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Dazu Stone Carvings are located in the country of Dazu in Chongqing municipality ,about 120 km away from the city center of Chongqing.The carving work began in late Tang Dynasty and saw its hey day in the Song Dynasty.There are over 60,000 statues altogether and they are in 40 places of Dzau County.The statues on Mount Baoding and Mount Longgan (namey, Beishan Moutain )boast the most centralized collection ,the largest scale and the most exquisite craftsmanship of all the places,and in 19612 this area was listd by the State Council as one of the fist cultural heritage places unders state protection.And in 1999,it was listed as world cultural heritage by UNESCO.14 km away from Dazu County ,stone caring on Mount Baoding were created from 1179 to 1249 ,or,In the reigns of Emperor Chunxi toEmperor Chunyou in theSouth Song Dynasty.The person in charge was Zhao Zhifeng,who was born in Xueliang township of Dazu County,several km away from mount Baoding.He became a monk when he was five, and moved to the western part of Sichuan Province to learn Buddhism when he was 16.Then he returned home and had the Buddhism “Daochang”built under his care.(Buddhism “Daochang” refers to the place where the Buddhist doctrine is publicized with images.He dedicated his following 70 years to this course until he passed away at eh age of 90,when the forest of statues was completed at a preliminary level.The Buddha Bay we are seeing now is the major part of the stone carvings on mount Baoding.This Buddhism “Daochang”also includes 12 other places and extends 2.5 km.The total number of the statues is over 10,000 and some of them are titanic and imposing with various dimensions.Since the planning was unified and the craftsmanship was consummate,there are few similarities between the statues.Moreover,the statues are each in connection with each other and are each in accordance with the Buddhism doctrine.Almost the entire creed of this religion is included in one generation and thus a Buddhism Daochang with a comprehensive ,rigid creed and special features was formed. This is the only Buddhism Daochang that houses hugestone carving in China. |
