Summary: The Mid-Autumn Festival, the day for enjoying the moon and immersing in nostalgia for the past, is drawing near. When you look up at the vast sky, the moon and millions of stars, what you have known is the stars are as far as several billion light-years a

The Mid-Autumn Festival, the day for enjoying the moon and immersing in nostalgia for the past, is drawing near. When you look up at the vast sky, the moon and millions of stars, what you have known is the stars are as far as several billion light-years away from Earth for the farthest one. Like the sun, they are all heavenly bodies; What you have learned is that the earth orbits the sun and the moon is a satellite revolving around the earth. Maybe the galaxy and nebula would concurrently pop up in your mind. However, the ancients, when they looked up at the sky, had a different mentality. Their views of the world and universe reflected their education background as well as the sky in their eyes.  

 

 

       

For the people of Qiuci, among the stars, the sun and moon were the brightest, the former lighting up the day and the latter bringing light to the night. The ancients thought the moon were the largest star in the sky, surrounded by other stars. For their parts, full of vitality and as the brightest body at night, the moon became the object of worship, triggering the birth of a variety of legends and mythology. From then on, the notion deity of moon, stories of Chang’e (goodness of the moon) flying to the moon, and Wu Gang (god of the moon) felling the osmanthus trees spread far and wide. In the culture of both China and other regions, the moon connects with the rabbit. Certainly a fairy rabbit living on the moon was accepted by the people of Qiuci.

(Picture A)

        

The sky and universe in the eyes of the people of Qiuci was painted intensively in the picture “scope” on the central-mid-ridge of vaulted ceiling in the main chamber of post cave in the center of the cave of Qiuci. “Scope”, on the top of the cave, band in shape, bearing the sun on one side and the moon with a rabbit in a shadowy circle on the other side, standing for the movements of the sun and moon, was set in the narrow space between the rhombic mountains on both sides of the vaulted ceiling. The image of rain god, who with magic power would summon wind and rain, embodied by a snake taking in and sending out gravels in the clouds, often appeared in the depictions. The powerful wind was rendered by the wind god, naked, cloths swelled by the wind and in both hands, hair standing on end. The mysterious birds with golden wings, body entangled snakes in mouth, is soaring up in the sky. A number of flying sages, holding up earthen bowls, grasping canes, assuming untrammeled feelings to roam about the world, amaze us with their omnipotent powers. The wavy flames and waters on their body indicate they have achieved mukti from the abysses of the fire and water. In addition, flying wild geese and Buddhist monks riding on geese were created in the drawing.

(Picture B)

        

(Picture C)
“Scope” justifies the identity of Qiuci as the convergent place for cultural exchanges between the east and the west. The legend of a rabbit on the moon comes from Ask the Heaven of The Poetry of Chu that “What is the moon’s property makes it turns from crescent to full? What will bring to its merit to carry a rabbit?” The white rabbit, which happens to be that of the moon of Qiuci, represents an auspicious sign. The wind god holding cloths date back to the ancient Greek, turning up in The Birth of Venus, a renowned oil painting of the Renaissance, in which next to the right of Venus, the god, exhaling, in blue cloths, is the wind god in the culture of Greek. The image of the wind god of Greek, after diffused via the Silk Road, impresses people with a runner, cloths in both hands and then the image shrouded in clouds, cloths swelled by the wind and in both hands when spread to Qiuci. The sun or moon in “scope” is often personified, conveyed by an awe-inspiring warrior in chariot with one hand holding up high and the other hand on his hip, who is set off by the ornaments of clothes and by lights in radial shape in a circle, exhibiting that the land is bathed in the lights of the sun and moon. In the mythology of Greek, Apollo the god of the sun is also set in a chariot but in long gown. The warrior of Qiuci resembles that of Sassanid Empire in the style of the suit of armor. The images of the gods of the sun and moon speak volumes the convergence of multi-culture. The double headed eagle, based on the research, was inspired from a seal of Hittite in western Asia as early as the 18^th century BC and then became popular as the images among different ethnic groups in Eurasian and today it is printed on the badges by many countries in Europe. As the protector of the Buddhist doctrine, the bird with golden wings feeds on snakes, which implies that it swallows the vexation and lust.       

(Picture D)

       

(Picture E)
There was a concept of constellation in Qiuci. A particular “Scope” on the vaulted ceiling of the 198^th cave A at Kezier in Xinjiang province comprises the depictions of sheep, cattle and joint man, part of the latter missing. Foreign scholars hold that it is the theme relating to the 12 signs of the zodiac for the sheep is equivalent to Aries, cattle to Taurus and joint man to Gemini. Such theme of “Scope” is the unique one found in the caves of Kezier. Recorded in order in clay tablets for astrology, the creation of the 12 signs of the zodiac arises from the culture of Babylon.

        

(Picture F)

During the Anxi Duhufu of Tang Dynasty (year of 640), the traditional “Scope” changed a lot as a number officials and soldiers of Hans, monks and laymen stationed in Qiuci. Han people tend to admire and yearn for the Land of Bliss in the West, chant Buddhist scriptures, worship Avalokitesvara (goddess of mercy). The Land of Bliss, different from this mortal world, is full of colorful, magic lotuses in wheel size, from where people come, which makes the lotus in Buddhism the incarnation of light, life and pleasure. It results in the fact that “Scope”, band in shape, was replaced by circular lotuses in the cave dug by Han people in Qiuci, mirroring the faiths of Han people toward The Land of Bliss and that a “Scope” with lines of misty clouds was created on the vaulted ceiling of 229^th cave with tradition style of Qiuci in Kezier.    

The fresco of Qiuci offers an insight into the world of ancients that their knowledge of the sky and the universe are based on special mentalities and culture. The sky in their eyes linking to a mysterious religion rite led to their depictions of flying sages, wind god, rain god, and birds with golden wings etc, with the running sun and moon as background, on the top of the cave——the location of the sky-——as the particular “Scope”, conveying their understandings and imaginations of the sky. 

A克孜尔第三十八窟主室券顶天相图。

B克孜尔新一窟后室券顶月中兔。

C克孜尔第三十八窟主室券顶天相图中的风神。

D克孜尔第一九八A窟券顶的黄道十二宫。

E克孜尔第三十八窟主室券顶天相图中的太阳。

F

Translated by IICC-X Tian Meng