Nara Buddhist statue cleaned before Bon festival
The Great Buddha statue in the ancient capital of Nara, western Japan, has undergone its annual cleaning ahead of the midsummer Bon Festival. The 15-meter-high statue at Todaiji temple is dusted off every year on August 7. The cleaning is…
5 minutes with… A Nepalese bronze figure of Buddha Ratnasambhava
Jacqueline Dennis Subhash, Head of Christie’s Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art department, explains how and why this sculpture was made, and recalls her visits to the bronze workshops of the Kathmandu Valley Almost half a metre in height, this…
Drought reveals lost temple in Thailand submerged by dam
LOPBURI, Thailand: Thousands are flocking to see a Buddhist temple in central Thailand exposed after drought drove water levels to record lows in a dam reservoir where it had been submerged. As the reservoir reaches less than 3 per cent…
An Giang’s 140-year-old Khmer pagoda
By Phong Vinh This colorful pagoda is a place of worship for Khmer people in Tinh Bien Town, the Mekong Delta province of An Giang. Moi Pagoda, built by the Khmer, is situated on Road 91, 2 km from the…
Rare Ancient Buddhist Text Discovered In Doomed Temple Super-Complex Near Kabul
Archaeologists in Afghanistan have discovered exceptionally rare pieces of an ancient Buddhist manuscript dated to around the seventh century AD at an ancient settlement near Kabul. In the spring of 1963, a French geologist set out from Kabul to survey…
A Saigon pagoda truly open to sentient beings – no doors, no walls
The entrance to the Ky Quang 2 stone pagoda is door-less, following the Buddha’s precept of welcoming all sentient beings. The Ky Quang 2 Pagoda in Saigon’s Go Vap District, built mostly of stone, has no doors. Instead, two statues…
Feature: Candle Festival preserves Thailand’s tradition, craftsmanship
UBON RATCHATHANI, Thailand, July 18 (Xinhua) — Granny Nongyao takes her granddaughter to a temple to make wax carving every year when Thailand enters the Buddhist festival Khao Phansa. The 70-year-old devout buddhist, together with 7-year-old girl who was enjoying…
Ancient statue found in Siem Reap
An incomplete piece of a statue measuring over one metre, thought to be an ancient remain, was found in the northeastern corner of Preah Ko temple in Siem Reap province’s Ov Lork village on Monday. Ly Vanna, director of the…
A surprise sculpture, a book with a dark past and other treasures unveiled
Torrential rain did not keep them away. Well before the opening hour of 9 a.m. on June 8, more than 30 people were lined up at the Turner Lynch Campus Center at Oglethorpe University in Brookhaven. Juggling umbrellas, they carried…