“The Arts of Thailand”
FROM THE LATE 13th century to the mid-16th, northern Siam was the seat of the independent kingdom of Lân Nâ.
The earlier history is obscure. According to the Chieng Sèn theory, which was evolved several dozen years ago, the Tai had ruled a part of the region, including Chieng Sèn, as early as the 9th century; in the 11th they submitted to King Aniruddha of Pagán, who introduced Theravāda Buddhism; and in the 12th, or perhaps long before, Chieng Sèn was a flourishing center of Buddhist art.
In fact there is no evidence whatever that Aniruddha or any of his dynasty conquered any part of northern Siam, or introduced the Theravāda there. The old Mòn kingdom of Lampûn, a stronghold of the Doctrine, was almost certainly the only place in the north where the arts were cultivated on any considerable scale before the 14th century. In 1292 the Tai, who had been ruling at Chieng Sèn for several generations, conquered the old Mòn city and possessed themselves of its skilled artisans. Four years later they founded a new capital at Chieng Mai.
The Tai rulers of Lân Nâ, with one exception, were staunch Buddhists. In the 14th century the religious and artistic influence of Sukhodaya made itself felt. In the early 15th, there was a setback, when the reigning monarch renounced the Doctrine and expropriated the monasteries, transferring his worship to the spirits and his support to the sorcerers. He was deposed in 1441 and his son Tiloka mounted the throne. Tiloka was not only a devout Buddhist; he was also a man of great energy, strong will, and varied interests. Under his sponsorship the golden age of Buddhist art and letters at Chieng Mai began. It lasted about a hundred years. In the mid-16th century the Burmese conquered Lân Nâ and held the greater part of it for three hundred years. In the 19th it became a part of Siam.
Architecture
THE OLDEST TAI MONUMENT in Lân Nâ that remains standing is the Cetiya Sî Liem (“the Four-Square Reminder”) near Chieng Mai, built around 1300. Though it has undergone some deplorable modernization, it retains enough of its original shape to show that it was a copy of some Mòn monument at Lampûn, such as Wat Kūkuṭa.
The seven Spires Monastery (Wat Jet Yòt), begun in 1455, is the masterpiece of Tiloka’s reign. The founder, it may be guessed, intended it as a great act of merit in connection with the 2000th anniversary of the Buddha’s death (1456/7). Officially named Mahābodhārāma, it is a copy of the Mahābodhi temple at Bodhgayā on a smaller scale; very likely Tiloka, like his fellow-monarch the Mòn King of Pegu, sent a mission of architects and craftsmen to India to get the plans. As at Bodhgayā, the main structure is a cube, supporting a large central obelisk with a lesser obelisk at each corner. The stucco patterns on the obelisks, manifestly intended to reproduce the false-dormers and other details of the original, were perhaps in fact copied from a small replica of the sort which has been discovered in considerable quantity in the temple precinct at Bodhgayā. On the walls are stucco reliefs of the greatest elegance, clearly inspired by Sukhodaya; celestial beings float among flowers, pressing their palms together in the gesture of respect. Nominally they are the gods that came to applaud the Buddha’s victory over evil; in fact, as they are dressed in the ceremonial costume of the Court of Lân Nâ, they are doubtless idealized portraits of King Tiloka and the members of his family. There was nothing like this at Bodhgayā; but their presence here does not in the least violate the rule of copying: they are not thought of as an integral part of the monument, but as real people in the guise of gods.
The old monuments of Lân Nâ have suffered terribly from the ravages of war, and even worse from the piety that likes to have objects of worship look as spick and span as possible. As it is difficult to draw the right conclusions from structures that have been so much restored, the bronze models are more instructive, especially when they are inscribed with a date: one of the most beautiful was cast by a Burmese official at Chieng Sèn in the year 1727. The example in our Exhibition is no less charming; and as it is similar in certain details it may date from about the same time.
cat.no. 125
Assembly-halls and other monastery buildings of light construction are perishable; probably the oldest that now survive date from the late 18th century, but the 19th and even the 20th have produced some fine work, notable for the elegance of its woodcarving.
Sculpture
THE ENTIRE RANGE of art in northern Siam (with the partial exception of Lampûn) is commonly attributed to “the Chieng Sèn style,” though no one claims that more than a fraction of it has anything to do with Chieng Sèn.
This fraction consists of several hundred bronze Buddha images of a single type. (The same type was also produced, though more rarely, at Sukhodaya; see page 95). The posture is seated, with the legs crossed and both feet turned up in the adamantine pose, and with the right hand calling the Earth to witness. The robe is in the open scheme and the shoulder-flap ends above the nipple. The finial on top of the head is a lotus-bud.
In honor of the most famous example, an image at Chieng Mai called the Lion Lord (Pra Sing), I shall refer to the group of images having these particular characteristics as the lion type. Up to a few years ago all the images of this type were assigned to the early Chieng Sèn style and dated anywhere from the 9th to the 13th century; but when it was noticed that a certain number of them bear dated inscriptions, and that the dates range from 1470 to 1565, the advocates of the Chieng Sèn theory decided that they were of early Chieng Sèn type but later Chieng Sèn style; while those without inscriptions, or at least the most beautiful among them, were of early Chieng Sèn type and early Chieng Sèn style as well.
