Dunhuang

Dunhuang or Tunhwang , town, extreme NW Gansu prov., China. Crescent Lake, a noted tourist attraction surrounded by high sand dunes, is there. The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (Mogao Caves) are at nearby Qianfodong. The town and its environs were long a gateway between central Asia and China, and the frescoes in the caves, painted from the 5th cent. to the 13th cent., show Indian, Greco-Roman, and Iranian influences. The caves, closed for centuries, were reopened in 1900. There Sir Aurel Stein, an English archaeologist, discovered a library of some 15,000 manuscripts, including the Diamond Sutra, reputed to be the first (AD 868) printed book. Only a few dozen of the hundreds of caves are open to tourists.

Tun-huang (Dunhuang). Town in NW of Kansu province in China, a major staging post on the Silk Road trading route. Because it was the point of access to China for Buddhist missionaries travelling on the overland route from India, it became an important Buddhist centre. The major remains of this presence are in the Mo-kao (Mogao) Caves, also known as the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, the oldest Buddhist shrines in China.

Dunhuang (town in NW China): see TAN-HUANG.