Unexpectedly, I was a person who had been to Dazu Rock Carvings 5 times. From the first visit to Dazu Rock Carvings in 2009, to the second visit to Dazu Rock Carvings in 2012, to the third consecutive visit to Dazu Rock Carvings in 2020 due to work reasons. Having been there five times, I still feel that Dazu Rock Carvings are very impressive and worthy of being the only world cultural heritage in Chongqing.

Therefore, I decided to write down this Dazu Rock Carvings Travel Notes and tell you everything I have heard, seen and familiar with these five times. I have listened to the explanation five times, and I will never forget it for the rest of my life

I think first of all, we should misunderstand the words "Dazu Rock Carvings". In fact, "Dazu Rock Carvings" is a general term for all the stone carvings in Dazu. Most people regard Dazu Rock Carvings as Baoding Mountain Stone Carvings. Dazu Rock Carvings is the general name of 102 cliff statues in the county. In December 1999, Dazu Rock Carvings, represented by the "five mountains" of Baoding Mountain, Beishan Mountain, Nanshan Mountain, Shimen Mountain and Shizhuan Mountain, was included in the The World Heritage List by UNESCO and is the only world cultural heritage in Chongqing. Therefore, most people only see one of the Baoding Mountain Stone Carvings in Dazu. Of course, Baoding Mountain Stone Carvings is also the most famous representative No.1 of Dazu Rock Carvings, because Baoding Mountain Cliff Carvings are the largest and most exquisite.

These five stone carvings each have their own emphasis. I have currently been to the Baoding Mountain Stone Carvings and the Beishan Stone Carvings. Below, I will elaborate on these two stone carvings. As for the other three stone carvings, I will add them one by one to this travelogue after I visit them in the future. Let me summarize the characteristics of the five cliff carvings in one sentence:

Baoding Mountain Cliff Carvings - mainly based on Buddhism, the largest and most famous in scale.
Beishan Cliff Carvings - the oldest in history, built in the late Tang Dynasty (the other four were built during the Northern Song and Southern Song Dynasties), featuring Guanyin as the main character;
Nanshan Cliff Carvings - Taoist Stone Carvings;
The Stone Seal Mountain Cliff Carving Area, which combines the three religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, is rare in grottoes;
Shimen Mountain Stone Carvings - a fusion of Buddhist and Taoist statue making area, with Taoist statues being the most distinctive.

In addition, China has six of the world's eight largest grottoes: Dazu Rock Carvings; The Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang; Longmen Grottoes; Yungang Grottoes; Maijishan Grottoes (I have also been there) and Longyou Grottoes; And the other two grottoes are located in Afghanistan, called the Bamyan Grottoes; One in India is called the Elephant Island Grottoes. I am truly amazing in Greater China, and I feel a sense of pride that arises naturally!

Tour: Baoding Mountain Cliff Carvings (Dafu Bay)

So, the first stop to Dazu must be the Baoding Mountain Scenic Area. The main city of Chongqing is about 100 kilometers away from the Dazu Rock Carvings Baodingshan Stone Carvings and about 1.8 hours' drive.

At present, the Baodingshan Stone Carvings and Dazu Museum are universal tickets. It only costs 100 yuan to visit Dazu Rock Carvings Baoding Mountain Buddha Cliff Statue+Dazu Museum. The Dazu Museum is definitely worth a visit, I will introduce it separately.

When you watch Dazu Rock Carvings, you must invite an interpreter, because Dazu Rock Carvings depend on watching for three times and listening for seven times. Without listening to the explanation, I walked around in 10 minutes. Although there is QR code scanning voice next to the stone carving, I think it is irreplaceable for any machine to listen to the interpreter's dictation in Dazu Rock Carvings. Be willing to spend money and hire a guide. There are three levels of prices for tour guides, and you can choose according to your own purchasing power.

The cliff statues of Baodingshan were built during the Southern Song Dynasty, with a history of more than 800 years. They are mainly located in Dafowan, including Xiaofowan, Guangda Mountain, Longtan, Songlinpo and other places. After more than 70 years of construction, it was a Buddhist temple of "Esoteric Buddhism" presided over by the famous monk Zhao Zhifeng in the Southern Song Dynasty. There are a total of 13 stone carvings and tens of thousands of statues, with the largest scale being Da Fo Wan and Xiao Fo Wan. Tourists usually focus on admiring Dafo Bay, which is horseshoe shaped, over 500 meters long, and has a rock height of 15-30 meters. Xiaofowan is not open to the public.

