FOR MUSEUMS & COLLECTORS

Cambodian Silk - Standardizing Classification and Nomenclature (from A Pocket Guide to Cambodian Silk), 2024 edition, page 93) 

When Kikuo Morimoto did his research for the report he wrote for UNESCO in 1995 he was travelling around Cambodia at a very dangerous time – after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and after the Vietnamese occupation had ended. His first language was Japanese, but he had to interview Khmer and Cham who spoke to him in Khmer, French, or English. Through an interpreter. It is little wonder that he misspelled some of the names of the many different types of Cambodian silk. And it is amazing that he was able to complete his report for UNESCO at all.

After founding IKTT he learned to write some Khmer. But, for some reason, he never revised the spellings he used in his report for UNESCO. This is the primary reason that his nomenclature and mine are different. His nomenclature is still used today, and this creates confusion. And he never developed a classification system.

There are still people trying to do what Kikuo Morimoto dedicated his life to – saving Cambodian silk from extinction. If all of us who are trying to do so cannot communicate with each other using a common nomenclature, we are far less likely to succeed.

I wrote A Pocket Guide to Cambodian Silk because I believe that if Cambodia’s annual influx of millions of tourists each goes home with a piece of genuine Cambodian silk, this might save this art form from extinction. But when they shop, they have to be able to ask for what they’re looking for – in words that the silkmaker or shopkeeper will understand. If they use my pronunciation guide, they’ll be more likely to succeed.

I’ve laid out below the nomenclature and classification system that I developed. When trying to decide what name to use for each type of silk I used a combination of the way the word is correctly pronounced in Khmer, and Khmer spelling from the Chuon Nath and Headley dictionaries.

I encourage collectors and museums to adopt my system of classification and nomenclature, and make them the new standard.

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CLASSIFICATION (I classify Cambodian silk (Khmer and Cham) by pattern type

couture unpatterned silk: organza (auhkownohsa) paamooung

couture kōntray silk: kōntray

couture paamooung brocade silk: paamooung bauntōk chorjuung paamooung chorjuung paamooung bauntōk

haute couture floral brocade silk: chorabab brocatel

couture ikat silk: sampōt hōl hōl lbaab anloony hōl ktung hōl chaungkbun

plaid silk: sarong sōt (“SArong sōt”) kramaa sōt (any type of silk scarf)

Cham tie-dyed head coverings: kiet

 ikat silk tapestries: pidan (“peedaan”)

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NOMENCLATURE (For pronunciation, use the “Bagg-Srey” column)

Bagg-Srey Morimoto Why I chose this term

anloony          anlounh          The last letter in the spelled word is NY, and some people still pronounce the word as it’s spelled

bauntōk          bantok            The vowel after the B is implied, and the B is a 1st-series consonant – the sound is “au”

brocatel          (none)             I use the English word because this is what’s used by the only company making brocatel, Golden Silk Pheach

chorabab         chorabap        The Khmer word is spelled with a final B; this is how chorabab weavers pronounce it. (Also called, sorabab.)

chorjuung        chorcung        The word is pronounced, chorjuung (the “ch” is actually pronounced like “jch”)

hōl                  hol                 The O is a long O

hōl chaungkbun     sampot hol kaban       This fabric isn’t worn as a sampot, it’s worn as a chaungkbun

hōl ktung        sampot hol ktong               I went with what weavers call this fabric. It is spelled in Khmer with a short u.

kaneew           kaneiv           Kaneew is pronounced with a final W but there’s no W in Khmer, so a V is substituted                

kiet                 (none)           I used the word in common usage today

kōntray           (none)           I used the Khmer spelling

kramaa           kroma            The 1st vowel is a short a. The accent is on the 2nd syllable.

lbaab              (none)            I went with the word that chorabab weavers use, but I’ve never heard anyone else pronounce it differently

organza           (none)           “Organza” is used today instead of the Khmer name, auhkownohsa

paamooung      pamung         I went with what Khmer call this fabric, which is how it’s spelled in Khmer

pidan              pedan            I went with what Khmer call it, which is how it’s spelled in Khmer. The first vowel is an “ee” sound.

sampōt            sampot          The O is a long O

sarong             sarong           The accent is on the first syllable

sōt                  soht               There’s no H. The O is a long O.

