Anyue Ancient Stone Carvings

Anyue County in Ziyang City, Sichuan Province is located in the middle of the Sichuan Basin, at the midpoint of the line connecting Chengdu and Chongqing. However, Anyue has not developed due to its geographical location and is still an unknown agricultural county. Anyue is a large county in terms of population, with a permanent population of about 930,000 and hundreds of thousands of floating population. Anyue County has a product that is unique in China, that is, lemon, which accounts for about 80% of the total national output. After we arrived in Anyue, we found that another thing worth mentioning in Anyue is the ancient stone carvings. Speaking of grottoes, people naturally think of places with large scale and concentrated statues, such as Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, and Longmen Grottoes. Mogao Grottoes are mainly statues and murals, and the latter two are stone carvings. We visited the Ming Mountain Temple, Huayan Cave, Pilu Cave, Reclining Buddha Temple, and Yuanjue Cave in Anyue in one day. The stone carvings we saw were exquisite. From a technical point of view, there are new developments and improvements based on the Yungang and Longmen stone carvings, such as realistic techniques and hollowing techniques. Although the attached photos were taken with a mobile phone, the exquisiteness of the Anyue stone carvings can still be seen. More than 100 years after the heyday of Anyue stone carvings, Dazu stone carvings reached their peak.