Small wooden images dating from the fifth century
C.E. onward have been found at sites such as Toyuq
and Gaochang. These images furnished a means for the
dissemination of iconography and style, and include
both single images and narrative scenes. Several ex-
amples exist in triptych form, in which hinged panels
with smaller narrative scenes flank the central image;
when closed, they are fastened by means of a clasp,
protecting the images within and presenting a tall
smooth exterior.
Kucha
Kucha, on the northern route, is surrounded by Bud-
dhist monuments. The cave temples of Kizil, some
sixty kilometers to the west, are lavishly decorated with
wall paintings. The sixth-century C.E. dating proposed
by Albert von Le Coq and Ernst Waldschmidt is slow
to be discarded in favor of Su Bai’s dating, supported
by carbon-14 tests at the site, which suggest a third-
century C.E. start.
Shrines at Kizil have an entrance leading directly
into a barrel-vaulted longitudinal chamber, with the
main image in a niche directly opposite. Large preach-
ing scenes appear on the lateral walls below a balcony
of heavenly figures, while the vault, springing from a
corbel, depicts individual preaching scenes or jataka
stories in a diamond lattice. For purposes of pradaksina
or ritual circumambulation of the main image, a lower
vaulted passage leads to a narrow rear chamber in
which the Buddha’s parinirvanais depicted in muralCENTRALASIA, BUDDHISTART IN
A folding carved wooden shrine depicting Amitabha Buddha with the eight great bodhisattvas. (Central Asian, ca. 850–950.) The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Reproduced by permission.