The Yunkang Buddha is 45 feet high with immense broad shoulders. He sits cross-leggged in a meditative pose. The form is simplified with geometrically raised band drapery. But this Buddha is distinctively Chinese and not based on an Indian prototype.
Buddhist monasteries and temples thrived under imperial patronage, and the religion was eventually embraced by most of northern China. During the second half of the 5th century a complex of cave temples were cut into the face of a cliff at Yungang near the Northern Wei capital at Datong in Shanzi province. Among the many relief sculptures carved into the living rock were several massive seated Buddhas such as this one. This kind of large scale sculpture was unprecedented in Chinese art.