... of Empress Wu's reign in the capital. Unlike any cave with a Buddhist pantheon so prominently displayed in the west niche as in Cave 45, both Caves 332 and 148 do not allow their viewers to see the colossal statue from the front of the cave. Mogao Cave 148 nirvana caves nirvana image s cave temples...

...This chapter discusses one of the most elaborate pictorial narratives on Buddha's nirvana from the medieval China of the Dayun Monastery in Yishin governed by Empress Wu. This stele was moved to the local Confucian temple and later to the provincial museum in Taiyuan. Its compositional program...