The stone carvings on Baoding Mountain are all inclined at a 15 degree angle, and when we look up at the Buddha, we already have a feeling of worshipping him. The ancients were very clever. The Baoding Mountain stone carvings not only had a complete drainage system and stone eaves that were resistant to rain erosion, but also had three fixed theoretical knowledge points. They applied the "inverted pyramid" to carving to maintain balance.

Every stone carving on Baoding Mountain has its own meaning and story behind it, the most famous of which are the reclining Buddha, Thousand Armed Guanyin, Six Paths of Reincarnation, and the Cattle Herding Dojo, as well as the Yuanjue Cave. If each one is introduced in detail here, it would really be a book, so it's better to go to the scene and listen while reading, as it can better absorb and understand.

After visiting the Dazu Rock Carvings ten years ago, I remember the most profound sentence: face is like "bitter". It comes from the six cycles of reincarnation.

There are three poisons and eight sufferings in the Six Paths of Reincarnation. The three poisons: greed, ignorance, and jealousy. Greed has a very vivid stone carving expression: a cat looks at a mouse on a branch. Cats have an appetite, mice have a desire for life, so mice dare not move, so cats and mice have been like this for hundreds of years. Why bother? So people must not have greed. Eight bitterness (limited and incomplete memory): birth bitterness, crying bitterness, aging bitterness, illness bitterness, death bitterness, etc. There is also a saying that a person's face is bitter: the face is like the word 'bitter'. Grass head, hair; One horizontal, two eyes; One vertical, nose; One bite, mouth. Life is born to suffer.

After 8 years of restoration, Qianshou Guanyin finally opened to the public in 2015. I didn't really see Qianshou Guanyin during my first two visits, as she was surrounded by fences and could only see a part of her through the gaps. This time, I finally saw her in her entirety. The Thousand Armed Avalokitesvara carved on Baoding Mountain has the most hands among all the Thousand Armed Avalokitesvara I have seen, with a total of 1007 hands. It is the only true Thousand Armed Avalokitesvara in China.

The cowherd dojo is different from the traditional grottoes we see, it is very lifelike. It seems to be about the interaction and changes between cowherd children and cows, but in fact, it conveys the process of Buddhist Zen meditation in a way that ordinary people can understand.

There are ten shepherds and ten cows in total. The shepherd represents the practitioner, and the cow represents the practitioner's heart. The process of taming the cow is the process of the practitioner adjusting their psychology and entering into meditation. Vivid and vivid, ordinary people can understand at once.

Yuanjue Cave is the final step in cultivating Buddhahood. Yuanjue Cave has three unique features: natural lighting, drainage, and stone carving. First, it went into darkness, and then gradually became brighter. This is the characteristic of the lighting in this hole. A hole was opened on the top to allow light to shine on three Buddhas, creating the effect of a golden Buddha shining brightly. In fact, it is also a process of adaptation for humans in the dark. I think ancient people were really good at utilizing nature.

From Dafu Bay, you can take an electric scooter to the Dazu Museum to continue your visit, or you can choose to walk, which is not far away. Electric scooter: 10 yuan/round trip; 5 yuan per one-way trip.

View: Dazu Rock Carvings Museum

The Dazu Museum, which was only completed and opened to the public in 2015, impressed me. I didn't have this museum during my first two visits, but now visitors who purchase tickets for the Baoding Mountain stone carvings can visit the Dazu Museum for free. Note: The Dazu Museum is not open to the public separately.

The Dazu Rock Carvings Museum first won attention from its appearance.

The antique style of the late Tang and Southern Song dynasties extensively utilized wooden components and structures from ancient architecture. Atmospheric and symmetrical, if you come here to take photos wearing ancient costumes, you can travel in minutes.

Covering an area of 18000 square meters, it is spacious, atmospheric, and open.

The internal exhibition area is nearly 5000 square meters, divided into three floors. The visiting sequence starts from the third floor and goes down to the first floor.

