Nestorianism was the first branch of Christianity brought to China. After breaking from the Western church during the Council of Ephesus in 431 over differences concerning the nature of the Holy Trinity, Nestorians took refuge in Persia and dispersed widely through Asia.
The primary goal of the Conservation department at the Asian Art Museum is to preserve the museum’s collection for future generations. This goal is achieved through a number of activities including controlling the surrounding environment, performing conservation treatment, and researching fabrication methods and deterioration processes.
Socially, economically, and artistically, a pleasure quarter formed its own culture in which courtesans were distinguished from ordinary prostitutes and elevated to the level of icons of
femininity...
Daoism is an indigenous Chinese religion. Tao is often translated as “way” or “path.” The teachings of Daoism advocate following the Way and integrating with the natural world.
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.
When we consider acquiring an object for the Asian Art Museum’s collection, our first step is to focus a trained eye on it...
View vocabulary related to the Edo period (1615-1868) in Japan.
Edo had a distinct consumer society born of the necessity to support the immense numbers of military living there. Learn more.
After 150 year of civil war, the Shogunate was determined to enforce and maintain a stable society. The Shogunate further extended its control of the people through a class system with social and economic constraints. Learn more.
Tea played an important role in the shaping of culture in the Edo period (1615-1868). Learn more.
The rulers of India have for many centuries ridden in elaborate howdahs (thrones or covered pavilions on the backs of elephants) as they went into battle or on the hunt for antelope and tiger. Elephants have also carried rajas and emperors on state occasions, and, when richly decorated and caparisoned, elephants have been the highlight of many a ceremonial procession.
In the early years of Western sea exploration, traders and missionaries began returning to Europe with stories and goods from their visits to China. Information about China was spread through books, prints, and export items, such as porcelain and textiles. Reports compiled by Jesuit missionaries fueled the curiosity of the public and inspired chinoiserie, the evocation of Chinese motifs in art, furniture, architecture, and gardens. Just as Jesuits translated important authors such as Euclid into Chinese, they also translated Confucian works into Latin.
There are a number of clues as to why the furnishing of tombs and the proper respect for ancestors was felt to be vital in early China.
Learn more about the various formats of Chinese painting.
Background information on the Hindu deity, Ganesha, and Hindu architecture.
The stone pagoda structure is called the Great Wild Goose Pagoda enclosed within the Ci’en (Temple of Mercy) monastery in present-day Xi’an. It was erected in 652 to commemorate the return of the temple’s abbott, the celebrated monk Xuanzang. This heroic figure to Chinese Buddhist history traveled west across the Silk Road and throughout India for sixteen years, exploring the homeland of Buddhism before returning with hundreds of sutras (Buddhist texts).
The first record of tea drinking in Japan occurs early in the Heian period (794–1185) whenit was introduced to the Japanese aristocracy by scholar-monks returning from Tang dynasty China. Learn more.
Himeji Castle is among the finest surviving examples of the defensive structures built in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as samurai strongholds and symbols of power. Learn more.
Hinduism has a number of holy texts or scriptures. The best known are two epic poems, the Ramayana (Story of Rama) and the Mahabharata (The Great Chronicle of the Bharata Dynasty). How did the Story of Rama reach Southeast Asia? The religions of Hinduism and Buddhism (and, later, Islam), with their related literatures, were carried to Southeast Asia by merchants and pilgrims. Learn more.
Hindu temples are numerous in form, and probably evolved from a variety of sources, including the worship of natural sites, mounds, trees, due to the need for a place to conduct ritual practices and house images of deities. Learn more.
Religion pervades many aspects of Hindu life, and religious observance is not limited to one location, time of day, or use of a particular text. It assumes many forms: in the home, at the temple, on a pilgrimage, through yogic practices, dance or music, at the roadside, by the river, through the observation of one’s social duties and so on. Learn more.
Learn about Hinduism in Bali.
Japan’s Edo period dates from 1615, when Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated his enemies at Osaka Castle, to 1868, when the Shogun’s government collapsed and the Meiji emperor was reinstated as Japan’s main figurehead. This 250-year period takes its name from the city of Edo that started out as a small castle town and grew into one of the largest cities of the modern world, now called Tokyo. Learn more.
Search Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA) for oral histories, letters, diaries, photographs, newspapers and other records.
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 . . .
Learn how to read a woodblock print.
Beginning in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (ca. 1071‒ 221 BCE) was the development of the so-called ‘hundred schools’ of philosophy, a creative flowering of genius that laid the foundations for all major schools of Chinese thought with the exception of Buddhism. At this time, philosophers began to travel around from court to court offering advice on everything from how to run the state, how to achieve victory in battle and how to achieve immortality. The most famous systems of thought to develop during this time were . . .
This image shows mountains and harvested rice in the autumn near the village of Andong in South Korea. Andong has been preserved as a traditional village, and exhibits both upper- and lower-class houses from the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). The Korean peninsula is filled with mountains. Mountains form natural barriers and also create distinctive regions within Korea. Rice is a staple crop in Korea. Land formed the basis of wealth for most of Korean history. Rice was harvested not only for food, but also to pay for taxes.
