[3] The Indian government offered him a scholarship in 1951 to study art at Santiniketan, founded by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, but he chose to return to Burma after only a year.

[4] To earn money, Bagyi Aung Soe painted for magazines and book covers until the end of his career.

According to Yin Ker, "He aspired for his paintings to be visual translations of Buddhist truths, not mere illustrations of episodes from the Buddha's previous lives or pretty pictures of pagodas and monks".

In his later years, in poverty and with failing health, he became increasingly obsessed with creating an artistic idiom that reflected the Buddhist laws of impermanence.

[4] His biographer has said, "he transposed his spiritual aspirations and experiences into his artistic mission statement and applied their practical methods to the act of creation".