Art of Buddhism: Awesome Online Exhibit

The Pacific Asian Museum in Pasadena, California has a terrific interactive web exhibit called Visions of Enlightenment: Understanding the Art of Buddhism. It works as a great web quest for students.

The exhibit has four sections. The first includes the history of the Buddha, including his birth, his attainment of enlightenment, and his death.

A section about Buddhist places reviews where Buddhism spread in Asia. You will tour Sri Lanka where the Buddha himself spread his teachings. In Cambodia, you will learn about the great Buddhist temple at Angkor, and in Viet Nam you will learn about the Thein Mu Pagoda in Hue where in 1963, Thich Quang Du burned himself to death to protest the persecution of Buddhism.

The third section reviews Bodhisattvas (Buddhists who can attain nirvana but delay it so that they can help others), deities and holy men. You’ll meet the Bodhisattva Avalokitshvara, a Buddhist deity, with his eleven heads and eight arms. The heads allow him to see in all directions and the arms allow him to assist all in suffering.

You’ll also meet another Buddhist deity called Manjushri who sits astride a lion and represents wisdom. And finally, you’ll learn about disciples of the Buddha who have gained enlightenment called arhats and lohans. Arhats are Tibetian sages who have attained freedom from rebrith and the cycle of suffering. And lohans are sages who “followed the Eightfold Path and achieved deliverance of this earthly existence.”

A final section about Buddhist signs and symbols reviews prayer beads and wheels, mandalas, and even Zen staffs, paintings on a bamboo branch showing  a staff. Some Zen Buddhist monks used them to strike students who were nodding off!

It’s an engaging exhibit and offers students an excellent opportunity to review the growth and spread of Buddhism. Here’s a copy of the web quest I created for my students.