Dunhuang
For Chang Shuhong, director emeritus
of Dunhuang Research Institute
At the West Lake
the reflected lotus bloom
floats on waves of deepest blue.
A crimson plum tree clings
to the slope of Gu Hill,
striving with the autumn moon
to complete the landscape’s beauty.
As a child, you grasped your brush
advanced along the path of beauty
your family poor, your aspirations vast.
Despite all difficulties
you reached Paris, metropolis of art.
For ten years of labor and study
you communed with the masterworks
of past and present.
Late one autumn,
in an open-air bookstall
on the banks of the Seine
you encountered a book
that would shape your destiny—
a pictorial record of the caves of Dunhuang
in your far-off homeland.
A beauty transcending
the vicissitudes of history—
chaos and order,
flourishing and decline.
Millennial murals convey
the distant brilliance
of their lights to the present moment.
You returned to a homeland
in upheaval.
After seven years of struggle
—an oppressive season of gray—
you set out in the teeth
of a freezing wind.
Westward, always westward,
into the vast and desolate highlands,
the bone-piercing fury of frigid winds,
the Gobi Desert that turns back all.
There in the midst of this barren
inhospitable ocean of sand—
a world separate, unto itself,
where apricots bloom
and white poplars see themselves
reflected in the waters
of mountain streams.
Your heart and mind
filled with uncontainable emotion—
at last you had arrived,
finally you could view
the Mogao Grotto of Dunhuang!
The towering face of Mount Mingsha
cliffs carved, sculpted into
a treasure-house of beauty.
In ancient times
people explored the Western Region
forging historical routes
from the Chinese heartland
into these endless plains.
Here, armies battled against the Xiongnu;
a general launched
a voyage of distant conquest
in search of the blood-sweating horses
beyond the Tian Shan Mountains.
Camel caravans laden with trade
bore the cultures of East and West;
Dharma-seeking monks
ventured to ancient India.
In the fourth century, as Buddhism
spread eastward from India,
these cave temples were founded,
elaborated and extended
for the next thousand years.
Over decades and centuries,
spanning ten dynasties
the flower of art blossomed
here in this oasis.
But now before your eyes
the sands flow down, heap high—
a scene of overwhelming
destruction and neglect.
Decades have passed
since you rose to the task
of preserving this priceless
cultural heritage.
Inspired by your selfless struggle
gifted youths have followed in your steps.
This trove of ancient treasures
now shines ever more brilliant,
its majesty known to all the world.
Forty-five thousand square meters
of frescoes—painted prayers for peace,
a prodigious desert gallery
of unsurpassed grandeur.
Thousands of clay figures
convey an enduring beauty,
bespeak the glory of nations
flourished and fallen.
Our first meeting was
in the brightness of a Beijing spring
when you were seventy-seven.
Your demeanor reflected
a life lived with singular purpose.
And the vernal light of your wife
who enabled your endeavors…
Five springs passed
before we met again
this time in autumnal Japan.
At the Saitama Peace Culture Festival
we witnessed together
the passionate energy of youth.
The tragic history of war
between China and Japan—
the flames of invasion
cruelly robbed young lives
of their future bounty of years.
Inscribed on the painting
you presented to me, the words:
“Remembering the past
as a teacher for the future,”
transmitting the enormity of your sentiment
to the youth who will succeed us.
Bonds of friendship deep and firm—
the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum,
an institution of value creation,
hosted the exhibition
“Treasures of Dunhuang”
affording a third opportunity
for us to meet and share thoughts.
That day you brought a gift of friendship
from the far-off Mogao Grotto:
The mysterious five-colored
sands of Crescent Moon Spring
and a pair of camel skins…
“The brown camel has
a golden saddle of friendship,
the silver white one
a saddle on which rides
the sincere aspiration for peace.”
With this touching message arrived
two stuffed camels which you,
in the mid-autumn of your life
at age eighty-two, had named
“Golden Peak” and “Silver Crag.”
Glorious hues blinding bright
adorn the canvas of a life
offered in all purity
to beauty’s pursuit.
Ah, someday to traverse
the many-hued Silk Road!
To stand with you in the caves
where you have poured out
decades of unimaginable care,
there to discuss with you
beauty and the mind’s adventure.
June 15, 1987
Written for Chang Shuhong (1904–94), a Chinese painter and custodian of the cultural and artistic treasures of Dunhuang, an ancient trading center on the Silk Road. The author and Mr. Chang first met in 1980 and published a volume of dialogues, Tonko no kosai (The Brilliance of Dunhuang), in 1990.
blood-sweating horses: a superior breed of horses native to the region of Dayuan or Ferghana in central Asia. Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty sought these horses for use in his campaigns against the Xiongnu nomads.