The four major grottoes each have their own characteristics, and the Mogao Grottoes are better.

Mogao Grottoes, commonly known as the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, is located in Dunhuang at the western end of the Hexi Corridor. It was built in the former Qin Xuanzhao Emperor Fu Jian period, and then through the Northern Dynasties, Sui Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Western Xia, Yuan Dynasty and other generations of construction, the formation of a huge scale, there are 735 caves, murals 45,000 square meters, clay color sculpture 2,415, is the world's largest and richest surviving Buddhist art place.

Mogao Grottoes, along with the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, Henan Province, and the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi Province, are known as China's three major grottoes, and later added to the Maiji Mountain Grottoes as the Four Great Grottoes.

On August 31, 2019, the large-scale documentary "Dialogue between Mogao Grottoes and Angkor Wat", jointly produced by Dunhuang Research Institute and other organizations, premiered at the Dunhuang International Convention and Exhibition Center. Taking the dialogue of Asian civilizations as its subject matter, the documentary shows people the marvelous connection between different civilizations in terms of shared destinies, cultures and arts.

Yungang Grottoes

The Yungang Grottoes, located in Datong City, Shanxi Province, have 252 niches and more than 51,000 statues, representing China's preeminent Buddhist grotto art of the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Among them are the five caves of Tanya, which are rigorously and uniformly designed, and are the classic masterpieces of the first peak period of Chinese Buddhist art.

The Yungang Grottoes, with its magnificent statues and colorful contents, is the crown of Chinese rock art in the 5th century A.D., and is regarded as a treasure trove of ancient Chinese carving art. According to the time of excavation can be divided into early, middle and late three periods, different periods of the grottoes statue style also has its own characteristics.

Early "Tanya five grottoes" magnificent, with a thick, pure and simple Western mood. The mid-term grottoes are carved, decorated with gorgeous known in the world, showing the complexity of the Northern Wei Dynasty art style, opulent and varied. Late cave room size is small, but the figure is thin and handsome, moderate proportion, is the example of northern China's grotto art and the origin of the "thin bones and clear like".

In addition, the grottoes left in the music and dance and acrobatic carvings of a hundred plays, but also the embodiment of the popularity of the Buddhist ideology and the reflection of the social life of the Northern Wei Dynasty.