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年间，印度宗教传统经历了深刻的视觉变革。曾经以宝座、足迹或树木等抽象形式表现的神祇，开始以拟人化的形象出现。本周在大英博物馆(British Museum)开幕的《古印度：活的传统》展览，追溯了印度教、佛教和耆那教艺术的演变历程。展览探讨了人们对于以有形方式看见、互动并从神圣形象中获得安慰的需求日益增强；同时揭示了宗教图像不仅在南亚(South Asia)扎根，还沿丝绸之路(Silk Roads)传播到中亚、manbetx3.0 以及东南亚。