News
Venerable Master’s visit celebrates Buddhist links
(27 June 2019)

We’re proud to be a global university with many international links and partnerships, and students from 150 nations around the world. So we were pleased to welcome the Venerable Master Hai Tao to our Oriental Museum recently.
About the visit
The master is a highly respected monk from Taiwan and founded the Compassion for Life Organisation.
He viewed Buddhist materials in the Oriental Museum’s Japanese, Indian/Himalayan and Chinese collections.
While in Durham, the master also visited Durham Cathedral and performed a traditional blessing in the Market Place.
Our international links
Our Oriental Museum is the leading museum in the north of the UK dedicated to the art and archaeology of Asia.
Professor Robin Coningham, our UNESCO Chair in Archaeological Ethics and Practice in Cultural Heritage, is a leading authority on Buddhist history. In 2013, a team that he led uncovered evidence of a structure at the birthplace of the Buddha dating to the sixth century BC. This was the first archaeological material linking the life of the Buddha to a specific century.
In summer 2018, an exhibition exploring the life of Buddha which we co-curated with the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum in Taiwan was visited by one million people.