The masks of most of the countries of South-East Asia are inspired by Indian influences, although this does not mean that masks had been unknown before contact with India or that local masks lack any stylistic particularities of their own.  Only the masks of Laos deviate from the general cultural framework of South-East Asia.  Here European travelers of the nineteenth century recorded mask performances at various festivals.  Those are masks now included in collections bear traces of Chinese artistic influence.

India exerted a strong influence on most of the countries of South-East Asia during the past two centuries.  Along with Buddhism and Hinduhism, Indian narrative  literature also penetrated into this area, in a popular form intended to propagate religious principles.  In the Buddhist literature, it was the so-called jatakas, stories of Buddha's previous lives, and in the Hindu literature the great Indian epics, particularly the Ramayana.  Both of these literary monuments of ancient India became the fundamental sources of inspiration for the arts of South-East Asia, especially the fine arts, but also dramas...

As this unique old Jade Chinese Funeral Mask(*)