Between 200BC and AD600, Indian religious traditions underwent a profound visual metamorphosis. Deities once represented abstractly — through thrones, footprints or trees — began to take anthropomorphic forms. Ancient India: Living Traditions, which opens at the British Museum this week, traces the evolution of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain art. It explores the deepening popular need to see, interact with and be reassured by sacred figures in tangible ways; and it reveals how religious imagery took hold not only in South Asia but beyond — along the Silk Roads into central Asia and China, and into south-east Asia too.
公元前200年至公元600年間，印度宗教傳統經歷了深刻的視覺變革。曾經以寶座、足跡或樹木等抽象形式表現的神祇，開始以擬人化的形象出現。本週在大英博物館(British Museum)開幕的《古印度：活的傳統》展覽，追溯了印度教、佛教和耆那教藝術的演變歷程。展覽探討了人們對於以有形方式看見、互動並從神聖形象中獲得安慰的需求日益增強；同時揭示了宗教影像不僅在南亞(South Asia)紮根，還沿絲綢之路(Silk Roads)傳播到中亞、中國以及東南亞。