Bingling Temple Grottoes (炳灵寺石窟)

A seated Buddha carved into a sandstone cliff and hundreds of smaller caves along a canyon of the Yellow River, reached across a reservoir.

Quick Facts

The Short Version

What it is	A series of Buddhist grottoes carved into caves and cliffs along a canyon of the Yellow River
Where	Yongjing County, Linxia Prefecture, Gansu, about 100 kilometres south-west of Lanzhou, north of the Liujiaxia Reservoir
Heritage status	Inscribed in 2014 as part of the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor
Span	Work began around 420 CE, and caves were added through the Wei, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing periods
What survives	183 caves, 694 stone statues and 82 clay sculptures
Time needed	Half a day for the grottoes, plus the boat or road journey

Why Go

A Cliff of Buddhas on the Silk Road

1. A Buddha in the cliff

The large seated Buddha at Bingling stands more than 27 metres tall, carved into a natural cavern in the canyon wall, with wooden walkways winding up the rock beside it. It is a Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, and its size makes the cave the visual focus of the site.

To the side, the cliff is pitted with openings, each a cave that holds statues or carved reliefs, with stairs and walkways connecting them.

2. A thousand years of carving

Bingling has caves from more than a millennium of work, and the styles change from period to period. The pictures show niches with a seated Buddha and standing attendants, a triad of tall standing figures, and reliefs with their cave numbers painted beside them.

Stylistically and geographically the site is a midpoint between the great Buddha cliffs of Afghanistan and the grottoes of central China, Yungang and Longmen.