The King of Cochin China Riding on an Elephant, Attended by his Nayos or Guards

1778

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 11.5 x 7 in (29 x 18 cm)
Sheet size: 14.25 x 9.75 in (36.5 x 25 cm)

The King of Cochin China riding on an elephant — a ceremonial view from Middleton’s Complete System of Geography, 1778

This finely engraved ceremonial scene depicts the King of Cochin China (southern Vietnam) mounted on an elephant and accompanied by his “Nayos,” or guards, as published in 1778 in Charles Theodore Middleton’s Complete System of Geography. Issued at the height of Enlightenment encyclopaedic publishing in London, the print exemplifies how European geography books translated political authority and courtly ritual into legible images for a broad readership.

The designation “Cochin China” itself reflects the layered nature of European geographic naming. Owing to the heavy volume of trade vessels that plied between China and the port of Cochin in India, the name “Cochin” became linked in European commercial imagination with East and Southeast Asia, contributing to the composite terminology applied to Vietnam’s southern regions. Within this framework, the scene presents an idealised vision of Asian kingship, centred on the elephant as an emblem of sovereignty, scale, and command. The ruler sits elevated above attendants and guards, whose orderly formation reinforces hierarchies of power and disciplined retinue.

The “Nayos” referenced in such eighteenth-century English sources reflects the imprecise ethnographic vocabulary through which European compilers often described Asian military retinues. In some travel and colonial contexts, similar terms were occasionally applied to South Indian warrior groups—such as the Nair community of Kerala—though their usage here should be understood primarily as part of a generalised European language of armed attendance rather than a precise identification. Dense tropical foliage frames the procession, while the classical architectural surround—replete with urns, swags, and cartouches—locates the image firmly within European print conventions, mediating Asian authority through an Enlightenment visual grammar.

Middleton’s System sought to present a comprehensive survey of the known world, combining textual description with illustrative plates that conveyed political structures, customs, and spectacle. In this context, Cochin China appears not as an abstract territory but as a realm defined by monarchical ceremony and controlled display, distilled from travel literature into a single didactic tableau.

Today, the print is valued for its narrative richness and crisp engraving and as a revealing document of how late-eighteenth-century European publishers visualised Asia—through images shaped by observation, trade-inflected nomenclature, and the codified language of empire.

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