Another type, of which there are many thousands of examples, is also seated and calling the Earth to witness; but the legs, instead of being crossed, are folded in the hero pose. The robe again is in the open scheme, but the shoulder-flap comes all the way down to the navel. The finial on top of the head is a flame. As the iconography comes from Sukhodaya, everyone agrees that this type dates from the 14th century or later, and that the center of production was Chieng Mai; to distinguish it from the other, it is commonly assigned to the later Chieng Sèn style, or, more correctly, to the Chieng Mai style. The same style includes images of other types, with several variations in dress, posture, and hand position; and though seated figures are the most frequent, there are also standing, walking and reclining ones. I shall call them all mixed types.
I have adopted such non-committal names in order to spare the reader the discomfort of a contradictory terminology. In my opinion the lion type (“early Chieng Sèn”) and the mixed types (“later Chieng Sèn”) are more or less contemporary, both beginning in the second half of the 15th century. As they both centered at Chieng Mai there is no good reason to associate either of them particularly with Chieng Sèn. Chieng Sèn was the second city of Lân Nâ in the golden age, and all types were made there as indeed they were at Lampûn and several other cities in the same period - but the capital, Chieng Mai, was naturally the leader.
There is no use repeating here the reasons why I think the Chieng Sèn theory is wrong, nor explaining the reasons why many of my friends in Bangkok think it is right; it will suffice to refer the curious reader to other works for the arguments on both sides.* In the following pages I shall merely summarize my views of the probabilities regarding the development of sculpture in the north.
We have already noticed the Mòn style of Lampûn (8th-13th century), an offshoot of Dvāravatī art. If the Tai of Chieng Sèn were making any images at that time, it seems likely they would be of a similar sort. Several small bronzes have been found in various parts of the north that might answer that description, though none, I believe, at Chieng Sèn.
The only images that can be positively attributed to the founder of Chieng Mai are the terra cotta figures that originally stood in the niches at the Cetiya Sî Liem, which was built around 1300 (page 121). They are of exactly the same type as at Wat Kūkuṭa: the founder, we may guess, depended chiefly on Lampûn for religious art. Lampûn remained the cultural capital; its sculptors taught the Tai. A great many terra cottas and a certain number of bronzes might be attributed to the Tai kingdom of Lân Nâ in the 14th century; but in fact there is no way of distinguishing them from those produced previously in the independent kingdom of Lampûn.
There are reasons to believe that around 1370, under the inspiration of the Thera Sumana and other monks from Sukhodaya, this style was succeeded by a provincial version of the Sukhodaya style, which we may call the style of the Thera Sumana. It is admittedly hypothetical, for no dated images are known from this period: the only sure examples are sealed up inside the base of a shrine built about sixty years ago at Lampûn (Wat Pra Yün), where we cannot get at them. I am inclined to attribute to the style of Sumana a large bronze statue which tradition assigns incorrectly, I think to the founder of Chieng Mai. It looks like the work of inexperienced sculptors struggling with the complexities of the Sukhodaya walking Buddha and the supernatural anatomy. As with the Victorious King, orthodoxy has imposed equal length on the four fingers of each hand. The excessive length of the left arm, one of the 32 marks of the Buddha’s person, is awkwardly rendered, and the walking position is poorly realized.
It is hard to say whether the style of the Thera Sumana accomplished anything better under the pious kings who reigned in the last quarter of the 14th century. During the long reign of the heretical king in the first half of the 15th the demand for expensive images could hardly have been very great. When he was deposed in 1441 the sculptural tradition was perhaps in danger of running out altogether.
In 1449 his successor, Tiloka, captured the city of Nân, where a competent school of image-makers carried on the Sukhodaya tradition; we have seen examples of the work they were doing 23 years earlier (page 123). Tiloka celebrated his victory by ordering them to see how quickly they could cast a huge Buddha image. As they completed the work in less than a hundred days, it would be uncharitable to judge it as severely as we might otherwise feel inclined to.
A decade later Tiloka conquered Svargaloka, where the Sukhodaya tradition was deep-rooted and the love of sculpture amounted to a passion. In those days the capture of skilled craftsmen was one of the main motives for waging war, so we may be sure he rounded up as many of them as he could and sent them back to his capital. Among them, incidentally, were potters: it appears that from about this period the production of Svargaloka ware ceased at Svargaloka itself and began in Lân Nâ. The sculptors, both from Nân and from Svargaloka, would mingle with others who had been trained by an earlier generation at Chieng Mai. From about 1480 on, dated images of mixed type of a conventional sort begin to appear in Lân Nâ, more or less in the Sukhodaya post-classic manner, and doubtless some of the undated ones are a little earlier. Over a period of years the production of this sort of image grew enormous. The greatest masterpiece was completed in 1492, five years after Tiloka’s death. The example in our Exhibition appears to date from the early 16 century.
