Part 7

It is, however, the large casts of Oriental objects and ancient German shrines that will probably be of paramount interest to an American. It is here shown that the most notable and interesting objects in the world can be copied with the utmost exactness, and in their actual size, and brought within reach of the people of any country. Even Trajan’s Column is here; and, though in this case it has had to be set up in two columns instead of one, many others have confirmed my experience of the impossibility in tracing out at Rome the figures which cover it so satisfactorily as they can be made out at South Kensington.

The 17th of May, 1880, is an historic day in the annals of the museum. On that day was thrown open to the public its Indian section. A small collection of Indian curiosities has long been wandering from one place to another in London, and had finally been shelved at the very top of the India Office. So, at any rate, it was stated, and most persons were willing to accept the statement on faith by the time they reached the third story of that edifice. However, the collection steadily increased up there, and it was at length removed to some rooms at South Kensington. But there it attracted little attention from the public, though much from scholars, and it was publicly announced that it would be closed because it did not pay expenses. The authorities ultimately followed better counsels: they gave it up to the Direction of the South Kensington Museum. The Queen loaned it the magnificent collection of Oriental armor from Windsor Castle; Indian treasures hitherto dispersed through the other courts of the museum were gathered together in the new section; Dr. Leitner’s collection of Græco-Buddhist sculptures was added; the walls adorned with Carpenter’s water-colors illustrative of Indian scenery and life; and lo! London awaked one morning to find that it had a new and splendid institution, which the Queen and her family had visited the day before with “the greatest satisfaction.”

It is indeed a noble section; and if any one has read about India, is at all interested in its pantheon, its mythology, or its relation to the evolution of humanity, he may pass many fruitful days or even weeks in these wonderful rooms. There is no university in the world where one can learn so much about India, especially if he should study these objects in connection with Fergusson’s _History of Indian and Eastern Architecture_. Immediately on entering, one passes those strange remains brought by Dr. Leitner from Peshawar, which exhibit the influence of Greek art upon India at the time when Buddhism was there in its zenith of power. Next we pass beneath the model of the great Sanchi Tope Gate. The Buddhist Tope is a sort of mound or barrow, only built of earth and stone with great care; it is shaped like a regular dome, surrounded by a double railing, and is reached through four large gates of the finest and most elaborate carvings. This hill-like dome, wherever found, appears to have no other use than to contain some tiny relic--one of Buddha’s hairs, say, or his toe-nail. In the _Mahawanso_, the Buddhist history of Ceylon, it is said: “The chief of the Devos, Sumano, supplicated of the deity worthy of offerings for an offering. The Vanquisher, passing his hand over his head, bestowed on him a handful of his pure blue locks from the growing hair of his head. Receiving and depositing it in a superb golden casket, on the spot where the divine teacher had stood, he enshrined the lock in an emerald dagoba, and bowed down in worship.” The thorax-bone of Buddha is a great relic; but most sacred of all is his left canine tooth, whose shrine probably originated the famous Car of Juggernaut. Among the treasures in this section is a drum-shaped reliquary of pure gold; it is about three inches high by two in diameter, and panelled with saints in relief. It was found in one of these huge topes; inside it were wrappings within wrappings, and last of all some hardly distinguishable speck representing an unknown saint.

The model of the great gate is probably the largest achievement of the copying art ever known. In 1869 the party set out with twenty-eight tons of materials, chiefly plaster-of-Paris; these were drawn by bullocks one hundred and eighty miles; and in a year’s time three full-sized casts of the magnificent structure were completed without a flaw--which is marvellous, considering the extremely fine and complicated character of the carvings. This structure, erected in the first century of our era, is thirty-three feet in height. There are two high pillars--every inch of whose surfaces is covered with symbolical carvings--supporting capitals made of elephant-heads--the elephant being the animal in whose shape Buddha descended for his incarnation. Above the elephants three cross-beams are stretched, upholding pinnacles bearing the phallic Trisul, the Wheel, the Lion. There are winged lions that remind us of Assyrian influence; there are sieges and wars (no doubt about the relics); scenes relating to the princely and amorous years of Siddharta, but nothing of his asceticism or his lowliness; everywhere symbolical forms, especially the serpent, which is always intertwined with the emblems of early Buddhism, indicating that his first converts were the serpent-worshippers called Nagas. The intricacy and fineness of all this work, constituting, as Fergusson has said, the “picture Bible of Buddhism,” are indescribable.

