飞来峰造像

This guide to the Feilai Feng carvings in Hangzhou opens with the monk Huili, who around 328 noticed a single crag of pale limestone jutting from ordinary sandstone hillside and decided it must have flown here from a sacred peak in India. It follows the carving campaigns that stone attracted over the centuries, from the earliest niche cut in 951 through hundreds of Song sculptures and, in the 1280s, an unmistakably Tibetan style left by Yuan-dynasty craftsmen serving a Mongol court. Modern surveys back up half of the monk's instinct: the rock really is foreign to the hills around it. Look closely near the Laughing Buddha for craftsmanship spanning four different dynasties in one small space.