Art. X.—Notes on some Bronze Buddhas from Pekin.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 37, 1904, Page 208

Art. X.—Notes on some Bronze Buddhas from Pekin. By William Welch. [Read before the Manawatu Philosophical Society, 15th September, 1904.] These few notes on the bronze Buddhas are submitted with a large amount of diffidence, in that in a small country town such as Palmerston North we find a difficulty in consulting works of reference, and we are not so sure of our facts as we should be. In fact, we too often have to trust to memory from past reading. These Buddhas form part of a collection that was looted from the Imperial Palace in the forbidden City of Pekin at the time of the relief of the legations by the allied troops, in August, 1899. I might say I have indisputable proof of genuineness of the statement that they came from the Imperial Palace, and not from the bazaars—for the bazaars were also looted, and they contained a lot of bronzes and other curios manufactured for sale to tourists as the genuine article, and no doubt much that came from Pekin bazaars at that time was sold as genuine. But these have a better history. I have a letter from the trooper of the New South Wales naval contingent who looted it. The naval people could bring away more plunder than the land forces, on account of the stowage-capacity of their boats; but a better proof is the fact that some of the bronzes contained a large percentage of gold, in some as much as 50 per cent., while in another was hidden a number of invocations to Buddha, block-printed, in the Tibetan language, on parchment (some were written), invocations in his attribute of Guardian Deity and Thunderbolt Bearer, sent by the Lama of Lhassa to the Emperor of China in the seventeenth century. These have been translated and examined by the Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts in the British Museum. The way they were discovered—that is, the manuscripts—is rather amusing. My wife was reading some tale of Indian treasures, and remarked that it was a pity I could not find some large diamonds or emeralds in my Buddhas. I said “Yes, it is a pity.” But the next morning I was gloating over them as usual, and I took up one and shook it, and sure enough I fancied I could hear a rustle. I tried again and again, still I could hear it. I was not sure whether it was my shirt-cuff, or my heart that was beating, for I may say I felt pretty excited. I examined the bronze carefully, and at last made out a small crack in the bottom. It was a different Buddha from the others: whereas the others were elaborately dressed and decorated, this one was specially plain—merely a sheet-like garment thrown over one shoulder, reaching to below the knees, and

a very plain head-covering; moreover, the image was gilded. But I worked away at this crack, and got a knife in, and at last wrenched open a piece that had been pinched in, and discovered sixteen very tightly rolled parchments. I wanted to know all about the writing then, but no one had ever seen such caligraphy before, so at last I sent a photo. to the British Museum, and they translated those I sent, as I have mentioned. I hope some day to say more about this Tibetan Buddha; but I think you will agree with me that after that there is no reason to doubt the trooper's statement that he looted them from the Palace. I made the remark just now that there were some bronzes containing a large percentage of gold in their composition. This was done to give the finish and colour, or patina, to the article. Gold and silver are known to exist in more or less quantities in all old Chinese bronzes, but the art of mixing is lost. I should say here, perhaps, what bronze is. It is essentially a mixture or compound of copper and tin, which metals appear to have been the earliest known. Neither of these metals possesses the hardness required for making instruments, either for domestic or warlike purposes, and they appear to have been early found capable of hardening each other by combination, consisting of different proportions according to the purposes to which it is to be applied. Bronze is always harder and more fusible than copper: it is highly malleable when it contains a very large proportion of copper, while tempering increases its malleability, and it oxidizes very slowly even in moist air: hence its application to so many purposes. Mr. Fox, Professor of Egyptology at Oxford, I think, two or three years ago wrote a pamphlet on the ancient Egyptian tools, and he tells how they cut open a stone that had been partly sawn through and found imbedded the corrundrum teeth of a circular saw of bronze. Of course there was only the oxide left, but the teeth were intact, as well as the marks on the stone of the circular saw. The method of case-hardening bronze has been lost for many ages. In the bronzes before us strength and hardness were evidently not a desideratum—only beauty of colour, and malleability to run while molten into every crevice of the mould; but though our chemists can find to a fraction the quantity of the various metals, they cannot find the secret of the mixing. Perhaps it was like the mixing of the Bessemer steel: at a certain temperature manganese is put into the molten iron, which causes the grain or texture to break up into finer particles and lay closer. This is steel by the Bessemer process instead of

by the old and expensive way of recarbonizing the iron. The analysis would not show the presence of the manganese, and the art of mixing for Bessemer steel could easily become one of the lost arts. It is imagined something of the kind occurred in the mixing of the ingredients of the ancient Chinese bronzes. For ornamental objects only beauty would be considered, and the value of the metals would not enter into the matter—only what would give the finest results—I mean whether they put in much or little of the precious metals. In the two images of Buddha we have before us you will notice there is a complete absence of tool-marks—in fact, it is, I think, safe to say no tool has been near them. They appear exactly alike at first glance, as though they had come out of the same mould; but on a closer examination there are seen differences innumerable, and it is a tribute to the beautiful workmanship of the Chinese artisans that they should appear so nearly exact as to deceive one. Their method of making a casting was this: The pattern was first made in wax over a core—that is, the wax was the thickness of the metal required—and was then given its exact and beautiful finish; it was afterwards put in a plaster or clay mould, and when that was set a hole was made through the plaster into the wax, and then put into a heated oven: the wax ran out and left the mould empty. The core was held in place by stays of iron wire. After cooling, the molten metal was poured in, and the mould had to be smashed to get the figure. This process was known as cire perdu (lost wax). You thus see that only one impression was possible, and to make another the whole process had to be gone over again—the wax pattern to be made afresh, and the plaster mould. It was expensive, but the result was beautiful. In the present day castings are never made in one piece, but in several, which are afterwards united by heating and the application of fused metal. Most representations of Buddha are as we see these—cross-legged, with the soles of the feet turned up. Sven Hedin, perhaps the greatest traveller in Tibet, speaking of the great seated Buddha of Lhassa, says he is seated European fashion—that is, with his legs down. This is the reincarnated Buddha, and the tradition is suggestive, and appeals to us more than perhaps any other Buddhist legend—that the end of the present age will be in the hands of the Pilings or western foreigner. There have been twenty-four legendary Buddhas who immediately preceded Gautama, and the next is the Europeanised Buddha who is thus shown in the fashion of western civilisation. The word “Buddha” is always used in the ancient Pali texts as a title, not as a name, and means “enlightened.” The

historical Buddha (the Gautama) taught that he was one of a long series of Buddhas who appear at intervals in the world, and all teach the same doctrines. After the death of each Buddha his religion flourishes for a time and then decays, and is at last completely forgotten, until a new Buddha appears, who again preaches the lost truth (or Dharma). The next Buddha will be Maitraya Buddha, “the Buddha of Kindness.” In many he is holding the urn of wisdom. At a future time I would like to have more to say on the subject; I would only observe now that it seems somewhat strange in all cases I have come across the urn is made of a different piece of metal, and fits into the hands by a pin. It cannot be on account of the difficulty of casting, for I have seen some far more intricate; in fact, I have some bronzes myself from Japan that are so beautifully made that the idea of its being beyond the skill of the old Chinese masters to make the urn in one piece with the Buddha is not to be thought of. Probably it was done so that the urn may be taken out on certain occasions and something else put in. All the ornamentation has its uses and reasons, in the same way as the prescribed dress of the Jewish priesthood, or our Catholic and Episcopal clergy. Some day a paper might be read on the Buddhist dress; but this present paper was merely intended to be a few notes on the making of an image of Buddha and the methods of casting.