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Updated: May 3, 2025
It was merely the landing at Canton of an old man from India: a 'Blue-eyed Brahmin, but a Buddhist, and the head of all the Buddhists at that; and his preaching there until Liang Wuti, the emperor at Nanking, had heard of his fame, and invited him to court; and his retirement thence to a cave-temple in the north. Beyond this there is very little to tell you.
He had enough strength and wits left, however, to slip a cartridge into his rifle and fire it off, as a guide to his friends where to find him; and it was as well he did so, as they were searching for him close by, and might not have hit upon the entrance to the cave-temple for some time, so curiously was it masked by the rocks.
Like all Turkish peoples, the Toba possessed a myth according to which their ancestors came into the world from a sacred grotto. The Buddhists took advantage of this conception to construct, with money from the emperor, the vast and famous cave-temple of Yün-kang, in northern Shansi.
Cautiously they followed; suddenly the men disappeared down a flight of steps, and when Burton and Tom peered below they were amazed at what they saw. They were gazing into a large cave-temple, and at the far end was an enormous statute of a figure evidently representing Atlas with a large globe on his shoulders.
The final comment on the interview is given by a Japanese writer thus: "Can an elephant associate with rabbits?" For the rest, he spent the remaining years of his life in a cave-temple near Honanfu; and died after appointing a Chinaman his successor.
The surrounding rocks were in ancient days turned into a cave-temple with infinite labor, by hewing and excavating them into chambers of suitable dimensions. Without excellent tools of steel and iron, very nearly approaching in efficiency those of our own time, this could not possibly have been accomplished.
The principal temple there are four of them was dedicated to Buddha, whose creed is still the prevailing faith of Asia, a doctrine ages older than our so-called Christian religion. The entrance to the principal cave-temple is elaborately carved in the solid stone, and is wonderfully well-preserved.
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