Saving cultural treasures
The 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Awards are significant. It was the first time that the award for peace and international understanding was given in recognition of an individual’s lifetime efforts to preserve cultural heritage.
This year’s awardee, Ikuo Hirayama of Japan, is an award-winning painter and educator who capped his career as president of the prestigious Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, a post he had held from 1989-95.
The atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima changed Hirayama’s life. He was a middle school student when the bomb destroyed his native city, killing many of his schoolmates and teachers. Moving on with his life after the disaster, he studied Japanese painting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and joined its faculty in 1952.
Many years later, he suffered from the ill effects of radiation. His suffering brought about a physical crisis that culminated in a spiritual awakening. In 1959, he expressed his epiphany in a painting that depicted the 7th century Chinese monk Xuanzang who had traveled on the Silk Road from India, bringing the message of Buddha to China and ultimately to Japan. The painting brought him the first of his many awards, giving him national renown. It awakened a lifetime interest in the origins of Buddhism and its path to Japan. Hirayama expressed this interest in his paintings for the years that followed.
More important, his personal mission to Buddhism led him to explore the route that Buddhist philosophy traveled from India to Japan along the historic Silk Road that connected east to west, passing through the major trading posts and centers of culture of the Far East, Central Asia, and ultimately Europe.
Hirayama’s commitment to his mission brought him to the Silk Road each year for many decades. He walked parts of the route to trace the marks that showed the rich cultural heritage of the Silk Road, visiting ancient sites along the extent of the route: Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.
While traveling the route, he discovered decaying works of art and neglected Buddhist shrines in many of the locations along the way. Most of them were demolished or lost by natural disasters, by civil wars, or by theft. The strong feeling of wanting to correct the sad state of preservation arose from the realization that the endangered cultural properties he saw were the treasures of mankind. He brought his realization to reality by mounting a series of international campaigns so that the cultural treasures of a number of countries could be saved.
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