Look for my article in Textiles Asia magazine in January of 2026.
The Pattern in the Sister Queens' Skirts
Jayarājadevī and Indradevī. Jayavarman VII’s “Sister Queens”. Well educated. Compassionate. And smart. At Angkor we see many bas relief of the king and these two women sitting together - even on the five gateways into the royal city.
The best likenesses of these women are in the Preah Khan temple. The older sister, Indradevī, has been portrayed as the river goddess Ganga, and is standing under the roof of a palace. Her face looks like images we see of her in bas relief at other temples. Jayarājadevī’s face looks like the face we see on free-standing sculptures of her. Both women are wearing all the accoutrements of a queen. And they’re worshipped by locals as Jayarājadevī and Indradevī.
But Western scholars do not acknowledge that these two bas relief are Jayavarman VII’s sister queens – there is no inscription that identifies them as such. One world-renowned scholar told me they’re simply “door guards”.
These scholars didn’t look at what the women were wearing. The pattern in their skirts (under their sashes) is so much alike that I believe the skirts were cut from the same piece of cloth - a common practice among sisters in Cambodia today. I knew it must have been imported silk. And if I could prove it, this would add to the evidence that these two images are, in fact, Jayarājadevī (below) and her sister.
Could I identify the pattern in the skirts? In 2023 I looked at a photo of every flower found in Cambodia today - all 525 of them. There was only one candidate. I got a match on the number of petals, and on the shape of the petals and the center of the flower. Then I looked at the stem - a match as well. The pattern in the queens’ skirts must be the Royal Poinciana flower, native only to Madagascar. But what clinched my identification was that the flower on the queens’ skirts was rendered to scale. Royal Poinciana are unusually large – today, as much as six inches across.
Next, I determined that it is highly unlikely that the Angkorians had the Royal Poinciana tree at the time the two bas relief were carved – so it wouldn’t be a Cambodian pattern. But, where was it from?
In 2024 I consulted textile experts from around the globe. They told me that the pattern was not Madagascaran, Indian, Chinese, Thai, Javanese or Malayan.
Then, with the research grant from the Victoria and Albert, I found the Royal Poinciana pattern on a scarf in India (about the same width that the queens’ skirts would have been). In Rajasthan - but I think the original pattern was from Odisha.
But, is this really the same pattern? Or a contemporary one, that just looks like it? This textile was certainly commercially produced, not hand made.
The most obvious similarity is in the scale. In the queens’ pattern and in this one, the flowers were rendered life-sized.
The next most obvious similarity is in the arrangement of the flowers. They’re in vertical rows. The rows are staggered; when you look at the pattern as a whole, the flowers zigzag across it. In Indradevī’s skirt we see a few much smaller flowers, of a different type, scattered in amongst the Royal Poinciana flowers; we see the same thing in the contemporary piece. I think that the pattern in each of the queens’ skirts was symmetrical, and that it was the fault of the sculptor that they don't appear to be.
Royal Poinciana come in red, red-orange, orange and yellow. Some have markings on them. We can see markings on the petals of the flowers in the textile above. The bas relief of the queens’ skirts would have been painted, and markings may have been painted in.
But there is one difference in the two patterns. In the queens’ skirts the flowers look like they’re connected, by flower stems with no leaves (the bottom of the stem of one flower touches the top of the flower below it). In the contemporary textile we see stems with leaves, and the stems don’t connect the flowers.
But, what was it that convinced me that the two patterns, eight centuries apart, are the same? In both patterns, there are the same number of Royal Poinciana per row. Five. In both patterns, the flowers are on the weft axis. In both patterns, the rows are staggered. And in both patterns, the flowers are shown at the end of their bloom - when they’ve flattened out, and are just about to fall off the tree. Although flowers at the beginning of their bloom, when they’re tulip shaped, are much prettier.
The sashes over the queens skirts are Ashavali brocade, from Gujarat. As is the strip of “fish eggs” at the bottom selvedge of each skirt.
My research suggests that the Royal Poinciana tree went from Madagascar to Odisha. The pattern of its flower was then developed in Odisha. But was the Royal Poinciana pattern in the queens’ skirts rendered in brocade, ikat, or something else entirely? The full results of my investigation are in The Origins of Khmer Ikat - in India, and Beyond.