In the beginning of the new millennium, the summer of 2000, a large international conference was opened in front of the tallest statue of the Buddha at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, which was hidden in a nine-story building. More than three hundred scholars from varied regions in China and abroad attended this conference, most of whom sat or stood in the newly expanded square in front of the building to join in the ritualistic opening ceremony and enjoyed a grand scale entertainment afterward. This international conference, however, is not the only important social and cultural event held in front of the nine-story building.
      In the past two decades, this location has been used as a public space for political propaganda and religious rituals including a historical visit of Jiang Zemin, president of the People's Republic of China and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, to declare his support to the conservation and study of the ancient art monument.
      There are four hundred and ninety-two caves remaining at this wide open site. Why was this location chosen as the center of the entire site to perform such rituals as opening ceremony or photo-taking? What made this space more important than other places at this historical site? This paper examines the original meaning of the large statue hidden inside the nine-story building and interprets its changing function in varied historical contexts. This research will reveal how a religious icon was constructed and used for political purposes by its patron in the early Tang dynasty and how this statue of the Buddha was transformed into a visual symbol of imperial authority in the context of frontier politics in different historical periods including the modern era.
      The statue of the Buddha in the nine-story building is 34 meters in height, the tallest among some two thousand sculptures surviving in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang. It has been identified as an icon of Maitreya, the Future Buddha, and has been known as the North Great Image (of the Buddha) since the late Tang period. This giant statue was made in 695 CE during the reign of Empress Wu. Instead of following the common practice of molding the Buddha in a male body covered by a monk's robe, this statue was shaped according to a woman's bodily form and clothing. The imposing breasts are exposed to clarify the sex of the Buddha. The womanly dress further ensures her female identity. These unique features of the Buddha image, not found in other Buddha images at the site, demonstrate the local support for Empress Wu and reveal the local responses to the political reforms that took place in the capital and, specifically, to the establishment of the legitimacy of a female monarch in the early Tang period.
      During the late Tang period when the local ruler Zhang Huaisheng was trying to stablize his position, he chose to construct a large cave next to the North Great Image, the only statue that could be connected with the imperial authority in central China, to declare the legitimacy of his rulership in the Dunhuang region. After the Cao family replaced the Zhang family as the actual ruler of Dunhuang, Cao Yijin also built a large cave near the North Great Image to make his political position visible in the public. In addition to the construction of the new caves, the building that covered the North Great Image was renewed many times by the local rulers in different historical periods. The renovation of the building and the statue continued in the modern era. Although the purposes of these reconstructions vary, they all changed, or added new layers to, the original meaning and function of the image and the building attached to it.