Presenting themselves south of the city of Luoyang, Henan, they constitute one of the four major grotto art treasuries of our country. The sculpture of the grotto statues began from Northern Wei (386 to 534), and was continued in a large scale for over 400 years, with the grottoes extending for 1,000m and having 1,352 Buddha caves, 785 Buddha shrines, about 100,000 statues and 6,300 inscriptions and stele carvings.

Among the representative grottoes are the Guyang Grotto, Binyang Grotto, Lianhua (Lotus Flower) Grotto and Yaofang Grotto of the Northern Wei time as well as the Qianxi, Wanfo (Myriad Buddha) Temple, Fengxian and Kanjing (Sutra Reading) Temple of the Tang Dynasty. The main Buddha enshrined in the Fengxian measures up to 17.14m high, with plump and full facial features as well as long eyebrows, eyes and slightly turned-up mouth corners to reveal his concern for the man’s world and wisdom brilliance, it has become the representative work of the sculpture art of the Tang Dynasty. They were included in the “World Cultural Heritage List” in 2000.