1.1. Indo-Thai Relations: Cultural Perspective

[Full title: Thai Studies (1): Indo-Thai Relations: Cultural Perspective]

Introductory—A neighbouring country, Thailand has intimate religious, linguistic and cultural ties with India that go back to hoary past. Emperor Asoka is said to have sent two of his emissaries here, the monks Sona and Uttara as part of his mission to propagate Buddhism in countries far and near. They are believed to have introduced Buddhism into Thailand. The Puranas mention Indian ships laden with merchandize touching the ports in Suvarnabhumi which in all likelihood included Syamadesa, Siam, as Thailand was known then. Due to contact with the Khmers who were highly Hinduised people the Hindu religion as well as the Sanskrit language found their way into Thailand. So profound was the impact of both that much of that is noticeable even now. Vocabulary Quite a large part of the vocabulary of Thai is Sanskritic.* In the words of Dr. William J. Gedney who made an in-depth study of spoken Thai from the point of view of Indic content in it in his masterly dissertation "Indic Loan Words in Spoken Thai" there are as many words of Indic origin in spoken Thai as are Greek and Latin words in spoken English." It is in line with this that a big corpus of individual names * For detailed treatment of the subject see, "Sanskrit Content and Studies in Thailand", p. 89

and names of cities and towns in Thailand is found to be of Indic origin. Religions As for religion, the two most powerful world religions, Buddhism and Hinduism are from India. Of these the former one is live in Thailand and vigorously practised while the latter, though extinct now, has left many traces on its social and cultural life. Being predominantly a Buddhist country, it is natural for Thailand to abound in Buddhist Wats, but it has some forty to fifty Hindu temples too. They carry on them in stones scenes in an highly artistic manner from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. At the very entrance to Prasad Panom Rung (Prasad is a Thai word for temple), there is a huge figure of Nataraja, Siva in dancing posture. In another temple called Wat Phra Kona at the top portion of the main gate is depicted the scene of Narayana on the Sesa bed with deities around him and with Laksmi pressing his feet. Another temple, Prasad Ban Pluang, has panels on top on all four sides. Two of these depict Indra on Airavata, a common enough motif in Thailand, while the other two depict the scenes of the suppression of Kaliya and the lifting of the mount Govardhana respectively. In the scene of Kaliya suppression the baby form of the Lord is depicted most beautifully by the artist. A peculiarity of the sculpture lies in the depiction of the hoods of the serpent in the descending order, one falling below the other, on both sides. The cave Tham Vua Daeng has in it a rock cut sculpture of Siva and Parvati on Nandi. The divine couple are shown in a loving posture. Parvati is bashful probably because of the presence of some other beings around. The divine couple being in a mood of merriment, it was natural for the favourite vehicle, Nandi also to feel happy. He is shown smiling. Certainly the very best in the artist has come out here. To show an animal like a bull in a smile required a degree of artistic skill which the sculptor possessed eminently. At present the Hindu god whose worship is most popular in Thailand is Brahma CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shawhose number of images can be discerned

Indo-Thai Relations: Cultural Perspective 9 at various places. The most well-known of these is the one in the compound outside the Hotel Erawan which attracts huge crowds. It is common to see the Thais passing by the Hotel to fold their hands in reverence towards its direction. Dance performances arranged by the grateful devotees too are a common sight there. It may not be out of place to mention here that the worship of Brahma in Thailand is of recent origin. It is said that the construction of the Hotel Erawan could not come to completion for one reason or the other. Whenever it would be resumed after some interruption some difficulty or the other would crop up. Some one suggested then that an image of Brahma be put up in the compound outside. When that was done, no difficulty came up and the hotel was erected in full. Since then people came to have faith in Brahma and his images came to be installed at various places. The other gods with whom the Thais are familiar - though they may not be offering worship to them-are Indra; Narai, Narayana or Visnu; Isuan, Isvara or Siva; Khanesa, Ganesa; Yommarat or Yima, Yamaraja or Yama; Laksami, Laksmi; Saraswadi, Sarasvati and the vehicles of some of them such as Airavana, Garuda, Hamsa and so on. Thais are also familiar with the semi-divine beings like the Yaksas, Gandharvas, Kinnaras, etc. In many Buddhist Wats huge figures of Yaksas attract the eye. In the same way do the figures of the winged Kinnaris. What better instance of the influence of Hindu gods and goddesses on Thai life could there be than the fact that one of these, Ganesa, has been adopted by Krom Silpakorn, the Department of Fine Arts of the Government of Thailand, as its emblem. The Department runs two institutions; one, a University, the Mahavidyalaya Silpakorn, the Silpakorn University, Silpakorn in Sanskrit is Silpakara, and the National Theatre. At the very entrance to the National Theatre, high on the front side, is a large figure of Ganesa in standing posture all in white. At the top are found the three figures done highly artistically in iron bars of the Hindu Trinity, Phram (Brahma), Narai (Narayana) and Isuan (Isvara). Since the Department of Fine Arts and the Silpakorn

