Through Feb. 10

For really fresh news about the past, the Met’s temporary, often tucked-away collection shows are a sure bet. “Buddhism Along the Silk Road: 5th-8th Century” is exemplary. With more than a hundred petite, gorgeous, soul-filled objects culled from storage and assembled in the small, high-perched mezzanine gallery of the South and Southeast Asian wing, it tells the story of how art, which we think of as static, is ever on the move.

The movement can be physical or in the form of ideas and beliefs. Some of these sculptures and textiles probably traveled thousands of miles across the Silk Road in the saddlebags of merchants or nomads, or in the shoulder bags of missionary monks. Most of the work is directly related to Buddhism, a religion as geographically restless as the Buddha, who advised his followers to keep their feet light but their hearts and minds packed to the max with spiritual energy.

A brass standing figure of the Buddha, less than a foot high, surrounded by a bristling, body-length halo, made in what is now Afghanistan (its links to the destroyed Buddhas at Bamiyan are evident) was probably for a portable altar. So was another Buddha of similar size, style and date, but this one is carved in wood and comes from northwestern China. Clearly, a basic model had wide circulation, and these images are relics of a full-fledged have-art-can-travel globalism that flourished centuries ago.

Most of the rest of what’s here are scraps cut from architecture or stationary sculpture: flying stucco angels that were probably from a Chinese temple but might have winged in from ancient Rome; fresco-painted figures from landlocked Central Asia dressed in sea-green robes; and stone Buddha heads — some of the most beautiful in the museum — carved in locations from Uttar Pradesh to Tibet.

Kurt Behrendt, an assistant curator in the department of Asian art, is responsible for this marvelous travelogue, and skillfully guides the multiple strands of an epic story to what may be their ultimate destination: here.