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Cambodian Silk - Ikat Pidan

An ikat pidan (“peeDAAN”) is a silk “tapestry”, traditionally with Buddhist imagery.

Many books state that a pidan is hung from the ceiling over a statue of the Buddha in the main hall of a temple. This is a different type of pidan – not an ikat pidan. It is usually plain.

In 2014 the National Museum in Phnom Penh exhibited ikat pidan. Included in the exhibition was a videotaped interview with a monk in Takeo Province describing its use. It is borrowed from the temple and hung by all four corners from the ceiling over the bed of a person who is dying, so that the last thing he sees is Buddhist imagery. After he dies, the pidan is returned to the temple.

In response to requests from readers for more information, I interviewed Pra Ratana Visuk Sithong Heng. The second-highest-ranking Cambodian monk in the United States, he was trained by Preah Maha Vimaladhamma Pin-Sem Sirisuvanno (the Abbot of Wat Bo in Siem Reap, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Angkorian civilization). He confirmed that an ikat pidan is never hung over the head of a Buddha statue. Or put on the statue itself. Or hung on a wall in a temple (Khmer vihār, Sanskrit vihāra वीहार ), at a wedding ceremony, or in the room in which a person is dying. It is hung from the ceiling over the bed of a person who is dying only after he is too ill to sit up. He can look up at the pidan, reflect upon the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, and chant if he is still able to. This is a very old custom. The pidan is borrowed from the temple only by families too poor to purchase one. Many people now die in the hospital instead of at home, and hospitals will not allow families to bring in pidan.

After the pidan has been returned to the temple it may be stored in a way that makes it both useful to the monastery attached to the temple and safe from rats, insects, flood, etc. It’s hung high up on a wall, or from the ceiling, of the Sala Bun (the room in which the monks eat and chant daily, also used for services too small to be held in the temple). In the Sala Bun the pidan serves as decoration and, depending upon the design, as a teaching tool. But it may serve another function entirely – keeping the floor clean. The pidan may be sewn onto a cloth backing and then hung by all four corners from the ceiling, so that the backing catches dust falling through the thatched roof and helps to keep out nocturnal insects attracted to the candlelight. He went on to say that storing pidan in this way in the Sala Bun is a rural custom, and reiterated that pidan are never used in the temple (vihār).

Ikat pidan are now made and sold as tourist-ware. I hung one on a wall of our California home as the backdrop for our Buddha altar. This is a non-traditional use of a pidan.

But, where did the word come from? In Through the Eyes of a Queenthe Women of the Royal Court at Angkor I included a chapter entitled, “Linguistic Research – Rocket Fuel for Traveling Back in Time”. Because a pidan is part of the Cambodian practice of Theravada Buddhism I reasoned that the word came to the Khmer from Pali, not Sanskrit. And, sure enough, it’s not in Saveros Pou’s Lexique de Sanskrit-Khmer-Francais (Sanskrit Utilise au Cambodge) (2013). I thought I could easily trace the word “pidan” (which is an English loan word from Khmer) back to modern Khmer, then back to Pali, and then back to Sanskrit.

I hit a snag right away. I could not find the word in modern Khmer. I found “pidan” in Robert Headley’s dictionary, but it means, “ceiling”. I looked in Franklin Huffman’s dictionary; “pidan” is not there, and “ceiling” is spelled, “pitan”. (Both scholars used the Chuon Nath dictionary.)

So I followed my instinct. In The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary (online) I found pidhāna – “cover”. I traced this back to the Sanskrit pidhāna – “covering” (Sir Monier Monier-Williams’ A Sanskrit Dictionary (1976), page 627, in the middle of column 2). The English loan word “pidan” is pronounced with a long “ā”, and in English the “d” is aspirated (“dh”), so the only difference between the English word and the Pali and Sanskrit words is the final short “a”. In the “Linguistic Research…” chapter of my book I explain how a final short “a” sometimes accidentally drops off the end of a Sanskrit word written in the Devanāgarī script (the “a” is an implied vowel, so is not written and is sometimes accidentally ignored). I assume the same thing can happen when a Pali word is written in the Devanāgarī script. Without additional research, I think that “pidan” came from the Pali (and Sanskrit) pidhāna (“cover”).

Another scholar theorized that “pidan” came from the Sanskrit vitāna (“awning, canopy or cover”). I think this is less likely.