University deal with art and sculpture, outside them was installed till a few years ago (it has now been relocated to the interior of the complex) a beautiful image of the divine architect Visvakarman, with typical Puranic description of the axe in hand. On both sides of the old building of the Faculty of Arts of the oldest University of Thailand, the Chulalongkorn University, are depicted the figures of Sarasvati all in white, sarvasukla mounted on a swan. Garuda being the royal emblem, his figures are a common sight in Thailand. In the Wat Phra Kaeo or more popularly, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, there are figures of Visnu on Garuda. On its ceiling is a Trisula while outside in the compound are seen a number of figures of Garudas, Kinnaras and Narasimhas. Yommarat or Yamaraja is not a god for the Thais to be feared as for the Indians. According to the Thais, he not only takes away life but also gives it. There is a feeling of reverence for him among them, and not that of awe or fear. That is the reason why the word is used as a title in that country. King Chulalongkorn had conferred the same on an high official Sukhamaya Vinita in appreciation of his services to the State. Later the gentleman came to be known by that very name. It was the same gentleman who had led the Thai delegation to India in 1899. It is not only the name Yommarat or Yamaraja of the god Yama that the Thais are familiar with. They also know his other name of Dharmaraja, the word found in the name of the city Nakhon Si Thammarat, Sanskrit Nagara Sri Dharmaraja. The excavations in it as also in Sukhothai and Phuttalung have yielded a number of images of Visnu, Siva and other Hindu deities. Some hundred or so Sanskrit inscriptions found in Thailand also mention the Sivalinga and Visnudhvaja. Hindu Sages and Seers Thailand seems to have had a great impact of Hindu sages and seers. There are a number of places that carry the name Rasi or Rsi with them like Kuti Rsi popularly pronounced as Ku Lisi or Tham Rasi. A number of figures of Rsis are found on boundary CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Colfectior, New Y

Indo-Thai Relations: Cultural Perspective 11 pillars in Wats or Panels in Prasads like those at Panom Rung. They answer the description of typical Indian seers, Rsis sitting in a cross-legged posture in loin cloth with matted hair and rosary in hand. Hindu imprint in Festivals and Music Now a word about some Thai festivals. Some of these like Songkran and Loi Krathong have strong Hindu overtones. Both of them on account of the characteristics respectively of throwing water on all, known or unknown and the offerings to water are similar to Holi and Gangapujana in India, the local variations being the lack of colour in water as also artistic Krathongs in place of the plain cups of water. In music there is a particular style in Thailand which is called Khaek Dontri (Dontri = Tantri) or the Hindu music. The name itself is enough to put a spotlight on its Hindu connection. Before he closes, the writer of these lines would like to make a mention of an event which has become his life-time memory. In late 1978 in the course of his extensive travels across Thailand he saw one evening on the Si Saket Railway station in the northeast of Thailand a lady with two small children about 8 or 6. Both of them were putting on five tufts of hair. Immediately it put him to the ancient Dharmasastra texts which mention Kakapaksas, the five tufts to be worn by young boys as also the Ramayana which describes the young Rama wearing them as he accompanies the sage Visvamitra. He was struck as to how the tradition which is getting extinct even in India could survive in a land like Thailand. There is nothing like the Hindu Samskaras now in Thai life, but as religious rites three are known here: Namakorn (Namakarana), naming or christening, Vivaha or Vivahamonkhon (Vivahamangala) or Monkhon somrot, Mangala samarasa for marriage, and Jhapanakiccha, a Pali word, Sanskrit Ksapanak-rtya for Antyesti, last rites. For the four stages of life or Asramas there are words for at least two in Thai, Phrommachan, (Brahmacarya) and Grhat, (Grhastha). There are no words for Vanaprastha and Samnyasa in Thai. Though the Satya Vrat Shasul Collection, New Delhi. Digitized by S 3 Foundation USA

