The Dragon’s Gift – The Sacred Arts of Bhutan
San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum opened up its latest exhibition, The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan, on February 20, 2009 with Buddhist ritual observances led by Bhutanese monks currently in residence, as well as a ribbon cutting ceremony.
The exhibition is the first of its kind to focus on Bhutan’s Buddhist culture, with many of the objects on display remaining in ritual use in temples and monasteries and having never before been accessible to a Western audience until now.
Additionally, monitors have been setup in the galleries to display video footage of ritual Buddhist dance forms.
The exhibition comprises more than 100 works of art dating from the eighth to the twentieth centuries, including thangkas (paintings on cloth), gilt bronze sculptures, and ritual objects.
“This exhibition did not materialize over a few weeks or a few months. It took almost over five years,” says Bhutan Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs Secretary Penden Wangchuk. “When you see the exhibition and displays, it looks so simple, but all of the items on display took time to gather from every nook and corner of the country from different monasteries. So you just see how hard it was to collect these different objects. It’s not like here in the United States where you just fly or drive, you had to some places walk two or three days climbing the hills to the hilltops.”
Lent by Tango Buddhist Institute, Thimphu. Photo by Shuzo Uemoto/Honolulu Academy of Arts.
As keepers of the exhibition, Bhutanese monks will reside at the museum for the duration of the exhibition, performing daily ritual observances for the sacred artworks.
“These objects have been loaned from the government, monasteries, private collectors, community temples on a voluntary basis,” Wangchuk says. “In certain instances, where the owners felt a little skeptical, we also waited for divination, whereby we threw the dice and sought the auspicious number and where we were not granted the auspicious numbers we left the objects.”
With a population of roughly 700,000, Bhutan is comparable in population to San Francisco, yet its geographic range is similar to the size of Switzerland. Located in the Himalayas to the east of Mount Everest and Nepal, Bhutan is known as Drukyul, the land of the “Thunder Dragon,” by speakers of Dzongkha, its official language.
“The recent coronation of Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, Bhutan’s first democratic king, introduced many to this remote Himalayan nation steeped in tradition,” says Jay Xu, director of the Asian Art Museum in a press statement. “The Asian Art Museum is pleased to bring to San Francisco the remarkable exhibition under royal patronage The Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan, which provides an unprecedented view of Bhutan’s spiritual and artistic traditions that are so inextricably woven into its culture. The unprecedented access granted to the organizers and the resulting exhibition are a gift from Bhutan to the world.”
From a historical perspective, Bhutan is one of the few countries in Asia that was never colonized. It also has the distinction of adopting an uncommon official policy of defining the quality of life through “Gross National Happiness,” emphasizing mental and spiritual well-being over material prosperity.
Additionally, Bhutan is the only existing Vajrayana (“Tantric” or “Esoteric”) Buddhist kingdom in the world, and the Drukpa lineage is the dominant school and state religion. The country is well known for its vigorous efforts to preserve its Buddhist heritage and traditional culture, which remain vibrant and active today.
Since the 1960s the country has embarked on deliberately slow-paced reforms with the intention to preserve its own identity. Foreign dignitaries and the media were allowed into Bhutan for the first time during the coronation of the last king in 1974. Foreigners to this day are still restricted, with only 20,000 tourists allowed access each year on heavily supervised trips.
“For Bhutan, it’s a great platform to showcase our culture,” says Wanchuk. “Also now the new thinking we have is that such objects must also be allowed to bless the outside world. The old thinking was that anything sacred should be locked up, should not go out. But I think that these thoughts are changing, so now we strongly believe that these should go out and bless everybody who has faith in it.”
As part of the exhibition, the museum will be offering, Asia Alive: Sacred Arts of Bhutan, Fridays through Sundays, February 21-May 10 12:00 noon–4:00 pm, rituals at 11:00 am & 3:30 pm, free with museum admission
Two monks from a Bhutanese monastery will perform daily purification rituals and prayers (puja) for sacred objects in the exhibition. Patrons can watch the monks create offerings for a Buddhist altar installed in the museum court in an ancient practice of Buddhist rituals and participate in sacred arts by creating an artwork, and trying on traditional costume and masks.
“These are sacred religious objects. They are venerated back home,” says Wanchuk. “These objects are not just for view, they are for worship to get blessings so because of that we have our monks. Everyday they will be performing pujas, rituals and also the cleansing ceremony every morning.”
For more information, call (415) 581-3500 or go to the website at www.asianart.org