Exhibition – The life of the Buddha

Description

From his miraculous birth to the mahaparinirvana – culmination of his journey – come and discover the life of the Buddha.

In 1911, a few months before her first major trip to Asia, Alexandra David-Neel published Buddhist Modernism and Buddha Buddhism.

Wishing to make the doctrine of the Buddha accessible to Westerners, it presents the life of the historical Buddha: Siddhartha Gautama at the origin of the founding texts. As soon as she arrived in India, she completed her study with the ancient texts of Buddhism.

In the esoteric Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Siddhartha Gautama holds a central place. The depiction of episodes of his life constitutes an essential part of the religious arts of the Far Eastern world.

This exhibition reflects this, through a selection of objects partly from the collection of the National Museum of Asian Arts-Guimet (MNAAG) and in particular from the legacy of Jacques Bacot (1877-1965), traveler, Tibetologist and prolific author on Tibet. The exhibition presents rare and precious Tibetan paintings on fabric (thangka), statuettes and small votive stupa, including an exceptional Chinese imperial stupa, belonging to the MNAAG collection, accompanied by letters and manuscripts of Alexandra David-Neel, witness to the breadth and quality of his research on this topic.