It looks really nice, put more photos for appreciation.

On the square in front of the museum, towering stone sutras reach up to meters in height. Among the 10 layers of statues, the essence of Dazu Rock Carvings, such as Vajra, Flying Sky, Eight Heavenly Dragons, Eight Heavenly Gods, Golden winged Bird and Ten Thousand Buddhas, are meticulously carved.

Entering from the third floor entrance, you will first enjoy a 3-minute laser projected 180 degree surround view video titled 'Millennium Buddha's Foot', which is the world's first 360 degree panoramic film of grotto art. This segment tells the development process of grotto art from India to Dazu, as well as the research and protection process, the path of applying for World Heritage status, and the restoration of Thousand Armed Avalokitesvara. It will make people feel that Dazu Rock Carvings are not only Chinese, but also global.

The second floor mainly features graphic and textual displays, providing detailed introductions of the world's eight major grottoes.

The whole exhibition hall has an exhibition area of 5000 square meters, including China Buddhist Art Exhibition Hall, Dazu Rock Carvings Art Exhibition Hall, Stone Cultural Relics Protection Technology Exhibition Hall and other exhibition halls, as well as supporting exhibition halls, stone cultural relics protection center and other projects.

Hollow out in the middle, you can see the hall on the first floor from the second floor. The biggest feature of the Dazu Rock Carvings Museum is that all the cave collections on the first floor are authentic, not imitations, without glass covers or protective articles. Quite courageous and courageous.

President Li of Dazu Rock Carvings Research Institute said: "Trust tourists.". So they are not afraid of such exhibitions.

The Sakyamuni Buddha statue on the first floor, built in the Southern Song Dynasty, is the treasure of the Dazu Rock Carvings Museum and a national first-class cultural relic. This is the earliest work created by Zhao Zhifeng. Seeing it makes one feel very calm and sacred inside.

The museum's theme art exhibition "Nirvana of Art - Dazu Rock Carvings Exhibition" is divided into seven units: charm, inheritance, integration, circulation, protection, rebirth, and treasure. Through a large number of cultural relics, materials, pictures, and images, it comprehensively demonstrates the development of cave art from India to Dazu, the beauty of the model created by Dazu Rock Carvings in the process of the localization of cave art in China, and the research and protection process of Dazu Rock Carvings.

These grottoes are original sculptures that were previously stored in cultural relics warehouses and scattered in temples. They are now collected and displayed in a centralized manner, and are rare cultural relics. More than half of the exhibits are being exhibited to the public for the first time.

The grottoes of Dazu Rock Carvings also derive many intangible cultural heritage for Dazu, such as the Baoding incense temple fair, which is the only national intangible cultural heritage in Dazu so far. As well as inheritors of intangible cultural heritage of stone carving and Paper Cuttings, they are all based on Dazu Rock Carvings.

PS: If you have enough time, you can take the road back to your home and go to Beishan Stone Carving on your way. The Beishan Stone Carvings are located within the city center, which is quite convenient. The Beishan stone carvings are all carved by ordinary people with their own money. Compared to the grandeur and delicacy of the Baoding stone carvings, the Beishan stone carvings are small and the carvings are relatively rough.

After reading these stone carvings, regardless of their size, I admire the endurance and imagination of ancient people. Without the precise calculation of modern facilities, these stone carvings carved by hand may have exhausted the time of one or two years for small ones and ten years for large ones, right? Now Dazu Rock Carvings are so badly corroded by the moisture in the area where they are located. Many stone carvings have no hands or heads. It is estimated that one fifth of the 500 arhats have no heads, and the color is not as beautiful as it used to be. Therefore, the repair of stone carvings is particularly important.

Baodingshan Stone Carvings: 100 yuan/person (including Dazu Museum)

Announcer: First level explanation costs RMB 150; Second level explanation: RMB 130; Third level explanation RMB 120
Electric scooter: 5 yuan/one-way 10 yuan/round-trip
Time: 08:30-18:00
Beishan Stone Carvings: 70 yuan/person

After visiting the Baoding Mountain stone carvings, there is also a Lotus Mountain Villa within the scenic area, which is a star rated farmhouse with lotus and lotus culture as its characteristics, integrating sightseeing, leisure, and dining.

