THE S. S. HOWLAND COLLECTION OF BUDDHIST RELIGIOUS 

 ART IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



By Immanuel M. Gasanowicz, 

 Aid, Division of Historic Archeology. 



The collection was made by Mr. Howland during his travels abroad, 

 which extended from Iceland to Burma, and loaned to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, by which it was deposited in the United States National 

 Museum. Most of the objects were obtained by him from their orig- 

 inal possessors. Besides the objects herein described, Mr. Howland's 

 deposit includes also several valuable Oriental manuscripts. 



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, at 

 the foot of the Nepalese Himalayas, about a hundred miles to the 

 north of Benares, with Kapilavatsu as capital. 



The simple facts of the founder's career, so far as they can be freed 

 from the mass of legends woven about his person, are as follows: 

 Siddhartha, who was of a meditative turn of mind and deeply impressed 

 with the vanity and misery of life, retired from the world at the age 

 of 29, after ten years of married life. This is called the " Great 

 Renunciation." For six years he led the life of a recluse, devoting 

 himself to the study of the various S}^stems of philosophy and theology 

 of the times, and to severe ascetic practices, without finding in either 

 a solution of the riddle of existence. In his thirty -fifth year he passed 

 through a second mental crisis. While sitting in meditation under 

 the famous Bo-tree (a species of Ficus religiosa) at Buddha Gaya, he 

 attained to the state of a Buddha— that is, of an "enlightened one," 

 or "awakened one 11 — having found the cause of the evils of life and 

 the way of deliverance from them. 



nat mus 1904 47 737 



