Maijishan Caves, Tianshui, China.

The Maijishan Grottoes (simplified Chinese:麦积山石窟; traditional Chinese: 麥積山石窟;pinyin: Màijīshān Shíkū), formerly romanized asMaichishan, are a series of 194 caves cut in the side of the hill of Majishan in Tianshui,Gansu Province, northwest China. This example of rock cut architecture contains over 7,200 Buddhist sculptures and over 1,000 square meters of murals. Construction began in the Later Qin era (384-417 CE).

Maijishan has an especially interesting location as it is located close to the E-W route that connected Xi'an with Lanzhou and eventually Dunhuang, as well as the route that veers off to the south that connected (and still connects) Xi'an with Chengdu in Sichuan and regions as far south as India. This crossroads location is interesting as several of the sculptures in Maijishan that appear around the 6th Century, appear to have Indian—and even SE Asian—features that could have come north via these N-S routes. The earliest artistic influence came, however, from the northwest, through Central Asia along the Silk Road. Later, during the Sung and Ming Dynasties, as the caves were renovated and repaired, the influences came from central and eastern China and the sculpture is more distinctly Chinese.

Picture Source: Collected from Internet