巴米扬石窟位于阿富汗喀布尔市西北约230公里的兴都库什山脉。本文基于文献记载、考古发现和碳14测年的综合梳理和相互印证,认为巴米扬石窟的营造年代,尤其两大立佛的雕造应以玄奘所记“此国先王之所建也”为准,即公元600年前后;大多数窟龛造像活动应毕功于公元7—8世纪。通过洞窟形制、组合与塑画内容的分析,并结合历史文献,认为巴米扬地区7世纪前后大小乘杂行,与义净所言“理合大小双修,方顺慈尊之训”初出家者“无问大乘小乘,咸同遵此”颇多相符。

The cave-temple complex at Bāmiyān lies in the Hindukush Mountains, about 230 km west of Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. Based on the reorganization of relevant literatures, archaeological discoveries and carbon-14 dating results and the mutual verification among them, the article considers that the age of building the cave-temple complex at Bāmiyān, especially the two giant standing Buddha statues, shall be around 600 CE, the time when they were built by the preceding king of the country as recorded by Xuan Zang. And the completion time of most niches and caves could be dated back to the period from the 7th to 8th centuries. Through analysing the shape and structure of niches and caves at Bāmiyān, the layout and combination, the rich contents of statues and frescoes, as well as historical documents, it also suggests that both Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna all prevailed during the 7th century in Bāmiyān. As Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing thought, these two schools remained rooted in the foundational teachings of the Buddha while different.