Travels of the Buddhist traveller Xuanzang (T'ang Dynasty, 630 AD) Xuanzang was a great Chinese scholar who lived in the 600s AD, under the T'ang dynasty. He was a Buddhist, [...]
Heng O: A sacrifice to the moon Who was Heng O? Heng O was the Chinese goddess of the moon. In Taoist thought about yin and yang, Heng O is the [...]
Mandala from Dunhuang Caves, 900s AD - make your own mandala project What is a mandala? The Indian word "mandala" means a circle. Buddhists all over East Asia made mandalas [...]
The boddhisatva Avalokitesvara, with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, about 950 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Under the Han Dynasty (about 200 BC to 200 AD), scholars working for [...]
Chinese moon cakes for the New Year When did Chinese New Year get started? People in China probably started to celebrate the New Year - the beginning of farming in [...]
Cheng-huang temple in the Forbidden City, Beijing (Ming Dynasty, ca. 1500s AD) Each city or village in China had its own Cheng-huang god to protect it, and a small temple [...]
In 1500 AD, most people in China prayed to their traditional gods. The most accepted philosophy was Taoism. But many other people were Buddhists, and rejected Taoism. Because of the Mongol Empire [...]
Bamiyan Buddhas (Afghanistan, ca. 500 AD, now destroyed by the Taliban) - Central Asian religion Many different religions Central Asia's wide steppe is very easy to ride horses or camels [...]
In 1500 AD, most of the people in Africa worshipped traditional local gods. But local gods are appropriate for local chiefs; big empires tend to go with monotheistic religions. So as more [...]
The religious faith of Islam, as it was practiced between about 650 and 1500 AD, was closely related to Judaism and Christianity. Like Jews and Christians, Muslims believed that there was only one God, [...]
