GRANDE CLOCHE DE TEMPLE EN BRONZE

Daté de 1206 de l'ère birmane, ou 1844

Footnotes

This monumental bell is a prime example of large-scale bronze casting from mid-nineteenth-century Burma. It embodies both artistic excellence and the intertwining of religious devotion with royal patronage prevalent across Southeast Asia. An extensive inscription around the surface provides a detailed record of Buddhist merit-making, social hierarchy, and political identity. Bells such as this were suspended on the outside of temples and were struck three times by a devotee at the end of their devotions.

The body of the bell is encircled by multiple lines of the incised inscription, interspersed with moulded rings and culminating on the shoulder with two rows of lotus-petals. Two crouching guardian lions (simbas) form the structural supports of the suspension loop. The loop itself is surmounted by an exquisitely detailed lotus bud emerging from foliage, an emblem of the Buddha's purity and enlightenment. The suspension bracket takes the form of addorsed rearing mythical creatures (makara), rendered in high relief. It does not incorporate a clapper because it would have been struck on the outside with a striker.

Inscription
According to the inscription, production of the bell was completed on Saturday, 12 September 1844 (B.E. 1206), a date selected as auspicious according to astrological calculations.

The donor is identified as Maha Samatha Kyaw Htin, Governor and Mayor of Lower Burma and Duke of Tharrawaddy, resident at the Mon capital of Hansawaddy. During peacetime he held office as a tax collector and at times of war was lieutenant to the commander of his area. He is described as a close aide to King Tharrawaddy (r. 1837-46) and held the privilege of wearing the regalia associated with a Crown Prince, namely, the golden jacket, golden cross, and royal coat.

It further records that the donor contributed 75,000 copper coins (approximately 1.5 tonnes) toward its casting, and that the bell was commissioned for installation at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, the preeminent Buddhist shrine of Burma, believed to date from the time of the Buddha.

Composed in verse, the inscription vividly records aspects of contemporary life, expressions of Buddhist devotion, and lists the many further offerings which were made by the donor at this time. In addition to this bell, Maha Samatha Kyaw Htin is credited with numerous religious and civic benefactions, including the construction of a three-storey monastery in Tharrawaddy, a fifty-seven-foot pagoda at the southern face of the Shwedagon, and a smaller thirty-foot pagoda in Upper Burma. He also established a community hall decorated with gilt paintings and a victory column. His generosity extended to social welfare: he distributed garments— shirts for men; skirts, blouses, and shawls for women—and arranged for the release and provision of prisoners under his authority.

For a full discussion of this type of bell, see Sylvia Fraser-Lu, Burmese Crafts: Past and Present, Oxford, 1994, pp. 132–134. Fraser-Lu notes that the composition of the bronze differs from that used for Buddha images and is specifically designed to be sonorous. An alloy containing approximately 83% copper and 17% tin was required, and jewellery or precious metals were sometimes added as additional acts of merit-making (p. 133). A smaller bell of this type, originally from a monastery, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 89.4.1466).

Provenance
The property of the Archdiocesan Seminary of St. Andrews.
Removed from Dry Grange, Melrose, Selkirk, Scotland where the above was located until its relocation to Edinburgh in 1986. Dry Grange was built in 1889 by Edward Sprot of Riddell and it was acquired by Thomas Roberts in 1895. In the 1920s it became a hotel and was used as an evacuee centre during the last war. Following the war, it became Gillies College.
According to the last occupants of the property, the bell is believed to have been there since the last century.
Sotheby's, London, 14 November 1988, Lot 62.
Private Collection, Belgium, acquired from the above;
Thence by descent.

緬甸 緬曆 1206 年 (即公元1844年) 廟堂銅鐘

來源
聖安德魯斯總教區神學院所有
從蘇格蘭塞爾扣克郡梅爾羅斯的德萊格蘭奇（Dry Grange）移出，直至1986年移至愛丁堡
德萊格蘭奇建於1889年，由里德爾的愛德華・斯普羅特（Edward Sprot of Riddell）興建，於1895年為湯瑪斯・羅伯茨（Thomas Roberts）購得。二十世紀二十年代時，該處成為旅館，並於第二次世界大戰期間作為疏散中心使用。戰後，該建築成為吉利斯書院（Gillies College）。
據最後一任住戶所述，此鐘自上個世紀以來即存於該處。
蘇富比，倫敦，1988 年 11 月 14 日，拍品62
比利時私人收藏，購於上者
後由家族傳承