Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [10]
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Srivijaya was the most important trading empire of ancient Southeast Asia. Its centre is believed to have been in Palembang on Sumatra.
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While these great empires gradually declined in the 12th to 16th centuries, Tai peoples in the hinterlands of Southeast Asia were successfully establishing new states. The Buddhist polities of Lanna and Sukhothai were becoming the centre of the Tai world and were soon joined by Ayuthaya.
The Kingdom of Lanna
The Lanna kingdom was founded by King Mangrai who established Chiang Mai (meaning ‘new city’) as his capital in 1292. The king’s success was based on the creation of a common Tai identity and a network of relationships with important neighbouring Tai rulers, especially King Ngam Muang of Phayao and King Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai. His legal work, The Judgments of King Mangrai, was humane and reasonable.
In the second half of the 14th century, the learned King Kü Na established the Sinhalese sect of Theravada Buddhism. Lanna assumed cultural leadership of the northern Tai (Tai Yuan). The long reign of King Tilok in the 15th century reinforced the hegemony of Lanna. Another period of generous royal sponsorship for Buddhism in the 1520s led to the creation of the great Pali-language chronicle Jinakalamali (which presented the narrative of Buddha’s life and the spread of Buddhism). However, Lanna was plagued by dynastic intrigues and many wars, especially against Sukhothai and Ayuthaya. By the mid-16th century, the kingdom had become a victim of the power struggle between Laos and Ayuthaya.
The Kingdom of Sukhothai
In the mid-13th century, Tai rulers Pha Muang and Bang Klang Hao combined forces to expel the main Khmer outpost in the Sukhothai region. With the consent of Pha Muang, Bang Klang Hao was crowned King Sri Indraditya. Under the leadership of his son Ramkhamhaeng, the kingdom of Sukhothai became a regional power with dependencies in the east (Phitsanulok and Vientiane), the south (Nakhon Sawan, Chainat, Suphanburi, Ratburi, Phetburi and Nakhon Si Thammarat), the west (Pegu and Martaban) and in the north (Phrae, Nan, and Luang Prabang). These territories were not necessarily won by force. The southern annexes may have been a product of marriage or kinship between Ramkhamhaeng and families of the local rulers. Siamese Tai was becoming the language of the elite. The king is said to have invented a script variant and earlier version of present-day Thai in 1283. Sukhothai was a major centre of Theravada Buddhism on mainland Southeast Asia, as documented in works of art and the seminal Buddhist text, Traiphum Phra Ruang, composed by King Li Thai in 1339. After his death, however, Ramkhamhaeng’s empire disintegrated.
The Long Ayuthaya Period
In the mid-14th century a new power, the kingdom of Ayuthaya, arose in the Chao Phraya River basin. Contemporary sources outside Thailand often call it Siam. Its legendary founder, King U Thong, has obscure origins. While he may have been from Phetchaburi or of Chinese origin, sources indicate that he was allied by marriage with the powerful houses of Suphanburi and Lopburi.
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Traiphum Phra Ruang (The Three Worlds of King Ruang) describes the Buddhist cosmology. It also reinforces social hierarchy in terms of unequal religious merit, thereby justifying the Sukhothai monarchy.
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RAMKAMHAENG’S STONE INSCRIPTION
In an inscription of 1292, King Ramkhamhaeng gives a picture of his kingdom as idyllic and free of constraints, and of himself as a benevolent patriarch:
In the time of King Ramkhamhaeng this land of Sukhothai is thriving. There are fish in the water and rice in the fields…whoever wants to trade in elephants, does so; whoever wants to trade in horses, does so;…if any commoner in the land has a grievance…it is easy; he goes and strikes the bell which the King has hung there; King Ramkhamhaeng…hears the call; he goes and questions the man, examines the case, and decides it justly for him.
Translation by AB Griswold and Prasert