Invisible connections

While museums and academia marvel at the art, ritual and belief systems that the objects embody, it is time perhaps to retell the stories that inspired these creations.

Two feet tall and a prized possession of the Harvard Art Museum, the 13th century wooden sculpture of Prince Shotoku Taishi at Age 2 is a diminutive figure in a world dominated by giants. Carved by an anonymous pair (or perhaps many pairs) of hands in a Japanese monastery during the Kamakura period, the figure of the legendary prince, believed to be the founder of Buddhism in Japan, is a phenomenon in the world of art.

Art connoisseurs, collectors and curators have waxed eloquent on the craftsmanship. Numerous documentaries talk about its provenance, the remarkable journey that it made from Japan