please allow me to introduce you this real-sized duplicate, finished by the artist of Donghua Academy, firstly. As we can see, the whole story is described in seven main scenes. From the leftmost, scene one, the deity has saved a joint man named Tiaoda from the Boon River. Scene two, Tiaoda knelt down to express his gratitude towards the kind-hearted deity and wanted to requite his favor. However, the Nine Columns deity asked him for nothing but to keep the secret that she was living in this forest. Then we need to skip the middle part to the rightmost side. Here is the scene three, depicting Tiaoda left the forest and back to the capital city. One day, the queen in the city had a dream about a nine-colored deer. She was so jealous of the deer's leader, which was as white as the most beautiful deer and with nine different colors. So she acted as coquettish as possible to tempt her husband and asked him to hunt the deer for her. The queen of the country wanted a new coat made of the most precious leather. If she couldn't have it, she would die in sadness. So in order to make the queen happy, the king passed him a notice in the city. Anyone who can bring the king a message of the nine-colored deer and help the king find it will be bestowed half of the country's land and numerous silver beans and golden beans. After Tiaoda heard this notice, she decided to purchase a promising future by the deer's life. So he went to see the king and the queen. Next, we can see Tiaoda. He was jubilant and guiding the way for the king and his army. If you pay attention to his right hand, his forefinger is pointing to somewhere far away, to the left. In fact, to the nine-colored deer. In this painting, the deer was resting in the mountain. But her peace soon was disturbed by an unexpected visit of the king. Scene 7 is the best and highlight part of the whole story. The encounter between the deer and the king. The deer looked so fearless. She must see Tiaoda who was standing with the king. So she kept her body and head up. They spoke to the king. Your Majesty, you can kill me at any minute. But I just want to tell you a story before you take my life away. The king was so surprised that a deer could talk. And he let her go on. The deer told the king how he saved a man from the river. And the man promised to her He would never tell anyone about her habitat. Your Majesty, the deer asked, What will you do if one day this man betrayed his pledge for wills and status? The king replied, I will never trust such a despicable person. And I will sentence him to death because of his treachery. Well, Your Majesty, the deer said calmly, This man, his name is Tiaoda. He is standing right next to you. In the end, the king got so angry to Tiaoda. This bad man was thrown into the prison and died of horrible disease. And the king also felt so sorry to the nine-colored deer. He set her free and allowed no one in the country to kill or hurt the deer clans ever after. Later, this place was called Sarnata or Deer Park by people. In the story, the nine-colored deer was one of Buddha Shakyamuni's previous recognition. The story is trying to deliver the idea that what comes around goes around. It encourages people to be kind, brave and chill because it's a good way to let people have good karmas. To be more detailed, the sequence of this painting is quite different from other narrative stories of Mogao. The beginning and development of the story are caught at two ends. Let the encounter and conversation between the king and the deer in the central part to stress the key points. What an ingenious arrangement. What's more, you may also find this painting is depicted in the environment of Chinese landscape painting. These beautiful triangle-shaped mountains separated each scene of the story and connected them together as an integrity simultaneously. The figures in the painting are dressed in Central Asian or Asian Indian style. But the only architecture in the painting is a queue building from China. Queue refers to the palace building resided by Chinese emperors before. That's the reason why we know the man and the woman in the building are the king and the queen. There are more examples like this giant horse was brought from Central Asia. But the chariot behind it with silk draperies should be made in China. Actually, Northern Hui Dynasty was a very important period for national and military mission in Chinese history. The Xiaomei was an ethnic minority who rose from the north and built the Northern Hui Dynasty in 386 CE. The political power ended the chaos control of the 16 states and united the south and north of China together in 439 CE. Then made its own reign finished in 534 CE. In this long process, the Xiaomei people contacted civilizations from India, from Central Asia, from other nomadic tribes, and from south of China. The artists of this cave, they had mixed all of these popular cultural elements together to create the special style we see in this cave. This is euro and unique because such kind of cultural exchange and communications always happened in human history. But only a few of material objects left for us to learn and study nowadays. So, I should say, lucky for you, we appreciated the only survived copy of Nine Colored Deer Chantak story wall painting in the world. Well, good moment always goes quickly. It's time for us to finish the introduction. Anyway, we can't read up the beauty of Mogao Gurdos in minutes, in hours, or in days. So, I do hope one day in the future, you will have a chance to visit Dunhuang and take a look at this story or explore it more by yourself. See you next time.