Research On The Buddhist Cave Temples Of India

Cave temple is a special form of Buddhist temple, it’s an important part of Buddhist art.The earliest Buddhist caves origiante from India and later, along with the spread of Buddhism,cave temples also began to appear in China. During its long propagation and development,India and China show very different characteristics in the cave type, statues and murals.The cave temple is built for the practice of the monks, it is necesarily qualified with twofunctions: religious activities and daily life. A group of caves consist mainly two cave typescorresponding to these two functions: chaityagriha and vihara cave. With the continuousexpansion of its functions and the flourish of Buddhism, the cave temple gradually turn from asingle stone cave, into a complex of Buddhist cave art intergrating architecture, sculpture andmural, and become an extremely valuable and important component of the great treasurehouse of human culture.This paper starts from the architectural point of view combined with the basic theory ofarcheology, art history and related disciplines, as well as the field trips at home and abroad,followed by literature and data collection. It divides the Indian Buddhist caves into four partsfor further research and analysis: construction groups, single building, building decoration andthe ifluences on Chinese Cave.This paper is divided into7chapters, the1st chapter is the introduction, raising the overallvision, including the source and the content of the subject, the purpose and significance of it,as well as the international research status of this isue. The2nd chapter is about IndianBuddhism and Buddhist architecture, introduced the rise and fall of Indian Buddhism andcharacteristics and typical examples of early Buddhist architecture in India. The3rd chapter isan overview of the Indian Buddhist caves, including its origination and development,including the possible types that a group of caves may contain. The4th chapter is the analysisof the India Buddhist cave groups, combined with some examples to study the location andmorphological development of the Indian caves. The5th chapter is the ontoanalysis ofIndian Buddhist cave building which stdies the monomer and components from differentforms during different periods. The6th chapter analyses the Indian Buddhist cave decoration, expounding the decoration art frome aspects of carving, statues and murals. The7th chapter isabout the impact of Indian Buddhism caves in China. It introduces the localization andevolution process of Chinese caves under the influence of Indian caves.