A COLLECTION OF WORKS of artefacts representing ancient Buddhistic art from the central plains of present-day Thailand are currently on show in Paris. The exhibition concentrates on the period from the 6th to the 11th century, as well as the territories in the north that were held until the 13th century. Approximately 145 works from 12 of the principal Thai national museums are on show along with 19 pieces from the Guimet Museum itself have been brought together for the first time to illustrate the richness and fine iconography of the Dvaravati kingdom. The show explores the stylistic originality and technical precision of a style of art relatively unknown to a Western audience.
The thematic exhibition is dedicated to one of the most remarkable periods of Thailand’s ancient history, from the name of Dvaravati which could have indicated a kingdom – or a collection of city-states – encompassing a large part of the territories of modern Thailand. The Mon art of ancient Thailand results from the synthesis of local cultural traditions going back to proto-history, and from certain fundamental elements of ‘Indianess’: religions, languages, conception of royalty, which was transmitted to Southeast Asia along the commercial routes that linked these regions to the Indian sub-continent. The Mon populations, which seem to have been predominant in these regions before the foundation of the first great Thai kingdoms in the 13th century, gave rise to an essentially Buddhistic art whose foundations can be found in Guptan and post-Guptan India (4th-8th centuries).
Few ancient architectural relics have been preserved from this time and one can only conjecture how these monuments might have looked. The fragility of the building material: bricks along with stucco and terracotta for the ornamentation explain the almost total disappearance in the large cities of the Dvaravati kingdom: Nakhon Pathom, U Thong, Khu Bua.
The exhibition opens onto a selection of objects recalling the history of Dvaravati and the introduction of Buddhism to Thailand, including an inscribed coin noting ‘the commendable work of a lord of Sri Dvaravati’, small sculptures imported from India, votive tablets serving to transmit the ‘Good Law’ in Southeast Asia. In parallel, two sculptures evoke the Hindu aspect of the religious traditions of ancient Thailand. The following sections are then organised thematically, according to the place of origin of the works and the resulting multiplicity of styles and aesthetics. The first section features the famous Wheels of the Law (Dharmacakra in sanskrit, Dhammacakka in pali) with protective or beneficent motifs, deers which evoke the first preaching of Buddha at Benares. The art of Dvaravati is steeped in the most representative imagery of the Buddhism known as ‘small vehicle’ (theravada).
The representation of Buddha is omnipresent and reveals, whatever the material (bronze, terracotta, stucco or stone), a great iconographic originality. Furthermore – and it is a unique case in Southeast Asia – large free-standing wheels, quintessential symbols of Buddhist law, draw inspiration from the Indian model, which is the source of all Southeast Asian arts. These wheels, in fact, go back to the very first Buddhistic art of ancient India, that of the Mauryan emperors (4th-11th century BC).
Two narrative stelae which originate from the outlying regions of northeast Thailand, within the confines of the area of cultural influence of Dvaravati, then give way to an exhaustive selection of architectural decoration in stucco or terracotta which formerly enlivened monuments such as the famous narrative panels illustrating the Jataka (previous lives of Buddha) from Chedi Chula Pathon of Nakhon Pathom, or the expressive terracottas from the Khu Bua site.
A third section comprises images of Buddha in the Dvaravati style, freestanding sculpture in stone and bronze, a testimony to the excellence of sculptors around the 7th to the 9th century. These magnificent pieces, in which Buddha appears frequently standing, hands symmetrically projected outwards (according to a specific iconographic diagram of Dvaravati statuary), demonstrate the richness of this sculptural tradition – amongst the most original in Southeast Asia. The last part of the exhibition houses some of the greatest masterpieces of Hariphunchai art (7th-13th century). This northern kingdom, which inherited the art of the central plains of Thailand, bring to a close the period of pre-Thai art, which prepared the way for later artistic expressions found in the great kingdoms of
classical Siam.
Until 25 May at Musee Guimet, 6 place d’Iena, Paris, www.museeguimet.fr. A catalogue (in French) accompanies the exhibition.
