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Buddhism has deeply influenced the character and evolution of Asian civilization over the past 2,500 years. It is based on the teachings of a historical figure, Siddhartha Gautama, who lived around the fifth century BCE. As it moved across Asia, Buddhism absorbed indigenous beliefs and incorporated a wide range of imagery, both local and foreign, into its art and religious practices. Buddhism continues to evolve as a religion in many parts of the world.
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Much of China, a country slightly larger than the continental United States, is hilly or mountainous. To its east lies the Pacific Ocean; to its south thick jungles. Learn more.
Middle School (6-8),High School (9-12),College and Beyond
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What are often thought of as “Indian” art and culture spread not only throughout the modern nation of India but also through Pakistan and Bangladesh. This huge area was never politically unified except under British colonial rule (1858–1947). Learn more.
Known as the “Land of the Thunder Dragon,” Bhutan is a remote Himalayan kingdom located east of Nepal and west of Burma, between Tibet and India. On its northern border, Bhutan is flanked by some of the tallest mountains in the world.
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Buddhism was introduced into Tibet from India and China beginning in the 600s. Over the succeeding centuries, Buddhism became the dominant cultural form in Tibet, exerting a powerful influence not only over religion, but also over politics, the arts, and other aspects of society. Tibetan Buddhism eventually spread into Mongolia and Nepal, as well as into China, where it received imperial patronage especially during the Yuan (1260–1368) and Qing (1368–1644) dynasties.
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Bön, Tibet’s indigenous belief system, is a high form of religious ritualism primarily concerned with righting the causes of human ailment and misfortune and coexisting with the underlying forces of the universe. It focuses on the living, but has a clear sense of an afterlife and seeks to bring benefits and hap- piness in both this world and the world to come.
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A wide variety of spiritual figures makes up the Buddhist pantheon in Bhutan. Many of these deities are the focus of Buddhist practices such as meditations, visualizations, chanting of sacred sounds (mantras), sacred dances (Cham), and other elaborate rituals.
Elementary School (4-5),Middle School (6-8),High School (9-12)
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The earliest surviving representations of the Buddha date from hundreds of years after his death, so they are not portraits in the usual sense. Buddha images vary greatly from place to place and period to period, but they almost always show these conventional features . . .
The vast Tibetan pantheon includes numerous peaceful and wrathful deities, who guide and protect believers on their paths to enlightenment. Among the images of peaceful deities are those of buddhas and bodhisattvas, great teachers, and high monks. Wrathful deities, such as the guardian deities, use their power to protect Buddhism and to destroy the three major obstacles to enlightenment: anger, greed, and ignorance.
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Tibet is located in the heart of Asia, held aloft on a vast mountainous plateau. Besides sharing borders with India to the west and south and China to the east, Tibet is also neighbor to Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Burma (Myanmar) to the south, and Eastern Turkestan to the north.
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The Buddha—that is, the “Enlightened One”—lived nearly 2500 years ago in northern India. His followers have always seen his life as a shining example to all, but what “really happened” is now impossible to know for certain. Even the earliest stories of his life include miraculous events that may seem hard to take literally. Later versions are even more elaborate, and they differ from one another in many details.
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This is the Potala Palace located in Lhasa. It is perched upon a hill called Marpo Ri, which commands a view of the entire city. This hill was where the kings of Tibet lived beginning with Songtsen Gampo in the seventh century. The Fifth Dalai Lama moved his headquarters here from Drepung Monastery in the mid-seventeenth century, and since that time the Dalai Lamas of Tibet resided there (until the exile in 1959 of the present Dalai Lama). This became both the spiritual and political seat of authority.
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Over the centuries four religious movements in Tibet evolved into the four religious orders of Tibetan Buddhism. These orders are all based on Buddhism from India, but they have different founders and lineages of teachers, prefer different sacred texts, and practice different methods of reaching their goals.
In Tibet, religious paintings come in several forms, including wall paintings, thangkas (sacred pictures that can be rolled up), and miniatures for ritual purposes or for placement in household shrines.
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Over the centuries, two main branches of Buddhism emerged: a transmission that traveled to Southeast Asia, and a transmission that evolved in East Asia. A further offshoot of the northern transmission also developed. All three branches began in India, and developed further as they moved across Asia.
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A mandala is a geometric meditation map made of nested squares and circles, typically organized around a central axis and symbolically oriented to the east, south, west, and north...
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“Asia” is a term invented by the Greeks and Romans, and developed by Western geographers to indicate the land mass east of the Ural Mountains and Ural River, together with offshore islands such as Japan and Java.