Finding Excellence, Part 3: Who is the Best Dancer Here?
Venture into remote places and you will find a joyful purity. During our recent summer fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, northern India, we distributed copies of
Venture into remote places and you will find a joyful purity. During our recent summer fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, northern India, we distributed copies of
Between the full moon of September 2016 and the full moon of September 2017 there will be worldwide commemorations of the 2600th anniversary of the
In this article, I would like to reflect on how to read Japanese Buddhist texts. To explain my strategies for approaching texts distant in time,
Japan’s esoteric Buddhist traditions boast a rich and diverse array of imagery, ranging from figures of individual deities to elaborate mandalas depicting specific deity families
When Chan Buddhist practices were first transmitted to China, they were the same as those practiced in India. Over time, however, the contemplative practices (禪觀)
Victoria Montrose (“Tori” to her friends, a fittingly Japanese epithet) has been immersed in Japanese culture since childhood. Victoria was four when her American father
One needs to take a long view—one that spans vast distances and many centuries—to appreciate the context of the Cham dance traditions that were preserved
The pagodas of Myanmar are tangible, physical expressions of the vast accumulations of merit (Burmese: kutho, also known as hpon) by the Buddhist communities that support
Researching endangered dance traditions as I do, it is usual to chronicle the problems, challenges of discovery, along with the qualities of vanishing practices. So
A member of the Bhutanese Royal Family, Princess Ashi Kesang Choden T. Wangchuck is executive director of Bhutan’s Thangka Conservation Center and a scholar of
The Mogao Caves, located near Dunhuang in the Gobi Desert in northwest China, comprise nearly 500 Buddhist cave temples dating from the 4th to the
Thangka paintings are Tibet’s most plentiful and portable form of sacred art. Less known and rarely seen are the highly prized appliqué thangkas. In fact, when I