Abstract
The paper focuses on western motifs in the art of early Chinese cave temples by using several concrete examples from Yungang caves. The decoration of these grottoes cut during the reign of the non-Han Northern Wei dynasty is formed by a large number of elements of western origin.
Unlike previous studies by other scholars I am not going to speak about the iconography of Buddha and Bodhisattva here, but I'd like to point out the influence of foreign art upon additional architectural decorative motifs and find their possible antecedents in the West, most probably in the gandharan art of the Kushan period influenced on the one hand by Iranian world, on the other by the Hellenistic and Roman tradition. At the same time I shall try to show the mixture of these motifs with indigenous elements of Chinese origin.