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Collector Nik Douglas and Professor Bob Thurman discuss new evidence of Greek influence on the evolution of the Buddha image. In conjunction with this lecture is an exhibition featuring an important collection of early Buddhas and related spiritual icons in crystal, gold, silver, bronze and other precious materials, all from the Uddiyana/Gandhara 'Indo-Greek' Buddhist culture of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Included are reliquaries, sacred jewelry, and very early bronzes of the Buddha in various poses, forms and materials.  This is the largest-ever gathering of such material, showing the full diversity of styles, workmanship and subject in the different influencing cultures - Greek, Parthian, Roman and Kushan - during the earliest periods when the Buddha image was defined and refined.

Presenters:

Nik Douglas is the collector behind the Buckingham Collections and is the author of “Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy” and “Spiritual Sex: Secrets of Tantra from the Ice Age to the New Millennium”.

Robert A. F. Thurman, PhD, is professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University, President of Tibet House U.S., the translator of many philosophical treatises and sutras, and author of numerous books.  

See above.