It would be difficult to approach Indian art without considering its religious traditions. Early on, images of nature gods pervaded India's sculpture and architectural reliefs. This tradition continued long after Buddhism became a major religion. Guatama Siddhartha was born a prince in India around 563 BCE. Having renounced his royal status (at around the age of 29), he wandered into the wilderness to seek enlightenment (nirvana). Having achieved this, he began his life as a teacher and spread his wisdom to a group of devotees, who would spread his knowledge - creating the foundation for Buddhism. By around the third century BCE, Buddhist imagery and architecture began to appear, as in the elaborately sculptured gates that surround the Great Stupa in Sanchi.

The Yakshi above is a female fertility spirit, a leftover symbol from an ancient religion which venerated nature gods. Though Buddhism is often seen as a religion of renunciation, it actually embraces sensuality in order to transcend it. The voluptuous body of the yakshi suggests her powers of fertility. She wraps herself around the branches, causing it to flower.

The very earliest Buddhist images did not even depict the Buddha, instead symbolizing him with his empty throne or the Bodhi tree under which he is known to have attained enlightenment. Several centuries after his death, we begin to see images of the Buddha seated on his throne or on a lotus flower (symbol of enlightenment).

This tilted head of Buddha would have once sat on his full body, similar to the one at right (they are from the same region, now part of Pakistan). This area had extensive contacts with the Roman empire at this time, which influenced the western-style of hair, linear carving of features and graceful swirls of Greco-Roman draperies.

By the end of the 7th century, Buddhism had spread its influence to China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. It was, however, supplanted in India by a revival of Hinduism, which now remains the dominant religion.

Hinduism is populated by a pantheon of distinct deities... too many for me to mention in this brief introduction. The three major Hindu deities include Brahma (Creator), Shiva (Destroyer), and Vishnu (Preserver), which constitutes the Great Trinity. The Vishnu at right dreams the world while he sleeps. He is usually thought of as benevolent and mild, granting salvation to his followers for their devotion.

Some of the most interesting archeological sites are the many temples and palaces built in Angkor, India. Created by Khmer kings, the imagery tends to combine both Buddhist and Hindu traditions. The gateways to the ancient temple city of Angkor Thom were protected by immense towers carved with giant faces of Boddhisattvas surveying the four directions.

The Temple of Angkor Wat was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu during the middle of the 12th Century. The temple took over 30 years to construct, and it enshrines some of the world's most beautiful examples of Khmer, Buddhist and Hindu Art. Covering an area exceeding 80 acres, the ancient complex consists of five towers - representing the five peaks of Mount Meru, the Home of the Gods, and the center of the Hindu Universe. The site was left by the Khmer people in the 15th century, and was not rediscovered until 1861, when the French hacked it out of the jungle that crept up around it.

In 1974, well-diggers accidentally uncovered part of the tomb complex of the first emperor of China, Shi Huang Di. Buried since 210 BCE, the life-size soldiers guarded the tomb in military formation, accompanied by horses and attendants... totalling over 7000 figures! The scale of such a project is an amazing feat in itself, but one's appreciation increases when we discover that each sculpture is an individual persona. None are replicated, and the degree of naturalism in each suggests that the emperor had a large group of very accomplished sculptors. More recently, further archeological digs in this region have unearthed a similar array of scribes (clerks), suggesting that the entire court may have gone into the tomb.

Hokusai (1760-1849), Japan's best known artist, lived during the Shogun period - at which time Japan had sealed itself off from the rest of the world. Contact with Western culture was forbidden. Nevertheless, Hokusai discovered and studied the European copper-plate engravings that were being smuggled into the country. Here he learned about scientific perspective, shading, coloring, realism, and landscape perspective. He introduced all of these elements into woodblock and ukiyo-e art and thus revolutionized and invigorated Japanese art. Although Chinese and Japanese paintings had been using long distance landscape views for 1,500 years, this style had never entered the woodblock print. Ukiyo-e woodblocks were produced for bourgeoisie city gentry who wanted images of street life, sumo wrestlers, and geishas. The countryside was ignored; it was for peasants. Instead of shoguns, samurai, and their famous geishas, Hokusai placed the common man into his woodblocks, moving the emphasis away from the aristocrats and down to the rest of humanity. In The Great Wave, tiny humans are tossed around under giant waves, while enormous Mt. Fuji is a hill in the distance.