I awaken and meditate, as usual. It is too early to go down to breakfast, so I walk over to the window where I can see the white pagoda rising among the trees and buildings of Beijing. The evidence of religion is here, right in the midst of daily life, but it is hard to tell how people really feel about it.

After breakfast, we join the many commuters on the subway as we travel to the National Museum of China. Here, in Beijing, everyone must pass their personal items through the x-ray machines and walk through a metal detector just to get to the train platform. I see a small boy being passed over with a wand. What is it like for him?

The museum sits alongside Tiananmen Square and the security there is quite intense. Even with our museum guide present, we must present our identification to an armed guard to enter the area. Standing at the door of the museum, waiting to be escorted in where we will again pass our personal items through an x-ray machine, we are passed by a group of cadets marching in formation.

The National Museum of China is an enormous structure, and the docent leads us up several floors to the main exhibition hall. It is filled to the brim with visitors and people jostle one another to get a view of the art. Here, the displays tell of the archaeological finds that have been made in Beijing. They provide evidence of a matriarchal society in this area as far back as 7,000 years ago, whose members cooked food, sewed with needles, and wore jewelry. Over thousands of years, society progressed, and animals were domesticated. Villages were identified by the fact that all the doors of the huts faced a central space. During the Shang Dynasty, from 1600 to 1100 BCE, bronze three- or four-footed vessels called “dings” were produced to contain food, wine, or ritual offerings. These objects are quite ornate and demonstrate sophisticated metalworking methods. For some time, humans and animals were sacrificed, in the hopes of gaining protection for family members. By the time of the reign of the Han Dynasty, 202 BCE to 220 CE, that practice had stopped and elaborate tombs developed. The wealthy might be encased in jade burial suits stitched together with gold or silver thread. At this time, tombs also contained ceramic statues of soldiers and horses, all thought to assist the deceased in the afterlife.

It is during the latter part of the Han Dynasty that Buddhism was introduced to China. A broken stone bearing a Buddhist inscription in the Central Asian language of Kharosthi provides evidence from as early as the 2nd century CE. Also on this floor we encounter a life-size 3D printed replica of cave sculpture from the Bingling Grottoes, 1,500 km to the southwest of Beijing. At about 2 meters wide by 1.5 meters tall, it is a testament to Chinese conservators’ and curators’ skillful use of contemporary technology to enable its culture to be shared widely and in new ways. Our guide describes the cave grottoes as forms of “promotion” of Buddhism but I think of them as places of devotional expression.

Finally, we have 15 minutes to go downstairs to a hall filled with Buddhist statuary. It is nearly empty. The centerpiece of this exhibit is a stunningly beautiful Song Dynasty wooden statue of “Guan Yin,” known in Sanskrit as “Avalokiteshvara.” This piece was created between 960 and 1279 CE, and was purchased from a private collector as recently as 2005. It would be interesting to study what happened in the intervening years. One way to understand her name is the “One Who Looks Down [from above]” and the object’s placement on a raised platform enables us to experience her gentle, downward gaze. Another way to understand the name is the “One Who Hears the Cries of the World,” and therefore she is depicted in “lalitasana” or the “pose of relaxation” from which she can easily move to respond to what she hears. Her elaborate hairstyle and jewelry confirm that she is a “bodhisattva,” an awakening being, and not a “Buddha,” or fully awakened being who eschews all adornment (except in tantric Buddhist art) and typically has an “ushnisha,” a protrusion on the head.

Then we head over to the China Academy for Cultural Heritage where Courtauld alumna Li Na works in conservation science. This organization was established in 1935, initially only consulting with and advising on cultural heritage projects in Beijing. Now they have expanded to become national and international in scope, and they undertake and complete projects of their own, such as a stupa restoration recently completed in collaboration with the government of Mongolia. Over the years they have collaborated with Historic England, Italian conservators, and with the governments of Nepal and Uzbekistan. At CACH, paper conservators are working on large scale sutra projects. This very detailed work involves taking apart ancient sutra rolls or palm leaf manuscripts and then carefully applying them to specialized papers in such a way as to recreate a legible document, leaving appropriate spaces where material is missing. This is tremendously helpful to those who study these texts and the scripts in which they are written.

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