The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-11-05
A MUSEUM OF RELIGIONS.
Objects Held Sacred in the Early
Faiths of the World.
From the st. James Gazette.


From the St. James Gazette.
notable effort to realize the ideal
museum has been made at Paris by the
Musee Guimet. This museum exists for
the illustration of a single study, and
the objects are arranged, not for dis
play or for picturesque effect, but for
the ordered development of the sub
ject. The treasures of art and learning
gathered here bear more especially
upon the Orient, and comprise original
monuments precious by age, by mate
rial, by the ideas they illustrate, above
all by their intelligent classification.
They include objects of cult; models
of temples, ancient, sacred manuscripts
and a reconstruction of scenes, with
life-siZed models, in the customs and
character of the people they represent.
In the museums library are %, 1000 vol
umes of print and of Oriental manu-
scripts, sacred books written on palm
leaves that open out like the leaves
of a fan, woven in silk, cut on pebbles,
all catalogued in the language in which
they are written, and in French A
strange library. 1t holds among other
things a grammar of the old Sanscrit
preserved in the temples of Japan, fol-
lowed with an explanation of the mys-
tic sense of the Sanscrit characters;
the first document of the kind ever
brought to Europe or published there.
The museum building is on the Place
d'1ena. 1t is three stories high, built
round triangular open court, and has
a round tower at one angle which
serves on the first floor for entrance
gallery, and on the second and third,
fished together, for library and picture
gallery. In the first galleries India I'M
rolls its naive thoughts about Deity
and the hereafter. The series is opened
by marvellous sculpture in black ba-
salt, Vishnu floating upon the ocean
of chaos, before the birth of Brahma,
and the beginning of the world. In
sculptured wood, fragments of ruin
pass one after the other, the heroes
and scenes of the Ramayana, and the
Mahabharata, the curious tribulations
of Soma, the moon-god, and his twen-
ty-seven wives, and all the monstrous
incarnations of many heads and many
hands, sole means of a primitive peo-
pie to express power and many attri-
butes. There are bronze statuettes
precious by time and by art; there is
an elephant-headed god of science in
massive silver; there is a model of the
temple of silence" at Bombay, and.
shown for the first time to profane
western eyes, a Parsee rite in the
worship of fire. The SC, BIT remains of
buddhism in India merge into the liv-
ing Buddhism of Java, strongly mix
ed with Brahminism, and we arrive at
the Buddhism of the Tibetans, whose
creative fancy has been equal to the
portrayal of 1.-The thousand Buddhas
of the ten worlds" and also to the
representation of the entire universe
In single model. This sacred OBJ
Ject is one of the most curious things
in the museum. From out of the midst
of a gilded plain rises Mount Merou
with the dwellings of the gods at the
top. ON the plain are figured the four
great continents, and between are dis
posed in circles the four treasures of
the world, the seven things precious,
the eight goddess mothers, and the
three protecting Buddhas of the world
The Chinese section holds treasures
of great art and great price. statu-
cites in faience and jewelled bronZes
There is a bronze of the last century
representing Buddha (Cakya- Mouni)
as penitent, which is a masterpiece
He ate, says the legend, but a single
grain of rice at a meal He carries
a bowl to receive aims, and is draped
III winding sheet he has taken from
a corpse to make of it his first re-
ligious dress. There is an extraordi-
nary brol.Ze of Dharma returning
from the dead, with eyes of crystal
which seem to hold the secrets of the
hereafter in their cavernouS depths.
The native and official religion of ia
pan. Shintoism, scarcely lends itself
to art. With its simple rites, its tenn
pies without images, and its yelled
sanctuary which holds only mirror of
polished metal, 1t is no more than our
Professionalism n religion to make it
known in museum, and 1t takes in
fact very little place there. In Budd-
hism, on the other hand, japanese art
found its opportunity In the innu-
merable Buddhas, in the rich vestments
of the priests, in the eight hells whose
details of torture exceed imagination,
on all this they have brought to bear
their refined fancy and DELEGATE taste.
| The Japanese department offers. in
fact, a complete synthesis of Buddhic
philosophy. In the midst sits colossal
the supreme and eternal Buddha, sur
rounded by the eight lesser Buddhas,
| his emanaticns, representing each q
moral attribute. by the five prophets.
also his carnations, charged to bring
men to well-doing by good counsels,
| and, finally. by the more respectable
of the genus demon, charged to bring
men to well-doing by constant physical
| harassment.
I He: in matters of fashion women
Fn1lnuy aonh otbav. lilo a dOcl Of Shaan