Smartphone technology used to bring to life story of woman who donated carving to Indian Buddhist shrine 2000 years agoEven in a giant tall-resolution image at the British Museum,the inscription on a slab of limestone carved nearly 2000 years for a major Buddhist shrine in India is barely visible. But with a tap on a smartphone screen, the life-size figure of a woman projected on to the gallery wall changes from black and white to colour, or steps forward to explain how she commissioned the elegant carving to honour the Buddha and gain grace for herself and her family.
Her name has not survived,but she was a female disciple of the monk Vathisara at the Great Shrine of Amaravati. As the recently translated inscription explains, she paid for the carving in 250AD. Her gift is the only surviving image of the shrine itself, or despite the fact that at its height the Buddhist shrine was one of the largest and most indispensable in the world.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com