Museum of Cham Sculpture

The bronze statue of the bodhisattva Tara stands nearly 1.15 meters tall. Her two hands once held two small objects: a lotus and a conch shell. Yet for 45 years, those two objects were never at her side. The statue went one way and the two small objects stayed behind, until the day all three met again under the same roof.

That roof belongs to the Museum of Cham Sculpture in Da Nang. It stands on the west bank of the Hàn River, on 2 September Street, about 200 meters south of Cầu Rồng, the Dragon Bridge. It is the largest museum of sculpture in Vietnam today. The museum holds about 2,000 objects. Nearly 500 of them are on display. Most are carved from sandstone, and a few are made of bronze or terracotta.

The first building was designed by two French architects, Delaval and Auclair, following a suggestion from the archaeologist Henri Parmentier. It has a single story and a flat roof in the European classical style. But a glance up at the tops of the pillars along the roof reveals something unusual. They are shaped like Cham towers. Work began in 1915, and the museum opened in 1919. It is now more than 100 years old.

The story begins even earlier. In the late 19th century, a French official named Charles Lemire worked in several provinces of central Vietnam. He grew worried as he watched the temples, towers and statues of Champa slowly fall into ruin. In 1892, he had 50 statues carried to a park in Tourane, the name the French then used for Da Nang. Over time, the number of statues there grew to 90. The next year, Lemire asked for a museum to be founded on the spot.

The man who turned that request into reality was Henri Parmentier. He was an architect and archaeologist with the French School of the Far East, a French institute that studies the classical civilizations of Asia. He proposed a plan for the museum, and later he was put in charge of the project. Building the museum, then moving and arranging the collection, took until April 1919. On opening day, the museum held 160 objects.

The statues came from Champa, the kingdom of the Cham people. It arose in what is now central Vietnam in the 2nd century, around the year 192. Over more than 1,000 years, the Cham built temples and towers to the Hindu gods. In some periods, they also worshipped the Buddha and the bodhisattvas.

The objects are arranged by the places where they were found. Each room bears the name of a place. There are rooms for Mỹ Sơn and Trà Kiệu. Others are named for Đồng Dương and Tháp Mẫm. Walking from one room to the next feels like passing through many centuries.

Among the pieces from Mỹ Sơn is a carving that once sat above the arched doorway of Tower E1. The god Vishnu lies on the cosmic ocean, held up by a seven-headed serpent. From his navel a lotus grows, and on the lotus the god Brahma sits in meditation. A whole story of the birth of the world is held in a single slab of stone.

The altar of Tower E1 also came from Mỹ Sơn. It dates from the 7th or 8th century. It was first made of 16 stone blocks, and 14 remain today. Around it are carvings of ascetics meditating in the forest and six dancers offering scarves. The whole altar stands for Mount Meru. In Indian myth, Mount Meru is the home of the gods. On this altar, people long ago set the Linga and Yoni, symbols of the god Shiva.

From Trà Kiệu, two Apsara dancers move beside two Gandharva musicians, their skirts strung with beads. The stone seems to be in motion. From Tháp Mẫm, in the old region of Bình Định, came the Gajasimha, a creature with the head of an elephant and the body of a lion. It dates from the 12th century. Many works like these have been recognized as National Treasures.

The objects from Đồng Dương tell of a Buddhist monastery. The monastery dates from the time when Buddhism in Champa flourished most, in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. Among these pieces is the statue of the bodhisattva Tara. She stands upright, with a full chest and her hair gathered in a high topknot. On the topknot sits an image of Amitabha Buddha. She is the largest bronze statue in the museum. She is also one of very few bronze statues in all of Cham sculpture.

The lotus and the conch had a journey of their own. In 1978, villagers in Đồng Dương were digging the ground and came upon the statue by chance. That same year, they also found the lotus and the conch. These two ritual objects had once rested in her hands, but they had broken off the statue. The statue was later taken to the museum. The two small objects stayed behind, and the local commune authorities kept them safe for more than 40 years.

Then, on the afternoon of December 9, 2023, the lotus and the conch were handed over to the Museum of Cham Sculpture, where the original statue is kept. After 45 years apart, they shared a roof with her once more.

The gods in the museum do not belong only to the past. The second floor of the newer building at the back is devoted to Cham culture today, with clothing, musical instruments and photographs of Cham people. In Khánh Hòa, the Katê Festival falls on the first day of the seventh month of the Cham calendar. On that day, the Cham who follow the Bàlamôn faith bring offerings up to the tower of Pô Klong Garai. Bàlamôn is a Cham Hindu tradition. They carry the robes of the gods in procession, and the Apsara dance comes alive again in the middle of the festival. The stone dancers of Trà Kiệu still have living people dancing after them.

To stand before these statues is to stand before the faith of a living people. And anyone who one day reaches Mỹ Sơn, where many of these carvings once stood, will recognize figures first met beside the Hàn River.

Evening falls over 2 September Street. In the rooms of the museum, the Apsara dancers dance in stone, and Vishnu lies on the cosmic ocean. And the bodhisattva Tara stands upright, her topknot high. Her hands waited 45 years. Now the wait is over.