Taking Mogao grotto as example,the seismic resistance characteristics of retain wall type grotto is discussed.Methods for the seismic stability evaluation of surrounding rock and auxiliary structures of grottoes are studied.It is concluded that the method of dynamic analysis can be mainly used in seismic response analysis for large scale grottoes and its auxiliary structures,at the same time,results of pseudo static analysis have to be used as reference.Furthermore,some thoughts and methods of evaluating seismic resistance ability of grottos are put forward.