Throughout this Indian section there are large photographs of the temples and palaces representing the eras of Indian architecture--Buddhist, Dravidian, Jain, Moslem--and near many of them actual specimens or casts of their ornamentation. Some of these specimens of sculptured ornamentation fill one with amazement at the degree of art-culture they imply, and by their refined beauty. Here the capital of a pillar is fringed round with small elephant-heads; there a pedestal is adorned with mounted horsemen in relief, so regularly dispersed that at first they might hardly be noticed. There are some architraves from Rajpootna, of the eleventh century, made up of gods, goddesses, and symbolic forms, the tracery of which is so refined and the execution so delicate that it would be impossible to find any European work of like antiquity to equal it. These arts are still kept up. There are some screens from Mirzapore and from Agra, made of perforated sandstone or marble, which are meant for ventilation and also to admit a little light: they are so delicate, and the figures so fine-edged, as to induce one to touch them and make sure they are not made of paper or wax.

Dr. Birdwood has prepared in two small volumes a fair hand-book of this section, which, however, contains no direct references to the objects. Useful as it is, a student will find that it is too apt to take the conventional view of things, as, for example, when it speaks of Hindoos throwing themselves beneath the Car of Juggernaut--an error which Dr. Hunter exploded long ago. There is no doubt that the real way to understand these objects, and to derive high benefit from this unique collection, is to study them in connection with Dr. Fergusson’s great work on Eastern architecture--certainly one of the greatest archæological and descriptive books ever written.

The throne of Akbar was set in the air at the convergence of bridges, so that no man might approach him without being inspected from the surrounding windows, and any arms he might have about him observed. Before removal to the new section it stood in all its grandeur, but it has been considered sufficient to preserve the central column and the large capital which supported the famous throne. It is wonderful, indeed, that it should be left to this age and to England to appreciate the romance of the East, and to revise, correct, and estimate the traditions of the Oriental world concerning its own monarchs. Akbar, for instance, bears the reputation in the East of having been an archtyrant and a blasphemer, and the care he took in preparing this curious building, with his throne suspended, as it were, in mid-air for safety, is regarded as confirming the Oriental view. But the fact is now known that the hostility excited by Akbar was through his liberality in entering upon a comparative study of all religions, arousing thereby the enmity of all their priesthoods. From being a saint, to whom the people brought their sick that his breath might heal them, the Emperor became in popular regard a demon. He instituted at Delhi ( A.D. 1542-1605) discussions on every Thursday evening, to which he invited the most learned representatives of all religions, allowing each his statement with strict impartiality; he had as many as he could of the sacred books of each religion translated for his library, though neither his threats nor bribes could extort from the Brahmans their Vedas, which now are open to every English reader through the labors of Max Müller. He tried in turns worshipping Vishnu, Allah, the Sun, and Christ. Badáoní writes that “when the strong embankment of our clear [Mussulman] law and our excellent faith had once been broken through, his Majesty grew colder and colder.” This sad result (in the view of Badáoní) being proved by the fact that “not a trace of Mussulman feeling was left in his heart,” and “there grew gradually, as the outline on a stone, the conviction in his heart that there were sensible men of all religions.”

He had three wives representing these religious--Mehal (Hindoo), Roumi (Moslem), Miriam (Christian). A great deal of Akbar’s toleration and independence may be ascribed to the influence of his favorite sultana, Mehal. She was a faithful, wise, and educated lady, who always held the Emperor to his high standard. There is a miniature of her in this museum, showing her in a rich gauze, or dress, diaphanous above the waist; she is not burdened with jewels, as was the case with some of her wealthy subjects, but wears the ornaments of a lowly and quiet spirit.

There is also here a picture of the superb tomb, the Taje, at Agra. It is the most beautiful monument in the world; even that of the Prince Consort, in Hyde Park, is poor beside it. It is to be remembered, however, that, according to the imperial custom of that period and region, such tombs were built while those for whom they were intended were yet living. They were by no means what Western people would imagine to be tombs, but beautiful pleasure-domes of purest marbles. During the lives of their builders they were wont to invite their friends to gay feasts in them, and this continued until the pretty palace received the dead bodies of those who had enjoyed them, and were so turned into monuments.

