DUNHUANG, CHINA (dpa) – Flying asparas, the Buddhist equivalent of angels, are back in vogue in China. They decorate everything from T- shirts to ice-cream wrappers and have even inspired fashion designers and theatre producers.
The popularity of the graceful floating figures reflects the renaissance of the Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang, home of the Mogao caves in northwest China.
Asparas dominate the patterned ceilings of many of Mogao’s finest caves, where work is said to have begun in 366 AD. Buddhist artists continued to carve more caves out of a 1.6-kilometre-long cliff for the next 1,000 years.
Partly because Islam became the main religion of the area, and partly because of its sheer remoteness in a desert some 2,000 kilometres west of Beijing, the complex was eventually forgotten.
In the early 20th century foreign “explorers” took some of the finest Buddhist scrolls, statues and even entire frescoes to Britain, France, the United States and Japan. Some 45,000 murals and 2,000 statues have survived in varying states of repair, many of them with faded or blackened paint and suffering from water erosion.
Most of the nearly 500 caves remaining date from Mogao’s heyday between the 6th and 10th centuries. The murals tell stories of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, and other Buddhist figures, bringing to life ancient manuscripts and recording oral history for often illiterate pilgrims.
Several Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) caves use a favourite Buddhist trick of leading visitors through small doors and under low ceilings, only to emerge into a huge chamber in front of a towering Buddha up to 30 metres high.
Visitors to the caves have soared to between 600 and 700 daily in peak season since China began opening its historical sites to foreign tourists in the 1980s. As even the carbon dioxide and moisture from tourists’ breath threatens the delicate relics, the government runs the caves along similar lines to many major attractions around the world.
Guides must accompany all visitors, and cameras are strictly forbidden inside the caves, only a fraction of which are ever open to the public. An army of artists spends hours in the caves each day to copy paintings, while a museum recreates some the best caves that are closed to tourists.
The tourism boom has revived Dunhuang town, 25 kilometres from the caves. Dunhuang is the most visited of the dozens of ancient Silk Road towns in western China, some of which are hardly distinguishable from the desert that has engulfed them.
The northern and southern Silk Roads diverged here on their routes west around the Taklamakan, known locally as the “Desert of No Return”.
The small oasis town is now mainly a stop-off for travellers en route to the caves. Not far away are the ruins of ancient outliers of the Great Wall and beacon towers that guarded the Silk Road.
A few backpacker cafes and souvenir shops have sprung up in the town centre, but Dunhuang has little else to complement its Buddhist treasure. So tourism officials have begun to exploit its main natural attraction: sand.
Dunhuang’s desert scenery is crowned by some magnificent dunes more than 100 metres high. A few kilometres west of town lies the amazing Crescent Moon Lake, a sliver of clear springwater nestled among barren dunes.
Around the lake, you can now try sandboarding, parascending, camel riding, and even see the dunes from microlight planes. Or just enjoy the simple pleasure of climbing a hill and jumping off into the soft sand.
