Diamond Sutra: Did you mean...?

Tibetan sand mandalas are works of art created to encourage healing, peace, and purification generally as well as spiritual or psychological focus specifically for those creating and viewing it. A mandala (Sanskrit for "circle"...

Jade artifacts and icons are almost synonymous with the Chinese culture going back thousands of years. Jade (nephrite) was first worked into recognizable objects c. 6000 BCE during the period of the Houli Culture (c. 6500...

The American invasion of Quebec (September 1775-June 1776) was a military campaign undertaken during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Hoping to induce the Province of Quebec to join the rebellion, the Second...

The Imperial State Crown of the monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island. Used in coronations and other state events, it contains the famous Black Prince’s ruby (actually a balas or spinel...

A photograph of the Big Hole, a human-made excavation at the diamond mines of Kimberley, South Africa. The deep crater measures over 450 metres (1,500 ft) across.

A replica of the enamelled gold armlet presented to Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901) in 1850 after its acquisition from the Punjab following the Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-49). The central stone was the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which...

The 1912 Imperial Tsarevich Egg by Peter Carl Fabergé (1846-1920). The egg was given by Tsar Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917) to his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. The egg is made of gold and six lapis lazuli sections with...

Siddhartha Gautama (better known as the Buddha, l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE) was, according to legend, a Hindu prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic, attained his goal and, in preaching...

The medieval period of Japan is considered by most historians to stretch from 1185 to 1603 CE. Stand out features of the period include the replacement of the aristocracy by the samurai class as the most powerful social group...

The Heian Period of Japanese history covers 794 to 1185 CE and saw a great flourishing in Japanese culture from literature to paintings. Government and its administration came to be dominated by the Fujiwara clan who eventually were...