Sec.iv] THE GROTTOES OF THE MYRIAD BUDDHAS 1113
The remaining shrines of the series call for but few remarks. They are mostly small, and Remaining
several very poorly lit, particularly xix, where the side-walls of the cella are decorated with scenes ^hTx °u
from Buddhist Heavens and the back wall is occupied by a large representation of the 'wind
scene'. A sgraffito of nine characters in Cursive Brahml, scribbled by the side of a donor figure
on the right of the cella entrance, is of interest as affording evidence that these shrines were
constructed before knowledge of the language of Buddhist Khotan had ceased. Shrines xx-xxli
show in their antechapels or porches Chinese sgraffiti with dates which correspond to A. D. 1332,
J353. JoS?, 1367. In xxin, the last cave, Chinese sgraffiti are particularly numerous, all belonging
to the Chih-cheng period (A. D. 1341-68), which closes the rule of the Mongol dynasty. It is of
interest to note that cartouches painted over the donor figures in the porch here show what I took
to be Uigur writing of the later type resembling Mongolian in ductus. There are also sgraffiti in
the same script.
The grottoes on the left bank, ten in all, are disposed in several groups, on levels varying from Temple
about 60 to So feet above the bottom of the gorge (Fig. 242). The architectural disposition is frfoti0esk°n
more or less the same as in the shrines of the right bank, but the porches are less deep, which may
be due partly to the falling of portions of the rock face. The mural paintings are executed in
a distinctly coarser fashion and, as it seemed, mainly with the use of stencils, This and the
irregular arrangement of the caves may be taken as an indication of their comparatively later
origin. In the first group of grottoes to the south-east, i-vi, the subjects of the frescoes were
throughout of the type already noticed in the description of the caves on the right bank. Fig. 245
shows the south side-wall of shrine n with a representation of the ' wind scene', and a comparison
of it with Figs. 233-4, 236, which reproduce the same theme in Ch. xvi, may illustrate the inferior
character of the pictorial work here. At the same time we see here that central portion of the
composition which at Ch. xvi is hidden by the screen at the back of the image platform. The
cutting through the cella wall of n seen in Fig. 245 was necessitated by the falling of the rock face,
which destroyed the porch and made communication with the adjoining cave through the ante-
chapel unsafe.
It is worth noting that, later as the decoration of the walls in this group of caves appears to Sgraffiti
be, yet a series of Chinese sgraffiti found in them with dates from the close of the Mongol dynasty's ^ dates
rule proves that the time of construction here, too, was before the second quarter of the fourteenth onteftbank
century.1* After grotto vn, an isolated shrine which seemed either distinctly later or completely
renovated, there follows higher up on the cliff the group vni-x, in which the frescoes also appeared
to me late, or else had been replaced by modern Taoist paintings. In x, however, by the side of
some original donor figures left in the antechapel, there is found a sgraffito with a nien-hao which
Chiang Ssu-yeh seems to have read as Taking (A. D. 1324-8). •
A few general remarks may conclude this account of the site. From Chiang Ssu-yeh's state- Time limits
ments I conclude that the Chinese inscriptions painted by the side of frescoes do not furnish the g°™^"n f
date of construction for any of the shrines of the 'Myriad Buddhas'. That most of those on shrines.
the right bank appear to me, from the character of their artistic decoration, approximately coeval
with the tenth-century cave-temples of Ch'ien-fo-tung has already been stated.14 The absence of
inscriptions in Hsi-hsia writing is probably significant, while the presence of Uigur cartouches
besides Uigur sgraffiti, in xxin, can be easily reconciled with the conjectural dating just indicated.
The large number of dated Chinese sgraffiti, left behind on the frescoed walls by pilgrims who
13 From Chiang Ssu-yeh's copies of these sgraffiti I gather Chih-che'ng (A.D. 1341-68)-
that the men-haos extend from Yen-yu (A.D. 1314-21) to u See above, p. mi.