敦煌莫高窟是什么？
What are the Dunhuang caves?
Name: ________________ Date: ________
1900年夏天，在中国西北的沙漠边上，看守这片石窟的王道士正在清理一个洞里的沙子。据说，他忽然发现墙上有一道裂缝，后面好像是空的。他把墙打开一看，里面竟然藏着一个小房间，古老的经卷、文书和绘画从地上一直堆到屋顶，一共大约有五万件。这些东西在黑暗中静静地躺了九百年左右，没有人知道它们为什么被封在这里。
这个地方，就是甘肃敦煌的莫高窟。那个小房间，后来被人们叫做“藏经洞”。
敦煌是一片沙漠中的绿洲，在古代，它正好位于丝绸之路上。从中原往西去的商人、和尚和旅行者，几乎都要经过这里，东方和西方的商品、宗教和艺术，都在这里交流。传说公元366年，有一位僧人路过这里，看见对面的山上金光闪闪，仿佛有上千个佛在放光。他觉得这是神圣的地方，就在山崖上开凿了第一个洞。
从那以后，一代又一代的人接着挖，前后持续了一千多年。今天，莫高窟还保存着七百多个洞窟，其中保存着壁画和彩色塑像的有四百九十多个，壁画加起来有四万五千多平方米，彩色塑像有两千多尊。走进洞里，墙上画满了佛的故事，也画着古代的人种地、打猎、做买卖、结婚的场景。最有名的，是那些在空中飞舞的“飞天”，她们身上的长带子在风中飘着，看起来好像真的会飞。
可是，藏经洞的故事并不圆满。当时的清朝政府没有重视这批宝贝。1907年，英国探险家斯坦因来到敦煌，只花了很少的钱，就从王道士手里带走了上万件经卷和文书。第二年，又有一位法国学者带走了一大批。今天，这些宝贝分散在英国、法国等世界各地的博物馆里。其中最有名的一件，是一部印于公元868年的《金刚经》，它是世界上保存下来的、有明确日期的最早的印刷书。
1987年，莫高窟被列入世界遗产名录。现在，为了保护这些脆弱的壁画，每天能走进洞里参观的游客人数都有限制。所以，如果你有机会去敦煌，最好提前预约。站在那些一千多年前的壁画前面，你也许会觉得，时间在这里好像停住了。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 沙漠 | shāmò | desert |
| 洞 | dòng | hole; cave |
| 沙子 | shāzi | sand; grit |
| 据说 | jùshuō | it is said; reportedly |
| 墙 | qiáng | wall |
| 藏 | cáng | to hide; to conceal |
| 古老 | gúlǎo | ancient; old |
| 堆 | duī | to pile up; to heap up; pile; heap; stack |
| 古代 | gǔdài | ancient times; antiquity |
| 位于 | wèiyú | to be located at; to lie in |
| 商人 | shāngrén | merchant; businessman |
| 传说 | chuánshuō | legend; folklore |
English (for the teacher)
In the summer of 1900, at the edge of the desert in China’s northwest, Wang the Daoist priest, who looked after the caves, was clearing sand out of one of them. The story goes that he suddenly noticed a crack in the wall, and there seemed to be a space behind it. When he opened up the wall he found, to his astonishment, a small room hidden inside, piled from the floor to the ceiling with ancient scrolls, documents and paintings, some fifty thousand items in all. They had lain quietly in the dark for around nine hundred years, and nobody knows why they were sealed in there.
The place was the Mogao caves at Dunhuang in Gansu. The little room later came to be called the Library Cave.
Dunhuang is an oasis in the desert, and in ancient times it sat right on the Silk Road. Merchants, monks and travellers heading west from the heartland of China almost all had to pass through, and here the goods, religions and arts of East and West met and mixed. Legend says that in 366 AD a monk passing by saw the mountain opposite glittering with golden light, as if a thousand Buddhas were shining. He felt it was a holy place, and he cut the first cave into the cliff.
After that, generation after generation kept on digging, for more than a thousand years in all. Today the Mogao caves still keep more than seven hundred caves, over four hundred and ninety of them with murals and painted statues; together the murals cover more than forty-five thousand square metres, and there are over two thousand painted statues. Step inside and the walls are covered with stories of the Buddha, and with scenes of people long ago farming, hunting, trading and getting married. The most famous are the flying apsaras soaring through the air, the long ribbons on their bodies streaming in the wind, as if they really could fly.
But the Library Cave’s story doesn’t end happily. The Qing government of the day paid no attention to the treasure. In 1907 the British explorer Aurel Stein came to Dunhuang and, for very little money, carried off more than ten thousand scrolls and documents from Wang. The next year a French scholar took away another great batch. Today these treasures are scattered among museums around the world, in Britain, France and elsewhere. The most famous of them is a Diamond Sutra printed in 868 AD, the earliest surviving printed book with a clear date.
In 1987 the Mogao caves were added to the World Heritage List. Now, to protect the fragile murals, the number of visitors allowed into the caves each day is limited. So if you get the chance to go to Dunhuang, it’s best to book ahead. Standing before murals painted more than a thousand years ago, you may feel that time has stopped here.