City of Sleeping Stone Beauties

It did seem a bit odd. In the vast lobby of the Hotel Dazu, next to the usual assortment of souvenirs--jade jewelry, laughing Buddhas and stuffed pandas--we spied a variety of razor-sharp Chinese knives, scissors and cleavers. After scrutinizing them, a European customer bought three cleavers.

Puzzled, we asked the clerk why a tourist would buy cutlery here. Dazu, a city of 800,000 in southeastern Sichuan province, is renowned for the strength and fine quality of its metal implements, she said. Pointing to a large red banner across the second-floor balcony, she added, “They made all that possible.”

The banner proudly proclaimed: “Congratulations on the consummation of Dazu Grotto being placed in the UNESCO World Heritage List.”

A millennium ago, artisans used sharp metal instruments to create more than 50,000 religious stone carvings, engravings and bas-relief images all over the Dazu countryside. Now they were the primary reason my friend Thelma and I strayed off the classic China tour path last April to this city 70 miles northeast of Chongqing (also known as Chungking). We came here with a guide after a four-day Yangtze River cruise to see these amazing stones for ourselves.

Grotto art came to China along with Buddhism during the Han Dynasty (202 BC to AD 220). It took hold and flourished. Opened to foreign tourists in 1982 by the Chinese government, this celebrated center of sculpture, whose influences include Taoism and Confucianism, dates from the Tang Dynasty (618-906) to the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). Craftsmen chiseled these sculptures not from individual stones but into the mountain (think Mt. Rushmore), and then painted them.

We visited Baodingshan (Precious Summit Mountain, 10 miles northeast of Dazu) and Beishan (North Hill or Dragon Mound Hill, about a mile north of the city) because they have the greatest concentration of sculptures and are the best preserved in this region. (Other major rock centers are in Dunhuang in western China, Yungang in the south and Luoyang in central China.) Though the carvings are in the open air and often exposed to the elements, most are in good condition. Cliff overhangs protect some; others are in dark caves and niches. And their relative isolation has protected them from artifact hounds and vandals.

The biggest threat to these treasures was the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966. The Red Guard hauled out its hammers to smash traditions and institutions, but a sharp rebuke from Premier Chou En-lai is said to have stopped them from ruining these stones.

There was one towering lapse of judgment: As the original layers of paint faded at Baodingshan, there was an attempt to repaint the carvings. The results are garish, and the work was halted. Beishan escaped similar misguided efforts.

T he crackle of firecrackers greeted us at Baodingshan, which is based around a 12th century monastery. The noise is a way of warding off evil spirits, our guide, Yuan, told us. The magic seemed to work; the day was bright, the valley was lush and the birds were twittering as we walked along the cool glens and pleasant paths beneath a misty mountain of terraced slopes and onto steep stone steps. It was peaceful--until we rounded a corner and were jostled by throngs of other tourists.

Despite the crowds, we could still see how beautifully Baodingshan was laid out. The creator, a dedicated Buddhist monk named Zhao Zhifeng, used the natural setting--a horseshoe-shaped, 90-foot sheer cliff--and followed its natural contours for a third of a mile with magnificent carvings of epic Buddhist stories that center on the theme “life is vanity.” You can view most of the statues in this Great Buddha Crescent eyeball-to-eyeball in natural light, revealing graceful folds in clothing, impressive filigreed headdresses, human facial expressions and myriad other details.

Other clusters of statues, in dark caves, are protected at the entrances by menacing stone tigers and ferocious-looking dragons, like the one that guards the Cave of Full Enlightenment.

Several works dominate this magnificent collection. One is the “Sleeping Buddha, Sakyamuni,” depicted in a state of achieving nirvana. The full-size figures in front of him put the enormousness of the carving in perspective. From head to toe, stretching almost 100 feet long and more than 16 feet high, he fills an entire wall of this natural grotto. Buddha, his eyes half closed, reclines on his right side, his torso sunk into the cliff.

To his left, a natural underground stream has been incorporated into a scene called “Nine Dragons Bathing the Prince,” where water flows into a pool in which a baby Buddha is being bathed.

If you are bemused by the sleeping Buddha, the “Thousand-Arm Avalokitesvara” (Goddess of Mercy), inside a small temple, will jolt your senses. It has 1,007 hands that fan out around the goddess like the tail of an elegant golden peacock. In the palm of each hand is an eye, said to be the symbol of wisdom.

These stone works of art not only illustrate Buddhist scriptures, encouraging good deeds or depicting the punishment that awaits evildoers, but they also provide a picture of rural life from that time. This is illustrated in the “Story From the Scriptures on the Kindness of Parents,” or Pavilion of Parental Love Sutra. The carving, 23 feet high and 45 feet wide, is composed of 10 episodes that describe parental love. Parents will relate to the sentiments: “Mother’s preferring the wet to dry when baby making sudden water in night” and “Instructing earnestly and tirelessly.”

Another impressive work is the ornate “Wheel of Life” or “Image of Six Ways of Transmigration.” Carved in relief from solid rock, it is supported by tiny figures at the bottom and a huge monster at the top that holds the wheel in its teeth. Two outer rings teem with animals, showing the cycle of life from birth to death.

