Tour some of Pakistan’s most treasured heritage online with Cultural Institute

The Fasting Buddha is among the world’s most delicate and prized Buddhist sculptures. The majority of Fasting Buddha sculptures date to the 1st through 3rd century CE and are made from fragile stone, which explains why nearly all known pieces are damaged or incomplete. Pakistan’s Lahore Museum houses a rare example of the piece in its entirety, and it’s now available for the entire world to see on the Google Cultural Institute along with other treasures and historic sites from across the country.

Dating to about 200 BC, the Fasting Buddha is one of the earliest and finest representations of the Buddha as a human being. It shows Siddhartha Gautama Buddha’s attempt to achieve a spiritual awakening by purifying body and mind through fasting and other ascetic practices of self-deprivation. From this physical ordeal, he realized that enlightenment (nirvana) could be achieved not by bodily suffering, but instead through acts of human compassion and meditation. 

Fast forward nearly 2,000 years, and you can explore Pakistan’s heritage sites such as Lahore Fort with the Google Street View special collect. The imagery captures the many contrasting landscapes of Pakistan today, and provides a historic snapshot for ongoing cultural preservation.

The Lahore Fort which dates back to the 16th-century Mughal era

Just one click away—or 15 minutes on foot—is the Wazir Khan mosque. Its incredible tile art makes it one of the finest examples of Mughal mosque architecture.

Exhibition curated by Walled City of Lahore Authority

For those who want to dig a little bit deeper, you can view a side-by-side comparison of the mosque’s tile decoration and pages from rare and extremely fragile Islamic manuscripts from several international collections around the world.

Compare the calligraphy tiles from Wazir Khan Mosque facade, Walled City of Lahore ca.1635 (left) and the Quranic manuscript,1640 from the Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, Germany (right)

And if you’re all about the detail, high-resolution digital imagery used by the Cultural Institute will get you up close to the tiny Portrait of Nawab Mumtaz Ali housed in the Fakir Khana Museum. During the Mughal era, Lahore’s artists were known for painting in miniature and this is one of those masterpieces, measuring just 13x19 cm. The artist painted this postcard-sized masterpiece over the course of 15 years with a brush of a single-strand of hair!

Portrait of Nawab Mumtaz Ali Khan, Fakir Khana Museum

Watch this video for a quick introduction to what you can expect to find on the Cultural Institute, and then head on over to g.co/pakistanculture to explore places in Pakistan that you might otherwise never be able to visit.



Posted by Ann Lavin, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, Southeast Asia & China, Google