for images of the Buddha and narratives of his life and
teachings, could easily be hollowed out of the soft rocks
and gravel or sand conglomerates of the region: At
some sites hundreds of caves survive, often with a great
deal of their painted imagery (Kizil and other sites near
Kucha, Toyuq, Bezeklik, and DUNHUANG). The archi-
tecture ultimately derives from India, but at Dun-
huang, the early caves and individual niches show
features typical of Chinese wooden architecture, such
as the transverse front chamber with simulated gable
ceiling.
Architectural monuments include great stupas
(Rawak, Endere) and monastic buildings (Keriya,
Tumshuk, Miran, Gaochang, Beiting). Architectural
style, particularly of CAVE SANCTUARIES, depends on
the topography and characteristics of the natural ma-
terials at each site. The basic plan consisted of an an-
terior cell with the main image centrally placed
opposite the entrance, and a smaller rear chamber,
lower in height, with entrances on either side of the
main image, allowing circumambulation (pradaksina)
around it.
Wall paintings
Both cave sanctuaries and constructed buildings were
decorated with wall paintings, a great many of which
have survived, although many have been removed
from their original sites to museums in London, Paris,
New Delhi, Saint Petersburg, and Seoul. Mineral pig-
ments were used.
Two Buddhist sanctuaries along the Keriya River
were excavated in the mid-1990s. The two buildings
were constructed of wooden pillars with reed and clay
walls, with a central chamber two meters square, sur-
rounded by a 1.5-meter wide corridor. Although the
walls had collapsed to a height of some twenty to ninety
centimeters, the scattering of painted fragments and of
fallen timbers enabled one sanctuary to be recon-
structed almost in its entirety. In the lower register
were mural paintings of life-size standing buddhas in
Indian style, three on each side (except on the entrance
wall), each buddha with two small buddhas in the up-
per corners, while in the upper part of each wall was a
series of smaller panels, each with two smaller seated
buddhas in gray or orange robes, one above the other.
Sculptures
Except at Dunhuang, few sculptures remain in situ; ar-
chaeological explorers removed many of them early in
the twentieth century. Throughout the region, the
stucco images are intimately related to the mural dec-
oration: Aureoles and nimbi are regularly painted on
the walls behind them, and share the same style. Of-
ten, it is these painted features alone that survive,
clearly indicating whether the lost image was seated or
standing.
Rawak stupa, some sixty kilometers north of
Khotan, still stands in a rectangular enclosure whose
corners are oriented to the cardinal directions and
whose walls were lined with large and small clay sculp-
tures attached to a wooden armature. Once the form
had been built up in clay, the surface was smoothed
and coated with a final thin layer of gypsum plaster,
and painted, using the same pigments employed for
the mural paintings. Aurel Stein in 1900 and 1901 and
Emil Trinkler in 1930 both made partial excavations
of the site, but because of the fragility of the unbaked
clay sculptures, some remain buried beneath the sands.
In the whole region of the Taklamakan, clay stucco
was the most common form of sculpture. Major ele-
ments of the imagery were often produced with the aid
of molds, some of which have survived: They range
from decorative details and miniature BUDDHA IMAGES
to heads and individual body parts, such as hands and
feet, and even whole figures of up to about a quarter or
a third life-size, such as a complete seated buddha ex-
cavated near Khotan. From Tumshuk, near Kucha,
come three almost complete tableaux, each about
eighty centimeters in height and sixty centimeters wide,
illustrating crucial episodes in individual JATAKAsto-
ries, evidently composed using a number of such molds.CENTRALASIA, BUDDHISTART INTwo Adoring Bodhisattvas.A wall painting at Kizil, China. (Cen-
tral Asian/Chinese, seventh century.) Freer Gallery of Art Library.
Reproduced by permission.