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Luoyang, a city in Henan province, is known as the city of peonies. Situated on the north bank of the Luo River, it is cut by two rivers that flow into the Luo, the Jian to the west and Chan to the east.
Henan is the heart of ancient China. As far back as the Neolithic Era, the area was well populated. The capital of the bronze-age Shang Dynasty was in the present-day Anyang. Then in the 1lth century B.C., one of the Zhou kings made his temporary capital at Luoyi near Luoyang.
Since 1949, the city has grown in importance as an industrial center. It now has machine-building works, chemical factories, textile plants, glass works and a large tractor factory.
About eight miles south of Luoyang on the Yi River, at a spot where high cliffs on either side form a pass, is a caved area once known as the "Gate of Yi River", which later became known as Longmen, or the "Dragon Gate." Craftsmen began work on Buddhist grottoes in 494 when an emperor of the Northern Wei moved the capital from what is now known as Datong (Shanxi Province) to Luoyang. The artistry is therefore an extension from Datong. The work at Longmen proceeded through seven dynasties, and in more than 1,300 caves, there are 40 small pagodas, and almost 100,000 Buddha statues ranging in size from one inch to 57 feet. These caves and the stone sculptures they contain rank with the caves at Yungang and Dunhuang as the great remaining masterpieces of Buddhist culture in China. |
