The Traders of Ku Bua
-
Upload
elizabeth-lyons -
Category
Documents
-
view
217 -
download
2
Transcript of The Traders of Ku Bua
The Traders of Ku BuaAuthor(s): Elizabeth LyonsSource: Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, Vol. 19 (1965), pp. 52-56Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20067084 .
Accessed: 14/06/2014 01:35
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
University of Hawai'i Press and Asia Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 195.34.78.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:35:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Traders of Ku Bua Elizabeth Lyons
New York, New York
IN 1961 the Department of Fine Arts of Thailand excavated a site of the Dvaravati
period at Ku Bua, about 18 kms. south of Ratburi. It had to be a hasty excavation because of the approach of the rainy season, the lack of funds, and the presence of an
unusually avid crowd of treasure seekers. All of this resulted in a loss of much archaeological data although there may be some compensation in the beauty or rarity of much of the
material discovered.
The site consists of 44 mounds, only a few of
which have as yet been investigated. Stupa No. 1 yielded a stone votive tablet and a silver casket
containing a gold reliquary box, but the major
portion of the excavated material is terra cotta
and stucco sculpture which ornamented the
brick monuments. The site will be fully discussed in future articles by the Fine Arts Department but a few examples will be included here to show
the style and variety of the work. What interests us in this article is the representation of a type of foreigner familiar in T'ang Chinese pottery
figurines but hitherto unknown in Southeast
Asian art.
Fig. 1 shows a standing male figure with a
large nose and bulging eyes dressed in a peaked
Phrygian cap, a blouse or long coat, breeches
and high boots. This is the only whole figure re covered but fragments show there were at least
three pairs, one figure in right profile, the other in left. The hands of each are clasped on the
chest and the figures probably stood in an at
titude of paying respect to a divinity placed be tween them.
Fig. 2 is the uncleaned head of another figure from the same site. Fig. 3, a similar type, is from an unidentified site near Nakon Pathom.
The small Chinese collection of the National Museum in Bangkok contains two large figurines of Semitic traders who are Ming cousins of the
Ku Bua travelers. The one illustrated here, Fig. 4, wears a peaked hat with attached neck veil, a belted long blouse over trousers, and high soft boots. This is not only the same costume as that of the Ku Bua figure, it is also nearly identical
with the dress of the gift bearing Three Kings in the early Christian mosaic of San Appolinara
Nuovo, a remarkable persistence of costume
type over a period of several hundred years.
Who were these rugged foreign travelers so
uncomfortably dressed for the hot and humid climate of Thailand? Where did they come from, and why did they come? And when?
The Ku Bua excavation will give no unassail
able answers to these questions. However the
sculpture, apart from the traders, is clearly of
the Dvaravati period and shows a marked Gupta Pala influence. This will indicate a date some
where between the 6th and the 10th centuries.
We now turn to Western and Chinese history for clues which might narrow the date for the
Ku Bua traders. The accounts of 8th century
Europe give interesting information on the rise
of the Semitic merchant and suggest why the
Jews had acquired a monopoly of the East-West
trade by the Carolingian period.
The state of Islam rose with extraordinary swiftness. Ten years after the death of Mo
hammed it ruled Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia,
Egypt. By the end of the 7th century, the route
from the Mohammedan part of the Aegean to
the Christian ports was closed, and the route from Byzantium to Greece, the Adriatic and
Sicily was not open much longer. No Christian merchant could cross those barriers to the East. "The only persons who were still engaged in commerce were Jews. Arabs neither drove them out nor massacred them . . .
they constituted the
only economic link which survived between Islam and Christianity, or between East and
West."1
Agobard writing in 822-30 complains of their wealth and privileges and protests that the mar
ket day was changed to suit their customs.2 Pirenne says they were protected by the church as an indispensable part of society since they
were the only people free to travel in both Mos lem and Christian countries.3
52
This content downloaded from 195.34.78.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:35:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Fig. 2. Head of a figure ex cavated at Ku Bua.
Fig. 3. Head of a figure. Na kon Fathom Museum.
Height 7 inches.
Fig. 1.
