I came across this website that claims to have 18th-19th century traditional Thai painting which the owner bought 30 years ago from Thailand. These manuscript now sell at over $9,000. I was really amazed by the painting, its very characteristic of the Thai paintings I saw before, very curve and beautiful line. I saw some Khmer painting before in Vietnam, and so I thought it must have been influence by Thai painting that is why they look so alike. Upon further curiosity and investigation, I discovered that these paintings might have come from the same source or techniques.
Perhaps these paintings are fake. But if they are real, then we Khmer do have painting with our collections of skills to include with architecture, sculpture and carvings. Maybe there is another explanation why these Thai painting are accompanied by Khmer scripts. These are religious and Buddhist text, perhaps Thailand import Theravada Buddhism from Cambodia and felt it needed to preserve the original story in the original text. But thinking over again I find this ridiculous, The Thai neighbors don't speak Khmer so why would they write in Khmer text? So i this leave to the conclusion that these were in fact well-preserved Khmer Buddhist manuscripts with Khmer arts. Not Thai, just like many sculptors and stone arts that have been sole in Thailand and passed off as Thai arts, this is another example of foreign people who don't know our culture and accepting anything they bought as facts per say of the seller.
Because the author of this maybe Khmer, I will include these manuscript under Khmer arts. For all audience, you guys have to make your own judgment.
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How can some of these Thai paintings are Thai when the Khmer scripts are written on all over of these Thai paintings???
A lot of old Thai manuscripts write the Pali verses using Khmer script, actually.
To my eye this one looks like a modern fake, though.
Actually, before the reign of king Chulalongkorn (1853-1910)in thai land, most, if not all, religious texts were in the Khmer Mul or Baley (Pali) script. if these were real,i would say that these would be before his reign. befoer the reign of king Ram Khamhaeng of Sukhothai, all Thai was written in Khmer text. He was the one to develop the modern text in which you see today.
I just wanted to share some educational and historical information with you. As you can see and might be curious about the characters in the pictures. Most of them aren't not Thai characters even they look similar to Thai characters. I can tell you that they are Khmer or Cambodian scripts! And Thai characters are derived from Khmer or Cambodian characters. Most of the Thai traditional art, clothing, musics and foods are originally from those that belong to Khmer people or Cambodian people. We are content that Thai people are doing a great job at advertising this lovely civilization; however this civilization belongs to Khmer people. Cambodian ancestors, ancient philosophers, artists, scholars and teachers and today Cambodia ourselves won't be happy if our works/brains are being used for any purposes without given any credits! Thanks for reading this. Please learn more about the truth! We just want justice! Peace!
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