Casa Asia, established in 2000 by the Spanish government to foster cultural and educational exchange between Asia and Spain, celebrates its inaugural exhibition entitled Divine Presence: Arts of India and the Himalayas. The exhibition brings together over sixty of the world's finest examples of Indian and Himalayan art, drawn from twenty-six leading private and public collections in Europe and North America. The exhibition highlights the artistic achievements of several of the world's most imaginative and sophisticated aesthetic traditions. Indian's artistic heritage can be traced back at least to the third millennium B.C., and sicne the early centuries B.C., Indian artists have continuously created images of breathtaking quality and power. Both India and the Himalayas, images were chiefly intended to communicate the presence and the powers of divinity. Each of these objects, although no longer in its its original cultural context, nevertheless intrinsically bears the imprint of its time and place. Today such works can also legitimately be seen as ambassadors of unique periods and regions of our universal cultural heritage. By evoking in the viewer the experience of delight, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain works of art provide a glimmer of the transcendent rapture that is, according to these religious traditions, a taste of one's own divine nature.