A special exhibition on Southern Buddhism opened at the Museum of World Religions in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和) to mark its 17th anniversary.
When Buddhist Master Hsin Tao (心道) founded the museum, he was given nearly 100 Southern Buddhist artifacts by Buddhist Master Yuan Kuang (遠光), who had been living in the Philippines, museum curator Chen Guo-ning (陳國寧) said on Tuesday.
As Buddhism spread from India, it developed distinct geographical branches, with Northern Buddhism prevalent in the Yellow and Yangtze rivers area of China, and Southern Buddhism in the tributaries of the Mekong, Chao Phraya and Salween rivers area of Indochina, exhibition planner Chung Wei-kai (鍾偉愷) said.
Photo: Weng Yu-huang, Taipei Times
Southern Buddhism preserved more of the original teachings and organizational structures from the time of Gautama Buddha — on whose teachings the religion was founded, Chung said.
The exhibition highlights the history, culture and spiritual practices of Southern Buddhism to contextualize the artifacts on display, including statutes of Buddha and gods, as well as ritual vessels and holy books, he said.
Films, maps and recreations of scenes from religious festivals have been prepared for visitors to the museum, he said.
Artistic and visual portrayals of Buddha have changed over the years, which is illustrated by the statutes of Buddha from the Pagan Kingdom in what is now Myanmar, as well as the Shan people and the Mandalay period in the exhibition, he said.
The exhibition runs through April 21.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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