In the grim “Final Judgment” and “18 Layers of Hell,” figures of drunks and evildoers suffer various punishments, including being dropped into a vat of boiling oil. The lurid titles also tell of other inglorious ends: the “Hell of Freezing Ice” and the “Hell of Dirt and Filth.”

From here, we headed out to view Dazu’s other visual treasure--its lush, rolling countryside. It’s filled with gentle terraces, small shaded farmhouses, ponds with quacking ducks paddling in circles, and scores of well-irrigated and fertile rice paddies.

The climate and soil enable farmers to produce up to three crops a year. Along with the usual crops of wheat, barley, rice, cabbages and other vegetables, many peasants grow mulberry trees (what the silkworm’s cultivated palate requires, thus fostering China’s silk industry).

As we passed the rice paddies, we started chanting, “Water buffalo, water buffalo.” Yuan took the hint and stopped. We watched, transfixed, as a farmer and water buffalo, knee-deep in water, slowly plowed the length of the paddy. As they turned to the next furrow, the farmer saw us and waved a greeting. Then man and animal slowly continued on their way, in tune with the rhythms of life.

That peaceful interlude proved a sharp contrast to our reception at Beishan, which can best be described as a concentrated assault. The souvenir vendors swarmed around us like locusts, hawking postcards and shouting, “One dollah, one dollah, only one dollah.”

By this time we had mastered the Chinese word for “no” (buyao, pronounced boo-yo) and thought it more genteel to preface it with xiexie (“thank you,” pronounced quickly as “she-yeah she-yeah”). When that didn’t work, we ran for cover. We sprinted for the stairs leading to the sculptures, and thankfully the vendors did not follow. We realized why--400 steps later.

The climb tested our endurance, but it was worth it. Even the entrance was dramatic. The colorful “Many-Treasure Pagoda,” with its two-tiered, upturned roof and five arched portals inset with carved wooden panels, leads to carvings in more than 250 decorated recesses cut into the hillside. Wei Junjing, a warlord, started the stone-carving process at Beishan in 892, and the work continued for 250 years. Junjing is suitably remembered; the first figure carved in the entrance at Beishan, on his orders, was his own.

Among the arresting numbered niches at Beishan is No. 155, the Thousand Buddha Cave, depicting the peacock king who sits on a lotus throne. The peacock’s tail spreads upward like a pillar to support the roof of the cave.

A thousand small, exquisite figures (arhats, or divine followers) cover the side walls. Cave 245 is an illustration of Western paradise, or “World of Extreme Joy,” and has more than 500 figures sculpted into the rock. Other niches show vessels and musical instruments, intricate headpieces, crowns and ribbons, dragons, elephants and lions, swords, spears and scepters, and hundreds of Buddhas represented in various embodiments, all carved into the cliff. There are Buddhas sitting on lotuses, sitting holding the sun and moon, standing holding prayer beads or a sprig of willow.

Of special note is the stone slab “Inscription of Filial Piety with 22 Chapters in the Original” (1163-1189). There are six other stone steles, 55 commemorative stone tablets and inscriptions and eight Buddhist scriptural pillars.

We entered Beishan with the vendors at our heels, but we left with rich memories of gentle, serene and perhaps underappreciated scenes preserved in stone.

On our tour of China, we had marveled at a marble boat and at baby pandas, and we toured the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City. But the stone figures of Dazu were the kind of surprise that makes an indelible memory.

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GUIDEBOOK

Discovering Dazu

Getting there: China Southern and China Eastern serve Chongqing, about 70 miles from Dazu, with connecting service from LAX. Restricted round-trip air fares begin at $1,838.

Seeing the carvings: Guided trips to the parks can be arranged through hotels, or you can take a taxi or bus.

From Dazu, minibuses leave for Baodingshan every half-hour for the 30- to 45-minute trip. Beishan is about a 30-minute walk or a short cab ride.

Where to stay: In Dazu, we stayed at the clean and comfortable Dazu Hotel, 47 Gongnong, Longgang Town; tel. 011-86-23-4372-1888, fax 011-86-23-4372-1443, Internet https://www.chinesebusinessworld.com/hotel/dazu/index.html. Doubles begin about $36.

Recommended in Chongqing: The upscale Holiday Inn, 15 Nan Ping Beilu; tel. (800) 465-4329 or 011-86-23-6280-3380, fax 011-86-23-6280-0884, Internet https://www.basshotels.com/holidayinn. Doubles begin about $135.

Also, Renmin Hotel, 173 Renmin Road, Yuzhong District; tel. 011-86-23-6385-1421, fax 011-86-23-6385-2076, Internet https://www.chinesebusinessworld.com/hotel/renmin. Doubles begin about $65.

Where to eat: Meals were included as part of our package at Dazu Hotel. We ate Chinese style at the hotel restaurant, eight to 16 dishes for each meal, all of which were good. Restaurants along the main street offer varied fare. At night, street stalls along the main road serve noodles, stir-fried dishes, dumplings, among other fare.

For more information: China National Tourist Office, 600 W. Broadway, Suite 320, Glendale, CA 91204; tel. (818) 545-7507, fax (818) 545-7506, Internet https://www.cnto.org.