Yungang Grottos

In 460, the Wuzhou mountain valley in Datong, Shanxi Province, was reverberating with the sound of iron hammers beating rocks. A monk was directing hundreds of thousands of workers to continue their labor, carving stones and rocks to begin creating the Yungang Grottos. The monk, Yu Yao, was ordered by the emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty(386-534) to supervise the historic project. Most of the Northern Wei rulers believed in Buddhism, and the digging of the Yungang Grottos went on for some 30 years.

One cornor of Yungang Grottos

Under the direct leadership of the emperor and the ruling officials, the Yungang Grottos were constructed on a large scale and extend for about one kilometer from east to west. Today there are 53 individual grottos with 51000 statues in the Yungang Grottos.