It is not always that these ancient monuments, as in Akbar’s case, survive to remind the world of to-day what forerunners some of its characteristic tendencies had in early times and unsuspected places. Indeed, it might surprise some of the magnificent princes of the East in the far past if they could now visit London and observe the kind of interest their monuments excite. Here, for example, is an exact and full-sized copy of that ancient iron pillar of Delhi which some think gave the province its name. It was set up in the fourth century, and is twenty-two feet above ground. All manner of superstitions have grown around it. The Hindoos have a belief that it rests upon the head of the king-serpent Vásaki, near the earth’s centre; that the founder of a great dynasty was told by an oracle that if he planted it there his kingdom would never be shaken so long as it should stand; that one of his successors, doubting this legend, dug it up, and found the bottom stained with the serpent’s blood; and that in consequence the dynasty passed away before Mussulman and then English conquerors. For ages this pillar has been kept polished by the vast numbers who climbed or tried to climb it every year, success in this feat being deemed a proof of high pedigree. But during fifteen centuries there were two rather obvious things which the Hindoos appear never to have attempted--one was to really dig about the bottom of this pillar, the other to translate an old Sanscrit inscription on it. Both of these have recently been done by Englishmen. The bottom was found to reach only twenty inches beneath the surface of the earth, there resting on a gridiron of iron bars. The inscription testifies that it was set up by a prince unknown in other Hindoo annals. This prince, Dháva by name, would appear to have been the most extraordinary being that the sun ever shone upon, or, rather, that ever shone upon the sun. A clause of the inscription runs: “By him who obtained with his own arm an undivided sovereignty on the earth for a long period, who united in himself the qualities of the sun and the moon, who had beauty of countenance like the full moon--by this same Rajah Dháva, having bowed his head to the feet of Vishnu, and fixed his mind on him, was this very lofty arm of the adored Vishnu [the pillar] caused to be erected.” There was probably a figure of Garuda on it originally, which the Mohammedans would have removed; but the real object of the pillar, Mr. Fergusson thinks, was to celebrate the defeat of the Balhikas ( A.D. 364 or 371). “It is,” says Fergusson, “to say the least of it, a curious coincidence that, eight centuries afterward, men from that same Bactrian country should have erected a Jaya Stambha ten times as tall as this one, in the same court-yard, to celebrate their victory over the descendants of those Hindoos who so long before had expelled their ancestors from the country.” The chief present value of the monument of this magnificent individual is the light it enables such archæologists of metals as Day, Percy, Murray, and Mallet to cast on the early use of iron. It is pure malleable iron, without alloy; and though since it was forged it has been exposed to the weather, it is unrusted, and the capital and inscription are as clear as when it was set up fourteen centuries ago. Mr. Day has shown the remarkable interest of this pillar in that respect, though I believe that the iron sickle found beneath the feet of a Sphinx, and now in the British Museum, brings us nearer to Tubal-cain by a thousand years, being assigned to B.C. 600.

The Indian section has sundry “trophies,” among which the “Tippoo Tiger” is conspicuous. As it is just possible that some transatlantic readers may be so benighted as not to know what the “Tippoo Tiger” is, I will explain that it is a musical instrument contrived for the delectation of Tippoo Sahib. It is a large-sized tiger, under whose claws lies a prostrate Englishman, dressed pretty much in the fashion of a London City merchant of East India Company times. When this emblematic organ is played the music that issues consists of blended tiger-growls and human groans. This instrument was made for Tippoo Sultan by a fellow-citizen of the tiger’s victim! It brought much satisfaction to the royal breast of Tippoo, and still more perhaps to the boys who used to be taken to see and hear it when it was a show in Leadenhall Street. Not far from it is also a beautiful cannon which belonged to Tippoo Sahib; it was captured at Mysore, and presented to the Queen. Instead of the cross with which the godly guns of Christendom are decorated, this one is adorned with the sun and moon; but it has also a lion, to remind Britannia where her own emblem may have originated. Tippoo Sahib’s throne was supported by massive gold tiger-heads, admirably wrought, one of which is also in the Windsor collection. He would seem to have been fond of animals.

There is in the Oriental fire-arms a notable resemblance to the old arquebus. It looks as if when the Orientals received gunpowder from the West they received also the cross-bows with which it was first connected; and, while that shape has been completely modified here, it has been retained in the East. The powder-horns and other accoutrements also have a curious resemblance to the mediæval shape of such things in Europe.

Prominence is given to another “trophy,” the throne of Runjeet Singh, whom the English overthrew. It is a large throne, wrought of pure gold, and too softly cushioned to have ever fulfilled the much-needed duties of that Eastern throne whose velvet seat turned to rough flint whenever any subject of him who sat on it was suffering an injustice.

There are a good many things in this Indian section which one meets with surprise. For example, here is a tablet of marble which belonged to the Parsees of Bombay, but is decorated with Assyrian figures; also, there is a panel brought from the Audience Hall of the Great Mogul, on which is fashioned in marbles of various colors a fair copy of Orpheus charming the beasts with his violin, as it was found frescoed in the Catacombs. It is surmised that Austin de Bordeaux, who worked for a time at Delhi, copied it from Raphael’s picture, and made Orpheus a portrait of himself. But it is not so easy to explain the close resemblance between the ancient pottery of Gour and the Delia Robbia ware.

The collection of jade in this section is superb; it cannot be worth much less than fifty thousand pounds. The splendid jewellery, the rich stuffs, the models of Hindoos of all castes, the conventionalized figures of the deities, the pottery of all times and places in India here collected, make this new section one of unique interest, and one which cannot fail to prove of importance to the industrial arts as well as to Oriental studies.

