Dharma Realms: Buddhist Art Across Asia

ACCOMPANYING BOOK: Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia

Realms of the Dharma (LACMA book)

There's a hardcover book, released July 1, 2025, by Editors Tushara Bindu Gude and Stephen Little and a foreword by Michael Govan. It has 5 out of 5 stars with one (1) rating.

It is a remarkable selection of pan-Asian Buddhist art, showcasing the history and diversity of Buddhist schools with examples across sculptures, textiles, reliquaries, manuscripts, and more.

• Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia (2025 LACMA exhibit)

Buddhist Tibet (LACMA)

Published with LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), this gloriously illustrated celebration of Buddhist art addresses the development of Buddhism and its visual language over a period of nearly 2,000 years, as the Teaching (Dharma) traveled across Asia and was embraced by diverse cultures.

Realms of the Dharma brings together more than 200 works of Buddhist art from India, mainland and island Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, Central Asia, and East Asia.

Buddhist Japan (LACMA)

The book is divided into seven chapters, beginning with an introduction to Buddhism and Buddhist art, followed by chapters on South Asia, Southeast Asia, Nepal and Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan.

The artworks, all from the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), offer a broad perspective on the birth of Buddhism in South Asia and its spread throughout the Asian continent over centuries.

The Buddha's tooth relic (srarira) in China

The artworks include a stunning and diverse range of Buddhas, stupas and reliquaries, religious manuscripts, paintings, and sculptures depicting various Buddhist deities, portraits of Buddhist masters, and other ritual objects.

The remarkably successful expansion of Buddhism was in part due to the ability of its principles to be adapted to and assimilated within a range of preexisting belief systems [usually some form of shamanism, animism, or some form of spirit appeasement].

Gorgeously illustrated with over 250 color reproductions of these exemplary artworks and religious objects, this book celebrates that achievement. More