Although inexistence for a long time, ancient Champa kingdom left on land of coastal in Centre in Vietnam many featured cultural heritages, in which, heritages of ancient statues are the most valuable, biggest and copious.
It is no coincidence for that not only in Danang Cham Sculpture Museum, Champa ancient statues are stored and exhibited in many large international and domestic museums, such as: Vietnam National Museum of History, Vietnam History Museum – Ho Chi Minh City, Guimet Museum of Asian Art (France), ect. In particularly, in recent years, museums in 10 provinces in the Centre from Quang Binh to Binh Thuan all have collected, stored and exhibited many Champa ancient statues that have been found since 1975. Not least Champa ancient statues became treasures of the nation and some international and domestic museums. All the ancient statues were collected, verified, classified, year-identified by many scientists, ect. for stringing a pearl chain of Champa ancient statues – one of three pearl chains of ancient sculpture art those are the biggest, most typical and distinctive in Southeast Asia.
In addition to the preface that provides generally information of a pearl chain of Champa sculpture art, there are three major parts contained in the book.
The first part: Named statues – analysis and introduction of some statues (Indochina Buddha statue, Tra Kieu worship, Durga statue in Po Nagar in Nha Trang, Mahishamardini sculpture relief in Po Nagar in Nha Trang, Sadashiva statue in Po Rome tower,ect.) those are famous, typical for known styles, but still arouses issues that make experts to debate on and there are different opinions about them.
The second part: Statues in temples (Siva - Gauri statue in Madam temple, Vishnu Garudasana in Madam temple, Siva Mahayogi statue in Phat Loi pagoda, Visnu statue in Buu Bon pagoda, ect.) – the statues are now worshiped in pagodas, temples of Viet people, but being unstudied deeply by scientists, or only introduced cursorily.
The third part: Statues that were just discovered (sculpture relieves of Tra Lien Surya, Tra Lien Umamaheshvara, Phu Hung Siva Mahaguru statue, Chien Dan Mahishamardini sculpture relief) – About the statues have just lifted out from underground since 1975.
Hopefully Champa Art – stories of ancient statues partly meets studying need of wide audience about ancient Champa Art./.
Nguyen Vu
