Asian art has long had a place among the Carlos Museum's collections, but the pace of this collecting activity has accelerated greatly in recent years, highlighted in the gallery's first installation, The Arts of India and the Himalayas: Recent Acquisitions.

Aided principally by the Nathan Rubin-Ida Ladd Family Foundation, the Museum has acquired works of Asian art with a special interest in South Asia. Featured works include a majestic late-1st–early-2nd-century seated Buddha from Mathura in India, one of the most important such works in an American museum, and an 11th–12th-century sculpture of a rare, cosmic form of eighteen-armed Vishnu with numerous swaying attendants, a stunning example of the elegance and sophistication of Indian medieval sculpture.

Some of the finest bronze sculptures ever created were produced by artisans working under the Chola Dynasty of South India between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. A 10th-century bronze Jain altar representing the Jina Rishabhanatha enshrined, a gift of Kellstadt Professor of Marketing Jagdish Sheth of Emory's Goizueta Business School and his wife Madhu, offers eloquent testimony of the third great religious tradition to originate in India.