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Serindia Publications
PO Box 10335
Chicago, IL  60610-0335
TEL312-664-5531
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Featured Titles


           
 

Hidden Treasures of the Himalayas
Tibetan Manuscripts, Paintings and Sculptures of Dolpo
Amy Heller

   

Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam
Edited by Virginia C. Raguin, Dina Bangdel and F. E. Peters

   

Ladakh 1974-2008: A Photographic Homage
Jaroslav Poncar

 
 

In 1999, a hidden library was found in the Nesar Temple at a remote village of Bicher, in Dolpo, Nepal. It contains more than six hundred volumes of Tibetan manuscripts, ranging in date from the late 11th to the early 16th century. This library in many ways constitutes a cultural history of Dolpo in this period thanks to some sixty volumes with historical prefaces explaining the...  >More

   

Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam explores pilgrimage as experienced in Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim faith communities. It addresses shared goals of personal development and communal solidarity as deep human needs. Unique in scope, this richly illustrated catalogue addresses religious diversity in a global perspective.

Dating from the 12th...  >More

   

Ladakh 1974–2008: A Photographic Homage by Jaroslav Poncar is a rare tribute to Ladakh, the ‘Land of Passes’ — one of the most beloved landscapes of the Himalayas. Poncar is one of the first Westerners to travel to Ladakh when it was open for visitors in 1974. His countless trips and his love for Ladakh resulted in this retrospective collection of photographs that...  >More

 
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Serindia News 2010

CURRENT EXHIBITION AT SERINDIA GALLERY, BANGKOK

AVALOKITEŚVARA: Buddhist Paintings from Nepal, Selections by Robert Beer
11 March - 25 April 2010

www.serindiagallery.com, or Facebook Serindia Gallery

The Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteśvara, is widely adored and venerated throughout the Buddhist world, many of his unique Newar aspects are still unknown outside the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. In this exhibition, Robert Beer has chosen to present both popular and rare aspects of Lokeshvara in this exhibition, along with those that are more widely known within the Indo-Tibetan or Mahayana Buddhist traditions.

Robert Beer is internationally-renowned author of the Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs (Serindia Publications) and a specialist of Buddhist paintings from Nepal. His selections for this exhibition include pieces from living master painters in Nepal.

Avalokiteśvara, the ‘Beholding Lord’, is the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron deity of Tibet, whose principal emanation is the Dalai Lama, and who is invoked by the famous six-syllable mantra: OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUM. In the Newar Buddhist tradition of Nepal he is commonly known as Lokeśvara, the ‘Lord of the World’, or as Mahakarunika, the ‘Great Compassionate One’, who has a hundred-and-eight different manifestations. And in China he is strongly identified with the Goddess of Mercy, Guan Shi Yin (觀世音), she who ‘Hears the Cries of this World’, who likewise has a hundred-and eight different manifestations.

According to a popular legend Avalokiteśvara once vowed that he would first free all beings from suffering before attaining liberation himself, so he set about this task with great effort. But when he saw how few he had so far saved compared to how many still remained, his sudden despair caused his head and body to explode into many pieces. Seeing his plight, Amitabha Buddha then came swiftly to his aid, and from all the shattered fragments reconstructed his body into a far more powerful form, with eleven heads and a thousand arms, so that he was able to gaze compassionately over all beings in the ten directions and reach out to them with his many arms. Another legend tells how two lakes were formed from Avalokiteśvara’s tears of despair, and from these lakes arose the lotus-borne forms of Green and White Tara.

Avalokiteśvara is the principal Bodhisattva or ‘Spiritual Son’ of red Amitabha Buddha, who presides over the western direction as the ‘Lord of the Padma or Lotus Family’, whose symbol is a lotus. In the Newar tradition Lokeshvara most popular aspect is as Padmapani, the ‘Lotus-bearer’, who stands gracefully upon a lotus-pedestal while holding the stem of a lotus in his left hand. Lokeshvara is usually white or sometimes red in colour, with two, four, eight or a thousand arms, and his characteristic emblem is an antelope-skin that is draped over his left shoulder.


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