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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(NOVEMBER, 1883.
M. Elie Pajot, landowner in Réunion Island, and Member of the Société des Arts et des Sciences of that Island."
As regards the statue numbered 7 in the plate accompanying his article, Sir Walter Elliot is entirely mistaken. First, this image was not found at Negapatam, but it was taken by a captain of Sipahis out of a shrine' under the Colossal Buddha statue in the Shwë-Dagon-Prah at Rangun, after the conquest of the city by the English troops, during the Burmese war in 1824, and acquired for M. de Ravisi from the heirs of the captain by M. Alling, police inspector in Karikal, as stated in the same paper of M. Textor de Ravisi. Sir Walter Elliot has certainly been led into this error by a misunderstanding of M. Textor de Ravisi's communication be- fore the International Oriental Congress, held in London in 1874, or perhaps he had forgotten, after some years had elapsed, that there were two different papers in the Travaux of the Academic Society of St. Quentin, the one relating to the idols of Negapatam, the other to the said Burmese image.
He also says at page 227: "No. 7 appears to be a female devotee of very rude workmanship." Here, also, Sir Walter Elliot is mistaken, though, in that case, he follows the interpretations of M. Textor de Ravisi, who thinks the statue may represent Maya Devi, the mother of Gautama Buddha.
It would be needless to follow the author in the discussion of the reasons he gives for considering this statue as May&Dêvi; he finds them in the various parts of the figure, and refers principally to a tradition, preserved in the family of the captain of sipahis, that the idol was wor. shipped in Shwë-Dagon-Prah under the name of the Virgin and Mother of Buddha. Those conclusions we cannot accept, for the following reasons :
The said statue is now in the Musée Guimet Collection, at Lyons, having been given to M. Guimet by M. Textor de Ravisi four years ago. It stands in the gallery of the first floor, first room, in the lower range of the case 3 A. The image is thus described in the new edition of the Catalogue at p. 63 -
"ÇAkya-Mouni debout, vêtu d'une grande robe et d'un manteau, la main droite étendue sur la poitrine, la gauche pendant vers la terre et tenant le bord du manteau. Marbre peint; hauteur 0 700mm. (avec le socle). Provenant de Rangoon, Birmanie."
The statue has been carefully examined by M. Guimet and myself, and by our native collaborators MM. Panditileke and Lewis da Sylva,
Buddhist priests of Ceylon, M. Y. Ymäyzoumi, a scholar of the Buddhist Singon sect in Japan, and quite recently by M. Louis Vossiou, the present General Consul of France at Rangun, and their unanimous opinion was that it represented the exact features of the Gautama Buddha of the Burmese.
As regards M. de Ravisi's interpretation I objected in the following terms in a letter that I wrote to him on the 5th of June 1883:
"I cannot agree with the opinion that our statue represents the Mother of Buddha :
"lst. Because there is no trace anywhere of worship paid to Maya-Dêvi, except perhaps, according to Dr. Edkins in Religion in China, by the Eastern Mongols, who worship the Mother of Buddha under the name of Ehe Borrhan. But such worship of a woman is quite contradictory to all Buddhist tenets, who place women in a quite inferior rank, so as to oblige them to be reborn as men before they can hope to attain to Nirvana.
"2nd. Because, though the features of the face are somewhat those of a woman, they are identi. cal, notwithstanding, with those generally given to Gaudama, as illustrated by numerous other representations of the same personage, the face being intended to represent that of a young man of about eighteen.
" 3rd. Because the conical ornament on the top of the forehead is by no means a flame, but the Uénisha, the sacred elevation of the forehead peculiar to the Buddhas when they have attained to Bodhi.
"4th. Because the equality of length in the fingers of the hands and feet is a particular characteristic of a Buddha,-one of the thirty-two external characters by which he is to be recognised as soon as born.
"5th. Because there is absolutely nothing in the general form of the body to allow us to conclude that it is that of a woman, the garments differing in no way from those of other images of Buddha in Burma, Siam, and Kamboja."
We, therefore, hold the said statue to be that of Sakya Muni, the Gaudama Buddha of the Burmese. Nevertheless, in order to settle entirely this question we prayed M. Louis Vossiou to try, in Rangun, to ascertain from the priests of the Shwë-Dagon-Prah whether, at any time, there was in that Pagoda an image of Maya-Dêvi, and whether any worship was ever paid to her.
DE MILLOUÉ, Directeur du Musée Guimet à Lyon. Lyons, 1883.
Mémoire sur l'idole de la Vierge de la Pagode de Shox-Dagon-Prah d Rangoon, pp. 43, 4.
