Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Buddhist art of Pakistan (Lahore Museum)

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Team No Limit Creativity, Business Consultants (NLC360.com, facebook); LahoreMuseum.org (VIRTUAL TOUR)
Lahore Museum exhibits (lahoremuseum.org/No Limit Creativity/NLC360.com)
Lahore Museum Virtual Tour (No Limit Creativity, business consultants, NLC360.com)
 
The Lahore Museum (لاہور میوزیم لاہور عجائب گھر) was originally established in 1865-66 on the site of the hall of the 1864 Punjab Exhibition (Government of Pakistan).
 
Maitreya, 5th cent. BCE (MOW)
It was shifted in 1894 to its present site on The Mall in Lahore, in the Punjab region of India (which 1947's Partition became the country of Pakistan due to upheavals created by British colonial rule).

Rudyard Kipling's father, John Lockwood Kipling, was one of the earliest and most famous curators of the museum. Over 250,000 visitors were registered in 2005. The current building complex that houses the Lahore Museum was designed by the well-known architect Sir Ganga Ram.

Gandhara Buddhist art (WQ)
The Museum is the biggest museum in the new country and full of exquisite Gandhara (Greco-Indian fusion) art. Many rooms have been under repair for a long time, and others still show a rather old-fashioned and often rudimentary display of objects, with captions only in Urdu (the local language).

There are important relics from the Indus Valley Civilization (Indus River Valley), Ghandara and Greco-Bactrian periods as well as some Tibetan and Nepalese work on display. The museum has a number of Greco-Buddhist sculptures, Mughal and Pahari paintings on display. The Fasting Buddha from the Ghandara period is one of the most famous objects of the museum. More

What was Gandhāra?
Gandhāra (Sanskrit गन्धार, Pashto ګندارا‎, Urdu گندھارا‎) was an ancient kingdom in the Swat and Kabul river valleys and the Pothohar Plateau [that border modern Iran in the southwest in the province of Seistan-Balochistan west of ancient Mohenjo-daro].

These are in the modern-day states of northern Pakistan and northeastern Afghanistan (Gandhara Civilization). Its main cities were Purushapura (modern Peshawar), literally meaning "City of Men" (Encyclopædia Britannica: Gandhara) and Takshashila (modern Taxila). More
 
Lahore Museum: A Gallery of Our Culture, Guided Tour cover (library.tcdc.or.th)
View virtual tour properly using Flash Player Version 9.0.28 or later (NLC360.com).
First images of the Buddha, Gandhara, Lahore Museum, Pakistan (Bijapuri Ed Sentner/flickr)

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