The three-month “Secrets of Wonderful Fragrances: Yunnan Buddhist Art Exhibition” opened on April 20 at the Yunnan Provincial Museum. The exhibition brings together hundreds of fine arts from Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, and Pali Southern Theravada Buddhism. From the perspective of religious history and art history, the exhibition shows the traditions of these three major Buddhist cultures and the history of how they spread in Yunnan Province.

Ma Wendou, curator of the Yunnan Provincial Museum, said that Yunnan is bordered by Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand, and is located along the ancient southern Silk Road. Throughout China, only Yunnan has preserved and spread the traditions of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, and Pali Southern Theravada Buddhism, which is also unique for the rest of the world. After thousands of years, Buddhist culture has had a fairly profound impact on folk art, architecture, and calendars throughout different parts of Yunnan.

The Yunnan Provincial Museum curatorial team spent one and a half years planning and organizing this exhibition, traveling to almost every part of the province to conduct in-depth surveys and studies of how Buddhist cultural relics in various places spread and evolved. A total of 114 Buddhist cultural relics are being displayed at the exhibition, nearly half of which are first-rate national precious cultural relics.

Ma Wendou said that Yunnan’s geographic position as the “crossroads of Asia” has contributed to its unique human history and folk art. He hopes that through this exhibition, using Buddhist cultural relics, the rest of the world will be introduced to beautiful Yunnan with its long history, rich culture, and ethnically harmonious development.

After its conclusion, it is reported that the exhibition will then travel to Taiwan in November.