Five cave shrines cut from a single granite outcrop in the 1st century BC and in continuous use for over two thousand years – the largest cave contains over 150 gilded Buddha statues and painted ceiling murals covering every surface of the rock above them. The paint has been renewed and added to across 22 centuries of patronage, layering devotion upon devotion in a way that gives the caves an accumulative intensity that purely preserved sites rarely achieve. Late afternoon, when the natural light softens inside the cave entrances, is the best time to visit.