OVERVIEW
  In Mahayana Buddhist teaching, it is proposed that a perfectly enlightened buddha has three bodies: a truth body (dharmakaya), a beatific body (sambhogakaya), and an emanation body (nirmanakaya). The first of these is the absolute oneness of all buddhas, non-buddhas, and things, experienced as the truth of reality by a buddha. The second is a subtle body of bliss, nondual from the absolute body but personally enjoyed by each buddha being and only perceived by other beings very close to that attainment. The third is the myriad embodiments buddhas manifest in order to communicate with alienated beings: It has three types, ideal (parama - Shakyamuni Buddha et al.), incarnational (janma - all sorts of beings who introduce others to freedom and happiness), and artistic (silpa – all sorts of artistic representations of buddhas’ bodies, speech, and mind). The objects in this milestone exhibition are traces of the artistic emanation body, manifesting the great variety and creativity of many peoples throughout the hard history of Asia who were inspired by some sort of encounter with higher beings who walked among them.
It is with a great sense of pride and delight that we present the "Out of Uddiyana" exhibit for the first time in the Tibet House gallery. We in this way wish to honor Nik Douglas’ life’s work of dedication to the Dharma, interdisciplinary scholarship and research, avid connoisseurship and arduous efforts to collect an extraordinary body of work documenting this central vein of the artistic emanation body. Our highest hope in doing so is to inspire a modern day emperor Ashoka to take the entire collection and manifest it in various venues throughout the world, ultimately, ideally, resting in a national museum in a culturally liberated Free Tibet. As Von Schroeder has so skillfully documented, Tibet’s dedicated lama scholars had already been collecting an extraordinary range of Buddha images from other lands, and the amazing manifestations in this exhibit would complement them wonderfully. Imperishable Tibet, of course, has been broken open as the last bastion of the living tradition of human education for freedom that came “Out of Uddiyana,” and nevertheless will be the seminal font whence the undying tradition will burst forth yet again to give life around the world of suffering beings, as promised long ago and still today by the compassionate Shakyamuni as the Kalachakra Buddha (planetary Time Machine for the positive evolution of all beings).
Even if this imperiled planet is not fortunate enough to see this happen and the Buckingham Collection does not find a permanent home where it most surely definitely belongs, we hope that the manifestations gathered in the exhibition will find their way here and there to continue to inspire individuals to use their precious human lives in the evolutionarily most meaningful way to create real human values in themselves and others.
We are thankful to Nik Douglas and his family for choosing our humble venue in which to exhibit the treasures he has been collecting for many decades.
Robert A. F. "Tenzin" Thurman
President, Tibet House US
Je Tsongkhapa Professor on Indo-Tibetan Studies, Columbia University, New York, USA.
Tibet House is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help preserve Tibetan Culture in exile. |
