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Bryson Burke has over twelve years of experience in exploration and evaluation of diamond bearing properties.

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The cave-temples near the town of Dunhuang form what is arguably the world's most extraordinary gallery of Buddhist art: a gallery whose magnificent mural paintings and stucco sculptures were not collected from distant sources but were created in situ over a period of nearly a thousand years. Moreover, one particular cave contained a sealed library whose contents, consisting of written documents, silk paintings and woodblock prints, reflect contacts with every major Buddhist centre of both Central Asia and the Chinese empire.

Founded in the sixth century BC, Buddhism soon began expanding northwards from the foothills of the Himalayas. In the third century BC, under its most influential convert, the Indian emperor Asoka, it was dispersed by missionaries across Central Asia, where it remained dominant for about a thousand years, until invaders in the seventh century AD brought in Islam. In China itself, Buddhism was introduced probably as early as the first century BC, with communities of Buddhist monks in existence by the first century AD. Learned Buddhist monks became valued as palace advisors, and it was through imperial and aristocratic patronage that Buddhism made its first substantial progress in the empire. Because of its vitally important position on the Silk Road, virtually every stage of this progress is chronicled in the caves at Dunhuang.

THE MOGAO CAVES

By the fourth century, there was a growing Buddhist community at Dunhuang. Some twenty-five kilometres to the south-east of the town, at the edge of the Mingsha Shan or Dunes of the Singing Sands - named for the melodious sounds produced by the wind that blows through them - lies a river-bed. Bordering this is a long cliff, Mogaoku, which was even then probably regarded as a sacred place. It was here that a Buddhist monk, Yuezun, first set about carving a remote and almost inaccessible cave for solitary meditation high up the cliff face. Though

BUDDHISM

It was not just merchandise, technology and culture that passed along the Silk Road. From the early centuries AD, learned monks from the monastic centres of Central Asia imparted their knowledge and interpretations of the scriptures to their Chinese counterparts by way of these trade routes. Representatives of Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian dualist religion, and of Nestorianism, an Eastern Christian sect, also reached China and established themselves there.

this first cave, which was probably quite small, has not survived, hundreds of similar caves were cut and maintained, without serious interruption, for the next thousand years. Some 492 decorated caves, large and small, are extant today.

The caves that survive hardly conform to the western idea of monastic cells: they were all painstakingly adorned - every inch of wall and ceiling - with lavish ornament, narrative illustrations and countless images of Buddha and heavenly beings. The site, popularly known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, became a major centre for Buddhist pilgrims. Not only the local Buddhist monks and lay believers, but also rulers and administrators from near and far, sought to dedicate shrines to celebrate the Buddhist faith and to bear witness to their own status in society and the honours they had received from the Chinese empire.

Political changes of dynasty, and even the religious persecutions which devastated Buddhist institutions within China, never seemed to hamper the pace at which new caves were opened and decorated. Dunhuang, in the far west, was simply too remote for even the great persecution of Buddhism in the Huichang era (842-845) to be effective, the area having then been under Tibetan, rather than Chinese, control for some sixty years. The prayers of travellers and merchants for a safe passage through the hazards of the desert crossing - or to render thanks for the same - and the devout wishes of Chinese residents anxious to secure their own return to the heartland of China were sufficient reasons for new dedications. In every case, these dedications reflected changes in the nature of Buddhist teachings and beliefs, whether these changes had been introduced from India and Central Asia or were Chinese developments.

Personal devotion is attested in the great number of images of popular Bodhisattvas such as Avalokitesvara (Guanyin), who offered salvation from every kind of danger and misfortune simply through the recitation of his name. Such dangers could be vividly portrayed in paintings, and provided the opportunity for the artists to depict everyday activities and people of every kind, from Chinese officials to Sogdian merchants, from highway bandits to the official guards at city gates.

After the emergence of powerful local clans in the tenth century, when some of the largest caves were dedicated, the eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed a scaling-down of activity at the site. The last few caves are the work of the fourteenth century, during the Yuan dynasty. No new caves were cut during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, although sundry restorations were undertaken during the latter period, and visitors' inscriptions show that the site remained in use. The first western visitors, in 1878, were the Hungarian Count Széchenyi Béla and his two companions, Lajos Lóczy and Gustav Kreitner, both of whom wrote a short accounts of the caves.