Yulin Caves

The Yulin Caves (榆林窟) are 42 decorated Buddhist grottoes cut into the walls of a river gorge in the Mazong Mountains, 50 kilometres south of Guazhou. They contain 250 polychrome sculptures and 4,200 square metres of wall paintings that span the Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Western Xia, and Ming periods — a 700-year tradition of Buddhist art that rivals the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang for quality, if not for fame. The site receives a fraction of Dunhuang's visitors, which means the caves are genuinely quiet and the experience of standing inside them is more intimate.

The paintings show a stylistic evolution across the dynasties: Tang-era images have the roundness and confidence of imperial art; Song-period work is more linear; Western Xia paintings show the distinctive Central Asian influences that make Silk Road Buddhist art unlike anything else in China. The gorge setting — a narrow canyon with the caves cut into the facing cliff on both sides of a stream — is picturesque on its own terms. Access requires a 50-kilometre drive south from Guazhou on a road that passes through the Gobi; the morning tourist bus from the town centre departs at 9:30.

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A story
Cave 25 at Yulin contains one of the earliest known depictions of the Tang poet and Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang — shown in a scene of him crossing a river on a raft, carrying his scriptures from India. The painting dates to the late Tang or Five Dynasties period, making it contemporary with or only a generation after the actual events it depicts. Xuanzang's journey later became the basis for Journey to the West, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature.