‘God – or his avatars, manifestations – is believed to dwell in the sacred images. The clothing and adornments are devotional offerings, expressions of a loving relationship with God.’
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism – some 2 billion people follow these three major world religions. This fabulous, beautifully staged and atmospheric exhibition at the British Museum brings together 180 objects – imposing statues and friezes, vibrant paintings, glittering coins and bracelets, drawings and manuscripts, as well as half a dozen videos – to explain the origins of the imagery and iconography of these three religions and (in the videos) how they live on into contemporary religious practice.
The exhibition focuses on the period between 200 BC and AD 600. It was during this period that artistic depictions of the gods and enlightened teachers of these three religions dramatically changed from purely symbolic or abstract images to showing them as human figures. It was during this period that much of the iconic imagery and attributes that today’s followers are familiar with, first emerged.
A highlight of the show is the evolution of depictions of the Buddha, tracing the transformation from symbolic representations to the human form we recognise today. In contrast, images of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, associated with wealth and good fortune, have remained largely unchanged for over two millennia.
Installation view of Ancient India: living traditions at the British Museum showing the opening three statues (photo by the author)
Right at the start the visitor is confronted by these three statues, one each from the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain traditions, and invites us to ‘meet’ (from left to right) the Buddha, Ganesha and a tirthankara.
And straightaway we are also faced with the exhibition’s strengths and challenges. Its strengths are that:
- it is stylishly designed, with hanging curtains dividing different sections, with soft lighting and ambient sounds (featuring the sound of rivers, monsoon rains, thunder and wind blowing through grass, animals, people worshipping in temples, monasteries and shrines, bells, gongs, cymbals, horns and drums)
- you are subtly aware of the gentle scent of sandalwood in the background
- it is extremely informative
- it contains many really beautiful objects, particularly the many striking statues
Installation view of Ancient India: living traditions at the British Museum (photo by the author)
Its challenge is that describing the iconography of not one but three religions entails a dazzling amount of information. To be more precise, I was a little overwhelmed by the number of numbers involved in each of these religious traditions.
As I went from one wall panel to the next I reflected on how relatively simple the Christian tradition I was raised in is: the Catholic tradition has a vast number of saints, but in essence Christianity boils down to: there is one God, he created earth, heaven and hell; humans disobeyed him and their disobedience is recreated in each generation and augmented by all our individual sins; so he sent his son Jesus to die as an act of atonement, as expiation for our sins; and everyone who truly believes in him will be saved from hell and go to spend eternity in heaven.
Similarly, the pantheon of the ancient Greeks contains numerous demigods and spirits of woods and rivers and so on, but the core is relatively straightforward: gods of heaven, sea and underworld, each with a wife; gods of war, beauty and wisdom; a messenger, a blacksmith – ten or so gods you need to remember – and these were copied or mapped onto the traditional Roman gods and then disseminated across Europe and round the Mediterranean.
It’s even simpler for Judaism which, beneath its plethora of rules and customs, depends on one creator god, Yahweh; let alone Islam, again festooned with customs, saints and so on, but which can be boiled down to the Shahada, ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet’.
But here, right at the start of the exhibition, you learn that these three Indian religions – Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism – contained a sometimes bewildering multiplicity of entities. If you’re brought up in the tradition no doubt you know them from the cradle, or at least know which ones are important to your community. But as an outsider, trying to process the sheer number of beings, across so many interlinked but separate traditions, and stretching far beyond the borders of India (the exhibition includes a section about the spread of these religions to South East Asia and beyond), is quite a challenge.
Numbers
Jainism
Jains follow the teachings of twenty-four tirthankaras – enlightened beings – who are human rather than divine, and are attended by male and female nature spirits. They also worship some gods.
To help them, they have sixteen goddesses of knowledge called Vidyadevis – vidya means knowledge in Sanskrit and devi means goddess. They are usually depicted holding a manuscript and sometimes a pen.
All 24 Jain enlightened teachers have identical bodies because they are depicted as they are about to enter the heavens – the realm of liberated souls at the top of the universe. So that devotees can tell them apart, symbols from stories connected with their lives are used.
Jains follow the Three Jewels – right faith, right knowledge, right conduct – to enable their immortal souls to live in a state of bliss. Ahimsa (non-violence) is central to their faith, as is the belief that humans, animals and plants have living souls.
Parshvanatha is the 23rd tirthankara, depicted in the exhibition in a sandstone sculpture.
The Jain universe is divided into three worlds – the hells, the middle world and the heavens. As beings advance spiritually, their souls are eventually liberated from the cycle of rebirth and reach the heavens. The three worlds are depicted in a vivid painted cotton map showing the two-and-a-half continents of the middle world, where humans reside.
Map of the Jain universe. Gujarat or Rajasthan, India (1700 to 1900) © The Trustees of the British Museum
Buddhism
Buddhism is based on the teachings and philosophy of Siddhartha Gautama, a prince who became known as the Buddha after gaining enlightenment. He taught the Four Noble Truths, helping others to also achieve enlightenment.
Hinduism
Many Hindu teachings emphasise the four aims of life – dharma (righteous duty), artha (prosperity), kama (desires) and moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirth).
Vishnu is said to have ten principal avatars, known as the Dashavatara, who appear to restore cosmic order and protect righteousness. While these ten are the most celebrated, texts like the Bhagavata Purana suggest his incarnations are innumerable.
Hindus believe Vishnu uses the different incarnations to preserve order on earth and to save the world and humankind from disaster. His first form is Matsya the fish, who rescued the first man from a great flood. Here, Vishnu emerges from Matsya’s mouth. Rama, Vishnu’s seventh avatar, is a central character in India’s epic poem the Ramayana.
Images of Hindu goddesses have many features in common with those of female nature spirits, including floral headdresses, plentiful jewellery and full figures. During the first century AD, an important moment of artistic innovation occurred when deities began to be shown with multiple arms. Each hand was held in a particular gesture or carried something which enabled the devotee to identify the god.
Overlap
Maybe the biggest single learning from the whole exhibition is the surprising extent to which these three major religious traditions had common origins, often in local nature gods and spirits and how, even when they’d become distinct belief systems, they still strongly influenced and interpenetrated each other.
There is a surprising amount of overlap among the gods and spirits and guardians and scared figures of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism and the exhibition includes objects demonstrating how nature spirits or gods or guardians from one tradition morphed into another, or highlighting the common origins of many traditions, figures and stories.
Some learnings
It is an information-rich exhibition which, as I said, I struggled to fully absorb and process. Here are some choice learnings:
Nagas and naginis are male and female serpent spirits who control life-giving waters. These nature spirits grant wealth, fertility and protection but they can also kill with a single bite. Among the most ancient deities to be venerated in India, they are usually depicted as many-headed cobras. Such was their enduring power and popularity that they were incorporated into Jain, Buddhist and Hindu art.
A nagini is a female sacred serpent. She has a woman’s torso, but still has her snake tail and her canopy rising above her head. Such figures are erected at temples or by trees and bodies of water, where they are venerated for their life-giving powers.
A nagaraja or snake king. Divine snakes are usually represented as many-headed cobras and snake kings tend to have five or seven hoods. Images of sacred snakes are often placed at entrances to sacred buildings – whether Hindu, Jain or Buddhist – to protect them.
Ancient sculptures show Hindu gods taming the powerful and ancient snake kings Kaliya, Vasuki and Ananta Sesha.
Manasa is a snake goddess venerated by Buddhists and Hindus alike for her ability to provide prosperity, children and protection from snakes. She can also cause harm with a deadly snakebite. Depicted as a beautiful woman surrounded by snakes, she usually holds a serpent or a child.
Yakshas are male nature spirits associated with trees, mountains, bodies of water and wealth. Widespread across India, yakshas were gradually adopted by Jains, Buddhists and Hindus, who used their imagery and attributes when they began to depict their gods and enlightened teachers in human form.
The famous elephant god Ganesha has yaksha origins as indicated by his elephant head and potbelly. Ganesha symbolises wisdom and new beginnings.
Installation view of Ancient India: living traditions at the British Museum showing a 2nd century AD statue of Ganesha (photo by the author)
Kubera is the king of yakshas and also the god of wealth, emphasised by his potbelly and plentiful jewellery.
Yakshis are powerful female nature spirits able to bestow abundance and fertility, as well as death and disease. Originally independent goddesses, many yakshis were given male consorts when adopted into Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Yakshis are always depicted as full-figured, extravagantly bejewelled women standing and looking directly at the viewer.
A stupa is a dome-shaped memorial shrine built over sacred relics, built by both Buddhists and Jainists.
Mathura was a major ancient centre of production for Jain, Buddhist and Hindu devotional sculpture in northern India. The earliest known and definite images of Jain tirthankaras (enlightened teachers) depicted in human form are from here, perhaps dating to about 100 BC. The earliest dated figurative sculptures of the Buddha that survive today were produced in Mathura.
Incidentally, the earliest images of the Buddha in human form were created independently in Mathura (India), the Swat Valley (Pakistan) and Gandhara (Pakistan and Afghanistan).
Ayagapatas, square or rectangular tablets of homage depicting tirthankaras, shrines and deities, are a uniquely Jain innovation. They often have inscriptions from donors, many of whom were women, who gained spiritual merit through their donations.
Bodhisattvas are beings who seek enlightenment, whereas great bodhisattvas have gained additional powers over many lifetimes, enabling them to perform miracles and help others on the path to enlightenment. There are generally accepted to be eight great bodhisattvas, although other traditions speak of four (Chinese Buddhism) or as many as 16.
A distinctive feature of Buddha images from both Sri Lanka and southern India is the flame-shaped ushnisha on top of his head, representing his enlightenment.
Individual gods
According to Buddhist tradition, Hariti was associated with smallpox, and the stealing and killing of children to feed her large family. To show Hariti how much these parents were suffering, the Buddha briefly hid one of Hariti’s children beneath his rice bowl. She was so distraught that from that moment on she vowed to protect all children and women in childbirth.
Isakki and Pecci are worshipped in Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state, and among Tamil communities living elsewhere. Devotees believe that such goddesses were women who perhaps died during pregnancy or childbirth and were later deified.
Mount Mandara rests on the back of Kurma, a tortoise and one of the god Vishnu’s bodily forms on earth.
The great bodhisattvas include figures such as Tara and Avalokiteshvara.
Statistics
I like numbers. The show prompted me to do some research. Here’s the number of followers of each religion worldwide:
- Hindus – 1.2 billion, 15% of global population
- Buddhists – 535 million, 7% of global population
- Jainists – 12 million (but tricky to pin down because many Jainists identify as Hindu), about 0.15% of global population
And in the UK:
- Hindus – 1 million, 1.7% of UK population (cf Muslims 4 million, 6%)
- Buddhists – 275,000, 0.4% of population (around the same as Jews, 313,000, 0.6%)
- Jainists – 25,000
South East Asia
Buddhist and Hindu devotional art spread along sea and land-based trading networks to Southeast, Central and East Asia. Sacred imagery and religious ideas from India were adopted and adapted to merge with local beliefs and styles, producing unique depictions of Buddhist and Hindu deities and enlightened teachers. Enough core features were retained, such as the ushnisha on the Buddha’s head symbolising his wisdom, to enable devotees from different regions and cultures to still recognise the gods and teachers depicted.
