Human world

Buddhism and Tibet

"Tibetans would regard most of these artefacts as sacred. The statues and paintings represent aspects of enlightenment. All of them are a source of inspiration. We say that for a Buddhist practitioner the function (of objects) is to support faith, because they encourage the aspiration to acquire the qualities the images represent."

Letter from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to Liverpool Museum (now World Museum Liverpool), 1997.

Siddhartha Gautama founded Buddhism in India over 2500 years ago. After many years of study and meditation, he became the Buddha - the 'Enlightened One'. He spent the rest of his life teaching in India.

The teachings of Buddha spread along the great trade routes of Asia. Different cultures developed different Buddhist viewpoints and practices.

Three main paths emerged:

• The Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle)
• The Mahayana (Great Vehicle)
• The Vajrayana (Thunderbolt Vehicle)

Buddhism is a major part of this display because it shows:

• the large amount of Buddhist material in the collections
• how ideas and beliefs often followed the trade routes across Asia
• how different peoples developed their own ideas and ways of worship from the same basic teachings

Follow the links in the navigation panel to explore more of these collections.