Our pet goldfish Shaoqi just passed away, sadly. Thank you for the one
year you spent with us Shaoqi. Named after the brave leader of the China
Liu Shaoqi, he was an active member of our household.
I`m kicking off this blog with a post here on
Sunday night. Waiting for the Hexi corridor episode to begin. I find the
producton quality questionable, but it illustrates some key parts of
Chinese history that took place in this strategic area of the Chinese
mainland.
This episode was about Buddhist statues and
grottos in the Hexi coridor. The episode began by focusing on a monk
named Kumarajiva
who travelled from the West and got stuck in the Hexi corridor for
about 17 years as he was under suspicion by the government of the time.
Eventually he was taken to Changan by a more likeminded emperor and set
to work translating all the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. After
that, the episode focussed on the development of Buddhist grottoes along
the corridor. One interesting piece of information I learnt was that up
until the invasion of the East by Alexander the Great, there were no
human likeness sculptures of Shakyamuni, the Buddha. It was only the
bringing of Greek statues to Gandahar- present day Kashmir - that people
began sculpting likenesses of the Buddha because they found the Greek
sculptures brought by Alexander and his men so beautiful.
I hope I get the chance to visit some of the grottes when I visit the Hexi corridor this year.
p.s. (I've now created my own blog for the upcoming trip this post refers to; I will be cross posting there and here and linking to the home-made blog here: https://easterngrean.github.io/silk_road_blog/posts/130425.html
