#### China’s Lunmen Grottes4 photos

Lunmen (meaning “Stone Caves near the Dragon Gates”) is a Buddhist cave temple complex located in the Chinese province of Henan, 12 kilometers south of Luoyang. It is one of the three most significant cave temple complexes in China and has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. On the cliffs and slopes along the banks of the Yihé River, in the Lunmen Mountains (to the west) and the Xiangshan Mountains (to the east), 1352 caves, 785 niches, 97,000 statues of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats, as well as more than 3,680 inscribed stone tablets have been preserved to this day. The total length of the cliffs with these artificial caves amounts to 1 kilometer. For a long time, these caves served as dwelling places for monks who engaged in various spiritual practices there.

The most magnificent and largest sculptures in Lunmen can be found in the Ancestor Worship Grotto. Here, one can see a 17-meter-tall Buddha statue representing pure consciousness. This grotto conveys some of the fundamental principles of Buddhism to ordinary people.