Longmen Grottoes: A Half-Day Guide to 100,000 Buddhas

Why Luoyang earns a stop

Most itineraries run Xi’an to Shanghai and treat the 1,200 km between them as a night train. Luoyang sits almost exactly halfway, and 30 minutes south of the city is the reason to break the journey: the Longmen Grottoes (龙门石窟), a UNESCO site with more than 2,300 caves and niches and roughly 100,000 carved Buddhist figures.

West Hill first, and why

The site runs along the Yi River (伊河), with carved cliffs on both banks. West Hill (西山) holds the density: most of the major caves, the longest continuous stretch of carving, and the Vairocana Buddha. East Hill (东山) is quieter, with Kanjing Temple and the Bai Garden.

Buy your ticket and walk west first. The cliff faces east, so morning sun rakes across the carvings and photographs actually work. By 11:00 the light is flat and the tour groups have arrived. The full circuit — west cliff, bridge, east cliff, back along the river — takes three to four hours at a steady pace.

Fengxian Temple and the Vairocana Buddha

Everything at Longmen builds toward Fengxian Temple (奉先寺), a vast open niche cut into the west cliff. The central figure is the Vairocana Buddha (卢舍那大佛), 17.14 metres from base to crown, with ears 1.9 metres long and a face that manages to be remote and warm at once. It was completed around 675, during the Tang dynasty.

Stand at the base and look up: the Buddha is flanked by two disciples, two bodhisattvas, two heavenly kings and two guardians, all carved into the same recess. The guardians’ armour and the bodhisattvas’ jewellery survive in astonishing detail. The stairs are steep, but the crowd thins as you climb.

The empress who paid for the face

The project was funded partly by Empress Wu Zetian (武则天), who donated 20,000 strings of cash — recorded as her cosmetics money — toward the carving. The Buddha is often said to carry her features: a full face, a slight, self-possessed smile.

The resemblance is tradition rather than documented fact, and scholars argue both ways. What is certain is that Wu, the only woman to rule China in her own name, knew what a 17-metre face could do for a dynasty’s legitimacy.

Guyang Cave and the oldest dated carving

Guyang Cave (古阳洞) is the oldest of the great caves, begun when the Northern Wei court moved its capital to Luoyang in 493. Its walls are covered in small niches and inscriptions, including the earliest dated dedications in the complex.

Those inscriptions are also why calligraphers make the trip. The Twenty Exemplars of Longmen (龙门二十品) — chiselled, angular, confident — are foundational texts of Northern Wei stone calligraphy, and here you can read them on the wall where they were cut.

What was taken, and how to look now

Longmen has been damaged by dynasties, weather and people. The worst came in the early twentieth century, when dealers removed heads, hands and whole reliefs for the international market: the two imperial procession reliefs from Binyang Central Cave were cut out in 1934 and are now in New York and Kansas City, with other fragments in London, Boston, Tokyo and Osaka.

I find it better to look at what remains with that history in mind. Bring binoculars: the small niches high on the cliff, where donors’ names are still legible, are where the site stops being a monument and becomes a thousand individual acts of devotion.

Practicalities

Tickets are ¥90 (about $13) and include Xiangshan Temple and the Bai Garden, where the Tang poet Bai Juyi is buried. Prices as of late 2026, and hours shift with the season — check the official notice before you travel.

• Gates open at 08:00 and close around 18:00, with a night session in high summer.
• A shuttle bus runs from the visitor centre to the gate for a few yuan.
• Wear shoes with grip and carry water; July and August at midday are brutal, with no shade on the cliff.
• Allow three to four hours, more if you are photographing.

Getting there, and onward

High-speed trains run from Xi’an North (西安北) to Luoyang Longmen (洛阳龙门) in about 1 hour 30 minutes, second class ¥174 (about $24). From the station, bus 71 reaches the grottoes in 15 minutes for ¥1, or a taxi costs ¥15–20. Note that 洛阳龙门 is the high-speed station south of the city, not the old central 洛阳站.

Cave	Date	What to look for
Fengxian Temple (奉先寺)	672–675	The 17.14 m Vairocana Buddha and its eight attendants
Guyang Cave (古阳洞)	from 493	Earliest dated inscriptions; the Twenty Exemplars
Binyang Three Caves (宾阳三洞)	500–523	Imperial procession reliefs, originals now abroad
Ten Thousand Buddhas Cave (万佛洞)	680	Some 15,000 small Buddhas and a Tang bodhisattva
Lotus Flower Cave (莲花洞)	c. 520s	Carved lotus ceiling; the height of Northern Wei poise

Combining it with the city

Two hours in the Luoyang Museum (free, closed Mondays, book via the WeChat mini-program) supplies the funerary figures and Tang ceramics that make the caves legible. White Horse Temple (白马寺, ¥35, 40 minutes east by taxi) is China’s first Buddhist temple, and mid-April brings the city’s peonies.