No. 2371 CATALOGUE OF BUDDHIST ART— CASANOWICZ 325 



196. Miniature of a Tibetan Buddha. — Statuette of bronze, gilt, 

 inclosed in a small shrine. Height of image, 2\ inches; of shrine, 

 3* inches. Shanghai, China. (Plate 71, fig. 3, Cat. No. 158309, 

 U.S.N.M.) 



197. EammaracJiam. — Ordination service of a Buddhist monk. 

 Manuscript written on strips of palm leaf, written on both sides in 

 the Pali language in the Laos characters. The writing is done by 

 means of a sharp stylus, and then ink is rubbed over so as to make 

 the markings with the stylus visible. Gilt on the edges, inclosed by 

 two wooden tablets secured by a cord passing through them. At 

 the end of the cord is a fish carved of wood and a bundle of bamboo 

 rings. The fish as a symbol was adopted by the Buddhists from 

 Hinduism. In Hindu mythology a fish, that was the disguise of 

 Brahma or Vishnu, was the savior of Manu (the Hindu Noah) in the 

 great flood. The first incarnation of Vishnu was in the form of a 

 fish (the matsya avatar), and generally is the fish considered symbol 

 of good luck and favorable omen. In the late Mahayana texts 

 Buddha is compared to a fisher. Length, 23^ inches; width, 2 \ 

 inches. Laos, Further India. (Cat. No. 217669, U.S.N.M.) 



198. Japanese Vajra. — Bronze. The vajra (Tibetan, dorje), lit- 

 erally, diamond, or that which is indestructible, symbolic of the true 

 doctrine which can not be destroyed, is the ritual scepter or wand of 

 Mahayana or northern Buddhism. It is originally the thunderbolt 

 of Indra, the Hindu god of the atmosphere, only that the points of 

 the darts are closed. "The Nepalese scriptures say that a contest 

 once occurred between Buddha and Indra, in which the latter was 

 defeated, and had wrested from him his chief and peculiar instrument 

 of power, the vajra or thunderbolt, which was appropriated as a 

 trophy by the victor, and has ever since been adopted by his followers 

 as the favorite emblem of their religion" 12 The Tibetans believe 

 the dorje to have fallen from heaven and to have alighted in a monas- 

 ter}- at Lhasa, where the original is still retained. It is called in 

 Tibetan serapun-dze. An annual festival has been established in its 

 honor and is one of the principal religious fetes. 13 The three-pronged 

 vajra is called by the Japanese san-ko; the five-pronged, go-ko; the 

 single-pointed vajra which is in use in Japan is called do-Jco. Length, 

 5f inches. Japan. (Cat. No. 130390, U.S.N.M.) 



199. Japanese Vajra. — Bronze. Length, 51 inches. Japan. (Cat. 

 No. 167172, U.S.N.M.) 



200. Tibetan Dorje. — Bronze. Length, 4f inches. Tibet. (Cat. 

 No. 167268, U.S.N.M.) 



i* William Woodville Rockhill, Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet. Report of the U. S. National Museum, 

 1893, p. 740. 

 i« Edward Paske, Journal of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 8, p. 202. 



