The “Lesson of the three strings”

Texts, photos, videos : © Patrick Kersalé 1998-2023, except special mention.

Most of the images in this section are the work of Danielle Guéret who tirelessly traveled Cambodia from monastery to monastery, in search of paintings made between the late nineteenth century and 1975. The photos published here were taken between 2055 and 2011. Each copyright (©) comes with the year of shooting, which is important from a historiographic point of view because the paintings live, degrade, sometimes are restored, but also, unfortunately, disappear with the destruction of ancient buildings themselves ...

Numbers of occurrences and publications on Cambodia signed by Danielle Guéret can be found on the web.

Cambodian Buddhist painting offers a large sampling of lute representation, notably in the scene entitled “The Lesson of the Three Strings” to which we dedicate this section. See our introductory documentary. 

In the part of this website about organology, we introduced our topic by: “How to recognize a chapei at first glance”. Buddhist painting, and especially the scene of the “Lesson of the three strings”, confronts us with the limits of the recognition of the chapei as the artists have transformed, even transcended the reality.

Three major organological elements make it possible to discern the chapei from the other lutes: the shape of its soundbox and head, and the length of its neck. However, despite the presence of these three elements, some exogenous elements come to play the spoilsport.

The lutes represented in “The Lesson of the Three Strings” could be classified into six categories:

• The chapei proper
• Lutes inspired by Indian ones
• Lutes inspired by Sino-Vietnamese ones
• Lutes inspired by Thai ones
• The lutes inspired by the guitar, or even the guitar itself
• Hybrid lutes mixing various technologies and shapes.

Of course, we don't pretend to penetrate the artists' thought as to their source of inspiration, but rather to offer some ideas about lute technology around the world. Recall here that the only traditional lute existing today in Cambodia is the chapei dang veng, and that several countries have influenced its culture: India, China, Vietnam, Thailand, France, USA. The artists in charge of the decorations of monasteries have drawn from all these sources, consciously or not.

In the distant time when the future Buddha followed the teachings of His different masters, five ascetics joined Him. Together they practiced various forms of asceticism but He plunged into great physical weakness. Everywhere, iconography shows His thinness. But one day, Indra, the god of the gods of Hinduism, came to the Bodhisattva to teach Him the Lesson of the Three Strings, the metaphor for the Middle Way. Indra told the Bodhisattva: “A string too tight breaks, a distended string doesn’t vibrate, but a string properly stretched makes a harmonious sound”.

It was after this intervention that the Bodhisattva decided to leave the “Paroxysm of Ascesis” to follow the so-called “xMiddle Way” which will lead him to Awakening. It is at this moment also that his five disciples leave him. In the monasteries, the painters represented this scene, sometimes with a hint of humor, adapting the musical instrument.

 In Buddhist painting, the “Lesson of the three strings” mainly builds its graphic “speech” around a three-stringed lute. But there are examples where the instrument has four, five or eight strings; sometimes even the strings' number is out of sync with the one of pegs.

In some cases, the graphic speech is supported by the representation of a broken cord, distended or, more rarely, both simultaneously.

In the “Lesson of the three strings” the lutes are in the majority. However, arched harps inspired by the Angkorian model make some appearances.

Danielle Guéret fills us with the loan of two exceptional images, dated from the nineteenth century, from two Buddhist monasteries in Kampong Cham province: Wat Moha Leap (L) and Wat Kaoh Kol (R). In both cases, Indra plays in an inverted position in relation to the trend, that is to say scratching the strings with his left hand. He stands at the feet of the Bodhisattva. The chapei's head is represented in a perspective which, even if it is imperfect, teaches us that it shows an important curvature. The shape of the soundbox is different in the two images, oval and parallelepipedic; it tells us that there was no standard in the nineteenth century. Indeed, we think that these two shapes are inspired by the reality of the time. The photographs of Émile Gsell, dating from the same period as these two paintings and the postcard entitled “Série du Cambodge - Musicienne Cambodgienne” with its pineapple soundboard, confirms the reality.

In the 19th century, representations of chapei dang veng (as opposed to chapei klei) are plethora in monasteries, all periods combined. If they are generally close to reality, the artists have also brought some decorative fantasies.

Some pyriform-shaped lutes are inspired by Indian zithers (vina, tandura). For a non-initiated to Western organology, lutes and zithers of India merge. So it isn't easy to understand the intention of artists. Two photos © Danielle Guéret.

Wat Vihear Thum's painting shows a lute with a round soundbox, similar to Chinese and Vietnamese ‘moon or sun’ lutes (ruan 阮, yueqin 月琴, đàn nguyệt, đàn tứ). Two photos © Danielle Guéret.

The guitar, introduced during the French Protectorate period, inspired artists in two ways: they represented acoustic and electric guitars. They also changed the initial characteristics of the chapei, for example by adding marks between the frets or by representing metal guitar pegs.

The graphic speech is sometimes perverted by the representation of a strings' number greater than three. But as any good Buddhist follower knows the story, this detail is incidental! Among these representations, there are eight-stringed lutes, like the Ashtamangala, a group of eight (ashta) auspicious symbols (mangala) shared by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

In the majority of cases, god Indra is represented from the front as a musician. Then, all the organological details of the instrument are visible. But sometimes it is represented from behind. In this case, the instrument is always a chapei of which we can only see part of the soundbox and the head.

After the Khmer Rouge Revolution, Cambodia began to (re)build its Buddhist heritage. The theme of the interior decorations of the vihara and sala is in continuity. The colors become more screaming and the fluo is needed little by little.

See also …

The arak ensemble of the Wat Reach Bo

The chapei players, by Émile Gsell

The chapei of the Musée de la Musique of Paris

Two chapei of King Sisowath Monivong

The Thai krajappi

The mahori ensemble of Ayutthaya