OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL 115 



moral doctrines intended by the Brahman authors for the Kshatryas 

 or military caste. 



The present copy is written in Sanskrit in Bengal characters and 

 is about 200 years old. Calcutta, India. (Cat. No. 255323, 

 U.S.N. M.) Gift of Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagore. 



VI 



OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL OF BUDDHISM 



INTRODUCTION 



The collection described in the following pages includes material 

 from Further India and the Far East. The nucleus of the collection, 

 consisting largely of objects from the Far East, was formed through 

 the years since the beginning of the National Museum. Since the 

 beginning of the present century, besides many smaller accessions 

 which have been received, mostly by gift and bequest, three con- 

 siderable collections have enriched the ensemble: (1) A collection of 

 about 200 specimens coming from the Laos, a division of the wide- 

 spread Thai or Shan race and ethnographically related to the Siamese 

 in Indo-China, acquired by purchase from Dr. Carl Hansen in 1902; 

 (2) a collection of 40 specimens from Burma, deposited by the late 

 S. S. Rowland in 1903 and later changed by him into a bequest; 

 and (3) a collection of 35 specimens, partly from Siam and partly 

 from the Far East, collected by the late Maj. Murray Warner and 

 presented by his widow, Mrs. Gertrude Bass Warner. The greater 

 part of the specimens from Tibet has been described by the late 

 Wmiam Woodville Rockhill in "Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet." ^2 

 They are included in the present bulletin for the sake of completeness. 



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 

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

 of Oude (Gudh), 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 

 his last life on earth he had gone through hundreds of rebirths in all 



M Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1893, pp. 665-747. 



