Sunday, January 27, 2013

At The Museum

Singapore’s Asian Civilizations Museum is hosting two exhibitions congruently, both of  them of interest to Buddhists. The first, Exploring the Cosmos, about the stupa, is relatively small but has several pieces of great importance, the main one being the exquisite grey schist stupa from Gandhara. The second much larger exhibition called Enlightened Ways, covers a range of Thai art from the earliest centuries up to the present. Both exhibitions  run until 17/18 of  April.









2 comments:

Ananda See施性国 said...

One Wheel of Dhamma has many spokes and the other has 14. I thought Wheels of Dhammas were supposed to have eight spokes, representing the Noble Eightfold Path.

Shravasti Dhammika said...

Dear Ananda, today the wheel as a symbol for Buddhism is often depicted with eight spokes representing the Noble Eightfold Path although this is a relatively recent, probably 20th century innovation. In the scriptures the Dhamma wheel, called either the Supreme Wheel (brahmacakka) or Highest Wheel (anuttara dhammacakka, A.III,9; 148), was perceived as being ‘a thousand-spoked’(D.III,60). In the earliest Buddhist art the wheel is always depicted with numerous spokes, an attempt to suggest the thousand spokes.