Sorry if I inadvertently deleted a valid comment. I have been dealing with a massive spam comment assault.

Buddha image via www.publicdomainpictures.net.

Barbara O’Brien provides a pretty good answer to this question in Lion’s Roar. The questions she addresses include:

• Who Was Buddha?
• What Do We Know About the Historical Buddha?
• Have There Been Other Buddhas?
• What About the Buddhas in Buddhist Art?
• Do Buddhists Worship the Buddha?
• What Did the Buddha Teach?
• What Is Enlightenment?
• Is There a Buddhist Bible?
• Additional Reading

Worth a look!

Taktsang Monastery, Bhutan.

This spectacular photo from Göran Höglund (Kartläsarn)‘s photostream shows the “Tiger’s Nest” monastery of Taktsand. First constructed in 1692, the Buddhist monastery is located in the upper Paro valley in eastern Bhutan. Padmasambhava (“Lotus-Born”) is said to have meditated for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours in a nearby cave.

Also known as Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava is considered by the Nyingma school of Buddhism to be a founder of their tradition. A Tshechu festival is held in his honor in March or April. The festival features masked dancers, similar to these photographed at the Wangdue Phodrang tshechu in central Bhutan by Pradiptaray:

Tsechu cham at the Wangdue Phodrang tshechu, photographed by Pradiptaray .

Gommateshvara Bahubali , Shravanabelagola.

This image from the Indian city of Shravanabelagola (about 160 km km from Bangalore), is from cotaro70‘s photostream. The city is home to an enormous late 10th-century statue of statue of Gomma?e?vara Bahubali. Bahubali, who is said to have meditated motionless in a standing position for a year, is a revered figure in Jainism, and the site is an important Jain pilgrimage center.

Flora of the Cashmere – Gossypium herbaceum + G. arboreum.

This image is taken from Illustrations of the Botany and other Branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains and of the Flora of Cashmere by J. Forbes Royle, 1839. The book was digitised by Missouri Botanical Gardens and is available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

I picked it up from Paul K’s photostream. Paul K (“peacay”) runs one of my favite blogs, Bibliodyssey, from which the image source information above is taken.

Hong Kong Sunset, by Mike Behnken.

I’m reactivating this website after a long period of inactivity while I was working on print projects. (The reactivation began with the previous post, a review of Emperors’ Treasures, the summer exhibition of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.) Books I’ve published in recent years include:

• 1616: The World in Motion
  A global view of a year in the warly seventeenth century
• Landscape with Yellow Birds
  A translation of selected poems from across the career of one of Spain’s greatest poets of the second half of the twentieth century
• River of Ink
  Occasional essays on literature, history, art

Today’s photo, of a Hong Kong sunset, comes from Mike Behnken’s photo stream.

Emperors’ Treasures: Chinese Art from the National Palace Museum, Taipei

Now on view at the Asian Art Museum

Nine goats bring peace to the New Year. Qing dynasty, reign of the Qianlong emperor (1736–1795). Tapestry (kesi) with embroidery. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Gusi 000096. Photograph © National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Emperors’ Treasures, which opened to the public at the Asian Art Museum yesterday and continues through September 18, is an exhibition of greatest hits from the Chinese imperial collections. Objects on display span nearly a millennium of imperial rule, from the time of the early Song-dynasty ruler the Huizong emperor, who reigned in the early twelfth century, through that of the formidable regent Cixi (pronounced something like “Tsuhshee”), the Qing-dynasty counterpoint to England’s Victoria, who ruled by proxy from 1861 through 1908. Objects are grouped around a set of nine Chinese rulers.

Museum exhibitions might be divided into those that are narrative-driven and those that are great objects driven (the latter might be termed “connoisseur shows”). I confess to a preference for narrative, but the objects on display in Emperors’ Treasures are of such high quality and have so rarely toured that this is a show not to be missed if you have any interest at all in imperial Chinese art. If you’re a selective museum-goer who is likely to attend only a couple of AAM exhibitions this year, this one and  the Ramayana show opening in October are the ones to see.

Nandi the bull is the mount of the Hindu god Shiva. I took this photo at the Asian Art Museum, where, unfortunately, the bull is less prominently displayed than it was at the museum’s old location in Golden Gate Park.

A few garlands would help. The museum’s label informs us that

In southern India, a large sculpture of Nandi would usually be placed in front of the main sanctuary of a temple to Shiva. It would face toward the sanctuary, so that Nandi could gaze adoringly at the representation of his master enshrined there. Because of this orientation, worshippers entering the temple compound would approach the sculpture of Nandi from behind.

Here Shiva’s bull is decked with garlands, strings of bells, an elaborate blanket, and other decorations carved in the stone. In the temple, it would also have been wreathed in real flowers and fabrics.

Still, Nandi remains much beloved, and this massive statue 15th-century granite statue is readily accessible in the museum’s south court, where it is well worth a visit.

That’s the title of the exhibition showing at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco through May 27. I received my new camera — an Olympus E-PL2 — a couple of days ago and took of few pictures of the warriors yesterday. The E-PL2 is a micro four thirds mirrorless camera that has a near-DSL-size sensor but a small body. It should be perfect for the travel photography that I like to do.

The AAM display features dark-colored walls and dark rooms with moody lighting. The warriors are not, of course, light sensitive — originally they were brightly painted, but they are never shown that way today — but the exhibition design makes an effective display. Low light situations are not really this camera’s strength, but it performed pretty capably.

The Asian Art Museum (200 Larkin Street in San Francisco’s Civic Center) is hosting a party to celebrate their opening of an exhibition featuring some of the First Emperor’s terra-cotta warriors. The party, beginning at 7:00 this Thursday, February 22, will feature  CHERYL, an artist collective that throws “the Big Apple’s most outrageous party” (Time Out London).

In other news, 7junipers has been inactive for some time dealing with nonvirtual projects. I hope to return to more active blogging. We shall see.

This fellow in a New York mood is Ai Weiwei, self-photographed in 1983. His show at Asia Society just completed, but there is still what looks like an excellent exhibition of Buddhist sculptures from Pakistan at the Asia Society Museum, including this handsome Gandharan bloke, on loan from the Lahore Museum:

This unusual enso based on the character for heart/mind was made by Daido Bunka in the first half of the eighteenth century.

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The Character for ”Heart/Mind” as an Ens?, 18th century, by Daido Bunka (Japan, 1680-1752). Hanging scroll, ink on paper, image 11 3/16 x 21 in. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Edwin Janss, M.84.211.1.

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According to a survey reported in a publication from the Asia Society called Asia in the Schools

• A quarter of all high school students cannot name the ocean that separates North America from Asia.
• Fewer than 2o percent of adults can identify India as the world’s largest democracy.
• Two-thirds of all respondents did not know that Mao Zedong was the first leader of the People’s Republic of China.
• Two-thirds of high school students believe Vietnam is an island nation.

“Take advantage of what exists.” — Laozi

• The politics of heritage : From the Deccan Herald
• “‘A completely new insight into culture and art” : New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts
• “Padma Bhushans have strings attached” : Says Suhas Roy, declining government honors
• Giant solar-powered crane : a 35,000-pound 45-foot-tall living art installation of aluminum tubes and mesh fabric derived from Japanese origami
• Mughal hookah fetches 234,000 pounds at Bonhams : What down economy?
• Andy’s Cambodia: www.andybrouwer.co.uk: 7-Headed bust of Hevajra : Now on display at the Met

I’m back (I think). That was a longer absence than I expected. Well, I’m back for now with a new Friday roundup.

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“Take advantage of what exists.” — Laozi

• Rare Buddha statue unveiled at Ho Chi Minh City Museum : An interesting eighth-century Buddha image
• 50 Years of Iranian animation : An exhibition at  Queensland Art Gallery; a few sample stills are shown
• Kenta Torimoto : Championing Japanese art in Shanghai
• Ten Contemporary Indian Artists : Presented by Ravin Agrawai
• Reviewing 20th-century Chinese art : An interview with Eric Chang

“Take advantage of what exists.” — Laozi

• Maya Lin’s big dig : Museum of Chinese in America to be NY Chinatown’s culture hub
• History of the Khukuri : A national symbol of Nepal
• Jain manuscripts at the Met : An ancient tradition
• Kishi Ganku’s Bamboo Forest : A Superlative Japanese screen
• Manga Kamishibai : The Art Of Japanese Paper Theater
• LACMA’s reinstalled Korean galleries : Joseon porcelains among the highlights
• A family visits the Asian art museum : Korean galleries a highlight
• Photographing Southeast Asia : Prabir Purkayastha at the Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi

Singapore has a tradition of vibrant colored buildings with shutters. This great geometric composition comes from swisscan’s photostream.