Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes is an important tourist attraction in China. What is their history?

the history of the Mogao grottoes mainly includes the following points.

The Mogao Grottoes were built in the Sixteen Kingdoms period. According to the book "Li Kerang Rebuilds the Monument to the Mogao Grottoes" in the Tang Dynasty, in 366, two years before the founding of the Qin Dynasty, the monk Lezun passed by this mountain and suddenly saw the golden light shining like a Buddha, so he dug the first cave on the rock wall. Since then, Zen master Fariang and others have continued to build caves here to practice Zen, which is called "desert grottoes", meaning "high places in the desert". Later generations were renamed "Mogao Grottoes" because "desert" and "Mo" were common. Another saying is: Buddhists say that there is no limit to the merits of building Buddha caves, and it is impossible and impossible to do so. The meaning of Mogao Grottoes means that there is no higher cultivation than building Buddha caves.

During the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Western Wei Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the rulers believed in Buddhism, and the construction of grottoes was supported by princes and nobles, which developed rapidly. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with the prosperity of the Silk Road, the Mogao Grottoes flourished, and there were more than a thousand caves in Wu Zetian. After the Anshi Rebellion, Dunhuang was occupied by Tubo and Guiyi Army successively, but the sculpture activities were not greatly affected. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Xixia and Yuan Dynasty, the Mogao Grottoes gradually declined, and only the caves of the former dynasty were rebuilt, with few new buildings.

After the Yuan Dynasty, Dunhuang stopped opening caves and gradually became deserted. In the seventh year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1528), Jiayuguan was closed, making Dunhuang a nomadic place in the frontier fortress. In the fifty-seventh year of Qing Emperor Kangxi (1718), Xinjiang was pacified. In the first year of Yongzheng (1723), Shazhou Institute was established in Dunhuang. In the third year (1725), it was changed to Shazhou Wei, and moved to Dunhuang from Gansu to settle the field and rebuild Shazhou City. In the twenty-fifth year of Qianlong (176), Shazhouwei was changed to Dunhuang County, and Dunhuang economy began to recover. The Mogao grottoes began to be noticed by people.

In the 26th year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty (19), the Tibetan Sutra Cave was discovered, which shocked the world. Unfortunately, under the specific historical background of the corrupt and incompetent government in the late Qing Dynasty and the invasion of China by western powers, shortly after the discovery of the cultural relics in the Tibetan Sutra Cave, western explorers such as British Stein, legal person pelliot, Japanese Zuicho Tachibana and Russian Odenburg came to Dunhuang one after another, and defrauded a large number of cultural relics in the Tibetan Sutra Cave from Wang Daoshi by unfair means, resulting in the looting of cultural relics in the Tibetan Sutra Cave, and most of them were unfortunately scattered and hidden in Britain, France, Russia and Japan.