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 .

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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