Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎515r] (154/238)

Siam's Intercourse with China.
3^7
altogether. This system of representation by means of circlets is commonly
employed in Siam and neighbouring countries to depict the stars occurring
in the naksatras or lunar asterisms, according to local astrological ideas.
Although none of the asterisms figured in native astrologic treatises
exactly resembles mark No. 1, the nearest to it, if taken in an inverted
form, being Uttarasadha, represented as 'j and assigned as a horo- .
scopic constellation to Maulmein, it is quite plain that that mark is either
a symbol or a diagram of some mystic meaning, mayhap even a trade-mark ;
but not certainly a letter, nor a numerical figure. The only Oriental
letters resembling it closely are, perhaps, the A, or /, of the Asoka pillar
inscriptions (third century b.c.) and the rS or g, of the Northern Chera
character of the tenth century a.d.* As regards the third mark, its
resemblance to the Chinese running-hand sign for five is more than
problematic, since the latter is more generally represented in the form
It may be much more favourably compared to the modern Siamese
numeral six, written whose ancient form was in both Siamese and
Lau inscriptions; or else, if reversed, to the Mon the sign for four.
The second mark corresponds to the letter L not only in the Peguan (Mon)
alphabet, as Professor Karabacek says, but also in several other Indo-
Chinese alphabets, as well as in ancient Tamil writing {circa 1080 a.d.) ;f
while, on the other hand, it very closely resembles the Lau numeral nine,
represented as w. There is, therefore, not the slightest ground for
assigning a Chinese origin to either of the three marks in question ; on the
contrary, the weight of evidence points towards their having been made
in either Eastern Pegu or Northern Siam, the places whence the celadon
dishes bearing them were exported, and where very probably also they
were, at least in part, manufactured.
Anent the possibility of the Swankhalok wares finding their way overland
to the Gulf of Martaban, there cannot be the slightest doubt, in view of
the very explicit statement made by William Methold to the effect that
chinaware (which very likely included also the Siamese products) was
conveyed by this means to Tenasserim. Speaking of the trade of the
seaport just named in a.d. 1619, Methold says, in fact, that the merchants
of Golconda brought thither various products, “ and landing them at
Tenassery, carry them from thence to Siam, fourteen days’ journey
overland, from whence, by the like conveyance, they bring all sorts of
China commodities, as porcelain, satins, damasks,” etc.J It follows quite
plainly from this passage, which appears to have escaped the attention of
the parties engaged in the Marlabani controversy, that the vessels or
dishes so-named found their way to Tenasserim, and naturally also to
Martaban, whether they had been made in China or Siam, along with
many other kinds of porcelain and other products of Chinese manufacture,
and were shipped thence together with Pegu jars and other glazed
* As represented in Burnell’s “ Elements of South Indian Palaeography,” second edition,
Plate XI.
t See ibid., Plate XVIII.
+ See Purchas, vol. v., 1826, pp. 993-1007, quoted in Anderson’s “English Inter
course,” etc., p. 40.