Category: the beautiful

Dhamek Stupa

  • The Dhamek Stupa was built in 500 CE to replace an earlier structure commissioned by the great Mauryan king Ashoka in 249 BCE, along with several other monuments, to commemorate the Buddha’s activities in this location. It is located at Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, India.
  • Supa has a height of 43.6 meters and a diameter of 28 meters
  • facade detail

Analysis of the Middle and the Extremes

English translation of the text Analysis of the Middle and the Extremes. From the Chinese translation of the Madhyāntavibhāga-bhāṣya from Sanskrit by Xuanzang 玄奘 (602–664). Part of the BDK English Tripiṭaka Series.

Xuanzang’s disciple Ji 基 (632–682, also known as Kuiji 窺基), gives the following explanation in his commentary on this work:

Nine hundred years after the Buddha passed away, the bodhisattva Asaṅga was born into the world. He went to Maitreya to request a teaching on the great śāstra, the circumstances of which are as explained elsewhere. Maitreya taught the verses (kārikā) of this śāstra, called the “Verses Analyzing the Middle and Extremes,” which Asaṅga received and subsequently passed onto Vasubandhu to have them explained in detail. Hence, this prose was produced by Vasubandhu, called Śāstra Analyzing the Middle and Extremes (Madhyānta- vibhāga-bhāṣya).

 

Nur Jahan Begum

Nur Jahan Begum (Shah Jahan’s wife)    |    199 x 122 mm   |    Mughal    |    c.1760-80
Inscribed beneath in Persian: Nur Jahan Begum (Shah Jahan’s wife).
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London

 

Byōdō-in temple

 

 

Byōdō-in (平等院, “Temple of Equality”) is a Buddhist temple in the city of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, built in the late Heian period. It is jointly a temple of the Jōdo-shū (Pure Land) and Tendai-shū sects.

Bodisattva’s [ (木造雲中供養菩薩像 ]    |    Heian Period 1053 CE    |    40.0–87.0 cm (15.7–34.3 in)

Josetsu – catching a catfish with a gourd

Catching a catfish with a gourd (瓢鮎図, Hyō-nen-zu) is a hanging scroll painting by the 15th-century artist Josetsu (如拙). The painting was executed in c. 1415 and is held by Taizō-in, a sub-temple of the Myōshin-ji complex of Zen Buddhist temples in Kyoto. It is one of the earliest suiboku (ink wash) paintings in Japan and was designated as a National Treasure of Japan in 1951. The painting is accompanied by many inscriptions, and may be considered an example of shigajiku (a “poem-and-painting scroll”).

Josetsu was born and trained as an artist in China but settled in Japan. He was one of the first suiboku painters working in Japan in the Muromachi period.

The work was inspired by a riddle set by Ashikaga Yoshimochi, the fourth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate: “How do you catch a catfish with a gourd?” The full scroll measures 111.5 cm × 75.8 cm (43.9 in × 29.8 in), with long inscription above the painting recording the shōgun’s rhetorical question and also that Josetsu drew an answer, and naming 31 leading Zen monks who each provide a written response to the shōgun’s question.

wikipedia entry

Ram Das

The Mogul Emperor Babur receives the envoys Uzbeg and Rauput in the garden at Agra on the 18th December 1528    |    illustration to the Wariat-i-Barbari by Ram Das    |    c.1590

thanks to @arthistorian18

Kizil Caves

The Kizil Caves (simplified Chinese: 克孜尔千佛洞; traditional Chinese: 克孜爾千佛洞; lit. ‘Kizil Caves of the Thousand Buddhas’; Uighur: قىزىل مىڭ ئۆي, lit. ‘The Thousand Red Houses’; also romanized Qizil Caves, spelling variant Qyzyl; Kizil means ‘red’) are a set of Buddhist rock-cut caves located near Kizil Township (克孜尔乡, Kèzī’ěr Xiāng) in Baicheng County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, China.    |    3rd century CE    |    wikipedia entry

Rubens

Rubens    |    Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars    |    ca 1630    |    National Gallery, London

203.5 cm (80.1 in) x 298 cm (117.3 in)