Lotus Mountain Villa is also a 3A scenic spot, no admission fee is required, just come here for a meal.

Lotus Mountain Villa was built in 1997, 3 kilometers away from Dazu Rock Carvings Baoding Mountain Stone Carving Scenic Spot.

I think it's great to eat here, where you can enjoy the lotus flowers and scenery, as well as taste authentic home style dishes.

The water area of Lotus Mountain Villa has reached over 1000 acres.

These memorial archway, which seem to have a sense of history, make the whole Lotus Villa look ancient.

It is said that the lotus flowers planted here, whose seeds once traveled in space by satellite, grew very vigorously and gained some fame for their "space lotus".

It is said that due to the magical experience of traveling in space, the chemical chain and chromosomes of lotus seeds undergo mutations, resulting in stronger growth, longer flowering period, larger flower differentiation, more layers, and more beautiful colors.

The undulating green mountains and forests on all sides complement and decorate the Lotus Mountain Villa.

In summer, eating in the pavilion on the lotus pond feels very comfortable.

It happens to be the summer solstice season, the best season to appreciate lotus flowers. The lotus flowers here bloom in the fields, and eating in the lotus colors has a unique flavor.

The beautiful and delicate lotus flowers are hidden among the emerald green lotus leaves, and I thought of the saying: 'The lotus leaves are infinitely green, reflecting the sun, the lotus flowers are uniquely red.'.

At the Lotus Villa, not only can you enjoy the beautiful scenery of the lotus pond, but you can also taste the unique lotus feast.

The Lotus Banquet starts with a cup of lotus juice, which is very clear, sweet and delicious.

The Lotus Feast also includes lotus fish, steamed pork with lotus leaf flour, Steamed Pork with Rice Flour in Lotus Leaf, lotus dragon section, fried pork with lotus sword, fragrant lotus Sliced pork soup, fried eggs with lotus sword, honey lotus root, crispy lotus root clip, soft fried lotus flower, lotus leaf Congee and other dishes.

Lotus Mountain Villa must order - Lotus Soup.

Fried lotus leaves.

The brown sugar Mantou of Lotus Mountain Villa is very solid.

Address: Hualong Street Village, Baoding Town, Dazu District, Chongqing

Per capita: around 80 yuan/person

Eating: Dingjiapo Wang Shuhua Potato

Seeing netizens say that you may not have heard of Dazu Rock Carvings, but you may not have heard of Ding Jiapo and Wang Shuhua's potato, which shows its fame. It is one of the top ten famous dishes in Dazu and one of the top ten delicious foods in Dazu. Other Dazu delicacies include diving fish, small noodles, etc.

Potato is also known as potato, and Chongqing people like to call it potato. Dingjiapo Wang Shuhua's potato originated in 1989, at the corner of Dazu Bao'en Road Pedestrian Street. The bright red color is small but eye-catching, and can be eaten in person or packaged.

In the shop window, you can see several pots filled with potatoes and bean skins, as well as a pot of black and red pepper sauce with a spicy aroma.

There are only three types of ingredients: potato chips, potato chunks, and bean skins. 5 yuan/plate, same seasoning mix, different flavors. One person can go for 3 yuan per serving, and you can also choose a combination of dishes. Overall, it's very flexible.

I think the best thing to eat is potato chunks, which are mashed potatoes: they are sticky, smooth, and soft, and are the most flavorful way to make them.

Potato chips are relatively crispy, while bean skins are most coated with chili peppers.

Oil chili is very fragrant, with a strong burnt and spicy flavor. It does not contain alkali, and the seasoning is neither salty nor light. It will not lose its home ground position due to salt and monosodium glutamate. But for people with strong flavors, the taste may feel a bit light.

Pack and take it away if you can't finish eating. Be sure to come here and pack and take it away on your way home from Dazu.

Address: Unit 3-1, Building 815, Bao'en, Longgang, Dazu District, Chongqing

Price: 5 yuan per serving

What about? A perfect one-day travel guide for Dazu, is there something to see, something to eat, and something to learn. In addition to Dazu Rock Carvings, there is also Dazu Longshui Lake Scenic Spot not far from the urban area. If you want to play for another day, you can stay at Dazu Longshui Lake.