caste system is not practised in Thailand as it is in India, there are words for castes in Thai: Phram for Brahmana, Kasat for Ksatriya, Phait for Vaisya and Sud for Sudra, of which the last two are of academic interest only, being found in lexica and no longer in use in day to day vocabulary. The word for the merchant class in use is Banij or Phanich or Phanit from Sanskrit Vanij merchant, trader. Thai Laws The laws of Thailand are called Dhammasattha, Pali form of Sanskrit Dharmasastra. The influence of the work of Manu, the primeval law-giver in India is found in Dhammasattha not only in the name but also in the basic purpose of the duties of a monarch. It is interesting to note that Manu headings appear in Thai texts on law. Pali and Buddhism The greatest living link of Thailand with India is Buddhism and Pali language the study of which is pursued in hundreds of Wats (monasteries) all over the country. The recitation from the Sacred Canon in them appear all too familiar to an Indian ear. From what has been said above, it would be clear that the relationship between Thailand and India rests on age-old ties which are deep, profound and abiding. Thai-Bharata cultural Lodge A new fillip was given to these ties in the recent past with the founding of the association Dharmashrama, developed later into the Thai-Bharat Cultural Lodge by a man in suffron robes, a graduate in Philosophy and Sanskrit of the Calcutta and Banaras Hindu Universities who came to Thailand in 1932 at the instance of one of India's greatest poets and thinkers Rabindranath Tagore who was keen on bringing the two countries, India and Thailand, still closer to each other. The man in suffron Swami Satyanand Puri set about his work in right earnest , learnt Thai in CC-0. Prof. Satya Vrat Shastri Collection, an incredibly short period and

Indo-Thai Relations: Cultural Perspective 13 sought to interpret each country to the other. There have been few individuals who have done so much in the field of Indo-Thai cultural relationship as did Swami Satyanand Puri. The ThaiBharat Cultural Lodge is a monument to his innate passion for bringing the two neighbours, Thailand and India, nearest to each other and to the development of better understanding of each other. The Swami realized that the relations between the nations, like tender flowers, need constant care and nourishment, that the people in them have to strive continuously to improve them and not just hearken the past to emphasize the closeness and that there is no resting on oars. The Lodge is the principal instrument the Swami created to translate this realization into practice. Needless to say the instrument has worked. This association of Thais and Indians has gone on well and sought to foster an emotional kinship between the peoples of the two countries by its multifarious activities. It has organized talks on Indian and Thai subjects by eminent scholars of both countries, offered scholarships and stipends to Thai students for study in India and celebrated important national festivals of both the countries. It is running a good library also which is dedicated to the memory of Swami Satyanand Puri and is named after him. Being the land of the Buddha, people in Thailand have naturally a soft corner in their hearts for India. Like Mecca for Muslims, the Buddhist holy places in India such as Gaya, Sarnath, Sanchi and so on are for Thais. They dream of visiting them some time in their life to achieve a kind of fulfilment. Interaction in Education Study of Sanskrit, Pali and Buddhism is being pursued in quite a few Universities and other institutions of higher learning in Thailand. The Govt. of India has also helped in their development by instituting a Chair for Sanskrit Studies at the Silpakorn University. Quite a few of the Thais, both monks and laymen, have studied or are studying in institutions of higher learning in India.

Having spent years there they have developed a kind of attachment to it. They remember wistfully the time they spent there, the friendships and the acquaintances that they established. Similarly there is a sizable number of Indians who have spent some period or the other of their life in Thailand. They feel deeply attached to it. These Thais and Indians form a kind of reservoir of Indo-Thai goodwill. This reservoir can usefully be drawn upon to further cement the ties between the two countries. It is not only the upper crust of the educated Thais and Indians, even the men in the streets in both the countries need to be helped to develop the understanding as to how much in common they have with each other. The relationship between the two countries would then be taken out of the plane of religious affinity or individual attachment and put on a more stable footing of better appreciation of each other. It is to this task that all those who have love for Thailand and India in their hearts have to address themselves. Indo-Thai Cultural Agreement A new chapter in the relationship between Thailand and India was added with the signing of a Cultural Agreement between them on April 29, 1977. An operative instrument for the age-old cultural affinity between the two, its vigorous implementation can lead to immense mutual benefit. Conclusion Any one who has observed Thai life and society closely cannot help observing that the influence of Hinduism on these is all-pervasive. Rightly has the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore said on a visit to Siam or Thailand as it was known then: I come a pilgrim at thy gate O Siam, To offer my verse to the endless glory of India Sheltered in thy home, Away from her own deserted shrine, To bathe in the living stream that flows in thy heart.