DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION OF 

 BUDDHIST ART IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL 

 MUSEUM. 



By I. M. Casanowicz, 



Assistant Curator, Division of Old World Archeology, United Stales National Museum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The collection described in this catalogue includes material from 

 Further India and the Far East. That from the former region con- 

 sists chiefly in a collection of about 200 specimens coming from the 

 Laos, a division of the widespread Thai or Shan race and ethno- 

 graphically related to the Siamese, in Indo-China. The contribu- 

 tions from the Far East are divided between China, Japan, and Tibet. 

 The greater part of the specimens from the last-named country has 

 been described by the late William Woodville Rockhill in Notes On 

 The Ethnology of Tibet. 1 They are included in the present cata- 

 logue for the sake of completeness. 



A special collection of objects of Buddhism from Burma, a deposit 

 of Mr. S. S. Howland, was described under the title of The S. S. How- 

 land Collection Of Buddhist Religious Art in the National Museum, 

 by I. M. Casanowicz. 2 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM. 



Buddhism arose at the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth 

 century B. C. as a schism or reformation of Brahmanism in India. 

 Its founder, known by the names of Gautama, Sakyamuni, and 

 Buddha, was Siddhartha, son of Suddhodanna of the family Gautama . 

 rajah, or chieftain, of the Sakya clan, who were settled in the Ganges 

 Valley, along the southern border of Nepal and the northeast part 

 of Oude (Oudh), about a hundred miles north-northeast of Benares, 

 with Kapilavastu as capital. Gautama, then, is the family name 

 which the Sakyas assumed after one of the Vedic seers (Rishis), 

 Sakya-Muni, means sage of the Sakyas, while Buddha is not a proper 

 or personal name, but a title. 



Later tradition has woven around the person and career of the 

 founder a mass of myths and legends. So, for instance, that before 



i Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1S93, pp. "30, etc 



' Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1904, pp. 735-744, with 17 plates. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 59— No. 2371. 



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