Curated category
Buddhist art
- Tapa ShotorTapa Shotor, also known as Tape Shotor or Tapa-e-shotor meaning Camel Hill, stands near Hadda in Afghanistan. This location served as a large Sarvastivadin…
- Greco-BuddhismIn 326 BC, Alexander the Great crossed the Indus River and fought King Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes. This military engagement marked the furthest…
- Iconography of Gautama Buddha in Laos and ThailandBuddhists in Laos and Thailand do not view Buddha images as mere artistic representations of a historical figure. They believe that a properly rendered image…
- Hadda, AfghanistanThe site of Hadda sits ten kilometers south of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province. This location in eastern Afghanistan marks a Greco-Buddhist…
- Buddhas and bodhisattvas in artA relief carving at the Plaosan temple in Java dates to the 9th century and depicts the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. Viewers often struggle to distinguish…
- Buddhist architectureThe Relic Stupa of Vaishali in Bihar, India stands as the earliest archaeologically known stupa. This structure emerged during the 5th century BCE when…
- Greco-Buddhist artAlexander the Great's military campaign reached the Indian subcontinent in 326 BC, bringing Greek culture to regions that would later become the heart of…
- Buddhist artIn the 2nd century BCE, a sculptor in Gandhara carved a footprint into stone. This mark replaced any human image of Siddhartha Gautama for centuries.
- EmakimonoThe earliest surviving Japanese handscroll dates to the 8th century and depicts the life of Gautama Buddha. This work, known as the Shigisan Engi Emaki…
- Buddhas of BamiyanThe Bamiyan Valley sits at an elevation of 1,800 meters in the Hindu Kush mountains. Here, two monumental Buddhist reliefs were carved possibly around the…
- BhavacakraThe word bhavachakra combines two Sanskrit terms: bhava meaning being or worldly existence, and chakra meaning wheel. Monier Monier-Williams published his…
- Buddha in artFor the first few centuries after Gautama Buddha's death, artists avoided showing his human form. Early Buddhist communities relied on symbols to represent…