Figure of a man ivear
ing a
Phrygian cap, ex
cavated at Ku Bua, a
site of the D vara vat i
period. Height c. 30 inches.
Fig. 4. Figure of a Semitic trader. Chinese, Ming dynasty, glazed pottery, c. 27 inches. Bangkok,
National Museum.
Fig. 5. Head of an Indian, ex cavated at Ku Bua.
Bangkok, National Museum.
Fig. 7. Head of a figure ex cavated at Ku Bua.
Bangkok, National Museum.
Fig. 6. Head of a figure ex cavated at Ku Bua.
Bangkok, National Museum.
Fig. 8. Bust of an image of the
Buddha, excavated at
Ku Bua. Private collec
tion, Bangkok. Height 14 inches.
53
This content downloaded from 195.34.78.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:35:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The friendly relationship between Moslems and Jews seems sadly incomprehensible today and it is necessary to examine the background for an explanation. The Sassanian empire had
persecuted Jews and Nestorians. Both had helped the Mohammedan invaders and when the king dom fell to the Arabs in 637 they were rewarded
with tolerance. The same situation prevailed in
Spain where the Jews, persecuted by the Visi
goths, helped the Moors and were treated as allies.
Elsewhere in the Near East and Africa where the
Jews were ancient settlers they were counted as
local people and were little affected by the
change. In the Crimea there was the kingdom of the Khazars who sometime after the Turks
had swept through the area in 641 had grad ually turned to Judaism and by 740 were ruled
by a Jewish king. These people were the organ izers of a transit service between the Black Sea
and the Caspian, the universal carriers between
East and West.4 Although we will not try to
identify the exact homeland of Ku Bua traders this is one of the likely places from which they
might come.
Medieval society had an appetite for Eastern
spices and the Church considered incense and
rich fabrics necessary for its riches, but early in
the 8 th century St. Boniface complains of the
scarcity of these items.5 A century later, Ibn
Kordabeh writes of Jewish merchants sailing from the land of the Franks to India and China and returning laden with musk, aloes, camphor,
cinnamon, etc. Ibn Kordabeh, author of a book
on geography, was Director of Posts and Police
in Djibal around the mid-9th century and would be in a position to know traders and their routes.6
At about the same time the prosperity and
sophistication of T'ang China created in that
country a demand for exotic and luxury goods from foreign lands; and in 731 the institution of a money economy instead of a barter system
must have made trade even more inviting to the
foreign merchant.
The 8 th and 9 th centuries were the height of this trade; by the 10th it had declined for a combination of reasons. In 845 Emperor Wu
banned foreign religions. In 878 Canton was
sacked and thousands of alien merchants per ished. In 947 the road to the West was cut off and there was no longer a direct route between
Persia and China. This same period saw the
Semitic trader lose his monopoly when the Cru
sades opened the Christian route to the East and
the Venetians became the business agents of
Europe.
The best known route from the West to
China was the famous old silk road which went overland by way of Samarkand or Bactria to
Tunhuang, but travelers also sailed to India from
the Red Sea-Aden ports or the Tigris-Persian Gulf-Gulf of Oman route. They then followed the coast of India in short stages, sometimes
taking in Ceylon, then through the Straits of
Malacca to the rich kingdoms of Indonesia, and back up the coast to Indo-China and Canton.7
There is also another route which is not as
well recorded. One can sail across the Indian
Ocean, or down the coast from Rangoon to the narrowest part of the Thai-Malay peninsula and cross it by river and land in short stages to
the Gulf of Siam, thus avoiding the Straits. From time to time pirates in those waters were a severe hazard, and at other periods Indonesian
port taxes and other costs reached a prohibitive level.
The western port of this route across the
peninsula was at Takupa. Ruins of brick shrines exist here and on the tiny island at the mouth of the port. Twelve miles upstream there are still three large stone Hindu figures of Srivijaya style, and slabs with inscriptions in 8 th century
Tamil commemorating the building of a tank under the protection of a guild of merchants, soldiers and farmers.8,9
Traders, by whichever route they reached the
Gulf of Siam would follow the coast north,
probably stopping at ports in the region of pres ent day Songkla or Pattani. Finds of Srivijaya style images and a few of the Dvaravati type indicate that there were thriving communities
here in the 8th-9th centuries.
