The decision of a Buddhist council in favor of extensive missionary work outside India and the dispatch of monks to Afghanistan and Kashmir launched Buddhism’s development into a world religion. Thus, at the beginning of our era, Buddhist monks were wandering as missionaries through Central and Far East Asia.

This is a catalog of a 1982 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the pieces themselves dataing from the 3rd century CE to the 10th century CE and now housed in the collections of the West Berlin State Museums. Also included is a scholastic introduction, giving a background to both the Silk Road and the movement of Buddhist art (and therefore Buddhism itself) through Central and East Asia.