Sixteen centuries after monks opened the first caves at Yungang, the two arts that grew there — carving and rubbing — are both alive, protected, and easier to see than ever. This closing chapter of our history is about where they stand now.
Three cliffs, one list
Three of China's great rock-art sites are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list: the Yungang Grottoes in 2001, the Longmen Grottoes in 2000, and the Dazu Rock Carvings in 1999. Together they preserve hundreds of thousands of figures, from the fifty-one thousand statues of Yungang to the painted reliefs of Dazu. Museums hold the tradition too: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Museum in London and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris all keep Chinese Buddhist sculpture and historic rubbings in their collections — the procession reliefs and the Dunhuang manuscripts among them.
The freestanding stele above shows the tradition at its most personal. Commissioned in 544 by a donor named Helian Ziyue, it stacks a Buddha shrine, Guardian figures and long carved inscriptions recording the family's prayers. Steles like this were the "published pages" of their day — and because they were carved, every one of them can be rubbed.
A craft that never stopped
The craft of rubbing survives as a protected intangible heritage. In workshops at Xi'an and in studios attached to the great sites, artisans still damp paper against stone, tamp it into every hollow, and dab ink across the raised surface exactly as their Tang predecessors did. Museums rub too: new impressions are still taken from ancient steles for study and display, using methods a seventh-century craftsman would recognize instantly.
Ink & Jade works in that same lineage. Our statues are carved by masters we can name; our prints are rubbings made by hand, black paper and white stone, using the same principle as the oldest surviving rubbing from Dunhuang. Sixteen centuries of practice, one flat sheet of paper — carried one more century, into modern homes.
Short answers to common questions
Why were Buddhas carved into cliffs?
Rock protects what wood cannot: fire, floods, wars. Cliff temples were also acts of merit on a grand scale — and a carving in living stone was meant to last as long as the mountain.
How is an ink rubbing made?
Damp paper is pressed into the carved surface, tamped into every hollow, then dabbed with an ink pad when nearly dry. Ink colors only the raised parts; the carving appears white on black.
What is the oldest ink rubbing in the world?
A Tang-dynasty copy of Emperor Taizong's "Warm Spring Inscription," found in 1900 in the Dunhuang library cave and now held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Read the whole story in one page: Stone Buddhas & Ink Rubbings — a short history. Or browse the other chapters of this Heritage Journal.