OGT DAILY Day Two Hundred and Ninety Five MOGOA CAVES

I am the fortunate recipient of a manuscript painting from the region of the Mogoa Caves in Dunhuang, China. 

Mogoa means "peerless" and this cache of Buddhist treasures, 1700 years old, which were buried under the sands of the Gobi Desert, are indeed peerless.  The vision of a monk named Yuezen in 366 C.E, he imagined a cave of "a thousand radiant buddhas carved into the hill" and began excavating the caves which were then all carved by hand.  Over the centuries they became buried under the desert sands until they were unearthed by a Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu in the 1890's.  He discovered a  much more than buddhas - thousands of manuscripts, silk banners and paintings in addition to monumental statues and buddhas of every nature and size.   This region along the Silk Road was the portal through which Buddhist philosophy came to China, but also mixed with Daoism, Christianity, Confucian, Sanskrit as well as Tibetan and Turkish texts to form a melting pot of faiths and a treasure trove of art.   The worlds oldest known printed book, the Diamond Sutra, was found here.

The painting is a gift from my friend Chen, a visiting scholar at NYU, who has been observing my classes.   Lucky me.  Maybe some day I'll ride a camel out the the caves myself.

http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/14-facts-cave-temples-dunhuang/

The Diamond Sutra - oldest known printed book