The night before my visit to the Rubin Museum of Art on 7th Avenue, New York, I revisited Professor Gray Tuttle’s field trip instructions. I was determined to figure out ‘what might be missing’ in the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. By strange coincidence, I learnt from my father that it was the 187th birthday of Nain Singh Rawat, the Indian explorer who had first surveyed Tibet. I pulled out my phone to see the Google Doodle of a solitary Rawat standing behind a tripod and looking out at the horizon with a glorious sun behind the mountains.
Walking down 7th Avenue, I couldn’t help reflect upon Rawat, for having, more than a century ago, surveyed an alien terrain disguised as a Buddhist monk. He did his job at the precise rate of one mile in 2,000 steps, using rosary beads to count his steps, hiding a compass in his prayer wheel and disguising his travel records as prayers.
As for me, my Fitbit was already recording my every step. I only needed to ‘experience the museum,’ ‘explore its space’ and ‘have fun,’ while trying to be aware of what ‘stimulates my initial interest.’ And, of course, figure out ‘what might be missing’ once inside the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room.
Spiralling up
The unusual window panels obscured any hint of what lay inside the museum. The entrance was narrow, cold, with a low ceiling. But, upon entering the delightful main rotunda area, I felt the transition from the bustle of New York to the serenity of the museum was complete.
The entire museum was centred around a beautiful spiralling staircase. Every floor had a circular format. The Looking Guide comforted me. Having lived in India and Japan, I was familiar with practically all the depicted figures, forms and gestures.
The neutral-toned walls in the galleries set the mood for an exploration of, to quote from the museum’s mission statement, “the dynamic environment that stimulates learning, promotes understanding and inspires personal connections to the ideas, cultures and art of Himalayan Asia.”
I recalled my visit to Dharamshala as I walked by the bright cloth paintings, intricately carved metallic objects, the exquisite statues, baroque decorations and floral panelled chests.
The juxtaposition of art from different regions, modern photographs beside ancient objects cleverly helped transcend temporal and spatial boundaries. I explored all the exhibits on one floor before ascending to the next level through the sleek spiralling walkway.
I was particularly attracted to a 13th century sculpture of Green Tara on the second floor. Made of brass with inlays of silver, it depicts goddess Tara, the most prominent female Buddhist deity. I caught myself smiling; Tara is a Hindi word for ‘star’. She is known as Tara Bosatsu in Japan and as Duōluó Púsà in Chinese Buddhism.
In Tibetan Buddhism, she is the female aspect of Avalokiteśvara and comes from his tears in some stories. Here, she is sitting with her right arm extended, palm up. A lotus weaves through her left palm. Her face is tranquil and eyes are closed.
Closed for repair
I reached the top floor and needed to make ‘sure to pay attention’ to the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room here. But alas, it was closed for repair. Was there a divine message in the grand event turning out to be a damp squib? I thought of Nain Singh Rawat and successfully prevented a plunge into sentimentalism. I came down to the café. After some surfing, I located a virtual tour of the Rubin Museum of Art.
In half an hour, I read some very informative write-ups on every exhibit, whether a musical instrument, scripture, painting or a ritual object that I clicked on each of the three virtual walls. This shrine room installation at Rubin was ‘modelled on an affluent household shrine’ following the Geluk Tibetan Buddhist tradition, founded by Tibetan teacher Tsongkhapa.
Comparing the visual impressions with my memories of shrines in shops, offices and homes in Dharamshala, the only thing conspicuous by its absence in Rubin’s shrine room was a photograph of the Dalai Lama.
In Dharamshala, his photographs are ubiquitous. But then, it would be hard to find them even in Lhasa and most of Tibet, thanks to the present-day political situation. It is likely that Chinese visitors outnumber Tibetans-in-exile visitors to Rubin. Does this make me sad? No way, perhaps even Nain Singh Rawat never saw a photograph of Khedrup Gyatso, the then spiritual leader of Tibet.
Aakanxit Khullar is a senior studying Financial Engineering at Columbia University.
