Stone Wall Carved Statues, Buddhist Longmen Grottos Or Caves, Luoyang, Henan, China Stock Image

The Longmen Grottoes literally Dragon`s Gate Grottoes or Caves are some of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. Housing tens of thousands of statues of Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciples, they are located a few miles south of Luoyang, Henan province, China. The images, many once painted, were carved as outside rock reliefs and inside artificial caves excavated from the limestone cliffs of the Xiangshan and Longmenshan, running east and west. The Yi River flows northward between them. The grottoes were excavated and carved with Buddhist subjects over the period from 493 AD to 1127 AD