Month: November 2022
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Mysterious legends surround Gwanchok Temple’s ‘Future Buddha’ statue
By Dale Quarrington You might not know the name of the statue. And you might not know the name of the temple where the statue is housed. In fact, you might not even know the city or the province where you might find this historic national treasure. However, once your eyes meet the “Stone Standing […]
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On the Ponniyin Trail: Here are the five places that tread the path of the Cholas in Sri Lanka
The Chola dynasty— one of the longest-ruling dynasties in world history—has once again caught the public imagination. Filmmaker Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan I, or PS1, which is based on Tamil literature’s most-visited text by Kalki Krishnamurthy, brings to life Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka’s stupas, lush forests and lotus-filled ponds. As a Ponniyin fan, though, […]
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Gandhara, the ancient kingdom that gave world its first Buddha sculptures
The anthropomorphised Buddha made way for narrative reliefs depicting his life, replete with iconography borrowed from Graeco-Roman and subcontinental cultures. Gandharan Sculpture: A genre of sculpture that arose and developed between 100 BCE and 700 CE in the ethnically diverse and religiously tolerant cultures of the ancient region of Gandhara, in the northwest of the […]