Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-23
MUSEUM OF RELIGIONS
OBJECTS HELD SACRED IN THE
EARLY FAITHS OF THE WORLD.
Treasures of Sacred Art and Learning
Gathered in the
Orient. II

"A notable eUOrt 10 reailZe the luedl iAo
scum has been made at Paris by the Musee
Guimet This museum exists for the Illus
tration Of single study, and the objects
|. are arranged, not for display or for pictur-
esque effect, but for the ordered develop
ment Of the subject. The treasures OF art
and learning gathered here bear more es-
pecially upon the orient. and comprise origi-
nal monuments precious by age. by ma
terial, by the ideas they illustrate, above
all by their intelligent classification. They
include objects Of cult; models Of temples
ancient, sacred manuscripts, and recon-
struction Of scenes. with life-sized models,
in the costumes and characters of the peo-
pie they represent In the museums IL
brary are 22OOO volumes Of print and OF
oriental manuscripts, sacred books written
on palm leaves that open out like the
leaves Of fan, woven In silk, cut on pep
bles. all catalogued in the language IN
which they are written and In French.
strange library. 1t holds among other
things grammar of the old Sanscrit pre-
served in the temples Of Japan, followed
with an explanation Of the mystic sense
Of the SanscrIt characters; the first docu-
ment Of the kind ever brought to Europe
or published there.
Museum Building.
The museum building Is on the Place
d lena. 1t Is three stories high, built rouno
a triangular open court, and has rouno
tower at one angle which serves on the first
floor for entrance gallery, and on the sec
ond and third finished together, for IL
brary and picture gallery. In the first gal
leries India unroilS its naive thoughts about
Deity and the hereafter. The series Is open
ed by a marvellous sculpture In black basalt'
Vishnu floating upon the ocean OF chaos'
before the birth of Brahma, and the De-
VII IN n
fragments Of ruin pass one after the other
the heroes and scenes of the Ramayana
and the Mahabharata the curious tribuia-
lions of Soma the moon-god, and MS t"en-
ty-seven wives, and all the monstrous IN
carnations Of many heads and many hands,
sole means of primitive people TO express
power and many attributes.
There are bronze statuettes precious py
time and by art; there is an elephant mead
ed god Of science in massive silver; there Is
a model of the temple of silence at Bonn
bay, and, shown for the first time to pro-
fame western eyes, Parsee rite IN the "or-
ship Of fire. The scant remains Of Budd-
hism in India merge into the living Budd-
hism of Java, strongly mixed with Brah-
minism, and We arrive at the Buddhism OF
the Tibetans. whose creative fancy has been
equal to the portrayal of the thousand
Buddhas of the ten worlds" and also to
the representation Of the entire universe in
a single model. This sacred object 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
Chinese Section.
The Chinese section holds treasures Of
great art and great price, statuettes In
faience and jeweled bronzes. There is a
bronze Of the last century representing
Buddha (Cakya-MounD as a penitent, which
is a masterpiece. He ate, says the legend,
but a single grain of rice at a meal. He
carries bowl to receive aims. and is draped
in q winding sheet he has taken from a
corpse to make Of 1t his first religious
dress. There is an extraordinary bronze 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 Japan,
Shintoism, scarcely lends itself to art. With
its simple rites, Its temples without images,
and Its yelled sanctuary which holds only
a mirror Of polished metal, 1t is no more
than our Professionalism a religion to make
a show in a museum. and it takes, in fact,
very little place there. In Buddhism, on
the other hand Japanese art found Its OPP
portunity. In the innumerable Buddhas in
the rich yestments 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 delicate
taste. The Japanese department offers, in
fact, complete synthesis Of Buddhic phil
osophy. In the midst sits colossal the su-
preme and eternal Buddha, surrounded by
the eight lesser Buddhas, his emanations,
representing each a moral attribute, by the
five prophets, also his emanations, 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 we'll
doing by constant physical harassment.