Guilin Stone Carvings

Guilin Stone Carvings

The Guilin stone carvings are distributed across more than 30 famous mountains and caves near the urban area of Guilin City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, including Putuo Mountain, Crescent Moon Mountain, Longyin Rock and Longyin Cave (Guilin Stele Forest), Yushan Mountain, Elephant Trunk Hill, and the Confucius Temple. Among them, Longyin Rock and Longyin Cave in the “Guilin Stone Tablet Forest” are the most concentrated and typical sites for Guilin’s stone carvings.

The stone carving complex is primarily composed of cliff inscriptions, including both cliff carvings and cliff statues. The Guilin stone carvings originated in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and reached their peak during the Song, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. There are nearly 2,000 surviving stone carvings from the Tang to the Qing Dynasties, including 28 Tang Dynasty carvings, 149 niches with 484 statues, 1 Five Dynasties carving, 484 Song Dynasty carvings, 26 niches with 101 statues, 30 Yuan Dynasty carvings, 352 Ming Dynasty carvings, 478 Qing Dynasty carvings, and 117 carvings with undetermined dates. It is the site with the highest number of cliff carvings in China and also has the greatest number of Song Dynasty inscriptions. Notable carvings include the Tang Dynasty’s “Du Fu’s Azalea Poems by Zhang Jun and Liu Chonggui,” the Song Dynasty’s “Yuan You Party Members List,” and the Qing Dynasty’s carving of “The Sixteen Arhats Painted by Guanxiu of the Five Dynasties,” all of which hold significant historical and artistic value. The texts include inscriptions, poems, lyrics, odes, eulogies, prefaces, postscripts, and letters, and feature all major calligraphy styles: seal, clerical, running, and cursive scripts. All the statues are Buddhist in theme.

The Guilin stone carvings are rich in content, diverse in type, and large in scale, collectively reflecting the political, military, economic, and cultural development of Guilin and even the wider Guangxi region. They hold significant historical, scientific, and artistic value. In 2001, the Guilin stone carvings were included in the fifth group of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level by the State Council.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Group of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level