Unveiling ancient treasures: Met Museum's 'Tree & Serpent' shines a light on early Buddhist art in India

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Metropolitan Museum's beyond beautiful «Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 B.C.E.-400 C.E.,» five red-robed monks chanted Pali blessings, the vocalized equivalent of oceanic silence. The ancient sculptures around them projected a different, visual music: Forest birds sang, mythical creatures roared, and semidivine and human figures clapped their hands and danced as if at some riotous summer party. There were other contrasts at the opening, too, less evident.

Given the monumental glow of the sculptures, each lighted to look deep-carved from darkness, you probably wouldn't think to guess at the difficult, always tentative process — logistical and diplomatic, extending over a decade — that went into gathering them, with more than 50 on loan from India for the first time. It says something about those curatorial struggles that we haven't seen such a display of ancient art from India, on this scale, in a U.S. museum in years, and are unlikely to again soon.

So when the Met's curator of South and Southeast Asian art, John Guy, stepped up to a microphone to thank a group of visiting Indian museum directors, his words had particular resonance. These were the people who had basically given permission for this show to happen. Buddhism itself, in its fundamental form, is a permission-giving faith, offering us myriad ways to save our souls, including through practices of generosity.