Ku Bua and the capital of the Dvaravati king
dom, Nakon Pathom, are inland, but accessible
by small creeks and rivers. The coast line is un
stable here; rivers silt and change course within
a short period of time. Early maps show Bang kok and Nakon Pathom much closer to the sea
than they are now, and Ku Bua could well have
been more conveniently situated for a trading center a millennium ago than it is now.
We have no evidence to show whether the
Dvaravati kingdom was the final destination of
our traders, or merely a halt on their way to or
from China. There are, however, some economic
reasons for believing that it was an important
supply center for traders enroute to China. Dur
54
This content downloaded from 195.34.78.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:35:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
ing the long journey to the East merchants
would pay their way by selling in one country the items they had bought in the previous place.
A few choice Islamic things might be saved for persuasive gifts, but somewhere close to China
they must find a quantity of desirable merchan dise to exchange for the highly profitable spices, drugs, jewels, silks, etc., they would take back to
Europe.
China had a long acquaintance with foreign products through its habit of exacting tribute from any weaker country within its orbit. Lists of local products brought by the foreign diplo
matic-economic missions are recorded endlessly in the Chinese chronicles.10 With the general
prosperity of the T'ang period a good commer
cial market existed for many of these useful or
exotic items.
Thailand is perhaps the most fertile country of Southeast Asia and almost without exception those products of southern origin that are men
tioned in the tribute lists can be found there
today. Since we do not have space for detail we
will discuss only briefly the categories of mer
chandise the Ku Bua traders could have acquired from the immediate region.11
Fauna: Elephants, whole or in part. For work, war, zoos or ivory. Rhinoceros. The horn was
used in medicine or aphrodisiacs. Tigers and other animals hunted for furs. Rare animals for
zoos, (still a lucrative business). Crocodiles and
snakes, wanted for their skins and for the drugs and poisons made from their internal organs.
Birds, prized by the Chinese for their song or
beauty, or for their plumage used as a sign of rank or in ritual dances.
Flora: China often sent its own search parties to bring back plants of medicinal value. Bud dhists welcomed any plant associated with the
Buddha such as the sal tree first imported from
Cambodia in 519, or exotic varieties of the lotus.
Most of the known spices grow in Thailand as
well as delicious and rare fruit.
Textiles: Cotton, kapok, and perhaps the
original of today's famous Thai silk. The Man Shu tells of a brightly colored material called "Varnaka" which came from a land just beyond the Pyu.
Pigments: One of the few sources for gam
boge, the solidified sap of a tree, used as a pig ment in T'ang painting. Lac was abundant.
Minerals: Some gold and silver and much tin.
The best sapphires of Asia. Pearls, semi-precious stones, a great deal of coral, tortoise-shell and a
rare firey mother-of-pearl much used in inlay.
Slaves: Srivijaya in 724 included two pygmies among their tribute gifts. Negrito pygmies from the southern forests were enslaved and exploited
until modern times. Two small, shy and wild
groups of them still exist.12
The extent of the Dvaravati kingdom has not
yet been precisely determined. We only know
that the main area extended perhaps a hundred
miles around Nakon Pathom, the capital, but
archaeological survey and chance finds show
there were other thriving communities farther
north and south. From at least the 6th century until it was gradually absorbed by the Khmers in the 11th century, Dvaravati was a prosper ous kingdom.
It is quite possible that a large part of the
prosperity was due to trade, and when it de
clined the kingdom was fatally weakened. Ku
Bua, reckoned to be about three days march
from the capital, was only a small city although its forty-four monuments would indicate it was
an important and flourishing one. The western
traders were, no doubt, only part of a colony of
foreign merchants, one of whom may be repre sented in the distinctly Indian face of Fig. 5.
The Westerners must have been the donors of, or heavy contributors to the monument on
which they appear. Their heavy, native costume
could not possibly have been their daily wear in the steam-room climate of this country; we
think it must serve here to identify them as dis tinctive and welcome members of a stable mer
chant community.
