COLUMBIA
LIBRARY
 

^m     COLUMNS     ^
 

Marco Polo, Mr. Gladstone,
and Other Buddhas
 

In the Monastery of the Jade Green Clouds, at Peking,
there is a hall containing life-sized statues of 500 Buddhas.
Among the multitude of images, each witii the half-closed,
almond eyes and dreamy smile of the typical Arhan, the Chinese
guide points out one with "Western" features. This, he tells you,
is none other than Marco Polo. Some scholars sniff at this attri¬
bution, but it is interesting that in Canton's "Temple of the 500
Gods" one of the images is also dubbed "Marco Polo." Against a
background of missionary endeavor to make Christians of them,
the Chinese respond with the retort courteous of claiming Marco
Polo as a Buddhist saint. And this has been carried even further in
Tibet, where travellers used to observe tin plates stamped with
the efHgies of Napoleon III, the Prince of Wales, and Mr. Glad¬
stone—all popularly supposed to be Buddhas of more or less sanctity.
Professor Goodrich traces other more significant i.ast-AVest
interactions in his article (page 5). The recent exhibition in
Butler Library—"Polo to Perry"—gave a lively visual inter¬
pretation of the same process. The other day, we noticed several
East Asian exchange-students inspecting this exhibition M'ith obvi¬
ous interest. For us they seemed the latest ripple in the old ebb-
and-flow between East and West—which has been going on ever
since Alexander the Great's conquest of India in 328 B. C.