Painted Temple Cabinets of Tibetan Monasteries
Within the dimly lit assembly halls and inner shrines of Tibetan monasteries, the eye is drawn not only to the great gilded statues and silken thangkas but also to the splendidly painted…
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The Tibetan Peoples: History and Significance
The Tibetan peoples are the Indigenous inhabitants of the Tibetan Plateau; the vast highland region of Inner Asia often called the Roof of the World. Numbering roughly seven million today, they are…
Folded Paper Books of the Pali Canon: History and Significance
Across the Theravada Buddhist cultures of mainland Southeast Asia, the teachings of the Buddha have for centuries been preserved in two great manuscript traditions. The first uses inscribed palm leaves bound between…
The Sadaik: A Buddhist Manuscript Chest from Thailand
In the Theravada Buddhist cultures of mainland Southeast Asia, sacred scriptures were never simply books. They were the literal embodiment of the Buddha’s teaching, carriers of the dharma, and as such they…
The Thai People: History and Significance
The Thai people are the dominant ethnic and linguistic group of the Kingdom of Thailand, numbering more than fifty million in a country of roughly seventy million inhabitants. The name Thai is…