Lung-men caves ［竜門石窟］ (PY Longmen;  Ryūmon-sekkutsu): A large-scale grouping of Buddhist cave-temples located south of the city of Lo-yang in China. The Lung-men caves extend one kilometer from north to south. The construction of the caves began after Emperor Hsiao-wen of the Northern Wei dynasty had transferred the capital from P’ing-ch’eng to Lo-yang in 494. The Lung-men caves were carved into rocky cliff faces on both banks of the Yi River. Within the cave-temples, statues of the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and other figures were carved out of the rock walls. Among them, a statue of Vairochana Buddha is the tallest, standing more than seventeen meters. The construction continued over a four-hundred-year period into the late T’ang dynasty (618–907). In the thirty years before the transfer of the capital in 494, a number of cave-temples were also built at a site west of P’ing-ch’eng with the support of the same dynasty. These are known as the Yün-kang caves. See also Yün-kang caves.