In the context of nationalism-exacerbated controversies around Thai and Cambodian cultural legacies — and their shared elements -, this study reflects a significant knowledge of state ceremonies in both cultural contexts. If the author didn’t attempt to draw conclusions from comparative analyzis — a somwhat perilous exercise -, his observations are nevertheless important for further research.
The study applied to a period when the notion of kingship in Siam had been through numerous transformations and ‘modernization’, culminating in the 24 June 1932 official renouncement of absolute monarchy by King Prajadhipok (Rama VII), thus a few months after the present book came to the light.
While further notations on specific ceremonies considered both at the Bangkok and the Phnom Penh courts will be added, we’ll remark here how the author felt necessary to compare the notions and representations of kingship in ancient and modern Siam and Cambodia, since the Khmer influence on early stages of Siamese royalty was obvious. The point wasn’t to accuse anyone of mimicry or ‘cultural appropriation’ but to go in depth into a complex, sometimes conflictual shared legacy.
In the initial pages, there are several references to the status of Khmer Kings in the Angkorian and post-Angkorian periods, for instance:
“In Cambodia, the royal god was not the king of the gods (Indra) but a god of the king, either Siva or Vishnu.” [p 29]. The images representing ancestral kings in Khmer temples, “although bearing the attributes of the god, had the facial characteristics of the persons they commemorated; and the temples in which they were preserved were also portrait galleries in which the ancestor worship was combined with the worship of the god.” [p 30]. Or this interesting notation — “A Hindu king was regarded as the receptacle of a god, of the divine essence, […] even identified pantheistically with the god, but he was not the god himself. In Buddhism the king is a Bodhisattva or Cakravartin, a greater being in the eyes of the Buddhists than any Hindu god.’ [p. 31]
While observing the residual influence of Brahmanism at the Siamese court, the author also noted that before and until the end of Ayutthaya (1767)
though the Thai were Buddhists, their kings surrounded themselves with the appurtenances of Khmer royalty, and recruited their Court Brahmans from Cambodia. For centuries, indeed, Brahmanism enjoyed quite an important position ; for although Buddhism was thereligion of the people, and was protected by the kings, Hinduism was still considered as essential to the monarchy, and so received a great share of royal favour. The famous inscription (about A.D. 1361) of King Dharmaraja I mentions the king’s knowledge of the Vedas and of astronomy ; while the inscription on the Siva statue found at Kamben Bejra records the desire of King Dharmasokaraja to exalt both Hinduism and Buddhism. And this is as late as A.D. 1510. […] Thus, in comparing the Brahmans of Bangkok with those at Phnompenh, the modern capital of Cambodia, Etienne Aymonier rightly says: “Unlike the Brahmans of Cambodia the Siamese Brahmans are not relics of a once powerful religious caste, but have been brought in later (from Ligor and elsewhere) to conduct the court ceremonies in imitation of other courts with an Indian ceremonial.” [p. 60 – 1, quoting Aymonier’s Le Cambodge II, p 32]
That remark on the Phnom Penh Bakus and the Siamese court Brahmans explains why Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, while visiting Cambodia and the Royal Palace in 1924, asked numerous questions to the Cambodian Brahmanic purohitas.
Also, when he transcribed in its integrality the Siamese Oath of Allegiance during the Ratanakosin era [p 194 – 7], the author noted the differences with earlier Khmer oaths, in particular:
- substitution of Buddhist for Brahamanical terms (the same process occurred in Khmer royal oaths from the 17th century);
- introduction of animistic references, for instance guardian spirits;
- emphasis on the detailed description of the torments facing disloyal officials in future existences are described;
- like in early Khmer forms, a positive tone with an emphasis on the rewards faithful state agents might expect for their service.
Or this observation on the ritual of the King’s paying respect to the ancestors:
The rulers of the first independent Thai kingdom at Sukhodaya retained, as we have seen, as much as they could of Khmer Hinduism the better to support their new-found majesty, at the same time revering and protecting the recently introduced Mahayanistic Buddhism. The latter, at least in its popular form, was not incompatible with the worship of the dead king who, as a Bodhisattva, might be in a position to aid those still on earth ; but this worship could no longer rank in degree or fervour with that which had been accorded to the Khmer Devaraja by Hinduism or even Mahayanism. Nevertheless right down to the present day two methods of showing honour to the deceased kings of the dynasty remain, one of which is apparently Hindu, the other Buddhist.
In the former, the reigning king goes to pay his respects before the golden life-size statues of the deceased kings of the dynasty which are enshrined in niches in that fine cruciform building, surmounted by a tall Cambodian prang, situated within the precincts of the Grand Palace, and known as the Ho Brah Debpitara, or Pantheon. The King, on entering the shrine, lights candles and makes the usual obeisance with joined palms before the statues, and then retires ; after which the nobles, officials, and members of the general public of both sexes crawl into the building on hands and knees, prostrate themselves before the statues, and pay homage with joined palms, and then they crawl out through another door. Surely this is very much what used to happen in the shrines dedicated to the Royal God in ancient Cambodia.
The only difference between the statues of the Bangkok kings and the deified kings of the Khmers is that instead of being represented with the attributes of gods, they are true portrait statues ; but this is an innovation of the Bangkok period, indeed the first three kings never allowed themselves to be portrayed, and their statues are based on the composite ideas of four old people who had seen all three kings and were ordered by King Rama IV to
instruct an artist. [p. 170]
ADB Note: As further reading on the evolution of the representation of kingship and sacrality in modern Siam-Thailand, see John Clark, “Icon and Image in Modern Thai Art: a preliminary exploration”, Contemporary Aesthetics SI 3, 2011 [on Academia.edu]
