Chen Huili reinforces a stone statue of the Dazu Rock Carvings in Chongqing in 2018. Photo: Courtesy of Chen Huili

If not for the recent heat that caused water levels to drop at the Yutan Reservoir in Chongqing Municipality's Dazu district, rock carving conservator Chen Huili might never have seen what was hidden beneath the water - 27 well-preserved Song Dynasty (960-1279) cliff carvings. 

Including a statue of the Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara (lit: Shui Yue Guanyin), this unexpected batch of rock carvings bears a striking resemblance to its nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Dazu Rock Carvings, and is an "integral part" of the more than 1200-year-old legacy, Chen said. 

As the core conservator of the Dazu Rock Carvings for more than 30 years, the newly discovered pieces of rock art excited Chen. She told the Global Times that their appearance has not just extended the spatial scope of the Dazu Rock Carvings site, but also extended her pride to her lifetime conservation career.

"Though I retire this year, I'm blessed to still feel its [the Dazu Rock Carvings] 'heartbeat'." 

Eight years, one project 

A statue of Haritri (lit: Helidimu) in a niche is one of the 27 newly uncovered sculptures. The statue's depiction of a mother nurturing infants represents an iconographic theme also previously noted among the Dazu Rock Carvings. 

Chen told the Global Times that it is precisely themes like these that set the Dazu Rock Carvings apart from other rock carving sites."Much like the maternal bond depicted in this statue, the defining characteristic of the Dazu Rock Carvings lies in their portrayals of ordinary folk life," Chen noted. 

Compared to similar sites like the Yungang and Longmen grottoes (in Central China), which depict spiritual scenes and deities, the Dazu Rock Carvings are easy to grasp but also possess profound meanings. 

Given the statue of Haritri, there are stone-carved herding buffalo, and statues depicting a herdsman taming his beast- an artistic metaphor for one's journey of mind mastery. 

Started during the early Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Dazu Rock Carvings saw their heyday in the Northern and the Southern Song Dynasty while boasting 75 cave temple sites, including more than 50,000 statues. 

Chen, 60, has visited every temple in the complex. Years of scaling cliffs and squeezing through rock crevices have given her the "professional hazard" of lumbar spondylosis. She can easily identify any of the 50,000 statues by touch alone, blindfolded. 

Yet, among all of them, none resonates with her more deeply than the statue of Guanyin with a Thousand Hands (lit: Qianshou Guanyin). Covered in gold and intricate color-painted patterns, the Guanyin with One Thousand Hands in Dazu is China's largest stone-carved work of art of its kind, and has taken Chen 8 years of restoration work. 

Back in 2008, the statue was about to undergo its first restoration, though its 34 "diseases" paled next to Chen's core dilemma: With no existing blueprint for reconstructing the intricate hand gestures, she and her team could only restore it while learning. "When restoring the main statue's right hand, we went to countless grotto sites across the country that house Qianshou Guanyin, yet still felt we weren't doing full justice to the Dazu statue's historical authenticity," said Chen. 

At that time, Chen's team had made a staggering 1,066 different restoration plans for the Guanyin statue. Yet, like deciphering Leonardo's mirror script, Chen and her team had finally applied a reverse repairing method to preserve the statue's originality. She had also made a bold decision to restore the Guanyin's hand as detachable modules for smoothing future maintenance.  

Getting up around 7 am and finishing work near midnight, Chen said that she had experienced "more than 3000 such days." In 2015, the statue's restoration was finished, marking a paradigm shift in the country's restoration of immovable cultural heritages. "I, of course, cried back then. My tears were of gratitude, relief, and a pride in the spirit of Chinese cultural relic conservators," Chen said.  

Chen Huili repairs the statue of Qianshou Guanyin in 2014. Photo: Courtesy of Chen Huili

Flaming passion

Years of experience have instilled in Chen not just professional pride, but also hard-won expertise. 

By treating relics like "patients," Chen has developed a four-step diagnosis method featuring observation, olfactive, inquiry, and tactile assessments. When facing ancient rock art, her eyes quickly sweep over it to identify most surface-level problems. Then, by "smelling" the air around the artifact, the expert can detect subtle humidity shifts - a vital factor in preserving relics in humid environments like Chongqing.  

"We also ask people, like local villagers who live around the relics, for information, and use hands to palpate relic surfaces or use needles to test the relics' weathering problems just like a doctor applies acupuncture needles," Chen explained. 

Though inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, Chen's four-step method evolved to integrate modern technologies like CT scans and 3D mapping - a fusion she calls an East-meets-West heritage conservation with over 95 percent accuracy. "Only through the fusion of tradition and modernity can the Dazu Rock Carvings maintain their charm in the present day," Chen noted. 

Now serving as the director of the Dazu Rock Carvings Academy's Protection Engineering Center, Chen describes her bond with these stone masterpieces as a "fated dream." 

Back in the 1990s, she was a textile factory technician who unexpectedly stepped into the world of cultural heritage. Starting as a museum docent, Chen later channeled her industrial chemistry expertise into pioneering conservation work. Driven by an indomitable spirit, she not only restored the Dazu legacies but also brought China's grotto heritage to the global stage, such as Italy and Japan.

"Two trips to Italy, nine years apart. The first time, foreign colleagues saw me as a student. The second time, they recognized me as a peer," Chen said, adding that her own experience is a reflection of "China's meteoric rise in heritage conservation."