admin 
There’s something profoundly moving about walking into a gallery and feeling watched — not by security cameras, but by gods, teachers, and spirits carved over 2,000 years ago. The British Museum’s new exhibition, Ancient India: living traditions, achieves precisely that: it invites you into a space where devotion has shape, colour, and breath.
This is not a display of distant antiquity, but of living memory. Each sculpture, each painting, feels alive — touched by worship, by time, by countless hands and hearts. A statue of Ganesha, still brushed with traces of pink, becomes less a museum piece and more a witness to centuries of prayer.
The exhibition’s strength lies in its humility. It doesn’t seek to define what Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism “mean,” but rather to let their art speak for itself — through the quiet continuity of symbols, the graceful evolution of human forms, and the shared reverence for life in all its impermanence.
Collaborating with practising devotees, the British Museum has taken an important step toward empathy in exhibition-making. Its choice of vegan and recyclable materials for the display may seem small, but symbolically, it speaks volumes — an acknowledgment that sacred art deserves sacred care.
Ancient India: living traditions is a rare offering: an exhibition that doesn’t just teach you something new, but slows you down enough to feel something ancient.
On until 19th October, get your tickets here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/ancient-india-living-traditions
WRITTEN BY: NURA AROOJ