Detail: How can we explain the fact that a 2,000-year-old statue of the Buddha from Gandhara in Pakistan seems just as familiar to us as a sculpture from Greek or Roman antiquity?
Gandhara, at the foot of the Hindu Kush, was once the intersection of important trade routes. Along these trails a lively cultural exchange took place: Western antique culture reached Gandhara with the Asian campaign of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). From India came Buddhism, and from central Asia nomadic peoples such as the Kushans. All these different influences merged into a unique Buddhist culture which flourished from the 1st to the 5th centuries.
The art of Gandhara radiates calm and solemnity. The once splendid monasteries were adorned with reliefs of artistic brilliance, rich in narrative detail: nowhere in Buddhist art have sculptures represented so many episodes from Buddha’s life. Here archaeologists have discovered sculptures which are among the earliest figurative representations of the Buddha.
Today the region that was home to this formerly flourishing culture has become a focus of political conflict. In 2001 the monumental statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan in Afghanistan – once proud witnesses of Gandharan culture – were dynamited and destroyed. But this exhibition, for which Pakistani museums have loaned their treasures to the West for the first time, shows another side of this region: Gandhara’s past is full of riches, tolerance and cultural diversity.

An exhibition of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn.
Supported by Novartis and the Parrotia Foundation. Under the patronage of UNESCO.