Stone brackets from Tha Rua, Nakhon Si Thammarat
H.G. Quaritch Wales identifies three carved stone brackets found at Tha Rua, the old port of Nakhon Si Thammarat, as lotus-form pillar brackets of late Pandyan architectural style, dating to approximately 1300 A.D. (p. 148).
Summary
Wales revisits stones he had previously illustrated but could not identify in his article on “Langkasuka and Tambralinga.” He realized they had been photographed upside down on a museum floor; once reversed, they are clearly brackets that surmounted pillars, each about 4 ft. 6 ins. long (p. 148).
He considers two routes by which this South Indian form reached Nakhon: direct Pandyan influence (supported by the recruitment of Pandyan soldiers by King Chandrabhanu of Tambralinga in the mid-thirteenth century) or, more probably, via Sinhalese Buddhist architecture, which at that time was itself strongly influenced by contemporary Pandyan styles. He illustrates a comparable bracketed arch from the stairway at Yapahuwa, Ceylon, built towards the end of the thirteenth century (p. 148). Wales concludes that the brackets are not Srivijayan and probably date from the early fourteenth century, with further excavation at Tha Rua needed to settle the question (p. 148).