The Thai ceremonial skirt (T-0669), or “phaa nung,” fragment in the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection, exemplifies a unique Indo-Thai aesthetic that engages Thai motifs and the Indian dyeing tradition. The fragment incorporates Thai Buddhist and Hindu religious imagery into its design, rendered through dyeing and block-printing techniques developed on the Indian subcontinent. Dyed cotton garments from the Indian subcontinent surpassed locally produced Thai silks in quality of color, design and cost. Court royals wore such textiles to communicate that their status and wealth resulted from divine approbation. The cultural confluence represented in the collection’s phaa nung illustrates the transfer of aesthetic principles and religious themes that occurred over centuries of commercial exchange between the Coromandel Coast and the Ayutthaya and Bangkok Courts in Thailand, formerly Siam.
Trade relations between India and Thai capital cities flourished under Ayutthaya rulers during the 15th through the late-18th centuries, persisting under the Bangkok Court that succeeded them. Thailand saw a shift in imperial leadership from the Ayutthaya to the Bangkok Court in 1782 when Siam regained power over invading Burmese and established a political center in Bangkok. The Early Bangkok political body regarded Ayutthaya as an ideal city and preserved traditions from the previous court, including implementing—and, eventually, codifying—a hierarchy of dress conceived by Ayutthaya leaders. Ayutthaya rulers, remarkably engaged in the trade process, restricted Indian textiles for royal use only, thereby establishing the supremacy of Indian-produced textiles in Thai society.
Portuguese traders who populated the region as early as the 16th century recorded royal involvement in the textile industry.[i] Merchants kept extensive records of trade relations, social standards and royal attire in the nation. These records provide an image of a thriving trade economy dictated by the aesthetic tastes of the ruling class.[ii] When the capital was relocated to Bangkok in the late-18th century, the royal court continued to be directly involved in the process of commissioning and importing Indian textile goods. The aesthetic preferences of the late Ayutthaya and early Bangkok courtiers reflect a unique visual culture cultivated over centuries of trade between India and Thailand. The collection’s phaa nung is dated to the 18th century, placing it centuries after the advent of a documented trade relationship between the two nations; thus, the patterning, construction and use of the fragment reflect at least two hundred years of cultural diffusion.[iii]
The religious iconography on the phaa nung implies that its patron’s high social standing was realized through religious affiliations. The repeating male figure, posed with joined palms, recalls traditional Thai renderings of Hindu and Buddhist subjects derived from the diverse religious groups present in the Coromandel Coast and the subcontinent at large. Murals at the Buddhist temple Wat Yai Suwannaram in Tha Rab, Phetchaburi, illustrate how the pictorial language developed from this point of cultural intersection. These murals were most likely painted during an 18th-century renovation project, making them contemporary with the collection’s phaa nung. Polychromatic celestial worshippers, or “thep chumnum,” model imperial fashion of the period. These figures are adorned with crowns, jewelry and, it appears, phaa nung garments, fashioned as pants much like a dhoti. Lightweight crowns composed of concentric forms culminating in flame-like motifs are still worn by Thai royals. A facsimile in the Royal Collection in London, sent to Queen Victoria in 1857 features red and green precious stones that are comparable to the coloration of 18th century phaa nung. Art historian John Guy compares vegetal motifs, star-shaped medallions, and mandalas in these wall paintings, as well as decorative elements on ceiling woodwork, door frames and window embrasures, to textile designs of the period.[iv]
Guy hypothesizes that the repeated deity motif on this fragment is a “thepanom,” a figure with joined palms in a gesture of respect. However, the social significance of Indian-produced textiles among the Thai elite class invites a secondary reading of the motif as a conflation of the thepanom and the god Vishnu who stands above a stylized “Garuda,” a motif found in both Hindu and Buddhist faiths. The motif is called “narai song krut.” Thai material culture historian Prapassorn Posrithong asserts that a textile with the motif of Vishnu riding Garuda emblazoned a white plane, as in the collection’s phaa nung, communicated a wearer’s royal status in 18th-century Thai society.[v] Further, motifs of Vishnu riding Garuda in temples indicate that the structures were constructed or repaired under regal guidance. Thrones, too, often featured imagery of Garuda, thereby conflating the user with divine Vishnu.
Painted ceramics, or “Bencharong,” resemble contemporary textiles, sharing patterns, iconography and color schemes with material goods imported from India. A ceramic bottle produced in China for the Thai market features an image of the crowned Buddha seated within a lotus flower, perhaps a visual metaphor for the cross-legged pose. The bottle’s body consists of flame-like motifs, which we can find on the phaa nung fragments. The traditional “lai yang” textile pattern, characterized by a centerfield populated by repeating geometric, vegetal or figural motifs influenced by Buddhist and Hindu ideology, shares motifs and pictorial devices with Bencharong ceramics crafted for the Thai market. The phaa nung fragment, resist-dyed and block-printed with a repeated vegetal grid pattern and a central thepanom motif, is an example of a lai yang textile design interpreted by manufacturers on the Coromandel Coast.
The collection’s phaa nung fragment exhibits the rich visual culture derived from the merging of Thai imperial aesthetic preferences and social codes with Indian religious institutions and textile production methods. Indian-produced textiles, elevated above local Thai silks for their deep colors and unique Thai-Indian fusion style, were used in Thai society to affirm royal authority in international trade and domestic affairs.
Notes
[i] Gittinger, Mattibelle. “Master Dyers to the East.” Master Dyers to the World, The Textile Museum, 1982.
[ii] Bromberg, Paul. “Report on a Symposium: Weaving Royal Traditions Through Time: Textiles and Dress at the Thai Court and Beyond.” Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 102, 2014, pp. 211-220.
[iii] Guy, John. Woven Cargoes: Indian Textiles in the East. London, Thames and Hudson, 1998.
[iv] Guy, John. “Indian Textiles for the Thai Market – A Royal Prerogative.” The Textile Museum Journal, vol. 31, 1992. pp. 82-96.
[v] Posrithong’, Prapassorn. “Artistic relations between Indian textiles for the Thai market and Bencharong ware.” Royal Porcelain from Siam: Unpacking the Ring Collection, edited by Anne Håbu and Dawn F. Rooney, Hermes, 2013, pp. 1-13.