South Kensington Museum contains a noble collection of Persian articles, ancient and modern, made for it in that country by Major E. Murdoch Smith, of the Royal Engineers. I say ancient and modern; but where an art has had a continuous evolution it would be perhaps more philosophical to pronounce its last results the oldest, and its “modern” period that in which it was newest. In no other part of this museum have I seen works which reminded me so much of that long conspiracy between man and nature by which wild-briers have turned to roses. It seemed to me there might be written on the walls this beautiful page of the “Rose Garden” of Sâdi: “I have heard that in the land of the East they are forty years in making a china cup: they make a hundred a day at Bagdad, and consequently you see the meanness of the price. A chicken, as soon as it comes out of the egg, seeks its food; but an infant hath not reason and discrimination. That which was something all at once never arrives at much perfection; and the other by degrees surpasses all things in power and excellence. Glass is everywhere, and therefore of no value; the ruby is obtained with difficulty, and on that account is precious. Affairs are accomplished through patience: the hasty man faileth in his undertakings.”

It was probably under the inspiration of these very words of Sâdi that Bagdad in the end vindicated itself. “The powerful Abbaside Caliphs of Bagdad,” says Major Murdoch Smith, “no doubt summoned to their court men of science and learning from all the countries under their sway--Persia furnishing them with architects and other artists. Skilled Persian workmen were no doubt employed in large numbers in decorating the mosques and palaces in the Arab capital, situated as it was on the very frontier of their own country. Thence, we believe, arose the so-called Arabian or arabesque style of ornament, afterward so widely spread, and now so well known. The peculiar pendent ornamentation of vaults and niches, of which the Alhambra is so typical an example, is identical in style with that used throughout Persia down to the present day.” If this theory be true--and really these works appear to sanction it--the Arabs derived their arts from Persia, as the Romans did from the Greeks, and consequently the Moors imported a Persian art into Spain. The Shah of Persia, in wishing to carry back with him Owen Jones’s reproductions of the Alhambra at the Crystal Palace, had good reason for his selection.

It is difficult to tell the age of most of this Persian work, and I think the enterprising collector of these specimens is not always happy in his estimates. Thus there is a beautiful vase (No. 1224) which Major Smith thinks over 500 years old, on the ground that it bears an inscription in Pehlevi; but that is no more evidence than would be a Latin epitaph in Westminster Abbey that the monument was erected during the Roman occupation of Britain. The collection shows that Persian art is by no means in such a state of decay as many have supposed. This is especially true of the exquisite damascene work still executed at Ispahan. “The true damascene,” says our collector, “is made of a particular kind of iron. After the object is forged it is placed for six or eight days in the furnace of a hot bath, where the greatest attention has to be paid to the even heating of the article. The bath is heated with the dried dung of cows and other animals, which gives a steady and not very intense heat, and is supposed to contain the salts necessary for the formation of true damascene. When the article is taken out of the furnace it is left at the temper it has therein acquired. It is then finished and polished. To bring out the grain a certain mineral (of which a specimen may be seen in the museum) is then applied in the following manner: about three parts of the mineral are dissolved in ten of water, over a slow fire, in an earthenware or leaden vessel. The object is then slightly heated, and a little of the liquid applied with a cotton wad, after which it is washed in cold water. If the damascene does not appear sufficiently the operation is repeated. The object must be thoroughly cleaned and polished before the mineral is applied.”

It is very doubtful if Corsinet, the French artist who carried the art of damascening to such an extent in the time of Henry IV., has left any such beautiful work as this now being wrought by artists whose names are unknown in Europe. The three kinds of ornamentation known as “damascening” are elegantly represented--the delicately lustred and watered blade, the light etching on polished steel, and the rich inlaying of steel with gold and silver. One of the most beautiful pieces of work is a kaliān or hookah (for smoking tobacco) of brass open-work, with turquoise and other ornamentation. In the head of this great and solemn pipe the tobacco is placed, slightly moistened, under pieces of live charcoal, which are prevented from falling off by the movable top of the bottle containing the water, into which the end of the stem descends. The tobacco smoked is the mild Tombaku, produced near Shiraz, which really is the best “Turkish,” though Turkey never produced a leaf of it. If any one will gaze on this Persian hookah he will see why it is imposing enough to warrant such religious treatment as its Indian counterpart, the hubble-bubble, has received at the hands of an eloquent Vedantist preacher of my acquaintance (Chintamon). The hubble-bubble is generally made of a cocoa-nut shell, with a receptacle for water, through which the smoke passes before being inhaled. In Chintamon’s parable the stem represents the body; passions are the tobacco; the bowl is mind; understanding is the plug which prevents the tobacco-passions from blocking up the stem-body; knowledge is the fire which separates passion--the pure from the impure; the evil is reduced to ashes, and vanishes in the vapor of folly; while through the purifying water of reflection, and the mouth-piece of mental satisfaction, man draws the desirable aroma of content, and hears a bubbling noise which suggests the still small voice of Reason.