Tales of #Buddha Shakyamuni’s past lives (jataka) are some of the most well-known narratives in Himalayan culture and are often presented in a series of paintings, with each painting depicting a part of the collection of stories. Presented as small vignettes, these narrative scenes are usually arranged around a central image of the Buddha and visually separated by landscape elements. The traditional set of 34 tales, which was later expanded to 108, includes the stories of the Buddha’s previous lives as a bodhisattva, king, merchant, and animal. In this month's #HimalayanArtUpClose, rubinmuseum Senior Curator Dr. Elena Pakhoutova and Smarthistory’s Dr. Beth Harris (smarthistory_official) take a deeper look at this thangka that illuminates the previous lives of the Buddha. This narrative painting depicts five stories in different scenes that surround the central Buddha figure. These stories, or jatakas, show examples of moral actions and are meant to inspire people to lead a more consci...