Western Thousand Buddha Caves

Western Thousand Buddha Caves
Celestial figures above serial Buddhas in the Thousand Buddha tradition, west wall, Cave 7 (Northern Wei); the ritual practice of foming (佛名), or naming the Buddhas, may lie behind such representations (names appear on the white labels beside each figure in the lower two tiers)
Chinese	西千佛洞
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Xī Qiānfó Dòng

The Western Thousand Buddha Caves (Chinese: ; pinyin: Xī Qiānfó Dòng) is a Buddhist cave temple site in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. The site is located approximately 35 km southwest of the urban centre and about the same distance from the Yangguan Pass; the area served as a staging post for travellers on the Silk Road. It is the western counterpart of the Mogao Caves, also known as the "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" after the founding monk Yuezun's vision in 366 of "golden radiance in the form of a thousand Buddhas". The caves were excavated from the cliff that runs along the north bank of the Dang River. A number have been lost to floods and collapse; some forty are still extant. Twenty-two decorated caves house 34 polychrome statues and 800 m² of wall paintings, dating from the Northern Wei to the late-Yuan and early-Ming Dynasties (sixth to fourteenth centuries). The site was included within the 1961 designation of the Mogao Caves as a Major National Historical and Cultural Site.

A manuscript from the Library Cave, dating to the Five Dynasties and now at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, documents the early history of the site (P 5034): according to the Domain Record of Shazhou Dudu Prefecture – Shouchang County, "60 li east of the county is a very old inscription that says 'Han Dynasty… made a small Buddha niche; the common people gradually built more'". Since Shouchang County, modern Nanhu Village, is the location of the Yangguan Pass along the Hexi Corridor, it is understood that this is a reference to the origins of the Western Thousand Buddha Caves.