Grottes aux Mille Bouddhas du temple du sabot de cheval

The Thousand Buddha Caves are part of the wider Mati Temple complex in Sunan Yugur Autonomous County south of Zhangye, one of several clusters of cave shrines carved into the cliffs of the Qilian range and accumulated across more than a thousand years of religious activity in this part of the Hexi Corridor. As a satellite of the better-known Mati Temple area, the Thousand Buddha Caves are part of the same broad complex of grottoes but carry their own distinct character.

The caves were carved into the red sandstone cliffs beginning in the Northern Liang period, and the broader Mati complex as a whole includes more than seventy niches and caves spread across several sub-temples, including Shengguo Temple, Puguang Temple, the Thousand Buddha Caves themselves, Jinta Temple, and the upper, middle, and lower Guanyin Caves. The accumulated sculpture and mural work reflects both Han Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist influence, a mix that has long characterized the religious life of this part of the Gansu corridor.

As at the main Mati Temple, the complex takes its name from a legend in which a heavenly horse left its hoofprint in the rock, and the supposed imprint is preserved inside the Puguang Temple as a sacred relic. The Thousand Buddha Caves themselves, as the name suggests, concentrate devotional sculpture and imagery of the Buddha in a way that reflects the broader tradition of cave temple patronage along the Silk Road, with strong parallels to other grotto sites across Gansu and the wider northwest.

For a Zhangye itinerary, the Thousand Buddha Caves are best visited as part of a wider day at the Mati Temple complex, rather than as a separate destination. They reward travelers with an interest in Buddhist cave art and the religious history of the Hexi Corridor, and they pair naturally with the higher-altitude scenery of the surrounding Qilian foothills.