The Himalayas & Tibetan Buddhist World

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.

Islam has been an important cultural force in much of Asia for more than five hundred years, and in some parts for more than a thousand. Today, far more Muslims live in other parts of Asia than in the Arab areas of Asia such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

Jeffrey Durham, Assistant Curator of Himalayan Art at the Asian Art Museum discusses the secrets of the Svayambhu Stupa in the Asian Art Museum’s collection.

An introduction to the Rama epic produced for the Asian Art Museum by filmmaker and cultural historian Benoy K. Behl, featuring performances from across South and Southeast Asia.

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.

Students will discuss how our perceptions of other cultures, in this case Tibet, are subjective and colored by myths.

A short documentary on The Stupa, a hemispherical mound that represents the burial mound of the Buddha.