Mahavijaya Buhddha, Han art Mynamar, Musée Guimet-Paris

The Guimet Museum (French: Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet or Musée Guimet) is a museum of Asian art located at 6, place d'Iéna in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. It has one of the largest collections of Asian art outside Asia.

The museum which was first located at Lyon in 1879 and was handed over to the state and transferred to Paris in 1885,^{[citation needed]} was founded by Émile Étienne Guimet, an industrialist. Devoted to travel, Guimet was in 1876 commissioned by the minister of public instruction to study the religions of the Far East, and the museum contains many of the fruits of this expedition, including a fine collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and many objects relating not merely to the religions of the East but also to those of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. One of its wings, the Panthéon Bouddhique, displays religious artworks.

From December 2006 to April 2007, the museum harboured collections of the Kabul Museum, with archaeological pieces from the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum, and the Indo-Scythian treasure of Tillia Tepe.

Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (P. sammāsambuddha, S. samyaksaṃbuddha) of our age, "Buddha" meaning "awakened one" or "the enlightened one." Siddhārtha Gautama may also be referred to as Gautama Buddha or as Śākyamuni ("Sage of the Śākyas").

The time of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE. UNESCO lists Lumbini, Nepal as a world heritage site and birthplace of Gautam Buddha. There are also claims about birth place of Gautam Buddha to be Kapilavastu at Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, or Kapileswara, Orissa, modern India. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kośala.

Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later.

Buddharūpa (बुद्धरूप, literally, "Form of the Awakened One") is the Sanskrit and Pali term used in Buddhism for statues or models of the Buddha.