Water Curtain Cave

The Water Curtain Cave is the biggest rock cave in the Wuyi Mountain Scenic Area. There is a cascading spring on top of the cave, forming a waterfall of over 80 meters. When there’s plenty of water flowing down, it’s like a water spewing pipe, surging forward in a torrential tide; when there’s less water, the flow is like a white jade belt swaying in the wind. There are ruins of three stone buildings of the Hall of Three Sages, the Hall of Three Religions and the Pure Tenuousness Taoist Temple, as well as lots of ancient cliff engravings and inscriptions inside the cave.

Building of the Water Curtain Cave was started in the "Sixteen Kingdoms Periods" during the Jin Dynasty (265 - 420). The construction work went on for several dynasties that followed. Water Curtain Cave is located in the cliffs east of Shifu Mountain. When the rainy season comes, rains from the top of the mountain cascade down like a water curtain, thus giving the cave its name. It is a natural, arch shaped cave that measures 98 feet high and 22 yards deep. On its cliffs, there are many huge Buddhist murals which were painted in the Northern Wei (386 - 534), Sui (581 - 618), Tang (618 - 907) and the Yuan (1271 - 1368) Dynasties. Several halls are inside the cave. Kwan-yin Temple, Sisheng Palace, and Bodhisattva Hall are some of them.

A large number of works of grotto art dating from the Beizhou Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty are preserved in Laoshao Temple. There is a large fresco there over 40 meters tall on a huge cliff with guarding animals. The fresco covered about 2/3 of the cliff, and the part that remains is extremely precious. 

On the top of the cliff were built eaves to shelter from the wind and rain. On the eaves were carved flying clouds and walking animals, and real brass bells that rang. These patterns and features, influenced by Hinayana Buddhism, are very rarely seen in Chinese grotto art.

Another cave is called Thousand-Buddha Cave for the large number of carvings there. Its one side cliff was separated by the wooden plank road into two sections, frescoes and suspended statues. The remains of originally seven grottoes in the cave are statues and frescoes with plump figures and distinctive looks. Especially, the comely statue of Bodhisattva features the style of the Beizhou Dynasty. And part of the molding contains a relic of the Beiwei Dynasty. All this is important information for researchers of early Chinese grotto art.

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