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Objects now
associated with the Liao dynasty of China illuminate the lives and
practices of a nomadic people who maintained distinct cultural
traditions of their own, writes B.N.
Goswamy
What does one know of China’s Liao Empire? In fact, what does the common man here know anything about China’s history, barring the developments of the last hundred years or so? A little about its culture perhaps, chiefly because it bears the imprint of Buddhism on it, but about its history? Remarkably little, one fears. On my part, I had till now the barest of acquaintances myself, I confess, with the Liao dynasty of China. The total sum of my information on it extended in fact to a very few simple facts: the Khitan, or Qidan, its founders, were nomads; their homeland was the steppes; their ‘age’ followed that of the justly celebrated Tang dynasty; at its height, between the 10th and 12th centuries, the empire they built went on to extend over a truly vast region, including the greater part of Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. Of the culture of the Liao, however, one knew virtually nothing. Till an announcement landed on my desk some time back about a great show of Liao art and artifacts that was going up at the Asia Society in New York. Gilded Splendour the exhibition was titled in the US; now that it has travelled to Europe, for a showing at the Rietberg in Zurich, it is renamed as Schaetze der Liao—‘Treasures of the Liao’—with the sub-title, "China’s forgotten Nomad Dynasty"; coinciding with it is a show of some stunning Liao textiles which has just opened at the Abegg Foundation in Riggisberg, under the title that I have borrowed for my piece here: "Dragons of Silk, Flowers of Gold". Evidently, Liao art is in the air everywhere. And with justice, as one discovers to one’s delight. Much of this is going to change the common perception of the Liao as "uncivilised nomads, even barbarians". For the objects now associated with them tell a different story, illuminating as they do the lives and practices of a nomadic people who settled and maintained distinct cultural traditions of their own while developing rich relationships across Asia, from Persia all the way to Japan and Korea. What is utterly absorbing is the reflection in art and artifacts of the processes through which the native nomadic traditions of the Khitan were first challenged by, and then reconciled to, the new demands of a settled, centrally ruled Liao empire. Cultures came together; distinctive lifestyles and traditions merged. Major archaeological excavations in Inner Mongolia, which formed part of the Liao empire, have revealed great tombs—as in the rest of China—filled with magnificent relics: ornate harnesses, burial attire, funerary urns and ceramics, functional vessels and flasks, religious sculptures and panels, decorative objects and, predictably, elaborate jewellery. From one of the tombs, even a mortuary house made of wood—a sarcophagus—was recovered containing the remains of a male and a female found lying on a wooden bed when the tomb was opened. Extraordinary attention among the Liao appears to have gone to funerary rituals and monuments. The bodies of the deceased were evidently handled with the greatest respect and care, wrapped as they were in silk and clothed in metal burial attire. From the tomb of a princess have been recovered gilt bronze death masks of her and her husband, her silver wire burial suit, silver gilt crown, boots and pillow, as well as jewellery in gold, silver and jade. A curious ritual, unique to the Liao—but not easy to go into here—seems to have been worked out, accommodating the opposing practices of burial and cremation. Inside the tombs were hosts of things that would be needed by the deceased in their ‘after-life’: from elaborately wrought sets of harnesses made of precious metals to exquisite jade inkstones, used in calligraphy for grinding ink. Their range apart, it is the quality of the objects recovered from the tombs that is so seductive. Buddhism, like elsewhere in China, wielded great influence among the Liao, but consider the delicately crafted miniature pagoda, five sides of which are decorated with human figures in attitudes of veneration with the figure of the Buddha standing with a monk’s staff and an alms bowl in front of the base. The object is far more than being functional or symbolic, for the attention lavished upon its details—like the crested phoenix on its top, with spread wings and long tail, holding in its hooked beak a string of twenty-four pearls—simply takes one’s breath away. Or consider again a fan, preserved in remarkable condition, which is made of bamboo, silk gauze, pigments and gilding, with a magnificent imagery of birds upon it. These are no ordinary objects, for in them is mirrored great pride in craftsmanship, a level of skills that is but rarely achieved. Evidently luxury goods, many of them imported from far lands, abounded in the Liao empire: fine tableware with gold-mounted ceramic bowls, embroideries worked on gossamer-thin, transparent gauze, amber from the Baltic Sea, rock crystal from southeast Asia. But one of the true glories of the Liao appears to have been their textiles: silk-weaving and embroidery of great refinement. Tombs of princesses and noblewomen have yielded great treasures: cushions and dresses, belts and wraps, woven or embroidered in the most vivid of colours and patterns, featuring pairs of fluttering birds, bouquets of peonies, branches of plum blossoms, bows with flowing ribbons. Lively and vigorous designs have always marked the work of the nomads, but here they are taken to a different level altogether. It is difficult to pick a favourite from among such riches, but the one silk that I cannot easily get out of my mind shows a great mythical creature, part lion, part dragon, snarling as it rushes down, fangs bared, tail waving in the air, as if displacing the very clouds in the sky. One does not know what exactly is sought to be represented here, but one does recall to one’s mind what the Dragon generally means to the Chinese. For them, traditionally,
this celestial creature is the very essence of life, bestowing its
power in the form of the seasons, bringing water from rain, warmth
from the sunshine, wind from the seas and soil from the Earth. And it
is the Dragon again that wards off wandering evil spirits, protects
the innocent and bestows safety upon all that hold his emblem. If it
is the Dragon then that the weaver of this piece was invoking in this
silk, little wonder that it is inside a noble tomb that it is
snarling.
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