Among the mixed types are a good many images wearing the Royal attire; the example in our Exhibition is one of the finest I have ever seen. I should date it around 1500. As a general rule the jewels are superimposed on the monastic robe; but in this case if the parure were eliminated the body would be nude from the waist up, just as it sometimes was in the school of Lopburî.
Another work of considerable charm, though lacking the refinement of the two last-mentioned, is a statuette cast in 1482. Clearly its author had a Sukhodaya figure in mind, for he has imitated the little hooks at the lower corners of the robe - but in such a way that they could hardly be mistaken for the hallmark of Sukhodaya workmanship (see page 94). Unlike the walking Buddhas of Sukhodaya, this one performs no gesture, but is intent on stamping the impression of his footsole in the same place where the three previous Buddhas of the present age had left their own footprints. Legend asserts that the first of them was nearly 70 feet tall, and the others progressively smaller, while the historical Buddha was a mere 30. In illustrating the footprints on the pedestal, the sculptor has respected the proportions.
As to the lion type, I believe it was introduced at the same time the Seven Spires Monastery was built. That structure, as we have seen, is a copy of the Mahābodhi temple at Bodhgayā and bears the same name (page 122). In like manner, the Lion Lord and the rest of the lion series must be copies of the Lion of the Śākyas, the famous Buddha image that occupied the place of honor at Bodhgayā. If Tiloka sent a mission to Bodhgayā to get the plans of the temple, as I believe he did, they would hardly fail to bring back with them a replica of the statue. (Another one seems to have been introduced at Sukhodaya at about the same time; see page 95.) Perhaps the replica was no more than a terra cotta tablet; or perhaps it was one of those black-stone reliefs, carved in the Pāla period, of which so many have been found in the temple precinct at Bodhgayā. In any case the Indian style would be unfamiliar to the Chieng Mai sculptors; and when they copied it in their own idiom they created, in effect, a new style. The point is best illustrated by the earliest of the dated lion type images, which was cast in 1470. Judging from the dated examples, the images of this type in northern Siam were mostly produced between 1470 and 1525, with a single revival in 1565, and a bigger revival in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Of the two lion type images in our Exhibition, one is dated in 1486; the other, which is undated, I should place a decade or two later. The plastic treatment, indeed, is rather different, but no more so than in a good many dated examples; and it appears to be due more to the individual differences between two artists than to any great difference in date. There is also a fragment, which may have belonged to a lion type image; I should give it about the same dating. Adherents of the Chieng Sèn theory say the dated image is of inferior workmanship, but deem the other to be much more beautiful and therefore earlier by 200 years or more. The reader (having duly noted that the rather unpleasant stare of the dated figure is the result of modern inlay in the eyes) may form his own opinion as to the relative merits of the two pieces, and decide for himself whether so subjective a test can provide a reliable chronology.
An attractive kneeling figure in the Exhibition is probably an idealized portrait of a donor. I suspect it dates from the second half of the 15th century; the round chignon and the diadem are very much like those of an Ayudhyā bronze of the same period.
Though Lân Nâ in general had an overwhelming preference for bronze, one locality, Payao, produced some very accomplished stone sculpture. None of it is dated, but the 16th century would be a good guess, as some comparable material, found in a case in Laos, is inscribed with a date equivalent to 1556, and some inscriptions of slightly earlier date have been discovered among the ruins of Payao.
cat. no. 18
96. Small stone model of the Mahābodhi Temple, Bodhgayā. Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Photograph by courtesy of the Museum.)
106. Seated Buddha. Cast in 1492. Bronze; ht. 2.35 m. Monastery of the Lion Lord (Wat Pra Sing), Chieng Mai.
107. Small stone replica of the image called Lion of the Śākyas. From Bodhgayā. Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Photograph by courtesy of the Museum.)
111. The Buddha stamping the impression of his Footsole on the ground. Cast in 1482. Bronze; ht. 46 cm. (Cat. no. 83.)
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* See Dr. R. S. IcMay’s Buddhist Art in siam, Cambridge. 1958. chapter VIII, and his Culture of South-East Asia, London, 1954. chapter X and XI. both written before my views appealed; for a summing-up. see his Chronology of Northern Siamese Buddha images, Oriental Art. Spring. 1955, and his review of my book in The Middle Way, August, 1957. For a vigoious defence. of the early Chieng Sèn chronology, see M.c. Chand and Khien Vimsiri, Thai Monumental Bronzes, Bangkok, 1957. For a fuller discussion of my views. see my Buddha Image of northern Siam, JSS XLI/2, and my Dated Buddha Images of Northern Siam, Ascona, 1959; also Mr. Boisselier’s review of my book in Artibus Asiae, XXI, 3/4, page 299 ff., and Mr. Sullivan’s remarks on page 307 ff. of the same issue; also Mr. Coedès in Arts Asiatiques, II/4, page 287.
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