Beishan Mountain, Dazu

Beishan stands 1.5 kilometres north of Dazu town on a hill locally called Fowan. Its carvings were started in 892 by Wei Junjing, governor of Changzhou, at a stockade he had just built, and were carried on, by gentry, by monks and nuns, and by ordinary families, until 1146. The cliff face runs about 300 metres and holds some 370 niches. Where Baoding teaches in big open tableaux, Beishan works small: figures in tight recesses, each one numbered, each cut to be read from a step or two away.