Tun-huang

Tun-huang owes its importance to being the gate of China opening to the West. To the north at An-hsi the route divides to traverse the Lop and Taklamakan deserts. The oasis in which it lies is formed by irrigation of the water from the melted snows of the Altyn Tagh mountains to the south. As soon as the land route to the West was opened Tun-huang began to gather wealth from the Han dynasty, and in the reign of Fu Chien of the Former Ch'in dynasty (A.D. 357-84) a beginning was made with the dedication of the first of the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (Ch'ien Fo-Tung) which have been excavated in a conglomerate scarp some ten miles north of the Tun-huang city in the far west of Kansu.

1959, Basil Gray, Buddhist Cave Paintings at Tun-huang, University of Chicago Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 17

Locked away in the heart of the Gobi desert, four days' camel ride from the nearest town, lies one of the least-known of China's many wonders, the 'Caves of the Thousand Buddhas' at Tun-huang....Situated in a small green valley and surrounded by towering sand dunes, its stands some twelve miles south-west of the township of Tun-huang, which, from Han times onwards, served as China's gateway to the West. Tun-huang, which means 'Blazing Beacon', was thus the last caravan halt in China proper for travellers setting out along the old Silk Road.

1980, Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, Oxford University Press, published 1984, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 156

A manuscript from Tun-huang, in central Asia, on the Great Silk Road (c. 800 CE) describes practices for transferring the energy of bad dreams to physical objects such as pieces of wood or bits of earth that are then destroyed or dispersed.

2009, Robert Moss, The Secret History of Dreaming, New World Library, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 31