New and distinct architecture also emerged to house these sacred images. Fascinatingly, the largest surviving ancient temple complexes for both Buddhism and Hinduism are found, not in India, but in Southeast Asia, such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Gallery
Shiva
In some of the earliest representations of the Hindu god Shiva, he is depicted as Ardhanarishvara which represents the divine couple Shiva and Parvati. In this painting, Shiva is shown on the left with the river Ganges flowing from his matted hair while he carries a trident and drum. His consort Parvati wears a crown and holds prayer beads.
Ardhanarishvara, ‘lord who is half woman’, Shiva and Parvati combined in one deity, about 1790 to 1810 © The Trustees of the British Museum
Buddha
The Buddha was first represented symbolically, through footprints or a tree, for example, and was only later depicted in human form. This gold reliquary might represent the earliest dateable image of the Buddha shown as a man, as coins found with it could date to the late 1st century AD. The Buddha stands with his right hand raised in the gesture of reassurance and is flanked by the gods Indra (right) and Brahma (left).
Bimaran casket, about 1st century © The Trustees of the British Museum
Gaja-Lakshmi
Gaja-Lakshmi (‘Elephant Lakshmi’) has yakshi (female nature spirit) origins. She bestows good fortune and is one of the most popular Hindu, Buddhist and Jain goddesses. The dark bodies of the elephants symbolise monsoon clouds filled with much-anticipated rain ready to bring the earth to life. This image so successfully conveys the message of abundance and fertility that it has remained largely unchanged for the last 2,000 years.
Gaja-Lakshmi (‘Elephant Lakshmi’) goddess of good fortune, about 1780 © The Trustees of the British Museum
Ganesha
Hindu ideas and imagery flowed in both directions between India and Southeast Asia. The elephant-headed god Ganesha is part of Southeast Asia’s diverse religious landscapes. This sculpture shows Ganesha’s traditional attributes, such as his broken tusk, axe and prayer beads, along with some differences. Javanese artists often portrayed him with skulls, his feet together and carrying an empty bowl rather than one filled with sweets, indicating that varying communities understood and worshipped him differently.
Ganesha made in Java from volcanic stone, about AD 1000 to 1200 © The Trustees of the British Museum
A yaksha
This mottled pink sandstone figure represents a yaksha (male nature spirit). Yakshas can grant prosperity but also make life difficult if not properly placated. This is represented by the fierce or scowling expressions on these yakshas. Leaves sprout above this yaksha’s ears which possibly connects him with trees.
Head of a grimacing yaksha, about 2nd or 3rd century © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Naga
Stone plaque with the rearing figure of a five-headed cobra. Plaques like these can be difficult to date as some have been placed by sacred tree shrines for over a thousand years. Snake veneration belongs to the most ancient and potent substrate of Indian religion. Today, across India, popular veneration of divine snakes by followers of different religions still centres on devotional images such as this one.
Naga, about 17th century © The Trustees of the British Museum
Silk Buddha
From about the third century BC, following trading networks, Buddhist missionaries took their faith and its devotional art beyond India. In different regions, Buddhist art merged with local ideas and art to form new artistic styles. This is one of the oldest and best-preserved paintings from Cave 17 – the famous ‘Library Cave’ at Dunhuang. It shows the Buddha, seated between bodhisattvas, with his hands in the gesture of preaching This composition originates from earlier devotional images from India which became popular across East Asia.
Silk watercolour painting of the Buddha, China, about AD 701 to 750 © The Trustees of the British Museum
Seated Jain
This marble figure depicts a Jain tirthankara (enlightened teacher). Tirthankaras are human, not divine, and the earliest certain representations of them in human form were shaped in Mathura, possibly in about the first century BC. Seated in meditation, the tirthankara has the sacred symbol of an endless knot in the middle of his chest.
Seated Jain enlightened teacher meditating, about 1150 to 1200 © The Trustees of the British Museum
Related links
- Ancient India living traditions continues at the British Museum until 19 October 2025
- Large print guide
- Introduction to ‘Ancient India: living traditions’
Books & Boots 