The other sculpture from Ku Bua shows a
variety of subjects: Buddhist images, male and
female attendants, musicians, demi-gods, mon
sters, dwarfs, lions, etc. While they are related to stucco sculpture long known from Nakon
Pathom, Ratburi, etc. this site has more variety and vitality. Also many of the pieces seem to
show a touch of Srivijaya style.
There has been little consideration of the In
donesian influence in Dvaravati art but there is no logical reason to dismiss it. The beautiful and well known Avalokitesvara torso, mid-8 th
century, from Chaiya, in the Bangkok Museum
and other less published examples, are proof of
the Srivijaya influence in southern Thailand. Such craftsmen, although probably Mahayanists,
would have little trouble finding employment as
55
This content downloaded from 195.34.78.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:35:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
teachers or artisans elsewhere, and particularly in a prosperous commercial center.
The sculpture of Mendut, the Borobudur,
Plaosan, etc. while clearly derived from Gupta Pala India is not as polished and impersonal as
its parent. A metaphysical symbol becomes a
divine figure with a tender and compassionate smile, humans are endowed with grace and sin
gular sweetness, or unaccented reality; demons, monsters and animals have an exuberant vigor.13 These are also the qualities one finds in the ob
jects from Ku Bua (Figs. 6,7y 8).
The influence of the Khmer style is found
only in a portion of Northeast Thailand before the 11th century. As for Ceylon, the 8th-10th centuries were a period of chaos between the fall
of Anuradhapura and the building of Polon naruva. Thus, whatever Gupta or Pala influence
did not come directly from India by way of small figurines and votive tablets could well have been transmitted through the Srivijaya school
by craftsmen and traders.
Returning to the original questions, we shall
not attempt to answer the first one: who were
these traders? Readers may refer to Jane Gaston
Mahler's work, The Westerners Among the Fig urines of the Tyang Dynasty of China,1* for assis
tance in making their own guesses. We do not
think that the fact that the Ku Bua merchants
are clean shaven whereas nearly all the T'ang
figurines representing the Semitic trader as
heavily bearded is of particular importance; we
have known Sikhs to remove a lifetime growth of hair under the pressure of Thailand's climate.
We believe that the Western traders used Ku
Bua as a purchasing center and supply depot between the 8 th and 10th centuries with the
peak of activity in the early 9th century. The historical background for this is supported by the style of the sculpture so far recovered. It is
not of the earliest Dvaravati style; it is also
done with a very sure hand and an expanded
repertoire of subject matter. The prototype is
Gupta India and in this post-Gupta period the
sculptors may have derived their knowledge from Srivijaya teachers. There is no hint of the
Khmer influence that was to overwhelm in the
11th century.
We must add that much remains to be done on the site and that material of earlier and later
dates may be found to extend the above picture of this community.
NOTES
1. H. Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne, New York, 1962, P. 174.
2. Ibid., p. 254, 257.
3. Ibid., p. 256.
4. L. Rabinowitz, Jewish Merchant Adventurers, London, 1948.
5. Pirenne, op. cit., pp. 172-3.
6. Rabinowitz, op. cit., pp. 8-9.
7. E. Adler, Jewish Travellers, London, 1930. G. F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, Princeton, 1951.
8. H. G. Quaritch Wales, Towards Angkor, London, 1937.
9. R. LeMay, The Culture of South-East Asia, London, 1954, fig. 49-50.
10. E. H. Sch?fer and B. E. Wallacker, "Local Tribute Products of the Tang Dynasty," J.O.S. vol. 4, 1957-8, p.. 213-48.
11. E. H. Sch?fer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, University of California, 1963.
12. J. H. Brandt, "The Negrito of Peninsular Thailand," Journal of the Siam Society, vol. XLIX, 2. 1961, pp. 123-61.
13. A. B. J. Kempers, Ancient Indonesian Art, Harvard, 1959. See Pis. 79-85, 133.
14. J. G. Mahler, The Westerners Among the Figurines of the
T'ang Dynasty of China, Rome 1959.
56
This content downloaded from 195.34.78.121 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:35:25 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions