Journal of the Siam Society; 101

Table of contents :
JSS_101_0a_Cover
JSS_101_0a_Front
JSS_101_0b_Terwiel_TheHiddenJatakaOfWatSiChumANewPerspective
JSS_101_0c_Terwiel_WhatHappenedAtNongSaraiComparingIndigenousAndEuropeanSources
JSS_101_0d_AchiratChaiyapotpanit_KingRamaIIIPeriodMuralsAndTheirChineseHomeDecorationTheme
JSS_101_0e_PratimaWalliman_DevelopmentofTraditionalHouseFormsInRiparianCommunities
JSS_101_0f_Baker_TheGrandPalaceInTheDescriptionofAyutthaya
JSS_101_0g_Smithies_TheChevalierDeFretteville
JSS_101_0h_Kelley_TaiWordsAndThePlaceOfTheTaiInTheVietnamesePast
JSS_101_0i_LongLongWaters_SuicideAmongTheMlabriHunterGatherers
JSS_101_0j_Nipaporn_PublicHealthInModernSiam
JSS_101_0k_DamrongReederChalermchai_AConversationWithRobbers
JSS_101_0l_Dressler_ANoteOnTheSourceTextsOfCushmansRoyalChroniclesOfAyutthaya
JSS_101_0m_Revire_ReviewArticlePiriyaRootsOfThaiArt
JSS_101_0n_Maud_ReviewArticleTerwielMonksAndMagic
JSS_101_0o_Sen_ReplyToRevire
JSS_101_0p_Reviews
JSS_101_0q_Obits
JSS_101_0r_Contributors
JSS_101_0s_Back

Citation preview

Barend Jan Terwiel • What Happened at Nong Sarai? Comparing Indigenous and European Sources for Late 16th Century Siam Achirat Chaiyapotpanit • King Rama III-Period Murals and their Chinese Home Decoration Theme Pratima Nimsamer and Nicholas Walliman • Development of Traditional House Forms in Riparian Communities in Thailand Chris Baker • The Grand Palace in the Description of Ayutthaya: Translation and Commentary

Journal of the Siam Society

Barend Jan Terwiel • The Hidden Jātaka of Wat Si Chum: A New Perspective on 14th and Early 15th Century Thai Buddhism

Michael Smithies • The Chevalier de Fretteville (c.1665-1688), an Innocent in Siam Liam Kelley • Tai Words and the Place of the Tai in the Vietnamese Past

Nipaporn Ratchatapattanakul • Public Health in Modern Siam: Elite Thinking, External Pressure, and Popular Attitudes Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, translation by Matt Reeder and Chalermchai Wongrak • A Conversation with Robbers Note Jan R. Dressler • A Note on the Source Texts of Cushman’s Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya Review Articles Nicolas Revire • Piriya Krairiksh, The Roots of Thai Art Jovan Maud • Barend J. Terwiel, Monks and Magic: Revisiting a Classic Study of Religious Ceremonies in Thailand ISSN 0857-7099

Volume 101 • 2013

Mary Long, Eugene Long, and Tony Waters • Suicide among the Mla Bri Hunter-Gatherers of Northern Thailand

JSS

Volume 101 • 2013

The Journal of the

Siam Society Volume 101 2013

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Cover: Terracotta votive tablet, Early Pagan (9th-10th century CE), height 17.5 cms, depicting the Buddha in bhumisparsha-mudra (earth-touching pose) on a broad double-lotus under the shrine at Bodh Gaya, with eight stupas to each side, and a 3-line inscription on the base. Donated to the Society by Ms. Jenjira van der Linden, Life Member of the Siam Society.

Honorary editor: Chris Baker Editor: Paul Bromberg Advisors: Tej Bunnag, Michael Smithies, Kim W. Atkinson © The Siam Society, 2013 ISSN 0857-7099 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission from the Siam Society. The Journal of the Siam Society is a forum for original research and analysis. Opinions expressed in the Journal are those of the authors. They do not represent the views or policies of the Siam Society. Printed by Amarin Printing and Publishing Public Company Limited 65/16 Chaiyapruk Rod, Taling Chan, Bangkok 10170, Thailand Tel. (662) 422-9000 • Fax (662) 433-2742, 434-1385 E-mail: [email protected] • http://www.amarin.com

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Journal of the Siam Society Volume 101

2013 Contents

The Hidden Jātaka of Wat Si Chum: A New Perspective on 14th and Early 15th Century Thai Buddhism Barend Jan Terwiel............................................................................................. 1 What Happened at Nong Sarai? Comparing Indigenous and European Sources for Late 16th Century Siam Barend Jan Terwiel........................................................................................... 19 King Rama III-Period Murals and their Chinese Home Decoration Theme Achirat Chaiyapotpanit..................................................................................... 35 Development of Traditional House Forms in Riparian Communities in Thailand Pratima Nimsamer and Nicholas Walliman.................................................... 49 The Grand Palace in the Description of Ayutthaya: Translation and Commentary Chris Baker....................................................................................................... 69 The Chevalier de Fretteville (c.1665-1688), an Innocent in Siam Michael Smithies............................................................................................ 113 Tai Words and the Place of the Tai in the Vietnamese Past Liam Kelley.................................................................................................... 125 Suicide among the Mla Bri Hunter-Gatherers of Northern Thailand Mary Long, Eugene Long, and Tony Waters................................................. 155 Public Health in Modern Siam: Elite Thinking, External Pressure, and Popular Attitudes Nipaporn Ratchatapattanakul......................................................................... 177 A Conversation with Robbers Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, translation by Matt Reeder and Chalermchai Wongrak.................................................................................... 193

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Note A Note on the Source Texts of Cushman’s Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya Jan R. Dressler................................................................................................ 227

Review Articles Piriya Krairiksh, The Roots of Thai Art Nicolas Revire................................................................................................ 233 Barend J. Terwiel, Monks and Magic: Revisiting a Classic Study of Religious Ceremonies in Thailand Jovan Maud..................................................................................................... 241

Response In reply to Nicolas Revire, “Pierre Dupont’s L’archéologie mône de Dvāravatī and its English translation by Joyanto K. Sen, in relation with continuing research,” JSS, Vol. 99 (2011), pp 196–225 Joyanto K. Sen................................................................................................ 251

Reviews Divination au Royaume de Siam: Le corps, la guerre, le destin translated from Siamese and introduced by Pattaratorn Chirapravati, translated into French by Nicolas Revire Reviewed by Chris Baker............................................................................... 253 Chronicle of Sipsòng Panna: History and Society of a Tai Lü Kingdom Twelfth to Twentieth Century, by Liew-Herres Foon Ming, Volker Grabowsky and Renoo Wichasin Reviewed by Christian Daniels...................................................................... 255 The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen: Siam’s Great Folk Epic of Love and War translated and edited by Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit Reviewed by Bonnie Pacala Brereton............................................................ 262 Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy by Andrew Walker Reviewed by Charles F. Keyes....................................................................... 266 Bencharong and Chinaware in the Court of Siam: The Surat Osathanugra Collection by Jeffery Sng and Pim Praphai Bisalputra Reviewed by Philip Courtenay....................................................................... 268 Siamese Coins: From Funan to the Fifth Reign by Ronachai Krisadaolarn and Vasilijs Mihailovs Reviewed by Paul Bromberg.......................................................................... 270 iv

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Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology edited by Nora A. Taylor and Boreth Ly Reviewed by Shireen Naziree........................................................................ 272 Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies: The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640-1720, by Stefan Halikowski Smith Reviewed by Chris Baker............................................................................... 275 30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon: Inside the City that Captured Time by Sarah Rooney Reviewed by Donald M. Stadtner.................................................................. 278 Lacquerware Journeys: The Untold Story of Burmese Lacquer by Than Htun (Dedaye) Reviewed by Ralph Isaacs.............................................................................. 280 50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Ian Glover edited by Bérénice Bellina, Elisabeth A. Bacus, Thomas Oliver Pryce, and Jan Wisseman Christie Reviewed by Elizabeth Howard Moore......................................................... 285 A Traveler in Siam in the Year 1655: Extracts from the Journal of Gijsbert Heeck translated and introduced by Barend Jan Terwiel Reviewed by Dhiravat na Pombejra............................................................... 289 Mediums, Monks, and Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today by Pattana Kitiarsa Reviewed by Bonnie Pacala Brereton............................................................ 291

Obituary Dacre Raikes 1925-2013................................................................................ 295 Contributors to this Volume............................................................................... 299 Notes for Contributors........................................................................................ 304

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The Hidden Jātaka of Wat Si Chum: A New Perspective on 14th and Early 15th Century Thai Buddhism Barend Jan Terwiel

Abstract—In Past Lives of the Buddha, a beautiful, lavishly illustrated book published in 2008, several contributors offered new understandings of the famous series of 15th-century Jataka illustrations that had been found deep inside the walls of the monthop of Wat Si Chum, just outside the ancient city of Sukhothai. Pattaratorn Chirapravati demonstrated that the series of Jataka had from the outset been intended to be placed in the dark and inaccessible corridor of the monthop. Pierre Pichard argued convincingly that the building represents an unfinished stage of a much taller edifice. This article builds on these new insights with two propositions. First, the content of an inscription contemporary with the building of Wat Si Chum suggests that the Jataka may have been deliberately hidden to prevent them from being permanently lost in the year 2000 of the Buddhist Era. Second, while Pichard’s argument that a taller building was intended seems valid, several features of the base suggest that the upper portion would have been in the form of a sanctuary tower (prang). In 1891, the French architect Lucien Fournereau visited Wat Si Chum, the site of a long abandoned Buddhist monastery situated just outside the old city wall of the town of Sukhothai. The most striking building there was the monthop1 (มณฑป), a huge square block-like building in which a giant seated Buddha was encased, partly visible from outside through a tall doorway. At present, the building and the large image have been restored and are part of the Sukhothai Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When Fournereau visited, it was a ruin. In the wall at the left side of the entrance there was a ragged hole, which he measured and recorded as 35 cm broad and 53 cm high. In 1877, a Siamese government official, who had been instructed to search for old inscriptions, had entered that hole and discovered a large inscription lying From the Sanskrit maṇḍapa, “pavilion”, “open hall”, or “temporary shed (erected on festive occasions)”. Here the term is transcribed according to the way the Thais pronounce the word. Others, such as Skilling (et al.), prefer to be guided by the Indic roots of the word and write mondop.

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on the floor of a tunnel-like stairway. This inscription, known by epigraphists as Inscription II, or Charuek Wat Sichum (จารืกวัดศรีชมุ ),2 was duly shipped to Bangkok where it can still be found. It proved very difficult to decipher and until now there remain doubts as to what was intended in some passages. The script revealed that this inscription was probably incised during the later part of the 14th century CE. It is almost certain that its author was a Buddhist monk, known to us as Si Sattha, even though the possibility that King Lithai caused some passages to be written has also been suggested.3 At present the entrance has been enlarged to a height of 1.40 m, but in 1891, Fournereau had to lie on his stomach and squeeze through the narrow opening to enter the tunnel. Once inside, the height of the tunnel suddenly increased to over two meters, but the whole corridor remains only 40 to 43 cm broad, allowing passage only to a thin person shuffling sideways. With the help of a blazing torch he noticed that the corridor led to a narrow stairway that wound upwards through the walls of the monthop, eventually ending on the roof. To his great excitement he also noted that over the whole length of the tunnel, the ceiling was covered with stone slabs that were decorated with incisions that proved to be very skilfully made drawings, each slab also possessing a short text written in ancient characters. Fournereau had sufficient knowledge of Buddhist lore to recognize that the depictions related to the Jātaka stories, and when he discovered that these Jātaka followed exactly the order in which they occurred in the Tipitaka, as published in 1877 by Viggo Fausbøll, he knew that he had made an important discovery. During the following five days, he spent many hours in this corridor, studying and making impressions of the segments of the ceiling. He reported that he suffered great discomfort, not only because of the stench of a thick layer of bat droppings, but especially because of the smoke emitting from his torch. While moving up and down the narrow stairway he must have rubbed off sections of the plaster covering the sides; there are still some fragments of the original plaster that reveal a rich decoration. The ceiling slabs were made of a type of stone that easily flaked. In his amateurish eagerness, Fournereau must have severely discoloured the stone with his torch. By making gypsum impressions, he also damaged and destroyed part of the very treasure he had discovered. At the end of his five days of discovery, Fournereau was able to declare that these ceiling slabs contained depictions of the first 99 Jātaka stories. Photographic reproductions of most of Fournereau’s rubbings were published posthumously, so that we can still gain an impression of what he had Published in Prachumcharuek phak thi 8: Charuek Sukhothai (Bangkok: Fine Arts Department, 2547 [2004]), pp. 101–111. 3 See the discussion in A. B. Griswold and Prasert na Nagara, “King Lödaya of Sukhodaya and his Contemporaries,” Epigraphic and Historical Studies, No. 10, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 60, Pt. 1, January 1972, pp. 75–134. 2

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seen. Only a few slabs have been preserved in such a way that the original art can be appreciated. The most famous one is probably number 23, depicting Bhojājānīya Jātaka, on display in the National Museum in Bangkok; the dark brown colour probably attests to thick fumes, spread by candles and torches of early visitors to the corridor, such as Fournereau. The casts that Fournereau made are probably still stored in Paris. It is clear that those who carved these beautiful engravings had gone to great trouble, and this immediately led scholars to suspect that such beautiful illustrations were meant to be displayed somewhere else, and that they were stored in the ceiling for some unknown temporary reason, a period of warfare being the most feasible hypothesis. Griswold and Prasert summarize the generally accepted view at the time: “Representations of Jātakas, more than any other category of Buddhist art, are intended for the edification of the general public, so it is certain that these were not made to be installed in a dark stairway where they could be seen only with the aid of a candle.”4 Art historians have discussed various possibilities as to what monument should have been decorated with the slabs that had been hidden in Wat Si Chum. Coedès suggested in 1924 that they had been intended for Sukhothai’s Wat Mahathat, a thought taken up by Griswold in 1967 and later, from 1981 onwards, in many publications by Betty Gosling.5

Part 1: Monthop Wat Si Chum re-examined In 2008, a remarkable, richly illustrated book appeared in Bangkok, edited by Peter Skilling, entitled: Past Lives of the Buddha: Wat Si Chum, Art, Architecture and Inscriptions.6 In this book the various theories on the hidden Jātaka are examined and a veritable array of new insights presented. Three of these will be highlighted in the first part of this article: the question of the intended location of the Jātaka depictions; the likelihood that the monk Si Sattha built the remarkable monthop; and speculations on the intended shape of the monthop, had it been completed. The Jātaka depictions and other art objects in the hidden corridor From her measurement of the ceiling slabs, M.L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati reports that most of them were approximately 15 cm thick, circa 65 cm long and 82 cm broad. The fact that they extended into the brickwork proves that the slabs had been an essential part of the narrow corridor: they had apparently been decorated Griswold and Prasert, “King Lödaya of Sukhodaya”, p. 77. G. Coedès, Recueil des inscriptions du Siam, Première Partie: Inscriptions de Sukhodaya (Bangkok: Bangkok Times Press, 1924), p. 177; A. B. Griswold, Towards a History of Sukhodaya Art (Bangkok: National Museum, 1967), pp. 27, 49; Betty Gosling, “Why Were the Jātakas ‘Hidden away’ at Wat Sīchum?” Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 72 (1984), pp. 14–18. 6 Peter Skilling (ed.), Past Lives of the Buddha: Wat Si Chum, Art, Architecture and Inscriptions (Bangkok: River Books, 2008). 4 5

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first and subsequently placed in situ at the time when the building of the monthop was in process. This meant that the scholarly discussion on the intended location for these Jātaka depictions can be laid to rest: from the outset they were intended to be in the dark corridor. Pattaratorn confirms a view that had first been suggested in 1990 by a young art historian.7 Pattaratorn also draws attention to the fact that a Buddha footprint had been engraved on a very large stone at the turning of the stairway and that it also was placed so that it decorated the ceiling. This is the only place that this important symbol has been found in such a position. Normally, the symbol is found on ground level or on a dais. She then discusses the possible reason for “hiding” this series of skilfully incised pictures, suggesting that they were “used by monks as reminders of the Buddha’s lives as well as to enhance or complete the ideological program of the site, which was dictated in part by textual and ritual traditions, and in part by the need to participate in merit making.”8 She refers to the existence of hidden relic chambers, one in Sri Lanka and one in Wat Ratchaburana in Ayutthaya. In the second part of this contribution I shall refer to the relic chamber in Wat Ratchaburana again. Inscription II and the building of the monthop In Past Lives, Pattaratorn Chirapravati also provides us with a series of arguments for assuming that the Buddhist monk Si Sattha was the moving force in the construction of Wat Si Chum’s monthop. She points out, among other things, that Si Sattha’s largest inscription, the one found inside the tunnel, is such an unwieldy object that it is unlikely to have been transported over a large distance; that the writing is very similar to that on the Jātaka depictions in the tunnel; and that the inscription reveals that Si Sattha obviously possessed sufficient wealth to build such a large monument. The inscription discovered in 1877 had probably originally been placed in the gathering hall directly in front of the entry of the monthop.9 Deciphering the inscription proved difficult, not only because some parts had become illegible, but also because some lines at the lower end of the front of the stele should apparently be read in conjunction with the end of the text on the back of the stele. The inscription opens with a summary of the major meritorious feats of the Buddhist monk Si Sattha. The next forty lines deal with his family background, which is Banlue Khoraumdatch in an MA thesis, submitted to Silpakorn University, as summarized by Pattaratorn Chirapravati, “Illustrating the Lives of the Bodhisatta at Wat Si Chum”, in Skilling, Past Lives, p. 26. 8 Pattaratorn, “Illustrating the Lives of the Bodhisatta”, p. 23. 9 Lucien Fournereau, Le Siam Ancien, Archéologie, Épigraphie, Géographie (Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. 31, 2, Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1908), p. 10, collected the information that an inscription once could be found there (Fournereau mistakenly assumed that it had been Inscription III, probably because he confused the town Nakhon Chum with Wat Si Chum). 7

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traced to Pha Mueang, the ruler of Mueang Rat, who joined forces with Ban Klang Hao to conquer Sukhothai. This part confirms what was already known of the early political history of the region and adds further details to our knowledge.10 Then follows what may be described as Si Sattha’s autobiography. The following forty lines tell about his youth as a young nobleman, his bravery and accomplishments. Then, distressed by the sudden death of his young son, he resolves to become a forest-dwelling monk. The rest of the inscription, beginning on side two, deals with his spectacular merit-making activities, some of them apparently during the ten years he resided in Sri Lanka, some while traveling, others again in what is now Northern Thailand. This list is obviously not chronologically ordered and therefore this account of his pious deeds presents a confusing puzzle. Pattaratorn solves at least one part of this puzzle by noting that Si Sattha must have visited the famous and massive Dhanyakataka stupa in India.11 On his return journey from Sri Lanka, Si Sattha brought along skilled craftsmen to build monuments as well as two precious major relics of legendary fame. The lower parts of the inscription are only partly legible. They deal mostly with the miracles that were caused by the relics over lengthy periods of time when Si Sattha showed them. The reference to Sri Lankan craftsmen forms by itself a major element in the chain of reasoning that links Si Sattha with the monthop of Wat Si Chum. The depiction of the faces of many of the rulers and Bodhisattvas, notably in the first half of the series of 99 Jātaka, in particular the shapes of their faces, the arched eyebrows, the half-circle chins, and the way the lips are depicted, definitely do not conform to any style of Thai art. They have clearly been strongly influenced by 14th-century Sinhalese art,12 and may well have been the work of the craftsmen mentioned in the inscription. All available evidence points to the fact that Si Sattha’s stele stood directly in front of the monthop of Wat Si Chum. It is sometimes overlooked that there is a second hidden corridor in the monthop, directly opposite the rough entrance to the Jātaka stairway. In contrast to the corridor that Fournereau had examined, it reputedly led downwards. Since this second corridor was considered unstable and insecure, its entrance was bricked up in 1981. Taking the content of the inscription into account, the hypothesis that this second downward-leading corridor led to a Incidentally, this inscription mentions Ram Khamhaeng’s father’s title Si Inthrathit, confirming a name found in the first line of the Ram Khamhaeng Inscription. Since Inscription II was only discovered in 1877, it should be clear that King Mongkut, who died in 1868, cannot have composed Inscription I, as has been suggested by Piriya Krairiksh. 11 Pattaratorn, “Illustrating the Lives of the Bodhisattva”, p. 20. 12 Bonita Brereton, “The Wat Si Chum Engravings and their Place within the Art of Sukhothai”, MA thesis, University of Michigan, 1978, pp. 33–36. Compare for example faces in the famous engraving of the 23rd Jataka (the Bhojājānīya Jataka) with stucco figures from the Northern Temple in Polonnaruva, see Senarat Paranavitana, Art of the Ancient Sinhalese (Colombo: Lake House, 1971), Figure 101. 10

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chamber, directly under the giant Buddha image, that was intended to house at least one of Si Sattha’s relics, seems plausible. Only a costly and possibly dangerous re-opening of the bricked-up lower corridor might clarify this matter. The intended shape of the building A very exciting argument that contributes to a better understanding of the monthop of Wat Si Chum is found in Pierre Pichard’s chapter in Past Lives.13 Pichard presents an overview of all monthop in Northern Thailand and notes that the one at Wat Si Chum shows unusual features. Not only is this monthop unique in possessing a hidden corridor that ends on the flat roof, but its base is disproportionately heavy; apparently a much taller building had been envisaged. The sloping inner walls are also unique, pointing to the builders’ intention to close the ceiling above the Buddha’s head. The upper lintel that protrudes from all other monthop is missing at Wat Si Chum. Finally, Pichard notes that more than 400 of the usual total of over 500 Jātaka depictions are missing. He concludes that the building is incomplete and unfinished, and that the hidden corridor was intended to continue in a much taller structure. The reason for it being unfinished is not clear; some speculate that Si Sattha died before completion, others that warfare between Ayutthaya and Sukhothai disrupted the project. Pichard then presents us with a drawing of a hypothetical monument, one that Si Sattha might have had in mind when he began building. Here he assumes that the model was Chedi Ko Kut in Lamphun. He especially draws attention to the massive base of that Chedi (see the left part of Figure 1), and then projects how the unfinished upper portion of Wat Si Chum’s monthop would have appeared (on the right half of Figure 1). Pichard’s arguments that the monthop of Wat Si Chum represents an unfinished construction and that a much taller building had been envisaged are convincing. However, his suggestion that a building in the form of Chedi Wat Ko Kut had been intended is less so. Chedi Wat Ko Kut, like other edifices of that type has five diminishing levels, with the base of each level approximately twice as broad as its height, resulting in a pyramidal shape rising at an angle of approximately 60 degrees. In assuming that the present monthop of Wat Si Chum was intended as the lowest of five diminishing levels, Pichard ignores the fact that the monthop is much too high in respect of its width. Therefore, Pichard’s conjectural shape ends up with much too steep a pyramid. Another objection to taking the Chedi Wat Ko Kut as the intended shape is that it is a solid construction, with nothing like the large hollow space, the tall entrance and the huge Buddha image of the monthop. Then, Pichard’s idea that the hidden corridor was intended to continue upwards through all remaining four levels, thus Pierre Pichard, “The Mondop at Wat Si Chum: New Perspectives”, in Skilling, Past Lives, pp. 41–57.

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allowing artists to hide the illustrations of the remaining 447 Jātaka in the ceiling, must also be treated with caution, since the diminishing size of the levels would leave less and less room for a corridor: already at the third level there simply would not have been sufficient space for any type of accessible corridor. A final objection to taking the Chedi Wat Ko Kut as the model is that each level ought to possess twelve niches (three on each side) for placing Buddha statues. The monthop of Wat Si Chum was built without such niches. While rejecting the Chedi Wat Ko Kut model, I still think that Pichard’s architectural and historical arguments, in particular about the way Wat Si Chum’s monthop differs from other Thai monthop, together with evidence from Si Sattha’s inscription, make a plausible case that Si Sattha had planned a much taller structure. I would like to propose an alternative structure. I would like first to draw attention to a feature of the Wat Si Chum monthop that has received little attention, namely that there is an unfinished stairway at the western side of the building (see Figure 2). In my view the beginning of a stairway on the western side, flanked by massive

Figure 1. Pichard’s suggestion as to the intended shape of the monthop (Past Lives, p. 56).

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Figure 2. The unfinished western stairway. Illustration 17, in Prachum Silacharuek, Phak thi 5 (Bangkok: Prime Minister’s Department, B.E. 2515 [1972]).

Figure 3. The Thai prang, from Silpa Bhirasri, Figure 4. Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya, photographed in 1907. Thai Buddhist Art (Architecture) (Thai Culture, New Series, No. 4, Bangkok: Fine Arts Department, 1970), p. 19.

walls, is an important clue as to the shape that Si Sattha was constructing. Such steep stairways, leading to an upper niche, can be found in many Khmer-style sanctuary towers, prang (ปรางค์), throughout the region, but not on other Siamese religious buildings (see Figure 3). Pichard himself refers to three prang that were standing in the immediate surroundings during the time the Wat Si Chum monthop was being Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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constructed, each with a square interior cella under a high corbeled vault.14 According to his inscription, the much-traveled Si Sattha on his return journey from Sri Lanka had passed through Ayutthaya, a Thai city where the prang was the most imposing feature of monastic buildings (see Figure 4). I propose that Si Sattha intended to build a very large prang at Wat Si Chum. As to the depictions of the remaining 447 Jātaka, the existing hidden corridor in Wat Si Chum could have led to a space, directly above the large Buddha image. Here there would be no need to use heavy slabs for showing the remaining Jātaka, as in the roof of the corridor. Si Sattha and his artisans could have devised a more efficient and compact method of placing the illustrations of the remaining birth stories. The monthop is of a size, large enough to construct a second level space, with a floor surface of some 16 square meters, possessing a dome-like ceiling. With the exception of the floor, all surfaces would be covered with the remaining 447 square incised slabs. In the middle sufficient room would remain to place an image of a seated Buddha. The twelfth-century Kubyaukgyi temple in Myinkaba, Myanmar provides an example of what such a hollow space would look like; especially since its walls originally were covered with slabs depicting all 547 Jātaka. (see Figure 5)15

Figure 5. Kubyaukgi temple, Myinkaba (after Helmut Köllner and Axel Bruns, Myanmar (Burma) (Munich: Nelles Verlag, 1997), p. 125).

These are the prang of Wat Phra Phai Luang (Pichard, “The Mondop at Wat Si Chum”, p. 53). For details, see Aung Thaw, Historical Sites in Burma (Government of the Union of Burma: Ministry of Union Culture, 1972), pp. 62–3, and Guy Lubeight, Pagan: Histoires et légendes (Paris and Pondicherry: Kailash editions, 1998), pp. 308–13. 14 15

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Part 2: The motivation to build prang The evidence from contemporary Ayutthaya In her contribution to Past Lives, Pattaratorn mentions that Wat Ratchaburana in Ayutthaya had a prang with a completely sealed space, partly covered with mural paintings, many of them scenes from Jātaka stories. She suggests that these inaccessible paintings were not meant to be viewed but, like those of Wat Si Chum, were part of a sacred program, inspired at least in part by written texts. Pattaratorn suggests these hidden spaces were imitations of Sinhalese relic chambers and that making and hiding the Jātaka depictions was a meritorious act.16 The prang of Wat Ratchaburana was reputedly built in 1424, some fifty years after the monthop of Wat Si Chum. Nobody knew of the existence of the hidden space until September 1957, when some thirty treasure hunters were caught digging into the monument. The gang had already removed a large number of precious objects (reputedly amounting to about 200 kilograms of gold) but fortunately had not been able to remove everything. Not long afterwards Thai archaeologists discovered that deep inside and below this prang was a crypt consisting of three levels (see Figure 6). The upper level was empty and apparently had never been used to store objects. From the middle level more than 2000 objects were identified (partly in situ and partly confiscated from the robbers), among them a ceremonial sword, a shoe, a crown, a fan, ritual containers, many Buddha images from

Figure 6. Plan of the crypt of Wat Ratchaburana, Ayutthaya (after Fontein, De Boeddha’s van Siam, p. 80)

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Pattaratorn, “Illustrating the Lives of the Bodhisattva”, p. 23. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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various epochs,17 and a single coin issued by Sultan Zain-ul Abidin of Kashmir (r. 1423–1474). Most interestingly, the thieves had not yet found the deepest level, a relatively small space containing a single iron object in the form of a stupa. This iron form encapsulated a brass stupa, that in turn contained a copper one, then a silver one and finally one made of gold (see Figure 7). Inside the latter was a crystal in the shape of a stupa (which I assume to have been the casing of the relic), a small Buddha image of solid gold, and a small golden inscribed plaque.18 While Pattaratorn is right in observing a parallel between the monthop of Wat Si Chum and the prang of Wat Ratchaburana, Wat Ratchaburana is not the only monastery with a prang in which precious objects had been hidden. Fontein reports that some twenty golden objects were recovered during restoration work on the prang of Wat Mahathat in Ayutthaya.19 The treasures hidden in these massive buildings were discussed in the early 17th century. In his account written in 1638, van Vliet mentions that large Figure 7. The golden relic holder from the treasures of gold and silver had been buried under the crypt of Wat Ratchaburana, Ayutthaya (after Fontein, De Boeddha’s van Siam, p. 76) Buddha images in some monasteries, and continues: … also many rubies, precious stones, and other jewels have been put away in the highest tops of some towers and pyramids, and these things remain there for always for the service of the gods. Among the Siamese fabulous stories about the immense value of these treasures are told. The people say that with the treasures lying under the idols of Wat Syserpudt [Si Sanphet] and Nappetat [Mahathat] a ruined kingdom could be restored.20 There can be little doubt that “the highest towers and pyramids” meant the prang and other forms that capped the major monastery buildings. Taking into account the unfinished back staircase, the rather massive square base of the monthop, together with the fact that at least two prang of Ayutthaya were used to hide Buddhist treasures, a case can be made for assuming that Si Sattha One of these Buddha images, in the Pala style, is described in G. Coedès, “Note sur une stele Indienne d’epoque Pāla decouverte a Ayudhyā (Siam)”, Artibus Asiae, Vol. 22, Pt. 1/2, 1959, pp. 9–14. 18 Jan Fontein, De Boeddha’s van Siam (Zwolle: Waanders, 1996), pp. 79–81. On p. 76 is a photograph of the golden relic-holder. 19 Fontein, De Boeddha’s van Siam, p. 79 20 Chris Baker et al., Van Vliet’s Siam (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2005), p. 156. 17

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intended to build a prang. Since Pattaratorn has argued convincingly that the Jātaka slabs in the Wat Si Chum monthop were intentionally hidden in the dark and narrow corridor, I am inclined to connect the hidden treasures of Ayutthaya prang with the hidden Jātaka of Wat Si Chum. The ominous year 2000, a motivation for hiding Buddhist treasures Not long before Si Sattha’s building of the monthop, there was a scholar of renown, known as Phaya Lüthai (ฦๅไทย), the ruler of Sukhothai, who reigned probably from 1347 to around 1370. He is generally credited with being the author of the Traiphum treatise that inspired Thai artists for five hundred years. In 1357, Lüthai caused an inscription to be incised in which a dire prediction is spelt out in detail. The background to Lüthai’s prognostication is found in the Tipitaka. Nearly at the end of the Vinayapitaka, in the tenth chapter of the Culavagga, is a section that deals with the ordination of women. It recounts that Mahāpajāpati, the fostermother of the Buddha, was the first woman to approach the Buddha with a wish to join his order of ascetics. At first the Buddha refused to allow female ordination, but after mediation by Ananda, he relented. While reluctantly allowing women to become bhikkhuni, the Buddha stipulated that candidates should agree to undergo an amended ordination ritual and, once ordained, to obey a series of special rules. After agreeing to allow women to join the order, the Buddha is reported to have added a wistful rider: If, Ânanda, women had not received permission to go out from the household life and enter the homeless state, under the doctrine and discipline proclaimed by the Tathāgata, then would the pure religion, Ânanda, have lasted long, the good law would have stood fast for a thousand years. But since, Ânanda, women have now received that permission, the pure religion, Ânanda, will not now last so long, the good law will now stand fast for only five hundred years.21 While modern exegesis tends to interpret the words “a thousand years” and “only five hundred years” not literally, but as “for a very long time” and “much less longer” respectively, early commentators of the Buddhist scriptures came to a different conclusion. When Thera Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa wrote his commentaries on the sacred Buddhist texts, he realized that the Buddha had died more than 900 years earlier. When he came across the Buddha’s prediction that, because of the admission of bhikkhunis, the dhamma would last only 500 years, yet the teachings had apparently not disappeared, he solved this anomaly by surmising Cullavagga, X, 1, 6. T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (tr.), Vinaya Texts, Part 3 (Sacred Books of the East, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969 [1885]), p. 325. 21

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that the statement had been corrupted and that Buddha must have said “five thousand years” instead of “five hundred years”. Buddhaghosa assumed that the Buddha had properly foreseen the end of the dhamma, but also assumed that the disappearance of the dhamma would occur gradually. Thus the Sri Lankan tradition of the five stages of corruption came into existence: During the first thousand years, the power to become an arahant22 will disappear. During the second thousand years, monks gradually will neglect the rules of the Vinaya, and eventually even the moral precepts will be neglected. During the third thousand years, first the last book of the Abhidhamma, and retrogressively its other six books will be lost, the same will happen to the Vinaya, then follow the Suttas, and eventually even the Jātakas will be forgotten. During the fourth thousand years the monks will forget the proper way to carry the alms bowl and how to wear the yellow robes, ending by suspending the alms bowl from a carrying-pole and of the robes retaining only a small bit of yellow cloth to wrap around the neck, the wrist or the ear. During the fifth and final thousand years the Buddha’s bodily relics will gradually be less and less honoured. Finally, 5000 years after Buddha’s death, all his relics will spring out of the reliquaries in which they are enshrined, these will fly to the Mahāthupa at Sri Lanka, where they will assemble, then fly through the air to Bodhgaya in India where they will form themselves in the semblance of the Buddha, and be consumed in a great holocaust. Mankind will then live in a miserable, immoral state, but eventually the next Buddha, named Metteyya (Sanskrit: Maitreya) will descend from the Tusita heaven.23 In his inscription (Sukhothai Inscription 3), Phaya Lüthai refers extensively to the disappearance of Buddhism in stages. He warns his readers that in 3099 years the religion will have disappeared. In referring to the second stage of the gradual decline, Lüthai, as others before him had done, reverses stage three and two, telling The arahant is a title given to a person who has attained enlightenment and who, when passing away, will reach nirvana. 23 R. Spence Hardy, Eastern Monachism (Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series Vol. 49, 1989 [1850], pp. 427 ff. See also John S. Strong, The Experience of Buddhism (Wadsworth Publishing, 2008), p. 53. 22

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us that the scriptures would disappear before the rules of the Vinaya.24 Moreover, he assumes that the scriptures will not gradually be forgotten during the coming millennium, as Buddhaghosa’s commentary suggested, but that this would occur instantaneously in the year 2000 of the Buddhist Era (BE). I suggest that Lüthai’s dramatic and alarmist interpretation has not been given the attention it deserves. He clearly states that a major threat looms: … ninety-nine years from the year this relic will be enshrined, the Three Pitakas will disappear. There will be no one who really knows them, though there will be still some who will know a little bit of them. As for preaching the Dharma, such as the Mahājāti [the Vessantara Jātaka], there will be no one who can recite it; as for the other Dharmajātakas, if the beginning is known the end will not be, or if the end is known the beginning will not be. 25 This inscription has a date26 in June 1357 AD, which corresponds to 1901 BE. Lüthai warns his readers that exactly in the year 2000 BE, various essential texts, such as the Jātaka, will “disappear”. This eschatological interpretation, with its prophesy of a dramatic and sudden loss of major religious texts, may well have been the motivating factor that explains a series of remarkable activities in 14th and 15th century Thai Buddhism. It may, for example, be the reason why Lüthai had a replica of the Sri Lankan Buddha footprint made, and why he had copies placed around the kingdom. Worshipping the Buddha footprint was believed to have the same effect as paying homage to an offshoot of the very bodhi tree under which the Buddha had reached enlightenment: it would enable the worshipper to be reborn in heaven and remain there until reborn in human form in the time of the Buddha Metteya.27 This was a method to survive through the terrible time when the religion would be lost. In his inscription of 1357 AD, Lüthai wrote that soon people would not have the means to make merit and hence eventually everybody would be reborn in hell. Faithful Buddhists still had a final chance to ensure that they would see the future Buddha Metteya.28 The remarkable cult of relics, that has been amply documented for the 14th and early 15th century in G. Coedès, “The Traibhumikathā: Buddhist Cosmology and Treatise on Ethics”, East and West, Vol. 7, 1957, p. 349. 25 A. B. Griswold and Prasert na Nagara, “The Epigraphy of Mahādharmarāja I of Sukhodaya”, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 61, Pt. 1, 1973, p. 99. 26 “Śakarāja 1279, year of the cock, eighth month, fifth day of the waxing moon”, Griswold and Prasert, “The Epigraphy of Mahādharmarāja I”, p. 94. 27 Barbara Watson Andaya, “Statecraft in the Reign of Lü Tai of Sukhodaya (ca. 1347–1374)”, in Bardwell L. Smith (ed.), Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand, Laos, and Burma (Chambersburg: Anima Books, 1978), p. 8. 28 See Griswold and Prasert, “The Epigraphy of Mahādharmarāja I”, pp. 102–103. 24

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inscriptions as well as in the Jinakalamani and the Mulasasana, suggests that these thoughts were shared by many. Lüthai’s inscription forecasting the imminent loss of essential elements of religion clearly states what ought to be done at the time when he wrote the inscription: devout Buddhists had a mere 99 years during which they could worship Buddha’s footprints, offshoots of the bodhi tree, and various relics. His awareness of the limited time left provided him also with a strong motivation to hide the essential texts and illustrations in massive prang. These treasures were stored deep inside brick monuments in order to protect them against future destructive fires and inundations, thus providing the poor, ignorant future generations, who had the misfortune to be born after the year 2000 BE, with the means to rediscover them and so to regain access to the satsana. Therefore Si Sattha’s project of hiding the Jātaka in the monthop (the first stage of a giant prang) was inspired by a wish to circumvent the imminent loss of essential texts. This would explain why a textual summary of the story is incised on each Jātaka depiction. In Ayutthaya similar considerations may well have motivated the builders of the prang of Wat Ratchaburana to cover the walls of the crypt with depictions of the Jātaka stories, among other images, and to entomb not only a relic but also a very large number of Buddha images deep inside the walls of the prang. The prang of Wat Ratchaburana in Ayutthaya may be considered as a giant “time capsule”, designed not only to survive the demise of Buddhism but also to provide devout people with the means of tidying over to the next Buddha, Metteya. Similarly, the unfinished monument of Wat Sri Chum of Sukhothai was intended as another such “time capsule” with one corridor leading upwards to depictions of a complete set of Jātaka stories and another corridor leading down underground to a chamber under the Buddha image, where Si Sattha intended to install one of the relics of the Buddha that he had brought from Sri Lanka. Lüthai’s preoccupation with the looming 2000 disaster may well date from the time he wrote the Traiphum. This formidable undertaking was not the result of combined effort: he enumerates an impressive list of sources as well as the six learned men and their entourage with whom he discussed the organization of the work. This systematic description of the cosmos was a novelty, not only in its scope, but especially in that it was written in the local vernacular. In 1952, Coedès suggested already that Lüthai wrote the treatise with the aim of preserving essential knowledge in view of the dangerous year 2000.29 It does not seem too far-fetched to argue that the fearsome year 2000 was not Lüthai’s private whim, but that it was shared in the intellectual circles he mentions. The idea of a spreading panic would help explain several unusual features of late 14th and early 15th century Thai Buddhism. There is the unusual religious 29

Coedès, “The Traibhumikatha”, p. 349–50. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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content of most of the inscriptions of the time, describing miracles when relics are displayed, listing merit-making occasions and the wish to be reborn in the time of Metteya. These descriptions and such declarations were incised in stone in order to be a record that would last beyond the year 2000, when mankind would be deprived of so many means to ensure a positive rebirth. Also the geographical spread of these inscriptions coincides with the living space of the intellectual circles mentioned by Lüthai. This hypothesis would also help explain why the number of inscriptions dwindles suddenly after the mid 15th century. The force of a doomsday prophesy is spent as soon as the critical date is passed.

Conclusion Ever since Lucien Fournereau crawled into its hidden passageway in 1891, Wat Si Chum has posed a challenge to scholars. The contributors to the 2008 publication Past Lives of the Buddha have argued convincingly that the 99 Jātaka depictions were intentionally hidden in the monthop’s passageway. They have also suggested that the current structure was intended as the base of a much larger building to house the total series of over 500 Jātaka stories, and that the prominent monk, Si Sattha, was most likely the progenitor of this grandiose project. While agreeing to most of these findings, in this article I offer three suggestions. First, the model for the unbuilt upper levels of the monument would not have been Chedi Wat Ko Kut but a prang. Second, the prang would have enshrined not only the Jātaka depictions but also relics, as found at Wat Ratchaburana in Ayutthaya. Third, the motivation for such constructions and other religious projects in this era was the fear, on the approach of the ominous date of 2000 BE (1457 AD), that Buddhism was destined to decline and disappear, and some action was needed to give Buddhists, born after that date, a chance to rediscover the lost parts of religion. In many older provincial towns there are prang, often in monasteries called Wat Mahathat (Mahādhātu, the Great Relic). In a preliminary overview (see the Appendix), I have identified a dozen sites, eleven of them possessing a prang called the Great Relic. If my interpretation is correct, in each of these colossal monuments that was built before the ominous date of 2000 BE, there will be a relic chamber deep inside the prang. Consequently, I suggest that all ancient Mahathat monuments in the Thai region should be examined by the Thai authorities in order to establish whether there are still undisturbed relic chambers inside.

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Appendix: Ancient monuments related to the cult of relics Ayutthaya: Wat Mahathat (1384) Phetburi: Wat Mahathat Ratburi: Wat Mahathat Worawihan, known locally as Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat. Nakhon Sithammarat: Wat Phra Mahathat (mid 14th century) Lop Buri: Wat Phra Sri Ratana Mahathat (late 13th century) Nakhon Pathom: Phra Pathom Chedi, built over a prang Phra Pathon: the base of a prang (reputedly built in 1272) Suphanburi: Wat Phra Sri Ratana Mahathat, an ancient prang, with an inner staircase leading to a small chamber in the top Phitsanulok: Wat Phra Sri Ratana Mahathat and Wat Chulamani, remains of a huge prang Chaliang: Wat Phra Sri Ratana Mahathat Chiang Mai: Wat Chedi Luang, not a prang, but a chedi, dated 1441, ruined in an earthquake in the 16th century

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What Happened at Nong Sarai? Comparing Indigenous and European Sources for Late 16th Century Siam1 Barend Jan Terwiel

Abstract—The elephant duel in 1593 at Nong Sarai between Naresuan and the Burmese crown prince is one of the most famous incidents in Thai history, often repeated in a standard version. In fact, there are (at least) ten different accounts of the battle that differ widely. Comparing these accounts by Siamese, Burmese, European and Persian authors throws insight both on what may have truly happened at Nong Sarai and on the writing of Thai history. Scholars who specialise in the early history of Thailand, particularly those interested in the time prior to the 16th century, have to cope both with the dearth of sources and with the fact that this scanty material is written in a wide range of Asian languages and scripts. From the 16th century onwards, however, the situation changes in both respects. First, Portuguese observers add a whole new perspective, soon to be followed by accounts in Persian, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch. During the 16th and 17th centuries, a variety of foreigners left records of their visits to Siam. Among them were diplomats, adventurers, mercenaries, traders, missionaries, doctors and sailors. Some of them reported from memory long after returning home, others consulted notes written whilst voyaging. Some were only passing through and left merely a fleeting impression, but others who lived and worked for years in Ayutthaya wrote whole monographs. The written accounts range from a trader’s simple note on the price of pepper to the speculations of a refined scholar. Moreover, the quality of what was preserved varies greatly. Not everyone who wrote was a careful observer attempting to present us with an honest report of what he had seen. In a different context I have published on this topic before. See “The battle of Nong Sarai (1593) and the relationship between the largest political units in Mainland Southeast Asia,” in Guerre et paix en Asie du Sud-est, edited by Nguyen The Anh and Alain Forest (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1998), pp. 39–54. This study represents a thorough revision and a new analysis of the material. I thank both Chris Baker and Stefan Halikowski Smith for constructive criticism of earlier drafts. Sven Trakulhun and Francisco Olavo C. Velho assisted with the reading of Bocarro’s text. Errors of judgement that remain are mine.

1

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Therefore, 16th and 17th century reports on Siam need to be assessed as to what kind of access to Siamese culture the author of the account may have enjoyed. Equally important is to decide the author’s chief motivation in writing down a statement about the Siamese. Did he intend to impress a superior, to gather information for a select audience, or to provide entertainment for the general public? When a series of authors repeat the information that Siamese women were notorious for their lax morals, readily offering sexual favours, this information ought to weighed with care: were the authors in a position to judge sexual licence in general, were they just repeating what was generally believed to be true, or are their statements a reflection of a prostitution racket that had evolved along the trade routes?2 If it is important to assess the prejudices in works by Europeans, the indigenous sources must also be read with caution. In Siam, to take a blatant example, the Royal Chronicles were written, revised and rewritten apparently to fulfil the aims of the central authority. An obvious sign of bias in these annals are that many relatively innocuous ceremonial acts are recounted at length, while distressing or dishonourable occurrences are often glossed over. The 16th and 17th centuries provide us with several interesting cases where European and indigenous Thai sources report on the same event. In the mid 16th century case of the treacherous woman Si Sudachan,3 her evil deeds are not only mentioned in the Thai annals, but she also features in one of the chapters on Siam written by Mendes Pinto. In this short article I shall limit myself to a different event where we can compare a number of early Southeast Asian written sources with European accounts.

One battle, ten versions The event I have chosen is the battle of Nong Sarai. Comparing the various European and indigenous sources will not only teach us about a crucial battle between the Siamese and Burmese in the year 1593, an event that determined much of the history of Mainland Southeast Asia, but can also provide a model of how to weigh bias in early modern sources. All educated Thais will be able to tell what happened at Nong Sarai: this battle allowed Siam to regain its independence after a lengthy period of vassalage to Burma. Over the past hundred years the story of Siam’s deliverance from Burmese See the discussion in Sven Trakulhun, Siam und Europa: Das Königreich Ayutthaya in westlichen Berichten 1500-1670 (Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2006), pp. 166–89. 3 The woman, who is known to us only by her title Si Sudachan, was a consort of King Chairacha. When the king died in 1546, his eleven-year old son Yotfa was selected as his successor, and Si Sudachan ruled as regent. Two years later she is said to have killed Yotfa and elevated her paramour Bunsi to the throne. These events triggered a successful coup d’état.

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overlordship has been reported in Thai school textbooks, all telling basically the same story which is based on the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya. The story is usually told as follows. The Burmese king had sent an army to repress the Siamese rebellion. Not far from the capital Ayutthaya the armies confronted each other, with hundreds of thousands of men poised for action in two camps. Naresuan, the Siamese prince who led the rebellion, bravely came forward on his war elephant and loudly challenged the Burmese to a duel. His heroic words were transmitted in the annals: “Whatever is Our royal older brother doing standing in the shade of a tree? Come forth and let us fight an elephant duel for the honor of our kingdoms!”4 Thus the Thai prince shamed the Burmese crown prince into accepting a challenge. The Thai elephant, being in rut, went berserk and rushed towards the enemy. The Burmese crown prince slashed with his scythe, but Naresuan turned and avoided being hit. Naresuan slashed with his sword, hitting the Burmese prince’s right shoulder, and cutting deeply into his opponent’s chest. At this time, Naresuan’s elephant driver was hit and killed by an enemy bullet. Prince Naresuan’s brother, the future King Ekathotsarot, fought with General Mangcacharo and also won that contest. The Thai army then rushed forward, slashing and stabbing, forced the enemy to retreat in defeat, and pursued them until the Burmese were no longer on Siamese territory.5 This bloody end of the Thai subjugation is today told this way so consistently and so often that a different opinion of what happened is automatically suspect from the Thai perspective. There are, however, some puzzling features in this account. There is the purported issue of a challenge to decide the war by organizing a duel. The duel has a venerable tradition. In Mainland Southeast Asia this procedure was invoked when two major armies of comparable strength faced each other and when initial skirmishes failed to indicate which party was likely to win. In order to avoid an immensely destructive battle, the two opposing parties could negotiate a duel between two eminent figures of equal rank, each mounted on his heavily armed war elephant (along with one or more bodyguard behind the warrior and a mahout in front to guide the animal with a goad). At the agreed moment, these two would rush forward and attempt to disarm, wound, kill or unseat each other. It was understood that the outcome of this minor confrontation would settle the entire battle once and for all. The elephant duel could be regarded as a kind of ordeal, whereby costly large-scale killing and destruction were avoided. Richard D. Cushman (tr.), The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya (Bangkok: The Siam Society, 2000), p. 131. 5 The event is celebrated every year on January 18 as Royal Thai Armed Forces Day (วันกองทัพไทย). 4

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The rules of such a traditional elephant duel were quite clear: there are accounts in the annals and in inscriptions going back to the late 13th century. In all such accounts, the side that won the duel won the war. One unusual feature of the account of the 1593 duel at Nong Sarai in the Siamese Royal Chronicles is that two pairs of fighting elephants are mentioned, not just Naresuan versus the Burmese crown prince, but also Naresuan’s brother against a Burmese general. The whole purpose of a duel is that for the duration of the event all other hostile action is suspended. Moreover, when the Burmese prince was severely wounded, and the Burmese general killed, the duel, as well as the war, had apparently ended in favour of Naresuan, yet the Thai troops that had kept their distance up to this point, suddenly attacked en masse and routed the Burmese, with the Chronicle reporting massive slaughter—the very result that should have been avoided by agreeing to let the duel take place. In addition, the Royal Chronicles relate that after the battle Naresuan accused fifteen of his senior officers of letting him attack the Burmese crown prince alone and wished to punish them severely for waiting to see the outcome of the duel.6 This angry reaction indicates that Naresuan found himself abandoned in a foray, and contradicts the very idea that a duel had taken place. The Royal Chronicles are the source of the standard version of this battle, but they are not the only Siamese account of what happened in 1593. In 1640, a mere 47 years after the battle took place, a Dutch resident of Ayutthaya reproduced a version of Siamese history that was clearly based on indigenous documents, both written and oral.7 In this source, the confrontation of the two armies is described rather differently from the Royal Chronicles. The two armies confronted each other and the Burmese crown prince mounted his much larger elephant. When the two elephants saw each other, the animals were so aroused that they charged as if gone mad. The Thai elephant was frightened by the much larger Burmese one and tried to flee. Naresuan then prayed, shedding tears, begging his elephant to be brave, and sprinkling him with sacralised water. Thereupon, his steed took courage and charged madly towards the Burmese adversary, surprising the elephant of the Burmese crown prince, and hitting his trunk with such force that the Burmese elephant squealed. At this moment, the Thai prince struck the Burmese crown prince on the head with a goad and then stabbed him to death with a lance. The Thai prince’s bodyguards also stabbed the Portuguese who sat behind the Burmese crown prince. The Burmese army retreated, pursued by the Thais, and many Burmese were slain and others taken prisoner.8 Cushman, Royal Chronicles, pp. 132–3. Chris Baker et al., Van Vliet’s Siam (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2005), pp. 186–9. 8 Baker et al., Van Vliet’s Siam, pp. 226–7. Van Vliet also recounted the event in abbreviated form in his Description of the Kingdom of Siam: “At last they [the Burmese] appeared before Judia which town they thought to conquer very easily. But the Siamese prince marched with his army against the enemy and met them half a mile above the town near a ruined temple which is still existing. Scarcely had the two armies taken position opposite each other, when the Pegu prince and the 6 7

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There are interesting differences between this oldest Siamese account and the standard story. In the first place, Naresuan does not utter a challenge and no formal duel is agreed upon. Secondly, Naresuan’s brother is not mentioned as playing a role in the confrontation. Thirdly, it is the Portuguese sitting behind the Burmese crown prince who is killed, not the person sitting behind Naresuan. The second-oldest Siamese narration of the battle can be found in the so-called Luang Prasert Chronicle, a document that was written in 1690 by a high-ranking court astrologer. The author’s chief aim was to keep an accurate record of unusual events as will be clear when we read the entry related to the battle. On the second day of the second waning month of the year 954 Chulasakarat [1593] four time-units of 24 minutes and three units of six minutes after dawn he [Naresuan] rode his chief elephant named Phraya Chayanuphap and went out to fight the [Burmese] crown prince at the district of Nong Sarai. It was not an auspicious time and therefore … the [Thai] leader was slightly wounded in the right arm. Also when the [Burmese] crown prince came riding forward his hat fell off and he ordered it to be brought up to be worn again. Then the [Burmese] crown prince died in combat on his elephant. The chief [Thai] elephant named Phraya Chayanuphap on which this duel had been fought was renamed Chaophraya Prap Hongsa [His Honourable, Conqueror of Burma].9 Astrologers played an important role in calculating the most auspicious times to commence a battle. The exact time when Naresuan’s elephant set off, and the fact that the Burmese crown prince’s hat fell off and that Naresuan was slightly wounded in his right arm, were the type of knowledge considered vital by members of this profession. Therefore, I tend to attach great weight to these details. It is remarkable that both Van Vliet’s Thai sources and the astrologer give a prominent place in the story to the role of Naresuan’s elephant and that both conspicuously fail to specify that a formal duel took place. A fourth Siamese account of the battle between Naresuan and the Burmese crown prince can be found in a document, written in Burmese, and believed to young Siamese prince (both seated on elephants and dresssecl in royal garb) lost all self coutrol, left both their armies and attacked each other furiously. The Siamese prince ran his adversary with his lance through the body and took the other’s elephant. His slaves, who followed him very closely, killed a Portuguese who sat behind the Pegu prince to guide the elephant. The Pegu soldiers, seeing that their chief had been slain, fled away, but were at once pursued by the Siamese. Many thousands were slaughtered and the rest dispersed, so that only a few of the enemy’s army reached Pegu again.” Baker et al., Van Vliet’s Siam, p. 125. 9 Phraratchaphongsawadan Krungsi’ayutthaya chabap Luang Prasoet (Bangkok: Khurusapha, 1963), p. 156. The rank of Chaophraya was usually reserved for the most important ministers of state. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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originate from Thai nobles taken to Burma after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. It is known as the Yodaya Yazawin, and a copy, dated to the year 1845, has been translated into English. The moments leading up to the battle of Nong Sarai are described in some detail. During the first skirmishes, neither party prevailed and therefore the two sides agreed upon an elephant duel between Naresuan and the Burmese crown prince (here called Uparaja). We are told that both their elephants were in musth.10 Before the duel started a series of propitious omens appeared to Naresuan. What then happened is described as follows: When Uparaja made to use a setpali, Phra Naresuan asked, “We are fighting a fair fight. Is my elder brother trying to gain an undue advantage?” Uparaja then replied, “I just have the setpali with me, I do not mean to use it,” and continued the fight. As the elephant of Phra Naresuan was not equal in strength to that of Uparaja, it fell back again and again in standing up to it. Uparaja reached out and stabbed and slashed with his long-handled sword, but Phra Naresuan was able to sway and evade the strokes. One of the strokes hit his helmet and two finger-breadths of it was cut off. Then the elephant of Phra Naresuan set its legs against a hillock which had a jujube tree with ripe fruit and fought resolutely. Phra Naresuan’s elephant gored Uparaja’s elephant at the base of its tusk and the elephant fell. Goading on his elephant at full speed, Phra Naresuan slashed with his long-handled sword and Uparaja died on his elephant. The hillock against which the elephant of Phra Naresuan set its legs is known to this day as Phutsakrathip. When Uparaja died and his troops fell into disarray, Phra Naresuan ordered, “Because he lost in a cockfight and spoke to shame me in Hanthawaddy we fought this fight as good men do. Do not take any prisoners,” and the troops of Uparaja were allowed to return to Hanthawady.11 This fourth Siamese version tells us that a duel did take place and ends by informing us that, in accordance with the rules of an elephant duel, the Burmese were allowed to retreat unhindered. It also allots a prominent role to the elephants, this time stating that both animals were dangerously excited, and gives a heroic role to Naresuan’s elephant. Other new elements are introduced, such as the slashing of Naresuan’s hat and the inappropriate use of a setpali weapon. We do not know what Musth is a periodic condition of increased reproductive hormone secretion in bull elephants during which they are highly irritable and aggressive. 11 Tun Aung Chain (tr.), Chronicle of Ayutthaya: A Translation of the Yodaya Yazawin (Yangon: Myanmar Historical Commission, 2005), pp. 40–1. 10

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a setpali was, but the context suggests that it must have been a recently introduced weapon that should play no role in a traditional duel. It does not seem far-fetched that the setpali was an indigenous name for a kind of European gun.12 The mention of a cockfight refers to an earlier episode at the Burmese court when Naresuan was slighted by the Burmese crown prince.13 Having established that the four Siamese sources that describe the confrontation of 1593 show considerable differences, we shall now introduce how some representatives of the other side in the conflict, the Burmese, report what took place at Nong Sarai. The Burmese annals by U Kala have a great reputation for reliability and accuracy.14 According to the Hmannan Yazawin Dawgyi, written almost a century after U Kala, but fully relying upon him, the Burmese armies reached the vicinity of Ayutthaya in February 1593. In this Burmese account of the battle, elephants again play a decisive role. We are told that one of the Burmese generals rode an elephant in musth. This was a dangerous undertaking, for in this excited state the animal will readily attack other males. Therefore, its eyes had to be bandaged, so that he would not see other male elephants. When this general noticed that, during a skirmish, Naresuan’s elephant had come dangerously near that of the Burmese crown prince, he quickly removed the eye bandages of his steed. However, instead of attacking the Siamese elephant, his mount went for that of the Burmese crown prince and inflicted a severe wound. Noticing that the Burmese prince’s elephant was immobilised Naresuan rushed up and discharged a fire-arm at close range, mortally wounding the Burmese crown prince. The man behind the dying crown prince managed to hold him upright and Naresuan, thinking that the attack had failed, did not press his advantage. The Siamese were then driven back and took shelter in Ayutthaya. The Burmese generals held a meeting and decided to return home, arriving in their own territory in March 1593.15 The Burmese and Siamese annals thus differ quite dramatically. In the first place the Burmese do not mention a duel at all, attributing the death of their army commander to a series of unfortunate circumstances that began with an unforeseen attack by one of their own elephants. Next, the Burmese chronicles state that Naresuan took advantage of the moment that the crown prince was immobilized and killed him with a shotgun. Finally, they fail to confirm the Thai version that this was The prefix set- might come from Pali cakka, here meaning a mechanical device, very possibly a gun. Alternatively the word might be a garbled version of pistola. 13 A garbled version of the battle can be found in one of the Siamese legendary tales translated by Notton. See Camille Notton (tr.), Légendes sur le Siam et le Cambodge (Bangkok: Imprimerie de l’Assomption, 1939), pp. 55–8. 14 Victor Lieberman, “How Reliable is U Kala’s Burmese Chronicle? Some New Comparisons,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 17, 2 (September 1986), pp. 236–55. 15 Selected Articles from the Siam Society Journal, Vol 5, Part 1 (Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1959), pp. 138–9. 12

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followed by a major slaughter, but have the Siamese driven back to their capital city while the Burmese return home of their own free will. Since the four Thai versions disagree among each other and the Burmese one presents yet another sequence of events, the confrontation of these five indigenous accounts leaves us with a measure of uncertainty as to what actually may have happened at Nong Sarai in February and March 1593. Fortunately for historians, the battle took place in an era when other historical sources were being compiled. Before reaching a conclusion, we shall note what some European sources reported about the battle. A very early witness was Jacques de Coutre, who visited Ayutthaya in 1595, but whose travels were first published in 1640 by his son Estebàn. De Coutre depicts Naresuan (as Van Vliet did in his version of the Thai Royal Chronicles, mentioned above) as an extremely cruel person, who ordered the death penalty on the slightest provocation: He was so inhuman that he had one of his brothers fried alive, and he ordered that eight hundred men be burned together on a bonfire because they had not come to the rescue on time when he was at war with Pegu. During that war he defeated Maharraya, the son of the King of Pegu. He came away with a gunshot wound in the arm. Maharraya died in the city of Tavai of a lance stab to the throat.16 Apart from Jaques de Coutre and Jeremias van Vliet there is another witness who attested to Naresuan’s limitless cruelty. In 1603 Pedro Sevil de Guarga reported that one of the Thai king’s many horrific crimes was ordering that twenty Portuguese be fried in coconut oil.17 These three independent accounts could serve as a warning that the passage in the Royal Chronicles which states that Naresuan at the last moment refrained from killing those fifteen officers, who had not come to his rescue (having been persuaded to grant them a last-minute pardon by Buddhist monks), may well be a later addition. It would then represent one of the more blatant instances of “cleaning up history” (Thai: chamra prawatsat). In 1595 de Coutre witnessed the funeral ceremony of the very elephant that saved Siam at Nong Sarai. When he tells us how heartbroken the Siamese king was and how an elaborate state funeral was organised for a mere beast, he probably “Era tan inhumano que hizo freir a un hermano suyo vivo, y mandó quemar ochocientos hombres juntos a una hogera, porque no havían acudído a tiempo quando él fue a la Guerra del Pegú; en la qual venció a MAHARRAYA, hijo del rey de Pegú, y él salió herido de un escopetaço que le dieron a un braço, y MAHARRAYA se fue a morir a la ciudad de Tavai de una lançada que le dieron en la guarganta.” J. de Coutre, Andanzas Asiaticas, edición de Eddy Stols, B. Teensma y J. Verberckmoes (Madrid, Historia 16, 1991), p. 139. I thank Chris Baker for pointing out this source. 17 As cited in Stefan Halikowski Smith, Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies; The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640-1720 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), p. 67. 16

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succeeded in shocking his readers with the details of a heathen ritual.18 Looking at it from a contemporary Siamese perspective, this was a singular occasion. It confirms that Naresuan must have felt that he owed not only his life but the very defeat of the Burmese in 1593 to that particular creature, to our knowledge the only animal ever to have been awarded the rank of Chaophraya. In his Pilgrimage, which first appeared in 1613, a mere twenty years after the event, Purchas mentions the battle in which the Siamese freed themselves from Burmese vassalage. He tells of the Burmese king waging war with Siam: He sent his brother the King of Iangoma [Chiang Mai] and his owne Sonne, twice; which did much harme to the Siamites, and received no little themselves; never returning without losse of halfe of their Armie, and of his owne Son, in the last invasion slaine with a shot. 19 Victor Lieberman has discovered that Purchas must have taken the information of the Burmese crown prince’s violent death from a letter, dated 1602, that was published by the Jesuit Nicholas Pimenta and attributes the death to a lead bullet.20 Lieberman draws attention to the fact that the Kala Chronicle and Pimenta support each other in describing the cause of the Burmese crown prince’s death. Another Portuguese source that mentions details of the battle was transmitted by Antonio Bocarro, who left Portugal to travel to Goa in 1615. In 1631 he became Chronicler and Keeper of the Archives in Goa. He wrote Decada 13 da Historia da India, which mainly covers the years 1613 to 1617, occasionally mentioning events occurring in the late 16th century, such as the battle of Nong Sarai. Bocarro wrote about this battle in lengthy, rather flowery passages that may be paraphrased as follows:21 The Siamese king had sent a message to the Burmese prince, suggesting that they hold an elephant duel, so as to prevent a slaughter. Without consulting with his army commanders and advisors he foolishly accepted the challenge, thus missing out on an almost certain victory, not even taking a guard, riding singly on the kingdom’s most beautiful elephant, See Markus Bötefür, Auf Elefantenrücken durch Siam; Europäische Reiseberichte über das alte Thailand (Reihe Gelbe Erde 4, Gossenberg: Ostasien Verlag, 2009), pp. 31–3. 19 Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrimages or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this Present.... (London, Printed by William Stansby for Henry Fetherstone, 1617 (first impression 1613)), Book 5, Ch. 4, p. 567. 20 Victor B. Lieberman, Burmese Administrative Cycles; Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580-1760 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 40. Nicholas Pimenta was born in Santarem in 1546. In 1596 he became Visitor to Eastern India and Governor of the Jesuits in the Provinces of Goa and Malabar. He died in Goa in 1614. He published letters of Fathers Jerome Xavier, Gaspar Soares, Franc Fernandez, Melchipor de Fonseca, André Boves, and Etienne de Britto. 21 I thank Stefan Halikowski Smith for drawing my attention to this source. 18

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the same elephant on which his father Ximindo Ginico had conquered many kingdoms. Thus he stood near the city Ayutthaya at a distance of a quarter of a mile,22 his army behind him, when his opponent approached with four beautifully adorned elephants, adorned with golden parasols and gem-studded coverings, behind him 500 warriors on elephants, 10,000 young soldiers on horses, and 50,000 foot soldiers. The Burmese should have prevented this duel because their leader was getting himself in mortal danger, and if he had not done this they had been almost certain to win. But these heathens are so in awe of their king that they did not dare to contradict him, fearing his anger…. When the Burmese prince saw the opposing army he disdainfully ordered his people to make way so that he could get at his opponent. At first he could not discern him for all the howdahs looked similar. But fighting he drove them into flight and killed one of the [Siamese] commanders. Then a second enemy rushed at him and was despatched. Only then came the Black Prince [Naresuan] on his elephant, clearly visible to the whole opposing army. Fighting valiantly the Burmese prince wounded his opponent with an axe. When the Siamese leader noticed that he was almost defeated, he called to two Portuguese, who were in his vicinity, that they should fire. A shot was heard from a gun [espingarda] (it is believed that it came from the Portuguese) so that the Burmese crown prince was hurt and sat mortally wounded in his elephant’s howdah, where the Siamese prince killed him before riding away on his elephant. Then the Black Prince threw his army against the Burmese soldiers, who had lost their leader and did not know what to do. They were forced back two miles from the walls of the city, and with that the Siamese were satisfied.23 At that time the mile was equivalent to about seven kilometers. Antonio Bocarro, Decada 13 da historia da India (Lisboa: Academia das Sciencias, 1876), pp. 118–120: “E assi mandou um recado ao Uparaja, dizendo-lhe que não era bem matarem elles tanta gente como estavam de uma e outro banda, o que se podia escusar se ambos brigassem mano a mano em cima de seus elephantes. O que o principe de Pegu, sem dar conta aos seus, nem fallar nem tomar conselho com nemhum capitão, acceitou logo, com tão pouca prudencia como quem entregava ao inimigo a victoria que tinha em sues mãos. E assi mandou dizer ao rei de Sião que era muito contente; que elle só no campo o esperava, não querendo levar comsigo nemhun dos seus, nem quem o ajudasse, mais que o seu elephante, em que ia cavalgado, que era o mais formoso que havia em todo o seu imperio, com que seu pae d’este principe, o Ximindo ginico, havia conquistado os mais dos seus reinos. Posto o principe de Pegu, Uparaja, defronte da cidade de Odia, dis [p. 119] tancia de um quarto de legua, com o seu poderoso exercito nas costas, lhe sahiu o rei de Sião com quatro elephantes, todos com as insignias reaes, sombreiros brancos com suas fulas de oure pelas franjas, os piões de puro ouro, marchetados com pedras de grã valor. Seguiam a estes quatro elephantes quinhentos de guerra, com dez mil homens de cavallo, a cinquenta mil infantes de capaceies e rodellas douradas, todos mui lustrosamente vestidos. Bem puderam os pegus impedir ao seu principe similhante

22 23

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A third European source that mentions the battle is an anonymous work in Portuguese, which was first published between 1603 and 1621 and later translated by A. Macgregor.24 The relevant extract is as follows: The Armies were in sight of each other, and the King of Siam [apparently meaning Naresuan’s brother], considering the risk of contending with men favoured by Fortune and mindful of former victories, sought means to avoid a pitched battle. He sent word to the [Burmese] Prince by an envoy, that [the Prince] should agree to the quarrel being decided by single combat between the young and mettlesome Prince himself and an old and feeble king […]. For a long time they contended with admirable valour, till at length the Prince’s strength yielded to the King’s skill, and he fell pierced by a dart which put an end to the hopes of that imperial monarchy.25 This Portuguese account tells us of a duel between the old, experienced Siamese king and the young and vigorous Burmese prince. Naresuan’s brother figures prominently in the account given in the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya, but this is the only source depicting him as the sole opponent of the Burmese crown prova, d’onde se não podia seguir mais que o risco de sua morte, e por em balanço a victoria, que de outra maniera tinha tão certa; mas como estes negros sejam tão sujeitos e captivos de seu rei que nom ousem de lhe locar nunca em cousa que lhe possa dar desgosto, ninguem se aireveu ao desviar de tão pouco prudente desatio e prova, estando elle nas forças tão aventejado.... O principe de Pegu, Uparaja, em vendo o exercito do inimigo, por desprezo e pouco caso que d’elle fez, mandou apartar os seus, e elle só em cima do seu elephante se foi para outro onde lhe pareceu que vinha o rei de Sião; que como tódes vinham com castellos armades em cima, e gente n’elles de guerre, não se podia differnçar aonde estivesse o rei; por onde se enganou o principe de Pegu, porque não era aquelle o elephamte aonde vinha elrei de Sião. Travada a briga e justa de tão poderosas e grandes alimarias, era muito para ver o impeto que se commettiam. [p. 120] E pelejando não menos o principe Uparaja com o contrario o fez fugir, apertando o seu elephante com o outro furiosissamente, de que morreu logo o capitão que vinha no castello. Sahiu-lhe logo outro elephante do mesmo rei de Sião, ao que o Uparaja com o seu fez o mesmo que so primeiro, com o que sahiu o rei preto no seu elephante, tão descoberto que todo o exercito contrario o conheceu, e brigando valerosamente o feriu o contrario com o gancho de cornaca. Vendo-se o rei de Sião quasi vencido gritou a dois portuguezes, que trazia comsigo e tinha perto, que atirassem ao principe de Pegu, porque era tempo; e assi se ouviu logo desparar uma espingarda, que ao parecer d’elles julgaram ser de portuguez, com que o principe Uparaja ficou ferido de morte, e encostado na charola do elephante, onde o accabou de matar o rei de Sião, e cavalgou logo no seu elephante. E com esta grande victoria arremetteu o rei preto com toda a sua gente ao grande exercito de Pegu, pelos vèr irresolutos e pasmados, sem cabeça, morto o principe, e os fez retirar obra de duas leguas dos muros da cidade; com que se satisfez.” I thank Sven Trakulhun and especially Francisco Olavo C. Velho for assisting me with the reading of this difficult text. 24 A. Macgregor, “A brief account of the Kingdom of Pegu,” Journal of the Burma Research Society 2, 2 (Autumn 2004), p. 185. 25 Macgregor, “A brief account,” pp. 109–10. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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prince. Perhaps this Portuguese account contains the sort of distortions that may be expected when events are passed on by hearsay. The tenth and last source is a book-length travel account by a Persian diplomat who visited Siam in 1685. This visitor provides us with yet another version of what may have taken place. When assessing the following passage, we should be aware that his informants were Siamese, speaking about matters that had occurred more than ninety years earlier. The Persian passes on the story as a juicy piece of gossip. He was told that Naresuan, when confronting the Burmese army, realized that he faced a desperate situation. He knew: …the extent of his adversary’s strength and had no hope of overcoming him in an even match.… decided to attach a firearm beneath his elephant prod. When the two combatants were close to one another and the eaglelike prince swooped down to snatch his victim from off the elephant, the governor’s son [Naresuan] took aim with his goad and before the [Burmese] prince knew what had happened, he fell…. and was dead.26 This account is remarkable because, although heard in Ayutthaya, it supports the Burmese version and is incompatible with the four Siamese versions; also, the elephant goad, the instrument that featured prominently in Van Vliet’s account of 1640, returns here as disguise for a gun.

Evaluation The four Siamese, one Burmese, four late 16th and early 17th century European accounts and one Persian report all claim to describe what happened in 1593 when the Siamese managed to throw off their status of vassal to the Burmese empire. The first matter to be discussed is whether or not a formal duel took place. The Siamese Royal Chronicles are unconvincing and internally inconsistent on this point. The Burmese annals state that no such formal confrontation took place. A cool assessment of the political situation at that time throws additional doubt on the likelihood of a duel. The Burmese were not sent to conquer a neighbouring kingdom, but to subdue a rebellious vassal. They had mounted a massive military invasion and must have been fairly certain of their military superiority. At the time of the incident they had only recently arrived in the neighbourhood of the Siamese capital, which was too early for war weariness. Besides, a Burmese agreement to a duel would have been tantamount to acknowledging that the Burmese crown prince and Naresuan were equal in rank, the very matter that the Burmese contested by sending their 26

John O’Kane (tr.), The Ship of Sulaiman (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), p. 92. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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One battle scene, many versions The elephant duel at Nong Sarai is perhaps the most often reproduced scene from Siamese history. King Chulalongkorn commissioned paintings and poems of 92 scenes he selected from the Royal Chronicles. The series, completed in 1887, featured four elephant duels, including Nong Sarai, which was painted by Luang Phisanukam, the title of an official court artist. Recently the Fine Arts Department has published the whole series (Khlongphap Phrarachaphongsawadan, 2007). The scene, based on this painting, has been reproduced countless times, notably at Wat Suwandararam in Ayutthaya. It also appears on the seal of the province of Suphanburi; in bas relief on a monument to the battle at Don Chedi; in a tableau at the Ancient City; in murals at Wat Nang Phya in Phitsanulok; and in Kan Kluai, an animated film of the battle from the elephant’s viewpoint. An early 20th century version has been reproduced several times (including in books by Maurice Collis and on Wikipedia), mistitled as a “17th or 18th century painting by a Siamese artist.”

From top: original painting; seal of Suphanburi; bas relief, Don Chedi; Wat Suwandararam, Ayutthaya; M. Collis, British Merchant Adventurers; postage stamp; animated film, Kan Kluai; Wat Nang Phya, Phitsanulok; tableau at the Ancient City; modern rendering.

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massive army. From the Burmese perspective, the outcome of such a duel might have jeopardised the costly invasion that had thus far progressed without a hitch. Bocarro’s tale of a secret pact between both adversaries that induced the Burmese crown prince to forbid his troops to assist him, to press forward alone, and to battle and kill until he found Naresuan, is obviously a poetic invention. Therefore, in our view a duel never took place at Nong Sarai. When the decisive incident took place, the war was still in the opening stages when both sides were engaged in forays and skirmishes to test the strength and condition of their adversary. Almost all versions agree that the crucial incident involved a confrontation between the Burmese crown prince and Naresuan, each mounted on a war elephant. The various descriptions concur that the behaviour of the elephants played a decisive role. Most sources state directly or indirectly that the Burmese crown prince’s elephant was more imposing, taller and apparently stronger than that of Naresuan. This should not surprise us, for Siam had been a Burmese vassal for a long time, first when King Chakraphat had to sue for peace in 1548 and later from 1569 onwards. For several decades Siam’s best war elephants must have been sent to the Burmese capital as part of a regular tribute. Naresuan must have faced a formidable enemy indeed. If Naresuan’s elephant played such a crucial role in the foray, as the different reports suggest, this would help explain Naresuan’s grief when the animal died in 1595, and also why it was given a formal state funeral. If we put aside all references to a duel, the Burmese Annals, the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya, the European and the Persian accounts can be combined to construct the following scenario. In February 1593 a massive Burmese invading force arrived in the lowlands west of Ayutthaya. Naresuan and his brother Ekathotsarot decided to rally a large force under at least fifteen commanders to confront the enemy before they could reach the capital and before they had time to fortify their encampments. Naresuan may have had difficulty controlling his elephant and have strayed too far forward, suddenly arriving dangerously close to the huge war elephant of the Burmese crown prince, who was flanked by other formidable enemy commanders on their elephants. Only Ekathotsarot came to his assistance, engaging one of the enemy’s army leaders in battle. At this moment, a Burmese general who saw Naresuan coming too close to the crown prince, uncovered the eyes of his elephant in musth, but this enraged animal attacked and severely wounded the crown prince’s mount. Seeing the crown prince’s elephant in difficulty, Naresuan quickly took advantage of the situation: he closed in and he (or possibly one of the warriors riding with him, maybe a Portuguese) fired a gun which mortally wounded the crown prince. Realising that they were exposed in a very dangerous situation and that the other Siamese troops had not come forward, both Naresuan and his brother were forced to save themselves. Naresuan’s subsequent fury over his army commanders’ lack of spirit is recorded in Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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great detail in the Thai chronicles and by de Coutre, though the two sources disagree on the punishment given. The death of the heir to the Burmese throne shattered the invaders’ spirit and caused them to give up the campaign. There is no agreement on how the retreat took place. The Burmese state they went of their own accord, while the Siamese are divided in their accounts, one stating that they harassed the Burmese all the way and another that they allowed them to retreat in peace. Van Vliet’s sources report a massive slaughter, Bocarro that the Siamese just pushed the Burmese back some 50 kilometres. This reconstruction reconciles most of the stories about what happened at Nong Sarai. It remains to explain how most Siamese sources transformed Naresuan’s spectacular foray into a duel. Remember that the Burmese invasion was on a scale that must have seemed devastating to many cautious Siamese statesmen. The very sight of the Burmese army at Nong Sarai, with their incomparable well-trained war elephants and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, would have convinced experienced observers that they would be defeated, humiliated, and punished for the rebellious spirit of Naresuan. Yet this same Naresuan, because his elephant went out of control, unwittingly caused a chain of events that delivered the country at the moment of its greatest distress. Naresuan’s mad rush forward, assisted only by the brave and experienced action of his brother, and its unforeseeable result, was told and retold in the months and years that followed, gradually acquiring several heroic features: the elephant had been afraid and needed to be persuaded (Van Vliet); the Burmese crown prince was by chance spotted quite alone, so there was time to issue a formal challenge and the Burmese crown prince felt so ashamed that he accepted a duelling match (Royal Chronicles); Bocarro blames the Burmese crown prince’s character and his followers’ slavish acceptance of whatever he decided to do. We may safely conclude that Naresuan’s challenge never took place. The fact that the Burmese leader died of a gunshot has been a troubling element, for it does not fit in with the myth of duelling elephants. Hence, in the Siamese sources the gun was relegated to a side issue, becoming a stray bullet killing a mahout in the Royal Chronicles, or a weapon held by one of the parties and not used in the Yodaya Yazawin, or a ruse by a desperate Naresuan in the Persian version. The Burmese and European accounts stayed closer to what actually may have happened at that crucial event. Naresuan’s much repeated challenge to hold a duel, even though it looms large in many Thai history books, should be relegated to a legendary tale. Realistically, the noise of discharging guns, booming war drums, squealing elephants, and shouting men would have prevented the protagonists engaging in a question-and-answer dialogue. At any rate, there would have been nobody present to record their words, and if the circumstances were as summarised above, there was no time or occasion to deliver a challenge or to react upon one. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Barend Jan Terwiel

In Southeast Asian warfare, mounting elephants in the middle of a melee was a hazardous exploit. The introduction of new weaponry had begun to challenge the supreme role of the well-trained war elephant. Finally this event shows not only how lucky Naresuan was to escape from a very dangerous situation, but also how quick he was to take advantage of it.

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King Rama III-Period Murals and their Chinese Home Decoration Theme Achirat Chaiyapotpanit

Abstract—The reigns of King Rama II and King Rama III are considered the height of Chinese artistic influence in Thai Buddhist art. Painting is an evident example; different Chinese culture-related mural themes were painted in many temples during this time. One of those themes portrays various arrangements of Chinese furniture and decorative articles. These are often assumed to display Chinese altar arrangements, but their elements and artistic styles show that these paintings portray various Chinese home decoration styles. There are two social factors probably causing this theme to be popular in this period: the Siamese elites’ attraction to realism and liberation from old convention; and their perception of China as the most powerful country.

Introduction There is much Thai and foreign literary evidence of the long relationship between China and Siam, involving the exchange of various aspects. Through this contact, Chinese art and culture had great influence in Siam. The reign of King Rama III (1824–1851) is a period in which the relationship between China and Siam was especially close, as described in contemporary accounts by Siamese and foreigners. In particular, this was a golden age for Chinese influence on Thai Buddhist art. Before this period, Thai traditional art was dominant, and Chinese art had a subsidiary role. However, in King Rama III’s reign, the situation changed. Chinese architectural elements appeared in many temple buildings, and Chinese themes, such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, appeared in murals in many ordination halls and assembly halls. One element in these murals was the portrayal of Chinese home decoration styles. In this article, I will discuss the significance of this theme and its social background.

Chinese altar or Chinese home decoration? Among the murals from the reign of King Rama III, there are some showing various Chinese objects such as vases, candles, mirrors, trees, flowers and fruit, all Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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arranged on Chinese furniture of various types (see Figure 1). Prince Damrong Rajanubhab was the first scholar who commented on this. He believed it was associated with the “Garden of the Right”1 built during the reign of King Rama II in the Grand Palace. After his accession in 1824, King Rama III did away with this establishment, and many articles from this place were donated to temples. As a result, artists depicted these objects in mural paintings (Damrong 1964: 48–49). However, Prince Damrong did not give a name to this kind of painting. More recently, scholars have called this theme “Chinese altar” style (Youngrot 1996: 81; Rasameewong 1984: 32), suggesting that these murals portray a Chinese form of altar arrangement. Nevertheless, I believe the theme is related to Chinese home decoration. In some temples such as Wat Ratcha-orasaram (see Figure 2), Wat Chandaram, and Wat Sampraya, this theme was painted on the four main walls of the ordination hall. In others such as Wat Sudat (Figure 3) and Wat Prachetuphon (Wat Pho), it appears only on small areas such as doors and window panels. Typically a Chinese altar is arranged with one incense pot, two candle holders, and two vases (Figure 4). The two vases are omitted in some cases (Figure 5). One or more tables are used for placing these five main articles and other votive food.2 If several tables are used, the smaller ones are at the front with the largest behind, giving an appearance of steps (Figure 5). I found that few paintings of this group conform to the concept of a Chinese altar (Figure 6). Most of the paintings depict domestic articles such as porcelain, furniture, stationery, and decorative objects. These arrangements are reminiscent of Chinese home interiors with many decorated rooms, including the one for an altar worshipping gods and ancestors. Thus, I think “Chinese home decorations” is the most suitable name.

Wat Ratcha-orasaram as the place of origin The meaning of any icon or motif may change across space and time. To understand its original meaning, we need to locate the oldest occurrence. In our case, that is the mural from the ordination hall of Wat Ratcha-orasaram. Dating There is no written evidence to date these paintings, but there are clues in several historical accounts. Records show that the future King Rama III had the temple constructed in 1817 (Bangkhunthian 1967: 190). The account by the British envoy Sir John Crawfurd The “Garden of the Right” was a private garden, situated on the right side of Chakrapatpiman Throne Hall, hence the name. 2 Another example can be seen from Daily Life in the Forbidden City, Figure 460 1

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Figure 1 (left). Mural in Wat Phakhininat, Third Reign (photographed by Sakchai Saisingha) Figure 2 (below). Murals inside the ordination hall of Wat Ratcha-orasaram (photographed by the author)

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Figure 3 (above). Murals on a window panel of the assembly hall, Wat Sudat (Two Centuries of Wat Sudatsanadepwararam, p. 152) Figure 4 (below). Five main altar articles, Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) (photographed by the author) Figure 5 (above right). Illustration from Jin Ping Mei, 1700 AD (Sarah Handler, “Side Tables, a Surface for Treasures and Gods,” Fig.7) Figure 6 (right). Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha-orasaram (audio-visual department, Silpakorn University Library, Thapra Campus, slide code 0330)

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shows that the construction of the ordination hall in this temple was already finished by the time of his visit in 1822, and that preparations were being made to install the principal Buddha image for the building (Crawfurd 1967: 130–131). By this time, the murals inside this ordination hall would have been started, and the concept and scheme of the painting would have been set. The year 1822 falls in the Second Reign. The construction and renovation works on all the other temples in which murals have this theme were started in the Third Reign. Hence the mural in the ordination hall of Wat Ratcha-orasaram is the oldest with the “Chinese home decoration” theme. Details of the paintings The paintings of Chinese furniture and decorative objects are found in three areas of the ordination hall of Wat Ratcha-orasaram: the four upper walls; the four lower walls; and the window panels. The door panels are decorated with guardians in the form of Chinese soldiers, and the ceiling has Chinese auspicious symbols such as butterflies and pomegranates. The upper walls have a distinguishing characteristic: they are divided into panels of varying shapes, each containing a different arrangement of Chinese decorative objects (Figures 2, 7). Youngrot (1996: 81–88) suggests that the artisans had to determine the most suitable composition for the walls. They aimed to present various arrangements of home decoration. If the artisans simply painted them together on the large space of the upper walls, each component would probably be too large, and the overall painting would be disorganized. They solved the problem by dividing the walls into panels and then painting one arrangement of home decoration in each panel. Youngrot’s idea is very interesting. However, there is some evidence showing that those panels served another aim. In each panel, the artisans applied a gradation technique to the inner side (Figure 8) and the motifs in the upper corners (Figure 9). If the idea proposed by Youngrot was the case, why did the artisan have to employ this technique? The artisans expected these panels and their decorative motifs to represent something real. I think that the panels actually represent a large array of shelves ornamented with openwork at the upper corners of each shelf. Among the new furniture styles created in China under the Qing Dynasty was Bogu-Jia (博古架), a complex and irregular arrangement of shelves for displaying decorative objects (Figure 10; Wang 1990, p. 82). This furniture was popular among the Chinese elite, as seen from paintings of the period (Figure 11). One important feature is that the shelves have varying forms such as rectangular, square, and L-shapes. The painted shelves on the upper four walls share the same characteristic. Hence, it is likely that the mural in the upper section is a representation of Bogu-Jia. The paintings on the lower walls are in a dilapidated condition, but fortunately Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 7 (above). Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha-orasaram (photographed by Sakchai Saisingha) Figure 8 (left) and 9 (opposite). Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha-orasaram (photographed by the author) Figure 9 (opposite). Detail of Figure 8 showing gradation technique (photographed by the author)

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were photographed earlier (Figures 6, 12, 13). This area is divided into bays by the doors and windows. Each bay depicts home decorations in Chinese style. The top of each bay has motifs that resemble openwork (Figure 15), and the sides are painted as long curtains (Figures 13). These features were found similar to a decoration style for door and window frames in Chinese houses (Figure 14). As a result, each section appears as a view through a door or window into the rooms of a house decorated with Chinese furniture, altar and valuable ornaments. The window panels depict flower baskets decorated with numerous floral motifs and hanging like mobiles (Figure 16). A simpler version can be found in the paintings on the lower walls (Figure 13), showing that such baskets were used for ornamenting the interior of a house. In traditional Thai murals, the paintings on the four walls have a certain pattern: for example, the back wall is based on Buddhist cosmology; the front wall usually has a scene of the Lord Buddha subduing Mara; the upper part of the side walls shows the assembly of gods paying homage to the presiding Buddha and the lower part has scenes from Jataka tales or the life of the Buddha. All are based on Buddhist scriptures and texts. In the same way, the murals in the ordination hall of Wat Ratcha-orasaram have a relationship. The upper sections of the four walls portray Bogu-Jia furniture with Chinese home ornaments; the lower sections are like views into the rooms of a house; and the window panels show mobiles in the form of flower baskets. All of these elements make the ordination hall resemble the interior of a Chinese house containing many things such as furniture, precious things, flowers, fruit, stationery, and altars. In the Third Reign, according to some Siamese and foreign accounts, the Siamese elite, especially those in the royal court, favored Chinese styles of garden and home interior in the decoration of their residences (Thiphakornrawong 1961, pp. 100–101; Crawfurd 1967, p. 85). There is no written evidence explaining the theme of the Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 10 (above). Bogu-jia shelves (Jiaqing Tian, “Early Qing Furniture in a Set of Qing Dynasty Court Paintings,” 12a) Figure 11 (left). Qing Dynasty painting (Jiaqing Tian, “Early Qing Furniture in a Set of Qing Dynasty Court Paintings,” 12) Figure 12 (below). Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha-orasaram (audio-visual department, Silpakorn University Library, Thapra Campus, slide code 0330)

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Figure 13. Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha- Figure 14. Chinese painting showing a home interior with a orasaram (audio-visual department, Silpakorn University window, curtains and openwork motifs at upper left, Qing Library, Thapra Campus, slide code 0330) Dynasty (1644–1911) (Beurdeley, Chinese Furniture, Pl. 75.)

Figure 15. Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha-orasaram (photographed by the author)

murals in the ordination hall of Wat Ratcha-orasaram. However, this group of paintings coincides with the popularity of Chinese home decoration among the Siamese elite. This shows that the new trend for home decoration was probably the reason for the occurrence of this new painting theme.

The social and intellectual background John Crawfurd visited the palace of Prince Jesadabodin, the future King Rama III, and his account shows that the prince decorated his residence with Chinese furniture Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 16. Murals inside the ordination hall, Wat Ratcha-orasaram (photographed by the author)

(Crawfurd 1967: 85). This reflects his favor for Chinese art to some extent. Thus, the prince was probably responsible for transposing this style into the murals. Why did Prince Jesadabodin prefer this secular and realistic theme over the traditional representation of Buddhist themes? And why did he choose Chinese style? Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Most scholars have attributed the popularity of Chinese-influenced art in this era to the prince’s personal preference for this art. They have pointed out that Wat Ratcha-orasaram was constructed under his patronage and that every building in the complex shows Chinese architectural elements. They argue that once he succeeded to the throne, Chinese style became more popular because elite and commoners followed the preference of their king (Rasameewong 1984: 33). While this may be true, other reasons may also be important. During the Second Reign, Prince Jesadabodin was not alone in his taste for Chinese culture. King Rama II had the “Garden of the Right” in the Grand Palace built in a Chinese style. Prince Sakdi Ponlasep3 had Wat Paichayon Ponlasep built in an architectural style similar to Wat Racha-orasaram, as did Phraya Phetpichai4 with Wat Prodkedchataram. What was behind this trend of thinking among several members of the elite? I believe there were two intellectual currents at work: a rejection of tradition and embrace of realism; and admiration of China as the most superior country. Rejection of tradition and embrace of realism In the early reigns of the Rattanakosin era, members of the elite tried to liberate themselves from old conventions inherited from the Ayutthaya Kingdom (1350– 1767), in particular the strictures of religion and ritual. In his study of the literature of this era, Nidhi Eoseewong noted the decline of the ritual element and the fading popularity of traditional genres. Instead, more secular literature was composed; several foreign literary works were translated, including some from China; and the prose genre, derived from China, grew in popularity (Eoseewong 1995: 53–59, 94). Realism was also on the rise. In his reform of Buddhism, King Rama I tried to decrease supernatural and miraculous beliefs among Siamese Buddhists (Sattayanurak 2003: 110–127). Some early Rattanakosin literary works also took plots and themes from real life rather than the mythological tales which had been popular in the Ayutthaya era (Eoseewong 1995: 242, 244, 250). Artistic production of the time was susceptible to the same trends. The adoption of Chinese architectural styles and decorative motifs reflected a desire for novelty and innovation. The traditional themes of mural painting, drawn from Buddhist cosmology and legend, were less popular than the past because they felt remote from what people encountered in everyday life. Chinese home decoration was appealing because it was secular and realistic, something that members of the Siamese elite saw in their real life. China: The most superior country Siam during this era was open to cultural influence from many sources, such as A son of King Rama II, appointed as the Front Palace (title given to the heir to the throne) in the reign of King Rama III. 4 Prince Sakdi Ponlasep’s advisor 3

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Persia, China, and Europe. Why then was Chinese influence so prominent? There are some foreign accounts showing that the Siamese considered China as the most powerful and superior nation, and favored her culture. Chinese travelers who visited Siam during the period 1781–1795 noted that the Siamese gave priority to the Chinese language, and that people who could compose Chinese poetry were greatly admired and invited to royal palaces (Masuta 2003: 142–149). Such accounts might be suspected of some patriotic bias, yet Crawfurd also noted that in the Siamese thoughts “the Chinese are the only considerable foreign people with whom they hold much intercourse, and whose superiority to themselves they are at all disposed to admit.” (Crawfurd 1967: 332) However, the Siamese attitude toward other countries was totally different: they thought that their neighboring countries and even those of the western world were all inferior to Siam (Thawornchanasan 2002: 24). Historical events reflect these attitudes. During the early Rattanakosin period, every king on accessing the throne sent an envoy to China to ask for royal credentials from the Chinese emperor. These credentials had no significance for the king’s political authority in his kingdom and did not mean that Siam considered herself a vassal of China. They were sought in the belief that they increased the might of Siam through association with the most powerful country (Wilson 1970: 145). The Siamese court believed that China would support Siam, as shown when King Rama I sent an envoy to ask China to force Burma to return Mergui, Tavoy and Tenasserim to Siam (Khanakammakan Suebkhon Prawatisat Thai 1980: 43–44). Moreover, the Siamese elite followed some Chinese cultural practices. King Rama II ordered the construction of the “Garden of the Right” after he was informed by his envoy to China that there were garden competitions between rich men in Beijing and Guangdong (Thiphakornrawong 1961: 80), and the garden design followed the Chinese style (Narinthorntevi 2002: 340–342). In the thinking of the Siamese elite, China was the most superior and powerful country. Hence when they sought new styles to supplant old traditions, they looked to China, the country that the Siamese elite considered superior in power and culture.

Conclusion The motifs in the early Rattanakosin period which have been dubbed the “Chinese altar” are in fact based upon Chinese home decoration. This can be seen most clearly through a study of the murals at Wat Ratcha-orasaram, the earliest example of this style. Its occurrence should be related to the popularity of Chinese home decoration among the Siamese elite. The adoption of this theme for temple decoration reflects two general trends of this era that are, visible also in literature: first a tendency to reject tradition and embrace novelty and realism; and second a perception of China as the most superior country. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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References Bangkhunthian suan nueng khong phaendin Thai lae krung Rattanakosin [Bangkhunthian: Part of Thailand and Rattanakosin]. 1967. Bangkok: Bhikhanesa Publisher. Beurdeley, Michel. 1979. Chinese Furniture. Trans by Katherine Watson. Ottawa: Kodansha International. Crawfurd, John. 1967. Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China. London: Oxford University Press. Daily Life in the Forbidden City: The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). 1988. New York: Viking Penguin. Damrong Rajanubhab, Prince. 1964. Tamnan rueang khruengto lae thuai pan [History of table decorative objects and porcelains]. Bangkok: Fine Art Department. Eoseewong, Nidhi. 1995. Pakkai lae bai ruea [Pen and sail]. Bangkok: Praew. Handler, Sarah. 1996. “Side Tables, a Surface for Treasures and Gods.” Orientations 27, 4 (May 1996), pp. 32–41. Khanakammakan Suebkhon Prawatisat Thai Kiao Kap Chin Nai Ekkasan Phasa Chin. [Committee for studying the China-Thailand relationship in Chinese records). 1990. Khwamsamphan thang kan thut rawang Thai-Chin B.E.1825–1395 [Diplomatic relations between Thailand and China 1282–1852]. Bangkok: Cabinet Secretariat. Masuta, Erika. 2003 “Nai khong jimgong song thut bannakan pai yang jin nai samai Rattanakosin” [Tribute missions to China in the Rattanakosin era]. Art and Culture 24, 11 (September), pp. 142–149. Narinthorntevi, Princess. 2002. Chotmaihet khwamsongcham kromluang Narinthornthevi [Memoirs of Princess Narintorntevi]. Bangkok: P.K. Printing. Rasameewong, Usawadee. 1984. “Phap chittakam khrueng bucha yang chin nai silpa Rattanakosin” [The theme of the Chinese altar style in Rattanakosin-era murals]. BA dissertation, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University. Sattayanurak, Saichon. 2003. Putthasatsana lae naeo khit thang kanmueang nai ratchasamai Phraputthayodfachulalok [Buddhism and political thought in the First Reign]. Bangkok: Matichon. Thawornchanasan, Vilailekha. 2002. Chonchannum Thai kab kan rap watthanatham tawantok [The Thai elite and the acceptance of Western culture]. Bangkok: Mueang Boran.. Thiphakornrawong, Chaophraya. 1961. Phraratcha phongsawadan krung Rattanakosin ratchakan thi song [Royal chronicles of the Bangkok Second Reign]. Bangkok: Khurusapha. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Tian, Jiaqing. 1993. “Early Qing furniture in a set of Qing Dynasty court paintings.” Orientations 24, 1 (January), pp. 32-40. Two Centuries of Wat Sudatsanadepwararam: Cosmic Center from Ideal to Realism. 2007. Bangkok: Amarin. Wang, Shixiang. 1990. Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties Vol. 1. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing. Wilson, Constance M. 1970. “State and Society in the Reign of Mongkut, 1851– 1868: Thailand on the Eve of Modernization.” Ph.D thesis, Cornell University. Youngrot, Vilairat. 1996. “Phap khrueng tang chittakam phutthabucha nai samai ratchakan thi sam” [Chinese altar style Buddhist votive paintings in the Third Reign]. Mueang Boran 22, 3 (July–September), pp. 81–88.

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Development of Traditional House Forms in Riparian Communities in Thailand Pratima Nimsamer and Nicholas Walliman

Abstract—The distinctive qualities of traditional house forms in riparian communities in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia are being affected by the forces of modernisation. The transformation is determined mainly by the influence of communications changing from waterways to roads. The new houses tend to be built close to roads, as the road is a more convenient way of transportation and there is more available land than in the area along the waterside. Also, the diversification of house forms is related to the variety of more modern building materials and technologies and the influence of telecommunications and flow of population between rural and urban areas. This paper studies the nature of these changes based on a field study of two settlements on the Chao Phraya River Basin in Thailand. On-site measurements, observations and semi-structured interviews were used to trace the changes and reasons for them. A typology of house forms was developed. It was found that although there is much development and change, there is still a strong connection to some traditional features.

Introduction Much research has been done on traditional Thai architecture (Chaichongrak, 2002; Chompunich, 1987; Nildech, 1998; Nimlek, 2002; Nimmanahaeminda, 1965; Piromdha, 1995), but it mostly focusses on the physical characteristics of traditional buildings, aiming to document the authentic or classic characteristics of the past before they are changed by modernisation. There is a lack of studies that explore the new forms of housing developed as a result of the influences of modernisation. Furthermore, Thai vernacular architecture, especially in riparian culture, has not been the subject of many studies written in English. The distinctive qualities of traditional house forms in riparian communities in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia are being affected by the forces of modernisation. The transformation is determined mainly by the influence of communications changing from waterways to roads. The new houses tend to be built close to roads, as the road is a more convenient way of transportation and there is more available land than in the area along the waterside. Also, the diversification of house Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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forms is related to the variety of more modern building materials and technologies and the influence of telecommunications and flow of population between rural and urban areas. This paper studies the nature of these changes based on a field study of two settlements on the Chao Phraya River Basin in Thailand. The Chao Phraya River Basin is a large flood-prone area covering the majority of the Central Plain region of Thailand. The Chao Phraya is the main river, which is formed from four rivers, the Ping, the Wang, the Yom and the Nan, which originate from the mountainous northern part. Apart from the Chao Phraya, the Basin is fed by three other main rivers, the Mae Klong, the Tha Chin and the Bang Pakong rivers. All the rivers run into the South China Sea at the Gulf of Thailand, and the network of their tributaries, streams and canals is spread through the Central region or the Chao Phraya River Basin. Annual flooding brings with it fertile sediment soil to the mouths of the four main rivers; consequently this region is one of the most richly nourished alluvial agriculture areas in the world (Molle and Srijantr, 2003; Pendleton, 1962; Tachakitkachorn, 2005). The Chao Phraya River Basin can be separated into two main parts by the nature of terrain: the Upper Delta and the Lower Delta. The Upper part is an old delta, the flood plain being 5-30 metres above sea level, which later developed into the main agricultural area of the country, suitable for paddy fields. Thus, the unique characteristic of the Upper Delta is the farmers and their rice fields (Molle and Srijantr, 2003; Tachakitkachorn, 2005). Whereas, the Lower Delta is a new delta with soft and new sediment soil, some 1-3 metres above sea level (Tachakitkachorn, 2005). This area has diversity of crops: apart from rice fields, some areas of the upper part of the Lower Delta have fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, mainly in the Mae Klong and Tha Chin sub-basins. These specific features have formed the specific identity of the riparian region, including the house designs, settlement patterns, economic systems, way of life, belief systems and cultural behaviour. All these are being strongly affected by the impacts of modernisation. The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of house design that has resulted in response to these impacts.

Methods Two case studies were chosen in order to achieve the depth of analysis required within the given time and resource constraints. Criteria for the selection of case study communities were: • Location: two criteria were considered. They are 1) rural communities far away from large towns and 2) closeness to watercourses, such as a river, stream or canal, in the Chao Phraya River Basin. • Relation to road: distance to and the role that new roads have played in communities. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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• Topography: the two characteristics of the Delta - namely the Upper Delta and the Lower Delta - were considered in the selection of cases. • Age of the settlement: that there were at least three generations of inhabitants and that there was more than one house type within the community. • Socio-demographic profile: in order to control the cultural variations within Thailand, Thai Buddhist groups, which form a majority, were chosen for this research. Using the above criteria, the two selected communities were Rang Chorakhae in Ayutthaya province, and Plai Phongphang in Samut Songkhram province. To investigate and understand the continuity and change of building traditions in the case studies, qualitative inquiries through participant observation and semistructured and in-depth interviews were the main methods of collecting data. Data on material aspects or physical characteristics such as settlement patterns, house forms, orientation, building techniques and materials, and objects inside the house, both historical elements and new equipment, were recorded by free-hand drawings, photographs and descriptive narrative. Spatial characteristics include spatial organisation, area of the upper part of the house, ground floor and the intermediate spaces between the inside and outside of the house and the watercourse. A cross-case analysis of the typology or classification of house forms and spatial configuration was used to identify the differences among these houses and how modernisation factors had changed them. The impacts of modernisation on the physical appearance of houses were illustrated by narratives, photographs, drawings of floor plans and sections of houses. The houses of the two communities can be categorised into two main groups by their physical appearance and relation with the water environment: the stilted house and the two storey house. The stilted houses are: 1) the traditional Thai house in the style of ruenkhrung sab or so-called ruen Thai; 2) the modified traditional Thai house; and 3) the low pitched roof house or bungalow house. The two storey houses are: 1) the low pitched roof two storey house; 2) the modern concrete house; and 3) the modern traditional Thai house (Figure 1). If categorised by chronology, the house types can be divided into before and after modernisation. The emergence of varieties of house forms are related to time periods when the communities were forced to make changes due to external interventions, especially developments in materials and technology. Originally, the traditional Thai house had been the typical riparian house for hundreds of years before modernisation took place. Since the 1960s, the impact of modernisation on vernacular house forms began with the traditional Thai house being adjusted to become the modified traditional Thai house and a new house type being created, called the low pitched roof house, because of the introduction of corrugated iron sheet, nails, and plank wood from mills. The next stage was the two storey house, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 1. House types of the two communities

influenced by the introduction of concrete and steel. These two storey houses exhibit considerable variation up to the present.

The impacts of modernisation The turning point for the vernacular houses and traditions of the riparian communities in the Chao Phraya River Basin was the start of rural development sponsored by the central government in the 1960s. The developments, or impacts, of modernisation were different in form and degree in each individual settlement. The impacts of modernisation caused many changes to the way of life of rural people, and certainly innovative building material is a major factor that affected the development of house form. This commonly happened throughout the Chao Phraya River Basin as well as in other regions of Thailand and Southeast Asia. With the influence of new building materials, the first stage of change was the introduction of corrugated iron sheet, nails and plank wood from mills. The second stage was when concrete and steel structures became widely used by local builders a few decades later.

First stage of modernisation The stilted house During the earlier stage of modernisation, the introduction of industrial building materials and economic constraint after World War II meant that normal wood from Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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mills was cheaper, lighter and easier to build with nails than teak from the northern region; corrugated iron sheet was large and lightweight, and could be easily put on a simple wooden structure, compared to the complicated and heavy structure of the traditional Thai house. Moreover, nails and wooden boards were plentiful in rural markets; low pitched roofs were to be found in almost every old and new house. There were two vernacular house forms; the first was the modified traditional Thai house, developed from the old traditional Thai houses; and the second was the low pitched roof house or bungalow house (a new house built like a wooden box on stilts and covered with a large low pitched roof of corrugated iron sheet). Modified traditional Thai houses Most traditional Thai houses have been modified in both Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang in rather similar ways; and very few of them have been left in the original condition. A common adaptation was that the chan, or the raised wooden platform, was covered by a low pitched roof of corrugated iron sheets. Apart from the roof, other parts of the house were modified: for instance, a toilet was added in almost every house.

Figure 2. The modified traditional Thai hous

Orientation of the houses. Nowadays, most modified traditional Thai houses still exist along the stream where they were originally built, but the main entrances for many houses have been shifted from the waterside to the roadside. This is especially the case in Rang Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Chorakhae community where almost every housing compound can join the road; modified traditional Thai houses commonly have entrances from the roadside and the waterside. Lower part: taitun After the house was modified, its taitun, or the space underneath the raised floor, did not change much; normally it was left open as it was originally. Both physical features and functions are mostly similar to the traditional Thai house. In Rang Chorakhae, the taitun of the modified traditional Thai houses are mostly the same; they are left with earth floors because floods continue to occur every year. Conversely, the earth floors of the taitun in many houses in Plai Phongphang were replaced by concrete floors later, in houses that had built concrete dikes preventing ingress of high tides and leaving the ground floor always dry. Furniture and electric items such as tables and chairs, televisions and refrigerators are placed there permanently. The smooth concrete floor makes the ground floor space look more neat and tidy. Some parts of the taitun in both Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang have been adapted for parking cars or motorcycles. Upper part: covered chan The greatest change in the physical characteristics of the traditional Thai house is the new low pitched roof of corrugated iron sheet covering the space of the chan, the roofless platform. This situation has occurred in both Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang. Once the chan is covered, the roofless open space of the traditional Thai house is converted to indoor space. The traditional roof structure of the veranda is adapted to be compatible with the new structure of the new roof. The chan walls of the traditional houses of Plai Phongphang, which were about 1.5 metres high, were turned into house walls. The chan of the Rang Chorakhae traditional house, normally enclosed with a wooden banister, now had new wooden walls with ready made windows bought from the market. The new roof not only covered the terrace at the front, but also covered in every direction where there was open space. The different floor elevations of chan and veranda were adjusted to be the same floor level, as they became one space under the same roof. This one floor level makes the space efficient to use as well as preventing accidents caused by tripping. However, the disadvantages are that the interior is dark during the daytime (Figure 3); and heat increases because of the corrugated iron sheeting, and solid walls blocking air ventilation. Electric lights and electric fans became necessary for rural life. In terms of house form, the traditional good mixture of open, semi-open and indoor space, which was appropriately designed for a hot humid climate, became a stuffy and dark enclosed house, like a wooden box covered by mixed roof forms. However, the unique steep roof of the traditional Thai house still conforms to the origin of the house. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 3. The modified traditional Thai house and interior

Another change in the upper floor, apart from the covered chan, is that a bathroom and toilet may be added at one corner of the upper floor. This is a result of piped water being provided in both Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang. Mostly, the new bathrooms and toilets were built as wood or concrete structures separate from the original wooden structure of the houses. Even though the modified traditional Thai houses of Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang were modified in quite similar ways, there are some differences, based on the variations of their original traditional Thai houses as shown in the following summary figures (Figures 4 and 5). It can be concluded here, from the evolution from traditional Thai house to modified traditional Thai house, that the traditional Thai house is dynamic in terms of physical features and functions, as many have been adjusted to become modified traditional Thai houses (social, cultural and meaning aspects are also dynamic, as will be discussed in the next chapter). It responds to the present needs of its dwellers, and becomes the contemporary vernacular house, which has been continued and changed from its original form through the course of its lifetime. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 4 (above). Development of Rang Chorakhae’s traditional Thai houses to modified traditional Thai houses Figure 5 (below). Development of Plai Phongphang’s traditional Thai houses to modified traditional Thai houses

Low pitched roof houses or bungalow houses The low pitched roof house or bungalow house is the new form of vernacular house popular in rural settlements of Thailand and Southeast Asia. The majority of the new rural houses built between the 1960s and 1980s were low pitched roof Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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houses while the old traditional Thai houses were being modified. This house form looks like a wooden box covered with a low pitched gable roof, built on piles like the traditional Thai house (Figure 6).

Figure 6. The low-pitched roof house

The roof can have a low 10-15 degree slope made possible by using big corrugated iron sheets that require only a small amount of roof structure. It seems that people got excited about these new materials, which went beyond the scope of traditional materials. Local builders and house owners paid excessive attention to new materials, which were cheaper and conveniently found in markets, while good quality hardwood and high skills of craftsmanship are in short supply. In terms of building technique, there was a complete change from the traditional way of using the mortise and tenon joint system to using nails. The size of roofing materials was changed from small pieces of baked tiles or thatching to larger sizes of corrugated iron sheet. The new building materials provided easier building techniques and a longer lasting house. The low pitched roof house provides a large area underneath which can freely extend to cover additional space if required. It appeared to be the most suitable house for the time. It responded to the new rural modern lifestyle and economic constraints with its easy and fast building process providing good functional spaces including keeping new household items safely inside, like covering the chan in the modified Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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traditional Thai house. Therefore, it became widespread in rural areas, including the two riparian communities of this study. The majority of houses of this type are found along rivers, streams or canals, similar to the traditional Thai house or the modified one. The relationship between the house and water environment is quite similar to the traditional house in terms of location and the way it is built on piles. The front of the house mainly faces the waterway, even though some houses changed the main entrance to face the road later, as noted in the modified traditional Thai house section. Lower part: taitun of the low pitched roof houses Generally, the taitun of the low pitched roof houses in Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang are used in similar ways to the taitun of the modified traditional Thai house, as noted before. A small difference might be only the shape of columns – that of the low pitched roof house is square in section as wood or concrete columns are industrially produced, while the columns of the traditional Thai house are round in section as they were trimmed by hand. Upper part of the low pitched roof house As the house looks like a rectangular wooden box, two thirds of the floor plan is a large hall and one third is divided into a few rooms. The majority of the interior space is a common hall shared among family members. One side of the house generally consists of three rooms, one sleeping room for the daughters, kitchen and bathroom. This house can be occupied by one family or more as an extended family house. The hall is usually divided by cabinets or wardrobes acting as a partition to give sleeping space or temporary individual spaces for family members. Building materials Wood is the main structure and material, and can be bought from provincial markets or local markets. The walls are plank wood coated with bright colours to protect the wood, as the quality of wooden planking nowadays is not as good as that of teak or hard wood in the past. What continues from the previous house generations to this low pitched roof house is the large space for gathering and sharing among family members, both in the taitun and the hall in the upper part. The taitun has almost the same area as the hall or indoor space in the upper part; the spatial feature and functions are rather similar to the covered chan of the modified traditional Thai house, which is more enclosed than the chan of the traditional Thai house, but seems to have the same function. The outstanding changes are the house’s form and construction system. The physical features of the upper part are completely changed from the cluster house of the traditional Thai house, which combined open space, semi-open space and interior space, to an enclosed space in a wooden box. The structure and building Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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technique have been adapted to suit the new building materials. In short, the lower part continues the same form and function while the upper part is changed to be more enclosed.

Figure 7. The upper floor of the low-pitched roof house

Second stage of modernisation The two storey house The second stage of rural modernisation impacted on vernacular house forms in the Chao Phraya River Basin in that more two storey houses were built. These houses can be claimed to result from the popular use of concrete and steel building materials, together with the adaptation to road in terms of usages, and the influence of urban life from Bangkok. Wood has become more expensive and rare; thus concrete is an alternative choice, or the only choice, for the new vernacular house. The earlier form of the two storey house was the low pitched roof form, sometimes developed from the low pitched roof stilted house, and recent forms are the modern concrete house and the modern traditional Thai house. The concrete house is not dynamic like the wooden stilted houses that can be modified again and again; the whole house is built at one time and the concrete structure and its design make the house not suitable for modification later. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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The low pitched roof two storey house As some of this house has been developed from a low pitched roof house built on stilts, this two storey house is half wood, half concrete. Building materials are a mixture of wood in the upper part and concrete in the lower part. The roof material is mostly cement tile. Windows and doors are glass or wood (Figure 8).

Figure 8. The low-pitched roof two storey house

The relationship of this house with the water environment can be assumed to be less than that of the stilted house. Firstly, the house is built further inland or closer to the roadside rather than the waterside. Secondly, the majority of this type of house located near the water’s edge are protected from floods and high tide by a high concrete dike. This house type is found in the Plai Phongphang community more than in the Rang Chorakhae community. In Plai Phongphang, many of the low pitched roof houses earlier built on stilts have been developed to be two storey houses, as many houses have concrete dikes to protect them from floods and high tide. Conversely, in Rang Chorakhae, few low pitched roof houses built on stilts along the streams are adapted as few concrete dikes are found. In Rang Chorakhae, most new low pitched roof houses built as two storey houses have been increasingly built along the roads rather than along the streams.

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Lower part of the low pitched roof two storey houses In Plai Phongphang, flooding is rare and the level of high and ebb tides does not have a great impact on the majority of land. Therefore, most low pitched roof houses in Plai Phongphang have been modified to have the taitun enclosed by wooden or brick walls making two storey houses. Some taitun are enclosed on every side and some have been left open on one or two sides. The open sides are typically in the direction of wind blowing from the watercourse. These characteristics are similar to the taitun of the modified traditional Thai houses mentioned in the previous section. The ground floor is designed as a big hall, a common space for family members, similar to the taitun but with enclosed walls with windows and doors. Only the kitchen and bathroom are at the back of the house. On the ground floor, we find sofas, television, radio, computer, cupboards, bookshelves, toilet and bathroom. The ground floor appears to be similar to the taitun of the stilted houses, with few partitions inside, but it is different in that the ground floor is enclosed by brick walls. Upper part of the low pitched roof two storey house The upper part of the house is made of wooden materials similar to the low pitched roof house in stilted house form, but the spatial arrangement is different, in that the interior space is usually divided into rooms - approximately three to five bedrooms for individual family members. The changes are the division into rooms of the upper floor while the previous stilted houses had a common hall shared among family members or the chan, veranda and rooms of the traditional Thai house. The kitchen and toilet have moved downstairs so that only sleeping occurs on the upper floor. In short, the ground floor becomes public space for sharing and is suitable for rural behaviour, while the upper floor seems to support the privacy of an urban lifestyle. The low pitched roof two storey houses reveal the beginning stage of the transformation of rural space to more urban. Modern concrete houses The next generation of house found in Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang is the two storey concrete house, which mostly appeared less than ten years ago. Originally, this new house copied the floor plan and façade from housing estates in Bangkok and its suburbs. These modern houses in the two communities mostly belong to people who used to live in Bangkok and have moved back to their home villages; they are familiar with the urban lifestyle, space and house form. This house type can be said not to have emerged from the locality, and to bear no relation to the riparian environment; it is imported from urban culture and somehow supports the needs and changes related to modernisation. This house is usually found along the roadside rather than the waterside in both Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang communities. There are very few of them Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 9. The modern concrete house

located on the banks of canals. Most are placed far away from the water’s edge if compared to the stilted houses. A concrete dike is always found at the waterside. However, their front sides face the waterway even if there is another entrance from the road. Parking is commonly found at the road side and a thanam (jetty) with pavilion is at the waterside, built in the same modern style as the main house. In terms of house form, the roof form is hipped with cement tiles or ceramic tiles derived from factories. The interior space of this house, both ground floor and first floor, is divided into rooms: living room, dining room, kitchen and storage room are basic rooms at ground level and individual private rooms for every family member are found on the upper level. The spatial organisation of the house is not different from houses in Bangkok. The traditional Thai house, the modified traditional Thai house and even the low pitched roof house, by contrast, have more common space and fewer rooms (Figure 9). Lower part of the modern concrete house The distinctive difference between this modern concrete house and the previous one, the low pitched roof two storey house, is the disappearance of the common hall on the ground floor, which is found in every type of vernacular house in the three communities. The living room is a small size and suitable for sharing among the members of a nuclear family. In contrast, the hall of the low pitched roof two storey house, or the hall of the upper part of stilted houses, are intended for gathering large number of relatives, friends and neighbours. The living room of this house is basically for the three piece suite and the television. Generally, one room has one function, such as kitchen, dining room, working room, living room; these functional spaces are divided by vertical walls, not like the traditional house that used different floor elevations, and rarely walls. The kitchen Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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is one room on the ground floor. In many houses, there are high stove counters with ovens and various kinds of electrical cooking equipment. Upper part of the modern concrete house Mostly, the individual bedrooms contain bed, desk, television, stereo, and some are en suite. The facilities seem to be completed within one private room, without the need to share among other family members. Air conditioning tends to be found in this house type more than in others. Concrete houses notoriously collect heat from sunlight during the daytime and release the heat at night. In addition, the thick brick walls block ventilation and make the inside stuffy. The nature of the tropical climate is hot and humid; living in a shaded space open to cooling breezes is a more comfortable local way of passive cooling, as in the taitun space of the stilted house. Thus, air conditioning is an important facility for the modern concrete house. Mosquito nets are also common for this type of house. In conclusion, the modern concrete house has less connection to the traditional Thai house. There is no large space for gathering many people reflecting the reduced size of rural families nowadays. There is less in the material form that shows the relationship to the riparian environment and the house is more compatible with the roadside. There are individual rooms for individual activities. The issues of stuffiness

Figure 10. Modern traditional Thai house of Rang Chorakhae

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and heat inside the house are solved by air conditioning and electric fans rather than in tested local ways. The whole house is a concrete structure while other two storey vernacular houses are mostly half wood, half concrete. The modern traditional Thai house The modern traditional Thai house is the latest vernacular house type found in many rural riparian settlements of the Chao Phraya River Basin, including Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang. Basically, it is a two storey house; the lower part is a concrete structure with enclosed walls, and the upper part comprises wooden traditional Thai building units. This house type appeared in the riparian suburb area of Bangkok around the 1970s, mostly modified from old traditional Thai houses (Chompunich, 1987). Around ten years ago, this house type became more popular in rural riparian settlements of the Chao Phraya River Basin. It is a contemporary traditional Thai house and is counted as a traditional Thai house in local people’s perceptions, as they call it ‘baan song Thai mai’ or ‘new Thai house’. The house can be built as a new whole house or half old and half new, whereby the upper part is an old traditional Thai house, re-composed with a new concrete base. This modern traditional Thai house is not flexible to be adapted or expanded like the previous vernacular wooden houses. Mostly, it is occupied by more nuclear families, rather than extended families. In terms of orientation, modern traditional Thai houses are increasingly built both along the watercourses and roads in Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang. The houses located along streams or canals are mostly built a bit inland or have concrete dikes at the edge of the stream or canal. These houses face the waterway but usually there is also access from the road. At the same time, many of this modern traditional Thai house is built near roads and facing the road. In terms of spatial arrangement, the ground floor provides space for modern activities and equipment with generally a concrete structure and ceramic tile finishing, while the upper floor is the more traditional or conservative part of the house (Figure 10). Compared to the traditional Thai house, some spaces have disappeared, such as the taitun (space under the raised floor), the chan (raised wooden terrace), and the rabieng (veranda). Lower part of the modern traditional Thai house The lower part of this house is enclosed by plastered and painted brick walls with sets of windows and doors. The interior space comprises a large hall on the ground floor and one third of the floor plan is a series of rooms: bedroom, kitchen, storage, bathrooms and toilet. Inside the hall, furniture and objects such as a suite, television, computer and stereo or modern entertainment system are commonly found. In some ways, the hall of this modern traditional Thai house is quite similar to the hall of the low pitched roof two storey houses, in which there is a big hall designed Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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for gathering family members and occasionally collecting a lot of participants during family ceremonies (Figure 11). Besides, the function of a hall is similar to the hall in the upper part of the low pitched roof house built on stilts. It can be compared to the function of the taitun and chan of the traditional Thai house, but is more enclosed than open to the surroundings. This is in contrast to the common room of the modern concrete house mentioned previously, which is only a small living room for a few people. The kitchen inside the house is similar to the kitchen of the modern concrete house complete with some modern cooking equipment. However, this kitchen is rarely used, while another outdoor kitchen is built separately and is more regularly in use. The outdoor kitchen is a simple wooden shelter and more open which is more familiar to inhabitants’ behaviour and better ventilated compared to the indoor kitchen, so suitable for the strong smell of Thai cuisine. Parking or a garage is usually found in houses connected to the road in both Rang Chorakhae and Plai Phongphang; for instance this could be a lean-to roof extending from the main house. Upper part of the modern traditional Thai house The upper part of the house is a single or twin building unit, or is composed of a few building units surrounded by a narrow terrace or extending to a small pavilion. The upper building is the traditional building unit, mostly similar to those of the traditional Thai house. The different floor elevation is not as clear as in the traditional house; mostly the floors are the same level. Typically, there are rooms and a rabieng with a Buddha shelf and ancestor altar at the front of the room. The Buddha shelf is full of various Buddha images, charms and sacred objects from masters of the occult. The ancestor altar is also full of forebears’ images and has the ancestral pot at the top for Rang Chorakhae families (Figure 12). The new modern traditional Thai house in both communities is popularly built as a twin building with a small pavilion at the front and a staircase connecting to the terrace on the ground floor. These components make the house look elegant with good proportions in the local inhabitants’ eyes. Because of economic factors nowadays, the traditional Thai house is rarely modified by adding more building units as in the past. Brick and concrete are cheaper than good wood. Local people have to adapt new materials to modify their old houses. The half wood, half concrete construction of modern traditional Thai houses is the result of this situation. This modern traditional Thai house reveals the re-emergence of the traditional Thai house in riparian communities even though many of those riparian settlements have shifted their main communication route from waterway to road. The new and old materials and technologies mix together because of the intentions of the owners and builders. In terms of material aspects, the changes in the modern traditional Thai house are obvious. The half wood, half concrete construction is the residents’ response to Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 11 (above). Ground floor of modern traditional Thai house Figure 12 (below). Upper floor of the modern traditional Thai house; sleeping area (left), Buddha and ancestor altar (right)

the rarity and expense of wood and the cheaper and easier nature of concrete and other new building materials. The old part on top is the local heritage that should not be abandoned; at the same time, adaptation to the modern rural way of life is needed. This house form is a result of a mixture between traditional and modern materials. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Conclusions The transformation of settlements presented in this study is determined mainly by the influence of the communication mode changing from waterways to roads. The new houses tend to be built close to roads, which are a more convenient mode of transportation, and there is more available land than in the area along the waterside. The roads and other changes related to modernisation also resulted in changes in family occupation or in the mode of agriculture, which in turn effect changes in elements and patterns of housing compounds. The changed manner of rice cultivation caused the disappearance of the threshing floor, granary and buffalo shelter. The decline of sugar making is one reason for the change of function and disappearance of sugar shelters in Plai Phongphang. Also, the diversification of house forms is related to the variety of more modern building materials and technologies, due to the decentralisation of industrial products through the convenience of road transportation. The vernacular houses have been dynamic in their physical dimension since before modernisation took place: they had been adapted all their life as ruankhrungphuk became ruenkhrung sap, or modified cluster traditional Thai houses, according to the dynamics of local families. Since modernisation took place, rural houses have exhibited more variety of styles, which directly relates to new building materials such as, initially, corrugated iron sheeting, nails and plank wood creating the low pitched roof house and modified traditional Thai house. The next stage, of building concrete structures provided for the two storey house, the modern concrete house and the modern traditional Thai house. These houses also show the influence of telecommunications and flow of population between rural and urban areas, other modernisation impacts. Not only new building materials, but also innovative electrical equipment is now widespread throughout the country. The need for more security for inhabitants and belongings as roads come closer to the houses is one reason behind the development of the enclosed ground floor. Due to changes in way of life and occupations, household spaces are used differently. Some old parts still continue while others are replaced by new materials and functions. The household spaces are divided for more individual space and smaller family sizes. At the same time, the common hall for relatives gathering in later house types confirms the continuance of strong relationships among relatives. Likewise, with the connection to water, the concrete dike and enclosed walls of ground floors to prevent flooding seem to suggest running away from water. Obviously, some spaces have disappeared, such as the chan and taitun, but new spaces such as the common hall can serve the same function. Although there is a lot of development and change, there are still strong connections to tradition, in terms of social and cultural dimensions, including to the riparian environment and to the family. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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References Chaichongrak, R. 2002. The Thai House: History and Evolution. London: Thames and Hudson. Chompunich, N. 1987. Thai Houses: Thai Identity. Bangkok: Odient Store Publisher. Molle, F. and Srijantr, T. 1999. Agrarian Change and the Land System in the Chao Phraya Delta. Bangkok: Kasetsart University. Nildech, S. 1998. Ruen Krung Phuk. Bangkok: Maung Boran. Nimlek, S. 2002. Vernacular Architecture: Orchard Farmer’s House. Bangkok: Department of Architectural Art, Silpakorn University. Nimmanahaeminda, A. 1965. Thai Architecture: Past, Present and Future. Bangkok: ASA. Pendleton, R. L. 1962. Thailand: Aspects of Landscape and Life. New York: Meredith Press. Piromdha, S. 1995. Thai House: Houses in Central Thailand. Bangkok: Advance International Printing Service. Tachakitkachorn, T. 2005. A Comparative Study on the Transformation Process of Settlement Developed from Orchard in the Chaophraya Delta. Kobe: Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University.

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The Grand Palace in the Description of Ayutthaya: Translation and Commentary Chris Baker1

“The Kings Palace is seated upon the River, resembling a little Town apart, great and magnificent, many of its Buildings and Towers being entirely gilded.” (Caron and Schouten, True Description, 125)

The only significant account of the Ayutthaya Grand Palace2 appears in the Description of Ayutthaya, a document probably compiled in early Bangkok from the memories of residents of the city prior to its sack in 1767 (see details at the head of the translation below). Here I present a translation from the document along with some analysis of what the palace tells us about Siamese kingship in the late Ayutthaya era. This account of the palace is important because no other historical source offers much information. All that can be gleaned from the Palace Law are the names of a few buildings and arrangements for guarding the walls. Most European accounts comment on the size of the complex but have almost nothing on the interior because the authors had not seen it. At the visit of the French embassy in 1685, Chaumont, de Choisy, Forbin, and Tachard were among the party that went inside and all wrote accounts of the experience. However, each was intent on recording the process of the audience rather than its surroundings. All describe the spectacle of elephants, horses, soldiers, and “mandarins” amassed in the courtyards as they walked to the audience hall, but have little to say about the layout and architecture of the palace other than some vague (and mutually conflicting) accounts of the number of gates and courtyards they traversed. During the second embassy two years later, La Loubère dined at King Narai’s residence in the inner section of the palace – possibly the only European to penetrate this area – but had no idea of the significance of this visit and left no account of how With thanks to Winai Pongsripian, Barend Terwiel, Kennon Breazeale, Dhiravat na Pombejra, Edward Van Roy, Bhawan Ruangsilp, Patrick Vandenburg, Pasuk Phongpaichit, and Thawatchai Tangsirivanich. 2 พระราชวังหลวง, praratchawang luang, where luang can mean both “grand” and “royal.” In the city there was also a Front Palace and Rear Palace, occupied by kin of the king. 1

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he got there and only the briefest description of what he saw.3 Engelbert Kaempfer, who spent only a month in Ayutthaya in 1690 and was denied entry to the palace, left sketches of buildings probably made by peering over walls and through doorways, and a map (see Figure 4) probably compiled with help from European residents, such as the Brochebourdes, who served as royal surgeons.4 The Description’s account of the Grand Palace is valuable also because little has been added by modern research. By all accounts, the sack by the Burmese was very thorough.5 At the foundation of Bangkok, remaining walls and buildings were pulled down and the bricks ferried downriver to speed the construction of the new capital. Only the plinths of a handful of major buildings and some small sections of the walls remained in situ. Parts of the palace area were later settled and cultivated. When Phraya Boranratchathanin took up an official post in the old capital in 1898, he found “inside the palace there were just mounds of broken bricks, and shards of plaster, overgrown with trees. People had cleared the trees and planted custard apple, limes, tamarind, and madum, and they considered themselves owners of the plots.”6 Guided by the Description, Phraya Boranratchathanin began to locate buildings and clear the site. However, his archaeological work was neither comprehensive nor systematic. Because the buildings in Ayutthaya had gradually sunk into the alluvial mud, and because flooding deposited a layer of silt in most years, foundations that survived the sack and subsequent pillaging are below the present-day surface. In the 1900s, around 0.5 to 1.5 metres of earth and rubble were removed to bring the surface around the major buildings back to its late-Ayutthaya level.7 Foundations of buildings from the early Ayutthaya era are reckoned to be 1.5 metres below that.8 The Fine Arts Department (FAD) has concentrated on restoring the most substantial remains – Wat Phra Si Sanphet, five audience halls, and some sections of walls and gates. It has done only a modest amount of digging – locating the bases of some walls, opening up the foundations of the main treasury, and discovering some of La Loubère, New Historical Relation, 33. His visit was probably the source of Gervaise’s slightly fuller description (p. 32), quoted below. Schouten, who attended audience in 1628, left a rather better description, summarised in Bhawan, Dutch East India Company Merchants, 59–61. 4 Dhiravat, “Ayutthaya at the End of the Seventeenth Century.” 5 The Danish botanist, J. G. Koenig, described the site twelve years later as “a terrible spectacle” of ruins already buried in undergrowth and roamed by tigers and wild elephants. But fascinatingly, an audience hall was still standing: “The palace has very big dimensions, but only the very high walls of the audience hall of the king and the queen are still to be seen, which with some smaller parts must have formed a very high storey.... It is a matter of wonder that the walls are still standing, because the woodwork has been burnt, and they rest only upon some single bricks. The king’s hall is distinguished by four strong high pillars, which formerly surrounded the throne and are still standing.” (Koenig, “Journal of a Voyage,” 134–5). 6 APA, 36 n. 82. 7 Boranratchathanin, “Tamnan krung kao,” 136–8. 8 Prathip, “Phraratchawang boran,” 211. 3

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the water supply system. A project to locate gardens and other structures did not progress beyond a preliminary stage.9 Recent Thai writing on the palace has largely focused on matching the description presented here with historical sources and with the remaining evidence from the site. The Fine Arts Department published an essay of this sort in 1968, and an updated and extended version in 2008 by Prathip Phentako.10 First I summarise the construction history of the palace, relying heavily on Prathip’s work. Then I look at the layout, and three aspects of the “drama” of the palace revealed in the Description. Palaces are not simply the residences of rulers, but stage sets for the theatre of power.

Phases of construction The Grand Palace as it appears in the Description accrued over five main phases of construction.11 Phase 1. The palace of King U Thong (Ramathibodi I, r. 1351–1369) was probably built of wood, including a surrounding palisade, so no traces remain. The chronicles state that the palace site was later converted into Wat Phra Si Sanphet, but it is unknown whether the palace occupied the same area as the wat. Possibly it extended further south and Wat Phra Ram was built opposite its frontage. This site was chosen because the ground was slightly elevated. The main palace building may have become the principal wihan luang at the eastern end of the wat, as digging showed this building has very deep foundations.12 The Description states that three buildings, which date from this early phase and which are named in the chronicles, were still in existence and used for votive purposes. Perhaps these had become ancillary buildings within the wat, but cannot now be identified. Phase 2. After two fires late in the previous reign in 1440 and 1441, King Trailokanath (r. 1448–1488) built Wat Phra Si Sanphet on the old palace site,13 and founded a new palace further to the north towards the river, but not on its bank. Here the ground was lower, partly underwater, and needed to be filled. Wat Phra Si Sanphet, which served as the wat of the palace and became a reliquary for the remains of successive kings, was situated outside the walls of this new palace complex. So too possibly was the garden of the palace (assuming that the area called the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden in the Description had indeed been a garden in this second phase) and the parade ground used for royal rites and spectacles. Branigan and Merrony, “Gardens.” Prathip, “Phraratchawang boran.” 11 This account depends heavily on Prathip, “Phraratchawang boran,” 211–215. 12 Piriya argues that this wihan dates from the 17th century, yet it still could have been built on old foundations (“Revised dating (II),” 14–15). 13 Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 15–16. 9

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Phase 3. In a year given in the chronicles as 1632, King Prasat Thong (r. 1629– 1656) built a new hall, the Jakrawat Phaichayon, outside the palace to the southeast, probably to overview the parade ground. Beginning four years later,14 he massively expanded the palace in three directions. First, he enclosed the space to the north between the palace and the city wall, relocating a Brahmin temple that had occupied this site. Sometime later, he built a new wall to the east to enclose the parade ground, and walled the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden, thus enclosing the space between the palace complex and Wat Phra Si Sanphet. The result was a distinctive shape, indented on the west where the Grape Garden and Crystal Pond areas were not enclosed, as shown on the “Engineer’s map” by La Mare and the map in La Loubère (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Palace on maps by La Mare (left) and in La Loubère (right)

Phase 4. King Narai (r. 1656–1688) made significant changes to the palace complex, but surprisingly little detail appears in either Thai or western sources. Perhaps again the spur was a major fire which occurred in the year before his accession.15 In the west of the palace complex in an area which had probably been part of the “inside,” he dug ponds, used the earth to raise the land around them, and then built a new principal palace for residence and audience, the Banyong Rattanat. In the chronicles, this building is dated to the start of the reign of King Phetracha, Narai’s successor, but clearly occurred earlier as the Banyong Rattanat is described by French visitors in 1687, and its distinctive shape and orientation appears in the VOC’s Judea painting and the Vingboons’ map, published in the 1660s.16 The flamboyant conception of the building matches Narai’s development of Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 220. Heeck, A Traveller in Siam, 39; Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 226–7. 16 Could this passage in the Chronicles have been shifted from the start of the Narai reign to the start of the Phetracha reign? 14 15

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Figure 2. Grand Palace in printed version of Kaempfer’s map (left), and his original sketch (right), showing the Rabbit Garden to the southwest.

Lopburi. Narai also built a new residence for his queen and daughter nearby.17 At some time not known, the sala luk khun nai, the principal administrative building of the “front” section, was transferred to this area of the palace along with many other administrative buildings, and the “inner” female section was confined to the northwest corner. Possibly at this time, an additional wall was built on the western side, enclosing the areas known as the Grape Garden and Crystal Pond, and giving the whole palace complex a roughly oblong outline, visible on Kaempfer’s map. Phase 5. King Boromakot (r. 1732–1758) further extended the palace area by enclosing the Rabbit Garden on the southwest corner (Figure 2). The area occupied by the Grand Palace (not including Wat Phra Si Sanphet) thus expanded from around 40 hectares in the first phase, to 95 hectares in Trailokanath’s rebuilding, 165 hectares after Prasat Thong’s expansion, and 220 hectares after the additions during the Narai and Boromakot reigns (Figure 3).

Figure 3. The palace in phases 1, 2, 3, and 5

Piriya (“Revised dating (II),” 13) reckons Narai also made major alterations to Wat Phra Si Sanphet. 17

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Internal design What principles dictated the internal design of this palace? Both the first two phases of the whole palace complex, and all the early major buildings that have survived, were aligned roughly east-west, but each is aligned differently and none exactly to the compass. Probably they were aligned to the river, a common practice in Thai settlements.18 The site of the first palace, which was neither central to the island nor close to the river bank, was probably chosen because of slightly raised land, important in an area subject to annual flooding. The extensions to the palace area by Prasat Thong and after seem dictated by opportunism and practicality. Internally the palace was divided into three zones, progressing from public to private: the “front,” devoted to administration and government; a central part housing the audience halls and residences of the king; and the “inside” with women’s quarters and private gardens. In Trailokanath’s new palace, which was a “green field” design, these three zones were arrayed from east to west in a block design, separated by north-south dividing walls. This usage of space seems to have been the main factor determining the elongated rectangular shape found in the first two phases of construction. The audience halls at the core of the palace were organised with a similar tripartite division of zones along an east-west axis19 from public to private, and with a similar elongated rectangular shape. On the east side was an open portico used for everyday audiences. In the centre was a closed area for major audiences, such as with foreign embassies. To the west was a section used for residence and dining. Although Prasat Thong’s expansion obscured any overall design in the palace complex, it retained the east-west progression from public to private in the palace layout and in the principal audience halls. Narai’s construction of the Banyong Rattanat, however, disrupted everything. The building was placed in the western side of the palace, at the heart of the old “inside”, resulting in many administrative buildings migrating to this area. The Banyong Rattanat abandoned the long rectangular shape of earlier audience halls in favour of a cruciform design. Even though this design strongly recalls a mandala, the Banyong Rattanat was set about 10 degrees askew from the compass, and not obviously aligned to the river or any natural feature. Set in gardens, surrounded by a pond, and flanked by three pavilions for viewing the heavens, feeding fish, and reciting poetry, the Banyong Rattanat suggests a very different set of aesthetic values to those that shaped earlier palace buildings. Although in the Description, the Banyong Rattanat is used as an administrative building, it Stuart Fox and Reeve, “Symbolism in city planning,” especially 122–5. The preferred orientation of ordinary dwellings in Siam, probably to catch the north-south flow of the wind. 18 19

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Figure 4. Kaempfer’s original sketch of the Grand Palace Translation of key (thanks to Barend Terwiel and Bhawan Ruangsilp) A Royal palace and audience hall  B.b.b Old royal palaces c Dining Hall d Temples e Sentry posts, doorkeepers’ cabins f Building for keeping ornaments required for the royal procession and spectacle g Building for royal garments h Stables for elephants i.i Halls where the mandarins deliberate legal matters and await the king k Royal medical hall l Sale Kun, scribes’ room and royal secretariat m Chamber for ammunition and ornament room, or armoury n Water tanks for elephants and horses P Parade ground Q Women’s quarter R Court of the white elephant S In the garden, a gate to the audience hall t Royal treasury V Gardens ....

The route taken by the French Embassy going to their audience

Kaempfer got the route of the embassy slightly wrong. He assumed the embassy passed through a gate (p32 on our map, to the Suriya Amarin) but in truth the embassy would have used a gate further south (p25, to the Sanphet Mahaprasat). It seems that Kaempfer knew about the Sanphet Mahaprasat, where the embassy was received, and another audience hall to the south (Wihan Somdet), which he included on his map as an “old royal palace,” but not the Suriya Amarin, perhaps because it was obscured by the trees he drew to the north of the Sanphet Mahaprasat. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Figure 5. Wang Jan, Phitsanulok

was clearly built by Narai as a residence, and also used in that way by his immediate successors. Sadly, the building has been little studied. Probably, like many of Narai’s buildings in Lopburi, the inspiration came from Persia.20 Wang Jan, Phitsanulok There is only one other palace site available for comparison, Wang Jan in Phitsanulok, but it has scarcely been studied. The site has now been cleared (until recently it was a school playing field), and the outline is clear (Figure 5). There appear to be two phases, which might correspond to the eras of King Trailokanath (r. 1448–1488) and Prince Naresuan before his succession in 1590. As at Ayutthaya, there is a rectangular shape with a progression from “front” to “inside”, here set on a roughly north-south axis not aligned to the compass but possibly aligned to the river which may have shifted course slightly since.21 “The King’s estates include temples built of wood and bricks as well as private houses which were actually constructed by the Iranians” (O’Kane, The Ship of Sulaiman, 139). Two palaces built in Isfahan in the same era, Hasht Behesht (eight paradises, 1669) and Chehel Sotoun (forty columns, 1647), are set in parkland and front onto pools, like the Banyong Rattanat. 21 The palace at Kamphaeng Phet may also have been rectangular in shape and aligned to the river, 20

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The main organising principle of palace design seems to have been the progression from “front” to “inside”, from public to private. Thai manuals of fortune pay a lot of attention to signs in nature and to the geometry of time, found in the movements of heavenly bodies and the intricacies of various calendars, but pay little or no attention to the geometry of space. Indic concerns over symmetry and compass orientation were important in the design of many Thai wat and prasat, but in the design of cities and layout of palaces are compromised by orientations to nature and sheer practicality.22 To understand the drama of the Ayutthaya Grand Palace, we need to look at its components. The buildings inside the palace compound can be categorised into five main types: audience halls and residences; administrative buildings; guard posts and armouries; treasuries and storehouses; and stables for animals and other conveyances. The halls, guard posts, and administrative buildings are predictable. More distinctive are the large number of animal stables and treasuries or storehouses. Another feature of the Description is the attention paid to the very large number of gates, both internal and external, each with a name.

Audience, wealth, and gifting The principal activity of the Grand Palace as a seat of government was the royal audience, held twice a day according to European reports and the Palace Law. The inputs and outputs of the royal audience were managed in the “front” zone of the palace. At the sala luk khun nai, the most senior nobles met with one another and with petitioners bringing matters to government prior to audience, and executed royal decisions in the aftermath. Several “swordstores” were scattered around the front for other officials to work, along with a Translation Hall and Scribes Hall for handling documents. In the area enclosed to expand the “front” portion of the palace in the Prasat Thong reign, the most numerous buildings are khlang, treasuries or storehouses. The increase in such buildings undoubtedly signalled the growing wealth of the monarchy, but also the increasing role of relationships of gifting and exchange. The main exchequer, the Treasury of the Great Wealth, tucked beside the Sanphet Mahaprasat Throne Hall, had existed before this era. In the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden, enclosed in Prasat Thong’s expansion, an extension was built to this main treasury along with several other storehouses. Moreover, such buildings not the compass. The palace at Lopburi is not useful for comparison because of the European and Persian influences on its design. 22 See Sumet, Naga, especially Ch. 5. There was plenty of cosmological symbolism in the detail of the grand palace, particularly the capping of gates, thrones, and buildings with monthop and prang, representations of Mount Meru, but not in the overall design. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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spilled out into the town, and the Description lists another dozen beyond the palace walls. In the 17th century, Siam prospered from growing foreign trade. In King Naresuan’s wars at the turn of the century, Ayutthaya regained control over the portage route at the neck of the peninsula, and thus became an axial point between rising empires of Muslim rulers to the west and Japan and China to the east. The monarchy profited most from this expansion of trade, partly by becoming the chief merchant, and partly by raising new taxes on internal trade and wealth. Of the 234 trading voyages departing Ayutthaya between 1629 and 1694, 153 belonged to kings and royal kin.23 King Narai dominated the import of textiles from India and “not contented with selling by Whole-sale, he has some Shops in the Bazaars or markets, to sell by Retail.”24 Forbin claimed he was taken to see the main treasury and waxed lyrical about the “heap of gold, silver and precious stones of immense value” which constituted “all the riches of the royal treasure, which are truly worthy of a great king, and enough to make one in love with his court.”25 Gervaise claimed the king had “eight or ten warehouses... that are of unimaginable wealth”, piled “to the roof” with jewels, metals, exotic goods, and “great lumps of gold-dust”.26 The treasuries and storehouses contained many items besides specie. The Phiman-Akat or Storehouse of the Palace of the Skies in the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden was used to store foreign imports, particularly European glassware imported from Dutch Batavia and other exotic items. In the same area, the Cardinal Storehouse contained varieties of cloth while the Monastic Storehouse kept robes and other religious items. Outside the walls, there were several stores for weapons, several for horse and elephant tack, and two Inner Storehouses with miscellaneous items ranging from umbrellas to planks. Some of these articles would have been used within the palace, but others were deployed in relationships of gift and exchange. These relationships were very varied. At one extreme lay the exchange of gifts with fellow monarchs. A list of the presents sent by Narai to the court of Louis XIV included many Siamese articles, but mostly weapons, receptacles, clothing, furniture, carpets, porcelain and other goods from China, Japan, Persia, and India.27 Such diplomatic gifting was regular practice in Asia. But at Ayutthaya, the presentation of gifts was also a major part of the everyday drama of royal power in the audience hall. The latter part of the epic poem, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, which takes place in and around the court, portrays many of these scenes. Envoys from a tributary state are presented with “clothing and good silk,” and entrusted to convey “colored silk, silver, gold, other valuables, and a royal cow elephant with a goldSmith, “Princes, nobles and traders,” 11. La Loubère, New Historical Relation, 94. 25 Forbin, Siamese Memoirs, 60. 26 Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 183–4. 27 Chaumont and de Choisy, Aspects of the Embassy, 137–49. 23 24

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roofed howdah” back to their master.28 A Lanchang princess, destined to become a royal consort, is presented with “a gold cloisonné betel box, twenty chang of silver, golden bowl, wasp-nest ring, snake ring, tasseled diamond earrings, bodice with ornamental glass, golden yok, silk yok, and embroidered sabai,” all from the Inner Treasury.29 On appointment or promotion, khun nang (nobles) are given cloth, betel boxes, and exotic containers as marks of rank, along with items useful in their work such as weapons and boats. Soldiers departing for war are given cloth and weapons instilled with the king’s power to bring good fortune. Soldiers returning from war in victory also receive cloth and cash. Throughout maritime Asia, there are legends about great merchants who arrive from the sea and become king. A similar story is found among the several myths of Ayutthaya’s origin, and at Luang Prabang. In these stories, the ruler is the great merchant, possessor of the greatest stock of wealth, and hence the patron of everyone else.30 Possibly in its early years as a capital when the city was politically oriented southward to the sea, Ayutthaya shared in this pattern.31 The idea of a treasury, tucked beside the principal residence of the king, entitled the “Great Wealth”, and fabled (as in Forbin’s report) to be stuffed with riches, preserved the essence of this form of kingship, which enjoyed a new lease of life when the monarchy prospered in a new era of overseas trade.

Enclosure, concealment, mystification Over the course of its history, the palace not only enclosed more, but became more enclosed. In the first phase, the walls were only 1.5 metres high and had ramparts, but no forts.32 Even after Trailokanath’s expansion, the life of the palace spilled over the walls as the royal wat, gardens, and parade ground were outside the perimeter. Prasat Thong’s expansion enclosed all the palace functions within a boundary wall, and made this wall more imposing. In the north, he extended the palace up to the higher and thicker city wall. On other sides, he had the walls raised and strengthened. Narai completed the process by walling the western end of the Grape Garden, sealing the palace compound closed like a box turtle. In the palace depicted in the Description, royalty is buried deep inside, shielded on the north by the river, on the west by gardens, on the east by the parade ground, and on the south by Wat Phra Si Sanphet. Gates were a key prop of this drama of enclosure. Van Vliet reported in Baker and Pasuk, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, 510. Baker and Pasuk, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, 720. 30 Manguin, “The Merchant and the King”; Charnvit, The Rise of Ayudhya, 60–70; Souneth, “The Nidān Khun Borom.” 31 Baker, “Ayutthaya Rising.” 32 Prathip, “Phraratchawang boran,” 211. 28 29

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the 1630s that access to the palaces was limited to “only one street and two little pathways.”33 La Loubère in the 1680s stated, “The Gates of the Palace are always shut.”34 In fact, this was not true. Nobles, petitioners, parties to court cases, and various functionaries passed in and out of the Boundary Landing Gate into the administrative quarter at the northeast corner. Palace women exited through the Earth Gate in the northwest to a nearby fresh market, and hopeful Lotharios loitered there to flirt with them. Vendors entered the palace to sell cloth and imported goods along two paths in the western section. After his visit in 1655, Heeck reported, “However whenever His Majesty left for Phrabat [a Buddha Footprint in Saraburi] or one of his other country estates, the Dutch could, having paid proper respect, enter the court in order to see part of it, though not the largest, most magnificent halls.”35 La Loubère’s claim that the gates were “always shut” may be technically incorrect yet capture the message that the gates conveyed. The Ayutthaya palace gates had great importance as symbols. Some 46 listed in the Description were named, and most of the names were in Pali, a language for sacred things, incomprehensible to most people. Many of the gates were assigned to specific uses involving only royalty – for attending cremations, for removing corpses, for ritual bathing in the river, for processions – and thus served to emphasise the gap separating royalty and commoner. At the few gates where others might be admitted on legitimate business, visitors had to leave their weapons, have their breath sniffed for traces of liquor, and remove their shoes “though it is so dirty, that people sometimes step in the mud up to the calf of their Legs, if they do not keep an exact balance in walking over the small planks, that are laid for them.” 36 Though nobles paraded elsewhere with great retinues, in the palace this visual statement of their status was removed: “even an ordinary Mandarin dare not enter but attended only with one servant.”37 This enclosure was part of the mystification of Ayutthaya monarchy that seems to have begun in the early 17th century. Earlier, the image projected by the monarchy had been very different. According to Jacques de Coutre, an adventurer from Bruges who visited in 1595, Naresuan “rode out stark naked, with only a small piece of cloth covering His secret parts, without any other clothes. On His head he wore a miter of the same style as the bishops, a bit serrated on top, completely made of gold with many gems and other jewels.”38 In the chronicle’s account of his reign, Naresuan’s physical body is graphically present in the narrative – fighting duels, scaling fortifications, leading armies. Coutre describes two audiences with Naresuan Van Vliet’s Siam, 110. La Loubère, New Historical Relation, 96. 35 Heeck, Traveller in Siam, 60–61. 36 Kaempfer, Description, 44–45. 37 Kaempfer, Description, 44–45. 38 Coutre, Andanzas Asiáticas, 119. 33 34

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which lack the restrictions and the degree of formality experienced by the French ninety years later.39 In Naresuan’s reign, the exposed royal body was a key element of a martial style of royalty. Perhaps beginning with Naresuan’s brother and successor, Ekathotsarot, but certainly by the reign of Prasat Thong, this open style of kingship was replaced. Prasat Thong seems to have taken some inspiration from Angkorean Cambodia. Possibly his enclosure of the palace was inspired by reports of Angkor Thom.40 In the chronicles of his reign, the language becomes more formal, the titles of anything royal – kin, palaces, elephants – become more elaborate, and the usage of Pali or Pali-fied words increases. Possibly his reign saw the introduction of rajasap, a vocabulary used only when talking of royalty, that in fact employs very simple Khmer words but serves to disguise and dramatise everything royal. Concealment of the royal body was a key part of this drama of mystification. Schouten noted that Prasat Thong “seldom shews himself to the People, and very sparingly to the Grandees and Officers of the Kingdom.”41 Van Vliet added that “His Majesty very seldom goes outside the palace. He only visits three or four times during the year the temple, Wat Syserput [Si Sanphet], to make offerings to the gods.”42 Similarly, French visitors in the 1680s recounted that Narai appeared outside the palace only on a few ritual occasions, particularly processions by land and water to present kathin robes at royal wat. They also reported how people were expected to be awed by the spectacle, yet were forbidden to gaze on the body of the king; pellet archers targeted the eyes of offenders. At royal audience, blasts of music warned nobles that the king was about to appear so that they could bend forward and keep their eyes fixed to the ground. A curtain was whisked open to reveal the king framed in a window, and then whisked closed before another blast of music announced that courtiers could safely raise their eyes. Theoretically, the king’s name was a secret, not disclosed until after his death. Europeans were told this was “for fear lest any Enchantment should be made on his Name.”43 Public spectacles and royal audiences in which the king’s body was forbidden to view were powerful dramatizations of concealment. The box-turtle enclosure of the palace and the paradox of gates that are “always shut” were key parts of the same drama, designed to evoke both fascination and fear.

Coutre, Andanzas Asiáticas, 111–2, 122–23. Prasat Thong “sent artisans to copy and bring back plans of the Holy Imperial Metropolis and of the palaces of the Capital of the Kamphucha Country.” Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 216. 41 Caron and Schouten, True Description, 97–98 42 Van Vliet’s Siam, 110. 43 La Loubère, New Historical Relation, 101. 39 40

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Spectacle In paradoxical fashion, this drama of concealment co-existed with a drama of spectacular display that recalled the era of military kingship in the past. Elephants with special characteristics recorded in manuals – including the “white” elephants – were considered auspicious and treated as if royalty. They were stabled as close as possible to the audience halls at the core of the palace where they acquired a secondary function of being shown off to visitors. But these Palladian animals were only a small part of the palace’s total livestock. Animal stables were the most numerous among all the buildings in the “front” area. In addition, they overflowed from the palace, occupying space outside the eastern wall and along streets leading over a kilometre away from the palace along the northern side of the city. Similarly, the main storage for royal boats was just west of the palace on the opposite bank of the river, but another five royal boatyards were scattered around other parts of the city. The primary use for these animals and conveyances was not waging war but staging spectacle. Between the final battles of Naresuan around 1600 and the Burmese attacks in the 1760s, Ayutthaya was largely at peace. The only significant war involving a major mobilization was conducted against Lanna in the 1660s, while a handful of expeditions to Cambodia, and four defensive actions against Burmese incursions, were on a much smaller scale. None of these involved the king or close relatives as military commanders, and recruits were drawn from the outer provinces rather than the capital or its immediate environs. The military utility of elephants had diminished because gunpowder explosions scared them.44 Ayutthaya’s primary strategy for defence in this era was to fortify the capital to withstand a siege. To this end, it had improved the walls and bought guns from the Chinese, Persians, and Europeans in quantities which astonished the Burmese when they broke open the arsenals in 1767.45 In the engagements with the Burmese in the 1760s, the elephants and horses which crowded in and around the Ayutthaya palace made no contribution. In this era of relative peace, the traditional military arts were adapted into spectacles designed to awe the king’s subjects, neighbouring rulers, and foreign visitors. The intricate arrangement of horses and elephants in a military column, described in military manuals, was adapted into vast processions held regularly on festival days and at other special occasions. The arrangement of naval flotillas was formalised into royal barge processions, staged for the king’s visits to royal temples during Buddhist Lent and to the Buddha Footprint in Saraburi. All of the Frenchmen who wrote up their visit to the palace in 1685 included 44 45

Charney, Southeast Asian Warfare. Phraison Salarak, “Intercourse between Burma and Siam,” 52 Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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graphic descriptions of the elephants, horses, troops, and weapons lining their passage. Tachard’s version began: In this manner we entered into the first Court of the Palace, where on one side were fifty Elephants of War harnessed with Gold, and on the other two Regiments of Guards, to the number of eight hundred Men drawn up in Batalia. From thence we advanced into the second Court, where were eight Elephants of War more, and a Troop of three score Mores on Horseback; they were armed with Lances, and had a very good Meen. In the third Court were sixty Elephants with Harness richer than the first, and two Regiments of LifeGuards that made two thousand Men under their Arms.

He also saw 200 of the “painted arms” guards, 500 “Persians” sitting crosslegged, and two courtyards full of “mandarins” prostrate on mats.46 Local rulers and their envoys were subject to similar treatment. In the epic poem Khun Chang Khun Phaen, in a passage probably written in the Ayutthaya era, the king of Ayutthaya gives orders in preparation for the arrival of a defeated king of Lanna: Now to tell of the king at Ayutthaya. He summoned all the chaophraya. “Arrange for our city to be beautifully decked out to look splendid, so that the Chiang Mai people fear our power as if this were the abode of the fatal Lord of Darkness. Have all the traders, great and small, moor their junks along the banks of the river together with all the rafts, so that the place looks busy. On both sides of the roads, have rows of shops crammed together. Make sure all the troops are on duty. Let them see the might of the Thai city so that they are as shocked as if they were being killed by Lord Matjurat and will all want to flee in panic.”47

Elephants and horses were also used for kings to go hunting deer, wild buffalo, crocodiles, and yet more elephants. Ekathotsarot “found great pleasure in going on the hunt, going horseback riding, fighting on elephants”48 Narai initially favoured living in Lopburi because he could hunt there almost every day. Several reports estimated the king captured around 300 elephants every year. While some were needed for staging spectacles, and others were exported for profit,49 the elephant hunt and other hunts and contests also had symbolic purpose. They displayed the Tachard, Voyage to Siam, 165–66. Khun chang khun phaen (Wat Ko edition), 703–4. Lord Matjurat is a name for the god of death. 48 Van Vliet’s Siam, 208. 49 Dhirawat, “Catching and selling Siamese elephants.” 46 47

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king “in the field”, commanding men, capturing magnificent animals. Just outside the city of Ayutthaya was an elephant enclosure where the king presided over representations of the hunt staged for foreign visitors and others. These processions and hunts required the mobilization of far more people than were recruited for warfare in this era. Foreigners estimated that seven or eight thousand people were mobilised when the king went to visit wat in the city, and as many as fifteen to twenty-six thousand for the land and water processions to present kathin robes.50 Gervaise reckoned that thirty thousand were required for Narai’s elephant hunts, lasting several days.51 In the 1700s, King Sua “issued a … royal command to the chief magistrate to have all the elephants, horses, troops and naval forces inspected and prepared in complete readiness” for a hunt.52 King Borommakot arranged massive processions for both hunts and visits to religious places. In 1740, he travelled to Phitsanulok “proceeding in great military formations both by land and by barge, accompanied by the four divisions of His many brave warriors, elephants and Sindhu horses and by boats in great numbers.”53 In eras of relative peace, ruling elites everywhere tend to convert old military arts into ritual and sport. Consider the ritualisation of samurai skills in Japan and the European aristocracy’s enduring passion for equestrianism. These hunts and displays performed several functions, both practical and dramatic. They kept the machinery of mobilisation in good trim. They reminded the people who took part of their subjecthood. They recalled in dramatic form the military vigour of the kingdom in the Naresuan era. Most of all, they signalled the unique power of the king, who alone could stage such spectacles. After seeing the court and public ritual, the republican Dutchman Schouten found “this reverence better becoming a celestial Deity, than an earthly Majesty,”54 while the royalist Frenchman Gervaise found it rather wonderful: “In the Indies there is no state that is more monarchical than Siam”.55

Conclusion The analysis of Siamese kingship tends to focus on the relationship to religious sources of power (devaraja, thammaraja). The Ayutthaya Grand Palace suggests some other aspects. The design of the palace complex seems built around the royal Van Vliet’s Siam, 116-9; Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 179-82; Tachard, Voyage to Siam, 176–8, 187-90. 51 Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 177; see also Tachard, Voyage to Siam, 233–34. 52 Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 386. 53 Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 434. 54 Caron and Schouten, True Description, 98. 55 Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 53. Even Forbin, who derided almost everything he saw in Siam, conceded there were “few sights in the world finer than when the King of Siam goes abroad in public” (Siamese Memoirs, 77). 50

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audience as the daily drama of kingship. Many storehouses kept goods that the king gifted to others as a display of the “Great Wealth” that qualified him to be king. Gates that were forbidden and “always shut” were part of a metaphor of concealment and mystification that made kings special, fascinating, and feared. Elephants, horses and boats were deployed in hunts, contests, and processions that recalled the martial past of king and kingdom.

Translation Introduction—A verbal description of the old capital of Ayutthaya surfaced in three slightly differing versions in the early 20th century.56 Although two versions were published together with the Testimonies believed to have been taken down from Ayutthaya prisoners swept away to Burma in 1767, this account of the capital has different origins. (The much shorter description of the palace that did originate from that debriefing is also translated below.) Prince Damrong Rajanubhab suggested that “on examination, the author was born when Ayutthaya was the capital, but authored the book in the Bangkok era,”57 and Winai Pongsripian has surmised that the description was compiled early in the First Reign to aid planning of the new capital at Bangkok.58 The slightly shorter of the three versions of the document was published in 1926 and 1929 as Athibai phaenthi phranakhon Si Ayutthaya which I render as Description of Ayutthaya and use as the title for the text in all its forms. The document covers walls, gates, ferries, roads, bridges, checkpoints, markets, production sites, customs posts, boathouses, palaces, storehouses, jails, and other major sites. The excerpt presented here covers only the main palace and some associated buildings – stables, boathouses and storehouses. Text [in square brackets] appears only in KLHW (see bibliography for abbreviations). Text {in curly brackets} appears only in APA. KWPS is missing all but the latter part, from the Suriya Amarin onwards, and is the same as KLHW except for very minor changes. Passages on royal boathouses, stables, and treasuries in the town, which appear before the passages on the palace in the original, are placed at the end of this translation, followed by the much shorter description of the palace from KCKK. Notes marked (B) are based on those by Phraya Boran in APA, and those marked (W) on those by Winai Pongsripian in Phanna phumisathan. Bracketed letter-numbers (pi, r1, etc.) are inserted for reference to the map. This map was made by laying the latest For a fuller account of these documents, see Baker, “Note on the Testimonies.” Prince Damrong’s preface to the 1929 edition of APA, 32 58 Preface to Winai, Phanna phumisathan, and personal communication. 56 57

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(1989) FAD map of the archaeology of the palace and Sumet Jumsai’s map of Ayutthaya over an image from Google Earth. Also used were a FAD map from 1966, Kaempfer’s sketch of the palace, research by Patrick Vandenburg, and some legwork.

[Grand Palace]59 The Grand Palace is situated in the centre of the long northern side of Ayutthaya city, surrounded by a wall eight cubits high from ground level to the base of the parapet which is two cubits high, making the palace wall in total ten cubits high and six cubits thick.60 Along the walls are sentry-boxes and a wall-walk running below the crest.61 In the walls around the palace are [twenty-four] peaked [or elephantear62] gates, and [eight] forts Starting from the eastern side at the corner of the palace: (r1)63 a fort;64 (p1) Jakra Mahima Gate;65 (p2) Si Chaisak Gate;66 (p3) Sawan Phijit Gate at the parade ground in front of Jakrawat [Phaichayon] Mahaprasat; (p4) Saman Phisan Gate; (r2) a fort at Jao Phrom Market;67 (p5) Sila Phirom Gate; (p6) Akhane Yatra Gate; (r3) a fort at the corner of the parade ground {in front of the Jakrawat} by the Registration Hall;68 —end of the eastern side. These titles are inserted in the printed versions, but did not appear in the original manuscripts. A ศอก sok cubit is 50 to 60 cms. Phraya Boran measured the palace wall south of Wat Si Sanphet and confirmed the height as 10 cubits but the width as only 4 to 5 cubits (APA, 59, n. 34). 61 เชิงเทินไต่เตี้ย, choeng thoen tai tia; choeng thoen is a platform inside the wall, and tai tia means creep low (see Figure 1). 62 A gate in which the tops of the door panels protrude above the gateposts, often as twin halfmoons (Choti, Phojananukrom sathapattayakam, 305–306). Probably this is a mistake and should say “elephant gate,” meaning an arched gate tall enough for an elephant (see Figure 4). 63 These bracketed numbers are added for plotting locations on the map. 64 Called Boundary Landing Fort in the Palatine Law (B). 65 Behind Wat Thammikarat on the line of the wall of Sanphet Mahaprasat (B). 66 Behind Wat Thammikarat (B). 67 Midpoint of the wall (B). 68 Called the Registration Hall Fort in the Palace Law (B). 59 60

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Figures 6, 7, 8. Above: wall with wall-walk and parapet on the palace’s western side. Below left: Peaked gate (mural, Wat Mahathat, Phetburi). Below right: Corner fort (mural, Wat Dusidaram, Thonburi)

Along the southern side of the palace: (p7) Wichit Phimon Gate; (p8) Mongkhon Phisan Gate;

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(p9) an elephant-ear gate called Ritthi Phaisan69 at the end of the parade ground in front of Jakrawat for entry of officials to take the water of allegiance in Wat Phra Si Sanphet; (r4) a fort in the middle at Wat Si Chiang;70 (p10) Bowon Nimit Gate where queens, royal children, and palace consorts leave to attend cremations [in the city]; (r5) a fort at the corner of Wat Phra Si Sanphet;71 —end of the southern side of the palace. On the western side of palace: (p11) a tunnel gate at the end of Wat Phra Si Sanphet; (r6) a fort at the corner of Crystal Pond;72 (p12) Bowon Jesadanari Gate for wives of officials entering to take the water of allegiance at [the rear of] Wat Phra Si Sanphet;73 At the corner of Wat Si Sanphet, elsewhere called Nakhon Chai Gate, for elephants to exit en route to cremations in the city (B). Also the gate entered by the French embassy in 1685. 70 Called Sala Mongkhonbophit Gate in the Palace Law, near the midpoint of Wat Phra Si Sanphet, beween Wat Mongkhonbophit and Wihan Klaep (B). Built in the early 16th century, this temple housed the Phra Mongkhon Bophit image and was, according to Van Vliet, “marvelous” and one of the largest in the city, but much dilapidated. King Prasat Thong moved the image a little west to its current location, demolished the old wat, and converted the area to a cremation ground (Van Vliet’s Siam, 157, 243–4; Van Vliet and the chronicles call it Wat Chi Chiang Sai). 71 In the Palace Law (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:77), this is called Wat Ramawat Corner Fort, possibly named after a wat that once was around here. 72 Probably a fort on the old palace wall before the old palace became Wat Phra Si Sanphet (B). The term “Crystal Pond” here and elsewhere refers to the area of the palace in which the pond is situated. 73 The next section of the wall is a subject of debate. Phraya Boran (and Sumet Jumsai later) assumes that, from the northwest corner of Wat Phra Si Sanphet, the wall ran westward to the Pak Tho Canal and then north to the Thai Sanom Fort, enclosing the Grape Garden and Crystal Pond area. Thus this gate is gate p12. But Phraya Boran noted that the usage of this gate to enter the wat for the water-of-allegiance ceremony was “unlikely as the gate leads from the palace into the Rabbit Garden, not from outside into the wat” (APA 63, note 49). Prathip Phentako (“Praratchawong boran”, 223) argues that the wall described here runs east along the north side of Wat Phra Si Sanphet, then turns north and circles the area known as the Grape Garden and Crystal Pond. This gate is thus p46, close to tamnak tuek, used by palace women to go from the inner palace to the wat. The western end of the Grape Garden was thus not walled. The “Engineer’s Map” clearly shows this area unenclosed. Clause 20 of the Palace Law prescribes punishment for guards who fail to prevent “anyone who comes into the channel at Crystal Pond, lying down in a khot, pathun or kup boat, and that boat has weapons, and he wears a helmet covering his head; or a man and woman coming together; or people abusing or beating each other, singing boat songs with a pipe, flute, fiddle, lute, or drum” (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:78). The existence of this law, specific to the Crystal Pond area, suggests it was open. According to Prathip’s interpretation, the Grape Garden Fort is at the northwest corner of the Grape Garden, and the Cholachat Thawarasakhon Gate is an outflow from the Banyong Rattanat Pond. According to the Boran-Sumet interpretation, the Grape Garden Fort is at the southwest corner of the Grape Garden, and the Cholachat Thawarasakhon Gate is an outflow from the Crystal Pond. APA says this gate is for an outflow from a pond inside the palace, but does not name the 69

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(r7) a fort at the corner at the end of [Crystal] pond; (p13) a gate called Cholachat Thawarasakhon for outflow of water from the [Crystal] pond inside the royal palace;74 (p14) Mahapokharat Gate for officials to enter for royal audience in the Song Buen Throne Hall75 at the end of the pond [in front of Banyong Rattanat Mahaprasat Throne Hall]; (p15) Udom Khongkharahat Gate for inflow of water into [Crystal] pond; (p16) Janthawan Moranaphirom Gate beside Si Samran76 [for discharge of excrement from the palace, and] for carrying out corpses of palace officials; (r8) Pak Tho Fort77 at the corner of the palace; —end of the western side. The northern side of the palace from the fort on the corner at the west: (p17) Bowonnari Mahaphopchon Gate, [that people call] Earth Gate; (p18) Mahatraiphopchon Thawara Uthok, [that people know as] the Water Cloister Gate for the royal landing;78 (p19) Victory Flagstaff Gate, an elephant-ear gate;79 (p20) Jao Prap Landing Gate for [royal kin] going out for [royal] ceremonies; (p21) White Elephant Gate for white elephants and niam80 elephants to go down to the water [without mixing with black elephants]; (p22) Khoi Landing Gate for the ferry used by officials [and people on royal command entering the palace, colloquially known as Nobles Landing Gate]; —end of the northern side of the palace. pond. KLHW has an extra word naming the Crystal Pond, which seems to support the Boran-Sumet interpretation, but KLHW also has the same insertion for the Udomkhongkharahat Gate (p15) which is clearly wrong. Possibly the western end of the Grape Garden was once open (at the time of drafting the clause in the Palace Law), but was enclosed when King Narai built the Banyong Rattanat and many other administrative buildings in the western part of the palace. 74 See previous note. 75 The major buildings are called พระที่นั่ง, phrathinang, “royal seat,” translated as “throne hall” though they may be used for both residence and ceremony. 76 Probably satri samran, women’s joy, a toilet for palace women. 77 Called Thai Sanom Fort in the Palace Law (B). Thai Sanom was an area for palace officials who took care of cremations and who also detained royal family members undergoing punishment for some offence (Winai, Kot monthianban, I:73, n. 113). 78 Gate out from the cloister to Wasukri Landing (B). 79 Phraya Boran doubts this on grounds that in the “picture printed by the French” (probably Kaempfer’s sketch of the palace) all the gates on the river side have spires (monthop). 80 เนียม, technical term for an elephant with tusks that are naturally short with tips that look as if spiked with a lotus bud. There are three levels: first, with tusks less than two inches, shaped like a coconut heart; second, with tusks between two and five inches; third, with tusks longer than five inches, shaped like a banana shoot. They are usually placed in the Akhani lineage. Most of the titled royal elephants appearing in the Ayutthaya chronicles are niam (Tamra chang, 61, 68). Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Altogether eight forts around the exterior wall of the palace, ten [nineteen] peaked gates, [one tunnel gate,] and four elephant-ear gates [, giving a grand total of twenty-four81 gates]. Inside the palace82 are [three main] inner official sala,83 [twin buildings with swan-tail finials and protruding front porches. There is a pond in front of the official sala for trying litigants by ordeal by water. In that pond is] a brick building for translation of royal documents. There are arsenals for guns, large and small, one on the left and one on the right; a store [with swan-tail finials] for royal carriages beside the wall bordering the parade ground in front of Jakrawat;84 four cannon stores for Phra Mahathep, Phra Mahamontri, Phra Ratchawarin, and Phra Intharadet,85 all four outside the second-level86 wall of the palace which has peaked gates called Surinthon Thawan (p28) and Samran Phaichayon (p26). Inside this wall there are eight stables [for beautiful bull elephants of unusual colour, all eight stables] with peaks [and swan-tail finials,] and two brick buildings called Lamsangat87 with three rooms [and walls painted green]. The third-level wall has a wall-walk;88 a peaked gate called Phisan Sila Gate Only twenty-two listed (including one tunnel gate) in both KLHW and APA. This description begins in the courtyard at the northeast corner. Most of the buildings mentioned here are shown on Kaempfer’s sketch of the palace. However, the Translation Hall is not on Kaempfer’s sketch, and in KCKK (see below) it is located in the southeast corner, where Phraya Boran found foundations that are now covered by the statue of King U Thong. 83 ศาลาลูกขุนใน, sala luk khun nai. Luk khun was a term for judicial officials, but also for officials in general. The sala luk khun were the main offices for conducting government business. On Kaempfer’s sketch, the “Sale Kun or office of the royal secretaries” is in the south of the northeast courtyard, and could be on the site of the unidentified foundations marked on our map. La Loubère described these buildings as “inclosed with a Wall, no higher than one may lean over, and covered with a Roof, which bears only upon Pillars placed at equal distances in the Wall. These Halls are for the chief Mandarins, who do there sit cross-legged, either for their Functions of their Offices, or to make their Court, or to expect the Prince’s [king’s] Orders, viz. in the Morning very late, and in the Evening until the approach of Night, and they stir not thence without order. The less considerable Mandarins sit in the open Air, in the Courts or Gardens” (New Historical Relation, 33). 84 The “parade ground in front of Jakrawat” means the open area running down the eastern side of the palace, overlooked by the Jakrawat Phaichayon throne hall. Kaempfer’s sketch of the palace shows two east-west walls across this area, but these have disappeared. On the map, we have drawn one east-west wall in roughly the position of the northernmost wall in Kaempfer’s sketch, that is, to the south of two gates in the eastern wall. 85 Mahathep and Mahamontri are heads of the left and right divisions of the inner palace guard, sakdina 2000, while Ratchawarin (Ratcharin) and Intharadet (Indecha) are heads of the right and left divisions of the outer palace guard, sakdina 1600 (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1: 283, 284, 289, 290, where all have Luang rank). 86 Meaning the wall on the west of the parade ground. 87 ลำ�สงัด, more likely ล้ำ�สงัด, “surpassing silence”, perhaps because these buildings were close to the white elephants which were not to be disturbed (or perhaps were occupied by the elephants). Alternatively these might be the buildings that Tachard (Voyage, 166) noted: “In two Halls more forward there were five hundred Persians of the Kings Guard sitting on the Ground cross-legg’d.” 88 Foundations excavated by the FAD seem too narrow for such a wall, or the peaked gate that 81 82

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(p27) right in front of the Wihan Somdet Mahaprasat Throne Hall; and a peaked gate called Phichai Sunthon Gate (p25) right in front of the Sanphetarom Mahaprasat Throne Hall. In the courtyard in front of the two [aforementioned] throne halls are four elephant stables, all with peaks, to keep royal elephants, one per stable; a horse stable with four stalls [and a roof with swan-tail finials] to keep royal mounts, two per stall, [a total of eight horses, of different colours according to the day. This stable for royal mounts is] right in front of the Treasury of the Great Wealth.89 [About the inner palace and the various halls] Suriya Amarinthon Mahaprasat Throne Hall90 [with five-level monthop spire] is inside the main palace wall on the northern side beside the river. It has a wing [extending out on the northern side] as an Evening Pavilion91 [with a glasswork92 throne under a busabok baldachin93 placed in the wing]. Beside the terrace {to the north} [of the Mahaprasat Suriya Amarin], there is a [large] lodge of five rooms, [with wall panels,94 floor and walls painted red and decorated with patterns of offertory rice,95 votive deity,96 and Brahma’s face in gold. It is a lodge of the inner palace.97 There is a large lodge with five rooms] in a row [and walls painted plain red,] used for lying by the fire, 98 beside the Pomelo Tree Gate (p44). [It is in the inner palace.] To the south of the Suriya Amarinthon Mahaprasat there is a [small brick] building housing a statue of King Naresuan along with royal weapons. [The walls are gilded, the roof has swan-tail finials, and there is a mounting platform in front of its wing.] follows (Prathip, “Phraratchawang boran,” 225). 89 Digging has located foundations of two square buildings in this area; the southern one is right in front of the Treasury, as described here. 90 Probably built when King Prasat Thong enlarged the palace in 1636. 91 This was probably on a raised level for seeing over the city wall to the river. The records report that King Borommakot watched from this building when the deputation of Siamese monks departed for Sri Lanka (B). 92 แว่นฟ้า, waen fa, term to describe a throne with glass inlay. 93 A kind of kiosk enclosing a throne with a roof and corner pillars but open on all four sides. Deities often appear in busabok in mural paintings. 94 หลังเจียด, lang jiat, decorative inner wall panels. KWPS is missing everything up to this point. 95 เข้าบิณฑ์, khao bin, a motif based on popped rice in a folded leaf or almsbowl in a shape resembling a lotus bud. 96 เทพนม, theppanom, a motif depicting a deity sitting with crossed legs and hands in wai. 97 This building must be to the west of the throne hall, towards the cloister, as there is no room on other sides (B). 98 ประทมเพลิง, prathom phloeng; in the tradition of the Thai and many others in Southeast Asia, a postpartum mother went to lie beside a stove or fire constantly kept burning for a certain period, usually an odd number of days between seven and twenty-nine, as a preventive against infection or other complications. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Wihan Somdet Throne Hall99 [which has four prang towers, roofs tiled with tin, and the peaks clad in tin affixed with gold] is [a major palace of the city] for the butsayaphisek bathing ceremony100 [of kings] since the past. It has a [long] wing with a [separate monthop spire extending out from the main building, housing a throne under a] glasswork monthop as a royal seat. In front of Wihan Somdet Mahaprasat there are [L-shaped101] swordstores102 to left and right. Around the hall is a crystal wall two cubits high. [The terrace of the hall is paved with marble and has lantern posts of Chinese stone placed at the eight directions, and stone lions and statues of Chinese soldiers placed at intervals.] Sanphet Mahaprasat Throne Hall103 has {a wing containing a golden monthop} [nine-level104 monthop spire with arrow finials, short wings on two sides, long wings on two sides, and porches extended out from these wings but with no spires, only three-level roofs. The decorative gable ends of the wings have pillars with lion’s back patterns105 and votive-deity patterns, and a pendant figure of a standing Narai.106 In one wing,107 there is a throne in a golden busabok baldachin with a monthop roof] where the king converses with official foreign guests [who come to pay homage at the front of the hall]. In the central hall of the Sanphet Mahaprasat is the Banyong [Kanjana Naowarat] throne with a three-level benja platform108 [and no monthop but a holy white umbrella placed behind the Banyong throne which is made with pure grade-nine109 gold decorated with valuable diamonds and Date of construction unknown, originally named the Mangkhla Phisek, and first mentioned in the chronicles during the Naresuan reign. 100 บุษยาภิเษก, a bathing ceremony held when the moon resides with the eighth of the 27 naksat constellations (Praesepe), usually in January. 101 คด, kot, crooked, not straight, probably L-shaped. 102 ทิมดาบ, thim dap, meaning literally a storehouse for swords, but in practice working space for officials inside the palace walls. 103 Built by King Trailokanath at the start of his reign in 1448. It was the site of the audience for the French embassy in 1685, and is described by Tachard, La Loubère, de Choisy, and Kaempfer. 104 The text states “nine monthop”, meaning a spire with nine levels. The renderings of this building on the Judea painting, Vingboons map, and Kaempfer’s sketches all show a single large central monthop spire. In 1735, King Borommakot renovated the building, including stripping the roof, and having the main monthop spire clad in gold (Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 428, 431–2). The Ceylonese ambassadors who visited in 1751 were struck by the amount of gilding, both inside and outside the hall (Pieris, Religious Intercourse, 15–16). 105 ครีพสิงห, usually ครีบหลังสิงห์, krip lang sing, a pattern used for the back of the Rachasi mythical lion. 106 Vishnu. 107 The long wings are at the front and back, and this throne wing is at the front (B). 108 เบญจา, meaning five, a stack of platforms of diminishing size, usually with pillars at the four corners and a canopy. This is probably the throne described by Schouten (Bhawan, Dutch East India Company Merchants, 60). 109 นพคุนน้ำ�เก้า, nophakhun namkao, two epithets meaning “grade nine,” the highest level on a scale of purity. 99

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various gems, three cubits high, clad in 90 chang110 weight of gold, coated with blue enamel, embellished with nine gems of all colours. The floor of the Banyong throne is gold] covered with a lion skin [existing since ancient times. This throne is] where the king sits [when receiving state visitors or rulers of tributary states, or when appearing before nobles] for coronation [day, with lofty regalia placed around the throne]. In front of the Sanphet Mahaprasat Throne Hall are L-shaped swordstores to left and right [. On the terrace there is] a crystal wall two cubits high all around the building [with eight small elephant-ear gates in the wall. Between the Sanphet Mahaprasat and Wihan Somdet there is a road] and a gate called Phiman Mongkhon Sala Luat111 Gate (p29) out to the road in front of Sanphet Mahaprasat for royal family members to go in procession to tonsure and down to the river. In the courtyard in front of the two palaces there are four elephant stables [all with arched peaks]; a stable for [thet112] principal horses113 with four stalls, one horse per stall;114 and [beyond this stable is] a storehouse for principal horse tack that official guests are shown; [and beyond that] the Treasury of the Great Wealth [for storing the silver and royal wealth of the kingdom]; and a workshop to make shapes [of cash, set into the wall around the Treasury of the Great Wealth]. There is a wall along the boundary of the parade ground on the north side with a peaked gate called Chaiyamonkhon Traiphopchayon (p30), which is opened for royal kin to go down to river for royal ceremonies, and a tunnel gate [called the Khoha Tunnel Gate (p31)] going out to the Victory Flagstaff Gate. In the boundary wall of the courtyard in front of the Suriya Amarin Mahaprasat Throne Hall is a gate called the Phaichayon Thawan Gate (p32), with a swordstore for the palace staff on the right, and a swordstore for the inner guard on the {right} [left]. Outside the [Phaichayon Thawan] Gate is a medical hall; a store for various royal vehicles with ear-decoration115 officers; a store for carpets and mats looked after by consorts; {two seamstress workshops} [a workshop for Chinese seamstresses sewing cloth; a 90 x 1.2 kg = 108 kg. ศาลาลวด, the wire/mesh sala. Perhaps “Mongkhon Sala Luat” is a variant of Mangkhla Phisek, the old name of Wihan Somdet. Alternatively, it might refer to a craft workshop (sala luatlai) or even a birdcage, similar to one constructed by King Mongkut in the Bangkok Grand Palace. There was a building of this name in the Grape Garden which figures in the contest over the succession to King Borommakot (e.g., Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 463 where it is translated as the Residence of the Wire Pavilion). 112 เทศ, foreign, usually meaning from India or Arabia. 113 ม้าต้น, ma ton, meaning royal horses. 114 When this area was mentioned above as “the courtyard in front of the two aforementioned palaces,” these stables housed two horses each, for a total of eight. 115 กันเจียก, kanjiak, from a Khmer word for “ear,” usually meaning an ear decoration in kanok design, worn by actors. Perhaps the usage here is related to the phrase, ต่างพระเนตรพระกรรณ, tang phranet phrakan, “in place of the king’s eyes and ears”, meaning acting on behalf of the king. 110 111

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workshop for Thai seamstresses sewing drapes and various cloth]; and a stable with a peaked roof for a white cow elephant.116 The wall of the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden runs past117 the Treasury of the Great Wealth118 to the corner of the Cardinal Storehouse.119 A gate called the Sawan Phirom Gate (p33) leads into the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden where there is the Monthiantham Hall in the middle of a pond; a workshop to mint baht, salueng, and fueang coins at the mouth of the pond; the Monastic Storehouse for keeping jiwon, sabong, and triple robes; the Phiman-akat Storehouse to store foreign mirrors {with golden frames, large and small}, foreign carpets [, and crystalware from Batavia];120 and the Phra Thep-bidon Hall where {chaophraya, phra, luang, and palace nobles with rank (bandasak)} [royal kin and subjects both inside and outside] carrying salvers, betel trays [incense, candles, and flowers] enter to pay respect [to the image of King U Thong in the Phra Chesada Udon121 Hall] before entering Wat Phra Si Sanphet to take the water of allegiance.122 Beside the Phra Thep-bidon Hall, a gate called the Sawan Phaichayonrat Gate (p34) in the wall around the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden leads out to the {area} [road]123 between the walls around the Brick Wat Lodge.124 From this road a gate named Kaempfer’s sketch shows the two swordstores flanking the gate, the medical hall, and a “royal wardrobe,” which probably means the seamstress workshops. 117 KLHW has โรง but KWPS has ลง which in this context may mean “past” or “passing by.” 118 This probably refers to a new Treasury, built in the reign of Prasat Thong, not the one referred to earlier. The location of the new treasury is unknown but probably was south of the Wihan Somdet. 119 วิเศษ wiset, used to store cloth, in the charge of Phra Ratchaprasit, sakdina 3,000 (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:271). Probably this area of the palace was divided into many small courtyards for various treasuries and other buildings. 120 กาหลาป๋า, Sunda Kelapa, river of coconut forest, an early name of Batavia, now Jakarta, the principal Dutch settlement in Southeast Asia, often used to mean Java as a whole. 121 This should be Chesada-bidon, with the same meaning as Thep-bidon. 122 Phra Thep-bidon (holy deity-father) was the name of an image of King U Thong (Ramathibodi I), founder of Ayutthaya. The origin of the image is unknown. The image apparently survived the sack of Ayutthaya and was placed by King Taksin in Wat Suwannaram. When King Rama I decided to revive the water oath ceremony, he brought the image to Bangkok to preside at the ceremony and built Phra Thep-bidon Hall inside the palace for the purpose. In 1785, however, the king decided that the Emerald Buddha should be substituted for this purpose, and had the image of U Thong encased in silver and plated with gold as an image of the Buddha under the name Phra Thep-bidon (APA, 73–5). In 1855, King Mongkut built a new wihan inside Wat Phra Kaeo for the Emerald Buddha but then decided it was too small for royal ceremonial so continued to use the old location. In 1902, this new hall was repaired, renamed as the Prasat Phra Thep-bidon, and used to house images of the Chakri kings and be a site for celebration on Chakri Day. The Phra Thep-bidon image was also moved to this site. 123 APA has สนน sanon, possibly a miscopying of สนาม sanam, a courtyard or garden, while KLHW/ KWPS has ถนน, thanon, road. Possibly an original had “area,” which makes more sense, but successive miscopying converted this into “road.” 124 This is ambiguous. It could mean the Khoha Sawan Lodge to the west, but in that case this gate would cross the cloister. More likely, it means the building behind the Jakrawat Phachaiyon, mentioned below. 116

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the Phirom Chesada Gate (p35) leads out beside the store for the cannon called the Whiteclad Ascetic Sweeps the Wat125 to the parade ground in front of the Jakrawat. This road leads through a gate called Sunthon Phusit (p36) into the Cardinal Storehouse. A gate called Udom Phasatra (p37) in the wall around the Cardinal Storehouse leads to the road to Wat Phra Si Sanphet. From this road another road turns towards the [Brick] Lodge in front of the Jakrawat through the Phiromthara Gate (p38), and then reaches an elephant-ear gate by the wall of Wat Phra Si Sanphet called the Elephant Gate (p39) leading to the Saeng Storehouse126 for storing all craftsmen’s tools. Behind the rear recesses127 of both the Wihan Somdet and Sanphet Throne Halls, there is a walled cloister ten cubits wide128 and screened on both sides. There is a cloister gate called the Khoha Phopchon Gate out to the Phopchon [Thawan Uthok]129 Gate down to boats at the royal [Wasukri] Landing. There are two lions at the foot of the steps. This [lion] gate is looked after by Granny {Aen} [Waen]. The gate at the end of the cloister leading to Wat Phra Si Sanphet is called the Sawan Khoha Gate (p40) and is looked after by Granny Yom.130 A gate (p41) on the side of the cloister leads to Ironflower Tree131 Road where women from Sand Landing Village132 and Khaek Landing Village come to sit at shops selling various cloth. This road133 runs from Sumen Gate (p42), through Goat Bridge Gate (p43), through the cloister gate134 to the pond, and to the Banyong Rattanat Mahaprasat [. The Banyong Rattanat Mahaprasat has a single monthop spire with an arrow finial, four wings extending from the main building in the ปะขาวกวาดวัด, pa khao kwat wat, name of a heavy cannon firing shot almost 20 inches diameter, used in the 1767 defense of Ayutthaya (KCKK, 244). The name is probably based upon a story about the legendary King Ruang of Sukhothai taking refuge in a wat and turning to stone a Khmer enemy who came upon him sweeping the wat grounds. 126 This treasury might have been in the southeast corner, where Phraya Boran found foundations which he thought were the translation hall and sala luk khun, or outside this corner of the palace; a list of treasuries elsewhere in this document states: “The Saeng Sapphayuthon Treasuries are beside the Nakhonban Canal and at Wat Si Chiang, along with the Saeng Nok Treasury.” 127 จะระนำ�, usually จระนำ�, jaranam, from jalaram, a Tamil word for a window, used in Thai for an arched recess on the rear of a wat building, often for holding an image (W, 50, note 45). 128 Equal to 5–6 metres. KCKK states that the cloister ran all the way to Wat Phra Si Sanphet and it is often depicted that way on modern maps and reconstructions. But here it states that it ran only behind the throne halls, and the remains of wall foundations tend to confirm that. On entering the Phaichayon Benjarat Garden, it seems to have become a paved walkway, still relatively well sheltered by the many walls in this area. 129 In the list of palace gates earlier, this gate is called Mahatraiphopchon Thawara Uthok Gate. In KCKK it is Thawara Uthok. 130 Phraya Boran (APA, 75, n. 76) noted, “dug and found the pathway in the cloister but the walls have completely disappeared.” 131 ต้นดอกเหล็ก, ton dok lek, probably ขี้เหล็ก, khi lek, Cassia siamea, a tree with edible yellow flowers. 132 At the eastern end of the north side of the island, near the Front Palace. 133 This road is very difficult to locate as the gates mentioned are not identified elsewhere. 134 Here probably meaning a gate onto a covered bridge across the pond. 125

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four directions, and a pond for royal passage around all four sides. In front of the Banyong Rattanat is a road] to the Jakraphatiphan Gate (p45),135 which Granny Ming looks after as gatekeeper. Sentinelle officers136 [and lady attendants] take care of the inner palace, while {men} [palace officials] look after the outer.137 To the rear of the pond,138 there is a medical hall in front of a gate to the Grape Garden; a lodge of two rooms for royal monks and teachers to rest139 while on royal affairs; a monk’s store with five rooms [for monks to rest while waiting to chant the funeral prayer or other Buddhist prayers]; a swordstore for off-duty140 royal pages; a room of regalia in the care of the pages; a lodge where the Front Palace waits before entering audience [, with a bedroom for his use]; a clock tower that announces the time; [a hall for regalia;] a store for the tack of principal horses; a store for royal regalia weapons; and a hall for mother-of-pearl craftsmen in front of the Song Buen Throne Hall. There is a hall for alak scribes beside the wall of the Rabbit Garden; a royal hall for keeping texts passed down from the past, sited in the pond at the corner of the Rabbit Garden’s wall; a lodge of five rooms [with walls decorated in gold and lacquered floors] in [the middle of] the Rabbit Garden; and a gate leading to the large brick lodge with outer walls painted red, known as Khoha Sawan Lodge141 which was formerly for Somdet Phra Phanwasa [Yai],142 the queen of King Narai, and later became the Inner Treasury in the care of Thao Song Kandan.143 In the wall around the lodge, there is a gate called Sawan Phirom (p47) which leads out to Sanam Jan, and there turns onto a road beside the wall around a brick building of five rooms where royal lady-cooks prepare food for royalty.144 {On this

Since the modifications in the Phetracha reign, the inner (female) palace was confined to the northwest corner, screened by a wall to the north of the Banyong Rattanat. Presumably this gate is in that wall. 136 จ่าโขลน, ja khlon, female guards of the inner palace. 137 KWPS states that the palace officials look after “both inside and outside.” 138 These buildings seem to have been north of the Banyong Rattanat, including a new sala luk khun nai, not mentioned here. During the family in-fighting towards the end of his reign, Borommakot entered the palace from the river at Si Samran and “saw many people sitting at the sala luk khun nai at the end of the pond,” and then went to sit in “the lodge of two rooms beside the monks’ store” (see Phraratchaphongsawadan krung si ayutthaya chabap mo bratle, 413–4; and less clearly in Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 455). Possible “Grape Garden” later in this sentence is a mistake, and should be Thai Sanom. 139 จำ�วัด, jamwat, a word used mainly for monks, meaning to sleep, especially during the day. 140 KLHW and APA have non wen, maybe sleeping (overnight) duty, but nok wen, off-duty, in KWPS makes more sense. 141 โคหาสวรรค์, heavenly cave. 142 Often known as Queen Yothathip. 143 Title of one of the senior ladies in the palace service, in charge of treasuries containing gold, silver, cloth, and articles of brass and white gold (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:331). 144 Location unknown but probably adjacent to the cloister behind the Sanphet Mahaprasat, as the rear of this hall was used for dining (Kaempfer, Description, 45). 135

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road, women from Nai Kai Village145 come to sit at shops to sell goods from Chinese junks.} The road turns to the Lion Corner at the front of the main cloister.146 In the boundary wall147 there is a peaked gate called Udom Nari Gate (p46)148 leading out towards a fresh market at Earth Gate (p17). [Inside is a large courtyard with a channel to drain rainwater through Pak Tho terrace into the main river below Earth Gate. There are waterworks staff on duty in a sala at the mouth of the channel.] Banyong Rattanat Mahaprasat Throne Hall149 has [a single monthop spire and long wings extending out from the main buildings in four directions, each with a glass-decorated throne in a busabok baldachin, a mounting platform in front of the wing, and a naga staircase.150 There is a crystal wall around the terrace of the hall and] a pond around [the wall on all four sides, six fathoms wide in each direction]. In the pond [by the north wing] is a lodge [built on pillars over the water with five rooms, walls painted in water-pouring pattern151 and affixed with gold leaf, lacquered floors, swan-tail finials, two-level roofs, windows with metal balustrades, a balcony with rounded pillars152 all around, and a bridge with balustrades crossing from the throne hall to the lodge. This lodge is] used for performance of the Mahachat [Khamluang153 every year without fail]. Nai Kai is the easternmost of the canals running north-south across the island. Presumably meaning the cloister gate out to Wasukri Landing where there were guardian lions (see above). 147 Meaning the wall running along the south of the women’s quarters. 148 Called Bowonnari Mahaphopchon gate above. 149 In KWPS, this description of the Banyong Rattanat comes immediately after its first mention above. This palace, the “seat of the jeweled chair,” was built according to the chronicles by King Phetracha at the start of his reign in 1688, but more likely in the Narai reign as it must be the building that Gervaise, who stayed in Siam from 1683 to 1687 and who probably got this information from La Loubère (see note 99 below), described as follows: “The king’s apartment is in the last court. It is newly built and is easily distinguished from the others by the gold which glitters all over it in a thousand places. It is in the form of a cross, in the middle of which there rises from the roof a tall, many-tiered pyramid, which is the sign of a royal residence. It is covered all over with tin and adorned on all sides with carving of the very best workmanship. The apartment of the princessqueen [i.e., Khoha Sawan Lodge, see above], the king’s daughter, and his wives, which is next to the king’s, looks magnificent enough from the outside. Like the king’s, it looks out onto large, well-tended gardens. The walks are intersected by little streams, which make everything fresh, and the gentle murmur of their waters lulls to sleep anyone who rests on the evergreen grass on their banks.” (Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 32; see also: Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 324; Prathip, “Praratchawong boran,” 233–37; Choisy, Journal, 170). 150 KWPS has the naga staircases on two sides only. 151 ลายรดน้ำ�, lai rot nam, black lacquer with gilding. 152 ลูกมะหวด, luk mahuat, rounded uprights, shaped rather like a string of beads, often seen in window openings of old wat. 153 A recital of the royal edition of the jataka story of Phra Wetsandon (Vesantara), the last incarnation of the Buddha before his birth as the Buddha. This royal edition is believed to have been compiled by King Trailokanath in 1482, according to the Luang Prasoet chronicle (Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 18, lines 3-4). 145 146

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In the pond [by the south wing] is a lodge [for scattering popped rice, built on pillars over the water with a two-level roof, swan-tail finials, no walls only a balustrade with rounded pillars around the balcony, pillars coated with lacquer and decorated with gold leaf in offertory-rice pattern with a Brahma’s arrow154 frieze155 at top and bottom, and a bridge with railings from the throne hall to the lodge. This lodge is] for the king to scatter popped rice for feeding man-face fish,156 giant carp,157 golden barb,158 and other fish in the pond.159 In the pond by the east wing is a lodge built on pillars over the water for the king to view stars. It has no roof only a floor, a balustrade with rounded pillars all around, and a bridge across the pond from the wing of the throne hall. This lodge is for viewing the sun, moon, and stars. Monks and Brahmans perform ceremonies offering klot160 water and conch water on days of the sun and moon, and after a lunar eclipse,161 on every occasion. In the pond by the west wing is a bridge with a cloister and roof. The pillars of the bridge are far enough apart for a small paddle boat to pass under the bridge. The bridge crosses from the Mahaprasat to the side of the pond at the Song Buen Throne Hall,162 a large brick building with a multi-level roof and swan-tail finials, a hall where the king graciously emerges to address servants of the realm, royal kin, and courtiers in audience. Around the pond is a crystal wall six cubits high with gates at the four directions. Inside the wall is a road around the pond. On the wall there are a thousand lamp niches one span apart for placing lights for the celebration of Visakhabucha163 in the middle of the sixth month. The pond water is not stagnant or odorous but flows in and out, clear, clean, and attractive. 154 155

กาบพรหมศร, kap phrommason, a frieze design frequently used on pillars. กริบวิน (KLHW) กริมวิน (KWPS), kripwin or krimwin, possibly a miscopying of กริบริม or ขลิบริม,

meaning “fixed to the edge”. ปลาหน้าคน, pla na khon. “When we din’d in the Palace of Siam, ‘twas in a very pleasant place under great Trees, and at the side of a store-pond, wherein it was said that amongst several sorts of fish there are some which resemble a Man and Woman, but I saw none of any sort” (La Loubère, New Historical Relation, 33). 157 กระโห้, kraho, Catlocarpio siamensis, giant barb or Siamese giant carp, a freshwater species that can grow to 3 metres long. 158 ตะเพียนทอง, taphian tong, Puntius altus. 159 In APA, everything from here on is missing. 160 A lidded pot used by Brahmans to carry sacred water. 161 โมกขบริสุทธิ, mok borisut, after an eclipse, when the moon is no longer obscured by the earth’s shadow. 162 Phraya Boran located the Song Buen (“gun-shaped”) at a mound on the northwest corner of the pond. FAD found this mound was only remains of the wall, and suggested a location slightly to the east (Prathip, “Praratchawong boran,” 226). However, this text seems to position the Song Buen directly to the west of the Banyong Rattanat. 163 The birth, the enlightenment and the passing away of the Buddha all fell on this full moon day in the sixth lunar month. 156

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The Benjarat Mahaprasat Throne Hall164 has five monthop spires and four-level roofs on wings in all four directions. Long wings extend out from the main building in all four directions, each with a monthop spire, low floor, and a quatrefoil gable165 on the front. All four wings are throne halls, three for the king to conduct royal business in three different seasons, and the fourth at the rear to conduct the business of the inner palace. The walls of the throne hall and the four large wings are mortar coated with lacquer, decorated with glass and plated with gold leaf in offertory-rice pattern. Under each window is the figure of a lion and above each window is the face of Brahma. The base of the throne hall has moldings with crocodiles on the first level, Garuda seizing a naga at the second, votive deities with clasped hands at the third, and then the lion supporting the window. The window shutters are carved in the shape of a male and female deity on each pair. The door panels have images of Narai in ten postures, one on each door. Around the throne hall are swordstores, and a gate on one side. This throne hall is where the king passes judgments on lawsuits and conducts important city affairs, as well as a site for major meetings of senior officials. Jakrawat Phaichayon Mahaprasat Throne Hall166 has a single monthop spire, no prali ridge crest,167 and wings with multi-level roofs in four directions. On east and west, the wings are short with two-level roofs, while to north and south the wings are long with four-level roofs and entrance doors. Built into the palace wall, this hall is open, without walls, and with three storeys. The lowest storey is for courtiers of the front to attend in audience; the middle for courtiers of the inside to witness processions and entertainments; and the uppermost for the royal family, both of the inside and the front, to watch various processions. In both long wings under a quatrefoil roof on the upper level there is a throne for the king to watch processions, entertainments, and parades of troops. In front of this hall is a large courtyard, stretching the length of the palace wall, with a road over six fathoms wide in front of the hall. These are known as the road in front of Jakrawat and the courtyard in front According to the chronicle, built by King Trailokanath as part of the major remodelling of the palace at the start of his reign (1448–1488), and mentioned in the Three Seals Law as Trailokanath’s residence (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:219). King Prasat Thong resided there when ailing shortly before his death in 1656 (Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 227). The location is unknown but is thought to be at the spot where King Rama V built the Trimuk Pavilion. 165 จตุรมุข, jaturamuk, four-faced 166 Built in 1632 in the reign of King Prasat Thong. Originally it was outside the old palace area but the king subsequently expanded the palace to the east, enclosing the parade ground and this building. The hall was originally called Siyasothonmaha Phiman Banyong, but was changed to “Great Palace and Residence of the World Conqueror Indra” on the court seer’s advice after the king dreamed Indra had descended to sit on his bed. The hall was set into the eastern inner wall of the palace, and its upper levels were used for the king to view processions, entertainments, and military exercises on the parade ground (Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 216). 167 บราลี, rows of spikes along the ridge of a roof. 164

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of Jakrawat. Behind the hall is an inner courtyard with roads and gun targets. The Jakrawat Phaichayon Mahaprasat is on the wall of the palace to the east. Phaithun Mahaprasat Throne Hall has a single prang tower, wings of equal length, no one longer than the others, and four-level roofs. Phaichayon Mahaprasat Throne Hall168 has a single monthop spire, four-level roofs, and a single short wing. Aisawan Mahaprasat Throne Hall has a single monthop spire and four-level roofs on the main building, long wings extending north and south up to the wall in front of the L-shaped swordstore, and long wings on east and west, but shorter than those to north and south. These three buildings on the southern side of the palace are old royal throne halls from the past.169 The king no longer stays there. All three are used for keeping potent Buddha images for worship inside the palace grounds every evening and morning, and for giving alms to monks in large numbers. All three buildings are important religious places, residences of the Buddha, in the palace. [Stables and storehouses] [In Ayutthaya,] bull and cow elephants which have been registered with names have their [regular] stables. The stables [for bull elephants] have walls built with brick, roofs with luk-fuk tiles,170 and swan-tail finials [painted red. Bull elephants stand in stables with a finial], one per stable [. These stables are sited here and there] on the right-hand side from the head of the road in front of the palace up to the corner turning to Coconut Quarter Road. The stables for cow elephants are on the left-hand side in rows with {ten or} fifteen stalls each, one per elephant, from the head of Lead Quarter Road up to the Elephant Bridge. [Altogether there are stables for thirty bull elephants and fifty cow elephants, a total of eighty animals.] Stables for principal horses of the left and right are sited along the road outside the wall of the parade ground in front of Jakrawat. The building for principal horses of the right, {fifteen} [twenty] stalls long, each housing one horse, is sited on the right-hand side from the head of Jao Phrom Market Road all along behind the Phra Banchon Sing Shrine.171 In front of the stables there is a mounting platform [and an KWPS omits the rest of this sentence and the name of the Aisawan Mahaprasat, thus giving the Phaichayon Mahaprasat the description for the Aisawan Mahaprasat. 169 All three are believed to date from the earliest phase of the palace’s construction, prior to the renovation in the Trailokanath reign (Prathip, “Phraratchawang boran,” 211–4), and thus may have been inside the walls around Wat Phra Si Sanphet, and had perhaps been converted into ancillary halls or shrines. 170 ลูกฟูก, wave-shaped tiles with a hooked end; corrugated. 171 พระบัญชรสิงห์, holy lion window. The chronicles for CS 736 (CE 1374) state that Boromracha I, the third king of Ayutthaya, built Wat Mahathat “to the east [? of the palace] in front of the Banchon Sing” (Phraratchaphongsawadan krung si ayutthaya chabap mo bratle , 14; Cushman translates as “royal lion gable,” Royal Chronicles, 12). 168

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eye-level shrine for making offerings to the guardian spirits]. Stables for procession horses172 continue beyond in {three stables} [five rows of thirty stalls, each for a single horse], up to the wall of Wat Phraram. A building for principal horses of the left, {fifteen} [twenty] stalls long, each housing one horse, is sited on the left-hand side from the head of Jao Phrom Market Road along behind Suphachai Phaeng Kasem Court.173 In front of the stables for principal horses of the left is a mounting platform [also]. Another {two} [three] stables for inner procession horses [, with thirty horses per stall,] continue beyond up to the wall of Wat Thammikarat. Stables for {five} [fifty] post horses174 [, also one per stall,] are sited from the corner of Wat Thammikarat up [close] to the Jakra Mahima Gate. Stables for outer procession horses are sited along the sides of Four Ways Road, one to the right and one to the left, from the head of Green Cloth Quarter Road {and another at} [behind the jail up to] Banana Leaf Quarter. [On both right and left there are thirty stalls, each housing a single horse also.]

Figure 9. Elephant stables on the road leading east from the palace, on the Vingboons map

The Inner Storehouse is beside the [throne hall at] {the outer palace wall at the quarter of } Crystal Pond. The Official175 Storehouse is beside the road in front of Wat Pa Fai. The Goods Storehouse is beside the Banana Leaf Quarter. The storehouse for tack for war176 horses is beside the wall of Wat Thammikarat.177 The Inner and Outer Customs Storehouses are beside Jao Phrom Market Road. One War Materials178 Storehouse is along Nakhonban Canal and another by Wat Si Chiang [, as is the Outer Arms Storehouse as well]. 172 173

ม้าแซง, ma saeng, horses trained for processions. ศาลศุภาชัยแพ่งเกษม. In the section on judicial officers in the Three Seals Law, there are two

divisions, phaeng kasem and phaeng klang. Each has a department head and two deputies. All have supha (meaning “judge”) as part of their official name. Khun Suphachai is under phaeng klang (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:266). 174 ม้าใช้, ma chai, “horses for use,” especially by messengers. 175 ราชการ, rachakan. 176 KLHW has ศึกษา sueksa, study, but KPWS has ศึก suek, war. 177 In APA, this sentence has been garbled into a fragment: “The treasury for storing saddles and for the realm of the city.” 178 แสงสรรพายุทธ, saeng sanphayut. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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The Brick-Building Storehouse to store guns and gunpowder is in front of Wat Jan and behind Wat Sangkapat. The Brick-Building Storehouse for elephant harness and stirrups is beside Wat Yanusenthon. At new year, there are mask plays, dramas, shadow puppets, firework tower displays, and celebrations every year without fail.179 [About various boats in boathouses] [Ayutthaya has several boathouses,180 mostly outside the city walls. In the vicinity of Wat Tha Ka Rong Village,181 there is a row of thirty boathouses for freshwater war boats. The pillars are of makha wood182 and roofs of luk-fuk tiles. Some house ten boats, some six, according to the size of boat. There are minor officials and royal phrai to look after them each month. If there is a war, two hundred boats can be caulked, hauled out from the dry docks in the boathouses, and used immediately on royal service. Below the mouth of Ironwood Canal183 there are boathouses for various seagoing war boats, large and small. They are kept in a row of dry docks alongside the main river, each with the hull perpendicular to the river and the stern at the mouth of the dock. Some house one boat, some two. There are thirty large sea-going war boats with junk sterns, and a hundred small sea-going war boats with fish sterns, all made from ironwood.184 The boathouses have pillars of makha wood, roofs of lukfuk tiles, walls, and doors. There are officers and phrai to take care of them. Phraya Ratchawangsan185 is in charge as unit head, but Phraya Maha-ammat186 looks after the freshwater war boats. There is a row of eighteen dry docks for building royal ships187 and junks at the end of Tiger Crossing Landing Village,188 four dry docks for This rather detached line appears in all versions. Perhaps originally it was preceded by a line about a treasury for storing articles for festivities. 180 In APA, the section on boathouses appears among the material found later and published as an appendix. The content is the same, but much shorter. 181 The wat is half a kilometre to the northwest of the island on the south bank of what is now the Chaophraya River. 182 Afzelia xylocarpa, a large deciduous tree prized for wood carving. 183 Ironwood Canal runs southeast from the south side of the city to meet the Bangkok (Chaophraya) River around 4 kilometres south of the city. The boathouses mentioned here were at the southern end, on the right bank of the Bangkok River just below the junction with the canal. They are clearly shown on the Valentyn map as “38 ‘S Konings warf.” 184 ตะเคียน, takhian, Hopea odorata, Malabar ironwood. 185 พระยาราชวังสัน, superintendent of the left division of the Cham militia, sakdina 2,000. The suffix –wangsan (sometimes –bangsan) is distorted from Hassan. Cham were expert at seafaring, hence this position (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:307; Winai, Phanna phumisathan, 57, note 68). 186 พระยามหาอำ�มาตย (หลวง in Kotmai tra sam duang), an officer in Mahatthai, in the division in charge of the north, sakdina 3,000 (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1: 225). 187 กำ�ปั่น, kampan, a term used for European-style sea-going craft. 188 บ้านท่าเสือข้าม, ban tha suea kham; 2.5 kilometres south of the city downriver towards Bangkok. 179

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Figure 10. Palace boatyard (mural, Wat Mahathat, Phetburi)

ships and junks189 beside the city wall, two below the Victory Gate,190 and two old royal dry docks at Banana Leaf Quarter.191] KWPS omits the junks here. Roughly in the middle of the south side of the island. 191 In the southwest corner of the island. 189 190

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There is a left and a right boathouse for royal barges, each one sen, one sen five fathoms,192 [or one sen ten fathoms long,]193 with {square} [octagonal] pillars [of makha wood,] roofs with eaves194 on both left and right sides, and swan-tail finials. [Each boathouse has plastered brick walls with wind passages.195] Boathouses for boats of the right are lined up along the river to the front of Wat Tin Tha196 [—in total twenty boathouses, each with five or ten boats, including animal-shaped boats, principal boats, and victory boats.] Beside the patrol sala197 are boathouses on land [with pillars constructed of brick, walls of brick, and tiled roofs with finials. One is] for the royal barge with a Garuda head and screening198 for the king [, and one for the royal barge known as the Asura Wayuphak199 with the head of a yaksa and wings]. Boathouses on land for boats of the left stretch from Mai Rong200 Canal to Wat Tin Tha. One houses the royal barge with the head of a swan and screening, and another the Lord Garuda boat, both for the king to go fishing on the sea coast. The major branch-class201 royal barges are called: Kaeo Jakramani of the right and Suwanna Jakratana of the left. The minor branch-class royal barges are called: Suwanna Phiman of the left and right; Sommuti Phimanchai of the left; Kaeo Tokrong202 of the right; Salika Long Lom of the left; Thong Phaen Fa of the left; Thong Phaen Fa of the right. The four primary-victory203 class royal barges of the left {and four of the right} [are called: Sithep Phayakon,204 Amon Rattanat, Prasat Amarinthon, and Sinthu Prawet. KWPS has “five sen” here, which seems unlikely. 40, 50, or 60 metres. 194 พไล, phalai, a projecting roof, pent roof. 195 Openings to allow the passage of air, usually just under the roof. 196 On the north bank of the river along the north side of the island, to the west of the palace. This was the main royal boathouse. 197 At the mouth of Lotus Pond Canal, to the north of the palace. 198 กำ�ปาง, kampang, meaning with something to protect the occupant from view. 199 Asura (giant, ogre) class barges include two barges with half-bird, half-ogre figureheads. The Wayuphak or “eater of the wind” is a legendary bird usually identified with the karawek which, in the Three Worlds cosmology, has a voice so beautiful other animals cease whatever they are doing to listen (Reynolds and Reynolds, Three Worlds, 175–76, where it is called a “fabulous nightingale”). The bird has never been seen, but the feathers can be collected by doing a ritual and placing a bowl of water on a platform in a treetop; the bird will bathe there and shed some feathers (Phlainoi, Wannakhadi aphithan, 30–31). 200 ไม้ร้อง, mai rong, “crying wood,” the squeals of boat timbers against the dock were heard as cries of the wood spirit (Boranratchathanin, “Tamnan krung kao,” 205). Given in KLHW as ไม้ร้อย, mai roi. 201 กิ่ง, king, the premier class of royal barges. The name is said to have come from a custom of returning war boats setting up a branch in the bows to signal victory, resulting in branch designs being painted on the prows. 202 More likely ตากรอง, ta krong, the analytic eye (W). 203 เอกไชย, ekkachai, a class of royal barges slightly below king. Only these first two classes are for royal family members alone. 204 KLHW has ทายกร, thayakon, probably wrong. 192 193

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The four primary-victory class royal barges of the right are called: Rattana Phiman Amaret, Phiset Ballang, At Phuchanong, and Banyong Nawet.] The two royal barges with [seven] naga-king heads [are called Phiman Wasukri and Simongkhon Nakhinthon, each with a busabok baldachin amidships for the royal throne. All of the above are conveyances for the king. Some have a canopy with four wings205 and a monthop spire, while others have only a busabok baldachin with a plain monthop and no wings. The Hera Loi Long Samut206 barge has a roof over the throne with four wings and finials.207 Other boats of various animal shapes are too numerous to describe. All these boats are in boathouses with finials.] Each has a dry dock, dug out with a dyke at the entrance to block water, and stanchions.208 To take a boat into the boathouse, the dyke at the front is broken to allow water to fill the dry dock, and beams are placed on the stanchions. When the water level falls, the hull of the boat rests on the beams. The dyke is then closed and all the water bailed out of the dry dock. The si sakkalat209 and krap210 royal boats of left and right [are kept in the rows of boathouses around Wat Tin Tha. The many dang and kan flanking craft211 and various procession boats are in the boathouses of the left and right.] The {five hundred} oarsmen of the royal barges are from Phoriang Village212 and Phutlao Village.213 [They are official rowers with a head and deputy head of department, and commanders of units and brigades.] Phra Inthorathep214 is in charge of the oarsmen of the left and [Phra Phirenthorathep215 those of the] right. [According to the ancient manual of royal customs handed down from the past, a royal order under seal exempts all units of oarsmen from all custom dues and farmed taxes, and commands them to be manpower for royal service as oarsmen for three months of each year.] มุข, muk, gable ends projecting in four directions. This sentence describes the roofs over the royal seat on the barges. 206 เหราลอยล่องสมุท, hera loi long samut, serpent floats down to the ocean. 207 In APA, this sentence is totally garbled, reading roughly “placed in sangket with a four-winged monthop in the shape of a Buddha image going in front of a branch-class royal barge.” 208 เตาม่อ, ตะม่อ, usually ตอม่อ; the function is clear from the passage that follows. 209 ศรีสักหลาด, holy/glorious felt, probably so named because felt was used on the roofs; a boat for royal use other than processions. 210 กราบ, planking to raise the gunwales on war boats; name for two classes of boats used by the king but not in processions. Krap are small, suitable for entering small canals. 211 ดั้ง, dang (shield) and กัน, kan (guard) are two classes of flanking boats in royal barge processions. Dang boats are not painted or patterned. 212 โพ(ธิ)์ เรียง, “row of bo trees,” a village name now found in several places but not around Ayutthaya. 213 พุทเลา, 8 kilometres northwest of Ayutthaya on the main northward waterway; probably the same as Mutthalao, which appears in the chronicles as the site of a naval action during the Burmese attack on Ayutthaya in 1586–87 (Cushman, Royal Chronicles, 114). 214 Head of the left division of the major guard, sakdina 2,000 (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:287). 215 Head of the right division of the major guard, sakdina 2,000 (Kotmai tra sam duang, 1:286). 205

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Appendix 1: The palace in the Testimony of the Inhabitants of the Old Capital Khamhaikan chao krung kao (KCKK) was printed in 1925 with an introduction by Prince Damrong and notes, inserted into the text within brackets, probably by the translator, and here converted into footnotes marked (T). This excerpt comes from pp. 204–209 of the 1925 edition.

The royal palace The King of Ayutthaya’s palace has a surrounding wall ten cubits high and four cubits thick with a ledge two cubits wide for guards on duty to stand. The walls all around measure ninety-five sen216 with sixteen palace gates, each named differently as follows. On the northeast: Phrommasukut217 Gate, Mongkhon Sunthon Gate, Niwetwimon Gate, Thawara Wijit Gate. On the southeast: Sumon Phisan Gate,218 Thawaranukun Henjasa Gate, Thawara Jesada Gate, Thakkhinaphirom Gate. On the northwest:219 Chatinawa Gate, Mahaphokharat Gate, Udomkhongkha Gate, Moronaphirom Gate.220 On the northwest, the gates are also for the city as the palace is sited alongside the city wall on this side: Mahaphaichayon Gate, Thawara-uthok Gate, Victory Flagstaff Gate, and White Elephant Gate. There are also two tunnel gates, upper and lower, known as the Red Gate. There are eight bastions221 around the palace.222 Royal residences Within the palace, there are three royal halls: the Wihan Somdet Throne Hall to the south, Sanphet Prasat Throne Hall in the center, and Suriya Amarin Throne Hall to the north. In each of these halls, there is a large throne inside, and a small throne in the portico.223 The throne halls have beams four fathoms wide and are twenty-five fathoms high. The peak has a face of Brahma, with a gilt five-tiered umbrella above. The One sen equals 40 metres, so 3,800 metres. Probably Phrommasukhot (T). 218 Probably Somonphisan (T). 219 These directions refer to quadrants not sides. This should be southwest. 220 Probably Kalayaphirom (T). 221 หม้อดินดำ�, mo din dam, black earth pots, annotated in the original “seems to mean forts.” 222 The names of some palace gates are missing: Sadaeng-ram Gate, Sado-khro Gate, Phra Phikanesuan Gate, Si Sapthawan Gate, Phonthawan Gate, Nakhonchai Gate (T). 223 Here there is a list of thrones, followed by an inserted note: “I think the eight thrones cited here are thrones in Burmese palaces inserted in error by the Burmese who composed this text.” This list is omitted here. 216 217

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roof is covered with tin tiles. While the others have two long wings to west and east, the Suriya Amarin has four wings—to the north and south as well—and no portico or connecting corridor. Inside the throne is placed at the centre. All of these throne halls have walls of brick pierced by windows surmounted by gilt decorations. The three are of equal height. Behind these three throne halls to the west, there is a lake with a throne hall named the Banyong Rattanat, twenty fathoms high, with beams only three fathoms wide, nine spires, a face of Brahma, umbrella, and roof also tiled in tin. But there is no throne in this hall. The palace wall has two levels, outer and inner. There is a roofed cloister running all the way from the south to the landing on the river to the north. To the southeast is the Translation Hall, to the northeast the official sala, and a scripture hall in a lake. There are two elephant stables in the middle courtyard. Outside the gate to the middle courtyard are two further elephant stables, two stables for principal horses, two stores for royal chariots, six stores for cannon, two armouries to store small arms, a store for miscellaneous weaponry such as swords and pikes, the Treasury of the Great Wealth, the Storehouse for Royal Articles, Monastic Storehouse, a store for glassware, crockery, and brassware,224 a doctor’s hall, a store for royal vehicles, and a fruit store.225

Appendix 2: The palace in the Vingboons map and Judea painting

Figure 11. Ayutthaya Grand Palace on Vingboons map (left) and VOC’s Judea painting (right)

Johannes Vingboons map of Ayutthaya was first published in 1665. The “Judea” painting hung in the offices of the Dutch East India Company. The map and painting show the same information rendered in differing styles. Although the overall layout of the city is badly wrong, individual buildings and small areas seem to be rather 224 225

The Phiman-Akat Storehouse (T). Probably the royal kitchen (T). Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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accurately depicted, presumably based on sketches made in situ, though the styling is strange because the final artist had little idea of Thai architecture. What then is shown of the Grand Palace? In the left foreground is probably the main wihan of Wat Phra Si Sanphet. As Piriya has argued,226 the three bell stupas were probably not constructed until the early 18th century, and the main wihan would have been the most prominent building of the wat. In the Vingboons version, it is surmounted by a bell-shaped dome, but on the Judea painting, this is clearly a stupa behind the wihan. To the left immediately behind this wihan must be the Banyong Rattanat as it has the quatrefoil plan and unusual orientation of this building. To the right is an audience hall, most likely the Sanphet Mahaprasat. The ground plan, with a short wing in the middle of the south side, matches the remains. It has a three-layered roof, and a tall monthop. The plinth remaining today has the bases of four brick pillars just over a metre square which would have supported this roof. The hall is clearly two-storeyed, which was true of the Sanphet Mahaprasat where the king appeared at a window on the level of a second storey. To the far right is the parade ground. At the end is a building that might be the sala luk khun nai, or a cannon store. Behind that is a round building with a prang, which is very difficult to explain. To the left in the rear is a single prang and what appear to be several stupas. From the outside, most of the buildings within the palace would have been obscured by the walls and trees. As with the Bangkok Grand Palace viewed today from sanam luang, only the roofscape would have been visible. Perhaps an artist on the spot sketched the roofscape, but the final artist interpreted the prang and monthop as being the same as the stupas found elsewhere in the painting.

References APA Boranaratchathanin, Phraya. Athibai phaen thi phranakhon Si Ayutthaya [Description of Ayutthaya]. Bangkok: Ton chabap, 2007 [1929]. A facsimile of the 1929 edition, including extensive commentary by Phraya Boranratchathanin and a preface by Prince Damrong, with the addition of a facsimile of Phumisathan krung Si Ayutthaya [Geography of Ayutthaya], extra material from the same original document, added in 1939. KCKK Khamhaikan chao krung kao [Testimony of the inhabitants of the old capital]. Bangkok: Chotmaihet, 2001 [1925]. KLHW Khamhaikan khun luang ha wat [Testimony of the king who entered a wat]. Bangkok: Sukhothai Thammathirat University, 2004. 226

Piriya, “Revised dating (II),” 11–15. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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KWPS Khamhaikan khun luang wat pradu songtham: ekkasan jak ho luang [Testimony of the king at Wat Pradu Songtham: documents from the palace]. Edited by Winai Pongsripian. Bangkok: Committee to Edit and Print Thai Historical Documents, Office of the Cabinet, 1991.

Baker, Chris and Pasuk Phongpaichit. 2010. The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Baker, Chris. 2003. “Ayutthaya Rising: From Land or Sea?” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34, 1 (February), pp. 41-62. Baker, Chris. 2011. “Note on the Testimonies and the Description of Ayutthaya.” Journal of the Siam Society, 99, pp. 72-80. Bhawan Ruangsilp. 2007. Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayutthaya: Dutch Perceptions of the Thai Kingdom, c. 1604–1765. Leiden: Brill. Boranaratchathanin, Phraya. 2010 [1908]. “Tamnan krung kao” (History of the old city). In Krung kao lao rueang (Relating about the old city), edited by Wansiri Dechakhup and Pridi Phitphumwithi. Bangkok: Sinlapa Watthanatham. Branigan, Keith and Colin Merrony. 1999. “The Gardens of the Royal Palace at Ayutthaya.” Journal of the Siam Society 87, pp. 17–31. Caron, François and Joost Schouten. 1986. A True Description of the Mighty Kingdoms of Japan and Siam. Bangkok: Siam Society. Charney, Michael W. 2004. Southeast Asian Warfare, 1300-1900. Leiden: Brill. Charnvit Kasetsiri. 1976. The Rise of Ayudhya: A History of Siam in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Kuala Lumpur: Oxforfd University Press. Choisy, Abbé de. 1993. Journal of a Voyage to Siam, 1685–1686, ed. Michael Smithies. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Choti Kalyanamit. 2005. Phojananukrom sathapattayakam lae silpa kiao nueng [Dictionary of architecture and related arts]. Bangkok: Muang Boran. Coutre, Jacques de. 1990. Andanzas asiáticas [Asian adventures], edited by Eddy Stols, B. Teensma, and J. Werberckmoes. Cronicas de America 61 series, Historia 16. Madrid: Información y Revistas. Cushman, Richard D. 2000. The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya. A synoptic translation by Richard D. Cushman. Edited by David K. Wyatt. Bangkok: Siam Society. [RCA] Dhiravat na Pombejra. 1993. “Ayutthaya at the End of the Seventeenth Century: Was There a Shift to Isolation?” In: A. S. Reid, ed., Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: Trade, Power and Belief. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Dhiravat na Pombejra. 2012. “Catching and Selling Siamese Elephants in the Seventeenth Century: A Preliminary Study.” Unpublished paper. Forbin, Count Claude de. 1996. The Siamese Memoirs of Count Claude de Forbin 1685– 1688. Introduced and edited by Michael Smithies. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Flood, Chadin (Kanjanavit) with E. Thadeus Flood. 1965. The Dynastic Chronicles Bangkok Era The Fourth Reign B.E. 2394-2411 (A.D. 1851-1868), Volume II, Text. Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies Gervaise, Nicolas. 1998 [1688]. The Natural and Political History of the Kingdom of Siam. Translated by John Villiers. Bangkok: White Lotus. Heeck, Gijsbert. 2008. A Traveller in Siam in the Year 1655: Extracts from the Journal of Gijsbert Heeck, translated by Barend Jan Terwiel. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Kaempfer, Engelbert. 1998. A Description of the Kingdom of Siam. Bangkok: Orchid Press [facsimile of 1727 edition]. Khun chang khun phaen. 1890. Bangkok: Ratsadoncharoen (Wat Ko). Koenig, J. G. 1894. “Journal of a Voyage from India to Siam and Malacca in 1779”, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 26 (January), pp. 59–201. Kotmai tra sam duang. 1994. 5 vols. Bangkok: Khurusapha. La Loubère, Simon de. 1793. A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam. Translated by A.P. Gen. London. Manguin, Pierre-Yves. 1991. “The Merchant and the King: Political Myths of Southeast Asian Coastal Polities”, Indonesia, 52 (October). O’Kane, John, trans. 1972. The Ship of Sulaiman. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Phlainoi, S. 2006. Wannakhadi aphithan [Literature lexicon]. Bangkok: Phim dam. Phraison Salarak, Luang. 1916. “Intercourse between Burma and Siam as Recorded in Hmannan Yazawindawgyi, (Part II)”, JSS, 11, 3 pp. 1–66 Phraratchaphongsawadan krung si ayutthaya chabap mo bratle (Dr Bradley’s version of the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya). 1964. Bangkok: Kosit. Pieris, P. E. 1908. Religious Intercourse Between Ceylon and Siam in the Eighteenth Century: I. An Account of King Kirti Sri’s Embassy to Siam in Saka 1672 (1750 A.D.). Bangkok: Siam Observer. Piriya Krairiksh. 1992. “A Revised Dating of Ayudhya Architecture (II).” Journal of the Siam Society, 80, 2, pp. 11-26. Prathip Phentako. 2008. “Phraratchawong boran” [The ancient royal palace], in Boranasathan nai jangwat phranakhon Si Ayutthaya [Monuments in Ayutthaya Province]. 2 vols. Bangkok: Fine Arts Department and James H. W. Thompson Foundation. Vol 1, pp. 211–237. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Reynolds, Frank E. and Mani B. Reynolds, trans. and ed. 1982. Three Worlds According to King Ruang: A Thai Buddhist Cosmology. Berkeley, University of California Press. Smith, George Vinal. 1980 “Princes, Nobles and Traders: Ethnicity and Economic Activity in Seventeenth-century Thailand.” In Royalty and Commoners: Essays in Thai Administrative, Economic and Social History, edited by Constance M. Wilson, Contributions to Asian Studies, 15, pp. 6–14. Smithies, Michael, ed. 1997. The Chevalier de Chaumont and the Abbe de Choisy: Aspects of the Embassy to Siam 1685. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Souneth Phothisane. 1996. “The Nidān Khun Borom: Annotated Translation and Analysis.” Ph.D. diss., University of Queensland. Stuart-Fox, Martin and Paul Reeve. 2011. “Symbolism in City Planning in Cambodia from Angkor to Phnom Penh” Journal of the Siam Society, 99, 105–38. Sumet Jumsai. 1997. Naga: Cultural Origins in Siam and the West Pacific. Bangkok: Chalermnit Press and DD Books. Tachard, Guy. 1981 [1688]. Voyage to Siam Performed by Six Jesuits Sent by the French King to the Indies and China in the Year 1985. Bangkok: White Orchid. Tamra chang chabap ratchakan thi 1 [Manual of elephants, First Reign edition]. 2002. Committee for Memorial Books and Records for Celebration of the King’s Age Equalling that of King Rama I in 2000. Bangkok: Ruansin. Terwiel, B. J. 2007. “The Drawings of VOC Chief Surgeon Engelbert Kaempfer and the History of Siam.” In: Dhiravat na Pombejra et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the International Symposium ‘Crossroads of Thai and Dutch History’ 9-11 September, 2004, Bangkok: SEAMEO-SPAFA, 233–260. Terwiel, B. J. 1989. “Kaempfer and Thai History: The Documents behind the Printed Texts.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1, 64–80. Thawatchai Tangsirivanich. 2006. Krung si ayutthaya nai phaenthi farang [Ayutthaya in western maps]. Bangkok: Matichon. Van Vliet’s Siam, ed. Chris Baker et al. 2005. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Winai Pongsripian, ed. 2007. Phanna phumisathan phrakhon si ayutthaya: ekkasan jak ho luang [Geographical description of Ayutthaya: Documents from the palace library]. Bangkok: Usakane. Winai Pongsripian. 2005. Kot monthianban chabap chaloemprakiat: phon ngan wijai [Palace law, royal anniversary edition: research report]. 2 vols. Bangkok: Thailand Research Fund.

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The Chevalier de Fretteville (c.1665-1688), an Innocent in Siam Michael Smithies

Some years back I published an article on the fortunes and misfortunes of Lieutenant Beauregard, a young French officer attached to the first French embassy to Siam in 1685, who, after defying death at the hand of the Makassars in 1686, and being made successively governor of Bangkok and Mergui, ended his life in perpetual slavery in Pegu about 1692 (Smithies 1998). The name of another young officer, the Chevalier (sometimes ‘Sieur’, sometimes ‘Monsieur’) de Fretteville, appears intermittently in the texts of the period, one whose death was also untoward, and who emerges as one of the few persons of principles in the scandalous story centring around the treatment accorded by the French General Desfarges to the widow of Phaulkon, generally referred to in the texts as Mme Constance. De Fretteville, though young, was an important actor at key stages of the tumultuous events of the “revolution” of 1688. No novice to the situation in Siam, he had accompanied the Chaumont-Choisy embassy in 1685, and returned to Siam in 1687 with the La Loubère-Céberet embassy of 1687. He is noted as being a midshipman by Choisy, on the Oiseau which left Brest on 3 March 1685 (Choisy 1993: 41). According to Chaumont, he was one of twelve officers and “marine guards” accompanying the ambassador in an honorific capacity (Chaumont and Choisy 1997: 129). Apart from these references, no text speaks of de Fretteville in the different activities of the 1685 embassy. He must have taken part in all the formal occasions, including the presentation in Ayutthaya of Louis XIV’s letter to King Narai on 18 October 1685, and the entertainments laid on for the ambassadors, from elephant hunting to Chinese dinners and gymnastics. Forbin (1996 [1729]), in his account of the 1685 embassy, in which he took part, does not mention de Fretteville, and Tachard (1688/1981: 18) does not bother to name him as being among “the twelve Gentlemen named by the King to wait on the Ambassador”. This is all the more surprising as another Jesuit taking part in the subsequent embassy remarked on de Fretteville’s piety (Hutchinson 1968: 102), and Tachard was not one to overlook such meritorious conduct. When the first embassy was over (and with nothing accomplished, certainly not the conversion of King Narai), it departed from the bar of Siam on 22 December 1685 to return to France, taking the three Siamese envoys to Louis XIV. We learn nothing about Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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de Fretteville on the return journey; Chaumont lists those who stayed behind, but de Fretteville is not one of them. The embassy landed at Brest on 18 June 1686. De Fretteville must nevertheless have made a good impression both while the embassy was in Siam and on the return journey, for, as noted above, he returned to Siam with the subsequent La Loubère-Céberet embassy of 1687, which set sail from Brest on 1 March. While we do not know what de Fretteville did between returning to Brest in 1686 and leaving again for Siam in March 1687, he appears to have used his time profitably, in order to be included among the officers accompanying the second embassy. Clearly his experience counted for something, and certainly so must have parental push. Unfortunately we also know nothing about de Fretteville’s family, except that his father had recommended his son to Céberet (Céberet 20 October 1687 cited in Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992: 67), a director of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales and married to a relative of Madame de Maintenon, the current favourite (and perhaps already the secret wife) of Louis XIV. Back in Siam again, de Fretteville rose to prominence in the dispute over the control of the troops stationed in the fort at Bangkok (on the left or east bank of the Chao Phraya). The French envoys had expected that only French troops would be posted there, but were forced to accept the presence of Siamese troops as well. Phaulkon acted without reference to the envoys, placing de Fretteville in command. When the envoys remonstrated, Phaulkon replied by saying he had to place someone he could trust in the position, and he knew no one else except de Fretteville (cited in Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992: 216). This might have been true, but he could have made the effort to discuss the matter with the official French envoys, already angered at the unexpected presence of Siamese troops, and at the self-appointed role of the Jesuit Tachard as intermediary between the embassy and the Siamese. Tachard himself wrote in his unpublished account of the second embassy that de Fretteville was: young, docile, wise, and full of good intentions, [and] he will be very useful in the service of the King and of Religion. He is forthwith learning the Siamese language, and it is hoped to set him up as the judge in cases of dispute between Christians and pagans, and Monsieur de Constance will use him as necessary as his lieutenant for all kinds of matters. He [Phaulkon] has already made him colonel of all the troops of the King of Siam under Monsieur Desfarges (Tachard AN Col C1 24: f.181v-183r, cited in Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992: 217).

De Fretteville père feared “apparently with some reason, that his son, apprised by Fr Tachard, might bind himself inopportunely to the King of Siam’s service without obtaining particular advantages” (idem: 67). Clearly his father was chary of Tachard’s influence on de Fretteville, and considered his son too easily impressionable. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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One of Tachard’s fourteen specially selected Jesuits for the 1687 embassy, de Bèze, was impressed by the piety, not only of Phaulkon, but also de Fretteville. No matter how overburdened he [Phaulkon] might be by Affairs of State he would still set aside no small portion of the time at his disposal and employed it in prayer to God. This I witnessed myself when we were together at Thléepousson [Thalé Chupson] the royal pleasance some three miles from Louvo [Lopburi]. Having no house of his own there, Constans bade me share the bedroom with himself and Mr de Fretteville (a man whom Constans esteemed for his piety). Both men (Constans especially), fascinated me by the devout manner of their yielding their hearts to God in prayer… (Hutchinson 1968: 101–2).

One needs remember here that de Bèze was instructed by his Jesuit superior Fr de La Chaise, Louis XIVs confessor, to write an account of all that he knew concerning the “revolution” in Siam, of which he was a witness. Already Phaulkon was considered by the Jesuit party as a martyr; the first hagiography by the Père d’Orléans, who never set foot in Siam, was to appear in 1690, only two years after Phaulkon’s death. De Fretteville appears to be have been used by Tachard and Phaulkon as a go-between with the French envoys; for example, on 24 October 1687, “the Sieur de Fretteville came on behalf of M. Constance to pay us his respects” (Smithies 2002: 108). The envoys did likewise: on 23 October 1687, on the occasion of the presentation by the senior envoy, La Loubère, of the insignia of St Michael to Phaulkon, La Loubère sent de Fretteville to inform Laneau, Bishop of Metellopolis, that he was ready to officiate and requesting him to prepare the chapel accordingly (Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992: 113). In his unpublished manuscript, Tachard defended having presented the naval ensigns Joncoux and de Fretteville to Phaulkon before the envoys had met him. I presented M. de Fretteville to him and M. de Joncoux, both lieutenants of the Royal Navy, whom he had asked for from His Majesty. They implored their commander to permit them to pay their respects to the minister, knowing he was close by. Mr de Fretteville remained with him, having received permission from the king and the Marquis de Seignelay [the Secretary of State for the Navy] (Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992: 216-7)

This specific permission seems highly unlikely, and is probably an invention of Tachard. The embassy proper ended with the hasty overland journey of Céberet begun on 13 December 1687 and the acrimonious departure of La Loubère on 3 January 1688 (whose vessel also transported Tachard, by then envoy of King Narai to Pope Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Innocent XI and King Louis XIV). The embassy had accomplished nothing, thanks largely to the meddling of Tachard, who showed signs of paranoia on board, accusing La Loubère of reading his documents through a spy-hole he had fabricated (Tachard, Voyage du Père Tachard à Siam, mss 210v). The troops remained, ostensibly in support of King Narai, and to secure the proposed French bases in the east fort of Bangkok and at Mergui. We are following here the adventures of de Fretteville rather than the broader flow of events leading up to and following Phetracha’s palace coup of 18 May, in which de Fretteville was directly involved. Suffice it to say that, at this stage, with King Narai seriously ill in his palace, Phetracha moved to confine the king and dominate the court, always giving commands in the name of the monarch. On hearing the news of Phetracha’s move on 18 May 1688, Beauchamp, second in command, the younger son of the general, the Chevalier Desfarges, and de Fretteville,1 armed only with their swords, according to most accounts, accompanied Phaulkon to the palace in Lopburi with the intention of securing the throne. Only three texts seemed to think it worthy of noting that Phaulkon, in addition to being accompanied by the three French officers, was attended by “his bodyguard of fifteen Englishmen with their Captain and several Portuguese, all well armed” (Hutchinson 1968: 88; Beauchamp AN Col. C1/25 f.75v), and Vollant des Verquains (1691/2002: 124) noted that Phaulkon was “accompanied by his escort”. All were apprehended by Phetracha and his party on entering the Lopburi palace. The French officers waited for an order from Phaulkon to despatch Phetracha, but the order never came, according to Beauchamp (BN Ms Fr 8210 f.522r-v); they were certainly outnumbered and in no position to offer serious resistance. The French officers were locked up for a few days in the summer palace of Thale Chupson, initially without food or a change of clothes. Beauchamp writes “also placed in prison were the guards of Monsieur Constance and their captain. I asked him why he had not followed his master. He replied that he had not been ordered to” (ibid f.523r). After “five or six days” at Thale Chupson, the French officers were allowed to return to Lopburi. There they found their effects and clothes had been seized; they were offered in lieu those of Phaulkon, which they refused (Beauchamp in BN 8210 f.523v).2 The former second ambassador to France brought horses for them to take Most texts have three French officers going to the Lopburi palace in support of Phaulkon: Beauchamp, the Chevalier Desfarges (the younger son of the general), and de Fretteville; only Vollant des Verquains (1691/2002: 124) has four, all unnamed. The reason for the discrepancy is probably that Vollant was relying on hearsay as he was in Bangkok and the event he describes took place in Lopburi. 2 Phaulkon’s “most precious clothes” were brought, with “all kinds of other effects…the mandarins said that, not being able to restore the same things” the king (in whose name Phetracha acted) offered these. Beauchamp said they could not accept them, “as people from our class never wore other people’s clothes… The mandarins replied it was the custom in the Indies to refuse nothing given by a king” (BN 8210 f.523v). 1

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exercise. Phaulkon was taken away and tortured mercilessly. Beauchamp remarks that while still in the palace “They started by burning the soles of his feet.” He was killed in the forest outside Thale Chupson (on 5 June according to Le Blanc 2003: 59–60). The French officers in Louvo were gradually allowed some freedom. Six,3 including de Fretteville, secretly decided to make a dash for Ayutthaya and the forts at Bangkok. This they did, but were soon caught, and brought back tied to the tails of their horses, which were made to gallop as fast as possible. Bressy, the engineer in the group, died from this treatment (Saint-Vandrille 111.v), being unable to keep up with his horse. King Narai died in Lopburi on 10 July (Hutchinson 1968: 109). According to the often reliable La Touche, Phetracha left Louvo on 31 July for Ayutthaya to have himself crowned. Vollant (1691/2002: 146–7) notes that “on 1st August he [Phetracha] left Louvo with his [Phra Narai’s] body” for the capital, “where he had himself proclaimed king and then crowned”. On 1 August, La Touche informs us that “all the French and English” were taken from Lopburi to Ayutthaya, where they arrived on 3 August; La Touche, by then prisoner in Lopburi, wrote (1998: 336) that he was among them, together with de Fretteville, Saint-Vendry [sic], des Targes and de Lasse. On 9 August, again according to La Touche (idem) all five French officers (including La Touche) were sent by Phetracha, “by then king”, to Bangkok, not to General Desfarges, but to “the general of the Malays” (presumably a senior mercenary of the Siamese, commanding the fort on the Thonburi side of the river), who retained them as prisoners for almost a month, and then handed them over to Desfarges (thus in early September). The usually factually correct “An Account of what Occurred in Louvo in the Kingdom of Siam, and a Summary of what Occurred in Bangkok during the Siege of 1688” (hereafter “What Occurred”), which recorded on a day-to-day basis the events in Bangkok, noted: The 12th [August 1688] there arrived on the other bank [the Thonburi side, held by the Siamese] nine Frenchmen who were the officers detained in Louvo, namely Messieurs de Fretteville, de Saint-Vandrille, des Targes, de Larre, and de La Touche, one soldier and [three?] valets, with orders not to let them pass over to our side, if we were not ready to embark. (Smithies 2004: 112; “What Occurred” AN Paris Col. C1 24 f.158v).

This gives a difference of three days from La Touche’s record, but he wrote up his account after the events he describes, probably several months later. We shall return to this anonymous text. Le Blanc (2003: 60) has the Chevalier Desfarges (the general’s younger son), de Fretteville, Saint-Vandrille, des Targes, and the engineer Bressy, but omits de Lasse, whom La Touche (1998: 315) includes, but also incorrectly includes Beauchamp.

3

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At this stage we must refer to the protracted episode concerning Mme Constance’s jewels, discussed in detail in an earlier article (Smithies 2000). To summarise, the Siamese were anxious to lay hands on what they correctly thought was Phaulkon’s considerable fortune, even though he had given a huge sum to Céberet in order to become a director of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales. Jewels and gold were the preferred investments, so Mme Constance’s anticipated hoard was a prime target. Seeing herself vulnerable, she divided her jewels into three lots. Two were handed to the superior of the Jesuits, who gave them to Beauchamp to give to the Jesuit fathers in Bangkok. Beauchamp, “seeing in his possession two important packets, which he knew did not contain trifles, kept them with him, proposing to hand them over to the persons to whom they were addressed as soon as they knew he was in possession of them” (BN Ms Fr. 6106 59v); in other words, he would not hand them over until they asked for them. The third packet “was confided to a captain in the infantry, who on entering the fortress [in Bangkok] declared he would not relinquish it except on the orders of the person who had placed it in his hands” (Anon BN Ms Fr 6105 ff.59v60r). This person is the trusted de Fretteville, “an infantry captain whom she [Mme Constance] knew to be a man of honour and good faith” (Vollant 1691/2002: 157). She had known him from the time of the first embassy in 1685, and, being a “dévote” herself, was undoubtedly aware of his devout character. When Desfarges learnt about these packets, he demanded that all the jewels be given to him, since he had lent 1,000 écus to Phaulkon, who, being now dead, was not in a position the repay the loan (idem). Two Jesuits were summoned to witness the opening of the packets, which were then inventoried and resealed. When subsequently opened in front of the Barcalon (Kosa Pan) they were found to be extremely deficient. Beauchamp tried to shift the blame on to Saint-Vandrille and des Targes in one (BN Ms Fr.6106 ff.549v-550v) of his two accounts (both justificatory documents written from Holland where he was a prisoner of war), saying the two officers “came to him and told him they had saved the diamonds which Mme Constance had placed in the hands of de Fretteville when they were taken and searched when they were taken to Louvo, and that the Chevalier Desfarges had them, and they requested me to give them their share….”. Beauchamp says he then informed General Desfarges, who said that it was outrageous to take advantage of the lady, summoned his son and ordered him to return the jewels to de Fretteville (Beauchamp BN Ms Fr. 8210 f.550v). This is highly unlikely: Desfarges’ love of money was too well known, and his subsequent treatment of Mme Phaulkon demonstrated too clearly his cupidity. With her out of the way, handed back to the Siamese, he could keep the portion of her possessions he had obtained. So while one account has all the jewels given over to Desfarges père, another, one far from reliable, claims the diamonds and jewels were returned to de Fretteville. Vollant, no friend of Desfarges, has the general going into transports of anger when he heard about Beauchamp and de Fretteville holding some of Mme Constance’s Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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jewels, and insisting on both handing over their contents to him, because of the 1,000 écus lent to Phaulkon by Desfarges (1691/2002: 157). We now need to turn attention to three consecutive entries in the anonymous account “What Occurred” (AN Col C1 23 ff.140-171) which, after discussing events in Louvo, mostly recorded on a day-to-day basis what occurred in the Frenchoccupied fort at Bangkok. Its author noted: “On 1st October the second ambassador who had been to France brought one thousand écus to give to Mr Desfarges and dined with him.” Desfarges therefore had no further excuse to hang on to Mme Constance’s jewels (whether the original loan to Phaulkon was ever in fact made is not known; it may well have been an invention of Desfarges). Nothing is recorded for 2 October, but on “The 3rd [October] Mr de Fretteville was drowned on leaving the Siam4 between 4 and 5 in the evening. He had received the Eucharist [that day] which he did many times each week” (“What Occurred” in Smithies 2004: 114). That de Fretteville probably could not swim is not in the least unusual for the 17th century; furthermore he was an infantry captain. But another account is more detailed, coming from Beauchamp, who is often a liar, and whose letters from the prisons of Middelburg are self-justifications of his conduct in Siam. He writes (Smithies 2004: 84): The Chevalier de Fretteville, who was charged with the diamonds about which I have spoken, went to see Madame Constance, to whom he returned what he had managed to save. Two days later, as he was leaving one of the vessels in which all the officers were coming and going on visits, while he was on the plank, which I had just left, the vessel swinging at anchor with the tide shifted the plank to one side which fell into the water, together with the Chevalier de Fretteville, who was never seen again after entering the water. He was a devout youth who received Holy Communion frequently, who had made his devotions that day, and who had resolved to return to France overland and become a mendicant friar on his arrival.

This “accident” occurred in broad daylight, then, towards the end of the rainy season. But the same reliable day-to-day account gives, for its next entry after recording the death of de Fretteville, something in complete contradiction to Beauchamp: [f.162r] The 4th Madame de Constance arrived in Bangkok with her son and three persons with her,5 led by Sainte-Marie, formerly a ship’s lieutenant [using the name] de Larre… 4 5

One of two Siamese vessels loaned to the French to facilitate their departure from Bangkok. Two oarsmen and her maid, according to Le Blanc. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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There is no reason to doubt this text, and every reason to doubt Beauchamp’s sequence of events. It seems an extraordinary coincidence that de Fretteville drowned the day before the unexpected arrival of Mme Constance with her son at the Bangkok fort, and recorded by the same anonymous officer. Beauchamp’s laying on with a trowel de Fretteville’s religious fervour (probably in great contrast to Beauchamp himself) is, one feels, intended to make one feel happy that de Fretteville entered paradise with a clean slate. Another possibility is that de Fretteville knew that Beauchamp had obtained possession of some if not most of the diamonds; they must have seen each other on board the Siam. There could have been an altercation between the two when on board. Beauchamp left the vessel, having pulled rank or even fought with de Fretteville, and triumphantly stormed off the ship to go in safety to the other vessel alongside, the Louvo. He could have deliberately kicked the plank linking the two vessels, thus causing de Fretteville to fall and drown. Beauchamp seems to write with a guilty conscience when he talks of de Fretteville returning to France to become a mendicant friar. This seems less likely, or merely imaginative, when one takes into consideration yet another anonymous text, Anon BN Fr 6105, at ff.58r-v, unpublished in French, published in English translation in 2004 (Smithies 2004: 29). At this juncture, the author, undoubtedly one of Desfarges’ officers, writes: But Monsieur Desfarges, who desired more than anyone to leave Bangkok, growing lax in several small matters which he should have held out against for the glory of his master [Louis XIV], saw that the arrival of this lady [Mme Constance] brought a delay, and perhaps placed him at the point of restarting the war, as well as having to return her jewels which [58v] he had laid hands on when he learnt she had sent them to his stronghold.

This is perhaps the clearest statement in any contemporary text that Desfarges had gained control of Mme Constance’s jewels. This theme of Desfarges’ cupidity is enlarged upon several times in Robert Challe’s text published in 1979: [his] vulgar avarice, his unreasonable jealousy, his interested trust… cowardly betraying the confidence of the King of Siam and Mr. Constance in him... Under his command, the French… in spite of themselves were responsible for a thousand vile cowardices and lost in that kingdom the reputation of the French name (Challe 1979: 510–1).

Asylum was refused to Mme Constance by the charitable Desfarges. La Touche hints (and Robert Challe repeats this the following year on several occasions) that Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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it was Desfarges’ covetousness, his desire to lay hands on all her jewels, and depart Siam as soon as possible, which guided this decision. It would seem therefore that de Fretteville had managed to save some of the jewels prior to the Louvo-Bangkok flight of the six French escapees, and that some of these may have somehow passed through the hands of Saint-Vandrille and the Chevalier Desfarges (unless that incident is an invention of Beauchamp, which is entirely possible). According to Beauchamp, Mme Constance arrived in Bangkok before de Fretteville died. The anonymous text “What Occurred” (Smithies 2004: 114) seems more likely to be true, since it is a day-by-day record of events. It would seem that de Fretteville was still in possession of some of Mme Constance’s jewels until just prior to, or at the moment of, his death. Mme Constance’s arrival in Bangkok was held to be unexpected; this is perhaps unlikely, but certainly the exact timing of her arrival was not known in advance. La Touche certainly knew more than he lets on in his recently discovered account: Mme Constance was held prisoner and very severely tortured in order to make her reveal where all her husband’s previous stones and jewels had gone. She declared in truth that they had been confided to a person I shall not name and who was not to profit greatly by them. (La Touche in Challe 1998: 314)

This unnamed person is not likely to have been de Fretteville, who was known for both his piety and his honesty; it seems more likely to have been Beauchamp (who was relieved of all his possessions on the return journey when the two French ships put into the Cape without realising Holland and France were again at war). It also seems unlikely, but not impossible, to have been Desfarges himself, since La Touche could not have known when writing his account that Desfarges had died at sea on the way back to France. To be charitable, one should ask if Beauchamp merely confused events in the heat of the withdrawal and his subsequent capture at the Cape and imprisonment in Holland. But his memory of what was in the packet given to de Fretteville is astonishingly detailed; he remembered what he wanted to remember. What is not in doubt is that de Fretteville died from drowning in the Chao Phraya while still young, and the circumstances of his death are extremely suspicious. He may indeed have been upright and honest, sincere in his religious beliefs, but one has the feeling, on reading the contemporary texts, that he was put upon by others more ruthless than himself. Thus ended ingloriously the career of yet another officer drawn into the Siamese imbroglio. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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References Anon. Relation de ce qui s’est passé à Louvo, royaume de Siam, avec un abrégé de ce qui s’est passé à Bangkok pendant le siège en 1688 (AN Col. C1 24ff. 140r-171v). Anon. Relation des principales circonstances qui sont arrivées dans la Révolution du Royaume de Siam en l’année 1687 [sic] (BN MS.Fr. 6105 ff. 1r-70r). Anon. Relation succincte du changement surprenant arrivé dans le Royaume de Siam en l’année 1688. A Siam de la ville de Judia le dernier de novembre 1688. AN Col C1 24 ff. 130v-139v. Beauchamp (Major). Relation des revolutions de la cour de Siam BN Ms Fr. 8210 ff. 506r-570r. Challe, Robert. 1979. Journal d’un Voyage fait aux Indes Orientales 1690-1692, ed. F. Deloffre and M. Menemencioglu. Paris: Mercure de France. -----. 1998. Journal du Voyage des Indes Orientales (containing La Touche, Relation de ce qui est arrivé dans le Royaume de Siam en 1688). Geneva, Droz. Choisy, Abbé de. 1993. Journal of a Voyage to Siam 1685-1686. Trans. and ed. Michael Smithies. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Chaumont, Chevalier de, and Choisy, Abbé de. 1997. Aspects of the Embassy to Siam 1685. Ed. and trans. in part Michael Smithies. Chiang Mai, Silkworm Books. Desfarges, La Touche, and Vollant des Verquains. 2002. Three Military Accounts of the 1688 ‘Revolution’ in Siam. Trans. and ed. Michael Smithies. Bangkok: Orchid Press. Desfarges, [Général]. Lettre écrite à Pondichéry le 27 février 1687 (AN Col. C1 25 ff. 50r-51r). Forbin, Count Claude de. 1996. The Siamese Memoirs 1685-1688. Intro. and ed. Michael Smithies. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Hutchinson, E.W. 1968. 1688 Revolution in Siam: the Memoir of Father de Bèze, S.J., Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Michel. 1992. Etude historique et critique du Journal du Voyage de Siam de Claude Céberet, Envoyé extraordinaire du Roi en 1687 et 1678. Paris: L’Harmattan. Le Blanc, S.J., Marcel. 2003. History of Siam in 1688. Trans. and ed. Michael Smithies. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Saint-Vandrille, Relation des Revolutions arrivées dans le Royaume de Siam … (AN, Col. C1 25 ff.106r-117r). Smithies, Michael. 1998. “Young Beauregard (c.1665–c.1692) soldier of misfortune Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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in Siam,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, third series, 8, 2 (July): 229–235. -----. 2000. “Madame Constance’s jewels.” JSS 88: 111-121 -----. 2002. Mission Made Impossible: The Second French Embassy to Siam 1687. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. -----. 2004. Witnesses to a Revolution: Siam 1688. Trans. and ed. Bangkok: Siam Society. Tachard, Guy. 1688. A Relation of the Voyage to Siam performed by Six Jesuits Sent by the French King to the Indies and China in the Year 1685…London: Churchil [sic]. -----. 1689. Second Voyage du père Tachard et des Jésuites envoyés par le roi au Royaume de Siam…. Paris: D. Horthemels. -----. Voyage du père Tachard à Siam (mss AN Colonies, C1 24 f.172-211). Vollant des Verquains, Jean. Relation datée de Midelbourg, le 17 novembre 1689 (mss AN Col. C1 25ff. 84r-90v). -----. 1691/2002. Histoire de la révolution de Siam arivée en l’année 1688: Particularités de la révolution de Siam arrivée en l’année 1688. Lille: J.C. Malte.

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Tai Words and the Place of the Tai in the Vietnamese Past Liam Kelley

Introduction In 1479, Vietnamese historian Ngô Sĩ Liên completed a history called the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt (hereafter, “Complete Book”). Based on two earlier histories, one of which was drafted in the 13th century and the other shortly before Ngô Sĩ Liên compiled his own text, the Complete Book was the first Vietnamese history to begin in distant antiquity and to discuss people and events in the Red River Delta prior to the advent of Chinese rule in the region. Specifically, the Complete Book records that before the Qin Dynasty incorporated this region into its empire in 111 B.C.E., there had existed a kingdom called Văn Lang which had been ruled over by figures known as the Hùng kings. The Complete Book also describes the geographical extent of Văn Lang and relates that initially after the first Hùng king had come to power, he had, 置相曰貉侯，將曰貉將. . . 王子曰官郎，王女曰媚娘。有司曰蒲正，世 世以父傳子，曰父道。世主皆號雄王。 . . . established ministers called lạc marquises, and generals called lạc generals. . . The princes were called quan lang, and princesses were called mỵ nương. Officials were called bồ chính. From one generation to the next fathers passed [positions] on to their sons. This is called the way of the father [phụ đạo]. The ruler of each generation was called King Hùng.1

I have transliterated the Vietnamese pronunciation for some of the characters in this passage, rather than translate them from the original classical Chinese, because for anyone familiar with that language, it is clear that these are not standard classical Chinese terms. Indeed, there is something alien about these terms, and if we are to believe Ngô Sĩ Liên that these are words which were used some 2,000 years before he compiled his history, then it is clear that the strangeness of these terms is a result of their antiquity. Ngô Sĩ Liên 吳士連, Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư 大越史記全書 [Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt], (1697 ed.), A.3, Ngoại kỷ 1/3a. 1

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How though did Ngô Sĩ Liên know the names for government positions which had existed say 2,000 years earlier? This is a question which appears not to have concerned scholars in Vietnam for hundreds of years after this information was first recorded. That changed, however, in the second half of the 20th century when Vietnamese scholars in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), or North Vietnam, attempted to create a new history for their nation in the post-colonial era. Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s, scholars in the DRV sought to create a history which fit the standards of “scientific” (khoa học) scholarship, and that required explaining how terms could appear in a text some 2,000 years after they were supposedly used. These scholars argued that these terms had been transmitted orally through the centuries. While some were aware that oral transmission is far from exact, they nonetheless attempted to buttress their position with “scientific” reasoning. Historian Trần Quốc Vượng, for instance, noted in general that, “A law of psychology is that the things which should be forgotten are all forgotten, and that which is passed on and remembered by the people is a deep memory.”2 Linguist Hoàng Thị Châu meanwhile noted more specifically with regard to these terms that while information tends to change when it is transmitted orally, the fact that these ancient titles had an alien feel to them at the time that Ngô Sĩ Liên recorded them in the 15th century was a sign that this information had been collected “objectively” (khách quan) and recorded in an “exact” (chính xác) manner.3 Vietnamese scholars at that time therefore argued that these terms definitely dated from before the common era, and this is a position which has largely held. Further, the scholars at that time argued that these terms came from the “ancient Việt language” (tiếng cổ Việt) which was supposedly spoken in the Red River Delta at that time. As we will see below, scholars argued that this ancient language was somehow common to people with whom we today associate such diverse language families as Mon-Khmer, Tai-Kadai, and Austronesian.4 More recently, however, some have argued that these titles are primarily from a Tai language, without clearly explaining why the rulers of an ancient kingdom in “Vietnam” would have used Tai words.5 Trần Quốc Vượng, “Về danh hiệu ‘Hùng Vương’” [On the title, “Hùng king”], in Hùng Vương dựng nước [Hùng kings build the nation], vol. III (Hanoi: Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1973), 354. 3 Hoàng Thị Châu, “Vài nét về tổ chức của xã hội Văn Lang qua tài liệu ngôn ngữ học” [A few comments on the social organization of Văn Lang as seen from linguistic materials], in Hùng Vương dựng nước [Hùng kings build the nation], Vol. 1 (Hà Nội: Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1970): 147. 4 For an example, see, Hoàng Thị Châu, “Tìm hiểu từ ‘phụ đạo’ trong truyền thuyết về Hùng Vương” [Understanding the word “phụ đạo” in legends about the Hùng Kings], Nghiên cứu lịch sử 102 (1967): 22-28. 5 For a representative work, see, Hoang Luong, “Historical Evidence and the Legacy of the Traditional Tai Socio-Political System in Vietnam,” Tai Culture 17 (2004): 43-47. In referring to speakers of Tai languages, Vietnamese scholars use the term “Tày Thái.” “Tày” refers to the 2

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I will argue in this paper that some of these terms can clearly be linked to words used by Tai-speaking peoples. And while it may be the case that in the first millennium B.C.E. there were some proto-Tai-speaking peoples living in the Red River Delta or at least in contact with people in that region, I will also argue that there is no evidence that the above terms from the Complete Book actually date from that period. Instead, I will contend that they most likely date from the 15th century when Ngô Sĩ Liên compiled his historical chronicle. I will also consider why Ngô Sĩ Liên included terms spoken by Tai-speaking peoples in his history. Ultimately, I will argue that the inclusion of these terms is a mark of the changing relations between the Vietnamese and the Tai at that time, as the Vietnamese came to dominate their Tai neighbors. These words therefore reflect an elite Vietnamese view of where the Tai “fit” in the Vietnamese world in the 15th century. Several centuries later, in the second half of the 20th century, Vietnamese scholars also used Tai words to argue for a place for the Tai in Vietnamese history. The place where they envisioned the Tai, however, was very different from that which Ngô Sĩ Liên had suggested. These are thus the topics that this paper will examine. It will consist of both an investigation of the ways in which scholars, particularly Vietnamese scholars, have sought to understand the place of the Tai in Vietnamese history through their investigations of certain Tai words, and then it will attempt to provide a new explanation based on this same linguistic evidence.

The Tai on the periphery of the Vietnamese past Modern scholars have long recognized that historically there was significant contact between Tai-speaking peoples and the people whom we today refer to as the Vietnamese. As early as 1912, the French Sinologist, Henri Maspero, saw so much evidence of linguistic contact that he argued that the Vietnamese language was a Tai language. Maspero felt that the Vietnamese language must have been formed in a geographic area which was at the borders of areas where one found speakers of Mon-Khmer, Tai and Chinese languages, and that Vietnamese was influenced by all of these languages, and perhaps other languages as well. Nonetheless, Maspero attributed particular importance to Tai, and concluded his study by noting that “the language whose dominant influence gave Annamite [i.e., Vietnamese] its modern form was certainly, in my opinion, a Thai language, and it is, I think, with the Thai

groups which speak Central Tai languages like Nung, and who live along what is today the SinoVietnamese border, while “Thái” refers to speakers of Southwestern Tai languages, such as the Black Tai, and who live in what is today the northwestern part of Vietnam. In this paper I use the term “Tai” as a general term to refer to speakers of any language in the Tai family of languages. However, in discussing the work of Vietnamese scholars I will sometimes employ their terminology, particularly when they make a distinction between the Tày and Thái. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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family that the Annamite language must be attached.”6 In addition to seeing Vietnamese as a Tai language, Maspero also saw certain Tai peoples as representatives of what we might label East Asian antiquity. In an essay entitled “The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese and of the Modern Tai”, Maspero compared the lives, festivals, religion, myths and funeral customs of the Black Tai and White Tai who lived in the mountains between Vietnam and Laos in the early 20th century with the same elements in ancient China. Ultimately, Maspero argued that the world which we can see in ancient Chinese texts like the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) closely resembles the world of the Black Tai and White Tai, and that these two peoples therefore represent a common world of antiquity which subsequently was largely lost to various cultural and social developments.7 In other words, to Maspero the Tai were an important people, but that importance lay somewhere in the distant past. The parallels which he saw between the life of the Black Tai and White Tai in the mountains of the Indochinese Peninsula and the lifestyle of the ancient Chinese as revealed in the Classic of Poetry were a clear sign of their antiquity. Further, his study of languages also revealed to him that the Tai family of languages had given rise to Vietnamese. However, Maspero was unable to clearly historicize this process. As a result, he placed the Tai in Vietnamese history, but their position lay at some indeterminate place in the past. Maspero’s general sense of the role of the Tai in the Vietnamese past was echoed in the works of two Chinese historians, Xu Songshi and Chen Jinghe. Xu Songshi was a scholar who engaged in historical research on the Cantonese in particular, and southern China more generally. In the first half of the 20th century, scholars were well aware that in antiquity southern China had been multiethnic, and that one of the groups which had been present there consisted of Tai speakers.8 Xu Songshi contributed to this understanding in a 1946 work entitled Research on the Dai, Zhuang and Yue (“Yue” here refers to the Cantonese). In this study, Xu Songshi points out that there were various place names in southern China and extending into northern Vietnam which came from Zhuang, a Tai language. For instance, he states that there were many place names which began with the character “gu” (古), or “cổ” in Vietnamese, a term which he argues came from Zhuang and has been interpreted in many ways, from meaning “I,” to a classifier, to meaning a mountain with no vegetation on it. He also mentions that such place names could be found in the past from Anhui Province, in what is today central China, to Guangxi Province in the

Henri Maspero, “Études sur la phonétique historique de la langue Annamite: les initiales,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 12 (1912): 118. 7 Henri Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion, trans., Frank A. Kierman, Jr. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 199-247. 8 See, for instance, Wolfram Eberhard, The Local Cultures of South and East China, trans. Alide Eberhard (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968). This work was first published in German in 1942. 6

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southwest, an area which he argues Tai speakers historically inhabited.9 Xu Songshi also cites a work which was published in 1877, Xu Yanxu’s Brief Compilation on Vietnam, which reportedly contains a map of the districts in Vietnam when it was under Chinese control in the early 15th century.10 This map apparently lists place names in what is today northern Vietnam such as the following: Cổ Bàng (古榜), Cổ Lão (古老), Cổ Lễ (古禮), Cổ Dũng (古勇), Cổ Long (古龍), Cổ Phí (古費), Cổ Đằng (古藤), Cổ Hồng (古宏), Cổ Lôi (古雷), Cổ Bình (古平), Cổ Đặng (古鄧), Cổ Xã (古社), and Cổ Nông (古農). Additionally, Xu Songshi states that characters such as tư/si (思), đô/du (都), đa/duo (多), na/na (那), bố/bu (布), and điều/diao (調) also represent Zhuang words, and that in Vietnam during the 15th century there were also place names with these characters, such as the following: Na Ngạn (那岸), Lục Na (陸那), Đa Cẩm (多錦), Đa Dực (多翌), Tư Dung (思 容), Điều An (調安), and Bố Chân (布真).11 Unfortunately, Xu Songshi did not state what these other terms might have meant in Zhuang, although anyone familiar with a Tai language can tell that “na/na” is the term for a field. While Xu Songshi therefore indicated that there was historically a strong Tai presence in the Red River Delta, he did not provide a clear historical explanation for how this happened. He noted that at that time, 1946, there were some 200,000 speakers of Tai languages in Vietnam, and he said that many of these had started to migrate into the region as early as the time of the Han Dynasty.12 However, in 1946 these Tai peoples lived mainly in the mountains, whereas the Tai place names which Xu Shongshi listed came from areas in the Red River Delta stretching southward towards central Vietnam. Hence, Xu Songshi left a great deal unexplained about the Tai presence in Vietnamese history. Shortly after Xu Songshi published the above study, a young Japanese-educated scholar from Taiwan by the name of Chen Jinghe pursued this issue of seemingly Tai place names in Vietnam. Chen Jinghe added still more place names which began with cổ/gu, or characters which sounded similar, such as cự/ju (巨), to Xu Songshi’s list by examining a Vietnamese text from 1335, Lê Tắc’s Brief Treatise on An Nam. This text lists the names of some villages in the area of what is today north-central Vietnam, among which are the following: Cổ Đằng (古藤), Cổ Hoằng (古弘), Cổ Chiến (古戰), Cự Lại (巨賴), and Cự Lam (巨藍).13 Chen then proceeds through a detailed discussion of this term, cổ or cự, Xu Songshi 徐松石, Daizu, Zhuangzu, Yuezu kao 泰族徨族粵族考 [Research on the Tai, Zhuang and Yue] (Yongning, Zhonghua shuju, 1946), 208-9. 10 Xu Yanxu 徐延旭 Yuenan jilue 越南輯略 [Brief Compilation on Vietnam], (1877). 11 Xu Songshi, 131. 12 Ibid., 132. 13 Chen Jinghe 陳荊和, “Yuenan Dongjing difang zhi techeng ‘kẻ’” 越南東京地方之特稱“Kẻ” [The unique name “kẻ” in the Tonkin region of Vietnam], Guoli Taiwan daxue wen shi zhe xuebao 國力臺灣大學文史哲學報 1 (1950): 223-224. Lê Tắc 黎崱, An Nam chí lược 安南志略 [Brief treatise on An Nam], (Siku quanshu ed., orig. comp., 1333) 1/2b-5a. 9

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and ultimately argues that it means “person” or “people.” He then examines the vocabularies of various Tai languages, as well as Cham, Khmer and Mon, and finds that in many Tai languages there are words for “person” which begin with a “k” sound, such as khon in modern Central Thai. From this observation, Chen argues that term cổ or cự is the Vietnamese version of an ancient shared term.14 He does not say that Tai were present in the Red River Delta, but that the Vietnamese brought this term with them as they migrated southward into the region, following an accepted understanding at the time that the Vietnamese had originally migrated southward into the region from areas in southern China. In other words, like Maspero, Chen Jinghe envisioned an important connection between the Tai and Vietnamese, but it was a connection which lay somewhere in the distant past, before Vietnamese history really began. This idea that there was an extremely close connection between Tai languages and Vietnamese, as Maspero had argued, is a position which was eventually challenged in the 1950s by French scholar André-Georges Haudricourt. What Haudricourt suggested, and what scholars since that time have come to agree upon, is that Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language.15 Vietnamese and Tai are therefore very different languages. However, the Vietnamese language shows undeniable signs of contact with Tai languages, and therefore Haudricourt’s finding still left open the question of the nature and history of that contact.

Tai-Vietnamese mixing In the 1950s, after Vietnam gained independence from French colonial rule, some Vietnamese scholars, particularly in the North, under the DRV, began to examine this issue of the historical connections between the Tai and the Vietnamese. In the 1950s and 1960s, historians in the DRV repeatedly urged each other to make new advances in historical scholarship by engaging with the work of linguists, ethnologists and archaeologists. It is through this engagement with other fields— particularly linguistics and ethnology—that Vietnamese scholars in the North touched on the issue of Tai-speaking people in Vietnamese history. Further, scholars at that time worked within a larger political discourse which sought to incorporate minority peoples into the narrative of the Vietnamese nation. This project was complex and at times contradictory, but it served as the general atmosphere in which scholars worked.16 Chen Jinghe, 225-229. For an overview of the scholarship and debates on the linguistic origins of Vietnamese, see Mark Alves, “Linguistic Research on the Origins of the Vietnamese Language: An Overview,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 1.1-2 (2006): 104-130. 16 For an examination of this effort to incorporate minorities into the narrative of the nation, see Patricia Pelley, Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past (Durham: Duke 14 15

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One early work by a Vietnamese scholar, which discussed the role of the Tai in Vietnamese history, was Vương Hoàng Tuyên’s Peoples of Austroasiatic Origin in the Northern Region of Vietnam. Published in 1963, this study combined insights from fields such as ethnology and linguistics to discuss the Tai and other ethnic groups. In this book, Vương Hoàng Tuyên first examines ethnographic evidence, and demonstrates that the Vietnamese share certain cultural practices, beliefs and types of material culture with both Austroasiatic and Tai (Thái is the term he uses throughout) peoples. Among the examples he cites are houses on stilts, certain decorations placed at the ends of roofs, the practices of chewing betel nut and dying one’s teeth, tattooing, and the technique of pounding rice in a container by using a long wooden pestle. As for beliefs, Vương Hoàng Tuyên notes that all of these peoples traditionally held a reverence for rice, a fact which one can ascertain from the images on ancient bronze drums which he argues are also a shared element in the material cultures of Austroasiatic and Tai peoples.17 Vương Hoàng Tuyên then turns to discuss certain cultural practices which are only shared by the Vietnamese and Tai. Here he mentions the worship of dragons as totems, the ritual of honoring a midwife, similar clothing styles among Vietnamese and Tai women, and the custom of holding boat races at the beginning of the year. In addition to these common elements, Vương Hoàng Tuyên argues that certain place names also point to a historical connection between the Tai and the Vietnamese. In particular, Vương Hoàng Tuyên notes that there are many place names in northern Vietnam which contain the term “mường.” In areas inhabited by Tai there are names like Mường La and Mường Lay, while areas where the ethnic Mường live in Hòa Bình Province have names like Mường Vang, and Mường Bi. Based on this evidence, Vương Hoàng Tuyên argues that these place names show that in the distant past the Vietnamese were influenced by Tai culture. He likens this to what he sees as the later influence of the Chinese (or what he calls Hán). Just as the Chinese establishment of administrative control over the region left its mark in place names, so does the continued existence of the term “mường” indicate that there was contact between Tai and Vietnamese prior to that point.18 Having examined these ethnographic ties between the Vietnamese, Tai, and other peoples, Vương Hoàng Tuyên then turns to linguistics. He examines what were then the competing views of the categorization of Vietnamese, Maspero’s claim that it was a Tai language and Haudricourt’s that it was Austroasiatic, and sides with Haudricourt. Nonetheless, Vương Hoàng Tuyên still argues that historically there was a special relationship between the Tai and Vietnamese languages. He says that this is a relationship which scholars had not studied adequately. He therefore tries to University Press, 2002), 69-112. 17 Vương Hoàng Tuyên, Các dân tộc nguồn gốc Nam-Á ở miền bắc Việt Nam [Peoples of Austroasiatic origin in the northern region of Vietnam] (Hà Nội: Giáo dục, 1963), 160-166. 18 Ibid., 166-169. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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give a sense of this connection by indicating certain areas where Vietnamese and Tai clearly shared vocabulary. Vương Hoàng Tuyên did not write any of the Tai terms in a Tai script. He simply used the modern Vietnamese script, quốc ngữ, to transcribe Tai terms. This makes it difficult at times to check the accuracy of his claims. I have provided some of his examples below and added in parentheses the English meanings of terms, as well as possible Black Tai equivalents in brackets, as this is the closest Tai language to those Vương Hoàng Tuyên was likely dealing with for which there is relatively clear documentation.19 1) Words which reveal certain aspects about the economy at a particular stage of development. cày (to plow, cultivate) = thay [BT, thay] bầu (gourd) = pầu [BT, tảo] chuối (banana) = khuối [BT, cuối] 2) Words which represent conditions of life corresponding to the level of an already developed economy. bát (bowl) = pát [BT, thuổi]20 đũa (chopsticks) = thúa [BT, thú]21 ninh (to stew, braise, boil for a long time) = ninh [BT, ?] 3) Words which reveal complex concepts from life. bơi (to row, paddle) = pơi [BT, bải, pái] bịt (to cover) = pít [BT, ?] nợ (debt, to owe) = nơ, ni [BT, ni] After presenting the first three words (plow, gourd and banana), Vương Hoàng Tuyên notes that the use of a plow represents an advanced stage of agriculture. He also states that historical and archaeological information indicate that the use of plows only began in the late first millennium B.C.E., around the time the Chinese established their rule in the region, and he comments that an ancient plow had recently Ibid., 188-189. The reference I am using is Baccam Don, et. al., Tai Dam – English/English – Tai Dam Vocabulary Book (Eastlake, CO: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1989). 20 It looks like Vương Hoàng Tuyên is probably using a word which refers specifically to a monk’s bowl, and is a Pali term. 21 Note that Cheah Yanchong has suggested that the Tai term for chopsticks may come from an old Chinese word, zhu (箸). See his “More Thoughts on the Ancient Culture of the Tai People,” Journal of the Siam Society 84.1 (1996): 42-43. 19

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been discovered in Yên Bái Province, to the northwest of the Red River Delta, in an area inhabited by Tai peoples. This information, and his earlier comment about how the continued use of the term “mường” was similar to the way in which Chineseestablished place names also continued to be used, make it obvious that Vương Hoàng Tuyên thinks that it was the Tai who came and influenced the Vietnamese. Indeed, he eventually puts forth a hypothesis that originally there were Mon-Khmer speakers living in the area of what is today northern Vietnam when at some point in the distant past there was a very large migration of Tai speakers into the region from present-day southwestern China. The resulting “mixing” (hỗn hợp) created the unique population which inhabited the area just prior to the advent of Chinese rule.22 Although today we can find fault with details in Vương Hoàng Tuyên’s scholarship, his overall findings were quite impressive for the time. Vương Hoàng Tuyên tried to make sense of the confusing linguistic and ethnological ties between the Vietnamese, Tai and other peoples, and he came to conclude that while Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language, there are significant connections between Vietnamese and Tai. It is also impressive that Vương Hoàng Tuyên attempted to find a historical explanation for these connections. That said, with the evidence that the word for “plow” came from Tai, and that Tai place names persist, Vương Hoàng Tuyên could have described a process of interaction which was more specific than “mixing.” The evidence he provided and the manner in which he did so could just have easily been used to argue that Tai might have “conquered” certain people before the Chinese came and did the same. However, Vương Hoàng Tuyên refrained from making such a specific argument, and it quickly became impossible to make any such claims.

Sibling nationalities In the 1950s, and into the early 1960s, there was a surprising degree of debate about the past among scholars in the DRV. As the 1960s progressed, however, this started to change, and by the early 1970s, debates about the past were essentially declared settled and closed. The main reason for this change was that the government of the DRV increasingly demanded a history which would fit its vision of the past, and its present need to shore up the nation in a time of war and post-colonial uncertainty. In terms of the history of ethnic relations, the DRV government urged scholars to find a place for the ethnic minority peoples in the national narrative.23 It was imperative then, as it still is today, that this narrative be a story of unity and peaceful coexistence. In reading the scholarship from this period, it is clear that the findings of scholars fulfilled the government’s needs. It is not clear, however, if scholars intentionally 22 23

Ibid., 188 and 193. Again, consult Pelley for more on this. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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did this, and actually believed otherwise, or if they truly believed the government’s view of the past and sought to find evidence of it. Vương Hoàng Tuyên’s conclusion that “mixing” had taken place between Tai and Mon-Khmer in the Red River delta in the face of evidence which suggested a more unequal interaction is an example of this. Nonetheless, he at least provided evidence which readers could use to form their own opinions. In the ultra-nationalistic years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, even the evidence provided by scholars became problematic. An example of this pertinent to our topic here would be the work of the scholar, Hoàng Thị Châu. In the late 1960s, Hoàng Thị Châu wrote a series of articles about the very words mentioned at the outset of this essay. Whether she intended it or not, her scholarship fit perfectly with the state’s needs at that time for evidence that ethnic relations in Vietnam had always been harmonious and familial. In conducting her research, Hoàng Thị Châu was influenced by, among other works, a publication by the American linguist, Paul K. Benedict. In 1942, Benedict wrote an article entitled “Thai, Kadai, and Indonesian: A New Alignment in Southeastern Asia” in which he argued for a connection between what we would today refer to as Tai and Austronesian languages, like Cham and Malay.24 While Benedict did not directly address the question of how or if Tai and Austronesian languages were related to Austroasiatic languages, such as the Mon-Khmer languages which one finds on the Indochinese Peninsula, he did mention in passing that the alignment of Thai-Kadai-Indonesian probably constituted a part of a larger Austric superstock. This later concept had been developed in 1906 by German linguist Wilhelm Schmidt, who had argued that Mon-Khmer and Austronesian languages were related.25 Hence, according to Benedict, if Tai and Indonesian were related, and since Indonesian was clearly an Austronesian language, then following Schmidt there had to be a link between these languages and Austroasiatic languages. Influenced by Benedict’s argument, Hoàng Thị Châu engaged in her study believing that languages as diverse as Zhuang, Khmer and Cham were all ultimately related, and this idea clearly influenced the manner in which she examined those mysterious terms which we find in the Complete Book. One of her articles was devoted to the term phụ đạo, which in the Complete Book literally means “the way of the father,” and which appeared in the lines, “From one generation to the next fathers passed [positions] on to their sons. This is called the way of the father [phụ đạo].” Hoàng Thị Châu argues that phụ đạo was a term which referred to a ruler. She does this by noting that there are similar sounding terms in “ethnic minority languages” (tiếng dân tộc thiểu số) in Vietnam which signified a ruler, such as Cham Paul K. Benedict, “Thai, Kadai and Indonesian: A New Alignment in Southeastern Asia,” American Anthropologist 44 (1942): 576-601. 25 Wilhelm Schmidt, “Die Mon-Khmer Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens” [The Mon-Khmer people, a link between the peoples of Central Asia and Austronesia], Archiv für Anthropologie Neue folge. Bd. V. Hft 1 und 2 (1906): 59-109. 24

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(pa tao), Jarai (pơ tao) Rhade (mơ tao), Bahnar (ba đao), Mường (đạo), as well as Thái and Tày (tạo).26 She also points out that there are records from the period of the Lê Dynasty (1428-1788) in which it is evident that the title phụ đạo continued to be used in areas where Thái, Tày and Mường peoples lived. From this she concludes that the current terms for leader in Thái and Tày (tạo), as well as Mường (đạo), all came from phụ đạo, and that this constitutes an example of a multisyllabic word in “the ancient Việt language” which changed into a monosyllabic word. In addition, Hoàng Thị Châu also notes that the word phụ đạo points to the “kin relations” (quan hệ họ hàng) between Vietnamese and surrounding languages, and that this term enables us to hear “the sound of the spoken language of the past” (âm thanh của tiếng nói thời xưa).27 In a subsequent article, Hoàng Thị Châu examined some of the other terms which we find in the Complete Book. In particular, she focused on the titles for the Hùng king’s sons (quan lang), daughters (mỵ nương), and his officials (bồ chính). In this article, Hoàng Thị Châu attributes these terms to “people’s legends about the establishment of the nation” (truyền thuyết dựng nước của dân tộc), thereby implying that they had been passed down for centuries before they were finally recorded. She also follows the same technique that she employed in the previous article and explains what these terms meant by indicating the existence of cognates in what she labels here, in full accordance with the DRV government’s official vision of ethnic relations within Vietnam, as the “languages of the sibling nationalities” (ngôn ngữ dân tộc anh em). For instance, Hoàng Thị Châu notes that the bồ chính was a person who assisted the Hùng kings, and that among the Jarai, the person who helped their hereditary rulers, pơ tao, was called pô ta rinh. She then examines the term mỵ nương and states that there are connections between each of the two words in this compound and words in other languages. For example, she argues that mỵ corresponds with words which signify a girl or female in such languages as Mường (mại), Cham (ca mái), Bahnar (mai), and Santali (mai), an Austroasiatic language spoken in parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. She also points out that the word in Lao and Thái for woman is me nhinh, but does not explain what either of these terms means. She does note, however, that there is a word, nàng, in Thái and Tày which refers to a woman of high status, which is what she suggests the nương in mỵ nương means. Finally, she argues that there is a Malay and Indonesian term for “lady,” đang, and that this is the same term as nương/nàng, claiming that it is easy for an “n” to change to a “d” and vise versa.28 Hoàng Thị Châu then moves on to examine the term quan lang. She states Hoàng Thị Châu, “Tìm hiểu,” 25. Ibid., 27-28. 28 The term in Malay and Indonesian is actually dayang, an old term for a virtuous woman. Hoàng Thị Châu, “Vai net,” 145. 26 27

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that many writers have argued that the term quan comes from the Chinese word for an official, guan. However, Hoàng Thị Châu rejects this explanation, arguing that the term was used by the Hùng kings, that is, prior to the period of Chinese contact. What is more, she maintains that the term quan lang must be a parallel construction with my nuong, and just as both of the words in the latter term signified a female, quan must signify a male, although she does not provide any evidence for such a term in any language. In the case of lang, however, Hoàng Thị Châu argues that this is a term of respect for a man in Mường, Tày and Thái, and that it is the same word as that for man or person in such languages as Bahnar (dranglo), Rhade (arang), Cham (arang) and Malay and Indonesian (orang).29 At the end of this article, Hoàng Thị Châu notes that the above titles are not close to words used today by Vietnamese. She argues that this is because the inhabitants of the society of Văn Lang are no longer uniform (thuần nhất). Over time they divided into different social classes (tầng lớp xã hội), to the point that they needed their own terms for each class.30 Hence, what Hoàng Thị Châu appears to have believed is that these terms truly represented the sound of “the” spoken language of the past, and that this language was spoken by almost all of the peoples who today inhabit the modern nation-state of Vietnam. This view was echoed in the work of Trần Quốc Vượng around this time, who argued that the term hùng in the title, Hùng kings, is an ancient Việt word which is close to the words for a leader in Tai (khun) and Mundari (khunzt), an Austroasiatic language.31

The Tai confederation of Nam Cương While scholars like Hoàng Thị Châu and Trần Quốc Vượng were drawing connections between Vietnamese and various other languages, other scholars were developing a historical explanation for a particularly close relationship between Vietnamese and Tai speakers. This explanation was based on the activities of a mysterious historical figure by the name of King An Dương (An Dương Vương). According to the Complete Book, the Hùng kings ruled for generations over their kingdom of Văn Lang until in 257 B.C.E an individual attacked and overthrew the final Hùng king and declared himself King An Dương. King An Dương appears to have been an actual historical figure. The main source of information about him comes from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region (Jiaozhou waiyu ji), a Chinese work from either the late 3rd or early 4th century C.E. This work is no longer extant, but passages from it are preserved in a 6th century text, Li Daoyuan’s Annotated Classic of Waterways (Shuijing zhu). There it is recorded that at some point in the past there were rulers in the area of what is today Ibid., 146-146. Ibid., 147. 31 Trần Quốc Vượng, 354-355. 29 30

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the Red River Delta who were called “Lạc” not “Hùng” kings, a topic we will turn to later in this paper, and that they were later defeated by King An Dương. To quote, The Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region states that “In the past, before Jiaozhi [Việt, Giao Chỉ] had commanderies and districts, the land had lạc fields. These fields followed the rising and falling of the floodwaters, and therefore the people who opened these fields for cultivation were called Lạc people. Lạc kings/princes and Lạc marquises were appointed to control the various commanderies and districts. Many of the districts had Lạc generals. The Lạc generals had bronze seals on green ribbons. Later the son of the Thục/Shu king led 30,000 troops to attack the Lạc king. The Lạc marquises brought the Lạc generals under submission. The son of the Thục/Shu king thereupon was called King An Dương. Later, King of Southern Yue [Nam Việt/ Nanyue] Commissioner Tuo [i.e., Zhao Tuo] raised troops and attacked King An Dương.”32

In this passage, King An Dương is said to have been the son of the Thục/ Shu (蜀) king. Thục, or Shu in Chinese, is the name of an ancient kingdom which once existed in the area of what is today Sichuan Province. Shu was conquered by the kingdom of Qin in 316 B.C.E., roughly a century before the Qin Dynasty conquered the area of what is now northern Vietnam, and also long before the year of 257 B.C.E. when the Complete Book claimed that King An Dương defeated the last Hùng king. In Vietnamese sources we can also find King An Dương referred to sometimes as the prince of Shu, sometimes as the king of Shu, and sometimes Shu appears as a surname. As such, there is a great deal of historical confusion surrounding this figure, and various scholars over the years have sought to clarify who he was. Some Vietnamese scholars in the 19th century, for instance, argued that he could not have been from Shu because there were other kingdoms in between.33 In the 1950s, however, historians Trần Văn Giáp and Đào Duy Anh argued that he was from Shu.34 Then in the early 1960s a new “document” about this figure emerged. In 1963, the North Vietnamese journal, Historical Research, published a translation by Lã Văn Lô of a story from the Tày, a Tai-speaking people in Cao Bằng Li Daoyuan 酈道元, comp., Shuijing zhu 水經注 [Annotated Classic of Waterways], (ca. 515524 C.E.), 37/7a-b. There is one term in this passage, 王 vương/wang, which can be translated as either “king” or “prince.” 33 Khâm định Việt sử thông giám cương mục 欽定越史通鋻綱目 [Imperially Commissioned Outline and Digest of the Comprehensive Mirror of Việt History], (1881), A. 2674, Tiền biên 2/6b. Hereafter, KĐVSTGCM. 34 Trần Văn Giáp, “Một vài ý kiến về ‘An Dương Ngọc Giản’ và vấn đề Thục An Dương Vương” [Some opinions concerning the “An Dương Jade Tablet” and King An Dương of Thục], Văn sử địa 28 (1957): 57 and Đào Duy Anh, Lịch sử cổ đại Việt Nam [History of Vietnamese antiquity], (Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Văn Hóa Thông Tin, 2005, orig. pub., 1957), 375. 32

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Province, called “Nine Lords Compete to Become King” (Cẩu chủa chenh vùa). This story related information about King An Dương, and claimed that he was from the area of Cao Bằng and Guangxi, and that in the 3rd century B.C.E. he controlled a confederation of ten mường called “Nam Cương.”35 The publication of this translation created a great deal of interest, and in 1969 the Institute of Archaeology sent a delegation to Cao Bằng to investigate where this story came from and to see if they could identity any archaeological remains which corresponded with this tale. Their search for archaeological evidence proved unsuccessful, but their investigation into the origins of the “Nine Lords Compete to Become King” tale produced a story of its own. The delegation from the Institute of Archaeology found that this story had originally been written down by a certain Lê Đình Sự, who also went by the names Lê Sơn and Lê Bỉnh Sư. Lê Đình Sự was Tày and had initially worked as a teacher. He had asthma which became so severe at one point that he had to spend time at home convalescing. It was at this point that he “collected” (sưu tầm) various Tày stories and wrote them down in prose. Later, someone created a Tày verse version of this story. This is ostensibly what Lã Văn Lô had then translated into Vietnamese, however the delegation could not determine this for sure as the person who owned the copy which Lã Văn Lô supposedly translated had died.36 As such, the authorship of this text was so convoluted as to seriously compromise its validity as a document for historical research. Further, without a Tày original to examine, scholars had to rely on Lã Văn Lô’s Vietnamese translation, which from the title alone already looked suspicious. The title in Tày, according to Lã Văn Lô, was “Cẩu chủa chenh vùa,” which was almost identical to the translated title in Vietnamese of “Chín chúa tranh vua.” “Cẩu” is the word for “nine” in many Tai languages, however the rest was simply Vietnamese words written with different tones or a slightly different spelling. Yet despite all of these issues, the delegation from the Institute of Archaeology still concluded that the story was at its core authentic, and that there were probably some Tày who shared origins with King An Dương.37 With a connection between the Tày and King An Dương thus “established” by means of the “Nine Lords Compete to Become King” tale, later historians used the figure of King An Dương to provide a historical explanation for the close ties between Lã Văn Lô, intro. and trans., “Quanh vấn đề An Dương Vương Thục Phán, hay là truyền thuyết ‘Cẩu chủa chenh vùa’ của đồng bào Tày” [Concerning the Problem of King An Dương, Thục Phán, or the story “Nine Lords Compete to Become king” of the Tày Compatriots], Nghiên cứu lịch sử 50 (1963): 48-57. 36 Phạm Như Hồ and Đỗ Đình Truật, “Vài ý kiến quanh truyền thuyết ‘Cẩu chủa chenh vùa’” [Some Opinions Concerning the Story “Nine lords Compete to Become king”], in Hùng Vương Dựng Nước [The Hung Kings Establish the Nation], Vol. 3 (Hà Nội: Khoa Học Xã Hội, 1973): 395-396. 37 Ibid., 400-401. 35

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Vietnamese and Tai. The earliest sources for information about King An Dương are Chinese, and the information they contain is very brief, merely mentioning that he came to power.38 The early Chinese sources where this information appears, such as Sima Qian’s Historical Records and Li Daoyuan’s Annotated Classic of Waterways, also contain many names for people who inhabited the area of what is today southern China and northern Vietnam. For instance, they mention such names as Đông Việt/ Dongyue (東甌), Lạc Việt/Luoyue (駱越), Âu Việt/Ouyue (甌越), Tây Âu/Xi’ou (西甌), Âu Lạc/Ouluo (甌駱), and Tây Âu Lạc/Xi Ouluo (西甌駱). In their passages on King An Dương, however, these sources merely mentioned that the people he defeated before coming to power were called the Lạc. Centuries after this information was recorded in Chinese texts, the Vietnamese Complete Book provided more details about King An Dương. It notes that after he conquered the last Hùng king, he established a kingdom called Âu Hạc.39 This term, Âu Hạc/Ouhao (甌貉), does not appear in any Chinese sources. Indeed, Chinese sources do not provide a name for King An Dương’s kingdom. Vietnamese today transliterate this name as Âu Lạc rather than Âu Hạc, and argue that the Vietnamese wrote the character, lạc, differently. However, it is still only in Ngô Sĩ Liên’s 15th century Complete Book that this name first appeared. Therefore, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding this supposed name of King An Dương’s kingdom, as it only appears in a Vietnamese source over 1,500 years after it had supposedly existed, and contains a character which does not accord with any previous historical information.40 Despite all of these questions concerning the supposed name of King An Dương’s kingdom, Vietnamese historians in the second half of the 20th century put aside all of these issues and interpreted this name, Âu Hạc/Lạc, as signifying that King An Dương had created a kingdom which unified two peoples, the Lạc Việt and the Âu Việt or Tây Âu. Further, the Lạc Việt were identified as the main ancestors of the Vietnamese, whereas the Âu Việt were loosely associated with the Tày ethnic In addition to the passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region, there is an 8th century commentary to Sima Qian’s Historical Records which cites a work called the Record of Guang Region (Guangzhou ji) for the same information. See also, Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji 史記 [Historical Records], (Siku quanshu ed., orig. comp., first cent. B.C.E.), 113/3b. 39 Ngô Sĩ Liên, Ngoại kỷ 1/6a. 40 The above-mentioned 8th century commentary to Sima Qian’s Historical Records does state that after Zhao Tuo defeated King An Dương, he ordered two commissioners to take control of the two commanderies of Jiaozhi and Jiuzhen. These terms were being used anachronistically as they were created later by the Han Dynasty. In any case, they refer to an area equivalent to what is today the Red River Delta and north-central Vietnam. This commentary then indicates that this area was the same as Âu Lạc/Oulue, however it does not indicate that this was the name of King An Dương’s kingdom. Further, the point of this commentary was to argue that terms such as Lạc/Luo, Tây Âu Lạc/Xi Oulue and Âu Lạc/Oulue refer to the same people and places. This was a different perspective from what we will see in the next paragraph that modern Vietnamese scholars have argued. See Sima Qian, 113/3b. 38

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group, a group who today inhabit the Sino-Vietnamese border region and are closely related to the Zhuang.41 This practice of assigning actual ethnic groups to ancient names is of course an extremely problematic endeavor.42 Perhaps nothing reveals this better than the fact that today the Zhuang in China also argue that they are descended from the ancient Lạc Việt, or Luoyue in Chinese.43 Obviously the Zhuang and the Vietnamese cannot both be right. Nonetheless, as far-fetched as this willful imagining of the past may be, this interpretation of Âu Hạc/Lạc began to appear in texts about Vietnamese history by the 1980s, and it influenced the way in which scholars viewed the past.

The wet rice socio-cultural model A perfect example of this is the work of linguist Phạm Đức Dương. In 1982, Phạm Đức Dương wrote a very important article on the role of Tai speakers in early Vietnamese history called “The Origin of the Wet Rice Socio-Cultural Model of the Việt People from Linguistic Evidence.” In this article, Phạm Đức Dương discovers that there is a shared “structure” (cơ cấu) of vocabulary between what he calls Tày Thái and Việt Mường pertaining to wet rice agriculture and the cultural, social, economic and political practices associated with the cultivation of wet rice. In particular, he notes that many words in Vietnamese dealing with wet rice agriculture all come from Tày Thái. For instance, both share a common word for rice = gạo/ khẩu [BT, khảu], and they also make the same distinction between two main types of rice: glutinous rice, gạo nếp = khẩu dếp (Tày)/khẩu niêu (Thái) [BT, khảu ón], and regular white rice, gạo tẻ = khẩu te (Tày)/khẩu xẻ (Thái) [BT, khảo sẻ].44 In order to grow wet rice, one needs to be able to control the necessary water. Phạm Đức Dương finds that Việt Mường words pertaining to this topic, such as mương phai (“irrigation canal”) [BT, mương = irrigation ditch, phai = dam] and guồng (“waterwheel”) [BT, cuống], come from Tày Thái . Based on this information, he argues that the Việt Mường must have learned about wet rice agriculture and water control from the Tày Thái. He also points out that the Tày Thái created political entities (baan and muang) which were centered around the control of water in a Phan Huy Lê, et al., Lịch sử Việt Nam [History of Vietnam], Tạp I (Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Đại Học và Trung Học Chuyên Nghiệp, 1985), 127-129. 42 For an insightful discussion of the problem viewing ethnicity through ancient Chinese names, see Erica Brindley, “Barbarians or Not? Ethnicity and Changing Conceptions of the Ancient Yue (Viet) Peoples, ca. 400-50 BC,” Asia Major 16.1 (2003): 1-32. 43 Anthony V. N. Diller, Jerold A. Edmondson and Yongxian Luo, eds., The Tai-Kadai Languages (London: Routledge, 2008), 319. 44 Phạm Đức Dương, “Cội nguồn mô hình văn hóa – xã hội lúa nước của người Việt qua cứ liệu ngôn ngữ” [The Origin of the Wet Rice Socio-cultural Model of the Việt people from Linguistic Evidence], Nghiên cứu lịch sử 206 (1982): 43. I am placing Black Tai equivalents here for reference, as Black Tai is one of the main Tai languages in Vietnam. 41

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given area, and argues that the Việt Mường likely learned this way of establishing political control over an area from the Tày Thái as well, although there is no shared vocabulary to support this claim.45 While Phạm Đức Dương provides solid evidence of shared vocabulary between the Tày Thái and Việt Mường concerning wet rice agriculture, his efforts to explain the nature of the interactions between these two peoples in the past is much more problematic. At times he states that the Việt Mường learned about wet rice agriculture and Tày Thái socio-political structures in the foothills, and then they moved out into the Red River delta where they subsequently developed in ways which made them distinct from the Tày Thái. For example, with the case of rice, Phạm Đức Dương argues that the Việt Mường made a transition in the past from eating sticky rice to eating white rice. Without providing any sense of when or why this happened, he states that as the population of the Việt Mường grew, they moved from the foothills into the delta region and switched to growing white rice which produces a higher yield as it can be harvested two times a year. Nonetheless, the fact that sticky rice is still used in some rituals, he argues, suggests that at one time in the distant past, sticky rice was the main form of rice which the predecessors of the Vietnamese, the Việt Mường, ate.46 Phạm Đức Dương argues for a similar transition in the kinds of fields which were cultivated in the past. He notes that there are two main kinds of fields in growing rice. Tày Thái refer to fields for growing wet rice as “na” [BT, ná] and mountain fields for growing dry rice as “hãy” [BT, hay]. Some Mường, meanwhile, make the distinction between growing wet rice in “na,” like Tày Thái, and “roọng” for dry rice. Phạm Đức Dương then notes that the Tày Thái and the Mường both view the cultivation of wet rice fields as superior to that of mountain fields, and see people who do so as more civilized. Nonetheless, many Tày Thái and Mường, particularly those who live at lower elevations, make use of both of these types of fields, and find mountain fields to be indispensible to their livelihood. This structure, Phạm Đức Dương then adds, is replicated by the Vietnamese in delta areas who combine wet rice fields, or “ruộng,” with gardens, or “vườn,” a term which comes from Chinese and which Phạm Đức Dương argues was employed to differentiate these plots of land from mountain fields. Further, Phạm Đức Dương notes that while Vietnamese do not see an opposition between “ruộng” and “vườn,” they do view those who cultivate wet rice as superior to people who live in the mountains and cultivate rice there in terraced fields. Phạm Đức Dương’s point then is that the Vietnamese maintained a “dual-field” concept, but changed it, ostensibly as they developed separately from the Tày Thái after having moved into the Red River delta.47 Ibid., 44 and 48. Ibid., 44. 47 Ibid., 44 and 51. 45 46

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At the same time that Phạm Đức Dương makes these arguments about Việt Mường learning from the Tày Thái in the foothills about wet rice cultivation and then moving into the delta, he also talks about the Tày Thái and Việt Mường living together in the Red River delta in a context in which the Tày Thái possessed more sophisticated knowledge than the Việt Mường. Phạm Đức Dương notes the importance of dykes for the Việt Mường in their effort to control the Red River, and argues that the building of dykes grew out of the practice of constructing either irrigation canals or citadels, both of which he says were introduced by Tày Thái. Further, as examples of early citadels in the region, he mentions Cổ Loa, right in the heart of the Red River Delta, and Xám Mứn, in the area of what is today Điện Biên Phủ, both of which he says were initially constructed by Tày Thái.48 In making this argument, however, Phạm Đức Dương does not explain why the word for “citadel” in Việt Mường (thành) and Tày Thái (chiêng) comes from Chinese (cheng).49 In addition to seeing the Tày Thái as leading the way in constructing citadels in the Red River Delta, Phạm Đức Dương also argues that the Tày Thái were the first to establish political structures in the region as well. He states that while the Việt Mường and Tày Thái were living together in the delta, they had to work to manage water and to protect themselves from threats from the north. Several Tai polities, or muang, probably emerged in the process, but eventually one was credited with being the most powerful and important. Members of the ruling family in this muang were sent out to rule over other muang and with this you had the emergence in the delta of the baan muang system, that is, what scholars recognize as a distinctly Tai political structure. Phạm Đức Dương adds that the head of this new super muang was called phò khun in Tai. Here he agrees with Trần Quốc Vượng that the term, “hùng,” in the title “Hùng king” comes from this Tai term. Below the phò khun, Phạm Đức Dương argues, were leaders of subsidiary muang called phụ đạo, a term which Phạm Đức Dương follows scholars like Hoàng Thị Châu in stating that it is preserved in the Thái and Mường words for a ruler, “tạo” and “đạo,” respectively. Finally, he says that there were pò chiềng who were in charge of the main muang’s administrative center, where the phò khun lived, and where the main citadel, or “chiềng,” was located. This entire baan muang system, Phạm Đức Dương also notes, is precisely what Chinese “described” (miêu tả) when they first encountered the region.50 Phạm Đức Dương’s interpretation of the past is fraught with misunderstandings and contradictions. He has the Việt Mường learning about wet rice agriculture from the Tày Thái in the foothills and then taking this knowledge into the Red River delta at the same time that he has the Tày Thái in the delta building citadels. Then Ibid., 45. Cheah Yanchong, “The Ancient Culture of the Tai People: The Impact of the Hua Xia Culture on it and its Implications,” Journal of the Siam Society 76 (1988): 232-233. 50 Ibid., 49. 48 49

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he employs terms which we only find in the 15th century Complete Book to indicate the world which he says the Chinese “described” centuries earlier. Finally, he also says that these terms in the Complete Book are definitely Tai, but that these works describe “a political structure in the style of the ancient Tày Thái society which the Việt Mường were already using” (tổ chức chính trị kiểu xã hội Tày Thái cổ mà người Việt Mường đã áp dụng).

Distancing the Tai in the 15th century This conceptual chaos which we find in Phạm Đức Dương’s article is due in part to the fact that Vietnamese scholars have never clearly determined which historical sources are acceptable for examining early Vietnamese history and which are not. King An Dương’s supposed kingdom of Âu Lạc is a case in point. Its first appearance as Âu Hạc in a Vietnamese text over 1,500 years after King An Dương reportedly lived is a very strong sign that this name was a medieval invention. In fact, almost all of the recorded information about Vietnamese antiquity is a medieval invention, for it was during that period that some Vietnamese scholars attempted to create a more hallowed history for themselves. In this process, Tai-speaking peoples played an important role. To understand this, we need to gain a sense of the actual historical contact which Vietnamese had with Tai-speaking peoples, as well as how it is that some Vietnamese invented an antiquity for themselves. While there is some linguistic evidence to suggest that some contact between speakers of Tai and Mon-Khmer languages may have occurred very early, it is when Tai peoples started to migrate out of the Guangxi region that historical evidence of Tai-Vietnamese contact becomes apparent.51 While this is a process which is difficult to document, we can find traces of the movement of Tai peoples in Chinese historical records. With the conflicts that occurred in the 860s related to the kingdom of Nanzhao’s expansion, for instance, we can find references to Tai soldiers arriving in the Red River delta. The Book of the Savages mentions a group of “Mang Savages” (茫蠻) who called their rulers “zhao mang” (詔茫, i.e., cao muang in Tai word order). It records further that in 863 a regiment of two to three thousand of these Mang Savage men congregated on the bank of the Tô Lịch River which flows by Hanoi.52 What became of these men is not recorded, but we can assume that they likely represent a larger movement of peoples at that time. Better documented is the conflict between the Vietnamese Lý Dynasty and According to linguist Michel Ferlus, the basic term for rice in Tai languages, “khaw,” originates from a Mon-Khmer root meaning “husked rice.” See Michel Ferlus, “The Austroasiatic Vocabulary for Rice: Its Origin and Expansion” (paper presented at The Twentieth Anniversary Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, Zurich, Switzerland, June 10-11, 2010). 52 Fan Chuo 樊綽, Manshu 蠻書 [Book of the Savages], (Siku quanshu ed., orig. comp., 9th century), 4/10b-11a. 51

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Nong Zhigao (Nùng Trí Cao), a Tai ruler who established a kingdom in the 11th century in the area of what is today the Guangxi-Vietnam border.53 The Vietnamese wished to make Nong Zhigao a vassal, but he rebelled and declared the establishment of a “Kingdom of the Southern Heaven” (Nantian guo). The conflict which ensued clearly led to contact between Vietnamese and Tai, however this incident also points to what must have been shared elements among the Tai and Vietnamese elite in this period. In particular, it is obvious that both participated in a world of Sinitic political signs and meanings. Whereas the Red River Delta had long been exposed to Chinese ideas of rulership, during the course of the Tang and Song Dynasties some of the Tai peoples in the area of what is today Guangxi Province also experienced a few centuries in which they were gradually incorporated into the Chinese realm. Chinese granted Tai leaders official titles and even established some schools and trained some Tai to take the civil service exams.54 In the 11th century when Nong Zhigao rebelled, this process was far from complete, but it points to the fact that there was likely at least a shared political vocabulary and culture among the elite from diverse ethnic groups in this region. That Vietnamese rulers were willing to offer their daughters to local Tai rulers in marriage, as one did in 1029 C.E., to ensure that they maintained peace along the northern border, is further evidence of this.55 In addition to this contact with Tai, who were in some ways their cultural and political counterparts, the Vietnamese also encountered Tai peoples who they clearly viewed as their inferiors. Referred to at times as “Lạo Tử” (獠子), the account below is representative of how these peoples were characterized.56 Lạo Tử is another name for savages. There are many in Huguang and Yunnan. Some serve Giao Chỉ.57 There are also some who tattoo their foreheads and bore their teeth. There are quite a few different types of them. It was recorded in the past that there are Head-Shaped Lạo Tử, Red-Pants Lạo Tử and NoseFor more on this rebellion, see James Anderson, The Rebel Den of Nùng Trí Cao: Loyalty and Identity Along the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007). 54 References concerning the political incorporation of Tai and other aboriginal peoples in the Guangxi area during the Tang and Song can be found in Fan Chengda, Treatises of the Supervisor and Guardian of the Cinnamon Sea, trans., James M. Hargett (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010), 148-232. For evidence about the reach of the civil service examination to this same area, see Araki Toshikazu, “Nung Chih-kao and the K’o-chü Examinations,” Acta Asiatica 50 (1986): 73-94. 55 Việt sử lược 越史略 [Summary of Việt history], (Siku quanshu ed., orig. comp., fourteenth cent.), 2/7b. 56 This first character can be pronounced Liêu in Vietnamese and Liao in Chinese. However, when referring to these peoples who inhabited an area from southwestern China into the Vietnam-Laos border regions, this character is usually pronounced Lạo/Lao. 57 “Huguang” refers to the area of what is today Hunan and Guangxi Provinces. “Giao Chỉ” (Chn., Jiaozhi) is an old name for the Red River delta region. It is not clear how the Lạo Tử “served” (服 役, phục dịch) Giao Chỉ as this term can refer to labor or military service. 53

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Drinking Lạo Tử.58 They all live in cliff caverns or nest huts. They drink wine through reeds. They are fond of warring with enemies and they beat bronze drums. They value big ones. When a drum is first completed, they place it in a courtyard with wine and invite their fellow kind. Those who come fill [the courtyard] to the gates. The daughter of the notable takes a gold or silver hairpin and strikes the drum, after which she leaves it with the owner.59

While this 14th century account did not state where the Lạo Tử lived, a 15th century Chinese work, the Treatise on Annan, indicated that the Lạo Tử lived to the west of the Red River Delta in the mountainous region which stretches towards what is today the Lao border.60 Hence, the Vietnamese had Tai peoples to their north and west, and in the 15th century their relationship with some of these peoples, particularly those in the northwest, changed. Historian Li Tana has documented how after the Ming occupation (1406-1427) the Vietnamese expanded their control towards the northwest into Tai controlled areas. She argues that this process of expansion was not only military but also cultural in that the Vietnamese came to clearly differentiate themselves from their Tai neighbors and to view themselves as superior.61 While such a self-perception likely existed to some extent in earlier times, as is evidenced by the Lý Dynasty’s desire that Nong Zhigao serve as a vassal, the historical evidence from the 15th century demonstrates a hardening of this position.62

Inventing ancient Vietnamese kings This hardening of a sense of superiority occurred at the same time that members of the Vietnamese elite were inventing an antiquity for their land, one in which the Red River Delta had supposedly been ruled over by generations of rulers called Hùng kings. While it is possible that this invention of antiquity began earlier, it seems to have come to maturation in the 15th century in a collection of stories about the Red River delta region called the Arrayed Tales of Selected Oddities from South of the Passes (hereafter, “Arrayed Tales”). The opening story in that collection, The name “Head-Shaped Lạo Tử” (頭形獠子, Đầu Hình Lạo Tử) is likely a mistake for the name “Flying-Head Lạo Tử” (飛頭獠子, Phi Đầu Lạo Tử). See Fan Chengda, 180. 59 Lê Tắc, 1/20a. 60 The actual title of what I am calling the Annan zhi 安南志 [Treatise on Annan] as it is preserved today is Annan zhiyuan 安南志原, but this title does not make sense, and the added character is likely a mistake. For the reference to the Lạo Tử in this work, see Léonard Aurousseau, ed., Ngannam tche yuan [Annan zhiyuan] (Hanoi: École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1923), 212-14. 61 Li Tana, “The Ming Factor and the Emergence of the Việt in the 15th Century,” in Southeast Asia in the Fifteenth Century: The China Factor, eds., Geoff Wade and Sun Laichen (Singapore: NUS Press, 2010), 84-93. 62 See, for instance, the documents and inscriptions cited in E. Gaspardone, “Annamites et Thai au XVe Siècle,” Journal Asiatique 231 (1939): 405-436. 58

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“The Tale of the Hồng Bàng Clan,” consists of a detailed genealogy which traces a line of descent from the mythical ancient Chinese ruler Shen Nong to the Hùng kings.63 Scholars have long doubted the veracity of this genealogy, and indeed a close textual investigation demonstrates clearly that it is a fabrication.64 However, not only was a genealogy of descent to the Hùng kings a medieval invention, but the Hùng kings themselves were as well. Further, their invention is connected to the Tai. To understand this requires that we proceed through a somewhat detailed examination of various texts. The earliest record which mentions rulers in the Red River delta is the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region, which contains the passage noted above about Lạc people working lạc fields and ruled over by Lạc kings, Lạc marquises and Lạc generals before they were defeated by King An Dương. This passage was cited in several later Chinese works and was slightly altered with each new appearance. One transformation which eventually took place is that the term “lạc” was replaced by the term “hùng” which closely resembles it, to make “hùng fields,” “Hùng kings,” “Hùng marquises” and “Hùng generals.” The “The Tale of the Hồng Bàng Clan” in the Arrayed Tales, however, did something novel. It combined both of these terms and referred to the kings as “Hùng kings” but stated that they were assisted by “Lạc marquises” and “Lạc generals.”65 Ngô Sĩ Liên’s late 15th century Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, like the “Tale of the Hồng Bàng Clan” in the Arrayed Tales, also referred to “Hùng kings,” “Lạc marquises” and “Lạc generals.” Further, Ngô Sĩ Liên’s Complete Book included additional information about a Hùng king and events which took place around a mountain on the western edge of the Red River Delta known as Mount Tản Viên. According to the Complete Book, in the final years of the period of the Hùng kings, the Hùng king at that time had a beautiful daughter named Mỵ Nương. The Thục/Shu king heard about her and visited to request her hand in marriage. The Hùng king was persuaded by the Lạc marquises to not consent, as they felt that this was a ploy on the part of the Thục/Shu king to take control of the kingdom. The tale then goes on to discuss how a mountain sprite (山精, sơn tinh) and water sprite (水精, thủy tinh) subsequently came and competed for Mỵ Nương. In the end, the mountain sprite won and took Mỵ Nương to live on Mount Tản Viên. Angered, the water sprite then attacked the mountain sprite thereby initiating a perennial feud which took place at the beginning of the rainy season. The story then concludes with Vũ Quỳnh 武瓊, comp., Lĩnh Nam chích quái liệt truyện 嶺南摭怪列傳 [Arrayed Tales of Selected Oddities from South of the Passes], (n.d., orig. comp., 1492), A. 1200, 1/12a-16b. Although this work contains a preface by Vũ Quỳnh which dates from 1492, most scholars believe that the work was compiled by multiple authors over an extended period of time. 64 Liam C. Kelley, “The Biography of the Hồng Bàng Clan as a Medieval Vietnamese Invented Tradition,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 7.2 (2012): 87-130. 65 Vũ Quỳnh, 1/8a. 63

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the Thục/Shu king ordering his grandson to attack and annex the kingdom.66 His grandson, it turns out, is the figure mentioned in the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region, King An Dương. This story in the Complete Book is an elaboration of an account about the spirit of Mount Tản Viên which was recorded first in a 14th century anthology of biographies of powerful spirits, the Collected Records of the Departed Spirits from the Việt Realm (hereafter, “Departed Spirits”), and then later in the Arrayed Tales as well. These two accounts, however, largely leave out the historical information about this event taking place at the end of the period of the Hùng kings. They simply mention that the Thục/Shu king requested Mỵ Nương’s hand in marriage, but do not conclude the story with King An Dương’s conquest.67 This information about the Hùng kings which we find in the Complete Book therefore contains a variety of elements. There is some historical information, namely the reference to King An Dương. There is also historical information which has been altered to some degree. For instance, the combined use of “hùng” in “Hùng kings” with “lạc” in “Lạc marquises” and “Lạc generals” does not fit the usage of earlier texts which used either of these two terms uniformly. Further, mention of King An Dương’s grandfather is also a novel addition. Finally, there is some information which comes from the realm of myth or popular legend in the story of the mountain and water sprites. The reason for this combination of different types of information that we find in the Complete Book is because the tradition of the Hùng kings is an invention, and it was created by Vietnamese scholars, who developed and then combined two originally unrelated sources of information. One source of information was the passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region about early rulers in the Red River delta, and the other was a local tradition most likely created first by Tai peoples around Mount Tản Viên. Let us examine first how the passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region was used to create a tradition of Hùng kings. Up until the beginning of the 15th century, the passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region about Lạc kings, King An Dương and Zhao Tuo was associated with particular places in the Vietnamese world. In particular, in a section on ancient remains (cỏ tích), the Brief Record of An Nam, a text compiled in the 14th century by a Vietnamese who had switched sides during the second Mongol invasion and lived the rest of his life in China, has an entry on a place called “Việt King Citadel” (Việt Vương Thành) which contains that information. This entry does not directly state who built or inhabited this citadel. Instead, it simply appends the passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region, implying that this could have been a citadel built by King An Dương or perhaps Zhao Tuo. That said, Ngô Sĩ Liên, Bản Kỷ 1/4a-5a. Lý Tế Xuyên 李濟川, comp., Việt Điện u linh tập 粵甸幽靈集錄 [Collected Records of the Departed Spirits of the Vịet Realm], (14th century), A. 47, 16b and Vũ Quỳnh, 2/22b. 66 67

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it does indicate that this citadel was also called Khả Lũ Citadel by common people. Khả Lũ Citadel was another name for Cổ Loa, a citadel not far to the north of presentday Hanoi, which was reportedly built by King An Dương.68 The 15th century Treatise on Annan also contains an entry for Viêt King Citadel in a section on ancient remains. It explains that because the citadel was in Việt territory, it came to be known as “Viêt King Citadel.” However, the Treatise on Annan does not associate this site with the information about the Lạc kings and King An Dương from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region. Instead, it connects that information to a separate site of ancient remains known as “Lạc King Palace” (Lạc Vương Cung).69 The remains of this palace were in Tam Đái Subprefecture, which Vietnamese historians in the 19th century identified as the equivalent of what was then Vĩnh Tường Prefecture in Sơn Tây Province, not far from Mount Tản Viên.70 In one of the districts of that prefecture, Bạch Hạc Distict, there was a mound of earth which people referred to as “King An Dương’s Citadel” (An Dương Vương Thành).71 While this information is somewhat confusing, what we can ascertain is that there were ancient remains in the Red River Delta which that passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region was used to explain. Cổ Loa appears to have been explained in these terms, as was a mound of earth in Sơn Tây Province. Perhaps it was the case that originally the passage from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region was used to explain the ancient remains that people saw at Cổ Loa. This is what we find in the 14th century Brief Record of An Nam. Then perhaps by the early 15th century, when the materials which the Treatise on Annan was based on were collected, this information had become associated with a different site. What is interesting about the account in the Treatise on Annan is that in addition to repeating the information from the Record of the Outer Territory of Jiao Region, it also states that the kingdom which the Lạc kings ruled over was called Văn Lang, that there were 18 successive generations of kings, that their customs were pure and simple, and that they recorded information by tying knots.72 Some of this information would eventually become associated with the Hùng kings, when that tradition was created. For instance, the name Văn Lang eventually appeared in the accounts of the Hùng kings in the Arrayed Tales and the Complete Book. Mention of eighteen generations of kings, however, does not appear in either of those texts, but it did Lê Tắc, An Nam chí lược [Brief Record of An Nam], (Siku quanshu ed., orig. comp., 1333), 1/10a-b. 69 Aurousseau, 136. 70 Phan Thanh Giản et al., Tiền biên 5/29b. 71 See Sơn Tây tỉnh chí 山西省誌 [Gazetteer of Sơn Tây province], (n.d.), A. 857, 32, Sơn Tây chí 山西誌 [Gazetteer of Sơn Tây], (n.d.), 57b, and Quốc Sử Quán Triều Nguyễn, Đại Nam nhất thống chí [Unified Gazetteer of Đại Nam], Tập 4, trans., Phạm Trọng Điềm (Huế: Nhà Xuất Bản Thuận Hóa, 1992), 224. 72 Aurousseau, 136. 68

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ultimately become part of the tradition surrounding the Hùng kings.73 Therefore, what this passage represents is a sign of the tradition as it was being created in the 15th century.

Adopting a Tai princess Meanwhile, on the other side of the Red River delta there were other stories which transformed in the medieval period as well. These stories were about the spirit of Mount Tản Viên. The Departed Spirits and the Arrayed Tales both contain a story about this spirit, and they both cite a work entitled the Record of Jiao Region which was compiled by a Tang Dynasty administrator by the name of Zeng Gun who served in the region in the 9th century. Citing this work, the Arrayed Tales provides more information about the early history of this spirit than the Departed Spirits does. It records, for instance, the following: Zeng Gun of the Tang’s Record of Jiao Region records that the Great King of the mountain was a mountain spirit surnamed Nguyễn, and that it was very potent and efficacious. During times of drought or flooding, when one beseeched [the sprite] for protection against calamity, it would respond right away. People never stopped to faithfully and reverently make sacrifices. It was often the case that if there was something which resembled a pennant seen floating about in a mountain valley on a clear day, the people in the area would say that the mountain spirit had appeared.74

Hence, in its earliest form, there appears to have been a spirit on Mount Tản Viên which people worshipped for protection, particularly from flood and drought. By the 9th century this spirit had also apparently been anthromorphicized and given the surname Nguyễn. After the greater Red River Delta region came to be controlled by Vietnamese a century after Zeng Gun recorded the above information about the spirit of Mount Tản Viên, Vietnamese rulers continued to view that spirit as important. During a period of constant rains in 1073, for instance, Emperor Lý Nhân Tông had a Buddha image from Pháp Vân Temple brought to the capital so that he could seek its power in praying for clear skies, and also made offerings on Mount Tản Viên.75 Then in 1145 a Interestingly, however, that information appears to have become part of the tradition when the compilers of a 19th century officially-commissioned history included that information by citing the Treatise on Annan. See Phan Thanh Giản et al., Khâm định Việt sử thong giám cương mục [Imperially Commissioned Itemized Summaries of the Comprehensive Mirror of Việt History], (1881), A. 2674, Tiền biên 1/1b-3a. 74 Vũ Quỳnh, 2/21a-b. 75 Ngô Sĩ Liên, Bản Kỷ 3/6b. 73

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spirit shrine was constructed on Mount Tản Viên.76 At the same time, however, there is also historical evidence which indicates that the people who lived around Mount Tản Viên were different from the Vietnamese rulers who were interested in the spirit there. In particular, in the Complete Book there are references to the “savages” (man) who lived around the mountain. That text records, for instance, that in 1207 Mount Tản Viên “mountain savages” (山蠻, sơn man) plundered, and in 1226 they fought with neighboring savages.77 Finally, the 15th century Treatise on Annan also notes the presence of “savages” around Mount Tản Viên. As mentioned above, this work makes it clear that the “savages” who lived around Mount Tản Viên were various groups of Lạo Tử. It then records the following about the spirit of the mountain: Mount Tản Viên has a Mỵ Nương spirit. Tradition has it that she is the Hùng king’s daughter. The king cherished her and wanted to find a capable person for a son-in-law. At that time there were two people from Mount Gia Ninh; one was called Mountain Sprite and the other was called Water Sprite. They could pass through mountain stones and submerge themselves in water. The two planned to marry [Mỵ Nương] by offering local goods. The next day, Mountain Sprite presented the generous gifts of gold, silver, precious jewels, and peculiar birds and beasts, and requested to marry. He then took Mỵ Nương and hid at Mount Lôi Động. Water Sprite arrived later. Mountain Sprite then moved Mỵ Nương to the foot of Mount Tản Viên. Every year without fail Water Sprite gets angry and attacks. It is still like that today. Mỵ Nương is also a potent monster (靈怪, linh quái). She often reveals her form as a person with long hair and a long robe, and is just like a beautiful woman.78

What is fascinating about this account is that it indicates that Mỵ Nương herself was an important spirit in the early 15th century. What is also significant is that Mỵ Nương is clearly a Tai term. “Mae nang” in modern Thai, this term was rendered in Chinese characters to mean something like “enchanting lady” (媚娘, meiniang). In the 13th century, Song Dynasty official Fan Chengda made note of the use of this term among the “savages” of Guangxi, recording that “Tribal leaders sometimes take several wives, all of whom are called ‘enchanting ladies’ [meiniang].”79 Add to this the fact that the Treatise on Annan, where the above excerpt comes from, goes beyond a mere reference to “savages” in this region to actually record which groups of Lạo Tử inhabited the area, and it becomes obvious that Mỵ Nương must have been a spirit which Tai peoples in the area worshipped. Ibid., Bản Kỷ 4/4b. Ibid., Bản Kỷ 4/25a and 5/1b. 78 Aurousseau, 254-255. 79 Fan Chengda, 154. 76 77

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That being the case, Mỵ Nương was obviously different from the spirit surnamed Nguyễn whom Zeng Gun recorded information about in the 9th century, and her role in Vietnamese sources such as the Departed Spirits and Arrayed Tales is secondary to that of the mountain and water sprites. What all of this seems to point to is a complex process of population movements and contact between peoples. It is hard to say who was living around Mount Tản Viên in the 9th century worshipping a spirit surnamed Nguyễn. However, references in the Complete Book to “savages” there in the 13th century suggest that there were Tai peoples living there at that point. Mention of Mỵ Nương in a secondary role to the mountain and water sprites in the 14th century Vietnamese texts, the Departed Spirits, indicates that Vietnamese had learned of this Tai spirit, perhaps during the times in which they had gone there to worship the spirit of the mountain as mentioned in the Complete Book, and had “domesticated” it into their own beliefs. Meanwhile, the 15th century Treatise on Annan indicates that the belief of the local Tai peoples around Mount Tản Viên in Mỵ Nương herself was still flourishing on its own at that time. While the above speculations are based on documentary evidence, it is much more difficult to explain why Mỵ Nương was referred to as a Hùng king’s daughter. This does not appear to be a later addition to the story of this spirit. However, it is clear that the tradition of the Hùng kings as the first rulers of the Red River Delta is a late creation, one which probably took place in the 15th century. In other words, the Hùng king of the Mỵ Nương story appears to predate the creation of the Hùng kings of antiquity. It is possible that the “Hùng” in the Mỵ Nương story may have originally been a transcription of a Tai term, such as “khun,” a respectful term for a ruler, and that it was a coincidence that this was the same character as the one which eventually came to replace Lạc and be used as the name for the ancient rulers of the Red River delta. This might explain why this story from Mount Tản Viên was then added to the other stories which were developed in the 15th century about the Hùng kings. Whatever the case may be, it is clear that Mỵ Nương was Tai, and it is also clear that when the tradition of the Hùng kings was created, the Tai were being peripheralized by the Vietnamese. The historical evidence from the 15th century demonstrates this, and the mysterious titles which we began this essay with indicate this as well.

Conclusion To quote again, the Complete Book recorded that under the Hùng kings, “the princes were called quan lang, and princesses were called mỵ nương. Officials were called bồ chính. From one generation to the next fathers passed [positions] on to their sons. This is called the way of the father [phụ đạo].” All of these terms are Tai terms, or more accurately, they are mostly “Sinicized Tai” terms as they combine Tai and Chinese elements. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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As for mỵ nương, the first term, “mỵ,” is “mae” (แม่) in Tai and literally means “mother,” whereas the second term, “nang,” means “maiden” and is a Chinese term, “niang” (娘). Similarly, “quan lang” consists of a Chinese term for “official” (官, guan) and another term which means “man” and which was used in official titles in medieval China, but was also used in titles for certain aboriginal peoples in the area of Guangxi. Fan Chengda, for instance, noted that some “savage” headmen were called “langhuo” (郎火).80 Quan lang was used at least from the time of the Tang to refer to low-level officials who ruled over aboriginal peoples on behalf of the Chinese in the area of the Red River delta. For instance, a Tang-era text records that for generations members of a family surnamed Phùng served as “barbarian rulers” (夷長, Di trưởng/Yi zhang) on the edge of the delta and were called “quan lang.”81 As for “bồ chính,” this term likewise appears to be a hybrid term. The word “bồ” could be the equivalent of either “phu” (ผู,้ person) or “pho” (พ่อ, father) in Tai. “Chính,” meanwhile could be “chieng” in Tai, which means “citadel” and comes from the Chinese “cheng” (城). The “phu chieng” or “pho chieng” could therefore signify something like the “master of the citadel.” Finally, what the text refers to as the passing of rulership from one generation to the other, or the “way of the father” (phụ đạo), could be a reference to an “elder” or “phu thaw” (ผูเ้ ฒ่า), or to a term which the Black Tai used to refer to their rulers, “phu thaw” (ผูท้ า้ ว).82 This now leads us to the question of why these Sinicized Tai terms appear in a Vietnamese history compiled in the 15th century and claim to represent ancient titles. I argue that the inclusion of these terms in the Complete Book represents a process of identity creation. In the 15th century a new Vietnamese dynasty, the Lê Dynasty, came to power after the Chinese were driven out in 1427. The Lê Dynasty needed to demonstrate its legitimacy, and it did so through various means. Militarily the Lê sought to expand their control into the northwest, a region which was inhabited by Tai peoples, and symbolically they sought to demonstrate their kingdom’s strength by creating an antiquity from which their kingdom could claim political descent. The inclusion of these Sinicized Tai terms in that new imagined history is significant because the Vietnamese appear to have been subjugating the Tai not only by conquering them, but also by delegating them to the distant past as well. The Tai were what the Vietnamese had once been, but now the world was different. That most of the terms included were Sinicized terms points to a political world which the Vietnamese and Tai had once shared. In the 15th century, Ibid., 180. Lý Tế Xuyên, 2b. This text cites a Record of Jiao Region, which could refer to either Zeng Gun’s late 9th century text or a text with the same title, which likely dates from the early 9th century and was compiled by a Chinese official named Zhao Chang. This version of this Departed Spirits actually has “lang quan” instead of “quan lang.” However, other versions of this text have “quan lang” as that was the common term. 82 I thank Dr. Pittayawat Pittayaporn of Chulalongkorn University for information about this final term. Personal communication, 20 October 2011. 80 81

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however, the Lê Dynasty started to become more deeply Sinicized, and this likely created a sense of distance between the Vietnamese elite and the Tai elite with whom they had contended on more equal terms not that long before. As for other Tai terms, such as those dealing with wet rice agriculture which we can find traces of in the Vietnamese language, these were likewise terms which the Vietnamese likely learned in the period after the 10th century when Tai peoples began to migrate into the areas around the edge of the Red River Delta. This is a topic which I have to leave to Tai linguists to explain more fully, but from what I understand, a term such as “mương phai” (“irrigation canal”) which Phạm Đức Dương argued was adopted by the Vietnamese in antiquity is a relatively recent Tai word, as the “ph” sound in Tai, which this “ph” in Vietnamese is likely replicating even though it is pronounced like an “f” in Vietnamese emerged with the development of Southwestern Tai.83 Finally, the issue of place names which begin with the word cổ in Vietnamese or gu in Chinese remains a mystery. It seems unlikely that this is a Tai term as it is found predominately in the middle of the Red River Delta, and scholars have yet to provide evidence that there is a commonly used term in any Tai language of which this could be a transcription. Hence, although a great deal has been written about the historical relationship between the Tai and the Vietnamese by employing certain Tai words as evidence, in reality many claims have been made without reference to what we actually know about the historical movement of Tai peoples and the development of their languages. When the actual historical and linguistic knowledge which we possess is harnessed to examine this issue, the way in which Tai words found their way into Vietnamese historical sources and the Vietnamese language becomes clear. The place of the Tai in Vietnamese history also becomes evident. The Tai and Vietnamese were not siblings who lived in harmony in antiquity and then went their separate ways. Instead, they were separate peoples who became medieval neighbors and contended with each other until the Vietnamese ultimately gained dominance over the Tai in the greater Red River Delta region in the 15th century. However, this dominance was never complete. The Vietnamese never ended up extending their direct political control over many of the areas which Tai peoples inhabited. By the time the French conquered the area in the late 19th century, the Tai still lived a largely autonomous existence, although they had declared their On what is termed the “P/PH distinction” in Tai languages, see James R Chamberlain, “A New Look at the History and Classification of the Tai Languages,” in Studies in Tai Linguistics in Honor of William J. Gedney, ed., by Jimmy G. Harris and James R. Chamberlain (Bangkok : Central Institute of English Language, Office of State Universities, 1975), 49-66. Chamberlain also attempted to use Vietnamese historical sources to understand the history of Tai peoples in the region, however he did so out of the belief that the information in the Vietnamese sources about the Hùng kings is actually historical. See, for instance, his “The origin of Sek: Implications for Tai and Vietnamese history,” in The International Conference on Tai Studies, ed., S. Burusphat (Bangkok: Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University. 1998), 97-128. 83

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subservience to the Vietnamese court for centuries by that point. As subservient but separate peoples, the Vietnamese left the Tai more or less on their own. The Vietnamese officials who dealt with them knew of their mường and phụ đạo and such words continued to occasionally make their way into Vietnamese sources. However, the actual knowledge which the Vietnamese had of their Tai neighbors remained limited. Ironically, perhaps it was this limited degree of knowledge which then enabled the abundance of information about the history of the Tai-Vietnamese relationship to emerge in the late 20th century. With a need to explain the past in ways which fit the demands of a modern multi-ethnic nation-state, and with limited historical and linguistic knowledge of the topic they were dealing with, Vietnamese scholars produced a great deal of information about the place of the Tai in the Vietnamese past, information which ultimately explained little about the past, but revealed a great deal about the imperatives of the present in Vietnam.

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Suicide among the Mla Bri Hunter-Gatherers of Northern Thailand Mary Long, Eugene Long, and Tony Waters

Abstract—The Mla Bri are a small group of nomadic hunter-gatherers (about 400) living in northern Thailand who since the 1990s have begun to settle in semi-permanent villages. Eugene and Mary Long are missionaries who have lived near the Mla Bri since 1982. Between 2005 and 2008, there were five fatal suicides in this group, including four males and one female. This is apparently a new phenomenon; suicide was virtually unknown among the Mla Bri before more permanent settlements were established. Suicides and suicide attempts were usually—though not exclusively— by drinking poison, and involved married males. Explanations given by the Mla Bri for the suicides, and suicide attempts, emphasize the role of “paluh” which functions as a form of censure. The incidents of paluh leading to suicides were often in the context of sexual jealousy, and triggered by extra-marital affairs and alcohol abuse. This article discusses the “epidemic” of suicide in the context of life among the Mla Bri during the last thirty years as they were confronted with the world of modern Thailand. From a broader context, the article concludes that the 20052008 suicides are associated with the rapid social change the group has experienced during the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to semisettled status.

Introduction The Mla Bri of northern Thailand The Mla Bri people live in northern Thailand and in 2012 included about 400 people. There were four settlements in Phrae and Nan provinces then. There is an unknown but smaller number in Laos. The Mla Bri speak a Mon-Khmer language. The Mla Bri are well-known in anthropological literature because, until recently, they engaged extensively in foraging, gathering, and hunting as the primary means of subsistence, and as such are an outlier in a region traditionally dominated socially, ecologically, and politically by people tied to lowland and highland rice cultivation. Indeed, the Mla Bri were so unusual in Southeast Asia that the Siam Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Society sponsored special expeditions to “find” them in 1962-1963, and published an issue of the Journal of the Siam Society in 1963 about their scientific findings (Siam Society 1963). Mla Bri subsistence, they found, was focused on the hunting and gathering of forest products; and most importantly, unlike other groups, the Mla Bri were not tied to the agricultural cycle, although they did occasionally hire themselves out as laborers to agricultural people. They were nomadic, too, typically shifting campsites every few weeks. As is described below, this mode of subsistence was practiced until recently, and indeed continues at some level today. Typical Mla Bri hunting tools include spears, traps, catapult sling shots, and occasionally a muzzle loading gun. Typical game include small mammals, reptiles, and grubs. The Mla Bri also collect various products including honey, roots, fruits, bamboo shoots, and other seasonal forest products. They occasionally trade forest products to lowland farmers. They have no traditions of either sedentary horticulture or animal husbandry when living in the jungle (see Rischel 1995: 21-40; Bernatzik 1938 [1958], Nimmanhaemin 1963, and Trier 2008 for general ethnographic descriptions). They are very skilled in the ways of the forest, and traditionally had animistic spiritual beliefs. As with other such foraging groups, the Mla Bri had apparently managed contact with agrarian societies in the past (see Fortier 2009: 107). A propensity of Mla Bri to suddenly disappear (at least from the perspective of the northern Thai and Hmong with whom they had contact) earned the Mla Bri the name “Spirits of the Yellow Leaves (Phi Thong Leuang) among the few northern Thai with whom they interacted. This name referred to the Mla Bri tradition of living in shelters made of green banana leaves, which were abandoned when the leaves turned yellow after a week or two. The Mla Bri object to being called “spirits.” Until about 1993, the Mla Bri remained nomadic, moving between sources of food, grouping and regrouping as dispersed bands depending on food availability and personal relationships. The Mla Bri, though, speak a Mon-Khmer language most closely related to Htin (Rischel 1995 and 2000). There was a strong emphasis on endogamy, despite the fact that there has long been casual contact between the mountain-dwelling Mla Bri, and remote groups of northern Thai, Hmong, Mien, Htin and other nearby farmers (see e.g. Bernatzik 1938, Nimmenhaemin 1963, Rischel 1995, and Trier 2008). The concept of Paluh Paluh [/pɑ.luh/] might be translated as “scold” or “curse” though neither is really adequate. Paluh reflects an important Mla Bri concept which is not only important for understanding the suicide epidemic among the Mla Bri described in this paper, but for understanding inter-personal relationships between Mla Bri in general. It is a word which reflects the Mla Bri aversion to inter-personal conflict; indeed, conversations in Mla Bri often begin with the statement “I’m not paluhing Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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you, I am talking nicely.” In other words, paluh reflects something deep within the Mla Bri cosmology and refers to both inter-personal conflict, and super-natural power. However paluh is not the same as “cursing” which the Mla Bri cosmology does recognize as a skill carried only by a person with special knowledge and power. Paluh contrasts with “curse” [/pɔɔy/]. Anyone can paluh; only certain skilled people can curse. The Mla Bri do not believe that any living Mla Bri has the necessary power [/mɑ.phɑɑp/] effectually to curse another person; the last Mla Bri person who was believed to have this ability died several years ago. Outsiders, however, are often reputed to be able to curse Mla Bri.Unlike curses, paluh is not intended to cause death or others misfortune; while such outcomes are certainly a potential result of paluh, they are not intended as such by the person initiating the incident. The net result though is that potentially deleterious results probably help keep paluhing to a minimum, since one never knows when her/ his paluhing will have serious repercussions. Paluh also applies to inter-ethnic relations. Much inter-ethnic contact between Mla Bri and others was in the context of exploitative, short-term labor “contracts” in which the Mla Bri exchanged work in fields for food and perhaps clothing. These contracts were often enforced with threats of violence and conflict; the Mla Bri, who are often the victims in such confrontations, respond by disappearing into the forest. Indeed, Mla Bri describe such conflict as being “paluhed,” a concept which reflects the Mla Bri need to avoid conflict and confrontation. Broadly speaking, paluh is verbal abuse and covers a range of meanings including “to scold,” “to criticize,” “to question,” “to accuse” and “to be angry with.” On occasion, it is tantamount to “to curse,” though without magical overtones. Normally, Mla Bri use paluh as the equivalent to an English verb, but depending on the context it can also be translated as an English infinitive, gerund, or noun. In this paper, we use the Mla Bri form to indicate the concept, and add appropriate English glosses. Paluh and conflict avoidance The legends of past Mla Bri who dealt with paluh are passed on and remain a current form of social control. A brief review of how paluh functions in Mla Bri society provides an indication of why this concept is so important to this discussion of suicide. Paluh enforces norms for sharing and equality among the Mla Bri; they share food and other resources with one another in order to avoid being paluhed. They are very careful not to offend outsiders who would paluh them. Paluh provides a mechanism whereby those who work too hard, or not hard enough, can be made to conform—they wish to avoid paluh. Paluh also helps regulate domestic relationships. Adultery is often censured by threat of paluh; this may be one reason why the offended husband is the one to leave the group when his wife commits adultery – he is paluhing the wife and her lover. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Babies are said to paluh with their eyes or by crying. Adults paluh by yelling at and/ or hitting family members, often other than the person with whom they are angry. Wives may also paluh drunk husbands who, in turn, hit their wives. Traditionally, either those who were paluhed or those who paluhed would be expected to leave the small group to join another group, or even wander in the forest from which they could, for a time at least, get sustenance. As for paluh, while not strictly equivalent to murder, it is viewed as dangerous by the Mla Bri; many misfortunes have been understood to be a result of someone’s having been paluhed. Anyone who would cause death by paluhing would certainly be seen as a bad person in Mla Bri society. So, even though a person who attempts/ commits suicide is assumed to be guilty of the offense for which s/he was paluhed, the blame is shifted from suicide victim to the one who paluhed in the first place. In effect, as will be explained below, suicide in a modern context, is the ultimate vindication of a person who has been paluhed, i.e. the suicide victim. As for intentional killing, we have heard no records or stories of killing within Mlabri groups except for one legend of a Mla Bri woman who killed her husband by feeding him a poison tuber. The legend indicates that she murdered him so that she could marry a different man. Certainly, though, there are many stories of outsiders killing Mla Bri (see below). The human ecology of Phrae and Nan The human ecology of mountainous northern Thailand varies in terms of economy and society. The river valleys are densely populated, and are used for intensive wet-rice cultivation. These farming populations today speak variations of the northern dialect of Thai, and traditionally were subject to the princes of Phrae or Nan, and eventually to Bangkok. The Mla Bri may predate both the Thai and other horticultural groups in the region, as do the Htin, and Khmu, who are also perhaps relict populations of Mon Khmer speaking groups, from whom the modern Mla Bri are probably descended (Rischel 1995: 41-54). Indeed, both linguistic and genetic analysis indicate that modern Mla Bri are most closely related to Htin, a small remote group of highland farmers living in Nan province, from whom it is assumed that Mla Bri split off in the remote past (see also Rischel 2000, and for discussions of Mla Bri genetics Oota et al 2005, Waters 2005, Xu et al 2010). As the rural horticultural populations of northern Thai, Hmong, and others in Phrae and Nan provinces increased rapidly during the 19th and 20th centuries, the game and plants on which the Mla Bri depended became more difficult to find. As this happened, individual Mla Bri apparently began to enter into exploitative labor arrangements with Hmong and northern Thai for whom they tended fields in exchange for rice and clothing. Such contracts were often enforced with threats of violence on the part of the “employers,” and since the Mla Bri were outside the Thai Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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justice system, they resisted such pressure by escaping deeper into the forest to avoid paluh from the outsiders. In this context, day labor became more important for the survival of the Mla Bri, as traditional food sources disappeared along with the forest cover which was cut with machetes and axes by northern Thai, Hmong and others growing upland rice and other crops. Increased contact with horticultural people also meant that the diseases of higher population density areas of Thailand probably became more common. Since about 1993, most Mla Bri semi-permanently settled in at first three, and later four settlements, two in Nan province, and two in Phrae province, at the behest of the Thai government, which was concerned about the most peripheral areas and populations in the kingdom, and protection of forest reserves. Settlement of the Mla Bri by the Thai government was focused on the building of schools, establishment of health clinics, malaria eradication, electrification, and the establishment of roads, i.e. the means of modern state-building (see e.g. Scott 2009). Settlement also meant extending Thai citizenship to the Mla Bri, a move which gave them standing in the Thai courts and the formal social welfare system. By the late 1990s, mortality rates had declined in response to improved nutrition, malaria eradication, improved housing, and other public health measures associated with the extension/intrusion of the modern state into the world of the Mla Bri. The Mla Bri changed from being migratory hunter gatherers with no permanent dwelling, to living in semi-permanent villages made of cinder blocks, wood, bamboo, and iron sheets. Thus, by the early 2000s, Mla Bri children were routinely becoming literate, and the better students were being sent to secondary schools. Increased opportunities for wage labor in the cash market also meant that most Mla Bri families built semipermanent houses, and purchased radios and televisions. Ironically, this occurred at a time after the rapid rural expansion of the Thai and Hmong population slowed, and rural to urban migration in the region accelerated. Although small in numbers and still scattered, the Mla Bri continue to maintain their own identity, language, and culture. Children learn the Mla Bri language as their home language, and adults use Mla Bri as the default language when interacting with fellow Mla Bri. To date, marriage within the group is still preferred, and enforced with threats of paluh. Indeed a video “Mla Bri” made by Danish film-makers does an excellent job of showing how important endogamy was to a group of young men seeking wives in 2006 (Jansen and Sorenson 2006). Rapid social change and the Mla Bri in Phrae and Nan, Thailand, 1980-2010 From 1980 to 2010, many changes occurred in the world of the Mla Bri, bringing both new opportunities, as well as the formidable challenge of settling into permanent dwellings with all that that entails. In the early 1980s, before the suicide epidemic described here, typical causes of mortality among the Mla Bri included accidents, infectious diseases (malaria, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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dysentery, etc.), and violence (see also Bernatzik 1938: 132-134). There were no known suicides before the period (2005-2008) discussed in this paper, although there were occasional threats, particularly in recent years. Indeed, Bernatzik (1938: 129) reported after interviewing Mla Bri and their neighbors in 1936-1937 that suicide was unknown, and indeed “unthinkable.” The subject is not mentioned in other ethnographic writing about the Mla Bri by Rischel (1995 and 2000) and Trier (2008), even though both writers emphasize the role of disease, malnutrition, accidents, and violence in Mla Bri life. Violent deaths were typically the result of attacks by outsiders, or accidents both in the earlier periods, as well as during the periods discussed here.1 Traditionally, so far as we can ascertain, there has been very little intra-group violence among the Mla Bri, though they were often subject to attacks and violence from outsiders. Intra-group violence did not seem to be common among the Mla Bri, and was traditionally avoided by disappearing into the forest in response to paluh. But, in recent years, as alcohol use / abuse has become more common, so has violence. Examples are men fighting physically when they are drunk, physical abuse of wives by drunk husbands, and wives fighting back. Alcohol abuse plays a major role in the suicide incidents described here. Several victims were drunk when they attempted suicide, and most had a history of alcohol abuse. Alcohol was introduced by the Northern Thai and the Hmong, and became widely available to the Mla Bri only during the last thirty years. When the Longs first met the Mla Bri in the early 1980s, there were no alcoholics and there was only occasional drinking, a condition similar to that reported by Bernatzik (1938: 140) in the 1930s. There is no history of the Mla Bri making their own alcohol, and even today women drink only on the rarest occasions even though alcohol has become widely available since the 1990s. The Mla Bri, however, do have a word for alcohol [/ɟn.rɑɑɁ/] that does not appear to be a loanword from another language. Mobility and settlement and the Mla Bri yesterday and today Prior to 1993, there were no permanent Mla Bri settlements; until that time, the Mla Bri lived in small family groups in between the forests where they hunted and foraged, and the fields where they sometimes worked for Hmong and other highland farmers. As described above, they moved frequently in order to flee debts, interpersonal relationship conflicts, death within the group, obligations to Most recently, the Longs have heard of two Mla Bri who were killed by land mines near the ThaiLao border. They also recorded two incidents where Mla Bri children playing with guns shot and killed other Mla Bri children. Some other known accidental deaths include an incident where two Mla Bri were killed by a tree falling on their shelter. One Mla Bri fell from a moving bus and died from his injuries. The Longs have recorded one incident, the details of which are a little murky, when a sister stabbed her brother when he was drunk and disorderly. However, it is not clear if this was an accident while trying to disarm the brother, or an intentional attack against him. He survived the wound.

1

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help relatives with their debts / work, and other situations which threatened paluh. Government relocation of the Hmong villages with which the Mla Bri were nominally attached is also occasionally a reason for Mla Bri mobility. 2001 was an important year for the Mla Bri because not only were the first settlements legally established, but they were also granted legal status as Thai citizens. This status as Thai citizens included the issuance of the Thai identity cards which gave the Mla Bri ready access to health care, schooling, and other modern government services. The Mla Bri in 2012 lived in four small settlements, one each in Rong Kwang and Song Districts of Phrae Province, and one in Wiang Sa District of Nan Province. In 2009, the fourth settlement was established under Royal Patronage of HRH Princess Sirindhorn in Bo Klua District of Nan Province. Marriage and family among the Mla Bri Marriage among the Mla Bri is, from an outside perspective, informal—there is no formal ceremony or registry. But, to the Mla Bri, marriages are highly valued and respected. There is a strong emphasis on marrying within the Mla Bri group itself, and incest taboos against marrying full siblings or birth parents are important— violating the incest or endogamy taboo is believed to be hazardous, and invites paluh from other Mla Bri. Such restrictions make searching for a suitable spouse difficult, since potential partners are few in such a small population. Polygyny is also normative, and occasionally practiced. Coupled with a high divorce rate, this means that many of the Mla Bri share multiple kin relationships with each other. Nevertheless, marriage with the Hmong or northern Thai is strongly discouraged, and it is believed any such illegitimate relationship risks bringing ill fortune to the Mla Bri cosmos. Mla Bri marry as teenagers by sharing a shelter with the new spouse with the permission of the families concerned. Widowhood, divorce, and remarriage are also common among the Mla Bri, and are negotiated in the context of family relationships. Bride price and the exchange of wealth or labor service are not typically involved.

Suicide, anomie, and rapid social change: A survey of remote groups Mortality studies have been done of active horticultural foragers like the Ache of Paraguay (see Hill and Hurtado 1996), Hiwi Hunter-Gatherers in Venezuela (Hill, Hurtado and Walker 2006), and hunter-gatherers like the Dobe !Kung (see e.g. Howell 1979 and Lee 1984). Such retrospective studies indicate that suicide is apparently rare in such groups, though rates of violent death emerging from feuding can be very high (see also Waters 2007a: 23-66). As Howell (1979: 61) reports, suicide threats did occur among the !Kung San Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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observed by anthropologists from 1963-1973, though she believed that no threats were carried out. She writes that the !Kung San believe that suicide comes to the mind of a person who is in a state of shame (dokum), and most of the threats / attempts she reported were by women. Such studies are, of course, inherently difficult, requiring as they do intimate knowledge of private behavior in nomadic populations. Nevertheless, the book-length studies of mortality and fertility among the Ache and Dobe !Kung do not mention suicide as a significant cause of death. On the other hand, Hill, Hurtado, and Walker (2006: 448) reported two pre-contact, and one post-contact suicide by men in early adulthood among the Hiwi, and one pre-contact female suicide.2 Studies of groups which have changed rapidly from a lifestyle rooted in settled farming to the modern world have often demonstrated elevated rates of suicide. Indeed, the classic sociological work Suicide by Emile Durkheim was published in 1900, and identified clearly the correlation between the rapid movement of northern Europe’s rural peasant masses into the industrializing cities, and elevated suicide rate. Durkheim emphasized that this happened because the weakening of the social bonds caused by such dislocation led to feelings of disconnectedness or “normlessness” which he called anomie. This anomie, he wrote, reflected the breakdown of society itself, with one result being elevated rates of suicide. Since Durkheim wrote, thousands (or more) studies have been written describing the role of anomie in accelerating such problems as alcoholism, family break-up, juvenile delinquency, mental illness, illicit sexual relationships, and the general breakdown of society which can emerge at the same time as material conditions are improving (For earlier descriptions of such a phenomenon, see also Znaniecki and Thomas 1918). More current discussions of this phenomenon involve those of groups like the Native Americans (Alcantara and Gone 2007, Kirmayer 1994), Inuit, Australian Aborigines (Cantor and Neulinger 2000), native peoples of Siberia, and many others. Perhaps of most relevance to this study, Hmong who have moved to the United States from refugee camps in Thailand since the 1980s have also reported elevated rates of suicide (Xiong and Jesilow 2007). Notably, Hmong suicides often involve alcohol abuse (similar to the Mla Bri), though unlike the Mla Bri, adolescents are often the victims. In sum, the relationship between anomie and suicide among marginalized groups who, like this small group of Mla Bri, have a sudden confrontation with the modern world is obvious.3 In terms of percentages this included 3 percent of the deaths of early adult males for which they had data, and 9 percent of the late adult pre-contact mortality. They did not indicate how the individuals killed themselves, or how the Hiwi explained the suicides. Post contact, the total percent was 4 percent of late adult mortality. The total Hiwi population was about 800. Similar demographic studies have not been done of the smaller popuation of Mla Bri. 3 As for Thailand itself, national suicide rates have ranged from 6.3 per hundred thousand to 7.1 per hundred thousand between 1988 and 2003. The most common technique among Thai suicide is 2

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Methods Mary and Eugene Long are missionaries who moved to Ban Huay Ooy in Phrae Province in 1982 to live near the then-nomadic Mla Bri. There they studied the Mla Bri language, treated minor medical conditions, advocated for Mla Bri citizenship rights in Thailand, and evangelized. They also lived briefly in Nan Province near Mla Bri settlements there in 1997-1998. The Longs became proficient in the Mla Bri language, and also are fluent in the northern and central Thai dialects. They do not use translators with the Mla Bri. Mary Long in particular kept records about individual Mla Bri, collected folk tales, and other ethnographic data. The data with respect to suicide described here was collected by her. In short, the data in this paper reflects the decades of participant observation undertaken by Mary and Eugene Long in northern Thailand. In order to provide context for the fatal suicides which all occurred between 2005 and 2008, a number of earlier suicide attempts are also described. Table 1. Summary of the suicides and suicide attempts observed by the Longs between 1984 and 2012 among the Mla Bri. Date

Name

Sex

Type

Method

mid 1980s Feb 8, 1999 Aug 6, 2000

Saay Kai Jam

M M F

Attempt Attempt Threat

Poison Gun Poison

Age at time early 20s 27 early 30s

Jan 14, 2001

Khit

M

Attempt

Gun

23

Feb 12, 2001 July 9, 2001 July 14, 2001 June 20, 2004 July 19, 2004 Dec 12, 2005 Oct 6, 2006 Oct 19,2006 Sept 27, 2007 Apr 18, 2008 Feb 4, 2012

Pui Tom Kai Oat Mouse Jim Ploi Pat Dan Lek Mam

M M M M M M F M M M F

Attempt Threat Threat Attempt Attempt Fatal Fatal Fatal Fatal Fatal Attempt

Gun

21 23 29 20s 47 37 32 24 18 30s 42

Poison Poison Poison Poison Poison Poison Poison Poison Shampoo

Other Drunk Drunk

Drunk Drunk

Drunk Drunk

Marital Status Married Married Married Singledivorced Married Married Married Married Married Widow Married Married Married Married Married

hanging; over half of all suicides in Thailand are in this manner (Lotrakul 2006: 91). Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Results: Mla Bri suicide case histories, 1984-2012 Organization of the cases In this section, the 15 cases of suicide threats, attempts, and fatalities in Mary Long’s notes are described. The results are summarized in Table 1. This is followed by narrative details about each case history. Pseudonyms are used to protect the identity of suicide victims and their families. Two further incidents which describe Mla Bri legends about self-destruction are also included. The cases Case History 1: Attempt In 1984 or1985, Mary was told that Saay (a married male aged approximately 23) had eaten ant poison from the Long’s chicken coop. No motive was ever determined for his action. Mary induced vomiting. Saay didn’t show any adverse symptoms. His wife was very concerned that he not die lest Saay’s mother paluh her. Saay and his wife had several children, but he eventually divorced this wife and remarried, though he did not have any more children with his new wife. He is a high status person in the Mla Bri village in Wiang Sa District today, in spite of a problem with alcohol abuse. Case History 2: Attempt Kai, his wife Kung, and their son moved from Wiang Sa District in Nan to the Mla Bri village in Rong Kwang District in January 1997. Kai was approximately 25, his wife 45, and their son six.4 This was his first marriage, and her second marriage. She had four children from her earlier marriage; the details of her first husband’s death are vague, but violence has been hinted at. In August that same year, the family moved to a newly established Mla Bri village in Nan Province, Ban Phee where the Longs also briefly moved. The Longs left this village in response to local opposition and withdrawal of government backing in August 1998. Kai and his family followed them to the village in Rong Kwang District of Phrae Province. Six months later, Kai attempted suicide. On February 8, 1999, late at night, Kai shot himself in the stomach, below his navel and above his pubic bone, while drunk. Another Mla Bri man, named Pui, notified Eugene. Eugene took Kai to the hospital where emergency surgery was performed, saving Kai’s life. Kai was in the ICU for five days and was then It is not uncommon for the Mla Bri to exhibit these age differences between husband and wife, and is probably symptomatic of the difficulty this couple had finding spouses: For Kung, because of her age and for Kai presumably because of a scarcity of young, single Mla Bri women.

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moved to a ward. He requested that his mother’s half-brother stay with him and help with his care. The day following the shooting, a Mla Bri woman told Mary that a dead person’s ghost had entered Kai’s heart, and made him shoot himself. The Mla Bri woman said it was like the Mla Bri boy who would not obey and always went into the jungle, and a tree fell and killed him. She seemed to be inferring that Kai had done wrong and that the self-inflicted shooting was his punishment. Another man also assured Mary that the shooting was self inflicted; no other Mla Bri had shot Kai. The man said he had never seen anything like this. He told Eugene and Mary not to let this incident upset them. Kai’s wife, Kung, said the shooting occurred because others were drinking and having altercations (“paluh”). She also mentioned that Kai didn’t give his mother any money. Again, there is an element of paluh involved in the Mla Bri interpretation of events. Five days after the incident, Kung told Mary that other women were accusing her of shooting her husband. She said they “paluhed” her. Case History 3: Threat On August 6, 2000, Jam, who was in her 30s and lived in Rong Kwang District, told Mary that she would kill herself with poison she had at her house. Other Mla Bri had “paluhed” her, she explained, for not sharing fish. The Hmong also had “paluhed” her about a debt she had with them. Finally, a Mla Bri baby not directly related to Jam had died recently in the hospital and this had upset her. Jam was always on the fringe of Mla Bri society and was not generally well liked. One of her five children is by her first husband and one more is by her current husband. The other three are considered extra-marital and she was looked down on for this. Case History 4: Attempt On January 14, 2001, Khit, 23 years old, shot himself in the upper arm below the bone with a muzzle loader. He was hospitalized and recovered. The Longs first met Khit when he was around 5 years old in 1983. At that time, they heard that Khit’s father had been fatally shot by a Thai several years before, possibly before Khit was born. The Longs saw Khit over the years, living with relatives or immediate family, coming and going as they foraged, and worked for Hmong or Thai farmers. As a young adult, Khit lived in a Hmong village without other Mla Bri for a while, and became proficient in the Hmong language. Khit settled in the village in Rong Kwang District in March 1996, and married a girl named Bow. Khit and Bow had a mutual grandfather. Despite the close relationship, which was not considered incestuous, the marriage to Bow was well Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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accepted by the other Mla Bri. Indeed, she was considered a desirable choice for a wife. But in March 2000, Khit and Bow were told by their common grandfather to separate temporarily because he was sick, implying that their marriage was causing the sickness. Nevertheless, during the separation, Bow became interested in another Mla Bri man, named Pat, and married him the following month. Bow did not get pregnant during either marriage. Nine months later, Khit shot himself. The day of the shooting people said that Khit was drunk and shot himself because he was upset about his former wife. They said that he wanted to “paluh” his former wife. No one had told him to do this. Some were afraid the police would come and take all the men away. The following day, one of Khit’s older half sisters (same father), told Mary that Khit shot himself because he wants Bow. Bow’s new husband said Khit could have her. “None of us told Khit to shoot himself. If you’re upset, don’t shoot yourself,” one said. One of Khit’s nieces (older than Khit) told Mary that none of them had told him to shoot himself. Another woman, Kung (Case History 2) whose husband had shot himself said, “It’s like my husband; he did it himself.” The day after that, Khit’s mother was at Mary’s house. She noticed a couple of teen girls there and turned away from them, but raised her voice and talked about her son. The mother explained that Khit had told her that he had dreamed about his dead father (i.e. the one who was killed) the night before the shooting. The next morning he went to a Thai village and a Mla Bri fellow bought some whiskey which they drank. They claimed that he did not drink very much. She said that Khit went into his house by himself and his dead father shot him, apparently a reference to the consequences of an earlier paluh. She claimed that Khit had not “paluhed” about his former wife and people shouldn’t talk. The mother said she threw the gun away and she will stay home until her son gets out of the hospital. Khit recovered from his wounds and married a divorced woman in May 2000. This lasted two months, until her previous husband came from another settlement to reclaim her. Then, in February 2001, Khit married another divorced woman and they are still married at this time (2012). Case History 5: Attempt The Longs first met Pui when he was about two years old in 1983. As with other Mla Bri, his childhood was spent moving from area to area with his parents or other relatives working in fields for tribal or Thai people. He was clever and independent and began to move about with other Mla Bri males while in his teens, i.e. until his marriage at about 17 years of age in 1997. Pui and his family were working for the Hmong in Wiang Sa. His wife’s family also lived and worked there. Pui’s parents and some siblings lived in the Rong Kwang village after 1993. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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On February 12, 2001, Mla Bri from Rong Kwang went to the village in Wiang Sa District to visit Pui, whom they heard had shot himself. The next day, Mary heard Pui’s mother tell another lady that there had been jealousy and fighting (paluh) among Mla Bri people living in Wiang Sa, provoking Pui to shoot himself. Pui was about 21 years old at the time of this incident. He had been married about four years and had two children. Case History 6: Threat On July 9, 2001, Tom and Maa were married. The Longs were told that Maa didn’t want to marry him, but he threatened to kill himself so she married him. He was also married to Malee at that time. Both wives were in the same shelter with him, but slept at different ends. Tom was 23 at that time. Maa and Malee were both 16. Tom and Maa are still married. Malee moved out a month after the threat and eventually married Tom’s older brother. Case History 7: Threat In July 2001, Kai took a second wife, June, who was 19 years old at that time. She is a half-sibling to Kung, his first wife (cf. Case History 2). Kung continued to live in the same house with Kai and his new wife. A few days after the marriage, Kung told Mary that Kai only loved his new wife and didn’t like her. She said he had told her this and if they didn’t separate he (Kai) would eat poison. They separated within a month. Case History 8: Attempt Oat’s father was shot by Thai people (circa mid 1980s) when Oat was a child. When he was a teen, he traveled around with other Mla Bri young males and came to Rong Kwang where he stayed for some time. In 1997, Oat moved to Nan to live at a newly established Mla Bri settlement there. He was married shortly after that move. He and his wife moved back to Rong Kwang in 1998 when the Longs left the settlement in Nan. A few years later, Oat started drinking and was frequently drunk. On June 20, 2004, Oat attempted to kill himself by drinking herbicide. The Longs were alerted at midnight by his wife, her sister, and another Mla Bri lady. He was taken to the hospital and survived. His older brother and a cousin stayed with him. The Longs were told that he had come home drunk and his wife had “paluhed” him. Case History 9: Attempt Mouse was approximately 47 years old at the time he drank poison in 2004 at the Mla Bri village in Rong Kwang District. Mouse’s mother died in 1980 and Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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his father in 1997. Mouse worked fields and moved around most of his life. He was often drunk and displayed bold, aggressive behavior. He was abusive several times to his wife while drunk. He and his wife were married in 1989 but had no children. She was his fifth wife. He had three children: two from marriages, and one outside of marriage. On July 19, 2004, Mouse drank poison. He was taken to hospital and survived. One of his younger brothers, Cat (who according to the histories never attempted suicide) stayed with him. The Longs were told that he was drunk and “paluhed” that his wife had gone to visit Mla Bri in Wiang Sa District of Nan Province. One year after this incident, one of Mouse’s younger brothers committed suicide by drinking poison (Case History 10). Two years after this incident, Mouse’s wife and son both committed suicide by drinking poison (Case Histories 11 and 12). Case History 10: Fatal Jim was the first fatal suicide that we know of among the Mla Bri. This suicide occurred in 2005. Jim was about 12 years old when the Longs met him in 1982. His mother had died a few years earlier. He lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle with the Mla Bri, foraging and moving from area to area working fields from a young age. Sometimes he was with his father: sometimes with other relatives. He had six full siblings and three half siblings. His father died in 1997 or 1998. Jim was married to Yao in 1986 and they remained married until her death in 2003; they changed their names when they got married, as per Mla Bri custom.5 They had several children together, perhaps as many as seven. (Yao also had two children from other marriages.) They lived in a Mla Bri village in Nan and worked for the Hmong tribe in that area. The Longs received word that Yao died on December 13, 2003. Stories varied on the circumstances surrounding her death, but included fire and sickness. After Yao’s death, Jim came to the Mla Bri village in Rong Kwang on November 12, 2004, with three of his children. On February 2, 2005, he was said to be married to Yaa, a widow. On February 11, 2005, Jim was admitted to the hospital for strange behavior. He was hearing voices and talking to people who were not there. The Longs had observed that Jim was often drunk, and understood that his hallucinations were alcohol-related. On April 25, 2005, Jim returned to the Mla Bri village in Wiang Sa District Mla Bri naming traditions include changing names some time after formal marriage. The prefix “Ta” is assigned to the husband, and “Ya” to the wife. The couple then selects a name which they share.

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with his three children, the marriage with the widow having ended. The Longs received word on December 12, 2005, that Jim had drunk poison and died. A group of Mla Bri from Rong Kwang went to Wiang Sa on December 17. The next day, a lady told Mary that Jim had drunk poison because he was discouraged. Others (his older brother) had “paluhed” him about something and hit him. Case History 11: Fatal Ploi was approximately 15 years old when she married Mouse in 1989. He was approximately 32 years old at that time. As far as can be determined, this was her first marriage, but he had had at least four wives before her, and two children by two of those wives. The wife immediately prior to Ploi was Ploi’s older half-sister. During the time Mouse and Ploi were married, Mouse was acknowledged to be the father of a girl by another one of Ploi’s older half sisters, and rumored to be the father of at least one other girl by that same mother. Ploi and Mouse remained married until her death by suicide in 2006. There were no children from their marriage. Mouse was an alcoholic during the later years of their marriage. Ploi was physically abused by him to the point that she needed medical attention as a result of the abuse incidents. On October 6, 2006, Ploi drank herbicide. Her husband was drunk and had been “paluhing” her, accusing her of being involved with other men. She went to the hospital but was not admitted, since the Mla Bri had not made it clear to the medical staff that the cause of her “stomach ache” was poison. Her conditioned worsened and she was admitted to the Phrae Provincial Hospital where she died on October 17, 2006. A few days before her death, two women who were related to the husband said that Ploi should not have taken the poison. Ploi’s older half sister explained that it was Ploi’s husband’s fault that she drank the herbicide. On the day of her death, Ploi’s mother blamed (paluhed) the husband as did another couple. Another woman, Yim, (related to the husband) also said that Ploi’s mother had scolded her family saying that they had taught Ploi to do this. Another woman (related to the husband) scolded (“paluhed”) the husband. About a year later, the death was brought up again. A lady, Yim, (related to Mouse) said her son-in-law, Gem (related to Ploi) blamed her and her husband and her daughter (married to Gem) for killing Ploi. He said they had told her to drink the poison. The death was referred to again a few years later. In October 2010, a lady told Mary she wanted to leave the village because other women were saying bad things about her and her husband (“paluhing”). She mentioned Ploi in this context. Ploi is the only fatal female suicide. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Case History 12: Fatal Pat was born in December 1981 in the area of the present day Mla Bri village in Rong Kwang District. His father was Mouse and his mother was named Yao. He was their only child and they separated some months later with the mother taking Pat with her. She had another child with Joe, and then married Mouse’s younger brother. They remained married until her death. Pat was married to Bow in 2000 and separated the following year. They had no children. He then married to Dah and they had a daughter. He remained in this marriage until his death. Pat’s mother died in 2003 in Nan. His father was living in Rong Kwang and was married to Ploi at the time of the suicide described here. Pat, Dah and their daughter moved to Rong Kwang in June 2006. Dah’s mother and her husband, and their children moved to Rong Kwang the following month. Pat and his family lived with his father, Mouse, and his father’s wife, Ploi. As described above, Pat’s father’s wife Ploi drank poison on October 6, 2006, and died on October 17 (Case History 11). Around October 12, 2006, Pat drank poison. He was admitted to the hospital. On October 19, he was told that he would die in the hospital. He said he wanted to go home and he died shortly after arriving at home. Before he died, Jam, older half sister of Ploi, told Mary that others blamed (“paluhed”) her for Pat drinking poison. Jam had one (or possibly more) children by Pat’s father while he was married to Ploi. Pat’s mother-in-law told Mary that she had seen Pat drunk and had told him he should use his money for food but he went and drank poison. She defended herself for saying this, and denied paluhing him. Case History 13: Fatal On September 27, 2007, the Longs received word that Dan had died from drinking poison. He lived in Song District in northern Phrae Province, and worked for Thais doing field work. His mother, who was living in the Rong Kwang village at the time, went and confirmed the death. The story was vague – his wife had yelled at him (“paluhed” him) for being drunk. Dan was about 18 years old at the time of his death. He was the oldest child of his parents and had four siblings from their marriage. His father died in 2003 and his mother remarried. His mother, her husband, and their children moved to the Rong Kwang village in July 2006. Dan came a couple of times to visit but worked in Song District where he was in debt to Thai farmers. Case History 14: Fatal On April 18, 2008, the Longs heard that Lek had died from drinking poison. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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He lived in the Wiang Sa village and worked for the Hmong doing field labor. He was about 30 years old. Lek was married to Nid and they had four or five children. He had another daughter from a marriage with Nid’s older sister. Both wives had their first child within a month of each other. Nid was the principal wife when the Longs met Lek in 1997. The older sister was married to another man in about 2000. Lek was known to drink heavily. Case History 15: Attempt On February 4, 2012, a Mla Bri woman named Mam drank herbal shampoo. Mam’s 16 year old daughter came to the Longs’ house about 8 pm and reported the incident. She cupped her hand to show the amount of shampoo ingested. She also remarked that her mother’s husband had accused her of being unfaithful, the probable motivation for the attempt at suicide. Later that same evening, Mam came to the Longs’ house. She was in great distress: coughing, heaving, and crying. She said her throat and stomach burned. She also said that the entire incident was of no account and should be forgotten. Mam’s daughter-in-law and several children, including several of her own children, were there watching Mam. Mam was approximately 42 years old in 2012, and was in her second marriage. Her present husband is about 26 years old. They have one daughter together. Mam’s first husband, with whom she had six children, died from natural causes. She has told Mary that her first husband was better than her present one; she doesn’t like this one as much, she has said, and indicated that her present husband has physically abused her. Mam’s oldest son committed suicide by drinking poison in 2007 (Case History 13). Her brother attempted suicide in 1984-85 by eating ant poison (Case History 1). Mam’s mother is Mouse’s older half sister. Two legends in particular are well known among the Mla Bri and shed some light on their understanding of suicide. Legend/ Story I Two Mla Bri brothers were getting a type of honey in the jungle. For some reason they agreed to kill each other. Their wives were digging tubers and found their dead husbands. They put scorpions and centipedes into their sarongs. When they got back to the shelter, the wives died also. Legend/ Story II Lung Yaeng was an excellent reed pipe musician. It was unbelievable how well Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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he played this instrument, and his ability attracted women to him. Mla Bri women and outside women wanted him for a husband. Lung Yaeng had a huge boil on his foot. He came home and went to bed. The next day he climbed a tall tree to get some honey. His relative told him not to climb it. He didn’t listen to her, but told her that people had scolded (pahluhed) him for not going out hunting. He climbed the tall tree, but the boil broke open causing him to fall. The fall killed him. His body was terribly mutilated. Some friends noticed that it was quiet and went looking for him. They saw his torn body and buried him. Table 2. Familial relationships between suicide victims using Mouse as ego: Name Mouse Pat Jim

Case 9 12 10

Relationship to Ego Ego Son Full sibling

Outcome Attempt Fatal Fatal

Kai

2,7

Half sister’s son

Attempt, threat

Dan

13

Half sister’s daughter’s son

Fatal

Saay

1

Half sister’s son

Attempt

Year and Place 2004, Rong Kwang 2006, Rong Kwang 2005, Wiang Sa 1999, 2001, Rong Kwang 2007, Song 1984/1985, Rong Kwang

Mam

15

Half sister’s daughter (sibling of Saay; mother of Dan; half-sister with Kai)

Attempt

2012, Rong Kwang

Outcome Fatal Attempt Threat Attempt Attempt

Year and Place 2006, Rong Kwang 2001, Wiang Sa 2000, Rong Kwang 2001, Rong Kwang 2004, Rong Kwang

Using Ploi as ego: Name Ploi Pui Jam Khit Oat

Case 11 5 3 4 8

Relationship to Ego Ego Full sibling Half sibling Mother’s half sibling Father’s brother’s son

Summary of suicide threats, attempts, and fatalities Table 1 (above) summarized the suicide incidents. As can be observed, suicides and threats of suicides predominantly involve married males in the community, and in recent years are typically done by using poison. The suicide epidemic began with threats in 1999, and resulted in fatalities between 2005 and 2008. One pair of fatal suicides (Case Histories 11 and 12) occurred within a few days of each other. Mla Bri themselves typically related each incident to paluh in some way. There is also a strong association with alcohol and sexual jealousy. Notably, the strong marriage Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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norms of the Mla Bri also provide an important context to the suicide attempts. Table 2 describes the relationships between the individuals described in the text. When the couple Mouse and Ploi are used as ego, it can be seen that there are familial relationships connecting 10 of the 15 cases described.

Discussion and Analysis Paluh in the context of foraging and mobility in northern Thailand Living a settled lifestyle may have an effect on the handling of disputes among the Mla Bri, or what they call “paluh.” Paluh is a strong theme in the Mla Bri culture, and is used by the Mla Bri to explain the suicides and attempted suicides described here. It is believed that scolding / criticizing a person has very detrimental effects on both parties: the one who paluhs and the one who is paluhed. People who have been paluhed traditionally left the village as a way to make the person who “pahluhed” them look bad. In days before the Mla Bri settled into villages, children, spouses, almost anyone, could leave a camping site (temporarily or long term) when offended, i.e. providing the context (or anticipation) of paluh. When it was not feasible to move far away, those living in a common temporary shelter would move out and live in another shelter of the same settlement, signaling quietly that some dispute had taken place. Dealing with paluh by physical avoidance in this fashion still happens, but it is more difficult as the Mla Bri settle into more permanent housing with electricity, schools, health clinic, and so forth. In addition, the fact the Royal Thai Government discourages the Mla Bri from returning to areas of the forest where they formerly lived and which are now forest reserves owned by the Royal Thai Government. Such enclosure can be viewed as either the expropriation of Mla Bri traditional rights, or the assertion of sovereignty rights by the distant Thai government (see discussions in Scott 2009, and Waters 2007b: 175-176; 191-193; 204). Irrespective of this, the capacity of the Mla Bri to flee in the event of paluh is restricted, which in turn puts pressure on inter-personal relationships. Even in the context of restricted mobility, suicide is still not an ideal in the Mla Bri culture, but has come to function at least since settlement, as the ultimate answer to “paluh”. In a world of foraging, hunting, and gathering in which there was no investment in fields, permanent houses, or attachment to place, so such shifts quickly removed the possibility of inter-personal confrontation or potential for scolding a person who might have committed an offense. In this fashion, “paluh” was an effective form of social control in a society in which there were few ways to express overt displeasure. Paluh was a signal that parties needed to separate, without further confrontation, and was effective even if by the standards of the outside world the victim in an incident (e.g. the wronged spouse) was the one to leave. But this is not Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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possible in a world in which there are restrictions on movement from whatever source. The centrality of paluh is an important concept informing social action among the Mla Bri, and although it is not restricted to suicide, we do think that suicide provides a good context for evaluating the concept. Again, ordinary Mla Bri conversation is often prefaced by the phrase, “I am not paluh you; I’m talking nicely.” This is particularly the case when the topic of conversation is such that it could be easily understood as a rebuke, disagreement or even correction. No one wants to be perceived as causing offense. The Mouse-Ploi suicide cluster So why were so many suicides, suicide threats, and suicide attempts focused around the couple of Mouse and Ploi? It is not possible to explicitly answer this question in a paper of this nature. However, the cluster is worth noting. Indeed, to a certain extent, the cluster is probably a reflection of how closely all Mla Bri people are related to one another in a world in which marital endogamy is highly valued, and exogamy subject to sanction. Still, the cluster extends to all three of the post-1993 Mla Bri settlements discussed here. In other words, the cluster is not specific to one small settlement or the other; rather it extends to several areas of the broader Mla Bri society, albeit along a single kinship group. It is perhaps worth noting that Mouse is one of seven male siblings, one of whom is a half-sibling and one of whom may be a half-sibling. Of these seven men, five are alcohol abusers (incorrigible drunks!), one is almost always sober, and one has not been seen for many years—the problem may not be with suicide as such, but the effects of chronic alcoholism and its side effects.

Conclusion: The problem of rapid social change and anomie Ultimately, the most general explanation for the emergence of suicide among the Mla Bri is a classic one found in many societies. The rapid social change of the last thirty years as the Mla Bri stopped living in the remote forest, and took up semisettled life of permanent housing, schooling, medical care, electricity, television, and the other accoutrements of modern life is deeply disorienting. As with other such groups encountering “civilization”, this contributed to material well-being and a healthier lifestyle, but at the same time led to a breakdown in the system of social norms, or what Durkheim called “anomie.” As with many other groups, the effects of this are probably elevated rates of alcoholism, marital dissolution, and the suicide problems observed by Mary and Eugene Long, and described here. What this paper adds to the literature is a more intimate look at how a nomadic group like the Mla Bri has encountered the ways of the modern Thai world. The concept of paluh is apparently one which contributed to group dispersal, and the Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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re-creation of living groups in the forest. Avoidance strategies as a means to deal with paluh meant that overt intra-group conflict was rare, and the egalitarian nature of the community was preserved without resort to internal violence or further conflict. But fear of paluh also meant that the norms for conflict resolution are less likely to be developed.

References Bernatzik, Hugo. 1938 [1958]. Spirits of the Yellow Leaves. London: Robert Hale. Fortier, Jana. 2009. The Ethnography of South Asian Foragers. Annual Review of Anthropology 38: 99-114. Hill, Kim, and Magdalena Hurtado. 1996. Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People. New York: Aldine de Gruyter Hill, Kim, A.M. Hurtado and R. S. Walker. 2006. High Adult Mortality among Hiwi Hunter-Gatherers: Implications for human evolution. Journal of Human Evolution 52: 443-454. Howell, Nancy. 1979. Demography of the Dobe !Kung. New York: Academic Press. Jansen, J.B. and S. B. Sorenson. 2006. “The Importance of Being Mlabri.” DVD (61 minutes). Final Cut Productions: Copenhagen. Lee, Richard. 1984. The Dobe !Kung. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. Lotrakul, Manote. 2006. Suicide in Thailand during the period 1998-2003. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. 60: 90-95. Nimmanhaeminda, Kraisri. 1963. “The Mrabri Language.” Journal of the Siam Society. 51.2: 179-184 Oota H, Pakendorf B, Weiss G, von Haeseler A, Pookajorn S, et al. 2005. Recent origin and cultural reversion of a hunter–gatherer group. PLoS Biol 3: e71. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030071. Panter-Brick, Robert H. Layton, and Peter Rowley-Conwy, eds. 2001. Hunter-Gatherers: an interdisciplinary perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rischel, Jurgen. 1995. Minor Mlabri: A Hunter-Gatherer Language of northern Indo-China. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Rischel, Jurgen. 2000. “The Enigmatic Ethnolects of the Mlabri (Yellow-Leaf) Tribe.” at http: //sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/rischel2000enigmatic.pdf Rischel, Jurgen. [1958] 2008. Introduction to Spirits of the Yellow Leaves by Hugo Bernatzik. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Scott, James. 2010. The Art of Not Being Governed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Siam Society. 1963. “The Mlabri.” Special Issue of The Journal of the Siam Society. Thomas and Znaniecki. 1919. The Polish Peasant in Europe and North America: monograph of an immigrant group. Boston: The Gorham Press. Trier, Jesper and Verner Alexandersen. 2008. Invoking the Spirits: Fieldwork on the Material and Spiritual Life of the Hunter-Gatherers Mlabri in Northern Thailand. Denmark: Jutland Archaeological Society Publications) Waters, Tony. 2005. Comment on “Recent origin and cultural reversion of a huntergatherer group.” PLoS Biology. August, 3(8): e269. http://biology.plosjournals. org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030269 ______. 2007a. When Killing is a Crime. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. ______. 2007b. The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: Life beneath the level of the marketplace. Lanham: Lexington Books. Xu Shuhua, Daoroong Kangwanpong, Mark Seielstad, Metawee Srikummool, Jatupol Kampuansai, Li Jin, and The HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium. 2010. Genetic evidence supports linguistic affinity of Mlabri - a hunter-gatherer group in Thailand. BMC Genetics 2010, 11: 18.

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Public Health in Modern Siam: Elite Thinking, External Pressure, and Popular Attitudes1 Nipaporn Ratchatapattanakul

Abstract—Several recent studies have argued that the Siamese government’s early interest in public health was motivated by ideas of modernization. This article examines the motivations of key figures in policy making, as well as the roles of public opinion and international pressure. Although a Thai term for “public health” was coined in 1918, government was motivated more by traditional ideas of charity than modern ideas of state responsibility. Prior to 1932, the state’s provision of medical services was very limited, and people relied more on private hosiptals and pharmacies.

Introduction Most studies on public health in Siam from the late 19th century until the 1932 revolution argue that the state’s provision of public health services was part of the King-initiated modernization to “civilize” the country. Some studies also attribute the inadequate provision of public health services to shortage of not only funding but also human resources and educated citizens (Yuwadee 1979: 295–298; Suraphon 1982; Surirat 1981: 128–131; Voranat 1992: 172). Recent studies, influenced by Foucauldian concepts and vocabularies, have suggested that Siamese rulers adopted western medicine as a discursive instrument for state hegemony (Thawisak 2007). These previous studies have rarely delved into the practical implementation of public health policy. This study investigates how the state budget for public health was used, what factors lay behind the establishment of various medical organizations, and how the Siamese elites themselves explained the motivations for their decisions over public health policy. The study also looks at the role of private institutions such as Chinese hospitals and dispensaries in order to give a fuller understanding of medical services in the era prior to 1932. The article is divided into four parts. The first traces the state’s involvement This paper is derived from Chapter 3 of my dissertation entitled “Public Services in Modern Bangkok: Road Construction, Sanitation District and Public Health”. I am very grateful to Dr. Koizumi Junko, my supervisor, for her valuable comments, and Dr. Chris Baker for his suggestions and kind assistance in editing my work. Any errors remain my own.

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in public health services in Bangkok, and examines what motivated Siamese rulers to implement these services. The second looks at the influence of international organizations on policies to prevent epidemics, an international issue in the early 20th century. The third traces the public’s views on health services as expressed in contemporary newspaper articles. The fourth examines the roles of private hospitals and dispensaries as providers of basic medical services in Bangkok.

State provision of health care services Several government agencies were involved in public health in the late 19th century. Sanitation and medical care services were organized separately in Bangkok and the provinces. For Bangkok, the Department of Medical Treatment (Krom phayaban) was founded in 1888 under the Ministry of Education (Krasuang thammakan) and the Department of Local Sanitation (Krom sukhaphiban) in 1897 under the Ministry of the Capital (Krasuang nakhonban). For the provinces, the Department of Medical Treatment (Krom phayaban) carried out a few campaigns in coordination with the Ministry of Interior. After the department was closed in 1906, local municipalities seem to have been the main organizations providing medical care services under the financial control of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Finance. Only in 1916 was the Department of Citizen’s Health Care (Krom prachaphiban) founded under the Ministry of Interior to take charge of public health services in the provinces. In general, the founding of the Department of Medical Treatment in 1888 and the statement concerning public health and national prosperity by Prince Damrong, the interior minister, at a 1906 meeting on plague prevention have been interpreted to show that Siamese rulers were motivated to provide public health services as part of their consciousness of the duties of a modern government (Yuwadee 1979: 136–137; Thawisak 2007: 135). However, this assumption seems wrong. Closer study reveals that the early moves by the Siamese elites in the field of public health were motivated by Buddhist ideas of charity (than), as well as by concerns over the export trade in beef cattle. The Department of Medical Treatment: State hospitals as royal charity and the establishment of the Serum and Vaccine Laboratory The epidemic of cholera in 1881 is often cited as the first episode in which the Siamese rulers became involved in so-called “public health” activity. Forty-eight temporary hospitals were established in Bangkok to give medical care to the general public, and all were closed after the epidemic had passed. (For the area of Bangkok city in this paper, see Figure 4.) King Chulalongkorn subsequently decided to found a permanent hospital for the public, leading to the opening of Siriraj Hospital in 1888, funded by donations from the royal family and British residents in Bangkok. Also in Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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1888, the Burapha Hospital and the Department of Medical Treatment were founded under the Ministry of Education. From 1888 to 1906, the department controlled several medical organizations in Bangkok including Siriraj, Burapha, Thepsirin and Bangrak hospitals, two dispensaries, and a drug factory. Although the establishment of the department is often interpreted as the beginning of state responsibility for the provision of public health services, speeches and notices on the opening of various institutions under the department emphasize that the motivation came from Buddhist ideas of charity not concerns to emulate a “modern” conception of the responsibilities of government. The public notice on the opening of Siriraj Hospital, for instance, stated that this hospital was constructed as a great contribution by the King to the inhabitants of Siam (Ratchakitchanubeksa vol. 5 ton 5, 18 April 1888: 42). Likewise, the public notice on the establishment of a state drug store (Osot Sapha) in 1902 explained that this initiative stemmed from Buddhist belief (Ratchakitchanubeksa vol. 19, 25 May 1902: 114). These institutions were funded mainly by donations from the royal family and government officers, and received nothing from the government’s annual budget. As a result they were capable of providing services to only a limited number of patients (see Figure 1). Owing to the lack of funds, the Department was closed down in 1906, along with Thepsirin and Burapha hospitals. Some earlier studies, which have recorded that Buddhist ideas of charity were the motivation of these early moves in health provision, have gone on to argue that the Siamese rulers had moved beyond this stance by the end of the 19th century. In fact, the charity motivation persisted for another 25 years. Vajira Hospital was established under the Ministry of the Capital on the occasion of the birthday of King Vajiravudh in 1913. In his opening speech, the

Bangrak Hospital

Thepsirin Hospital

115 236

122 662

363

Burapha Hospital

1,036

353

Siriraj Hospital

1,148

patients

persons inoculated

Source: NA R.5 S 24/5

Figure 1 Number of hospital patients and persons inoculated, 1891

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King explained that he had donated a sum to build the hospital instead of using the sum to construct a new temple which was the traditional way for a new ruler to accumulate merit by good deeds (NA R.7 M 7.1/12; Ratchakitchanubeksa vol. 29, 22 January 1913: 2401). In his opening speech at the opening of Chulalongkorn Hospital under the Ministry of Defense in 1914, Prince Boriphat explained that the hospital was built as a dedication to the late King Chulalongkorn and also to show the prestige of Thai people to the world (Ratchakitchanubeksa vol. 31, 14 June 1914: 563–567). At the same event, King Vajiravudh stated that the purpose of building this hospital was to demonstrate the prestige of the King and the Thai people (Ratchakitchanubeksa vol. 31, 14 June 1914: 567–71). In all these opening speeches there is no trace of any motivation to provide public health services as part of the responsibility of modern government. Besides the hospitals, the main activity of the Department of Medical Treatment was providing vaccination against smallpox. Dr. Dan Beach Bradley, an American missionary, had introduced inoculation against smallpox to Siam in the 1830s (see Wariya 1984). At that time, the missionary doctors had to import the vaccinia lymph from America at a cost of 4 baht per case, and this heavy expense limited the volume available (NA R.5 S 24/46). In 1888, the Department of Medical Treatment in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior began a campaign of free anti-smallpox vaccination in the provinces, but the coverage was very limited due to the expense. After the Saigon Pasteur Institute came into existence in 1890, vaccinia lymph was imported from Saigon at a quarter of the cost of that from America, and the number of people inoculated consequently increased (see Figure 2). In December 1902, the French-Indochina government sent the director of the Saigon Pasteur Institute to Bangkok with a proposal to establish a Pasteur Institute in Siam. In response, the interior minister Prince Damrong argued that health problems in Saigon and Siam were quite different, and Siam had no need to produce vaccine for rabies and dysentery as the only serious epidemic diseases in Siam were cholera, malaria and animal diseases. The minister stated that the price of smallpox vaccine imported from Saigon was reasonable, the establishment of a Pasteur Institute in Siam would require a large amount of budget, and there was a risk the two Institutes would compete on price. Finally, the minister declined the French proposal (NA R.5 S 24/30). H. Campbell Highet, the British medical officer of health in the Department of Local Sanitation, agreed with this decision. However, Chaophraya Surasakmontri, a senior officer in the Ministry of Education, dissented, arguing that Manuscripts from the National Archives (NA) are catalogued by reign, ministry and subjects with numerical classification; [R] refers to reign, [N] refers to files of the Ministry of the Capital (Krasuang nakhonban), [Kh] and [K Kh] refer to files of the Ministry of Finance (Krasuang phrakhlangmahasombat), [S] refers to files of the Ministry of Education (Krasuang thammakan), [M] refers to files of the Ministry of Interior (Krasuang mahatthai), [T] refers to files of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Krasuang tangprathet), [Y Th] refers to files of the Ministry of Public Works (Krasuang yothathikan).

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the import of vaccine made the cost much more expensive while local production would allow government to run the anti-smallpox vaccination campaign throughout the country (Yuwadee 1972: 263). The crisis that made Siamese rulers reconsider this proposal was an animal epidemic which started in the south in April 1903, reducing the annual export of cattle from 9,000 to 5,899 animals (NA R.5 N 5.6/8). Concerned about the economic impact, King Chulalongkorn accepted a proposal by the American government to send a group of observers to an animal epidemic research center in Manila (Thawisak 2007: 71–82). With the help of this research center, a Serum and Vaccine Laboratory was opened in Siam in 1906 (NA K Kh 0301.1.20/5; Highet 1914: 20; NA R.6 M 38,541

11,265

9,528

6,274 1,843

1,149

1889

1892

1893

1902

1903

1904

Source: Ratchakitchanubeksa vol.6: 409; vol.9: 60, 122; vol.10: 123; vol.19 (21 April 1902): 43; vol.19 (4 May 1902): 261; vol.19 (22 February 1903): 937; vol.22 (4 June 1905): 189

Figure 2 Number of people inoculated, all regions, 1889–1904

400,000

300,000

200,000

100,000

0 1916

1917

1918

1919

1920

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1927

1928

1929

1930

Source: NA K Kh 0301.1.38E/28; Executive Committee 2000: 222

Figure 3 Number of people inoculated in Bangkok, 1916–30

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12.1/2). The cost of vaccines produced by this laboratory was only 27 percent of the import price. Even so, anti-smallpox vaccination did not become compulsory in Siam until 1914 (NA R.5 S 24/45). In 1923, when there was a serious smallpox epidemic, the numbers vaccinated in Bangkok soared to an extraordinary level, equivalent to about 90 percent of residents according to the Bangkok census (see Figure 3).3 In 1911, Prince Damrong reconsidered the proposal to establish a Pasteur Institute after one of his own daughters passed away from rabies. He donated the money to establish the institute, and transformed it into the Siam Red Cross the following year (Suda 1991: 102). This death in the royal family was a watershed in the attitude of the Siamese ruling elite to public medical care. From the Department of Local Sanitation to the Department of Public Health A few months after the Bangkok Sanitation Law was promulgated in November 1897, the Department of Local Sanitation was established under the Ministry of the Capital. The department was given the responsibility to provide medical services and protect against epidemics in a sanitation district covering 2.3 square kilometers in the old center of the city. At the center of this sanitation district was the Grand Palace, surrounded by the residences of the royal family and other high officials. Because of limited budget, the sanitation district did not initially extend to settlements lying to the south of the Grand Palace. However in 1902, the sanitation district was expanded to include another three square kilometers around the Dusit Palace, a royal summer villa built in 1899. Settlements along the river, including Sampheng and Bangrak, were not included until 1916, while a third expansion in 1922 also extended the sanitation district to cover the present downtown including Siam Square, Silom, and Sathorn. King Chulalongkorn explained why he wanted to include the Dusit Palace area in the sanitation area in 1902. As it was inappropriate to use government budget for building his private villa, road construction and sanitary management in the Dusit Palace area was transferred from the Ministry of Palace Affairs (Krasuang wang) to the Department of Local Sanitation (NA R.5 Y Th 9/44). Although this department’s main responsibility was for sanitation and prevention of epidemics, its main expenditure, especially in the early 1900s, was on road construction in the Dusit area and on electricity consumption, with the Grand Palace and Dusit Palace responsible for approximately 40-45 percent of the electricity charges while street lamps and government offices accounted for the rest. Expenditure on prevention of epidemics accounted for 4.19 percent of the department’s total (see Figure 4 and Figure 5). The Department of Local Sanitation also looked after special hospitals in Bangkok, as well as a mental hospital (now Ban Somdet Chaophraya Hospital), I have not found any document which explains quite why the figure was so extraordinarily high in this single year.

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Figure 4 Bangkok in the late 1920s

a forensic medicine hospital called the Police Hospital (now Klang Hospital), and an infectious diseases hospital (now Taksin Hospital). These were all smallsized hospitals. According to the 1916 report of the medical officer of health, for instance, the mental hospital had only one Siamese traditional physician, the Police Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Hospital had only 12 beds, and the infectious diseases hospital had only 30 beds (NA R.6 N 7.3/10). Clearly these hospitals were not established in recognition of any responsibility of government to provide medical care services to the mass of the people. Epidemics of plague which appeared from 1900 onwards were the stimulus for the Siamese ruling elite to reorganize the provision of public health. Preventing plague epidemics became a priority after the first plague patient was discovered in Phuket in 1900. The first plague patient in Bangkok in 1904 was a British subject who lived in the Indian community on the western side of the Chaophraya River. Plague appeared in the provinces again in 1906. The interior minister Prince Damrong hosted a meeting of government health-care officers in October 1906 to discuss prevention of plague epidemics, but the meeting had no concrete outcome. The Medical Treatment Department under the Ministry of Education was closed and the Serum and Vaccine Laboratory and the state drug factory were transferred to the Ministry of Interior (NA R.6 M 12.1/2). In 1912, a new Department of Medical Treatment was founded under the Ministry of Interior and was transformed into the Department of Citizens’ Health Care (Krom prachaphiban) in 1916 (NA R.6 M 12/10). Plague epidemic broke out again during 1916–17. In 1918, Prince Chainat chaired a meeting to transfer the public health offices (Krom sukhaphiban) under the Ministry of the Capital to the Ministry of Interior. On this occasion, King Vajiravudh coined the term satharanasuk, meaning “public health,” which appeared in the name 600,000

500,000

400,000

300,000

200,000

100,000

0 1899

1900

1901

1902

office

sanitation

epidemic prevention

road maintainance

1903

1904 electricity charge

Source: NAaccount R.5 N 5.5/4; NA R.5of 5.5/6; R.5 5.5/7; NAof R.5Local 5.5/11; Sanitation, NA R.5 5.5/14; 1899-1904 NA R.5 5.5/15 Figure 5 Expenditure of the general budget theNA Department

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of the new Public Health Department, “Krom satharanasuk” under the Ministry of Interior with Prince Chainat as the first director (NA R.6 M 12/10). However, this new office provided no public health services of any significance. Its main activity was hygiene education through the distribution of pamphlets and screening of films. One reason for its ineffectiveness was conflict between the interior minister Chaophraya Surasiwisitsak (Chei Kanlayanamit) and the minister of the capital Chaophraya Yommarat (Pan Sukhum). In a letter to his secretary Prince Thaniniwat, King Vajiravudh noted that the interior minister had ridiculed the minister of the capital over the merger of the two ministries and as a result the minister of the capital refused to cooperate with the merger of the Department of Local Sanitation and Department of Public Health (NA R.6 M 12/11). The division of duties between these two departments was not decided until 1922 when a new factor had entered the domain of policy making on public health.

External pressures and epidemic prevention In the late 19th century, the most serious epidemics had been cholera. In the 20th century, however, plague became a much larger issue, resulting in international pressure that made Siamese rulers significantly change their stance on public health. Prevention of plague According to the 1897 Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, there were two quarantine stations operated to prevent the import of plague by boats. The Ministry of Capital had one at Paknam near the mouth of the Chaophraya River, and the Ministry of Education managed the other at Phai Island near the eastern shore of the upper Gulf of Thailand (NA R.5 N 5.6/2). Since vessels could not anchor at Phai station in the monsoon, the quarantine station was moved from there to Phra Island in 1905. When an epidemic broke out in overseas ports such as Hongkong, Singapore, Surabaya, Saigon, or Taiwan, vessels from these ports had to be quarantined twice, first at the Phra Island station and then at the Paknam station. If there was no epidemic in the port of origin, the vessel was quarantined only once at the Paknam station. Most of the vessels quarantined between 1897 and the 1920s came from Hong Kong where plague was widespread (Sathien 1935–1956: vol. 16–23). Foreign merchants and the consuls of Britain, Germany, and Norway complained that the Phai Island quarantine station was very far from the port of Bangkok and requested the Siamese government to move the location into the Chaophraya River. This issue became pressing after the 13th International Sanitary Convention held in Paris in 1926 produced a new International Sanitary Convention, signed by delegates of over sixty states. Siam had been a signatory of the earlier Convention of 1912, but did not attend this 1926 convention and did not immediately sign the new Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Convention because it required much stricter quarantine procedures. Siam would have to improve the port of Bangkok and its quarantine measures if it were to sign this new Convention. In this context, the location of the quarantine station again became a subject of debate (NA R.7 M 7.3/1). A Public Health Commission, Sapha kansatharanasuk, was set up on 12 April 1928 to consider this issue and finally proposed that the quarantine station should be relocated along the Chaophraya River. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted by arguing that Siam should not sign the new Convention because the financial conditions were unsuitable for constructing the new port and quarantine stations. However, the new director of the Department of Public Health proposed that Siam should improve the quarantine station and the public health services to demonstrate that Siam was a good member of international society and convince neighboring countries such as British Malaya that the standard of Siam’s public health services was good. At the cabinet meeting, Prince Boriphat, defense minister and director of the Siam Red Cross, stated that the construction of a new quarantine station was a matter of prestige; if Siam failed to provide a new one, Siam’s public health services would be deemed unreliable in the eyes of foreign countries (NA R.7 M 7.3/1). After the first plague patient was identified in Bangkok at the end of 1904, the Department of Local Sanitation issued a notice warning people to keep their houses clean to prevent the epidemic. A few months later, victims of plague were found at Rachini School and Sampheng district to the south of the Grand Palace. The Department issued a new notice about prevention of plague and asked people to inform the police if suspected victims were found. From July 1905 to March 1906, 88 plague patients were identified in Bangkok. According to a report of the Department of Local Sanitation, prevention measures were ineffective because people concealed plague patients in fear of a widespread rumor that the body, house, and belongings of a patient who passed away because of plague would be burnt. In fact, a ministerial order to this effect was not passed until February 1916 (NA R.5 N 5.7 K/15; Sathien 1935–1956: vol. 19: 363–68; Ratchakitchanubeksa vol. 32, 20 February 1916: 447–79). Other improvements in infectious disease control Apart from plague prevention, there were projects concerning leprosy, eradication of hookworm disease, and reform of medical education. These projects were encouraged by international organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, and the International League of Red Cross Societies. The Rockefeller Foundation concentrated upon reform of medical education and anti-hookworm projects started in 1920 by Prince Chainat, the director of the Department of Public Health, in cooperation with Prince Boriphat, the director of the Siam Red Cross Society. According to Wariya (1984), who studied a memorandum of the International Health Commission of the Foundation, the reform of medical education aimed at creating Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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qualified Western-style physicians even though this process would require a long period of study and would not answer the immediate needs of Siam for people with enough education to work on public health services in the provinces. This decision reflected the elite’s priorities. The Siam Red Cross Society also coordinated an anti-hookworm project. At the end of 1921, the League of Red Cross Societies decided to hold its Far Eastern Conference in Bangkok in November-December 1922, coinciding with a visit by the League of Nations Commission to study leprosy in Bangkok. The government placed great importance on these two events. Prince Boriphat, the director of the Siam Red Cross and minister of defense, recommended that Siam should improve policy implementation by transferring public health offices under the Ministry of the Capital to the Department of Public Health, and pass a Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists Act in order not to disgrace His Majesty. In fact, the international pressure created by these two meetings stimulated attention to the re-established Department of Public Health and its activities. The lack of budget for research on leprosy care was suddenly overcome in order to impress the League of Red Cross Societies (NA R.6 N 7.3/12; NA R.6 B 9/15). The Siam Red Cross and the Ministry of the Capital cooperated to build a Leprosy Hospital using land of the Ministry of the Capital and budget funding from the Siam Red Cross supplemented by the Ministry of Finance. The project was begun in 1922 and completed in mid 1923 (Suda 1991: 89). In summary, from the 1890s to the 1910s, the key motivations behind health policy in Siam were the idea of charity and the pressure from foreign countries. There was no concept of public health as a means to increase population or improve the well-being of the citizenry. Siam’s rulers had no idea that public health services were a duty of the state until the mid 1910s. They had no concept of health as a means to produce good soldiers or good workers, the basic purpose of state public health services in Europe or Japan by the end of the 19th century.

Popular conceptions of health care The rulers had no concept of public health as a duty of the state until the mid 1910s, but what about the views of the people? What were the expectations of the multiracial inhabitants of Bangkok about the state’s role in public health services? Evidence from newspapers Before the 1910s, there were very few newspapers, so I have concentrated on newspapers published during the 1910s and the 1920s. Newspaper articles on state public health services mostly just reported government policies. Only a few articles offered criticism about the budget usage by the Department of Local Sanitation or the Department of Public Health. These Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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articles complained about the shortage of public health officers and the influx of Chinese labor, rather than the rulers’ ideas on public health policies. For example, a series of articles was published in Bangkok Kanmuang in mid 1928 on the ineffectiveness of the Siam Medical Association, founded under the Physical Therapists and Occupational, Therapists Act enacted in November 1923. These articles noted that in the four years after its establishment the association had done nothing to improve standards of medical care other than issuing licenses to physicians. Other articles criticized measures to control venereal disease, leprosy, hookworm, and tuberculosis. An article in Krungthep Delime on 4 April 1915 alleged that inattention to venereal disease had resulted in sufferers accounting for 90 percent of all patients in hospitals. Many articles commented on measures to control prostitution in order to reduce the incidence of venereal disease. A first Venereal Disease Prevention Act (Phraratchabanyat sanchonrok) was passed in March 1908, requiring prostitutes in brothels to have a license which had to be renewed every three months subject to a health check (Sathien 1935–1956: vol. 21: 345–54). However, newspaper articles pointed out that many prostitutes did not work in brothels but at other public places such as Chinese restaurants where there was no police monitoring. Besides, the police had no interest in arresting prostitutes without licenses. The articles proposed the creation of a prostitution zone as found in Singapore and Tokyo (Krungthep Delime, 4 April 1915; Thai Num, 27 June 1927; Bangkok Kanmuang, 2 February 1929). Many news articles attributed the spread of leprosy, hookworm, and tuberculosis

Figure 6: Siam Rat cartoon on tuberculosis prevention; captions at top and bottom read: “How to prevent infection” and “A dream of Iko” (the pen-name of the cartoonist). For clarity, the image has been slightly retouched.

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to the influx of Chinese labor and other poor people into Bangkok. For example, a cartoon in Siam Rat on 30 May 1922 depicts a door locked to prohibit two Chinese laborers from entering the country with a caption saying that the prohibition on Chinese labor immigration was meant to prevent an epidemic of tuberculosis (see Figure 6). Although Siam had passed an Immigration Control Act on 11 July 1927 prohibiting tuberculosis patients from entering the country, newspaper articles still requested government to impose stricter controls on Chinese immigration. An article in Srikrung on 4 April 1928 claimed that the influx of Chinese labor from the 1890s to the 1900s had resulted in the rapid spread of tuberculosis, and that controls on Chinese immigration were thus necessary. In the 1920s, only a few articles criticized the fundamental ideas underlying public health policies. An article entitled “Regional Public Health Services” in Phimthai on 29 January 1929 appeared nine months after a Public Health Commission was created in April 1928. The article argued that the provision of medical services required large budget funding, skilled personnel, and the cooperation of foreign countries, and thus had to be provided by the government. Yet in the provinces, medical care officers appointed by the central government had received only 200-500 baht per month to buy medicines for distribution to patients. Though the budget was inadequate, the distribution of medicines was a way to make people in the provinces aware of the government’s concern. Yet this budget had been canceled and provincial health officials were responsible only for the health of prisoners, reporting births and deaths, and preventing epidemics. Meanwhile, Bangkok residents had easy access to medicines at private drug stores, as well as state and private hospitals. The Siam Red Cross had established a sanitarium called Pracha anamai phithak and the Department of Public Health established another called Suksala, and the two seem to have become competitive in the medical business. The article claimed that the country’s blood, a metaphor for the large population, was spilled at the expense of people living in the provinces, because the provision of public health services was much better in Bangkok compared to the provinces, and the Public Health Commission needed to rectify this imbalance. An article on “Public Health for the People” in Siam Rat on 19 January 1925 claimed that the government’s annual per capita spending on public health was 0.06 baht in Siam, 0.60 baht in the Philippines, and 12 baht in England. The article proposed that the government should establish a public health tax to fund public health services. Similar proposals appeared in Bangkok Time, Kammanto, and Siam Rat in January 1926.

The role of private medical care Clearly few people had access to public medical care, more in Bangkok than the provinces. The article on “Regional Public Health Services” in Phimthai on 29 Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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January 1929 explained that private organizations such as hospitals and drug stores supplemented government medical care services in Bangkok. By 1921, an estimated 32 percent of Bangkok’s total population of 324,000 was Chinese (NA R.6 N 7.3/12). The first Chinese hospital or Kwongsiew was established in 1903 by the Cantonese community. It developed from a hospice for new arrivals from Guangzhou and Zhaoqing, founded in 1877, and expanded with a shrine, school and hospital in the same area funded by donations from Cantonese merchants (Samakhom Kwangsiu 2008: 119). The hospital operated in collaboration with other Cantonese associations in places such as Hong Kong (see Sinn 2003). A second Chinese hospital, the Thienfa hospital, dedicated to the assistance of poor Chinese immigrant labor, was founded in 1905 with donations from Chinese merchants, a loan from Hong Kong Bank, and a subsidy from King Chulalongkorn. According to a 1912 report, the hospital had an average of 80 inpatients and 150 outpatients per day (NA R.5 S 24/37; NA R.6 N 1/78; NA R.6 N 37/11; Rongphayaban Thienfa Munlanithi 1993). The American Presbyterian Mission Board was the first to organize westernstyle medical services with a hospital established in 1880 in Phetchaburi province to the south-west of Bangkok. The first western hospital in Bangkok was Bangrak Hospital (now Lerdsin Hospital), founded in 1885 for sailors on American steamships (NA R.5 S 24/6). In 1898, the Catholic Mission of Siam built St. Louis Hospital, funded by donations from westerners in Bangkok, on land donated by the Siamese Government, with assistance from the Catholic Mission in Saigon which sent seven nurses (Rongphayaban Senlui 1982: 60). A report by the Ministry of the Capital in 1905 found there were 632 physicians in Bangkok other than those working for the government or Chinese and western organizations. They included 86 monks, 523 males, and 21 female physicians, with 235 in the downtown area, 77 in Phranakhon district, 119 in Sampheng district, and 39 in Bangrak district (NA R.5 S 24/36). From the 1890s on, several drug stores were opened including Osotthasathan (now Osotsapha Tek Heng Yoo) in 1891, and the English Dispensary in 1892. Newspapers in the 1910s carried many advertisements for drugs to combat diarrhea, venereal disease, dermatitis, muscle pain, fever, and gastroenteritis. Several shops opened in the 1920s with a drug store on the first floor and a clinic on the second (information collected from Thai; Khaosan Kankhadi; Thaimai; Thai Khasem Ruamkhao; Kasemrat; Siam Rat; Khaiphet; Phadung Phanit). In summary, in the late 19th century neither the Siamese rulers nor the multiracial inhabitants of Bangkok believed that the provision of public health services was a duty of the Siamese state. Medical care in Bangkok was primarily private, not stateprovided public health services. While Bangkok intellectuals in the 1920s argued that public health services were a responsibility of the modern state, the immigrant Chinese laborers who accounted for almost a third of the city population had no Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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expectation of benefits from public health services provided by the Siamese state. Chinese communities established their own hospitals. Many Chinese-style drug stores also appeared. Newspaper articles also mention Mon, Indian, and Burmese medical services in Bangkok.

Conclusion The Siamese government prior to 1932 did not provide fundamental public health services. Siamese rulers in the late 19th century were aware of western ideas about public health but made no efforts to implement them. Early investments in hospitals were based on a Buddhist idea of charity, for the ruler to earn merit on a par with building temples, not on a concept of public health care as a duty of the modern state to produce healthy workers and soldiers. From 1900, however, international efforts to contain epidemics forced Siam to pay more attention to public health issues in order to project Siam as a modern nation in the international arena. Yet in reality, the health services provided by Chinese community organizations, western organizations, and local drug stores were more significant than those offered by government. The government’s interest in public health was motivated by pressure from international organizations and a concern among the elite to project an image in the international arena, rather than from a consciousness about the role of a modern state as argued in many previous studies.

References Executive Committee of the Eight Congress of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine. 2000. Siam in 1930 General and Medical Features. Bangkok: White Lotus. Highet, H. Campbell. 1914. “Small Pox, Vaccination and the New Vaccination Law in Siam”, The Journal of the Siam Society 11, 1: 13–25. Rongphayaban Senlui. 1982. Ratchakarun 84 pi rongphayaban senlui (84 years of St Louis Hospital). Bangkok: Rongphayaban Senlui. Rongphayaban Thienfa Munlanithi. 1993. Rongphayaban thienfa munlanithi khrop rop 90 pi (90th anniversary of Thienfa Hospital Foundation). Bangkok: Rongphayaban Thienfa Munlanithi. Samakhom Kwangsiu Haeng Prathet Thai. 2008. Samakhom kwangsio haeng prathet thai nai wara khrop rop 130 pi lae kwangsio samphan khrang thi 7 (Cantonese Society of Thailand at its 130th anniversary and 7th conference). Bangkok: Samakhom Kwangsio Haeng Prathet Thai. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Sathien Wichailak. 1938–1956. Prachum kotmai pracham sok (Collected laws). Phranakhon: Delimei, Nitiwet. Sinn, Elizabeth. 2003. Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Suda Pariwattitram. 1991. “Sapha kachat Thai: kamnoed lae phattanakan phutthasakkarat 2436-2485” (Thai Red Cross, origin and development 1893–1942). MA thesis, Chulalongkorn University. Suraphon Sudara. 1982. Prawat panha saphawa waetlom nai samai rattanakosin (History of environmental problems in the Bangkok era). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press. Surirat Sawatdee. 1981. “Botbat khong Somdet Phrachaoborommawongthoe Kromphraya Chainatnarenthon to kanphaet lae kansatharanasuk pho. so. 2456–2468” (Role of Prince Chainat in medicine and health, 1913–25). MA thesis, Thammasat University. Thawisak Phueaksom. 2007. Chuearok rangkai lae rat wetchakam: prawatsat kan paet samai mai nai sangkhom thai (Disease, body and the medical state: history of modern medicine in Thailand). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press. Voranat Keowkeri. 1992. “Rok rabat nai chumchon phak klang khong thai phutthasakkarat 2440–2475: Kan sueksa choeng prawatisat” (Epidemics in the Central Region of Thailand, 1897–1932). MA thesis, Chulalongkorn University. Wariya Siwasariyanon. 1984. “The Transfer of Medical Technology from the First World to the Third World: A Case Study of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Role in a Thai Medical School (1923-1935)”. PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii. Yuwadee Tapaneeyakorn. 1979. “Wiwattanakan khong kan phaet thai thang thae samai roem thon chon thueng sin sut ratchakan phrabat Somdet Phra Chulachomkao Chaoyuhua” (Development of Thai medicine from the beginning until the Fifth Reign). MA thesis, Chulalongkorn University.

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A Conversation with Robbers by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab translation by Matt Reeder and Chalermchai Wongrak

Translators’ Introduction Many rural crime sprees punctuated the last two decades of King Chulalongkorn’s reign, but one of the worst broke out in early 1903. A violent gang of robbers repeatedly made off with herds of water buffaloes, consistently eluding the newly established provincial police force and the local officials who were dutifully cooperating with the Ministry of the Interior. As the head of that ministry from 1894 to 1915, Prince Damrong Rajanubhab played a starring role in the king’s campaign to centralize the administration of Siam. Local leaders were often marginalized, however, and the reorganization of authority in rural areas contributed to a spike in crime.1 The gang was finally captured and put on trial in July 1903. The interrogation of this group of robbers yielded such a wealth of information about bandit practices that Damrong concluded that it ought to be written down and distributed to the kingdom’s administrators so that they would be better informed in dealing with rural crime. Despite the conversation’s appearance, the reader should bear in mind that neither the questions nor the answers are direct quotes. Not only did Damrong reorder the content of the testimony, but he also rewrote many of the questions and edited the answers. This is evident from the formal wording of most of the conversation, markedly different from what would be expected from the verbal testimony of a rural bandit. Even by the 1920s, Damrong’s conversation was still printed in textbooks used by the School of Administration to train aspiring bureaucrats. In addition to Damrong’s stated purpose of providing administrators with information about the workings of bandits and thieves, a second purpose can be inferred from his decision to republish the conversation in a cremation volume in For details about administrative centralization, see Tej Bunnag, The Provincial Administration of Siam, 1892-1915: The Ministry of the Interior under Prince Damrong Rajanubhab (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977); but note the critique of Tej’s analysis in Thongchai Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994), especially 145-6. For more on rural crime, the economy, and policing in Central Siam, see David Johnston, “Rural Society and the Rice Economy in Thailand, 1880-1930,” PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1975; and [Phirasak Chaidaisuk] พีรศักดิ์ ชัยได้สุข, ชาติเสือไว้ลาย [Brave tigers (bandits) earn their stripes] (Bangkok: Matichon, 2008), and the sources cited in the notes to this translation. 1

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1925.2 He saw it as a contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on social groups and rural society in the kingdom, complementing the array of mini-ethnographies, travel essays, and treatments of peasant life published by Siamese officials in the early twentieth century.3 Cremation volumes offered a medium for the printing of a wide array of historical documents and scholarly essays. The readers of these volumes were primarily nobles, bureaucrats, and intellectuals. Damrong’s decision to republish the conversation for this wider audience of Bangkok elites indicates that he did not intend this conversation to be read as simply the testimony of particular bandit individuals. It could also be read as a study of a subgroup of rural Thai society that was resisting the modern bureaucratic order represented by ministry bureaucrats, the new police force, and the new legal system. This conversation therefore reflects two of the creative interests that have made Damrong famous: his ingenious and tireless efforts to assert royal bureaucratic authority throughout the kingdom, and his scholarly endeavors to craft a narrative of Thai history, culture, and progress.

It is this text that forms the basis for our translation: กรมพระดำ�รงราชานุภาพ [Prince Damrong Rajanubhab], “เรื่องสนทนากับผู้ร้ายปล้น” [A Conversation with Robbers], printed in the cremation volume for Phra-tamruat-tri Phraya Aphichitchanyut (Caroen Sawettanan) (Bangkok: Sophonphiphatthanakòn, 1925). The conversation can be found on pages 1-41, but see also Prince Damrong’s comments on it in his introduction to the cremation volume, page (2). 3 Thongchai Winichakul, “The Others Within: Travel and Ethno-Spatial Differentiation in Siamese Subjects 1880-1910,” in Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States, edited by Andrew Turton (Richmond, Surrey, UK: Curzon, 2000), especially 40-41, 44, 50, 51, and 54. 2

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Explanation There was a gang of badmen1 who conspired together and went around committing robberies in Khwaeng Müang Pathum Thani, Krung Kao [กรุงเก่า], Suphanburi and other nearby müang.2 In July 1903, this gang of badmen made off with a herd of water buffaloes in Pathum Thani district and then committed another robbery in Müang Suphan[buri]. The officials worked together to investigate, track down, and arrest them. Several heads of gangs were sent to trial in Monthon Nakhòn Chaisi. These badmen gave their confessions truthfully. When the trial was over, some people queried them about bandit methods. I found that those badmen told intriguing stories, so I wrote them down as a conversation and had it printed so that those responsible for investigating and arresting bandits can read and be informed about bandit methods. However, the reader is welcome to consider and investigate whether other groups of badmen have the same methods or not. 1. On what grounds do badmen first consider robbing a place? For any robbery, whether the target is a house or cattle,3 someone who lives near the owner is the first to think up the plan. Then, he acts as an informer [สาย], and invites other badmen to team up for the robbery. 2. What kind of person acts as an informer like this? He is a nakleng living in the neighborhood of the owner, not someone who lives far away; not a stranger. 3. How are nakleng different from badmen? Badmen do not call each other badmen. They call each other nakleng. People who call each other nakleng are known to be those who understand Phurai (ผู้ร้าย) can mean a criminal, lawbreaker, or bad guy. Because the term is used so frequently in this text, and because all of these other possible translations might be misleading in one way or another, we have opted to invent the term “badman” to stand in for phurai. We have translated the more specific terms phurai plon (ผู้ร้ายปล้น; lit. “robbing phurai”) consistently as “robber,” and conphurai (โจรผู้ร้าย) as “bandit.” 2 A monthon was the largest administrative division in Siam at the time; a müang, which we have left untranslated, was an administrative division of a monthon, but could also refer to a city or a town center specifically. A khwaeng was similar to today’s amphoe, or “district” (the term is now used to refer to the sub-districts of the city of Bangkok) or, alternately, could refer to an administrative area in general, as in the several references in the text to khwaeng müang, which might best be understood as simply within the administrative area of the müang. Krung Kao or “old capital” is an alternate name for Ayutthaya. 3 We use “cattle” for khokrabü (โคกระบือ), which means both cows/bulls and water buffaloes (in other words, bovines). We have shortened “water buffalo” to just “buffalo” in most cases. In this “conversation,” Prince Damrong always uses the formal term, krabü (กระบือ), for “buffalo” rather than the more common informal term, khwai (ควาย). 1

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robbery. Or if not, they are people who furtively steal4 cattle, or those who aid and abet them, buy their stolen or robbed cattle, and so on. So, they call each other nakleng.5 It is understood that they are these sorts of people. 4. Are badmen who steal included in the group of people called nakleng as well? That sort of person is considered to be different from nakleng because their preferences are different. Thieves usually work alone, always looking for opportunities to covertly steal other people’s things. They do not like to do daring things and they do not have many comrades. On the other hand, nakleng work with many comrades. Thus, badmen do not regard thieves as being in the same group. 5. Are badmen who use guns to assassinate people considered nakleng or not? Nakleng do not assassinate people like that. They may shoot people, but only those who accept bounties. If nakleng find out that somebody has accepted a bounty to catch them, they may shoot him. However, the shooter must be a nakleng who lives by himself. Nakleng who have households do not usually do that.6 6. If there is nobody living close enough to be an informer, can the robbery take place? If there is no informer, the robbery cannot be committed. There must be an informer in every case. 7. Why is an informer needed? Badmen have to be sure about several things before a robbery, namely: We have translated the term plon (ปล้น) consistently as “rob” or “robbery,” and the term lak (ลัก) as “steal” or “theft.” The distinction is clearer in Thai than it is in English. “Robbers” (โจรปล้น), according to the definition in the Three Seals Law, “are criminals that gather in groups of [roughly] ten, twenty, or thirty, and rob houses during the day or at night. Shooting guns and shouting, they enter [the house], shock and scare the owner, and collect all the valuables.” “Thieves” (โจรล้วง ลัก), on the other hand, “are criminals who sneak into boats, houses, and shops and remove all the valuables.” See กฎหมายตราสามดวง [Three Seals Law] (Bangkok: Khurusapha, 1963), III: 211-12. The answer to the next question indicates that thieves usually worked individually while robbers operated in groups. 5 Nakleng can be glossed in English as “rogue,” “rascal,” “gangster,” or “thug.” They have hierarchical relationships with other nakleng. According to a contemporary writer for the Bangkok Times, a nakleng was characterized by his “manly bearing and courage, readiness to fight in single combat or in a riot, fidelity to friends, deep loyalty and respect to feudal lords and parents.” Historicus (pseud.), “The Nakleng,” Bangkok Times Weekly Mail, 26 May 1898, 21-22. Quoted in David B. Johnston, “Bandit, Nakleng, and Peasant in Rural Thai Society,” Contributions to Asian Studies 15 (1980): 91. 6 The implication is that nakleng loners are less vulnerable because they have no family or permanent residence. 4

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1. Where the valuables are; 2. To what extent the owner has manpower and guns for defense; 3. To what extent there are neighbors close by with guns and manpower to help defend; 4. What the route to get to, and escape with, the valuables is like; 5. Which day provides an opportunity for the robbery; in other words, a time that the owner is careless, does not have any manpower present to help defend, and so on. The informer has to find out all this information before inviting badmen to commit the robbery. 8. How can the informer find out this information? The informer lives nearby the owner, in the same village or the same sub-district.7 Usually, they have visited each other often, so he can find out naturally; it is not so difficult. Sometimes, there are other people who live in the same house as the owner, such as a servant who wants money, or a relative who has had a dispute with the owner. For example, if a relative goes to borrow money but the house owner refuses, the relative is angry. In some cases, these people then take information about the amount of the household’s valuables to the informer. 9. When the informer thinks a place should be robbed, how does he go around inviting the group of badmen? First, the informer usually goes to the powerful nakleng who is the boss of the nakleng in that area.8 10. How does the informer know who the nakleng boss is? Nakleng usually know very well who all of the nakleng are. If nakleng are familiar with each other and have become sworn friends, they have no secrets to hide. Even if a nakleng goes off to commit a robbery, and his nakleng friend comes to ask him about it, he will tell the friend everything—without hiding a thing. 11. How does a nakleng know that someone else is a nakleng too? Every nakleng typically works in a way that requires a group. The more comrades he has, the more effectively and widely he can commit crimes and the more powerful a nakleng he becomes. Thus, it is natural that A “sub-district,” or tambon, refers to a grouping of villages forming an administrative division smaller than a khwaeng or amphoe. It is also sometimes translated as “commune.” It is headed by a kamnan, or a “sub-district chief.” 8 We have consistently translated the Thai word thin (ถิ่น) as “area.” 7

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nakleng are always trying to make friends with other nakleng. So, they know many. 12. What kind of nakleng becomes a boss? What kind does not? A nakleng with many followers becomes the boss of that area. Nakleng with fewer followers living in the same area as a local boss have to obey him. 13. Why do nakleng with few followers need to obey the boss? Can they just remain nakleng without obeying him? No, if a nakleng with few followers is not willing to obey the boss in his area, the boss will order his followers to harrass him in all kinds of ways. Therefore, the boss has the power to call for subordinate nakleng to rob any place or prohibit them from targeting any place as well. 14. How is an area defined? There is no way to measure that. For example, Kò Yai [เกาะใหญ่] is counted as an area and has a boss. Chiangrak Nòi [เชียงรากน้อย] is another area. Khlòng Singhanat [คลองสิงหนาท] is another area. Khlòng Sa [คลองสะ] is another area. 15. Is it like this everywhere? There are probably nakleng in every place. The only difference is that there are more in some places and fewer in others. Where there are nakleng, there is bound to be a boss. Because robberies need a gang [to succeed], there also needs to be a boss to make the arrangements. 16. What kind of people become nakleng? Nakleng come from three kinds of people: those who smoke opium and drink liquor, those who gamble, and those who live in remote places9 in nakleng areas. 17. Why do these three kinds of people become nakleng? Those who smoke opium and drink liquor usually do so in opium dens and liquor halls.10 There, they often smoke and drink with those who are nakleng already. When they see each other often and get acquainted while drunk, they get to like each other and swear friendship. Eventually, they An area described as pliaw (เปลี่ยว) is remote and deserted, and carries the implication of being dangerous. 10 A rong fin (โรงฝิ่น) is an “opium den.” A rong sura (โรงสุรา) is the corresponding location for liquor consumption, although not necessarily like a “bar,” so we have opted for the more literal translation, “liquor hall.” 9

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allow the nakleng to draw them into becoming nakleng too. Those who gamble lose their possessions, but they never lose their greed. So they turn to being nakleng in order to get things to gamble. Those who live in remote locations in nakleng areas—for example the people who go to establish farms in remote locations—are harrassed in so many ways by the badmen that they can no longer stand it. Sometimes they have to become nakleng only to protect themselves. When they become nakleng, other nakleng will be considerate and will not do them harm. This will protect their relatives too, as they can ask other nakleng not to harm them. Even if an area is not remote but an established locality or village like Ban Mai Tra [บ้านไม้ตรา], Kò Yai, the villagers there are nakleng more often than not. In places like these, even if people who are not nakleng move to live there, they usually become nakleng as well. If not, they will not be able to stay. 18. Do the nakleng who are just starting out as robbers immediately join a robbery group or do they have to be trained somehow first? The badmen who group together to commit something like a robbery are usually skilled in crime already. Badmen do not usually let newcomers participate in a robbery because they are afraid that the newcomers will be clumsy and botch the operation. Another reason is that they do not trust that the new people can keep a secret. Sometimes, if the new people are a little drunk, they may go around telling stories about the badmen’s comrades. As a result, when badmen search for comrades to rob with, they only select those who they think they can trust. 19. If that is so, how can someone who has never committed a robbery join a robbery gang? Before becoming a robber, he starts by just stealing cattle first. After stealing cattle successfully many times, other nakleng will consider him skilled or brave. So they convince him to join a robbery gang. 20. In a village where there are very few nakleng, do they have to worry about the villagers who are not nakleng? Nakleng live their lives normally, like everyone else. Although villagers may not like nakleng, no one usually knows which nakleng did what bad deed where. Only the nakleng themselves know. Even if some villagers find out, they will be afraid of the nakleng. Some villagers who have nakleng relatives or friends, on the other hand, are glad to feel that they are protected against bandits. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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21. When an informer comes to talk to the nakleng boss, what does the boss do? The boss will interrogate the informer until he is satisfied that there are valuables and an opportunity for the robbery. If he thinks that the robbery will be successful, he will accept the informer’s suggestion and immediately make an appointment for a particular date. That is, he will set a meeting [for some time] in the next one or two days at someone’s home or in a specific field, as he discussed and agreed upon with the informer. 22. When they make an appointment like that, what does the boss do next? He must estimate the size of the group that he will bring along. 23. What criteria are used to estimate the number of comrades to bring along for a particular robbery? Usually, badmen do not want to bring along too many comrades because the more people, the smaller the portion of the valuables allocated to each. So, the expected haul has to be estimated first, and then the manpower and guns that the owner and his neighbors have to defend against them must be estimated as well. The badmen’s side needs about twice the number of people and guns as the owner’s. In addition, people from both that area and from other areas have to be recruited, because those who will be positioned near the owners during the robbery must be people from other areas. If they are from the same area, the house owners will recognize and remember their faces. Another thing: the estimated number of people must be an odd number. It is believed among badmen that if they go in an even number, something will usually happen to the group. For example, at the robbery in Bang Sò [บางซอ], Khwaeng Müang Suphanburi, in July 1903, twelve badmen went and one was gunned down dead.11 24. Are the recruits for the robbery gang selected by any criteria or not? Badmen are not very picky. What is important is to mostly select people who have guns. They do not really want people without guns. Also, young men are preferred. 25. Until what age can badmen remain badmen? Badmen are rarely older than 40. The only ones who are older than 40 years old and are still committing robberies are the bosses. Even so, when they reach 50 or older and lose their energy, they usually have to do This robbery was one of a series also mentioned in the explanation at the beginning of the document and in questions 45, 86, 96, and 98.

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something else for a living, for example buying stolen cattle or acting as an intermediary for ransomed cattle. 26. What kinds of guns are used nowadays by badmen?12 Percussion cap guns and single-round muzzle-loaders are not really used anymore.13 They usually use guns that hold more rounds. There are four kinds of guns that badmen use these days. First, breech-loading guns with eight rounds are sometimes used, though infrequently because they are so heavy. Badmen usually prefer to use these three kinds of guns: seven-round guns (Mauser), twelve-round guns (Winchester), and sixteen-round guns (Colt Lightning).14 But, the ones with seven rounds are the best because the cartridge is strong. In the guns with twelve and sixteen bullets, the power is weaker.15 27. Where do badmen buy these kinds of guns? These guns are sold on two rafts tied below the Bangkok distillery, in a raft on Bangkok Nòi Canal [คลองบางกอกน้อย], and at two Khaek shops near Wat Kò [วัดเกาะ].16 Each gun costs 120 baht; the same price for all three kinds. Cartridges are sold for two salüng each.17 These cartridge guns are sold openly, not in hiding. However, the badmen who buy them usually tell the sellers that they are normal traders, such as boat traders dealing in rice, and that they are only buying guns to protect themselves We posted questions on two online gun-enthusiast forums in order to help us translate questions 26 and 27. Thanks to the respondents to both of our posts for taking the time to explain terminology and the mechanics of these old guns. The online discussion threads may be viewed at http:// thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4696886, first posted 4 August 2011; and http:// www.firearmstalk.com/forums/f108/questions-about-gun-terminology-used-thai-bandits-110years-ago-81007/, first posted 11 January 2013. 13 Pün kaep (ปืนแก๊บ) are “cap guns.” More specifically, they are probably percussion cap-and-ball, muzzle-loaded shotguns, which are still sometimes used in the Thai countryside, even today, to hunt birds and rats. 14 While Mauser (เมาเซอร) and Colt Lightning (โคลต์ไลต์นิง) are clear, Winchester is actually spelled as วิลเซสเตอร (Wilcester?). We could find no evidence of a gun with that spelling, so we believe that “Winchester” was meant. 15 The term patsatan (ปัสตัน) refers to gun cartridges, and sometimes also the power of the cartridges, either strong or weak. Thanks to Chris Baker for alerting us to both its more common spelling (ปัศตัน) and Prince Damrong’s comment on its meaning in one of his prefaces to Khun Chang Khun Phaen. See the translation by Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, Khun Chang Khun Phaen: Siam’s Great Folk Epic of Love and War (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2010), 1366. 16 Phae (แพ) refers not only to “raft” but also to houseboats and other modest, flat-bottomed boats. The rong lao Krungthep (โรงเหล้ากรุงเทพฯ), or the “Bangkok distillery,” might, alternately, be some sort of liquor warehouse or a prominent tavern. We could not identify it. Khaek (แขก) refers to a person, usually Muslim, of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or Insular Southeast Asian origin. A wat is a Buddhist temple. 17 One salüng is a quarter of a baht. 12

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against bandits. It is assumed that the sellers do not realize that they are selling guns to badmen. 28. How are members of the robbery gang recruited? Sometimes in person, or by having someone else call on them. If participants from another area are needed, the bosses of those areas are asked to recruit some people. However, they are not told beforehand what will be robbed and where. It is only hinted that there is an opportunity, and they are told to gather together at a certain place and time. 29. If a badman is recruited for a robbery, can he not go? Yes, it is not compulsory at all. If anyone does not want to go, he just says so, and other badmen will be called upon. 30. Is the recruitment process fast or slow? It is not slow. Everyone is recruited in a single day. Usually, the recruitment is done the day before the robbery, but the meeting must be on the same day as the event. If the recruiting takes place too far in advance, not everyone will show up. 31. How is committing a robbery in one’s own area different from robbing in other areas? Committing a robbery in a badman’s own area differs from committing a robbery in another area in the following ways: When committing a robbery in his own area, it is not hard to figure out the approach and getaway routes because he has come and gone frequently and already knows his way around. However, he needs to be mindful that people will recognize his face because he lives nearby and many people know him. Another point is that after the robbery, he needs to make sure the village chief does not catch him looking guilty. Going to another area to commit a robbery is difficult because he does not know the way in and out or how to escape. He is afraid that the local badmen of that other area will save their own skins and that he will not be able to get away. On the other hand, he does not have to worry about the risk he faces when committing a robbery in his own area, because when he goes to other areas, people there will not usually recognize him. Even if they see his face, they will not know who he is or where he comes from. After the robbery, he only has to manage to get back home. Nobody will track him down.

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32. Do badmen have any tricks in order to solve these difficulties? Yes, they do. To prevent people from recognizing their faces, the robbers from other areas are usually positioned near the owners, who are unfamiliar with them, during the robbery. Those that the owners know, such as the informer, are positioned further away, for example as lookouts. Sometimes, an informer who lives near the owner does not participate in the robbery. He stays at home to welcome the inspection18 or to help the villagers make noises, pretending to chase after the badmen and sometimes he even shoots at them. However, he shoots high, not intending to hit them, and he leads the villagers in pursuit of the robbers in the wrong direction so that they are not caught. Another trick is that if a badman is going to commit a robbery in his own area, he first approaches his village chief, pretending that he has some business to attend to in another müang for four or five days. Then, he leaves for a day, comes back for the robbery, and then leaves again for the rest of the specified time to avoid the suspicions of the village chief. Or, at the very least, he goes straight home to sleep after the robbery. When the village chief calls the villagers out for an inspection, he comes out to be inspected like all the other villagers so as not to arouse suspicion. When going to commit a robbery in another area, a badman must bring a lot of companions—not fewer than three people—to join the badmen who are local to that other area. If there is an emergency, comrades from his own area will help each other solve any problems and return safely. No one participates in a robbery in another area by himself or with only one companion. One more point about going to commit a robbery in another area is that the badmen of that other area must lead the way up to the [targeted] house. Otherwise, they must first take the non-local badmen to scope out the target in the daytime, on a pretense, so that they know the way in and out. 33. Which do badmen like better, robbing homes or robbing cattle? House robberies and cattle robberies have different advantages and disadvantages. Robbing houses is more convenient because it takes just a moment to get and divvy up the valuables. It is finished; nothing else needs to be done after that. However, there is a disadvantage as well: it is not usually known where the owners keep their money. Even after they have entered the house, robbers still need to search high and low for the money, but they usually cannot find as much as they expected. For more on the village inspection carried out in immediate response to a robbery, see question 53. 18

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As for cattle robberies, on the other hand, the value of the cattle can be estimated just by looking at them. However, the disadvantage is that after the robbery, they still have to be taken through the forest for sale. If they cannot be sold quickly, the badmen are usually caught. It is difficult to hide the stolen property. These are the differences. However, badmen nowadays seem to prefer robbing water buffaloes to houses because the price of buffaloes is higher than before.19 34. Is raiding a boat [ตีเรือ] easy or difficult? Nowadays, raiding a boat is rarely as successful as it was before because, first, a trading boat is usually towed by a steamboat in order to move faster. Another reason is that police patrols and provincial gendarmes patrol along the rivers.20 If badmen want to raid boats, they first have to get into another boat to do it. If they meet police patrols or provincial gendarmes, they usually cannot escape, even if they have not robbed anything yet. If they do not have a torch light, the police will call for an inspection. If weapons are found, the badmen will be arrested. Therefore, they rarely opt to raid boats. 35. I have heard news of robberies of itinerant boats21 and trading boats. How can you say that they do not raid boats? Robbing boats is different from raiding boats because the boats that are robbed are the ones that dock here and there alongside houses. For example, a Chinese boat going to buy rice docks here for a day and then docks somewhere else for another day or two. The informer therefore knows that the boat has money and will be in a certain place, so he can make arrangements to have it robbed. In regards to the boats that run back and forth for several days without staying anywhere, the informer cannot know which The price of buffaloes had been increasing for several decades due to growing buffalo (and buffalo meat) exports, the expansion of agricultural lands, and a devastating case of Rinderpest. Around the time this “conversation” was published, the price of a buffalo was roughly 70-120 baht. See Prince Dilok Nabarath, Siam’s Rural Economy under King Chulalongkorn, Walter E.J. Tips, trans. (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2000), 147-150. 20 We have translated phon trawen (พลตระเวน) as “police patrols” and tamruat phuthòn (ตำ�รวจภูธร) as “provincial gendarmes.” 21 It is not clear what rüa khao (เรือเข้า; lit. “entering boats”) were. We have translated the term as “itinerant boats” because our best guess is that they were trading boats that “came in” to dock and trade at various points along a route. We think it is unlikely that khao (เข้า; “enter”) is an alternate spelling for khao (ข้าว; “rice”), as some colleagues have suggested, for two reasons: first, because “rice” is not spelled this way elsewhere in the document, including in the answer to this question. And, second, because the copy of this document in Prince Damrong’s personal library, which has several other corrections marked in pencil, does not modify this term. 19

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of them has money and which does not. So, they are not robbed. 36. When the recruits have all gathered together for the robbery, what do they do next? They make an appointment to meet at the place that was agreed on with the informer. If there are a lot of them, they will walk in groups of three or four to avoid the suspicion of other people, just as long as they meet all together at the meeting place on the afternoon before the night of the robbery. 37. Do badmen like to go to the meeting place for their appointment by boat or on foot? It is the tradition of badmen to make their way to a robbery on foot. If they need to cross a river, they will get in a boat, but once across, they will continue on land because they have weapons with them. On a boat, it is difficult to hide or escape, unlike traveling on foot. Therefore, badmen do not like to go by boat. 38. According to your earlier answer, there are badmen everywhere. When going to commit a robbery in another place, are you not respectful of the badmen of that other area? Such robberies are usually initiated by the local robbers of that other area. The badmen from outside that other area are only assistants. Therefore, some local badmen of that other area would have to participate in every robbery there. But sometimes, the badman boss of that other area does not participate in the robbery. However, he must give his permission for the robbery to take place. If the local badmen of that other area do not allow the robbery, others would not dare to do it. 39. Why would others not dare to commit a robbery if the local badmen do not allow it? If the local badmen do not allow a robbery but one is committed anyway, the local badmen will be annoyed. They may call in the officials to make arrests. They are considerate of each other for this reason. 40. If that is so, when there is a robbery in an area, will the local nakleng there necessarily know who committed the robbery in every case? They know in every case, but sometimes they may not know all the participants. However, they probably know that a particular person led the robbery gang. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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41. How is the meeting and feast before the robbery conducted? Where is the meeting place? The meeting place cannot be a specific place. It is up to the boss and the informer to agree on a place. Sometimes, the badmen meet at the informer’s house. Sometimes, they meet at a nakleng friend’s house in that area. Sometimes, they meet in the middle of a field, taking a particular tree as a landmark. Meeting points cannot be fixed because the meeting must take place about 40-50 sen22 or even farther away from the place that is going to be robbed, so as not to make the owner aware. In addition, they cannot meet in a village with many people; they worry that people would become suspicious. So, they have to meet in an appropriate place. For the feast,23 no particular food is necessary, aside from rice and liquor. The snacks24 depend on what is available; they are not always the same. These treats are usually prepared by the informer. If there is not enough, the badmen will use whatever money they have on them to buy more. When they have all arrived, the feast begins. After the feast, they swear friendship. 42. Why do they swear friendship? If nakleng have not yet sworn friendship, they do not yet trust each other. Sometimes, they swear friendship the very first time they meet. But sometimes they are from different areas and have just met each other for the first time before the robbery. Therefore, after the feast is over, if anyone sees any badman at the meeting who he has not yet sworn friendship with, they will swear oaths to each other right then. 43. How are the oaths sworn? Liquor is poured into a coconut shell cup and then a pinch of salt is added. Then, everyone who is to swear friendship dips one finger into the liquor and swears the following oath:25 One sen (เส้น) is approximately 40 meters. Therefore, the meeting place is about 1.5 or 2 kilometers (or more) from the robbery target. 23 This “feast” is, in Thai, kanliangdu (การเลี้ยงดู). The verb liang means to treat another with food, or to feast them. The English term “feast” suggests that the food is a kind of offering to guests on a special occasion, and that there is a lot of it. In Thai, liang also implies that the food is an offering and that the occasion is special, but it does not necessarily imply that there is a large quantity (but evidently there should be enough, or other badmen will have to go out and supplement it). The commensal aspect of the meal is crucial. 24 “Snacks” are kap klaem (กับแกล้ม); that is, food usually eaten along with alcohol. 25 Many thanks to Winai Pongsripian, especially, and also to Chairat Polmuk and Danai Ployplai for their help translating this oath. One commented that the oath seemed confused, as if the speaker could not remember the particulars. As children playing at being bandits, the characters Khun Chang and Khun Phaen make a similar oath to each other in the epic poem, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, 14. 22

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I, whose name is Ai that, living in that village, in that district and müang, forge a bond of friendship with Ai this of this village, this müang.26 From now on, if I do not remain faithful to Ai this, may the sword of a royal guard of the seven or eight divisions not miss my neck, the neck of the one whose name is Ai that, comrade of Ai this.27 From now on, whenever I learn of anything, if he is near I will tell him; if he is far, my state of mind will be dire.28 If I discover anything tricky, but I do not inform my friend Ai this, may I, the one named Ai that, be condemned to not meet any of the future Buddhas. May I burn in Hell like the monk Thewathat for a hundred thousand eras, without end.29 As each of them finishes this oath, he takes the finger he dipped in the liquor and smears the liquor somewhere on the throat or arm of the sworn friend indicating the part that will be cut off if they are unfaithful to one another. Then, they each drink from the oath-taking liquor. After they take this oath, the senior badman among them slowly pours the oath-taking liquor as he chants an imina incantation.30 Then, he blesses the oath-takers, saying that if they are faithful to each other, may they become more prosperous, by a hundred chang or a thousand chang per year.31 If they are unfaithful to each other, may they lose everything, die violent deaths, and be the victims of other terrible things. The ceremony finishes there. From the time of the feast and the oaths until the robbery is over, none of the badmen at the meeting can isolate himself from the The term ai (อ้าย) was used as a prefix title for male criminals, slaves, and other low-status commoners. 27 The translation of this line in particular remains uncertain. We follow Winai’s assumption that the seven or eight divisions refer to sections of the royal guard. It is also possible that the phrase (translated literally as “the royal guard and the seven or eight sections”) may be a muddled allusion to the guardians, or gods, of the eight directions, as Baker and Pasuk have interpreted certain passages in Khun Chang Khun Phaen, 14, 41-42. 28 We interpret this line to indicate that Ai that will be frustrated if he needs to faithfully inform Ai this of some matter, but he cannot because of the distance between them. 29 The monk Thewathat (เถนเทวทัต), often transcribed Devadatta from the Pali, is remembered for turning against Gautama Buddha, trying to kill him in various ways, and causing a schism. In Thailand, the most popular account of his death is that the Earth opens up to swallow him whole and sends him straight down to the deepest Hell, which is clearly the kind of death that the robbers are referring to here. 30 For “pour” here, although the text has truat nam (ตรวจน้ำ�), the standardized modern spelling is now kruat nam (กรวดน้ำ�; “pour the water”). Water is poured ceremonially in order to dedicate merit to divinities, the dead, living relatives, friends, or even enemies. An imina incantation is used to bless, or pass on merit and good wishes to people, spirits, or animals. 31 One chang (ชั่ง) is a unit of weight/currency equal to 80 baht (or 600 grams). A hundred chang, or 8000 baht, was used at the time to indicate something of generally high value (such as a brideprice), and a thousand chang would be even more valuable than that! 26

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group. If any of them separates from the group and arouses suspicion, the badmen can shoot him dead. 44. Is the meeting and feast for house robberies similar to the meeting and feast for cattle robberies? Yes, the meetings and feasts are similar, but the characteristics of these kinds of robberies are different. 45. Are there any houses that badmen avoid robbing? Apart from the places they know they cannot rob because the owner or neighbors have more forces to fight with than the badmen do, places they avoid are: first, the houses of the people who have done favors for the boss by, for example, raising him or lending him money; second, the houses of nakleng relatives that a nakleng comrade requests no harm be done to; and third, temples. However, even temples are not certain, because when the badman gang was going to commit the robbery in Bang Sò this time,32 there were some badmen urging the robbery of a particular temple, saying that the monks there were entrusted with a lot of money and things. However, most of the badmen were afraid of committing a sin and were unwilling to rob a temple, so they did not do it. If there had been no opposition, they would have robbed the temple on that occasion. 46. What are the methods of robbing a house? Please explain the methods of robbing a house: when the feast is finished, what do badmen do next? After the feast, as soon as it is dusk, they walk directly from the feasting place to behind the house they are going to rob. When they get about ten sen away, they stop again.33 47. Why do they stop again? They need to stop again to prepare for the robbery. 48. How do they prepare? They assign duties among the badmen, prepare themselves, conduct a prayer ceremony for the divinities,34 and rest up until the time. 49. How are the duties assigned? After the boss tells everyone whose house to rob, he assigns a group to enter the house and another group to be lookouts. The explanation at the beginning of the document and question 23 also mention this robbery. Ten sen is about 400 meters. 34 Conducting a prayer ceremony for the divinities: tham phithi buang suang (ทำ�พิธีบวงสรวง). 32 33

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50. What supplies are used by the group entering the house? They must have torches and guns, although just one or two guns are enough. Other than that, there are knives and axes. Axes are used to split open chests and hack down doors. 51. I have heard people say that badman bosses and spiritual leaders rarely enter houses themselves.35 They usually use their impetuous subordinates to do that. Is this true? It is not true that the boss does not enter the house. In fact, going into the house is an important matter. Those going in must be resourceful and understand robbery because whether the valuables can be gotten or not all depends on the robbers entering the house. If they are stupid and inexperienced, they rarely succeed. Therefore, important people must enter the house. But care must be taken not to use anyone that the house owners know for this. 52. Do the robbers who enter houses nowadays still paint their faces as in the past?36 Nowadays, they do not paint their faces as before. 53. Why do they not paint their faces as before? Badmen do not paint their faces anymore for two reasons. The first reason is that nowadays, when there is a robbery in any sub-district, the village chief usually calls the villagers out for an inspection. If the badmen painted their faces, they would not be able to wash their faces in time for the inspection. Another reason is that if badmen paint their faces, the owner and the officials who are investigating would suspect that they are locals because then they would need to paint their faces to prevent anyone from recognizing them. If the badmen use people from other areas to go into the house and show their faces, the owners will not know who they are or where they are from. Both the house owners and the officials will suspect that they are badmen from other areas, and they will not search for people in the local area. For these reasons, badmen do not paint their faces as before. 54. What are the duties of the lookouts? The lookouts must surround the house with guns and fire them continuously to keep the neighbors from coming to help. If they have brought along too few guns, sometimes they use big firecrackers instead Literally “teacher,” the khru was the group’s “spiritual leader.” He was probably an elder and might also have been the boss. 36 That is, in order to conceal their identities. 35

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to make an intimidating noise so people are afraid to come help. 55. How do the badmen prepare themselves? The badmen in a robbery gang all wear the same headwraps as a common emblem. Or, they all wear the same jacket. This is so that in the midst of a chaotic robbery, they can recognize whether someone is from their group or not. In addition, they have phrases that they use with one another. They call each other “Ai Tiger.” When entering a house, they shout, “Ai Tigers, let’s go!” and “Ai Tigers, enter!” After they have gotten the goods and are about to make their getaway, they say, “Ai Tigers, withdraw!” If they encounter resistance, badmen are injured, and the robbery will not succeed, they call out, “Ai Tigers, retreat!” to signal that they have to escape from the house.37 56. How is the prayer ceremony for the divinities conducted? At the stopping place, the weapons are stacked together in a cone-shape and amulets are hung from the top. The badmen sit around this in a circle. The spiritual leader among the badmen sprinkles alcohol on the weapons and on the badmen, and utters words of prayer to the divinities [เทวดา], the gist of which is to assure the guardian spirits of the land [พระภูมเิ จ้าที]่ , the gods [เทพยดา], the royal family [เจ้าฟ้า], and the king [เจ้าแผ่นดิน] that their conspiratorial gathering has no intention of committing treason against the kingdom. They are committing this act because of their extreme poverty. He asks that they may get valuables from those houses to support themselves, and that they may achieve their wishes. This is the gist of the prayer. However, if there is no spiritual expert present, the prayer ceremony is not done. 57. At the stopping place, what do they do while they wait for the right time? Because walking from the feasting place is tiring, they have to rest and catch their breath before they can commit the robbery. Also, they need to wait until late at night, around midnight, to start the robbery. 58. Why is the robbery committed at midnight? The robbery time cannot be fixed. The important thing is that they have to wait until the owners and neighbors are sound asleep. Another thing is that they have to allow time [after the robbery] for the local badmen of that area to return to their houses while it is still night time, not around dawn The robbers’ exclamations are as follows: “Ai tigers, let’s go!” is ai süa ao wa (อ้ายเสือเอาวา); “Ai Tigers, enter!” is ai süa khün (อ้ายเสือขึ้น); “Ai Tigers, withdraw!” is ai süa tòi (อ้ายเสือถอย); and “Ai Tigers, retreat!” is ai süa la (อ้ายเสือล่า). 37

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when people may see them. For these reasons, badmen usually commit robberies at midnight, when the owners are usually asleep already and there is enough time for the badmen to return to their houses before dawn. 59. Do badmen prefer to commit robberies during a moonlit or moonless night? They prefer to rob on nights when the moonlight is bright enough to see each other. If it is too dark, they are liable to accidently hurt each other. 60. Once they have waited until the time, what do they do next? They walk straight up to the house. The lookouts surround the house and fire their guns. The group entering the house lights their torches, breaks open the door, enters, and searches for the owner. 61. Why do badmen look for the owner first? House robbers have to capture the owner first because they do not know where he keeps his money. They have to capture the owner, beat him up, and threaten him until he tells them where he keeps his valuables so that they can get them quickly and easily. If the owner gets away, the badmen need to search for the valuables themselves, and they rarely get much. 62. If the robbers only need the owner in order to interrogate him about the valuables, why do they kill him in some cases? Robbers never mean to kill the owner, or to kill anyone. They just want to get the valuables. The house owner dies only when he fights back against the badmen. Or, if the owner injures a badman, the badmen will be furious and kill the owner in anger. In addition, if a badman notices that the owner recognizes him, he will usually kill him. But, it is never the badmen’s intention to go and kill the owner. 63. If the owner manages to escape while the badmen are already in the house, why do they not help each other to search for every last valuable? Robbing a house has to be done as quickly as possible. They cannot take their time searching. Because the noise of the badmen’s guns can be heard from a distance, they worry that the provincial gendarmerie, police patrols, or neighbors that live far away will gather together and come help. So, they need to finish the operation quickly. They cannot let people from far away arrive to help. 64. If a badman is injured or killed during the robbery, what do his badman comrades do? If a badman is injured but still alive, they help him up and carry him Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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with them; they do not leave him. If he is dead, they cut off his head and dump it far away, so as not to let the owner’s party recognize his face. 65. Once the robbery is over and they have gotten the valuables, what is done after that? The badmen go to the middle of a field or the middle of a forest beyond the house. When they reach an isolated place, they huddle together to divvy up the valuables. After that, they return separately to their houses. 66. How do they divide up the valuables? They put all the valuables that they managed to get in the center. First, they allocate some for the cost of the food, liquor, and cartridges that were used that day. Then they divvy up the rest, for each person equally. 67. Do they ever get a lot of valuables from robbing a house? They do not usually get a lot because the informer can rarely find out just how much there is and where it is kept. Some places have lots of money, but the owner has buried it, hidden here and there. If they cannot capture the house owner, they will not get all the valuables. 68. If the informer asserted that there were a lot of valuables, but the badmen do not get as much as he said, will they do anything to the informer? They do not do anything. They just learn that this person is unreliable. If, later, he comes and tells them something, they will not really believe him. 69. After the robbery, where do the badmen escape to? After the robbery, the local badmen of that area who told the village chief that they were going somewhere far away rush out of the area during the night. If any of them did not take leave of the village chief, they hurry back to their houses to sleep. When the chief comes to inspect, the badmen find witnesses to say that they were asleep in their houses that night. 70. For house robberies, are spikes laid out to impede people from following?38 It is not necessary to use spikes for house robberies. Spikes are only used in cattle robberies.

“Spikes” (khwak; question 81. 38

ขวาก) are made from sharpened bamboo. They are described in detail in Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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71. Why are spikes not used in house robberies? It is difficult to use spikes because they need to be made beforehand. If anyone sees badmen carrying spikes along with them, it is a sure sign that they are badmen. They cannot make excuses like they can for having weapons. So, spikes are used only when necessary. It is not necessary to use them when robbing a house because after robbing, the badmen go back to the fields beyond the house. Each of them then departs separately without leaving any tracks to follow. But with robbing and driving off cattle, they leave tracks for the owner to follow. So, they need spikes to impede the owner from following. 72. What are the methods of robbing cattle? There are two types of cattle robbery. Robbing cattle from a pen must be done at nighttime, but robbing and driving off a herd of cattle that was let loose in a field is done during the daytime. 73. Why must robberies be committed one way at night and another way during the daytime? Pens for cattle are usually right next to the house. If the robbery is committed in the daytime, the badmen will be seen and they will not be able to succeed. So they need to rob at night, just like robbing houses. But if cattle have been let out to graze at the edge of the forest, they can be robbed in the daytime because the badmen can approach through the forest and the owner will not see them. They emerge from the forest and immediately herd the cattle back into it. 74. How do badmen prepare to rob buffaloes from a pen at night? They prepare just like they do for robbing a house. The only difference is that when the badmen enter the buffalo pen, they fire their guns at the shelter where the watchman is lying to frighten him into running away. Then, they open the pen and herd the buffaloes away. 75. Once the buffaloes have been robbed, what is done after that? Once the buffaloes have been herded to a remote area, the badmen gather to divvy up the buffaloes they got. 76. What is the method of dividing up the robbed buffaloes? There are two ways. In the past, they were usually divided up and sold separately. The badmen then put together whatever money each of them got from the sales and, after deducting expenses, the profits were distributed, like how the valuables robbed from houses are divvied up. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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But now a different method is used. When they have herded the buffaloes to a gathering point, they appraise each buffalo. Added together, this is the value that was robbed on that occasion, from which they subtract expenses. The amount leftover is divided up and allocated to each person. After this amount is calculated, the buffaloes are sold to the badmen in the group according to the values already estimated. It is up to each person how many buffaloes he will buy. If he buys and then sells them for a higher price than appraised, then he will make a profit. If the buyer sells them and gets arrested, he will lose out. The buyer still needs to pay according to the prices estimated.39 77. Are spikes used when buffaloes are robbed at night? No, that is not necessary. They are only used for robbing a herd in the daytime. 78. Why are spikes unnecessary when robbing buffaloes at night? Once the badmen have herded the buffaloes from the pen to the allocation place, they divide them up and drive them off separately in the middle of the night. There are no tracks for the owner to easily follow. But when robbing and herding off buffaloes in the daytime, the owners usually follow in quick pursuit. The badmen need to drive the buffaloes far away before they are able to divide them up. Driving a whole herd of buffaloes usually leaves traces for the owner’s party, in pursuit, to easily notice. So, they need to use spikes and find ways to cover up the buffalo tracks completely. 79. How is a buffalo herd robbed in the daytime? Badmen need to meet up and feast each other just like robbing at night, but they do it in the morning. After that, they walk together [to a place near the target] and rest up until two pm. Then, they walk through the forest to the place where the buffaloes are grazing. First, they have the non-local badmen emerge, shooting and chasing the herders until they have all fled. Then, they drive the buffaloes into the forest. When the buffaloes are all in the forest, the badmen help each other herd them off altogether. The method of covering up any traces is this. If the badmen know of In other words, a badman is assigned a share of the value of the total haul of buffaloes. If he decides to “buy” buffaloes worth more than his share, he does not necessarily have to pay the difference with money upfront. But he must eventually pay for the additional value of the buffaloes that he bought according to the prices estimated just after the robbery, regardless of whether he sells his animals for a higher or lower price, and even if he gets arrested. 39

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a path used for herding buffaloes and they can use it, they will drive the herd along it a far as possible before turning onto another route. Because buffalo herds are always using such paths, if another herd tramples over the tracks of their buffaloes, the tracks will be obscured and the owners will not be able to identify them. 80. Why are cattle herds robbed in the afternoon? If they are robbed in the morning, the buffaloes will be exposed to the blazing sun. Gasping for breath and exhausted, they cannot be driven far. So they must be robbed in the afternoon. If the buffaloes are driven off when the sun is less strong, they can go all night and they will not be panting for breath. 81. How are the spikes used? There are three kinds of spikes used: water chestnut spikes, people spikes, and horse spikes.40 All three are made of mai ruak bamboo.41 Water chestnut spikes are spikes tied together to make four sharp points. However they are dropped, a point sticks up; the spikes do not have to be planted into the soil. They are ready for use immediately. But they are difficult to make and carry along, so badmen do not usually use them. There are three sizes of people spikes. The small size is stuck into the ground to stab feet. The medium size is stuck into the ground to stab shins. The long size is stuck in the ground to stab thighs. But the small size is the best. They are called Khun Dan spikes.42 Thin mai ruak bamboo strips are sharpened. The tips are tapered into points, notched into barbs, and singed until they become brittle. They are stuck in the ground so the points are level with the tips of the grass. As soon as they are stepped on, they pierce the foot and the points break off inside. Badmen use these a lot. They do not usually use the medium or large size. Horse-spikes are made of the whole stalk of mai ruak bamboo. One end is split into two, and both tips are sharpened. A piece of wood is forced into the split to spread open the two tips. [The other end] is stuck into the “Water chestnut spikes” are khwak kracap (ขวากกระจับ). Water chestnut shells, especially when dried and open, resemble caltrops, weapons of obstruction used in the West that share the same basic form as the bandits’ water chestnut spikes. Western observers have also noticed the similarity between the nut and the weapon: water chestnuts are sometimes called water caltrops in English. “People spikes” are khwak khon (ขวากคน) and “horse spikes” are khwak ma (ขวากม้า). 41 Mai ruak (ไม้รวก) is a kind of straight, sturdy bamboo without thorns. It is commonly used in construction and to make tools. 42 Khun Dan spikes, khwak khun dan (ขวากขุนด่าน), are probably named after a famous checkpoint officer from Nakhòn Nayok who helped to fend off an invasion from Cambodia during King Naresuan’s reign. 40

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ground; it is used to pierce the breasts of horses or buffaloes ridden in chase. But it needs to be planted in tall grass. 82. The buffalo herds are driven across broad fields. How can badmen know where the owners will walk so they can plant the spikes in the right places? They usually drive the herd of buffaloes along paths through the forest. The owners have to walk following the tracks of the cattle; they cannot go other ways. So, this is one place to trap them with planted spikes. Also, once the badmen have driven the buffaloes for a while already, they might come upon a pond or fruit trees. The path down to the pond or up to the fruit trees is also a place to stick the spikes because the owners in pursuit will probably be exhausted. When they arrive at the pond, they are likely to be thirsty. Or when they see fruit ready to eat, they are likely to want to eat it. So, they are sometimes spiked in these places. 83. Why do the badmen need to use spikes? The owners follow in pursuit more quickly than the badmen can drive the buffaloes away in escape. The energy of the buffaloes that they are herding off only lasts for a while; not so long, really. After just one night and half a day, they are exhausted. 84. In what way is the herd of buffaloes that you have robbed and driven off divided? They are divided up the same way as buffaloes robbed from pens at night. But they have to be driven until very late at night or daybreak. When the badmen see that they are past the point where the owners can catch up, then they do the dividing up. 85. Which is more worthwhile for badmen: robbing a house or robbing cattle? In terms of monetary value, robbing cattle is more worthwhile. But robbing cattle is more troublesome than robbing a house in that after the robbery, the badmen have to rush to sell the cattle in order to quickly get them off their hands, and they have to choose the route to drive the cattle and sell them so as not to get caught along the way. 86. Are the robbed cattle sold in the same district, or do badmen have to take them to sell in a different district? Selling them in the same district or müang is unheard of. They have to be brought and sold in another müang. For example, the buffaloes robbed in Khwaeng Müang Pathum Thani had to be taken for sale in Krung Kao district or in Suphan[buri] district in [Monthon] Nakhòn Chaisi. If the Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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buffaloes are from Krung Kao or Suphan, Nakhòn Chaisi, they have to be brought for sale in, say, Müang Pathum Thani or Nonthaburi. 87. You have said that badmen have to sell the robbed cattle quickly; how is that done? Before badmen rob cattle, they first have to figure out for sure who is going to buy them. After they are sure that a certain person will buy, they commit the robbery. If they cannot figure out where to sell the cattle, they will not commit the robbery. 88. What kind of person buys the cattle? The nakleng bosses are the people who buy the cattle. When every badman becomes an old nakleng with properties and houses—some have become sub-district chiefs, some have become village chiefs, some became local officials in the old system43—he may buy the cattle. But there are two types of people who buy cattle from the badmen: those who buy all of them, and those who are not very daring and buy just some of them selectively. 89. What kind of people buy indiscriminately, and what kind buy selectively? Those who have a lot of resources and are well-known, with a lot of friends in different müang, usually buy the whole lot because they have enough capital for the purchase and they have enough manpower to get the cattle to other districts or müang quickly. They buy them at night and send the buffaloes away by dawn, before anyone realizes that they have bought anything. But the nakleng who have little means of transport rarely dare to buy them all like that, so they have to be selective. 90. How are the buffaloes selected? Buffaloes are selected from among buffaloes robbed in large numbers or buffaloes stolen on the sly, which are called “hot” buffaloes and “cool” buffaloes.44 If they are hot buffaloes, those that were robbed, they have to be rushed away quickly. Their buyers rarely offer high prices. Those without means of transport will not dare to buy them at all. If they are cool buffaloes, ones that were stolen, they can be kept for several days. There is no need to scramble to get them quickly out of town. They can be sold easily and at higher prices. This refers to the administrative system before its reorganization by the Ministry of the Interior, under Prince Damrong, beginning in the 1890s. 44 For the distinction between “robbed” (ปล้น) and “stolen” (ลัก), see the note for question 3. 43

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91. When badmen sell buffaloes, do they only have to say whether they are hot buffaloes or cool buffaloes? They have to explain to the buyers precisely from which village, which way,45 and which müang the buffaloes have come, whose buffaloes they are, and whether the owner is a person with means of transport or just a commoner [ราษฎรสามัญ]. All this information is important; the buyers need it so that they know which direction to send the buffaloes away and what else they need to be aware of. The origin of the buffaloes has to be communicated from person to person among the buyers of the badmen’s cattle until they have reached the point where they think they are too far to have been followed. Then they bring the buffaloes out for use, and trade them as if they were local buffaloes. 92. Why are robbed cattle sold at a cheaper price and stolen cattle sold at a higher price? For robbed cattle, because there was a robbery clash, officials will be in pursuit. If the buffaloes were furtively stolen, the officials do not usually follow up. So, there is no reason for the buyer to be as anxious as he would be with robbed cattle. Another reason is that a large number of cattle are usually robbed at once, but only one or two cattle are stolen. Even the size of the owner’s pursuit party differs. 93. Therefore, the people who buy the cattle off the badmen are normally only middle-men, seeking profit in the trading process, right? That is right. No one buys cattle from bandits to keep for their own use. They only buy them and turn around and sell them somewhere else for a higher price in order to make a profit. Therefore, the farther the badmen can take the robbed or stolen cattle for sale, the higher the price. The closer they are sold, the lower the price. 94. If there is no one willing to buy the bandits’ robbed cattle, is there any way to sell them? If there are no nakleng waiting to buy the bandits’ cattle, the bandits probably will not rob or steal the cattle in the first place. Because cattle are large animals, once they have been robbed or stolen, it is impossible to hide them. If they bring them around from place to place trying to sell them, they may arouse suspicion and get arrested. Although these days there are nakleng willing to buy the cattle, it is still extremely difficult for In the print copy of this “conversation” in Prince Damrong’s personal library, bang (บาง) or “area,” has been corrected to thang (ทาง), which we have translated as “way.”

45

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a badman who has robbed or stolen cattle to get them to the selling point, as he needs to walk through the forest for one or two days to reach it. 95. As you have said that one must be careful not to get arrested en route, how is that done? When driving away cattle that have been robbed from people, badmen cannot just walk through open rice fields. They are afraid that people will see them. If there is an overgrown forested area that they can walk through, they will walk through it. If they go through fields, they have to walk at night and take care to avoid the provincial gendarmerie and police patrol stations. They also need to steer clear of areas with village chiefs who take their official duties seriously.46 96. Why do they have to avoid walking through areas with village chiefs who take their administrative duties seriously? If they run into a strong village chief, he will hit the krò to call his villagers to help him chase them for a while, and the badmen will have to leave the cattle behind.47 For example, when the badmen robbed buffaloes from Müang Pathum Thani in July, they were going to take the buffaloes to sell in Müang Suphanburi. They passed through the area of the village chief of Ket [บ้านเกด], who hit a krò to call his villagers, who chased them for a while. The badmen had to abandon all the cattle. 97. How do badmen know which village chiefs are strong and which are not? For this, the badmen are always trying to find out which sub-district chiefs and village chiefs are inclined to take their administrative duties seriously, which are weak, and which are nakleng. As badmen are intimidated by strong village chiefs, they are satisfied with village chiefs who are nakleng because village heads have the power to dominate their villagers. If a village chief cooperates with the badmen, no one can catch badmen who are visiting or staying with him. 98. Which are badmen more afraid of: patrol police and provincial gendarmes or village chiefs who take their administrative duties seriously? The badmen are more afraid of strong village chiefs because there are village chiefs everywhere and they know many people. If they are strong, they can call many villagers out to help, constituting a large force. As for the police patrols and provincial gendarmes, badmen are really afraid of 46 47

“take their official duties seriously” is khaengraeng nai ratchakan (แขงแรงในราชการ). A krò (เกราะ) is a section of bamboo that is struck to signal others. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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them only on rivers. But on land, patrol police and provincial gendarmes normally just stay at their stations. Badmen know the locations of these stations and do not commit any crimes near them. They also do not herd robbed cattle nearby the stations. Sometimes, when the stations have been established in remote places for a long time, the provincial gendarmes and patrol police stationed there go out and about until they get to know and make friends with the nakleng. On land, the badmen are only afraid of the police patrols and provincial gendarmes when they chase a big herd of cattle by. If the police patrols or provincial gendarmes follow in pursuit without losing them, they generally cannot get [the cattle] through. After the robbery at Bang Sò, for example, the provincial gendarmerie of Müang Suphan pursued the badmen to the Lan The fields [ทุง่ ลานเท]. The badmen had to abandon the buffaloes; they could not get them away. 99. Provincial gendarmes are always going out inspecting at night. How can you say that they only stay at the station? It is true that the provincial gendarmes go out inspecting at night, but they usually go straight to the village chief’s house to ask if anything is going on. If badmen are hiding in that village, they will have enough time to escape as soon as they become aware. 100. When officials are in pursuit, do the badmen ever fight against them? We have never heard of badmen even thinking of fighting. They only think of escaping. Only a ferocious badman such as Ai Rak [อ้ายรัก] would fight. He fought when he was cornered, as the officials were about to catch him. 101. I have heard that badmen thought of robbing the police station at Lan The once. Is that true? We have heard Ai Rak and Ai Yuang [อ้ายยวง] saying that if they robbed the gendarmerie station at Lan The, they could get the provincial gendarmerie’s guns because sometimes there were only two or three policemen stationed there. But this was all talk; it does not appear that they ever actually considered committing the robbery. But one time that they did think seriously was when Müang Pathum Thani arrested Ai Rüa [อ้ายเรือ] and imprisoned him in the Müang Pathum jail. The badmen had a meeting and planned to break Ai Rüa out. But they did not pull it off in time. Krung Kao arrested Ai Yuang, the boss who initiated the plan, so it was canceled.

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102. If badmen learn that officials are looking into arresting them, how do they plan their getaway? If they learn that there are officials on their tracks, perhaps because some of their friends have been arrested already, badmen will escape to another müang to stay. If they have no firm roots, they might simply migrate to another müang. For those who have fields and a house—a stable residence—they escape to another müang for a while. They watch and wait. When they see that the investigation is easing up, they come back to visit their homes from time to time. At first they come only at night; later they start to come during the day time. They come and go until they see that the investigation has gone completely quiet. Then they will come back home to live as before. It is usually like this. But after their escape, some people become ferocious badmen like Ai Rak. In the beginning he was just a buffalo thief. But when Village Chief Pan caught his [stolen] buffaloes, Ai Rak became annoyed and shot Village Chief Pan [ผูใ้ หญ่ปน้ั ] dead. Ai Rak then escaped to live in a remote area, and went around behaving himself like a ferocious badman, killing and slashing people and committing robberies until, recently, he was shot to death by officials. 103. If their friends are arrested and taken to court, in what ways do badmen look after, support, and help them? We have heard of badmen in the same robbery gang who have agreed to be witnesses for their arrested friends, and helped them get away with it. Other than this, it appears that they do not help each other in any way. If anyone is arrested, it is their relatives’ business. 104. Are the badmen who steal only one or two buffaloes a year in the same category as badmen who commit full-blown robberies, or are they in another group? There are so many badmen who steal buffaloes that they are almost impossible to count because stealing buffaloes is like the initiation for every nakleng. Since they were young men, they have gone around consuming liquor and opium, or gambling until they have become dissolute. They need money so they often turn to surreptitiously stealing buffaloes first. Then, those that are skilled in stealing buffaloes become willing to commit more serious crimes. So they commit robberies. Therefore, all robbers are bound to be skilled at stealing buffaloes. But once they have committed a robbery, they prefer robbing over stealing because they can get more. But they still usually steal every now and then in their free time or when they happen upon an opportunity that is not too difficult. For example, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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when one is on his way back from an excursion and he sees cows left alone out of the caretaker’s sight, he catches one and rides it back. But they do not make an effort to steal buffaloes. The people who continually steal buffaloes like it is their business are usually those who have just become nakleng or those who have been earning their living by stealing buffaloes for a long time but are not content to move up to robbery. So they keep stealing cattle like that. 105. What is the method for stealing cattle? There are two ways of stealing cattle on the sly: stealing cattle that children take to the fields to graze in the daytime is one way, and breaking open the pen where the cattle are confined at night is the other. Aside from stealing cattle that have wandered out of their owners’ sight, there are two methods for stealing cattle that children have brought to the fields for grazing. These include driving [the badman’s] own buffaloes into the buffalo herd that the children are looking after with the aim of having one or two of the children’s buffaloes join [the badman’s] own herd. If the children realize in time, then he lets them go.48 If they do not realize in time, he drives them away for sale. This is the easy method. The other way is to find someone to act as an accomplice to trick the children looking after the buffaloes into going bathing or going to play somewhere out of sight. This way, the badman steals two or three buffaloes, whatever he can. The method of stealing by cutting open the pen requires three or four comrades to go together at night. They lie in wait until they see the person guarding the buffaloes fall asleep. Then, they stealthily cut open the pen and steal whatever buffaloes they can. If the owner wakes up or finds out in time, they need to flee. Stealing buffaloes requires perseverance in the face of difficulties in order to succeed. If the badmen get any, it is not usually a lot. So, once badmen have succeeded in committing a robbery, they rarely like to steal buffaloes anymore. 106. How do they sell the stolen buffaloes? Once they have stolen the buffaloes and taken them out of the owner’s area, they do not have to hurry too much. Sometimes, they sell them to nakleng in that other area. Sometimes they sell them to nakleng who are buyers of cattle that badmen rob.

48

In other words, the targeted buffaloes are left behind and the attempted theft is abandoned. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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107. What do those who buy stolen buffaloes do after buying them? They buy them and then turn around and sell them. But they do not rush and usually do not send them far away like robbed cattle because there is a way for them to profit by collecting a ransom. 108. How is the cattle-ransoming method done?49 The cattle-ransoming method is done as follows. If anyone’s buffalo goes missing and the owner does not know where it has gone, he goes to a nakleng of that area and hires him to track it down. If the owner is a nakleng, he will go out and search for it himself. [The nakleng] asks around among other nakleng until he finds out that the buffalo has fallen into the hands of a particular buyer. So, he goes straight to that buyer and tells him that at that moment a particular person’s buffalo has gone missing in this direction and the owner would like to redeem it. Does the buyer know where the buffalo is and whether it can be redeemed? The buyer, then, says evasively that he has heard that the buffalo has come this way, and he will ask around about it. How big of a redemption fee will the owner pay? When they agree on price, the nakleng returns to the owner and says that he has found out that the buffalo has gone to a particular sub-district. But he lies to the owner by not saying the real subdistrict because he is afraid that the owner will go and redeem it himself and the nakleng will not get any profit. When the owner asks how much the redemption fee is, the nakleng tacks on about 20 or 30 baht for his own profit.50 When the owner agrees to redeem the buffalo, if the nakleng does not trust the owner, he takes the money to redeem it himself. If he trusts the owner not to bring a case against him, he takes the owner with him to the buyer. The buyer still maintains his act, complaining that he has to plead with someone else first, and asks to put off [the redemption] for a day or half a day. But he takes the money, and whispers an order to his subordinate to take the buffalo and tie it up in a particular place in the forest, and he leaves as if to go beg [for the buffalo’s return]. Then he comes back and instructs [the nakleng redeemer] to go in a particular direction to get the buffalo. The redeemer goes and finds the buffalo tied in the middle of a forest, so he unties it and leads it back. When he gets near the owner’s house, he has to release the buffalo again. Or, sometimes the nakleng leads the buffalo to a sub-district chief, Johnston discusses the buffalo ransom and withdrawal (see question 111) methods at some length, calling them “buffalo-napping” because of their similarity to kidnappings. Johnston, “Bandit, Nakleng, and Peasant,” 92. 50 A buffalo was worth around 70-120 baht at the time. Dilok, Siam’s Rural Economy, 147. 49

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reporting to him that he found a lost buffalo and he does not know whose it is. He asks the sub-district chief to take it to the district [town] to make an announcement. The owner then brings the [buffalo] description certificate to the district as proof, and asks to reclaim it.51 But sometimes after the buffalo has been brought back and let loose beyond the [owner’s] house, the owner pretends to find it. He reports to the sub-district chief that he found the missing buffalo wandering loose so he caught it and brought it back. This is the buffalo ransom method. 109. The buffalo ransom method seems to be very roundabout and tricky. I still do not clearly understand why it has to be done like that. For instance, when the owner gets the buffalo back, why does he have to let it loose again and make the announcement? Because when the buffalo goes missing, the owner files an official missing-property report. If the scheme cannot be pulled off as described, he will be afraid that he will be suspected of working in cooperation [with the badmen] in the cattle-ransoming. 110. When the buyer is actually a friend of the nakleng redeemer, why do they not speak to each other candidly? Why does he have to lie, saying that the buffalo is with someone else, and why does he have to tie it up and have [the redeemer] go find it in the middle of the forest? The buyer has to lie to the redeemer because otherwise he is afraid that he will not be able to negotiate as high a ransom as he wants. Moreover, sometimes the redeemer is a nakleng that the buyer is not very familiar with. So he has to set up the gambit like that. The reason for tying the buffalo in the middle of the forest is to prevent any witnesses from seeing that either the buyer or the nakleng redeemer has anything to do with transferring the buffalo to one another, and also to keep anyone from noticing that the buffalo was in the possession of the buyer. 111. How is the buffalo withdrawal method done? It is similar to the ransoming method. The difference is only that the nakleng who goes to get the buffalo steals another person’s buffalo or buys a stolen buffalo and exchanges it for the missing buffalo on behalf of the owner. By doing this, the nakleng withdrawer gets more profit and The “description certificate,” or tua phim rup phan (ตั๋วพิมพ์รูปพรรณ), was issued to buffalo owners and technically required for all sales and transfers. We translate it here as “description certificate.” The system, however, was rather ineffective and often abused. See Matt Reeder, “Buffalo Crimes and Modernization in King Chulalongkorn’s Siam,” Explorations: A Graduate Student Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10 (spring 2010): 45-46.

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the person who exchanges the buffalo usually gets a better buffalo than the [stolen] one he bought. If not, he has to request additional money. 112. Can only stolen cattle be ransomed, or can robbed cattle also be ransomed? Only stolen cattle can be ransomed. Robbed cattle have to be sent far away at once. There is no chance to ransom them. 113. With many people stealing one or two buffaloes at a time, will not the buffaloes of fellow nakleng sometimes get stolen? It happens often because when children take buffaloes to the fields to graze, badmen rarely know whose buffaloes they are. But if a buffalo is stolen and then followed, and they find out that it belongs to another [nakleng], they return the buffalo along with an appropriate amount of money. 114. I have heard that badmen have a method to modify marks on a buffalo. Is that true or what? Only the horns can be modified. That is, a buffalo’s spread-out horns [เขากาง] can be changed into curved horns [เขารอม]. A buffalo’s curved horns can be changed into backward-bending horns [เขาบัด].52 A buffalo’s backward-bending horns can be changed into curved horns. But a buffalo’s curved horns cannot be modified into spread-out horns because the horns break when they are bent apart. 115. How is the modification done? Coat the buffalo’s head with dirt to protect it from the heat. Then apply fish oil all over the horns. Singe each horn with fire until it is soft. Then put on an iron sheath and bend it into the desired form. 116. How do badmen use the money they get from committing crimes? We have never seen the money gained from robberies or other kinds of crimes used for any purposes other than drinking and gambling.53 Just these two things. If badmen have any money on them, they go around treating each other and gambling until they run out. When they buy things, they only buy weapons, clothes, and cattle from other badmen. But they do not make purchases related to earning an honest living and leading a healthy life. This is the truth. Thanks to Winai Pongsripian for suggesting that khao bat (เขาบัด) in the text probably meant khao pat (เขาปัด). 53 “Drinking and gambling” is the implication of kin kap len (กินกับเล่น). 52

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Since this conversation with a robber was first printed in 1903, I have observed the methods of other badmen. I have learned that they mostly use the above methods. Therefore, I think that the testimony that these badmen gave is the truth. The officials responsible for investigating, arresting, and interrogating bandits should keep this under consideration.

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A Note on the Source Texts of Cushman’s Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya Jan R. Dressler

When the Siam Society published a synoptic translation of all major chronicles of Ayutthaya in the year 2000 there was no doubt that this hefty volume, despite the numerous and odd mistranslations contained therein, was to become a classic book of reference for everyone interested in traditional Southeast Asian historiography. Alas, the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya (RCA) pose various challenges to the reader as remarked before by Lagirarde.1 In his introduction to Cushman’s translation, David K. Wyatt frankly admitted that during the preparatory process of the manuscript, certain issues had not been solved satisfactorily. Among the questions left open was the identity of some source texts abbreviated by the translator as “E1”, “B1”, “B2” and “K”. The editor’s “best guess” was that the combinations of letters and numerals were intended to point to different manuscript versions of the various chronicles.2 Taking Cushman’s difficult path through life into account, this was a most unlikely answer to the problem. In fact, from reading and comparing the published chronicle texts with the translation, it turns out that Cushman himself had left certain clues on the sources’ identity. Even though some readers might have found solutions to these open questions during the past decade, I want to use this opportunity to propose explanations on those sources that were unaccounted for in the first two prints of RCA.

E1 Among the extant versions of the Ayutthaya chronicles the Chakkraphatdiphong Chronicle occupies a special position due to the fact that it is the only text engraved on a set of seventeen bundles of palm leaves, the last one of which contains a description of Siamese history remarkably different from all the others in style and length. Contrary to common belief, this set of palm leaves is not a codex unicus of the Chakkraphatdiphong Chronicle; the National Library keeps an isolated, single Lagirarde, François. “Chronicle of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya (Phraratchaphongsawadan Krung Si Ayuthaya). The British Museum Version – Richard D. Cushman: The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya: (Review Article).” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, vol. 88, no. 1 (2001), pp. 388–394. 2 Cushman, Richard D. tr., and David K. Wyatt, ed. The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya. Bangkok: Siam Society, 2000, p. xix; in the following abbreviated as “RCA”. 1

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black book holding the exact same content as the particular seventeenth bundle.3 It is yet unknown whether the text of this palm leaf set is a compilation of a major part of the more common type chronicles like “C” or ”D” with a copy of the story as given in the black book at the end, or vice versa. However, a comparison between the printed editions of the Chakkraphatdiphong Chronicle on the one hand and the translation of “E” as proposed in RCA on the other does not hint at any reason why Cushman might have found it necessary to distinguish a single paragraph “E1” of this particular chronicle as different from the rest of the source text.4 A possible explanation might be an error that occurred during the optical character recognition, such as a misreading of “E:” as “E1”.

B1 and B2 Further confusion was caused by Cushman’s use of the abbreviations “B1” and “B2”. A cursory glance over the Thai text of the Phan Chanthanumat Chronicle, in RCA usually indicated by the letter “B”, reveals a serious problem Cushman faced while arranging his translation. The Phan Chanthanumat Chronicle is remarkable in so far as it offers two distinctively differing accounts of a certain period of Siamese history, covering the dusk of the Narai era as well as the entire Phetracha and Suea reigns. In the Thai text these two contradictory descriptions are separated from each other by a royal order of King Rama I to Chao Phraya Phiphit Phichai to bring into an orderly sequence the narrative from King Narai to King Ekathat. The older material, which had received royal disapproval, Cushman referred to as “B1”, while the result of the rewrite is indicated as “B2”. Judging from the overall arrangement of his work, Cushman intended to present the history of the Ayutthaya kingdom in a reign-by-reign sequence in order to demonstrate the narrative’s stages of development. To this end he divided the doubled plot contained in the Phan Chanthanumat Chronicle into segments and made the corresponding descriptions of the Narai, Phetracha and Suea reigns face one another.5 Put into a simple formula, Cushman changed the original order of the chronicle from Narai (B1) / Phetracha (B1) / Suea (B1) / Editorial insertion / Narai (B2) / Phetracha (B2) / Suea (B2) to Narai (B1) / Editorial insertion / Narai (B2) / Phetracha (B1)/(B2) / Suea (B1)/(B2). Ubonsri Atthapan. “Kan chamra phra racha phongsawadan nai ratchasamai phrabat somdet phra phuttha yot fa chulalok [The revision of the royal chronicles during the reign of King Rama I.]”, MA thesis, Silpakorn University, 1981, p. 39. 4 RCA, pp. 375-376. 5 A mistake occurred during the process of rearrangement. The first paragraph of the Phetracha reign of the “B2” version actually starts at “During the tenth month, on Thursday...”; vide RCA, p. 322, l. 47. 3

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K The published version of the so-called “Royal Autograph Chronicle” (“F” in RCA), edited and issued for the first time by Prince Damrong in 1912, contains an account of Siamese history stretching from the foundation of Ayutthaya to the end of the first reign of the Chakri dynasty. The publication is outstanding insofar as it reproduces the text of a chronicle manuscript presented to King Rama IV, which His Majesty had the pleasure to annotate and correct by his own hand between the lines of the original. During his own editorial work, Prince Damrong changed the internal order of the chronicle by superseding the genuine phrases of the manuscript with the royal additions, relegating the replaced fragments to footnotes. In RCA, all sections marked by the letter “F” correspond to the original text that once had served as the basis of the royal editorial work, while the latter additions by King Rama IV are designated by the letter “K”. Since Cushman skipped the letters “H”, “I” and “J” as possible further abbreviations for source texts, I assume that the letter “K” was intended to signify “King”. In order to illustrate the nature and extent of these annotations, I have chosen two representative examples from the reigns of King Suea and King Thai Sa, accompanied by Cushman´s somewhat peculiar renditions thereof: FK: แล้วด�ำรัศให้เอา [F:กเฬวร] [K:ศพ] พันท้ายนรสิงห์นน ั้ มาแต่ง [F:การฌาปนกิจ] 6 [K:ตัง้ ทีไ่ ว้โดยสมควรแล้ว] พระราชทานเพลิง FK: Then the King ordered the [F: remains] [K: corpse] of Rear Phan Narasing brought and [F: the preparations made for the business of cremating the corpse, and] [K: , after it had been prepared as appropriate,] the King made a holy royal gift of the flame.7 FK: นักเสด็จกับพระองค์ทองพาบุตร [F:ทารา] [K:ภรรยา] ข้าคน [F:แห่งตน] [K:เปนอันมาก] หนีมายังกรุงเทพมหานคร [K:ขอให้ทา่ นเสนาบดี] กราบทูลพระกรุณาให้ ทราบ [K:ใต้ฝา่ ลอองธุลพี ระบาท] ทุกประการ [K:ขอพระบารมีเปนทีพ่ งึ่ ]8 FK: His Eminent Majesty and His Holiness Thòng led their children, [F: spouses] [K: wives], servants and people in fleeing [K: in great numbers] to the Celestial Capital and Grand Metropolis and [F: prostrated Themselves] [K: requested His Worship, the chief marshal, to prostrate himself] to tell His Damrong Rachanuphap, Somdet Kromphraya, ed. Phra racha phongsawadan chabap phra ratcha hatthalekha [The royal autograph edition of the royal chronicle]. Bangkok: n.p., 1912, vol. 2, p. 191. 7 RCA, p. 393. 8 Damrong Rachanuphap. 1912, p. 199-200. 6

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Holy Compassion so He would be informed [K: of events beneath His soles in the particles of dust of His Holy Feet] in every detail [K: and to beg His Holy Accumulated Merit to become Their refuge.].9

As demonstrated by these examples, King Rama IV was predominantly concerned with questions of stylistic propriety rather than factual substance. None of the eighty-nine marginal additions and corrections (labelled “K”) to the older manuscript “F” changes plot or content to a noteworthy extent. The question about the authorship of the basic text (“F”) underlying the Royal Autograph Chronicle is still disputed. Publications in commemoration of Krom Luang Wongsathirat Sanit´s 200th birthday list the said chronicle among the literary achievements of this doubtlessly gifted savant-aristocrat. However, more substantial evidence points to Phra Paramanuchit Chinorot as the actual author. Among these is a list of manuscripts, which had belonged to Phra Paramanuchit, that were sent to the royal library after the prince-patriarch’s death in 1853. Besides works of literature, such as Rachathirat, the highly revered monk had also collected a number of volumes of phongsawadan.10 Further reference to Phra Paramanuchit is contained in a complete set of chronicle manuscripts almost identical to the basic text (“F”), which the National Library received in 1939.11 The colophon attached to this set explicitly states that the work was the result of revisions made by Phra Phonnarat of Wat Chetuphon and Prince Phra Paramanuchit Chinorot, who probably worked on the text one after the other.12 It therefore seems appropriate to attribute this most elaborate version of the Ayutthaya chronicles to the latter monk and refer to this text as the Phra Paramanuchit Chronicle accordingly.

Commentary It is above all the synoptic outline of Cushman´s translation that establishes the value of this publication by illustrating the development of the narrative from the rather meagre Luang Prasoet Chronicle into the extended versions. But, in this time of ever closer contacts between Southeast Asian nations, Cushman´s work also makes the Siamese elite’s past stance on a variety of political issues accessible not only to an interested audience of non-Thai speakers at large, but to historians from neighbouring countries in particular. Comparisons between the texts translated by Cushman with their Cambodian RCA, p. 401. NLT, CMH, R. 4, C.S. 1215, No. 138. 11 Ubonsri Atthapan. 1981, pp. 34-38, 47-50. 12 Chanchai Phakathikhom. “Somdet phra maha samana chao krom phra paramanuchit chinorot song chamra lae riap riang phra racha phongsawadan krung si ayutthaya? [Did Somdet Phra Maha Samana Chao Krom Phra Paramanuchit Chinorot revise and arrange the royal chronicles of Ayutthaya?]”, Warasan ramkhamhaeng chabap manusayasat (2004). 9

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equivalents (e.g. Moura 1883, Leclère 1914, Khin Sok 1988) reveal the extent to which Cambodian annalists borrowed scattered information and longer passages concerning their nation’s long-standing relations with Ayutthaya. Eventually, the Siamese chronicles were accorded so high a credibility that during the latter half of the 19th century Cambodian writers went so far as to superimpose the erroneous chronology of the Ayutthaya chronicles, which had been devised during the First Reign of the Bangkok kingdom, on their still unblemished Cambodian tradition.13

References Chanchai Phakathikhom. 2004. “Somdet phra maha samana chao krom phra paramanuchit chinorot song chamra lae riap riang phra racha phongsawadan krung si ayutthaya? [Did Somdet Phra Maha Samana Chao Krom Phra Paramanuchit Chinorot revise and arrange the royal chronicles of Ayutthaya?]” Warasan ramkhamhaeng chabap manusayasat, pp. 191–208. Cushman, Richard D. tr., and David K. Wyatt, ed. 2000. The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya. Bangkok: Siam Society. Damrong Rachanuphap, Somdet Kromphraya, ed. 1912. Phra racha phongsawadan chabap phra ratcha hatthalekha [The royal autograph edition of the royal chronicle]. 3 vols. Bangkok: n.p. Khin Sok. Chroniques Royales du Cambodge - De Baña Yat à la Prise de Lanvaek de 1417 à 1595. 1988. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient. Lagirarde, François. “Chronicle of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya (Phraratchaphongsawadan Krung Si Ayuthaya). 2001. The British Museum Version – Richard D. Cushman: The Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya: (Review Article).” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 388–394. Leclère, Adhémard. 1914. Histoire du Cambodge depuis le 1er Siècle de Notre Ère. Paris: Geuthner. Moura, Jean. 1883. Le Royaume du Cambodge. 2 vols. Paris: Leroux. Ubonsri Atthapan. 1981. “Kan chamra phra racha phongsawadan nai ratchasamai phrabat somdet phra phuttha yot fa chulalok [The revision of the royal chronicles during the reign of King Rama I.]”. MA thesis, Silpakorn University.

Moura, Jean. Le Royaume du Cambodge. Paris: Leroux, 1883. vol. 2, pp. 45-59; RCA, pp. 76-190.

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Review Article Piriya Krairiksh, The Roots of Thai Art, translated by Narisa Chakrabongse (Bangkok: River Books, 2012). Nicolas Revire

Dr. Piriya Krairiksh, the renowned – and some would say, controversial or even iconoclastic – author and scholar of Thai art, published his latest book Rakngao haeng sinlapa thai in Thai language in 2010. This long-awaited volume, the zenith of a career devoted to teaching and research, was translated into English as The Roots of Thai Art by Narisa Chakrabongse last year for the benefit of a wider international readership. It is this English version that I have the pleasure to review. Piriya’s study proposes nothing less than a comprehensive new theory for understanding Thai art. In so doing, his beautifully illustrated volume goes far to challenge, perhaps even convince, those sceptical of the general reasonableness of his views regarding the development of the early Mon and Khmer civilisations which planted the roots of Thai art before the advent of Tai kingdoms in the region of present day Thailand from circa late in the 13th century onwards. Thus, it goes well beyond the structure of courses Piriya has given for a number of years in Thai universities, and offers more than a glimpse into his numerous past scholarly publications in both Thai and English. In addition, the author’s intention is to follow this work with another volume covering the modern period to the present. Where most scholars of ancient Thai history and art willingly bind themselves to a few crucial pieces of historical and epigraphic evidence, Piriya almost perversely disregards what is “known to be true.” He has long refused to accept the conventional chronology and typology of early Thai art and archaeology as initially labelled by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab and George Cœdès (Dvāravatī, Śrīvijaya, Lop Buri periods, etc.). Piriya’s position is clear from the introduction where he summarises his views and theories as they evolved over thirty years of academic research. His purpose with this divergent approach, to which I shall return below at length to contest the paradigm, is mainly “to look at the changes in the various sects and schools of Buddhism as the catalyst for changes in Buddhist art in Thailand.” He proposes that stylistic or iconographic evolution in images of the Buddha necessarily reflect the evolution of doctrinal or philosophical thinking. That framework, according to Piriya, obviates “any further need of historical structures to determine the periodisation” Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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(p. 19). It also allows for the art of different “religious styles” to be created during the same period. An even larger and sound purpose of the book is to emphasise the study of artworks by a method of analysis with four criteria that the author proposes as follows (p. 11): “1. Establishing that the piece is genuine and is not a recent fake. 2. Establishing the exact nature of the piece and its intended purpose. 3. Analysing the content of the work, studying the various symbols that may appear on the piece in order to understand its history. 4. Establishing the date by comparing the piece with other definitively dated works, which are inscribed with a date, or analysing the evolution by comparing it with securely dated works, which have been studied using other disciplines such as history or archaeology.” The rest of the book is divided into two large, albeit uneven, chapters: “Preparing the Ground for Thai Art” (pp. 28-125) that covers the period from the mid 5th through the 9th centuries and “The Forging of Thai Art” (pp. 128-377) that extends from the mid 9th to the end of the 13th centuries. In these chapters, Piriya investigates a wide selection of imported and locally made artworks and monuments, mostly religious in nature, in search of the beginnings of “Thainess.” These origins arose in the visual arts when indigenous Mon, Khmer, and “Southern people” allegedly introduced during the first millennium elements of Indian and – this is new – Chinese civilisations and adapted them to their ideas and culture before passing them to the Tai people. To this reviewer’s mind, Piriya’s assumption – that the ancient “Chinese culture” played a large role in fashioning what we know as “Thainess” (p. 29) – is unsubstantiated for, as we shall see below, the early material and epigraphic evidence found in Thailand still overwhelmingly favours Indic beliefs and customs. Nonetheless, Piriya’s balanced attitude towards the study of early Mon and Khmer art is to be valued. Furthermore, his tenacious efforts to show the significant impact of Tantric Buddhism in Khmer art found in Thailand will hopefully send a clear signal to Thai academia. For instance, this is one of the few widely available and accessible publications in English that demonstrates in such detail how the temple of Phimai was the product of a Buddhist Tantric environment (pp. 309321).1 The author supports his observations with a convincing and excellent selection of colour photographs and drawings. His descriptions and thorough dating of the artefacts are good and useful even if they are by no means undisputed. I am only in disagreement regarding the dating of a few items listed in the book. For example, I would date a good deal later, by at least one or even two centuries, the following sculptures which are considered by Piriya – perhaps just passing on what others have written before him – as the “oldest” or “earliest” in their respective categories: the Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa or “Viṣṇu” image from Chaiya dated to the early 4th century For an earlier attempt, see Gosling (2004: 124-137) who however affirms on p. 136 that “even at Phimai, Tantrism appears to have been of limited importance.”

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(fig. 1.96, pp. 100-101); the candraśāla or kuḍu dated to the 5th century (fig. 1.120, p. 116); the bronze Buddha image in so-called “Amarāvatī style” dated to the mid 5th century (fig. 1.15, p. 48) which might just as well be in the “late Anurādhapura style” and therefore considered the product of “Theravāda” workmanship rather than of the “Mahāsāṃghikas”; and, finally, the low relief in Tham Phra Photisat depicting the enthroned Buddha teaching simultaneously to Viṣṇu and Śiva figures which Piriya dates in the early 6th century (fig. 1.16, p. 49). Yet, later, the author contradicts himself, stating that Śiva as a god is actually never represented anthropomorphically before the 7th century (p. 111). Piriya’s courageous attempts to date almost everything are nonetheless helpful and should serve as benchmarks for future adjustments. Even where there might be issues regarding the actual date of an object, the sequence – that is the “relative chronology” – is likely to be correct in the end. This is therefore an important contribution to the field because, when there is not a single securely dated object from the early period, we must reliably depend on the conjectures of such competent scholars as Piriya to compare meticulously one work with another. But whether or not the casual reader actually accepts the chronology and all identifications proposed by the author is a minor concern, for the real merit of the book probably lies elsewhere. Piriya has given us a valuable catalogue – that is a visual tool – too often lacking in Thai art. In practical terms, the book is an inventory of sculptures, objects, and monuments created in pre-modern Thailand. Although not every single monument or artefact is included, the coverage is far more complete and detailed than in any other previous catalogue or work. From the standpoint of the representative importance of artworks, very little has been overlooked that is available in Thai public museums and private collections. Regrettably, no mention is made of the substantial material held in foreign collections. Returning to the concept of “sectarian affiliations,” as the Ariadne’s thread that guides the organisation and classification of the artworks throughout the volume, this approach is far from convincing and might possibly be the main critical problem with the book. The author first published his theory in 1998-99 as a new framework for studying Buddhist art in Thailand (Piriya B.E. 2542). Piriya’s views, however, were, until recently, largely disregarded outside of the country. Presented here in a new fashion, Piriya’s reasoning holds that most ancient artworks from the region of present day Thailand served the Buddhist religion, and Brahmanism as well to a lesser extent, so they ought to be classified into “schools” according to the so-called “school” or “sect” that inspired their creation. In this perspective, stylistic or iconographic differences reflect doctrinal or philosophical differences. Hence, Piriya presents the ancient Buddhist art in Thailand up to the 13th century in four main groups: the Śrāvakayāna or Hīnayāna “school” (pp. 46-73), the Mahāyāna “lineage” (pp. 74-92), the Tantrayāna “school” (pp. 236-331) and the Theravāda school (pp. 332-371). Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Here, I must raise certain fundamental objections as regards the author’s methodological paradigm and terminology. Categories such as “Theravāda,” “Mahāyāna,” or “Tantrayāna” are somewhat artificial and very fluid in practical use; and they certainly do not account for the huge diversity and complexity of Buddhism in the region over the centuries. These terms are never found in Southeast Asian inscriptions. Tantrayāna, a 20th century neologism, is not a “school” or even a “sect,” but only a system of practices that did not exist separately from Mahāyāna, which itself did not exist separately from the Śrāvakayāna “schools” as a Vinaya system. The foundation of the idea that these labels represent separate “schools” or “sects” is probably a 19th century European misunderstanding of the nature of religion. In modern Nepal, for example, a Śākya or Vajrācārya Newar Buddhist takes ordination and practices first Śrāvakayāna or “the way of the hearers.” Then he takes Mahāyāna vows and, later, Vajrayāna or Tantrayāna vows. Accordingly, the space of the temple has different sections or floors for each practitioner (cf. Gellner 1996). “Hīnayāna” – a term no longer used in scholarly writing – or, rather, Śrāvakayāna implies different ancient monastic lineages (nikāya) of which Theravāda is the single surviving example in Southeast Asia. While Theravāda is a nikāya in terms of the Saṅgha – that is first and foremost a Buddhist “lineage” – “Mahāyāna” or “Tantrayāna” are not, although all these groupings may reflect ways of seeing the world differently. Indeed, Theravāda is also often used by scholars to name a series of characteristics such as a focus on the worship of the historical Gautama Buddha; as such it could be a valid term to use in a certain context. But when it comes to art, the “lineage” of the monks probably had little to do with the artworks that were made and what they looked like in terms of style or iconography. Even though objects made to be housed in a monastery or temple eventually had to meet with the approval of the resident monks, basically a nikāya has no inherent connection to art styles or to iconographic forms. What the author conveniently brands “Theravāda” or “Mahāyāna art” would in all probability have to be defined in terms of a ritual culture and evolving practices largely dependent on the lay community, artist workshops and patrons. Indeed, Piriya has not sufficiently noted the importance and the complex nature of patronage in religious art. Just as there were lineages of monks, there probably were associated “lineages” of artists and craftsmen who worked for different patrons at the same time, even if the latter were of different religious persuasions. The choice of art forms was thus likely part of a complex of ideas in which local aesthetics, inspiration from other regions, copies of famous images, and ritual practices all played a certain role. Moreover, as we know, the Theravāda tradition does not totally preclude Mahāyāna or Tantric practices. There was often continual interaction in the past. This has been acknowledged on several occasions by the author himself (pp. 60, 62, 343-344, 383), therefore implicitly dismissing his own theory. The casual reader might find astonishing, for instance, Piriya’s suggestion that Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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the “Mahayana (school) favoured images of the Buddha seated in the meditation posture” (p. 76), and by the later statement that Buddha images seated “with legs pendant” (p. 77) were also a common theme in the Mahāyāna tradition. Buddhist art was neither so prescriptive nor doctrinaire. “Theravāda art,” if there is such a thing, could also depict Buddhas seated in meditation or with legs pendant, as can be discovered through scanning this comprehensive volume (figs 1.36 and 1.37, pp. 60-62; figs 1.40-41, pp. 64-66; figs 2.335, 2.337-42, pp. 333-336; fig. 2.344, p. 337; fig. 2.366, p. 347). It is also noteworthy that Piriya only applies these “sectarian” divisions to Buddhist art and monuments and does not follow the same convention when classifying Brahmanical temples beyond the obvious Vaiṣṇava/Śaiva distinction (pp. 192-235). He writes that “it is not possible to say, based on an examination of the philosophy and beliefs, that such and such a temple belonged to a particular sub-sect within Shaivism” (p. 192), recalling that “most [in fact all] Hindu temples in Thailand were Shaiva.” Since Brahmanism and Buddhism often developed in tandem, it would have been perhaps judicious to propose this statement for all religious and sacred structures, not just Brahmanical ones, including Buddhist stūpas or caityas. In all likelihood, these monuments did not exclusively belong to a particular Buddhist tradition or “sect” since, as Prapod Assavavirulhakarn has rightly emphasised, a stūpa is “a public treasure” and “not the specific domain of any one sect” (2010: 104). In addition, I do not believe that a study of artworks alone can be sufficient to establish the presence of specific schools of Buddhism in the region. Using an ancient translation of the 7th century Chinese travelling monk Yi Jing, which is none too clear, Piriya interpreted the under cloth style on early Buddha images as an indication of certain “sectarian affiliations” (pp. 46, 48, 52-53). I have not been able, however, to find as much detail on the subject as he seems to find in Yi Jing’s account (spelt as “I-tsing” in the bibliography). Furthermore, there is no evidence that the different modes of wearing the robe can be traced to specific “Buddhist sects” in iconography. In India, certain aspects of Buddhist iconography were shared by Brahmins and Jains alike, for example in the Mathura workshops. In Southeast Asia, there was a wide range of robe styles for various Theravāda nikāyas and sub-nikāyas over the centuries and in different countries and cultures. Dispute about how to wear the robe was a serious contention in Burma and Siam, both Theravāda countries, up to the modern period. In Thailand, most Buddha images are uninscribed and, when they are inscribed, the Buddhist affiliation is never given. In this vein, the evidence of inscriptions that come from Thailand cannot be ignored, even though they may not always support the author’s argument. To some degree, his somewhat cavalier dismissal of pertinent epigraphic records may be seen as vexing. Admittedly, no Buddhist “sects” are ever mentioned directly in ancient inscriptions and no “citation” or “quotation inscriptions” are recorded other than Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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in Pali, thus only pointing to the presence of a Theravāda lineage in the central region of today’s Thailand (Skilling 2002; Prapod 2010: 72-81). To this day, similar citation inscriptions in Sanskrit or hybrid Sanskrit, which would possibly attest to the presence of the (Mūla)sarvāstivādins or Mahāsāṃghikas, as assumed by Piriya, are not found in Thailand, except for a few published inscribed tablets from Yarang, Pattani Province (Jacq-Hergoualc’h 2002: 179-180). Piriya’s earlier study of the Chedi Chula Prathon jātaka and avadāna plaques in Nakhon Pathom (B.E. 2517) in part avoided such dependence on epigraphic “truths.” However, it would seem to be going to the other extreme to devalue insistently the importance of early Pali inscriptions from central Thailand or their absence hitherto in other parts of the country, such as the Northeast. Despite this, Piriya also sees traces of Theravāda artistic activities on sema stones from northeastern Thailand (pp. 338-342). To demonstrate his point, the author uses the stele that illustrates the return of the Buddha to Kapilavastu (fig. 2.347) which shows his former wife Yaśodharā using her hair to wipe his feet, “something that does not appear either in the Pali or Sanskrit scriptures,”2 Piriya confesses (p. 338); so why should he assume that it is “Theravāda art”? Another interesting sema stone (fig. 2.348) is identified by Piriya as a scene from the Mahājanaka Jātaka when the Bodhisatta Mahājanaka leaves his wife Sīvali to become an ascetic with a khakkhara or rattling staff in hand, quite similar to the example from Chedi Chula Prathon (p. 59, fig. 1.32). His identification, far from certain, overlooks the fact that the khakkhara is a peculiar implement not traditionally found among Theravāda monks but yet prevalent in several other Buddhist Vinayas (Revire 2009). From the preceding, doubts can be seriously cast regarding several rigid identifications made by the author. There is no evidence whatsoever to assert that, for example, images of Amitābha Buddha – though certainly popular in China during the Sui and Tang periods (circa 6th-10th centuries) – “inspired the creation of images [...] in the area inhabited by the ancient Mon in the upper part of the Gulf of Thailand” (p. 88). More precisely, Piriya interprets throughout the volume the standing Buddhas that display the same argumentation gestures with both hands (vitarkamudrā) as representing the descent of the Buddha Amitābha, accompanied by the two Bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, to welcome the soul of the dead to the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī. This is speculation at best and is not supported by epigraphic records. Indeed, not a single occurrence of Amitābha Buddha is attested in inscriptions from Thailand. The only conclusion is that the significance of such a peculiar iconography limited to Mon and Khmer art has been lost. The above problem of identification is perhaps linked to Piriya’s insistence on naming all the Buddha images he studies. The crowned Buddhas are a good illustration of this habit. Whether the image is seated or standing, and depending on This episode does appear though in a late northern Thai text titled “Bimbā’s Lament” (Swearer 1995: 550-551), a remarkable example of narrative continuity.

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the hand gestures or mudrās it performs, the author systematically identifies each crowned Buddha as Amitāyus, Bhaiṣajyaguru, Maitreya, Śākyamuni, or Vajrasattva (pp. 276-283, 285-287, 354-357). But again, none of these Buddha images is identified by inscription. In fact, not a single Buddha has ever been designated by a proper name (be it Gautama, Maitreya, Dīpaṅkara, etc.) in the corpus of inscriptions from pre-modern Thailand. Buddhas, when mentioned, are only vaguely designated by epithets such as Jina, Sugata, Śrīghana or Tathāgata. Until further evidence is given, it would still be more prudent to identify these Buddhas merely as “Śākyamuni,” the archetype of all past, future, and transcendental Buddhas while admitting, with Piriya, that “one image can often be interpreted on several levels” (p. 244). In the light of very recent scholarship, the identification of sculptures known to Piriya as “Vajradhāra” (p. 285, fig. 2.250) would probably need to be reassessed. Since such images are always found near “chapels of hospitals” (ārogyaśāla), Hiram Woodward (2011) has recently postulated that these ought to be interpreted as Bhaiṣajyaguru. But Piriya’s conflation of the famous Buddhist triad of the Bayon style made of the Buddha, Lokeśvara, and Prajñāpāramitā with the Medicine Buddha (Bhaiṣajyaguru) and his two attendants (Candravairocana and Sūryavairocana) is poorly supported by evidence (p. 286, fig. 2.252). Much of Piriya’s analysis is likewise merely asserted and often goes uncorroborated, while he tends to classify anything unusual as of foreign manufacture, often either Indian or Chinese. A few factual errors have also slipped into the text. For example, the Khao Ngu inscription is not in Pali and Mon, but probably a mixture of Mon-Khmer and Sanskrit (p. 60). The Noen Sa Bua inscription in Khmer and Pali, formerly dated to 761 CE (p. 61), is now dated to the 10th or 11th century (Revire 2012: 153). Furthermore, the inscription on the pedestal of the Grahi Buddha, dated 1279 or 1291, Year of the Rabbit, is not the first time that the Chinese astrological year was mentioned in Thailand (p. 354); the aforementioned Noen Sa Bua inscription also refers to the Year of the Ox, possibly 941 or 1061 CE. Besides, the “Southern people” did not employ Pali and Mon (p. 131). Moreover, there is no Pali or Mon inscription on the back of the colossal Buddha from Wat Phra Men (p. 64, fig. 1.40) and there is no evidence that the Buddha today at Wat Na Phra Men, Ayutthaya (fig. 1.41), originally came from Wat Phra Men in Nakhon Pathom (Revire 2010: 84-85). Additionally, it was Mahākāśyapa or Kassapa the Elder, one of the great disciples of the Buddha, not the past Buddha Kassapa, who is mentioned in the legend of Maitreya as a transmitter of the Dharma to the future Buddha (p. 81). In the same vein, Purāna Kāśyapa or Kassapa is not a “King” but a defeated Brahman sage who defied the Buddha at Śrāvastī and later committed suicide rather than having to “convert to Buddhism” (pp. 334-335). Lastly, “Rest houses of fire” should be simply relabelled as “houses of fire” (vahnigṛha), since this is the only term attested in the Preah Khan inscription of Angkor. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Several typos have also found their way in. For example, “Dvarvati” for Dvāravatī (p. 31), “Wat Pai” for Wat Sai (p. 68), figures 2.204 and 2.205 should be inverted, contradictory numbers are given for lists of past Buddhas on p. 363 and p. 367, and so on. I also noticed a number of misspellings of certain Pali terms probably lost in translation from the Thai: Mount “Kukutpata” for Kukkuṭapada (p.  81), “Kambojasangkhapakkha” instead of Kambojāsaṅghapakkha (pp. 343, 383-384), “Visesvisuddhimagga” for Visuddhimagga (p.  368); “khamawasi” and “aranyawasi” (p. 383) for gāmavāsī and araññavāsī, etc. These ought to be corrected should a second revised English edition be forthcoming. Another small reservation concerns the bibliography where the English text has not been updated to reflect recent works since the time the Thai text was originally composed. Why, for example, refer to Robert Brown’s unpublished dissertation on Dvāravatī wheels (1981) instead of the published Brill version (1996)? Why refer to Sheila Hoey Middleton’s article published in 2002 and not the sequel in 2010 where she presents new information as to how the Buddha image in figure 1.21 (p. 52) excavated in India reached the Bangkok National Museum? Where are the references to Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h’s exhaustive work on the Malay Peninsula (2002), to the foundational study of “Theravāda Buddhism” by Prapod Assavavirulhakarn (2010), or other important contributions on Buddhist Southeast Asian inscriptions and sealings by Peter Skilling (e.g. 2002, 2008)? In this English edition, the bibliography should also have been adapted and harmonised between the references in Thai and other languages (e.g. “Piriya Krairiksh” or “Krairiksh, Piriya” but not both entries). For the sake of a wider audience, the following authors should have preferably been referred to in their original languages rather than through Thai translations: Bowring, de Choisy, Cœdès, Conze, Faxian, Groslier, Jacques and Snodgrass. In conclusion, this book will be greatly appreciated by all for its wealth of visual illustrations and its fresh interpretations. While the author’s unique staccato style may appear annoying and rather obscure (and surely created translation problems), it is definitely provoking. The succinct summaries of the various chapters and subsections assist the casual reader, as does the addition of a useful illustrated glossary and a general index at the end of the volume. However, to go into all of the scholarly details regarding certain omissions, inconsistencies, inaccuracies and errors would need the kind of investigation that exceeds the duty of this humble review. Although this brief appraisal of Piriya’s work is critical, particularly regarding “sectarian affiliations,” my conclusions are very much based upon the application of the critical approach favoured by the author. His effort to re-evaluate Cœdès and Damrong’s pioneer classification of Thai art, still present in many Thai museums, is commendable; however, I fear that his attempt to replace it with “sectarian affiliations” will, in the long run, go over the heads of most people – students and curators alike – and be rejected by scholars. In the end, though, I hope it will be recognised by Achan Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Piriya that my modest observations, whether correct or incorrect, are merely offered in honour to his important contribution to Thai scholarship over the years.

References Brown, Robert L. 1996. The Dvāravatī Wheels of the Law and the Indianization of South East Asia, Leiden: Brill. Gellner, David. 1996. Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual, New Delhi: Foundation Books. Gosling, Betty. 2004. Origins of Thai Art, Bangkok: River Books. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Michel. 2002. The Malay Peninsula: Crossroads of the Maritime Silk Road (100 b. c. – 1300 a. d.), Leiden: Brill. Middleton, Sheila E. Hoey. 2010. “The quest for the ‘Third Buddha’: A sequel,” South Asian Studies 26.2: 119-124. Piriya Krairiksh. 2517 [1974 CE]. Phuttha sasana nithan thi chedi chula pathon/ Buddhist Folk Tales Depicted at Chula Pathon Cedi. Bangkok: Private Publisher. Piriya Krairiksh. 2542 [1999 CE]. “Kan prap plian yuk samai khong phuttha silapa nai prathet thai/A New Chronology of Buddhist Art in Thailand,” Muang Boran 25.2: 10-43. Prapod Assavavirulhakarn. 2010. The Ascendancy of Theravāda Buddhism in Southeast Asia, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Revire, Nicolas. 2009. “À propos d’une ‘tête’ de khakkhara conservée au Musée national de Bangkok,” Aséanie 24: 111-134. Revire, Nicolas. 2010. “Iconographical Issues in the Archeology of Wat Phra Men, Nakhon Pathom,” Journal of the Siam Society 98: 75-115. Revire, Nicolas. 2012. “Compte rendu de Raignanphonkan wichairuangkan pradisathan phraphutthasasana chak lankathawip nai dindaen prathet thai samai watthanatham thawarawadi/Research Report on: The Establishment of Sri Lankan Buddhism in Thailand during the Dvaravati Period, Bandhit Liuchaichan et al., Bangkok: Fine Arts Department of Thailand, B.E. 2553 [2010 CE],” Aséanie 29: 151-157. Skilling, Peter. 2002. “Some Citation Inscriptions from South-East Asia,” Journal of the Pali Text Society 27: 159-175. Skilling, Peter. 2008. “Buddhist Sealings in Thailand and Southeast Asia: Icono­ Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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graphy, Function and Ritual Context,” in Bacus, Elisabeth A., Glover, Ian C. & Sharrock, Peter D. (eds), Interpreting Southeast Asia’s Past: Monument, Image and Text, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, pp. 248-262. Swearer, Donald, K. 1995. “Bimbā’s Lament,” in Lopez, Donald S. (ed.), Buddhism in Practice, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 541-552. Woodward, Hiram. 2011. “Cambodian Images of Bhaisajyaguru,” in Bunker, Emma C. & Latchford, Douglas (eds), Khmer Bronzes. New Interpretations of the Past, Chicago: Art Media Resources, pp. 497-502.

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Review Article Barend J. Terwiel, Monks and Magic: Revisiting a Classic Study of Religious Ceremonies in Thailand1 Jovan Maud

Monks and Magic, first published in 1975 and now released in its fourth revised edition, has justifiably proved to be a book of enduring interest for the study of religion in Thailand. Although primarily based on research conducted nearly a half century ago, Terwiel’s ethnographic study of religious ceremonies in the central Thai village of Wat Sanchao retains much of relevance for understanding contemporary religious practices. Perhaps the main reason for this is that the central question the book addresses – the nature of the relationship between Buddhism and magic – is as pertinent today as it was when Monks and Magic was first published. As numerous scholars have noted in recent years, far from fading away under the forces of modernity as most twentieth century theories of religion predicted, magical practices (leaving aside difficulties in defining precisely what this means) are thriving in contemporary Thailand. Moreover, not only has interest in spirit mediumship, horoscopes, and other “non-Buddhist” religious forms remained as strong as ever, what might be called Buddhist magic continues to be widespread. The Thai religious scene is replete with numerous “magic monks” (keji ajan) with reputations for everything from healing to providing winning lottery numbers. The trade in amulets and other sacred objects made by, or in the image of, famous monks is booming. Interest in protective tattoos, often administered by monks, is high. Clearly many Thai Buddhists continue to see the Buddhist sangha more as a source of sacred power than the source of ethical teachings and moral guidance. Thus for these reasons, the question of how to understand the interface between institutional Buddhism and the range of “magical” beliefs and practices remains an important question for scholars of religion in Thailand (e.g. Jackson 1999; Kitiarsa 2005; McDaniel 2011). In the context of this on-going interest, it is therefore timely that Monks and Magic has been republished. The subtitle of this edition promises to “revisit” the classic study, so it is worth asking what is new in the book. For the most part the changes from previous editions are minor. Terwiel has revised the language, added 1

4th Revised Edition. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2012. 312 pp. ISBN 978 87 7694 065 2 Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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some pertinent recent references, and made additional comments in footnotes. He has also added Thai script for many local terms, which is a welcome addition.2 The main substantive addition is in the form of a postscript. This bundles together some brief thoughts on contemporary religion, some details on how Terwiel came to choose his field site, and a mini photo essay on the transformations that have taken place in Wat Sanchao since he conducted his original research. I will discuss these additions below. But first it is necessary to do some of my own revisiting of Terwiel’s arguments. Based on primary fieldwork in the late 1960s and a number of subsequent visits over the years, Terwiel’s study still stands as one of the most comprehensive and thorough treatments of village religion and ritual to date. Unusually for Western researchers at that time, Terwiel chose to ordain as a monk and spent about six months of his fieldwork in robes before leaving the sangha to complete the fieldwork as a layman. This combination of perspectives contributes to the richness of the study, which provides detailed insights into village life from both monastic and lay perspectives. Terwiel’s time as a monk is particularly noticeable in the detail he gives to description and analysis of Buddhist rituals, many of which he himself performed on numerous occasions. This is reinforced by his knowledge of classical languages and of the Buddhist scriptures. Because of the attention to detail given to the material, Monks and Magic is invaluable as a reference book. If you want to understand the mechanics of amulet making, or the key elements of protective tattoos, or the meanings of many of the common chants used in Buddhist rites, this book provides a wealth of information. The book is broadly structured around the typical life-cycle of villagers. Chapters thus deal in turn with rituals associated with birth and childhood, adolescence, entering and leaving the monkhood, marriage, building a home, and old age and death. Along the way there are detailed excursions into the nature of the different precepts taken by laymen, the multifarious nature of the pursuit of beneficial karma, and an overview of the annual ritual calendar centred on the monastery. It should be noted though that Terwiel’s intention is not to provide a complete picture of religious life in the village. Instead, he focuses on the interface between Buddhism and the “magico-animistic” aspects of Thai religion. Or more accurately, it attempts to show the syncretism, the lack of distinction between these categories for the villagers he studied. For this reason, he acknowledges, the study glosses over certain dimensions of religious life that does not directly involve the sangha or other aspects of the Buddhist institutions. For example, there is not a great deal of attention given to Unfortunately, one or two unintended additions have also crept into the new edition. For example, there appears to have been some sort of mix-up with the typesetting and the last two paragraphs of chapter seven are also reproduced at the end of chapter six. I have no idea how this came about, but it does make for some head scratching when a discussion of marriage suddenly shifts to rules about house-building!

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spirit medium traditions except insofar as they intersect with the activities of monks. Terwiel’s central argument is that Buddhism at Wat Sanchao is fundamentally syncretic and “magico-animistic”. It is syncretic because villagers do not make a sharp distinction between Buddhism on the one hand and various kinds of “magical” practices on the other. It is magico-animistic because the primary function of the monkhood was therefore not the pursuit of the distant goal of nibbana, nor providing moral guidance to the laity. Thus from the point of view of villagers the core role of Buddhist monks and the rituals they perform is the production of beneficial power to aid in the achievement of worldly goals: protection from danger, good fortune, general well-being, and so forth. Even the pursuit of positive karma in order to ensure a positive rebirth is deemed by Terwiel to be a relatively distant motivation and only really a concern of more elderly villagers. For the most part, villagers are much more concerned with the beneficial power of the sangha in this world rather than the next. Thus for Terwiel “the magical”, in the village at least, is not something relatively marginal compared to “true” doctrinal Buddhism. On the contrary, it is at the centre of religious practice and it is therefore fundamental to understanding what village Buddhism is about. By taking this approach, Terwiel is able to challenge what might be called the “Buddhist bias” in studies of Thai religion and to reinterpret many aspects of village Buddhism through a magico-animistic lens. For example, he argues that the taking of the five precepts is less an expression of Buddhist ethics than a rite of purification designed to prepare the laity to access the beneficial power of the monks. Similarly, the main purpose of meditation by monks is not to aid them in their quest for enlightenment but to develop their power. This privileging of the magical explanations leads to interesting insights into some of the idiosyncrasies of Thai Buddhism, for example the strict rules about monks interacting with females and the resistance to including women as fully ordained members of the sangha. For Terwiel, these factors cannot just be explained in terms of Buddhist doctrine. Instead, if one recognises that the primary function of the monks is to produce beneficial power, and that women, particularly those who are menstruating, are considered dangerous to the production of this power, these restrictions begin to make more sense. It is worth asking what Terwiel was trying to achieve by taking this approach. As he himself argues, he sought to challenge what he saw as the two prevailing approaches towards understanding the relationship between Buddhism and local traditions. On the one hand were the “syncretists”, who considered Buddhism and other religious traditions as irrevocably blended together. On the other hand were “compartmentalists”, who saw religious life divided into different strata of distinct traditions. While syncretists generally attempted to treat religious life as a harmonious whole, compartmentalists distinguished between the elite Great Tradition of Buddhism and various historical “accretions”. For the latter it was theoretically possible, and often desirable, for Buddhism to be purified of its “superstitious” Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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elements, a perspective that coincided with elite attempts to rationalise and modernise religion. The problem with both these approaches, according to Terwiel, is that they attempt to characterise Thai religion as a whole. Instead, he argues, the different models hold true for different parts of the population and he introduces a two-tier model to account for this. In the cities, especially among the more educated, a compartmentalised perspective prevails, with people more or less aware of the distinction between orthodox, doctrinal Buddhism and other religious forms. By contrast, Terwiel argues, such distinctions are not made in village religion. Terwiel goes on to argue that the distinction he is making is essential rather than gradational. That is, there is a “fundamental discrepancy between the principles underlying the religion of the farmers and the axioms of that of the highly educated classes” (p.4, emphasis added). These are two distinct species of religion: that of the farming villager is “basically magico-animistic”, while members of the elite religious adherents have an “intellectual appreciation of Buddhism” (ibid.). Thus, while the elite may be aware of discrepancies between the “Great Tradition” and various “accretions”, the villager does not, instead experiencing religious practices as part of an undifferentiated whole. In order to properly capture the character of village religious life, therefore, Terwiel refrains from making a conceptual distinction between “real” Buddhism and “popular religion”. Instead, his main goal becomes to show how the symbols, rituals and institutions of Buddhism serve the essentially magical interpretations and needs of the villagers. It is important to note though that Terwiel does not claim that urbanites do not participate in animistic practices, just that it was possible to make an analytical distinction between different religious traditions in the urban case. Thus, while many other scholars of the day were concerned with creating categorical distinctions between Buddhism and supernaturalism, or between different “levels” of Buddhism such as Spiro’s (1967) typology of nibbanic, karmatic, and apotropaic Buddhism -- Terwiel tries to stay true to what he sees as the villager, or emic, perspective, in which such distinctions are not made. This is for me one of the more admirable aspects of Monks and Magic. Terwiel is committed to not imposing an external analytical model. He wants to understand how Buddhism is actually practised rather than imposing his own normative framework. In this sense it is possible to see Monks and Magic as a precursor to Justin McDaniel’s (2011) recent work The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk. McDaniel is also concerned with the “magic” question and seeks to prioritise emic understandings over analytical models that impose distinctions between “Buddhism” and “magic”, or between “elite” and “popular” religion. Like McDaniel, Terwiel also argues that scholars have exaggerated the extent of the state’s rationalisation and standardisation of Buddhism. However, it is also worth noting one of the key points in which these two studies differ: while Terwiel posited a fundamental difference between village and urban educated Buddhism, McDaniel does not make this distinction at all. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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I think this difference in approaches is telling and says something about the changing assumptions made by scholars of Thai religion over the last thirty years. While Terwiel obviously felt it necessary to make a sharp distinction between rural and urban Buddhism, developments over the last thirty years have, I think, challenged the sustainability of this argument. On the one hand Thailand’s peasants have become much more educated and sophisticated, as the rise of the “red shirts” as a political force has demonstrated. On the other hand, there has been a growing prominence of urban spirit cults and other forms of supernaturalism, including cults popular among the middle class, such as those of Rama V or Kuan Im. Furthermore, as Tambiah’s (1984) study of the “cult of amulets” demonstrates, it is the interactions between mostly urban patrons and mostly rural monks that have produced and sustained this particular form of Buddhist magic. These developments suggest that, at least nowadays, there are more continuities than differences between urban and rural religious forms. Turning to the postscript, it is precisely on these sorts of issues that I was hoping Terwiel would revisit. I would have been very interested to read whether he felt his argument needed revision based on developments in recent decades, or if he felt that his two-tier model was still valid. However, the postscript does not discuss these aspects of his argument. Instead, Terwiel makes some observations about contemporary aspects of Thai religion and how they support his general argument that the idiosyncrasies of Thai Buddhism provide evidence of the magico-animistic substrata of local beliefs with which it has blended. For example, the fact that “merit” (bun) is seen not only as affecting karmic inheritance, but is also conceived of as a sort of substance that emanates from monks and other magically efficacious (saksit) objects, he argues, reflects indigenous notions of power. Likewise, he notes the ongoing “preoccupation with small protective, luck-bringing, shielding objects” which he sees as an “unusual regional phenomenon” (p.270). He also reiterates his argument that the practices of temporary ordination as evidence of local preBuddhist beliefs or institutions, including the interesting hypothesis that the Buddhist monastery has blended with a pre-Buddhist institution of a “men’s house” (p.271). Terwiel also discusses the ongoing debate about female ordination, again suggesting that indigenous notions of power and female pollution help to explain widespread resistance to this development. In the process he adds some fascinating nuggets of information, such as the fact that in the early 1970’s he interviewed Thailand’s then only bhikkhuni, Voramai Kabilsingh, the mother of the country’s currently most prominent female monastic, Dhammananda Bhikkuni. However, while interesting, these observations are kept very brief and not really developed. Furthermore, some of these observations also introduce a certain tension with aspects of Terwiel’s original argument, particularly his dichotomization of village and urban Buddhism. For example, to illustrate the ongoing fascination with amulets he makes reference to a 2009 newspaper report which mentions then Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sporting two famous amulets. But Abhisit is the epitome of the highly educated, cosmopolitan and elite Thai whom Terwiel would place on the opposite side from magico-animistic Buddhism. Granted, Terwiel never argued that urban educated Buddhists do not involve themselves in magicoanimistic activities. But nevertheless this example would suggest that there is a lot more continuity between urban and rural Buddhism than Terwiel acknowledges. A similar tension can also be seen in the book’s final statement: In the modern world the Buddhist monastery remains a quiet haven, it retains its reflective atmosphere and remains a refuge where the hectic world is left behind. The inhabitants of Wat Sanchao still remind the community that the human span of life is short and that in contrast to those who pursue the acquisition of wealth or power there are those who find fulfilment in renouncing the mundane world (pp. 281–2).

I find this image curious in the context of the book’s main argument. This statement presents a rather orthodox notion of the role of the monastery: it reminds of the impermanence of all things, of the renunciation of the material world. This would seem to contradict the key idea that village-based Buddhism is noncompartmentalised and “basically magico-animistic” – i.e. concerned with worldly matters – in nature. Although these points might be taken as criticisms I think they point, paradoxically, to the strength of Monks and Magic, and to one of the reasons why the book has continued to retain its relevance. In the original study Terwiel was careful to distinguish between village and urban Buddhism; his observations about magico-animism could only, strictly speaking, be applied to the village context. One could speculate that in the context of the 1970’s there was both more social distance between the city and the country and also more investment on the part of both scholars and Thai elites in the modernist notion that Buddhism could be purified of its “superstitious accretions”. But as Terwiel’s more recent observations imply, these distinctions are no longer so critical and the relationship between monks and magic is something that continues to be relevant for understanding the nature of Thai Buddhism in general.

References Jackson, Peter A. 1999. ‘Royal Spirits, Chinese Gods and Magic Monks: Thailand’s Boom Time National Religion of Prosperity’. South East Asia Research 7 (3): 245–320. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Kitiarsa, Pattana. 2005. ‘Beyond Syncretism: Hybridization of Popular Religion in Contemporary Thailand’. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 36 (3): 461–487. McDaniel, Justin Thomas. 2011. The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand. New York: Columbia University Press. Spiro, Melford Elliot. 1967. Burmese Supernaturalism: A Study in the Explanation and Reduction of Suffering. Englewood Cliff., N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. 1984. The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism, and Millennial Buddhism. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology; 49. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

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In reply to Nicolas Revire, “Pierre Dupont’s L’archéologie mône de Dvāravatī and its English translation by Joyanto K. Sen, in relation with continuing research,” JSS, Vol. 99 (2011), pp 196–225. Joyanto K. Sen I have read the review article by Nicolas Revire. I am happy he shares my enthusiasm for Pierre Dupont’s work. I thank him where he has given me credit though there are far too many occasions where he has erred on the side of indiscretion. He finds it difficult to appreciate the hard work, exercised with due respect and high regard, by others in making Prof. Dupont’s L’archéologie mône de Dvāravatī available to a wider readership. My translation is for scholars as well as for the general readership. Mr. Revire appears to have misread the text and misunderstood my intent. The translation is designed to make it easier, particularly for non-specialists, to follow Prof. Dupont’s descriptions so that they can locate the places cited; find the monuments, see them and trace their architectural details; and find the statues and delight in recognizing their iconographic features. The names of places mentioned in the book have their current spellings as given by the tourism authority of the country. The figures and plans are in a format familiar to English-speaking readers. For example, drawings are projected in the third quadrant instead of the first quadrant, while retaining Prof. Dupont’s originals. Photographs of many statues from museums in India, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam have been added, some of which Prof. Dupont was unable to provide, to make it easier for the reader to understand his descriptions. I am charged with being “problematic and confusing” because I correctly directed the readers to the “Phrapathom Chedi National Museum” (p. 199) when Prof. Dupont speaks of “le Musée du P‘ra Pathom.” Since the Dvāravatī sculptures mentioned by Prof. Dupont are today in the Phrapathom Chedi National Museum, it is only prudent to refer the reader to this museum. For the convenience of the reader, I have also added several appendices, including a glossary, an illustrated description of the draping of Buddhist monastic robes, and a table of the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST), and made several practical modifications, all correctly annotated. Each modification and each addition is clearly identified by the section number Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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of the text, figure, map or plan. Furthermore, these changes are followed by my initials, (J.K.S.), to distinguish them from Prof. Dupont’s original in order that the reader knows whom to hold responsible for these changes. I am fully responsible for the photographs of figures 543 to 600. None of the photographs was downloaded from the internet, including Fig. 571 to 573. All figures are from high resolution digital photographs taken by me on site or purchased from, or provided by, the original photographers. In defending the “spirit of the original work by Pierre Dupont,” the reviewer has failed to consider that the original work was posthumously published. It reflects his spirit as well as those of the editors who prepared the book for publication. I believe a book is written to assist the reader and not written to be frozen in place and time on a pedestal. For the record, I did correspond with the original publisher of Prof. Dupont’s L’Archéologie mône de Dvāravatī and let them know, at the very beginning, that I was translating the book. They were interested and wrote back to say, “… nous avions évoqué la possibilité d’une coédition” (“…we had discussed the possibility of co-publishing”). I also suggested that my translation be reviewed by one of their scholars. They agreed and suggested I speak with their resident scholar in Bangkok whose e-mail address I was given. I was encouraged by these developments and continued with the translation. When I was ready with the final version and offered to send them a copy, I received no reply. A second offer also went unanswered.

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Divination au Royaume de Siam: Le corps, la guerre, le destin translated from Siamese and introduced by Pattaratorn Chirapravati, translated into French by Nicolas Revire (Paris: Collection Sources, Presses Universitaires de France; Geneva: Fondation Martin Bodmer). ISBN 978-2-13-058854-2 This publication is not a book but a box. Inside the box is a book of 108 pages, and a mock-up of a samut thai accordion book with 78 folds, each fold measuring 36 x 12 cms, mostly printed on both sides, with end-covers printed to resemble wood. The book contains an introduction by ML Pattaratorn Chirapravati and a French translation of the text. The manuscript has three parts: a tract on prediction from a warfare manual, occupying 51 folds; a manual of therapeutic massage, occupying 14 folds; and a manual of divination, occupying 58 folds. Finding three different categories of text in one manuscript is unusual, and Pattaratorn argues convincingly that it was probably compiled at the request of a foreigner, and was possibly unfinished, as several pages were left blank. On grounds of the calligraphy, orthography, and style of illustration, Pattaratorn dates the manuscript to the first half of the 19th century, and most probably the 1830s. The original is in the collection of the Fondation Martin Bodmer in Geneva, but this publication presents no details on its provenance. The section from a warfare manual has illustrations of the sun, moon, clouds, stars, rainbows and fog with notes indicating what result is predicted. The illustrations and the predictions are similar to those found in a 1793 manual kept in the National Library and published in facsimile form a few years ago, but not exactly the same. In particular, the 1793 manuscript is inscribed in white on black khoi paper, whereas this is the reverse. Pattaratorn speculates that this extract might be based on a copy seen in 1825 by Adolf Bastian but since lost. The manual of massage has diagrams of a male and female body, indicating pressure points for the fingers, with notes on the therapeutic value of each spot, but no instructions on the technique of massage. Pattaratorn notes the evident similarity with the medical manuals inscribed on the walls at Wat Pho in the 1830s, but makes no close comparison. The manual of divination is clearly in the form known as Phrommachat. It contains various grids, diagrams, pictures, stories and lists to be used for various kinds of divination including: good and bad days for various enterprises; days for wearing new clothes; compatibility of marriage partners and outcome of the match in Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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terms of longevity, number of children, and order of death; and miscellaneous other systems of prediction. It covers various systems of prediction, including the Threetiered Umbrella and naga methods, though unfortunately the associated diagrams are not included. The facsimile of the samut thai is a thing of beauty and a work of art and ingenuity in itself. Unfolded, it is over 9 metres long, achieved by some neat gluing. All this comes at a cost. The price on Amazon UK is ₤34.10. Publishing such works in facsimile form is very important, because it preserves the spelling, handwriting, and graphic style which have messages of their own. As noted, there are other versions of military and massage manuals that are more comprehensive and with better provenance. Possibly the Phrommachat section on general prediction is the most interesting part of this text because no similar manuscripts of equivalent age have been published, as far as I know. We know that the art of prediction was vital for kings (and probably others) as far back as records stretch, and remains a flourishing business today. Yet, there is very little study of the genre. Perhaps publications such as this will prompt further study. The extract from a military manual is solely about predictions based on phenomena in the sky. The full manuals also have sections on recruitment, weaponry, battlefield formations and tactics. Even so, systems of prediction occupy a very large space in these manuals. What does that tell us? Also, the predictions are highly intricate. Even this extract lists around a hundred different appearances of the sun, around fifty of the moon, and over a hundred of cloud shapes, stars, shooting stars, rainbows, lightning bolts and thunderclaps. How did the adept look at the sun? How could he decide whether a cloud resembled a woman giving birth to a crocodile (meaning the enemy will win) rather than four goats in single file, or the Buddha in tears? Although the listings sometimes seem to have an arbitrary character, there are clearly some guiding principles. The sun and rainbows mostly predict what will befall the king. The moon predicts such matters as rain, rice output, and general happiness or unhappiness. And so on. There is a language and principle behind such prediction which is obscured by the style of presentation, which often recalls Jorge Luis Borges’ famous list of animals. The manual of general prediction is similar to modern Phrommachat volumes in presenting a bundle of different methods of prediction – based on birth time, coincidences of the calendar, numerology, planets, and other methods. Interestingly, this text is set out not as a catalogue (the usual form of old texts) or a do-it-yourself guide (the usual form of modern manuals), but as a teaching guide. By the 1830s, were there prediction schools, or a market for self-learning guides? While the catalogue form resembles modern manuals, the subjects predicted are very different. Modern manuals do not start off with predictions about troop movements. Nor do they predict the good and bad days for starting a journey or wearing a new piece of clothing, since such events are now more everyday than Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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special. More significantly, modern manuals are largely taken up with predicting an individual’s good or bad fortune based on birth date, selecting a good time for any action, and selecting a good name. They are very much geared to the individual and to a search for general good fortune. The early 19th century extract presented here is more geared to events of different kinds, and are rather more specific. For example, if you have some clothing made on the fifth day of the waxing moon, you will gain elephants, horses and cattle. Over half of the extract on prediction is devoted to marriage. While modern manuals also cover this subject, the early 19th century text is striking for its complexity. Besides the usual systems for choosing partners based on age and animal year of birth, there are more complex systems for divining what will become of the match. For example, if the difference between the partner’s ages is 1, 5, or 7 they will love one another passionately, but if 7, 8, or 10 they will kill each other. Multiplying and dividing the ages can predict the number of children, and combinations of birth years predict how much wealth and how many dependents the couple will accumulate, and even which of them will predecease the other. What does this tell us about marriage in early 19th century Siam? The style chosen for rendering the French in parts seems a little odd. The sentence form is transposed and the vocabulary a little high-flown, such as “Quand ainsi le soleil apparaître, abondantes les pluies seront.” Yet the Thai is strikingly plain and simple, with almost no Pali words, and in English would translate as “When the sun looks like this, it will rain heavily.” The style is utilitarian rather than poetic. This is a fascinating publication and we owe a great debt to all those involved. With luck, it will inspire more study of the topics covered, especially of systems of prediction and their importance in old Siam. Chris Baker Chronicle of Sipsòng Panna: History and Society of a Tai Lü Kingdom Twelfth to Twentieth Century by Liew-Herres Foon Ming, Volker Grabowsky and Renoo Wichasin (Chiang Mai, Mekong Press, 2012). ISBN 978-616-9053-3-9 The affairs of the Sipsòng Panna Kingdom in Southern Yunnan are entangled with those of other Tai polities in the Upper Mekong basin, particularly Lan Na, Lan Sang, Chiang Tung and Moeng Laem. By rendering into English for the first time four versions of Sipsòng Panna chronicles written in Tai Lü with the Dhamma script, this book has made a significant body of source materials accessible to historians. It has not been an easy task, because these chronicles bear the imprint of Sipsòng Panna’s location within the orbit of the Chinese state and demand from the translators proficiency in Chinese language, script and history in addition to the normal skills required for Tai studies. The situation is further complicated by the Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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fact that the oldest known version, the History of Moeng Lü (Text 1), no longer survives in the original Tai Lü; that text was apparently lost sometime between 1944 and 1946 (see xix & p.78). For that reason it had to be rendered from the Chinese translation made by Li Fuyi 李拂一 in 1943 (but not published until 1947). Even the translation of Text III had to be prepared from the Tai Lü text published by Li Fuyi in 1947. Though the translators have used Tai Lü texts for three versions, they have closely collated them with Chinese renditions of all four versions by Li Fuyi and Gao Lishi 高立士, and annotated the discrepancies in copious footnotes. It is patently clear that the Chinese translations have played a pivotal role in the compilation of this book. Such heavy dependence on the efforts of Chinese scholars is highly unusual in the study of Tai chronicles, and reflects the intricacy surrounding the preservation and transmission of Tai script manuscripts in Yunnan. It would be rare to find a single scholar accomplished in all of the necessary expertise, so it is most appropriate and prudent, indeed, that this volume is a collective effort by three extremely competent and experienced specialists. The first author, Foon Ming Liew-Herres, is an authority on the history and historiography of the Ming dynasty,1 who has in the past collaborated with the second author Volker Grabowsky in translating Chinese sources on Sino-Tai relations in Yunnan and Continental Southeast Asia.2 Grabowsky, a leading historian of Lan Na and north-western Laos, advocates writing the history of Tai polities from an indigenous perspective.3 Renoo Wichasin, a philologist and a doyen of Tai manuscript studies, has collaborated closely with Grabowsky in the translation of Tai Lü chronicles before,4 and her hand is visible throughout, especially in the sections concerning the characteristics of the Tai Lü language and script (pp. 98–104), and the transcription of Ming dynasty Tai Lü sources into modern Thai. The principal contents of this book comprise a lengthy ninety-nine page introduction, followed by the annotated translations of the four versions (231 printed pages), and concludes with five appendixes and a detailed bibliography. The appendixes contain a genealogical table of the rulers of Sipsòng Panna, English translations of rare early Ming sources concerning the kingdom, including a bilingual memorial submitted by Tao Sam Pò Lütai (reigned in second half of the 15th century) Liew-Herres Foon Ming, Annotated Sources of Ming History: Including Southern Ming and Works on Neighbouring Lands, 1368–1661, 2011. 2 For instance, see her translations of Yuan and Ming sources on Lan Na in Liew-Herres Foon Ming and Volker Grabowsky (in collaboration with Aroonrut Wichienkeeo), Lan Na in Chinese Historiography: Sino-Tai Relations as Reflected in the Yuan and Ming Sources (13th to 17th centuries), Bangkok, Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 2008. 3 Volker Grabowsky. “Chiang Khaeng 1893-1896: A Lue Principality in the Upper Mekong Valley at the Center of Franco-British Rivalry”, in Christopher E. Goscha and Søren Ivarsson (eds), Contesting Visions of the Lao Past: Lao Historiography at the Crossroads, Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2003. 4 Volker Grabowsky and Renoo Wichasin, Chronicles of Chiang Khaeng: a Tai Lü Principality of the Upper Mekong, Honolulu, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai’i, 2008. 1

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to the imperial court, photographic reproductions of two wooden seals reputedly issued during the Qing and Republican periods, and a Modern Thai transcription and English translation of an inscription at a monastery in Moeng Cae dated 1994. An impressively large amount of first-hand data has been put into English for the first time. The translation of the chronicles, which forms the main body of the book, recounts the history of the Sipsòng Panna kingdom from 1180 until 1950 through the reigns of forty to forty-four rulers, depending on the version; all rulers seem to have been directly descended from the founder Phaya Coeng (r.1180-1192). Phaya Coeng established the capital in 1190 at a place named Chiang Lan, where a Lua chieftain named Ai Lan formerly resided. The chronicles detail the rulers before the mid 16th century Burmese conquest of the Tai world, include the advent of tributary relations with China during the reign of the second ruler Tao Khai Noeng (r. 1192–1211), and later record vassal ships to Burmese dynasties from the reign of Cao Nò Moeng (r. 1530–1568), after which the kingdom owed fealty to the two dynastic giants. In 1991, Hasegawa Kiyoshi 長谷川清 published a study of the dual Chinese-Burmese overlordship, which pertained until the 19th century, but it has passed unnoticed by the sorrowful mischance of being written in Japanese.5 The Chronicles relate the political instability fomented by swearing fidelity to two thrones as well as the duplicity engendered by such an arrangement. Succession was no foregone conclusion, and claims to the throne by rival factions of the ruling house often caused havoc and harm whenever they sought political and military backing from China and Burma for their claimants, a phenomenon most pronounced during the period between 1818 and 1857. The account in Text II takes us up to the last ruler of the Kingdom Cao Mòm Kham Lü (Dao Shixun), who reigned from 1947 to 1950, and contains a narrative of the “Cow Cushion War” of 1913. The numerous annotations given in the footnotes are immensely valuable because they enable readers to follow the differences and correspondences with other Tai Chronicles, Chinese and even European sources. Though highly readable, general readers may find the scholarly translation heavy going, yet the academic apparatus is absolutely essential to ensure the accurate transmission of fresh information. In fact, the authors should be highly commended for their linguistic juggling from Chinese into Tai Lü and Burmese in their translation of Text 1. Since the original text has been long lost, they have had to reconvert back into Tai Lü and Burmese the names of people, official titles and administrative units, toponyms, and myriad other terms from Chinese (see pp. 95–100). The present reviewer Hasegawa Kiyoshi, “Chichi naru Chūgoku Haha naru Biruma: Shipuson Panna Ōken to sono ‘Gaibu’ 父なる中国・母なるビルマ―シプソンパンナー王権と其の≪外部＞(China is our Father, Burma is our Mother: Royal power in Sipsòng Panna and the ‘Outside’)”. In Matsubara Masatake 松原正毅 ed., Ōken no Isō 王権の位相 (Phases of Royal Power) Tokyo, Kōbundō 弘 文堂, 1991, pp. 380–408.

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vividly remembers finding the Chinese version of Text 1 laborious to read precisely because the Chinese transliterations of Tai Lü titles and special terms did not always ring bells. Impenetrability has deterred scholars writing in English from using it extensively in the past. By reconversion into terminology consistent with normal academic conventions they have rendered great service to Tai studies. Given the complexities, this is truly quite an achievement, which should not be under-rated. The introduction is most erudite and informative. It provides an overview of the history and society of Sipsòng Panna within the context of the Tai world, and enriches our bibliographical understanding of the chronicles by elucidating details of the four versions translated as well as another nine Tai Lü sources used for corroboration (pp. 88–93). It includes information gathered by ear on the spot in Yunnan. Despite its thoroughness, I feel that the authors have been too reticent in discussing how important material made available by their translation contributes to our understanding of some of the larger urgent issues in the history of the Tai world. One that stands out particularly is the political power of Mon-Khmer ethnic groups and their role in the formation of Tay polities. The foundation date of 1180 assigns a longer time depth to the Sipsòng Panna kingdom than Lan Na (the authors do not discuss the significance of this fact), but similarities, such as the erection of the capital on the site of a Lua (Lawa) chieftain and the marriage of rulers with Lua women, suggests similar trends at work. In the introduction, the authors carefully note the close relationship between Tai and Kha (hill peoples) in the formation of Tai Lü polities, but they do not discuss these similarities, or even make comparisons with the well-known case of the role of the Lua in the establishment of Lan Na. This issue, raised during the 1990s by Cholthira Satyawadhna and Aroonrut Wichienkeeo, has gone by the wayside in recent years,6 relegated to the realm of myth due to a seeming lack of contemporaneous historical sources. The data presented in this set of translations confirms the active participation of Lua in the creation of moeng, and calls for more serious consideration of the significance of non-Tai participation in Tai polity formation. Given the authoritative line-up of the authors, it is a pity that they have avoided deep discussion of this major issue. As a rule of thumb, the closer the Tai to Yunnan, the more information we can glean from Chinese sources to verify and supplement the chronicles. Sipsòng Panna is certainly no exception. Throughout the annotations, the authors extensively refer to corroborative Chinese sources, especially for the Ming period, but have overlooked a valuable source that I shall comment on here. See Cholthira Satyawadhna, “Ethnic Inter-relationships in the History of Lanna: Reconsidering the Lwa Role in the Lanna Scenario”, Tai Culture, Vol. 2. No. (December 1997), pp. 6–29; and Aroonrut Wicheienkeeo, “Lawa (Lua): A Study from Palm-Leaf Manuscripts and Stone Inscriptions”, in Hayashi Yukio and Yang Guangyuan, ed, Dynamics of Ethnic Cultures Across National Boundaries in Southwestern China and Mainland Southeast Asia: Relations, Societies and Languages, Chiang Mai, Lanna Cultural Center, 2000, pp. 138–153.

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For the 18th and 19th centuries, the authors refer to the Qing Shilu (清實 録 Veritable records of the Qing) often for the purpose of verifying the accession and demise of Tai rulers. This is sound procedure, yet memorials submitted to the throne by high ranking Imperial officials in Yunnan, preserved by the National Palace Museum in Taipei, also contain important first hand data not recorded in the chronicles or the Qing Shilu. For instance, the memorials document in detail the revolt of 1728 that broke out due to widespread dissatisfaction among hill peoples against malpractices by Han traders who purchased tea in the mountains under the administration of Moeng Ham, a constituent domain of Sipsòng Panna. This revolt shook the political structure of the kingdom to its foundations.7 Claiming that incompetence by the incumbent ruler Tao Cin Pao (r. 1724–1729) exacerbated the trouble, the Qing court annexed Sipsòng Panna territory east of the Mekong River and put it under the administration of imperial bureaucrats in 1729. Nothing concerning this event, which surely must have constituted a crisis of state for the kingdom, is recorded in the chronicles. In the end, however, the direct administration proved impracticable, and Tai rulers were left to govern most of their original territory. Nevertheless, the annexation was significant for it launched the polity on the path towards full incorporation into the Chinese state, a long journey that terminated in its final elimination in 1950.8 This event preceded by over 180 years the advent of stronger Chinese control over the kingdom in 1913 by the Chinese Resident Commissioner Ke Shuxun 柯樹 勲, who was stationed at the capital Chiang Rung (Jinghong). Text III briefly records Ke’s introduction of a poll tax and a military campaign (pp. 304, 309), and the authors characterise his regime as “Sipsòng Panna under Chinese Rule” (p. 69). In actual fact, Ke found it impossible to directly govern the kingdom due to the inability of the Tai populace to comprehend administrative directives issued in Chinese and the vastly different structure of their society. This compelled him to allow the paramount Tai ruler and his bureaucracy to govern as before, thus preserving the polity. This marked the second attempt by the Chinese to implement direct rule, and they did not succeed in abolishing the ruler and his bureaucracy until 1950. Counting from the first attempt in 1729, it took 221 years for the polity of Sipsòng Panna to be fully incorporated into the Chinese state!9 For instance, National Palace Museum, ed, Gongzhongdang Yongzhengchao Zouzhe (宮中木 ＋當雍正朝奏摺 Secret Palace Memorials of the Yongzheng Period: Qing Documents at the National Palace Museum), Taibei: National Palace Museum Press, 1977–1980, Volume 9. 8 Christian Daniels, “Yōsei shichinen Shinchō ni yoru Shipuson panna Ōkoku no Chokkatsuchika ni tsuite; Taikei minzoku ōkoku wo yurugasu sanchimin ni kansuru ichikōsatsu” 雍正七年清朝に よるシプソンパンナー王国の直轄地化について―タイ系民族王国を揺るがす山地民に関 する一考察 (The Annexation of Sipsòng Panna by the Qing dynasty in 1729; an examination of hill peoples who rocked the foundations of a Tay Kingdom), Tōyōshi Kenkyū 東洋史研究, 62: 4 (March 2004), pp. 694–728. 9 Christian Daniels, “Seinan Chūgoku Shan Bunkaken ni okeru Hikanzoku no Jiritsuteki Seiken; 7

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Memorials presented to the throne sometimes report demographic data and other information concerning Tai society. For instance, in the disturbances of 1728 whole villages in Meong Ham fled south into present-day Laos out of fright. Hao Yulin 郝玉麟, the Yunnan Provincial Military Commander 雲南提督, was forced to abandon brute force and formulate a pacification policy in order to repopulate the area. He absolved Tao Cin Pao of responsibility for the revolt, and restored confidence in the authority of the paramount leader and his regime. This measure proved effective, and by the first lunar month of the seventh year of the Yongzheng reign (1729/30), Hao had already managed to repatriate 8,100 people (1,600 odd households).10 According to another source, the Dian Yun Linian Zhuan 滇雲歴年 傳 (A Chronological Record of [Events ] in Yunnan) by the scholar Ni Tui 倪蛻, a total of 12,300 odd households, numbering about 20,000 to 30,000 men and women, were ultimately repaired to their homes in Sipsòng Panna.11 Such house-enumeration statistics demonstrate the levels of displacement caused by the revolt. It is curious that the authors do not discuss the antiquity and implications of the term Moeng Lü, apart from suggesting that it preceded the term Sipsòng Panna. In their introduction they state “muang was the older concept” and “panna was obviously a later structure imposed on the network of muang” (p. 29). They collectively refer to all four versions under the rubric of Moeng Lü Chronicles, a designation that translates the title of the earliest version Text I, which apparently was compiled sometime during the late 19th or early 20th century (pp. 52, 78). The title of the Chinese rendition of Text I is Leshi 勒史 (literally the history of the Lü), while that of the original Tay text, according to the compilers of this book, is Nangsü Pün Moeng Lü (p. 74). Though the authors do not comment on the first literary reference to Moeng Lü, its long usage can be verified by an early SinoTai vocabulary from the Baiyi (Tai) College 百夷 (literally “hundred barbarians”). This College was one of the eight colleges at the Siyiguan 四夷館 (“College of Translators for the Barbarians of the Four Quarters”), set up in accordance with an order issued by the Yongle emperor in 1407 for the purpose of handling the translation of documents submitted by foreign tribute missions. It was inaugurated roughly a hundred years before the establishment by the Ming of the translation college for Sipsòng Panna Ōkoku no Kaido Kiryū wo Jitsurei ni 西南中国・シャン文化圏における非漢 族の自律的政権―シプソンパンナー王国の改土帰流を実例に―」(Autonomous Non-Han Regimes in Southwest China and the Tai Cultural Area: an attempt at gaitu guiliu in the Sipsòng Panna polity), Ajia Afurika Bunka Kenkyūjo Kenkyū Nenpō アジア・アフリカ文化研究所研究 年報, No. 34 (March 2000), pp. 56–70. 10 National Palace Museum, ed, Gongzhongdang Yongzhengchao Zouzhe, Vol. 12, pp. 315–316. 11 Ni Tui 倪蛻, Dian Yun Linian Zhuan 滇雲歴年傳 (A Chronological Record of [Events] in Yunnan), Kunming 昆明, Yunnan Daxue Chubanshe 雲南大学出版社 1992, pp. 600–601. It was first published in 1846. Its accounts of early Yunnan history are not always reliable, but its records of the 18th century contain data not found in other sources. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Fak Kham script and 170 years before the college for Ayudhya script.12 The Sino-Tai vocabulary titled the Baiyi Guan Zazi 百夷館雜字 (“The Miscellaneous Characters of the Baiyi College”) lists Meng Le 猛勒 (Moeng Lü) as the Tai equivalent of Cheli 車里 (Chinese name for Sipsòng Panna).13 The Japanese linguist Izui Hisanosuke 泉井久之助 romanised the Tai equivalent of Meng Le as Möng Löw.14 Since the extant Baiyi Guan Zazi manuscript dates to the 16th century,15 we can substantiate that the word Moeng Lü emerged in literary sources at roughly the same time as the term Sipsòng Panna, if not earlier. According to the authors, the first reference to Sipsòng Panna in the chronicles occurred during the reign of Cao In Moeng (r. 1569–1598, Text 1; see p. 159 fn 292). The book comes with nine maps, including two historical maps from Chinese sources as well as one from British archives and another from French archives. They are useful aids, particularly for Tai studies scholars who may be unfamiliar with the historical geography of Yunnan. Unfortunately, there are inaccuracies in the plotting and romanisation of some toponyms which may mislead readers. In Map 2 “Dai (Tai) Settlements in Yunnan”, Ruili and Moeng Mao are marked as separate places, when, in fact, the former is the Chinese name for the latter; from the location on the map Ruili may have been an error for Mangshi (Moeng Khòn), the capital of the Dehong Autonomous Region. On the same map Genma should read Gengma. Map 8 “Eighteen Aboriginal Commissions in the Early Nineteenth Century” also contains imprecise romanisation: 3. Chuqiong should be Chuxiong 15. Wiengmu should be Manmu 16. Wiengding should be Mengding 17. Ganya should be read Gan’ai. The character 崖 now read ya in Mandarin is read ai in Yunnan. Gan’ai is the Chinese name for Moeng La (now Yingjing 盈江). La (or Na in Southern Shan) means face or front. 22. Menglian should be Mengdian. Christian Daniels, “Script Without Buddhism: Burmese Influence on the Tay (Shan) Script of Mäng2 Maaw2 as seen in a Chinese Scroll Painting of 1407”, International Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 9, Issue 2 (July 2012), pp. 147–176. 13 The Baiyi Guan Zazi is included in the Huayi Yiyu 華夷譯語 (“Translated Words of the Chinese and Barbarians”). No name of compiler, date unknown. Ms. held by the Toyo Bunko 東洋文 庫, Tokyo, Japan. It contains the Zazi (雜字The Miscellaneous Characters) and Laiwen (來文 Incoming Correspondence) of nine colleges; Dada（韃靼Tartars or eastern Mongols), Nuzhi (女 直 Jurchen), Huihui (回回 Muslims), Xifan (西番 Tibet), Gaochang (高昌), Baiyi (百夷 Tay), Miandian (緬甸 Burmese), Babai (八百 Lanna polity) and the Xuanluo (暹羅 Ayudhya) colleges. Since the latter two colleges were only set up during the16th century we can assume that this handcopy was done after 1579 (Wanli 萬暦7) when the Xuanluo College was established. 14 Izui Hisanosuke 泉井久之助 Hikaku Gengo Kenkyu 比較言語學研究 (Studies in Comparative Linguistics) Osaka: Sogensha 創元社, 1949, p. 220. 15 Christian Daniels, “Script Without Buddhism”, p. 153. 12

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In recent years, interest in the Tai world outside Thailand and Laos has surged, and this high-quality, annotated translation is most welcome because it furnishes us with primary source materials to fill the huge gap in our knowledge about the history of the largest Tai polity in Yunnan east of the Salween River. Of course, the attributes of this path-breaking set of translations far outweigh the minor flaws in the maps and the typos, for it multiplies our ability to make comparisons with other polities in the Upper Mekong basin. Undoubtedly, it will soon assume status similar to that of Sao Saimong Mangrai’s translations of the Chiang Tung Chronicles, and David Wyatt / Aroonrut Wichienkeeo’s rendition of the Chiang Mai Chronicle, garnering plaudits for the authors. Christian Daniels

The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen: Siam’s Great Folk Epic of Love and War translated and edited by Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2010). Hardback: ISBN: 978-974-9511-98-5 (two-volume set); paperback: ISBN: 978-616-215-045-6. Khun Chang Khun Phaen (KCKP) is a great epic not only of love and war – but also of treachery, violence, magic, romance, sex, male chauvinism, bawdy humor and more, woven into a dense tapestry of colors, flavors, sounds, and emotions. Marveling at the sumptuous milieu of old Siamese customs, beliefs, and practices in which the story takes place, the great Thai linguist William J. Gedney, commented, “if all other information on traditional Thai culture were to be lost, the whole complex could be reconstructed from this marvelous text.” The epic has long had a wide impact on many aspects of popular culture, including songs, sayings, movies, novels, magical amulets, and even cigarette cards. Its basic plot is a love triangle involving the fair, gentle Phim (who later takes the name Wanthong) and her childhood friends, Khun Chang, who is ugly and uncouth but rich, and Phlai Kaeo (later known as Khun Phaen), who is handsome and dashing, but lacking in wealth. Swept into relationships with each of them at different times for different reasons (romantic love with Khun Phaen, security with Khun Chang), Wanthong in the end is condemned to death because she cannot choose between them. Along the way, Khun Phaen learns the lore of magic and sorcery which enables him to entice women and defeat his foes, while Khun Chang uses his wealth and wiles to bolster his position in society and win Wanthong. High points in the story include numerous occurrences of the classic Thai “wondrous scenes” or metaphors of tempestuous wind and waves used to describe love-making, Khun Phaen’s creation of a spirit son and magical sword, his daring flight into the forest with Wanthong Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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astride the horse Color of Mist, and the frantic attempt to prevent Wanthong’s execution. Most of the action, apart from a military expedition to the north, takes place in the towns of Suphanburi, Kanburi and Phichit, at locations long abandoned, at some time around the early 17th century. Surrounding the main plot are common everyday events, such as births, deaths, funerals, and weddings, occurring in the lives of ordinary people, and told in the language of ordinary people, often with bold sexual overtones. KCKP has been praised for its soaring poetic passages, criticized for its burlesque scenes and graphic portrayal of warfare, and condemned for its misogynistic ending. However, until a few years ago there existed no translation of the full text into a Western language because of the highly challenging nature of the task. Not only is the poem lengthy (a famous published edition consists of 40 volumes), it exists in various versions, has a complex history as a commoners’ oral text that was transformed into a courtly written one, and is full of literary devices and references to cultural practices and beliefs, local flora and fauna, and other obsolete minutia that defy translation and are even difficult for Thais to understand. In 2004, however, the husband and wife team of Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit took on that challenge. Baker, a researcher and resident of Thailand for over thirty years, and Pasuk, an economics professor at Chulalongkorn University, had already co-authored several books on Thai politics and history that earned them wide acclaim for their knowledge and insight. With their wide network of colleagues and contacts, the couple invited ideas, leads, comments and suggestions from everyone interested in contributing to knowledge about this iconic story. They made a working draft of the translation available online while they refined the language, organization, and references. The effort culminated in a brilliant and delightful twovolume, 1430-page opus published by Silkworm Books in 2010. Anyone who has tried to translate classical Thai poetry understands the challenge of rendering into another language not only the meaning but also the essence and feeling of the original. Thai poetry is especially difficult to translate because it is based on elaborate patterns of meter, rhyme and alliteration, as well as a heavy infusion of loanwords from Khmer and Pali-Sanskrit, while completely ignoring grammatical structure. As Baker pointed out in one of his blogs, “the wording can be almost telegraphese. The reader has to supplement the syntax.” Sensibly, the authors did not attempt a word-for-word translation or one in poetic form, but instead a prose rendition that captures the essence of the characters and their speech by way of the storyteller. The result is lively, straightforward, and readable. The phrases have a cadence that moves the reader along briskly though the long and winding plot. Sentences are alternately eloquent, informative, and earthy – as needed. But Baker and Pasuk have done much more than translate the poem. Their detailed annotation serves as a cultural encyclopedia that defines esoteric terms, Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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explains metaphors, identifies place names, quotes literary authorities, and provides other clues that guide the reader through puzzling passages and references. In fact, the book is worth purchasing for these entries alone. Among the most fascinating is the staggering array of practices involving magical powers that Khun Phaen acquires as a Buddhist novice monk through his quest for knowledge of “inner ways” (thang nai) or hidden forces. These include powers derived from the use of mantras, yantras, charms and other occult practices sometimes involving use of bodies of those who had died a violent death. Much of the story hinges on the balance between these powers, human conflict and the desire for control, and the force of karma. In terms of organization, the book consists of two thick volumes, each with a convenient ribbon place-marker. In Volume 1, comprising 836 pages, the action begins immediately after a two-page preface and a list of principal characters. The story starts with the birth of the three main characters and ends with Wanthong’s death. Following the translation are the various components of what might be called a users’ manual: a pronunciation guide for key proper names; a synopsis of the story; a timeline; maps; a glossary; and a detailed 69-page “afterword,” containing a wealth of information on the story’s origins and evolution, poetic features, physical landscape, and social setting. Volume 2 presents a continuation of the story with additional episodes involving Khun Phaen’s son, alternative tellings of certain episodes of the basic narrative, two prefaces by Prince Damrong, and a catalogue of flora, fauna, costumes, weapons, and food in the text. Both volumes are heavily footnoted and lavishly sprinkled with 400 delightful illustrations by the gifted artist Muangsing Janchai, many based on old paintings and drawings, to help the reader visualize the setting. And, for the convenience of readers who cannot commit to reading every page from beginning to end, the translators in their preface (p. x) suggest two approaches that exclude certain chapters and focus on the key episodes of the story. These shortcuts make sense because traditional oral performances usually consisted of a single episode rather than a set of acts narrating the entire story as in a Western play, and even in its early written forms, the story was not intended to be read cover to cover. Moreover, although all Thais are familiar with KCKP in some way or other, few have ever read or had to study more than a few lines, and these were often out of context. Unlike other important works of Thai classical literature like the Ramakien, Inaw, and Sam Kok, which were courtly creations based on foreign (Indic, Javanese or Chinese) sources, KCKP’s plot is derived from a local tale, told and retold by ordinary storytellers as a means of entertainment. Moreover, its main characters are not the deities or kings found in court literature, but members of the minor local gentry and commoners who live their lives at the mercy at those with wealth and power. As for its history, KCKP is thought to date back to around 1600 to a story about the death of a beautiful woman, which was passed along orally by storytellers Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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who embellished and expanded it over the years with outside episodes and bawdy comedy. Baker and Pasuk suggest that its continued popularity stemmed from its two core themes: 1) the situation of women living in a society in which they were unable to control their lives, and 2) the story of an ordinary man “pitted against wealth and power” (p. 886). Originally a commoners’ tale, it was adopted by the court around the early 18th century and revised repeatedly over the next two centuries. Along the way it was censored, revised, and edited, the most prominent edition of which was produced by Prince Damrong in 1917-18. This edition, in the form of a book that is divided into chapters, is the basis of the translation by Baker and Pasuk, who supplemented it with “roughly a hundred passages from older versions.” These include both printed versions and traditional accordion-folded paper manuscripts, including a 40-volume work published at Wat Ko (formally known as Wat Samphanthawong) in Bangkok in 1890, now in the University of Michigan’s William J. Gedney Collection. That edition includes many bawdy passages that Prince Damrong deleted in his edition out of a sense of overzealous propriety. By assembling it all together into an historically accurate, highly readable work, Baker and Pasuk have created a stunning landmark contribution not only to the field of Thai literature, but to Thai art, performance, humanities, and social studies. Its references to gender relations, ceremonies, magical rites, social hierarchies, and myriad other aspects of life not only provide a wealth of evidence about the past but also raise countless questions for further study. Examples include the relative freedom of women of social classes, the role of the supernatural in everyday life, attitudes toward the forest, and the extent to which such beliefs and attitudes still impact outlooks and decision making today. Apart from serving as an encyclopedia of early Siamese culture, this book could comprise the basis of a syllabus for a semester-long college seminar on Thai literature, history, and traditions. In November, 2012, according to the authors’ blog on the Silkworm Books website (http://www.silkwormbooks.com/blogs/kckp/), a paperback edition became available, containing 600 corrections (mostly technical edits and additions to the notes, only a handful or retranslations), attesting to Baker and Pasuk’s tireless dedication. The blog offers a wealth of insight into how they went about their work, with musings, events, performances, reviews, and updates. It also carries the news that they have completed a Thai text of KCKP based on the Wat Ko version. Let’s hope that their enthusiasm will inspire more translations of old Thai literature despite the difficulty of equaling the level of excellence they have achieved in translating this superb folk tale. Bonnie Brereton

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Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy by Andrew Walker (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012). ISBN 978-0-299-28824-2 (hard). Anthropological research in Thailand began in 1949 with the Cornell University project to examine empirically the impact of modernization on rural Thailand. Bang Chan, the village in Minburi that was the focus of the Cornell project has long since disappeared, absorbed into greater Bangkok. Its disappearance was not, however, as Walker’s new rich ethnographic book clearly demonstrates, the harbinger of the end of rural society in Thailand. Walker is one of a very few anthropologists today – and especially among anthropologists trained in the last decades of the twentieth century – who still sees relevance in the foundational project of asking how rural Thai society has been transformed by the influences of expanding state and market forces. The relevance stems from the fact that rural society not only continues to exist but that it has assumed a major, some would even say, a determinative role in Thai politics. Walker’s study is centered in a village he calls Ban Tiam in the Chiang Mai Valley of northern Thailand. The “village” designation requires some explanation since the term situates the residents both in a locally defined and demarcated locality known as a ban and in a local administrative unit known as a muban. Moreover, the muban is situated in an administrative “subdistrict” (tambon) and – unusually for rural Thailand – in a “municipality” (thetsaban) (see p. 62). In other words, the residents of Ban Tiam, like “villagers” throughout Thailand, belong and have long belonged to local worlds defined by local practices and are, at the same time, embedded in an administrative system determined by the central government. This double character of the village is key to understanding Walker’s argument that “What is important in Ban Tiam’s localism is that political society’s relations with the state are mediated by appropriately embedded local actors” (p. 194). As I will suggest below, we must understand that Ban Tiam’s localism, while sharing some characteristics with other localisms in rural Thailand today, also differs from them in some significant respects. In contrast to theories prominent from the 1960s through the 1990s, Walker does not presuppose that rural relations with the modern state always entail “resistance”, whether as overt protest movements or peasant rebellions or as what James Scott termed “everyday resistance”, referring to how peasants subvert state policies in more nuanced ways. Walker, in contrast, argues that the “localism” of the village in Ban Tiam “seeks to draw the state into a socially and culturally legible field of meaning” (p. 194). By becoming active participants in the politics of the state, rural people in northern Thailand (and, it must be added, in northeastern Thailand) became the main source of power of the populist politician Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party (and its successor the Pheu Thai Party). In short, Walker Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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has provided the most compelling case I have seen to date of why rural society in Thailand, as a consequence of marked increases in wealth especially since the late 1990s, today shapes national politics as much as Bangkok governments shape rural society. Central to his argument is that the villagers of Ban Tiam are part of what he terms the “persistent peasantry” of Thailand, but a peasantry that has been transformed significantly because of marked increases in income. In the case of Ban Tiam, this increase has come about primarily because of expanded agricultural output that has been markedly facilitated by subsidization by the state. While Ban Tiam villagers have remained agricultural and while increases in household income have made them “middle income”, I find the “peasant” or even “middle income peasant” designation to be very problematic. The “peasant” has long been understood both in popular thought and by theorists, such as Robert Redfield, Eric Wolf, and Julian Steward, among others, as being a subsistence cultivator who utilizes a low level of technology for production, and produces a surplus, a portion of which is appropriated in the form of rent or taxes. In Thailand, the chaona, or rice-producer, was the traditional peasant. It is the image of the chaona, especially one behind a water buffalo pulling a plow or harrow, which continues to be dominant in urban middle class thought. In Walker’s own description, the people who live in the rural village of Ban Tiam are very different to the traditional peasant. Most are still agriculturalists, but they are not subsistence farmers and cultivate a variety of cash crops, not just rice. They produce a much larger surplus than their forebears did, but today they sell most of this surplus for their own benefit, with rents and taxes constituting a very small proportion of their expenditures. And as Walker repeats numerous times in the book, agriculture by Ban Tiam villagers is today subsidized significantly by the state rather than being a major source of state income. Just as Bang Chan did not represent the type of Thai village found throughout Thailand – having been established on what in the 19th century was a frontier, being constituted of households living in dispersed residences, and, especially, being located near Bangkok where many villagers could find non-agricultural work – so, too, Ban Tiam represents only one type of rural community in contemporary Thailand. In contrast to Ban Tiam, most village households in northeastern Thailand – which has by far the largest rural population of Thailand and where I have carried out long-term research – do not gain their income primarily from agriculture. Rather the major source of household income in the Northeast is non-farm labor, especially labor undertaken in urban Thailand or overseas. Rural households in central Thailand where there has long been commercialized agriculture and in southern Thailand where incomes are more likely to be generated from fishing and mining are again different to those in Ban Tiam. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Walker’s study does, nonetheless, highlight one characteristic that is today found throughout rural Thailand – namely, that of political participation. Because of significant “middle-level” incomes (whether from agriculture or other sources), higher education (most rural dwellers, female as well as male, today have at least a 9th grade education), intense exposure to mass media (especially TV), and embeddedness in socio-political networks that entail many personal relations between rural and urban people, Thai villagers today belong to what Walker, following Partha Chatterjee, calls a “political society” as differentiated from a “civil society”. While participants in Thailand’s civil society organizations that seek to protect local resource allocations tend to be drawn from members of the urban middle class, participants in Thailand’s political society are predominantly rural. These participants “are concerned with channeling power in desired directions, negotiating deals, and striking a reasonable balance between private and public benefit” (p. 231). They reject, either explicitly or, in most cases, tacitly, the view advanced by the traditional ruling elite that only “good” or “virtuous” men should exercise power. While the political system based on elections is, according to Walker, “ragged”, it is, he concludes, “more likely to be able to deal with the warts-and-all realities of political life” (p. 231). In sum, Walker’s book has helped bring rural Thailand back to center stage both for social science scholarship and for understanding contemporary Thai political life. His book deserves a wide audience. Charles Keyes Bencharong and Chinaware in the Court of Siam: The Surat Osathanugra Collection by Jeffery Sng and Pim Praphai Bisalputra (Bangkok: Chawpipope Osathanugrah, 2011) ISBN: 978-616-207-069-3 (hard) This is an excellent 286 page hard-cover quarto, full colour volume devoted to the collection of Thai industrialist, politician and serial collector, the late Surat Osathanugrah, and edited by renowned ceramics expert Bhujjong Chandavij. In an opening paragraph, the purpose of the book is stated as giving a wider exposure to the cultural treasures of Thailand, notably antique ceramics, many of which the collection, by its existence, prevented from being smuggled out of the country. The term bencharong (or sometimes spelt in English as benjarong) refers to a class of colourful porcelain, or occasionally stoneware, ceramics that occur in a variety of shapes similar to those of Chinese export wares. They were produced primarily for utilitarian purposes and their forms are consequently simple with gentle contours. The most common items are covered and uncovered bowls, jars of different sizes, plates, stem or pedestal plates, spittoons, spoons, teapots and tea sets. Their exterior surfaces are completely covered with design motifs; the interiors are painted and decorated less elaborately. The colour combinations, especially of Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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red, yellow, black, white and green in the earlier wares gave rise to their descriptive name from the Sanskrit pancha and ranga — five colours — though other colours, including pink, purple and blue, were added in later pieces. This volume under review is organised into twelve chapters commencing with a biographical study of Surat Osathanugrah (1930-2008), who compiled the entire collection over a period of some thirty years, but the collection of bencharong during only 3-4 years before his demise. The first of the chapters devoted to the collection deals with the rise of Chinese blue-and-white which pre-dated bencharong. The chapter is of considerable importance given the very strong influence of Chinese wares on bencharong though the relationship could have been made more explicit. The second chapter introduces bencharong under the title “Bencharong of Iudia” and is printed in white on black pages, as are a number of illustrations in later chapters. There seems little benefit in this, neither does the introduction of the title of Iudia, given to Ayudhya, the regional capital of the province of the same name in central Thailand and whose ancient ruins were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992. Iudia appears in Vicenzo Coronelli’s map of 1696, but is no longer in common use. A modern map showing all geographical places to which reference is made would have been preferable to the two included — a small one in shades of grey based on a 1936 sketch map, and an historic (1683) Italian map covering mainland Southeast Asia and about two-thirds of Sumatra. The two subsequent chapters, “Fall and Revival 1767-1809” and “The Gilded Age 1782-1851”, are essentially historical with particular reference to political events in Thailand. These events were relevant to the ceramics trade insofar as their influence on the junk trade with China and the revival of economic prosperity were reflected in the quality of imported bencharong. “The Gilded Age” introduces the gilded version of bencharong wares known as lai nam thong, a Thai term literally meaning ‘gold washed patterns’. The remaining quarter of the text is more directly devoted to the porcelain itself with individual chapters emphasising what is described as a new creative period in Siamese porcelain unconstrained by classical rules. A chapter is devoted to Himaphan symbolism based on Hindu rites and ceremonies many of which still survive in Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. The Himaphan forest is the legendary woodland said to be the home of an assortment of mythical creatures. In the 18th and 19th centuries, bencharong wares were decorated with images of Himaphan forest celestial beings and mystical beasts. The following chapter, entitled “Good Fortune, Long Life and Peace”, draws attention to auspicious designs in Chinese porcelain, but makes no reference to bencharong. The next, “The Charm of Teapots”, includes items both of Chinese and Siamese designs and a later is devoted to “Chakri Tea Sets”, which are described as among the most prized Siamese court porcelain. Attention is drawn in this chapter to a declining interest in national taste in the bencharong tradition when it describes Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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the Chakri dynasty, which has ruled Thailand since 1782, as succumbing to Western “civilised” tastes in the second half of the 19th century. The text is clearly written and informative, though heavily biased towards historical material, but the highlights of the book are clearly its illustrations by photographer Eddie Siu. These are reproduced excellently with each accompanied by a descriptive paragraph. Evidence for the dating of bencharong wares is scarce and most in the collection are dated as 19th century or by reference to the reigns of particular Thai monarchs. The book ends rather abruptly with a chronology, a bibliography (in both English and Thai), acknowledgements, a biography of the production team and a rather limited glossary, but no index. Despite this criticism, the book is a major, if not the principal, contributor to this major style of Thai ceramics. The closing sentence to the editorial preface that ”this beautiful and interesting book should serve as a welcome addition to the bookshelf” cannot be challenged. Philip Courtenay Siamese Coins: From Funan to the Fifth Reign by Ronachai Krisadaolarn and Vasilijs Mihailovs (Bangkok: River Books, 2012). ISBN 978-974 9863 54 1 (hard) This is a beautiful, if literally heavy, book. From the superb reproduction gold coin woven into the black cloth cover and the beautiful slip case to the more than two thousand sumptuous colour photographs that enrich the book throughout, it is clear that this has been a labour of love for joint authors Ronachai Krisadaolarn (Ronald Cristal) and Vasilijs Mihailovs – both life-time members of the Numismatic Association of Thailand - and brought to fruition by Bangkok-based publisher River Books. Together, they have produced what will surely become the bible for Thai numismatists. The book covers a lot of ground, outlining how the Thai monetary system developed over two millennia. The authors briefly describe the earliest forms of money found in the first millenium in the general area that now constitutes Thailand including Funan, the Kra Isthmus, Sri Dvaravati, Haripunjaya, the Maritime Empires and Angkor – and continue through later eras of Siamese history. Coinage and ingots found in the Yonok, Sukhothai, Pattani, Lan Na, Lan Chang and Ayutthaya kingdoms are also quickly assessed before the book really comes into its own tracing in greater depth the history and manufacture of the unique Thai pot duang (bullet coins) and flat coinage before and during the Rattanakosin period. The authors rightly make note of the fact that pot duang evolved unlike coins used in any other country, and that the level of skill needed to make these coins was such that they could not be recreated today. Of particular interest, the authors explain how the Siamese monetary system Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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evolved, and specifically how the baht currency system was introduced, initially comprising the octuple system - based on divisions of eight – in the Ayutthaya and early Rattanakosin eras before the current decimal system of coinage was adopted in 1897. As elsewhere, coins have evolved from being value-based, made predominantly from gold or silver, to being almost worthless, made from copper, bronze, tin and/or cupronickel. A subsequent chapter focuses on emblems found on Siamese coins with clear illustrations provided of every possible mark, while another chapter provides considerable information on the numerous and varied legends found on Siamese flat coins. The final chapter, which makes up the heart of the book, provides plates and descriptions of all the various coins, ingots and gambling tokens known to have been in circulation (throughout the lengthy period of history under examination). There are two completely new areas on which the authors have also focused. They have for the first time sponsored an extensive study of the metallic composition of most specimens of coins listed in the book, either through Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (ED-XRF) tests at the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Thailand, and/or Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) tests at the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Cincinnati, USA. The purpose of this costly and time-consuming examination has been to determine the exact chemical composition and weight analysis of each coin. While such research findings may be fascinating for the keen numismatist, the extraordinary wealth of fresh data and the manner in which it is provided is simply mind-boggling for the casual reader. In contrast, I found the authors’ extensive study of contemporary and modern counterfeit coins found in the market today much more interesting. The lengths to which humans have gone, from the earliest times, to produce counterfeit coinage (admittedly of varying quality) are impressive. Photographs distinguishing genuine old coins from contemporary counterfeits, together with clear explanations of what to look for, are provided extensively throughout the book and will doubtless be of great assistance to any collector or scholar. The authors have included extremely thorough Appendices that provide extensive documentary context and support to the main text and photographs. Through the Appendices, the authors have traced the development of the various forms of currency found in the Sukhothai, Ayutthaya and Rattanakosin eras by providing extensive documents in Thai and English from a broad variety of sources that provide the novice reader, in particular, a quick understanding of some of the more important events in Thai commercial and economic history. Some of these documents, such as those from the Royal Archives, have never previously been published or translated into English. Other interesting documents include proclamations and letters from the reign of King Rama IV relating to the purchase of minting machines and problems with counterfeit coins, as well as a review of the Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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coinage in circulation in Siam during the reign of King Rama V. It is perhaps surprising how few books have been published in English about Thai numismatics since Reginald Le May’s classic 1932 work, The Coinage of Siam. This learned book certainly attempts to make up for that deficiency. It will probably appeal more to diehard numismatists as the writing style is serious and direct, and the weight and depth of information provided is overwhelming to the reader with little prior knowledge of the subject. As if the meticulous photos in the book are insufficient, the authors and publisher have also seen fit to enclose at the back of the book a DVD with more than one thousand high-resolution photographs of coins and other forms of money from the National Museum and private collections. My main criticism of the book is that it could have used a good final edit, as typos and grammatical errors occur throughout. However, that is a minor quibble given the fine work of scholarship that the authors have produced on this important subject. The astounding wealth of information is sufficient that it is almost impossible to read this book at one attempt. It is certainly a reference book to which the reader can, and will, return repeatedly – whether to find new information on Siamese coins or related historical trivia. Paul Bromberg Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology edited by Nora A. Taylor and Boreth Ly (Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2012). ISBN 978-0-87727-786-6 (hard) 978-0-87727-756-9 (soft) Southeast Asian contemporary art still seems to be very much waiting in the wings, largely surpassed by art from China. It is still uncertain whether there is actually an eager audience for this medium. Looking back to the cultural history of the region, Southeast Asian contemporary and modern art practice has rarely been addressed collectively, largely due to the diverse and expansive expressions that have emerged over the past decades as a result of each nation’s distinctive political and economic history. The first hand experiences of the essay contributors in this new volume offer intimate views on the complexities that identify their specific areas of expertise. Though Southeast Asian contemporary art remains an under-explored and fertile field that deals critically with politics, materiality and aesthetics, this book offers different viewpoints of often deeply coded social and cultural messages. Given that the geography of Southeast Asia looms large, the chapters examine contemporary culture through works related to the individual, the community and the environments in which the writers have had their many forms of exchange. Simultaneously, the publication may be regarded as a cornerstone for the various academic and formalist narratives, with specific focus on current art practices of the region. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Art writing in past decades has been fixated on traditional art forms; this book might on one level redress that balance and situate Southeast Asian contemporary art practice at the centre of theoretical and critical art practices that are attempting to negotiate the global experiences of the 21st century and consider what Southeast Asian art practices might mean within this context. These issues form the broader remit of the book. Opening with a luminous introduction by Nora Taylor linked by essays from a diverse group of scholars, the book brings to the fore the subtlety of Southeast Asia’s hybrid artistic imagination and heterogeneous layers of discourse. Within this context, the analogical approach provides multiple and, at times, diffuse points of entry into the history of ideas and the dimension of experiences as they illuminate commentary on contemporary art. The twelve essay contributors come from different vantage points, with some decidedly old school. This is not meant as a negative as the academic scrutiny of scholars such as John Clark, Kenneth M. George and Patrick D. Flores is highly regarded; they do come over as educational, though never overtly didactic. On the other hand, non-traditional voices such as Lee Weng Choy, Ashley Thompson and Việt Lê offer very different and a more contemporary approach to their subjects. The book takes as its starting point John Clark‘s essay “The Southeast Asian Modern: Three Artists” that covers the emergence of modern painting practices in Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. Clark examines the works of artists who embraced European tendencies and whose art has been a turning point in Modernist painting practices as he explores specific periods and the works of selected artists. Clark’s emphasis on art practices during the 19th century is particularly relevant as his views illustrate the extent to which art developed along specific colonial connections. On another level, the essay “Vietnamese Modern Art: An Unfinished Journey” by the late Boitran Huynh-Beattie repositions Vietnamese modern art practice within a more specific context, one that encompasses Vietnam’s own self-conscious modern art practices and political legacies. Clearly, Kenneth M. George is comfortable with Indonesian and knowledgeable about the influences of Islam on the aesthetics and art practices in the Malay Archipelago. The intimacy with which he addresses the nature of the Islamic faith through the complexities that have emerged as a result of the global resurgence of Islam in the 1980s and its impact on the contemporary Southeast Asian art scene may be attributed to his close academic relationship with some of Indonesia’s most important artists. But just as he makes these artistic connections appear serendipitous, Clark’s essay “The Cultural Politics of Modem and Contemporary Islamic Art in Southeast Asia” is open to further dialogue as he encompasses Southeast Asian Islamic art in a much more specific context: one that repositions Indonesia and Malaysia’s own self conscious art practices and cultural nuances. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Thailand is the one country in Southeast Asia that was never directly impacted by colonialism; nevertheless the relationship between place and identity is deeply rooted. Sandra Cate’s contribution “Thai Artists, Resisting the Age of Spectacle” examines shifts in material practice and art’s relationship with form, material and political agency in Thai contemporary art practice over the past twenty years; and importantly, the relationship of art with democracy. Việt Lê, on the other hand applies a very different approach to his subject as he addresses the artistic practices of Sandrine Liouquet and Tiffany Chung (each being representative of diasporic Vietnamese and women artists) as examples of Vietnamese artists whose international profiles are closely linked to Vietnam’s socio-political and cultural history through his contribution titled “Many Returns: Contemporary Vietnamese Diasporic Artists-Organizers in Ho Chi Minh City”. Việt Lê’s awareness of the relationship between art and politics is impressive. Through his essay “Of Trans(national) Subjects and Translation: The Art and Body Language of Sopheap Pich”, Boreth Ly seamlessly connects the contemporary works of Sopheap Pich - Cambodia’s most profiled contemporary artist - with everyday objects and situations as he relates his personal encounters with the artist. Boreth Ly’s contribution clearly presents self expression as a gesture important in its own right, as it becomes the background to his essay while informing on politically and socially charged fields of identity. “Titik Pertama, Titik Utama—First Dot, Main Dot: Creating and Connecting in Modern/Indigenous Javanese/Global Batik Art” by Astri Wright is a lengthy but in-depth essay on the relationship between ‘craft and art’ through the collaborative art practice of Agus Ismoyo and Nia Filam. Wright addresses broad aspects of their art that initially employed the ‘craft’ of Batik as a component of their expression, which ultimately resulted in more universal inclusions, such as their collaborations with indigenous groups from Australia. For the reader interested in the real position of Batik within Indonesia’s modern culture, Wright’s essay is a case in point. Patrick D. Flores is one of Southeast Asia’s most esteemed art historians. Through his essay “Turns in Tropics: Artist-Curator”, he traces the artistic paths of four of Southeast Asia’s most important art luminaries. The artistic careers of Redza Piyadasa, Jim Supangat, Raymundo Albano and Apinan Poshyananda from the 1960s through the late 1980s have been at the forefront of contemporary Southeast Asian art practice, sequencing the foregrounding of context for the work of younger artists. Moving from creative art making to curatorial practices, their contributions have been significant to current structuralist means of perceiving and interpreting the creative process. Lee Weng Choy is one of Singapore’s non-traditional voices. Known for his association with The Substation, Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts centre, Lee’s presentation on the Singapore contemporary art scene clearly defines Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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the conditions of modernity, particularly with relationship to modern art. He has written about and organised exhibitions that deal with contemporary issues relevant not only to Singapore, but identify the cultural psyche of Southeast Asia as a region. “The Assumption of Love; Friendship and the Search for Discursive Density” is clearly one of the most interesting chapters of the book. Flaudette May V. Datuin looks at the art of Thai artist Phaptawan Suwannakudt and of Filipina artists Rowena Seloterio and (California-based) Gina Osterloh. She examines through her essay “Uncommon Sense: ‘Empty the Visual from Eyes of Flesh’” their feminist art practices with a similar sensitivity that defines their art. Further, she seeks to define their art under conditions of modernity, particularly in relationship to emotions that often impact artistic practice. Ashley Thompson, on the other hand deals with the situation of emotions in a totally different vein. “Mnemotechnical Politics: Rithy Panh’s Cinematic Archive and the Return of Cambodia’s Past” is at once an academic and poignant documentation of Cambodia’s recent political history. The final chapter in the book is a transcript of an interview by Grant Kester of Jay Koh and Chu Yuan, who have initiated and developed a series of art and cultural initiatives in Myanmar and other locales. While this narrative differs greatly from the other chapters in the book, it does address the conditions within which professionals contend, in this instance Myanmar. The book clearly straddles a variety of artistic experiences that have emerged in Southeast Asia’s contemporary and modern art history as it engages in dialogue that stresses the region’s artistic wealth and ambitions that cut a broad swath through the region. Borders can never be fully crossed; but understood and studied together, this anthology depicts Southeast Asia as socially and politically charged fields of artistic action, and illustrates how the reality of place and its cultural associations take on deeper meanings. Shireen Naziree Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies: The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640-1720 by Stefan Halikowski Smith (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011). Hardbound: ISBN 978 90 04 19048 1 Compared to the other Europeans at Ayutthaya, the Portuguese are relatively understudied, especially in English-language works, and especially beyond their early presence in the 16th century. The Campos article on “Early Portuguese Accounts of Thailand” in the JSS seventy years ago is the only broad survey in English and limited to the 16th century. Pinto is the only travel memoir available in English translation. Suthachai Yimprasert, possibly the only Thai scholar who has learnt to read Old Portuguese, failed to concentrate his doctoral research on Siam or Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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publish his thesis before shifting his interests elsewhere. This fat book by Stefan Halikowski Smith is thus a major event. The bibliography contains around six hundred entries, around half of which are old memoirs and travel accounts, many by Portuguese authors totally unknown to most scholars. Smith concentrates on the 17th century, and especially on Ayutthaya, though within the context of the Portuguese diaspora from Goa to Macao. Smith situates his study within the debates over the role of Portuguese mestiço or creole communities in various parts of the world in this era. He adopts Leonard Andaya’s idea of a “Portuguese tribe” to emphasize the informal and largely non-institutionalized nature of these communities, and notes that the story of this community has “very little to do with empire”. Portuguese were present in Ayutthaya from the early 16th century when they had roles as mercenaries and arms suppliers. By the end of that century, however, they had dwindled in number to a handful, lost their niche as military experts, and were spurned by other Europeans as “the worst and most lewd livers in Siam” (p. 73). After the Dutch expelled the Portuguese from Malacca in 1641 and from Makassar in the 1660s, the “Portuguese tribe” in Ayutthaya swelled to five or six thousand. Among these, there were only eight or nine true Portuguese families. Others were creoles along with Indians, Japanese, Africans, and Makassarese. Most seem to have been poor. Only two Portuguese are visible as entrepreneurs in ocean-going trade, and a few others as sea captains. Smith surmises that most others were engaged in petty local trading. Their status seems to have been similar to the Japanese, another community which lost status once its martial expertise declined in value. The Portuguese “camp” to the south of Ayutthaya island was something of a “ghetto”, where people were confined during political crises. Whereas the heads of the Dutch, French and other communities were adopted into the Siamese nobility with official titles, the head of the Portuguese was dubbed only Capitão-Mór and rarely invited to court. The incumbent at the time of the Siqueira mission in 1684 was 70 years old and in “severe poverty”. In what way were the members of this tribe “Portuguese”? On the basis of studies from other regions, Smith assumes that they spoke a creole language of Portuguese with additions from other languages, but he regrets that he has found no evidence to reconstruct this tongue. By surveying temple murals in Siam and Pagan, he examines how the Portuguese looked to others. They seem to have worn cotton pants, a neckerchief, no shoes and a black hat. This rig clearly differentiated them from the British and French, who clung to something more originally European, but also set them apart from the Siamese. Smith contrasts the poor situation and status of the Portuguese in Ayutthaya with their counterparts in Cambodia and Burma, and wonders why there was such a difference. He argues that the Siamese court kept a close control on trade and only the Dutch (and later the French) had the diplomatic weight to gain access. He might Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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also have added that the Portuguese, because they had few infusions from Europe, had little expertise in the way of the new technologies that intrigued the Siamese court. The single exception seems to have been the Jesuit Tommaso Valguarnera, who had engineering skills to strengthen the city walls and build a fountain. But this scarcely compared to the architects, engineers, marine experts, and astronomers supplied by other European nations. The Dominicans were probably the first churchmen to arrive, possibly building in 1555 the church which has recently been excavated. They were followed by the Jesuits, who built a church and college, and later by Augustinians and Franciscans. Their efforts at conversion bore very little fruit. They were most successful with orphans or abandoned children of peripheral communities, and converted almost no Siamese. Perhaps because of this disappointment, they bickered vituperously. The Dominicans sneered at the Jesuits for eliding the story of Jesus Christ from their teachings because they felt it was not appealing to their audience. Particularly once the French missionaries arrived, the various sects seem to have put most of their efforts into slandering their opponents as lazy and sinful, calling on their overlords to intervene, appealing to King Narai for help, and occasionally resorting to murder. The Portuguese community survived the ructions of 1688 rather well because they had no association with Phaulkon. With the removal of the British and French, some Portuguese fared rather better in the early 18th century, though most of the new opportunities were captured by the Chinese and the Dutch. The reputation of the Portuguese improved very little. In 1718, Alexander Hamilton called them “the most dissolute, lazy, thievish rascals that were to be found in the country” (p. 175). The subtitle of the book, The Social World of Ayutthaya, is a little misleading. The focus is very much on the Portuguese who were a very small part of the society of Ayutthaya. Smith offers a nice sketch of the other foreign communities in the 1660s, but has virtually nothing on the Siamese. Smith has read very widely (the books in the bibliography are in at least eight languages) and has deftly reconstructed his picture of the Portuguese in Ayutthaya from rather fragmentary references. But much is missing from the picture and probably will be for ever. On many issues, such as the design of the various churches and colleges built by the Portuguese in Ayutthaya, Smith draws our attention to examples elsewhere in the Portuguese diaspora because there is no trace of the Ayutthaya buildings in the sources. He seems to have found no Portuguese-language account of the Ayutthaya Portuguese community, nor any Portuguese-language description of Ayutthaya to set beside those of Van Vliet, La Loubère, Mohammed Ibrahim, and others. It is not difficult to guess why. These authors were either writing for the benefit of their official superiors, or writing for a public audience after their return to Europe. But the Ayutthaya Portuguese were an informal community without any institutional superstructure, and they were permanently settled in the east. Their visiting missions came from Goa and Macao rather than Lisbon, and Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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seem to have taken little interest in matters beyond their religious duties. The Jesuit Valguarnera compiled the first dictionary of Siamese in the mid 17th century, but no copy has survived. Any hope that our knowledge of 17th-century Ayutthaya will be expanded by a Portuguese account to put aside those of the French, Dutch, Chinese, and Persians seems to be forlorn. Smith makes a couple of rather bizarre errors, such as displacing Prince Prisdang’s mission by two centuries, but otherwise this is a very thorough work of research and a fascinating analysis which will undoubtedly stand the test of time. Chris Baker

30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon: Inside the City that Captured Time by Sarah Rooney (Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2012). ISBN 978-1932476620 (hard) Few visitors to Myanmar are not struck by the wealth of surviving colonial architecture in Yangon, preserved, for better or worse, by the country’s long isolation and stunted economic growth since Independence. Indeed, Yangon, formerly Rangoon, is likely the choicest spot in all of Asia to appreciate an urban colonial setting which has virtually vanished everywhere else. The very character of once regal cities, from Colombo to Saigon to Hong Kong, has been irrevocably fractured by thoughtless and unbridled urban development. Only has old Yangon been spared such a sorry fate, but the city’s future now hangs in the balance by the rapid economic changes anticipated in Myanmar. Sweeping new political progress and the concomitant relaxation of international sanctions have indeed triggered a race by rapacious foreign and Myanmarese investors keen to erect shopping malls and business parks in the wake of the wrecking ball. The prognosis for Yangon is not a happy one, since commercial pressures too often trump the goals of preservation, as history amply demonstrates in Asia and throughout the world. The single overarching thrust of this compelling book is the need to respect, protect and nurture Yangon’s rich architectural heritage in light of these new threats. Like endangered species, these heritage buildings can never be replaced. The book opens with a tribute to old Yangon by U Thaw Kaung, a well-known savant who for decades served as the Chief Librarian at the Universities Central Library. His first-hand experiences, such as shopping at the now-closed Rowe & Company department store opposite the City Hall, provide poignant reminders that the city’s boarded up landmarks were once centers of urban life. The Association of Myanmar Architects selected the thirty buildings that are treated by the book’s author, Sarah Rooney. The thirty are mostly public structures Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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in the city’s central district and ones that long-time visitors to Yangon will recognize immediately. The earliest is the derelict Pegu Club (1882), while the most recent is the Chartered Bank (1941). The text divides the monuments into six clusters, based on their location, such as “Around the Secretariat” and “Along Strand Road.” Each building is assigned a number which is tagged to a two-page map of Yangon at the beginning of the text. A handful of the buildings are still used for their original purposes, such as the Strand Hotel, but the majority have witnessed multiple uses throughout their long lives. For example, the imposing British Embassy facing Strand Road was originally the home for a Scottish insurance and shipping company. Another is the neo-Classical Inland Waterways Department building, also facing Strand Road, established in 1933 as the new headquarters for the venerable Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. A number of former official buildings are now abandoned, occasioned in some cases by the government’s move in 2005 to Nay Pyi Taw, notably the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Pyay Road. These disused structures were especially vulnerable to damage wrought by Cyclone Nargis in 2008. The Introduction sketches the modern history of Yangon, beginning with the annexation of Lower Myanmar at the end of the Second Anglo-Burmese War (18521853). A grid plan adopted in 1853 has remained largely intact, with the Sule Pagoda serving as a central hub. The area encompassing the city center was originally a vast swamp which was filled in by shifting millions of cubic feet of earth from higher ground. The observer Colesworthy Grant wryly noted in the 1840s that the area resembled “a Dutch village half under water.” For each building, the architect’s name, the construction firm and important dates are provided, to the degree that this information is known. Old black-andwhite photographs documenting the buildings under construction enhance the text, together with a handful of architectural drawings and page after page of crisp color photographs that were taken recently, mostly by Natthaphat Meksriwan, who is also credited with the handsome book design. A handy single-page synopsis telescopes the careers of six major architects who shaped early Rangoon, such as James Ransome, who designed the High Court facing Mahabandoola Park. Another Yangon architect, Henry Hoyne-Fox, even directed the rebuilding of the Mahamuni Temple in Mandalay, reducing the weight of its tower by drawing upon Brunelleschi’s solution for the dome in Florence. Concluding each section is a short essay touching on facets of the city’s history. The first, “World Famous Residents of Dalhousie Road”, recounts Pablo Neruda’s time in Yangon and his love for a local woman; one fictitious Yangon resident was a local “Sherlock Holmes”, created by Shwe U Daung in the 1930s. The last essay, “Yangon Renovations: Successes and Challenges”, details the restoration of several smaller downtown properties, such as a restaurant named Monsoon whose ambiance Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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is meant to “recreate the atmosphere of the colonial era”, in the words of one of its owners. The wicker-look of the Strand Hotel lobby also exemplifies this aesthetic trend in interior design, a style one might dub “raj-chic.” While “colonialism” has earned a bad name in general, it seems, somewhat paradoxically, that colonial décor is in vogue. The book’s compact format makes it an ideal companion on a walking tour of Yangon. To comfortably cover the majority of the monuments on foot would likely require two full days, perhaps with leisurely lunch-breaks at one of the biryani restaurants on Anawrahta Road. The unsightly glass-faced, high-rise office blocks built in the late 1990s on the west side of Mahabandoola Park are dramatic testimony to the dangers of urban blight. Moreover, Yangon’s core is comprised largely of stately but derelict apartment buildings from the colonial era, now home to everyday Yangon residents. The day may come when these desirable, magnificent older neighborhoods face gentrification, forcing longtime residents to the city’s peripheries in order to make way for Myanmarese elites and expats employed by multinational companies. This phenomenon has occurred in cities worldwide, and there is no reason that Yangon’s trajectory will be any different. Finally, if the government’s abysmal and notorious record of preservation and renovation at Pagan, starting in the 1990s, is a harbinger of the city’s future, then Yangon’s fate is truly sealed. The hope is that Serindia Press will be encouraged by the reception of this outstanding book to produce other volumes with a similar format, with perhaps a focus on the many other architectural gems in Yangon and also the rich architectural traditions of Myanmar’s other major cities, such as Mandalay, Moulmein and Sittwe. Donald M. Stadtner

Lacquerware Journeys: The Untold Story of Burmese Lacquer by Than Htun (Dedaye) (Bangkok: River Books, 2013). ISBN 978 616 7339 238 This important addition to the literature on Burmese lacquer will be welcomed both by the enthusiast and those new to the subject. It is well designed and profusely illustrated, with over 650 photographs, the vast majority of lacquer objects, and most of high quality. Adequate space is allotted to the better known centres of manufacture, such as Bagan [Pagan], Kyaukka, and Mandalay. But the book’s particular strength is the author’s documentation and revival from obscurity of a number of neglected and almost forgotten lacquer industries. U Than Htun comes from a family of goldsmiths, but suspects that his great grandmother, a trader in the town of Dedaye, had ancestors connected to Bagan, who may have been lacquer artists. He brings a Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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deep emotional commitment to his subject, and his book is permeated by respect and affection for the lacquer craftsmen. We must be grateful to the author for undertaking arduous journeys to reach remote regions in very rough travelling conditions to track down descendants of lacquer masters long dead and relics of almost forgotten lacquer industries. Very few of his readers will have the strength needed to cling to a bucking motorcycle for hours on end. The result is a rich harvest of anecdotal and interview material: we listen in on his conversations with U Sanda “the only living lacquerware artist in Mongnai”, and with “Daw May Lwe Yone, one of the last surviving lacquer artists of Laikha”; we hear him appeal to the owner of an unrecorded masterpiece from the small village of Nyaunglaypin to donate the piece to a museum; and we hope some readers respond to his appeal for news of a family of lacquer distributors who sold Inwa wares on 25th St. in Rangoon in the 1920s. U Than Htun has rescued as many pieces as he can afford, but laments the inability of local collectors to compete with foreign buyers. More generally, and ominously, he fears that unless lacquer trees are planted, which has never been the case, the price of lacquer sap, the raw material of all lacquer crafts, may continue to rise until all lacquer makers are put out of business. The author poses many questions for further research, but some he investigates himself. He has arranged the exploratory removal of part of the surface lacquer layer on old pieces to inspect the woven bamboo or rattan basketry beneath, and has established that Mandalay makers often used old Bagan pieces as the base for their gilded and glass-inlaid relief-decorated gilt offertory vessels. Illustrations and Diagrams The numerous photographs of lacquer objects are a credit to the author, his son Nay Lin Tun, and other contributing photographers; and the book designer has exploited them to produce a visually stunning book. One particularly effective choice is solid glossy black—the colour of lacquer itself—as the background colour for many of the illustrations of lacquer objects. Town gatepost signs to introduce the wares made in each township area are another happy choice. Just as good to look at as the images of lacquer objects are the faces of elderly artists who created them, working in an old tradition, like U Pho Myae of Inle and U Seinda and Daw Pau Nu Han of Laikha. Photographers have had a field day. Large blow-ups of pictures and patterns in yun (incised and colour-filled) work provide the end-papers and spacer pages between major sections of the book. As art work, these are decorative if lavish. But in the main text of a book like this the fine photographs of actual lacquer pieces must combine with their captions: together they should be consistently informative. A few slips are forgivable, but there are too many captions lacking the dimensions of a piece or the letters indicating its location in a collection. The very first full Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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page illustration (p. 8) shows five splendid lacquer pieces, with a caption stressing their exceptional rarity, but giving neither dimensions nor location. The first double page of illustrations (pp. 10–11) is equally impressive as art photography, as sheer display, but has only a single caption to cover over 50 objects. This is very brief, gives no dimensions, and refers to “short soon-okes with or without lids”, leaving the inexpert reader wondering which these are. A fine early photograph (p. 20) shows lacquer makers and their tools and materials, but the caption misses the opportunity to identify these and explain their use. A fine colour plate (pp. 40–41) shows the Shwe Sandaw pagoda at Pyay [Prome] in the mid 19th century, but lacks an attribution. In a book with almost 700 illustrations, it may seem ungrateful to complain of omissions. Both the htanaung tree and the tamar tree are beautifully illustrated, and the role played by the resin of each vividly described. But regrettably and inexplicably absent from this section is any illustration or description of the lacquer sap tree itself. (pp. 32–36) The text describing some Laikha betel boxes (p. 186) refers to “a false bottom” and to a “secret compartment”, but they are not clearly located nor illustrated, so remain secret. A pity too that a Kyaukka bowl “the largest I have ever seen” is illustrated by one of the smallest photographs in the book (p. 123, pl. 287) and that the relevant descriptive text is seven pages away (p. 130). Such omissions, though minor, can leave the reader frustrated. “Lacquer saucer and bowl from the collection of Ma Ma Hnit (Plate 206)” is the heading for a paragraph at the top of page 89. We learn of the munificent Ma Ma Hnit, who commissioned super quality pieces in Bagan in the 1900s, confidently inscribing one of the best “If a competitor can find any piece of comparable quality, this piece is yours gratis!” In eager anticipation, we turn back a page to look for Plate 206. But it depicts a betel box by Saya Nwe, and we look in vain for any image of Ma Ma Hnit’s saucer and bowl. Perhaps a competitor claimed them gratis! The lists of lacquer makers at each of the main manufacturing centres, with the approximate dates when each was active, could be very useful for investigating objects in other collections. But estimated dates offered for pieces without an inscribed date can be open to question. Unfortunately, U Than Htun’s list of Bagan makers is headed by Hsaya Ngwe, maker of a bowl depicting the British deposition in 1885 of the last Burmese monarch Thibaw. U Than Htun claims this was made in 1886. From a study of this piece, its style of drawing and its many inscriptions, I would date it to the 1930s, almost half a century after the events depicted. This was the time of the rise of Burmese nationalism, and the “clear background” style was in fashion. (It is really very “deco”). True, a caption on the bowl records the date of the events depicted, 1885, but other captions name the English Col. Sladen and his Burmese interpreter Maung Ba Than, information most unlikely to have been available to any Bagan lacquer master in 1886. In another caption the lacquer master Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Hsaya Ngwe not only gives his name, but names his price—ten units of currency, surely rupees. Corrections to Published Accounts The author offers several useful corrections to published accounts of Burmese lacquerware. He proposes Pyay as the place where the great gold-leaf shwezawa panel in the British Museum (see “Visions From The Golden Land: Burma And The Art Of Lacquer”, Cat 102) was made, instead of Bago [Pegu] where it was found and acquired by a British army officer in the 1850s. His argument is based not only on the fame of Pyay for its shwezawa work, but on an inscription at the head of the panel naming the donor’s village: a “Hpo Thein Tan” exists near Pyay, whereas no such village is known near Bago. But similar concentration is required when reading published literature. Again, the object is an important example of shwezawa work, a fine flat betel box acquired by the National Trust from Lord Curzon and described and illustrated in “Visions From The Golden Land: Burma And The Art Of Lacquer” (p. 125, Cat 69). U Than Htun notes that the authors “do not mention whether the name of the lacquer master was inscribed on his pieces”. But the authors (p. 125) specifically state that (apart from the story caption on the top lid) “there is no other inscription, and thus no maker’s signature”. U Than Htun doubts if fine quality yun lacquerware was ever made in the town of Salay, some 100 km downriver from Bagan. A lacquer water bowl in the Munster Museum in Germany described and illustrated by Dr. Uta Weigelt in her “Birmas Lackkunst in deutschen Museen” (object No 17, pp. 51–52) is inscribed with the name of the town of Salay. Is this, as U Than Htun believes, “the only known lacquerware piece with the word ‘Salay’”? He illustrates this bowl (p. 94, plate 224), and assumes it is the same as that in the British Museum, illustrated in “Visions From The Golden Land: Burma And The Art Of Lacquer” (p. 119–20 Cat 62) where its inscription is transcribed and translated “The craftsmen who made this article are Hsaya Ba and Ma Ma Aung”. U Than Htun argues that it may not have been made in Salay itself, but in Bagan, and simply shipped downriver to Salay by Hsaya Ba and Ma Ma Aung, a couple resident there. But comparison of two books, both listed in his bibliography, shows there are two lacquer objects carrying the place-name “Salay”, not just one; they differ in size and in the subject matter of their story-scenes. (The British Museum bowl measures 23.4 cms in height by 28.3 cms in diameter, that in the Munster Museum 22.5 cms by 28.7 cms. The story scenes on the bowl in the British Museum are from the Mahodhata Jataka, those on the Munster Museum from the Vessantara Jataka.) So the name of the town of Salay appears not on “a single bowl” but on at least two similar bowls, which bear the names of the same makers, the married couple Hsaya Ba and Ma Ma Aung. This suggests, but does not prove, that quality lacquer Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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was indeed made in the town of Salay. Further research might establish whether in fact the makers lived and made lacquer in Salay, or in Bagan as U Than Htun thinks more likely. A case for Bagan may still be made, but without using the argument that only a single lacquer object exists inscribed with the name of the town of Salay. Some names given to lacquer objects are confusing. U Than Htun uses the term “soon-oke” very freely in the book text and picture captions, without adequate explanation for the non-Burmese reader. In the index the term is defined by its use alone, as a carrier of gift food to the monks. So tall vessels with pinnacle shaped lids, tiered rounded vessels with an upturned cup finial, and smooth flat bowls with a low smooth lid are all “soon-okes”. This makes it hard to identify some vessels in groups. Can a domestic “meal-carrier” also be a “soon-oke”? The English term “tall tray” (p. 211) may puzzle the native English speaker, before he works out that it probably is meant to mean “dumb-waiter” (Burmese “kalat”). Useful Additions to Knowledge The great strength of this book is the author’s dedication to charting and illustrating many of the neglected and often virtually forgotten lacquer manufacturing industries. Some, such as those of Bago and Pyay, went into decline after World War II, others like Gadu-Ganan were probably defunct even before the Burmese monarchy. The author confesses in his introduction that his book had its genesis in his chance acquiring of a strangely shaped box with incised work of incredible complexity. He later traced this kind of artefact to the remote Banmauk / Monyin / Wuntho region whose people are called Gadu-ganan. They produced thick-walled, very durable vessels, with convex base and lid, and distinctive style of decoration; and they did so a very long time ago. A few hoary old examples turn up at the Inle Lake markets, where the present reviewer purchased in 1991 a box (now in the British Museum) practically the same as a much better preserved specimen bought by Herr Blume in the 1840s at Moulmein, and now in Berlin. For lacquer objects that is a long life. But although these pieces have endured, the industry that made them may have been extinct for more than a century. The author hopes his book will “encourage local lacquer enthusiasts” from several regions of Myanmar “to discover new information about old lacquerwares and forgotten lacquer masters”. It ought also to lead collectors of Burmese lacquer and foreign museum curators to reassess many pieces previously vaguely assigned to the lacquer industries of Bagan, Kyaukka, or Shan States. They will be grateful to U Than Htun for the dedication, the hard work, rough travel and careful study which have produced this splendid book. Ralph Isaacs

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50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Ian Glover edited by Bérénice Bellina, Elisabeth A. Bacus, Thomas Oliver Pryce and Jan Wisseman Christie (Bangkok: River Books, 2010). ISBN 978-616-7339-02-3 The twenty-one essays in this richly illustrated volume honour the research and mentoring of Ian Glover to his many students and colleagues. The topics and approaches are varied, and reflect well Ian’s extraordinary breadth of knowledge as well as his active collaborations with others. The book opens with homage by the editors where they acknowledge that despite the diversity of topics covered by the essays in the book that themes addressed by Ian merit further articles, including the definition of the Dvaravati culture of central Thailand, the transfer of animals and cultures between South and Southeast Asia, and the bronzes of Đóng Són. While the animal transfers are not well represented, the cultural relationship between South and Southeast Asia that Ian knows so well comes up repeatedly in the volume. The editors and River Books deserve praise for the presentation of this book: it is well laid out, with a thoughtful placement of images and text divided into five parts and accompanied by a very usable index. There are also a number of clear tables and maps inserted well to link to the accompanying text. The first section contains overviews by David Bulbeck on ‘Glover’s Contribution to the Development of Archaeology in Island Southeast Asia’ and Charles Higham with ‘Ian Glover’s Contribution to the Prehistory of Mainland Southeast Asia’. Bulbeck reminds the reader of Ian’s work to facilitate chemical analyses for early bronzes from Bali and from Malaysia, his collation with Bronson of radiocarbon dates for Indonesia and his consideration of pre-human inhabitants in Wallacea presaging the recent finding of an archaic hominid, Homo floresiensis in Flores. Higham reviews the equally diverse record of Ian’s research on the mainland where his interest in periods of transition and in metallurgy can be seen in his attention to the bronzes of northern Vietnam and his excavations at the rich Iron Age site of Ban Don Ta Phet, with its high-tin bowls with a gold sheen. In his excavations at Trà Kiêu, Ian’s research into the life of the architect and archaeologist Jean-Yves Claeys uncovered a rare film archive giving vivid life to the colonial legacy of the Ecole Française dù Extrême-Orient. These overview essays profile not just the legacy of the scholarship of Ian and others, but the way these have contributed to the new issues that have emerged in both parts of the region. The second part, titled ‘Subsistence Strategies: Hunter-Gatherers to Early Agriculture’ contains four articles that reflect Ian’s work on this vital transition in settlement and subsistence patterns. All the essays use different regions to highlight the changing perspective on this period. Rasmi Shoocongdei, in her ‘SubsistenceSettlement Organisation during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene: The Case of Lang Kamnan Cave, Western Thailand’ shows how the occupation of Kamnan cave Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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was most probably seasonal, with hunting and collecting shifting between a range of upland and lowland habitats. In the following essay, Ryan Rabett and Graeme Barker on ‘Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Forager Mobility in Southeast Asia’, extend this seasonal mobility to a ‘locally-contingent’ subsistence demonstrating the manner in which flexibility facilitated adaptivity in tropical foraging strategies. Both of the final essays in this section, ‘From Bui Ceri Uato to Bui Ceri Uato Mane: a new archaeobotanical assemblage from East Timor’ by Nuno Vasco Oliveira and ‘Still too fragmentary and dependent upon chance? Advances in the study of early Southeast Asian archaeobotany’ by Cristina Castillo and Dorian Q Fuller, highlight the important contributions being made in this field. Ian brings to his scholarship a regional view that carries Southeast Asia to its eastern limits and also a keen insight into the complex relationships between South and Southeast Asia. Despite the caveat of the editors in the introduction, this theme underlies many essays and is particularly addressed in the third and fourth sections. The third and longest part of the book, ‘Social Complexity and Early States’, contains seven articles, five on the mainland versus two on island studies and an overview of Southeast Asian adaption. The titles of the essays highlight the balance between detailed site studies and regional considerations: ‘The Jar-Burial Tradition in the West Mouth of Niah Cave, Sarawak: Burial histories, social identities, and changing perceptions of pottery and death’ by Lindsay Lloyd-Smith and Franca Cole, ‘The Iron Age of Thailand: Trends to Complexity’ by Charles Higham ‘The Archaeological Textiles from Ban Don Ta Phet in broader perspective’ by Judith Cameron ‘Uneven Development in Southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia, during the Early Metal Phase’ by David Bulbeck ‘Pan-Regional Responses to South Asian Inputs in Early Southeast Asia’ by Pierre-Yves Manguin ‘History and Archaeology at Trà Kiêu’ by William Southworth and Ruth Prior, ‘Ancient Roof Tiles Found in Central Vietnam’ by Mariko Yamagata and Nguyen Kim Dung ‘Interactions between Uplands and Lowlands through the ‘Riverine Exchange Network’ of Central Vietnam - A Case Study in the Thu Bon River Valley’ by Tran Ky Phuong. Virtually all these essays query previous assumptions, not all of which are resolvable into simple paradigms. Manguin for example shows how the persuasive argument of Sheldon Pollock (2006) on two phases of Sanskritization – a cosmopolitanism in the first millennium CE followed by a ‘vernacularisation’ at the start of the second millennium CE – is viable but could be widened to recognise the presence of a shared aesthetic in Southeast Asia. He cites in support of this the links between burial customs in central Thailand, central Vietnam, West Java and north Bali in the late first millennium BCE and early centuries of the Christian era. Further reinforcement for this shared sensibility is seen in the similarity between the circa 7th century CE plan and stucco decorations of Wat Phra Men, Nakhon Pathom (incorrectly labelled and described as U-Thong, p. 176), Thailand and Candi Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Blandongan, Batujaya.1 The comparable structure at Si Thep could be added to this list. Manguin convincingly argues that long-existing contacts sustained a regional ‘interaction sphere’. Together with tandem absorption of both Buddhism and Vaisnavism, this highlights chronological and cultural complexities drawing into question Pollock’s two clear phases. The fourth part of the volume, ‘Craft Production and Exchange’ is more evenly distributed than the third in relation to mainland and island studies: ‘Continuity in Shell Artefact Production in Holocene East Timor’ by Sue O’Connor, ‘Movement of raw materials and manufactured goods across the South China Sea after 500 BCE: from Taiwan to Thailand, and back’ by Hsiao-Chun Hung and Peter Bellwood’, ‘Glass in Southeast Asia’ by Laure Dussubieux and Bernard Gratuze, ‘Megalithic High-Tin Bronzes and Peninsular India’s ‘Living Prehistory’’ by Sharada Srinivasan and ‘Pottery manufacture and trade in Maluku Tengah, Indonesia: 35 years after Ellen and Glover’ by Matthew Spriggs and William Dickinson. Many of these testify to cultural continuity and Southeast Asian production centres, although the ethnographic study of Sharada Srinivasan documents an Indian tradition of metalworking and specialised copper alloys indicating that South Asia may have been the source of the technology seen in the high-tin bronze bowls found at Ban Don Ta Phet and Khao Jamook. Ian also has incisive views on the interface of politics, nationalism and cultural heritage, an interest covered in two very pointed articles in the book’s final section, ‘Colonialism and Archaeology’. The first is ‘From Centres of Pilgrimage to World Heritage Sites: Religious Travel Between India and Indonesia’ by Himanshu Prabha Ray, who contrasts the universalist view of Rabrindranath Tagore in a 1927 voyage and the 1912 thesis of Radhakumud Mookerji on Indian colonisation of Southeast Asia. Ray goes on to describe the mutability and pervasive appeal of the textual traditions of Buddhism transcending national borders in examples ranging from the edicts of Aśokan sites to late first millennium CE terracotta and stone depictions of the eight scenes of the Buddha’s lifetime. This bridges to a discussion of colonial interventions at Borobudur and Sanchi and finally a 7th century CE Chinese Buddhist temple at Nagapattinam destroyed in 1867 to allow Jesuit priests to construct a church. The article ends with this event to highlight the destabilisation of millennia-old patterns of maritime interchange pilgrimage sites through colonial interventions. This rather grim picture contrasts to the final article of the book, ‘We Should Remember with Gratitude: Reflections on Archaeology in Laos’ by Anna Källén and Anna Karlström, an emphatic and lively call for an ongoing critique of nationalist discourse embedded in post-colonial approaches to Southeast Asian archaeology. This volume provides an unusual mix of articles, from specific technical studies 1

Revire previously noted this error (2011: 207, fn. 28). Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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to significant summaries of the changing paradigms of Southeast Asian archaeology. As with the scholarship of Ian Glover whom it honours, it considers interchange within and beyond the region. The overall structure and purpose of the book, apart from a common valuing of Ian’s research and mentoring is at times unclear. The editors could have provided a clearer template explaining the order and rationale of the articles included, or broken them down into smaller thematic groups. They do explain that the idea for the book arose from a panel honouring Ian that was organised by Bérénice Bellina for the 2008 International Conference at Leiden of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeology in which Ian played a founding role in the mid 1980s. Some of the book’s articles were presented at the Leiden conference, with others selected from the many pieces received following a solicitation for contributions. These panel papers and the essays accepted from the solicitation provided a thematic framework aptly mirroring Ian’s many areas of research and publications: Late Pleistocene/early Holocene, hunter-gatherers, Neolithic societies, craft production, Iron Age social complexity, exchange/trade systems, early states and colonialism and archaeology. As it stands, this is a volume to consult for a parallel comparison, or source, more than a sequential exploration of the current views on issues affecting our perception of the past and present in Southeast Asia. It complements, for example, the 2004 publication Southeast Asia: from Prehistory to History (London: Routledge) edited by Ian Glover and Peter Bellwood, with articles by different scholars covering the prehistoric to historic transition across the region. That said, 50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Ian Glover, offers an extraordinarily informed set of essays with valuable reflections on the history of archaeology in Southeast Asia and the data supporting new issues and hypotheses. The editors, contributors and publisher are to be commended for their joint efforts to produce this handsome volume giving a clear perception of the breadth of on-going research contributing to our understanding of Southeast Asia as a coherent cultural region. Elizabeth Howard Moore References: Pollock, Sheldon. 2006. The language of the gods in the world of men: Sanskrit, culture, and power in premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Revire, Nicolas. 2011. Review Article, Pierre Dupont’s L’archéologie mône de Dvāravatī and Its English Translation In Relation with Continuing Research by Joyanto K. Sen. Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 99: 196-225.

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A Traveler in Siam in the Year 1655: Extracts from the Journal of Gijsbert Heeck translated and introduced by Barend Jan Terwiel (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 2008). ISBN: 978-974-9511-35-0 The Dutch physician or “medicinal specialist” Gijsbert Heeck, in the employ of the Dutch United East India Company (VOC), visited Siam during 1655, late in the reign of King Prasat Thong (r. 1629-1656). These published journal extracts take us from the author’s departure from Holland, via a naval skirmish with the Portuguese in the roadstead of Siam, a minutely-observed journey up the Chao Phraya River to the Dutch settlement in Ayutthaya and, finally, the royal city itself, with its grand gilded monasteries and myriad waterways. Heeck was on a longer voyage, also visiting other parts of the East Indies. The translator, Barend Jan Terwiel, has chosen to translate only the parts of the journal which directly concern Heeck’s time in Siam, this volume being the first in a planned series of publications aimed at introducing hitherto unknown or unpublished VOC material on Thailand to the general public. The Heeck text, as transcribed and published in Marineblad by S.P. L’Honoré Naber (at least the part concerning Siam), is incomplete because L’Honoré Naber left out some substantial segments which he thought would probably not be of interest to the readership of a journal mainly concerned with maritime matters.1 Professor Terwiel has translated these excised pages, putting all of us in his debt, because many of the omitted lines are of potential interest to scholars of Thailand. They describe, among other things, monasteries in Ayutthaya and native vegetation near the mouth of the Chao Phraya. A major feature of the Heeck document, and one of its main assets, is its information on the Dutch settlement in Ayutthaya. Indeed, Heeck provides the most detailed account of the VOC’s Siam “comptoir” in existence. The main building, as described, was of course suitably grand as befits a VOC “lodge”, with its double staircase and high-ceilinged rooms. An equally interesting part of the journal entry concerns the Dutch cemetery, with its Siamese-style stupa covering the graves of former directors or opperhoofden of the VOC factory. Heeck mentions a broad bridge which led from the area of the VOC “lodge” to the house of the trader Chao Sut (or Osoet), followed by an explanation of why the Dutch had to deal with, or even depend upon, this Mon woman as an intermediary (and supplier of goods) in their trade in Ayutthaya. Heeck’s is also the most trenchant summary of the relationships between VOC employees and local women, which resulted in the birth of several “half-breed” children, many of whom were left behind in Ayutthaya by their fathers, who went home to Europe or on to other company postings. In his lively and informative Introduction, Terwiel rightly points out that Heeck’s account of Siam is an amalgam of sharply observed descriptions and pious S.P. L’Honoré Naber. “Derde Voijagie van Gijsbert Heecq naar Oost Indien” in Marineblad 25 (1910-1911).

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Protestant moralising. Although he has a strong distaste for Buddhist idol-worship (as he obviously had for papist idolatry), Heeck should nevertheless be commended for his factual descriptions of monasteries in Siam, full of vivid details. On his way upriver to Ayutthaya, Heeck related that in one wat he saw Buddha images in a posture with the left hand lying “on the thigh, the palm turned upwards and the right [hand] straight down to the right thigh near the knee.” Thanks to this plain but accurate reporting, we are able to conclude that these Buddha images were in the posture of calling the earth to witness, or subduing Mara. Heeck could of course get it all terribly wrong, as when he misinterprets the great Buddha image known as the “Great God of Soest” as being the depiction of a Siamese Noah. Since it was said to be near the Dutch settlement, this was obviously a reference to the large Buddha image at Wat Phananchoeng. Terwiel offers an explanation that Heeck, misinformed by someone in Siam, was probably confusing the image with a version of the flooding caused by the divinity Ganga (the Earth goddess surely?) washing her hair, drowning all the forces of Mara as the Buddha was about to attain Enlightenment. Another extremely informative aspect of the journal entries, on account of Heeck’s attention to detail, is the clear depiction of a sophisticated economy in the Chao Phraya River valley, with Chinese communities, the regular use of money in commercial transactions, and certain villages dedicated to particular occupations. Heeck was somewhat puzzled by the deterioration in the relationship between the VOC and the court of King Prasat Thong in 1655. The answer is partly in his text. Towards the end of his stay in Siam he witnessed the departure of a fleet of armed vessels going to fight Songkhla (11 October entry). The decline in the good relations between king and company was largely to do with this very war. The Dutch had, from the mid 1640s onwards, helped Ayutthaya in its wars against Songkhla, but by the early 1650s company policy had changed to one of non-interference in the domestic affairs of native states. A misunderstanding between the two parties occurred when the Siamese court claimed that the opperhoofd Hendrick Craijers had promised the Ayutthayan king a fleet of twenty vessels to help attack Songkhla, which of course the next VOC chief in Siam strenuously denied. Heeck came to Siam at a time when King Prasat Thong was nearing the end of his reign – but neither the Dutchman nor the monarch was to know that. The king seems still to have been very much in command of his court. The journal includes an anecdote about how the Okya Phrakhlang, minister in charge of foreign affairs and the treasury, was chastised by the king for allegedly “conniving with convicted criminals”, barely escaping execution by the royal elephants before he was released. The severity of King Prasat Thong’s rule was indeed a feature of many Dutch documents, from the writings of Jeremias van Vliet to the unpublished archival material written by the various opperhoofden in Ayutthaya. On a matter of detail, I am not totally convinced that the monastery referred Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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to as the large “Abbentak” necessarily refers to Wat Chai Watthanaram. Heeck does not specify that this place was situated by the river, outside the city walls (9-12 September entry, pp. 61-62). The description could therefore easily apply to Wat Mahathat, Wat Phutthaisawan or any other large royal monastery with a presiding stupa of the prang type and surrounding galleries filled with Buddha images. A couple more minor points: “ammerac” (pp. 66, 113) was probably a misspelling or scribal error for “namrack”, a type of lacquer and a regular VOC export from Siam. It was used to make Japanese lacquer ware. Also, contrary to the claim made in the Introduction, the Heeck journal has been used by historians other than George Vinal Smith and Han ten Brummelhuis, although those two scholars were certainly the pioneers.2 Annotations are learned, detailed and at times intriguing in their speculative nature. The careful editing by Han ten Brummelhuis contributes to the finished product, a publication and translation of one of the best western sources on seventeenth century Siam. The original Dutch text of these extracts, transcribed from the original seventeenth century handwriting by Renée Hoogenraad, forms the last part of the book. The inclusion of several well-chosen illustrations and maps, several in colour, add much visual appeal to this little book. The exquisitely drawn VOC manuscript maps of Ayutthaya and the Chao Phraya River are particularly welcome, as is the long Valentijn map showing the course of the Chao Phraya (and much beyond), with a very useful key to the place names shown on the map provided too. In sum, this is a publication which should prove to be of great value to anyone interested in Thai history, the Ayutthaya period or European “travel literature”. Dhiravat na Pombejra

Mediums, Monks, and Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today by Pattana Kitiarsa. (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2012.) ISBN: 978-616-215-049-4 (soft) Sensationalistic accounts of Buddhist monks’ involvement in magic, fortune telling, spirit worship, protective amulets, lottery number selection, and other practices aimed at bringing worldly rewards appear daily in the Thai media. Many Thai social commentators contend that these practices are not “real Buddhism”, but examples of the degeneration of Buddhist morality in a modern, globalized See for example Remco Raben and Dhiravat na Pombejra (eds.). In the King’s Trail. Bangkok: Royal Netherlands Embassy, 1997, p.85; Alfons van der Kraan. “On Company Business: The Rijckloff van Goens Mission to Siam, 1650” in Itinerario Vol.XXII (2/1998), pp.59-61; Bhawan Ruangsilp. Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayyutthaya: Dutch Perceptions of the Thai Kingdom, c.1604-1765. Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 37, 42.

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environment. To such critics, Pattana Kitiarsa’s Mediums, Monks, & Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today is a thoughtful, informed response. Pattana brings his unique perspective as one who is both a follower of the beliefs and practices he is studying and “an ethnographer observing [his] own participation in them.” This is apparent right from the preface where he shares aspects of his brief term as a monk. One particularly poignant moment is his spiritually transcendent experience of communicating with his deceased mother. Another eye-opening one is the abbot’s urging of the monks, “to find some tricks (ubai) to attract devotees.” The abbot explains, “We cannot survive without patronage from laypeople. Magic is not encouraged in Buddhist teachings…., but sometimes it is quite necessary when we have to deal with popular expectation” (pp. xviii-xix). Following the book’s preface, the first two chapters are devoted to the theoretical concepts underpinning Pattana’s approach. The first is agency, with the “agents” of Thai popular Buddhism identified as the monks, mediums and laypeople who consider themselves Buddhists. It is these people, rather than texts or institutions, who are the focus of this book. The second concept is hybridization, a term from postcolonial discourse, used here to refer to the new amalgamation of diverse beliefs, processes, agents, deities, and practices that have cropped up in recent decades in Thailand’s religious landscape. The old model of syncretism, with popular religion seen as existing “under the umbrella of a dominant, mainstream, institutional Buddhism” (p. 13), is rejected as no longer valid. The chapters that follow are vivid accounts of specific practitioners, their circumstances, practices, and followers. “Magic Monks and Spirit Mediums” (Chapter 3) juxtaposes the personal and professional lives of two types of popular religious specialists: a financially successful forest-dwelling magic monk and a strapped-for-cash urban female spirit medium. Despite differences in their present circumstances, the backgrounds of these two agents are not too dissimilar. Both came from poor rural backgrounds and endured periods of hardship on their respective paths toward their current positions. The process of creating a new deity is described in Chapter 4, “Phumphuang: a Singer’s Spirit and Lottery Luck,” which relates the rags-to-riches tale of a talented, hard-working girl, who became one of the country’s most beloved superstar singers. The events following her untimely death at the age of 31 were even more remarkable than those of her life. After being granted the rare honor of a royal funeral attended by a record-breaking number of mourners, the media promoted a cult connecting her spirit with winning lottery numbers, and fortune seekers began presenting donations of gold and money to wax statues of her at the wat where she had been cremated. “Luang Pho Khun: A Postmodern Monk” (Chapter 5) features Thailand’s most famous superstar magic monk, seen in photographs as a wizened, skinny figure squatting with bank notes in his hands. His amulets and blessings are sought by devotees ranging from poor villagers to the nobility. Ironically, while magic Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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monks are sought after for their perceived ability to bring wealth to their devotees, these very powers are believed to have been acquired during extended periods of asceticism wandering alone in the forest. It might come as a surprise to some readers that temples affiliated with the Thammayut sect, known for its adherence to strict practices, are no less likely to be the venue of magic and commercial practices than are Mahanikai temples. In fact, the three monasteries mentioned in the book are affiliated with the Thammayut sect. Chapter 6, “The Rise and Fall of the Chatukham-Rammathep Amulet”, follows the saga of efforts beginning in 1987 to deal with the oversupply of an unusually large and unattractive amulet that transformed it into a mega-commodity. A decade later over 80 million were in circulation. There is no easily understood connection between the amulet’s symbolism, the circumstances surrounding its role in raising funds to erect a protective city pillar, and the bizarre campaigns used to market it, including making a batch of the amulets on a commercial plane flying over a sacred stupa and including bits of human flesh and ash in their composition. Pattana’s analysis of the craze is multifaceted and includes the changing character of Thai Buddhist piety as well as anxiety arising out of political and economic circumstances. Chapter 7, “Mediumship in Focus”, explores the authenticity of mediums and describes the efforts of certain rationalist thinkers to discredit them. Curiously, one of the persons who exposed spirit possession as a sham was the chief practitioner of a Sino-Thai cult who revealed the secret of his act on a TV talk show. Nevertheless, many highly educated people regularly consult mediums and fortune tellers, and as Pattana points out, question the ability of the particular medium rather than the credibility of mediumship itself. The final chapter, “Concluding Remarks,” sums up the changes in Thailand’s religious landscape as a consequence of the country’s rapid transformation from a predominantly rural society to one that is significantly urbanized. In this new society that is ever evolving of modern highways, high-tech communications, urbanization, and changing concepts of female gender, people are able to travel to religious sites, be in touch with new religious trends and technologies, and invest in experimenting with new practices. What they seek is financial, personal, professional success as well as emotional well being. The practices they engage in often demand no more than a belief in luck and in the ability of the agent or object to tap into the powers that can grant these desires. While the specific techniques might be new, similar approaches to dealing with uncertainty have long existed alongside canonical Buddhism, as can be seen in laws dating from the Ayutthaya Period, and reiterated by King Mongkut. One of the main differences is that the range and number of practices has increased exponentially, which to Pattana, is evidence of “the health and wealth of popular Buddhism in Thailand today” (p. 149). Critics dismayed by this conclusion may find solace in remembering that Pattana is limiting his analysis to “popular” Buddhism, and that orthodox Buddhism is still strong. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Despite the book’s brevity, assimilating it requires more than a single reading because of the complexity that emerges in Pattana’s examination of the sources of cults and their relationship to earlier beliefs, royal ceremonies, prophetic movements, ethnic assimilation, and social change, and the emerging religious piety of Thai Buddhists. The reader may find fault with the book’s organization into what seems a progression of separate articles rather than an integrated whole, and in fact, earlier versions of some of the chapters can be found on the Internet. Nevertheless, the integration of these rich ethnographic sources under one cover makes this book a valuable resource for anyone interested in the ever-changing nature of Buddhism in Thailand. Tragically, Pattana, an Isan village-born anthropologist with a doctorate from the University of Washington, died of cancer at the age of 45 shortly after the publication of this book. His unique perspective and ability to engage in diverse facets of Thai popular culture will be deeply missed as will the energy and enthusiasm he devoted to his work. Bonnie Pacala Brereton

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Dacre Raikes 1925-2013 Francis Dacre Raikes, who died on 26 March, 2013, aged 87, was a distinguished British businessman who made Thailand his home for over sixty years and became an expert on Thai culture and Thai classical music. He was appointed a Member of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand, also of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Thailand and to Anglo-Thai cultural relations. The son of Vice-Admiral Cecil Staveley Raikes, Dacre Raikes was educated at Radley College, then joined the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman at the beginning of World War II. His war service took him to Ceylon on a signalling mission which he described as ‘completely futile’ but which sparked off his enduring love of the tropics. After the war, he took up a post in British Guiana as a sugar planter, before moving to Thailand in 1951 at the invitation of the Borneo Company. His rst post was in the forests of Northwest Thailand as a manager of the company’s teak concessions, an experience which made a lifelong impression on him. During his four colourful years as a ‘teak wallah’, living in the small town of Chiang Mai, close to the local inhabitants and to the ora and fauna of the region, Raikes became fascinated by the Thai way of life and the Thai landscape. His cine lm of life in the teak forests is an archive treasure. It was in this setting that he rst heard Thai music played on traditional instruments. Dacre Raikes remained in Thailand for the rest of his life, rising to be Managing Director of the Borneo Company, which was absorbed by the Inchcape Group in 1967. He was Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in the late 1960s, and on the boards of many other companies and organisations, most notably the Siam Society. He held a senior role in Metal Box after retiring from Inchcape though by then his cultural work absorbed much of his attention. As Regional Manager of Borneo-Inchcape, he presided over a major expansion of the company’s interests in the region. His imposing ofcial residence occupied an area of parkland in South Sathorn Road, Bangkok, now encompassing the German Embassy. Here he lived in style, which led to some friction with an inuential, retired General on Inchcape’s board who paid him a visit and declared the property too palatial for a single man. Raikes countered that the company’s prestige (‘face’) Journal Journal of of the the Siam Siam Society, Society,Vol. Vol 101, 2013

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obliged him to represent Inchcape at such a level, and he eventually won the argument. Later, on an ofcial visit to London, he found himself seated at lunch next to the General who ignored him throughout the meal. Raikes was closely involved with the activities of the Siam Society for forty years, especially in the performing arts. He served on its Council for much of that time, was Vice-President of the Society from 1984-1999, and was elected an Honorary Member in 1992. In 1979, he organised a series of workshops on Thai classical music for music students and musicologists in London and Aldeburgh, and on the same visit staged concert performances by Thai musicians and dancers from Srinakharinwirot University at the universities of Cambridge, Sussex and York. His association with the Department of Fine Arts at Srinakharinwirot (Prasarnmit) lasted over three decades, during which time he introduced their Classical Music and Dance Troupes to audiences across the world. He was tireless in using his contacts to organise and promote annual concert tours to cities all over South East Asia, Europe and North America. Invariably he accompanied the tours himself, combining the roles of tour leader, translator, programme editor, cultural guide, dietary adviser, and nanny-in-chief for groups of 35 or more, most of whom had never travelled outside Thailand. In Chicago, in the winter of 1988, he was seen carrying a pile of jumpers and woolly hats and running after a group of his musicians who were playing in snow for the rst time in their lives, but inadequately dressed. Unsurprisingly, he was held in great affection by generations of young performers whose horizons he had widened so dramatically. In the mid 1970s, Dacre Raikes built himself a magnicent teak mansion, Ban Phlu Luang, on Khlong Saen Saeb in Bangkok, north of the Petchburi Road. Here he entertained his wide circle of friends, sometimes with classical concerts and dance performances. He had learned to play two instruments himself and was occasionally persuaded to join in. A tall, lean man, ginger-haired in his youth, Raikes had a disarming personality, containing a touch of the old-world breeziness and bonhomie found in characters drawn by PG Wodehouse, but leavened by a more reective and scholarly side. He was a master of the self-deprecating anecdote and had a sublime sense of the ridiculous, invariably nding something amusing to savour and share, even in his declining years. At his home in Bangkok, English afternoon tea was always served. His setbacks were bravely endured. He once suffered a vicious attack by an intruder at his house and sustained a serious head injury. Only his gold Rolex watch was stolen – the fruit of a visit to Geneva to negotiate the Rolex concession in Southeast Asia years earlier – and, after a long period of recovery, he speculated that a neighbour with an eye on his property had wanted him out of the way. In later life, his years in the teak forests under a tropical sun took their toll and he suffered bouts of skin cancer that aficted him unrelentingly. But he remained undaunted, his sunny disposition always to the fore. When he was no longer able Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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to walk unaided, this was no barrier to his attendance at concerts, lectures, British Club lunches, and Siam Society meetings, where he held sway unerringly on the conservative wing. There was an element of theatre to his arrival at these events: on his feet but bent almost double, with someone ahead of him to open doors, an attendant on each arm, and his driver bringing up the rear with a wheelchair, Raikes and his retinue would make their entrance, and move cheerfully at a snail’s pace to a strategic vantage point. His memory for names and faces never deserted him. Raikes was a lifelong bachelor, but never short of companions. His friends were drawn equally from the Thai and European communities, and long-term British friends helped him manage his affairs in his last years. He was eventually obliged to move out of Ban Phlu Luang and into an apartment off Sathorn. Here, surrounded by mountains of books, papers, and correspondence, he worked on a second volume of his autobiography, going right back to his early days in the teak forests, the loss of which he greatly lamented. One publisher, shown a draft of the book, advised him that there was too much on the logging industry, and not enough on the characters he had encountered. Raikes agreed and embarked on a fresh draft of the book. From then on, whenever he was asked what he had been doing, he would say, “I’ve been putting more chaps back in my forest!” Sadly, at his death his book was unnished and his forests were no more. Tim Butchard

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Contributors

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Achirat Chaiyapotpanit holds a doctorate from Peking University and is a lecturer at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University. Chris Baker has a PhD in history from Cambridge University and taught Asian history and politics there before moving to Thailand where he has lived for over 30 years. With Pasuk Phongpaichit he has written Thailand’s Boom and Bust (1998), A History of Thailand (2005, 2009), Thaksin (2004, 2009), and translated works by Pridi Banomyong, Chatthip Nartsupha, King Rama V, Nidhi Eoseewong, and the Communist Party of Thailand. Most recently they published a translation of the great folk epic, The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen (2010). Bonnie Pacala Brereton is based in Chiang Mai but travels frequently to Isan to conduct research on various aspects of local culture. She is affiliated with the Center for Research on Plurality in the Mekong Region, Khon Kaen University. She holds a doctorate in Buddhist studies and master’s degrees in Southeast Asian studies and Asian art history from the University of Michigan. She is the co-author, along with Somroay Yencheuy, of Buddhist Murals of Northeast Thailand: Reflections of the Isan Heartland, published by Silkworm Books. Paul Bromberg is the serving editor of the Journal of the Siam Society. He has been resident in Asia since 1985, the last 16 years in Bangkok. He read Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds, and also studied at Fudan University, Shanghai and Xiamen University. He regularly writes about Thai arts and antiques. Chalermchai Wongrak is a lecturer at the Department of Western Languages and Literature, Ubon Ratchathani University. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s in English from Khon Kaen University and an MPhil in educational research from the University of Cambridge where he is currently a doctoral candidate in educational linguistics. His research concentrates on language use in education, particularly heteroglossic interactions and identity negotiation in university classrooms in Northeast Thailand. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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Philip Courtenay retired in 1997 as Professor and Rector of the Cairns Campus of James Cook University, Queensland. He graduated in 1955 from the London School of Economics with a degree in geography and social anthropology, and subsequently focused on the economic geography of Southeast Asia, teaching in Malaysia from 1957-1960 and gaining a PhD in the economic geography of Penang from the University of London in 1962. He has been resident in Australia since 1965, and has a special interest in Southeast Asian ceramics. Christian Daniels is Professor of Chinese History at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. His research focuses on the history of Southwest China and Continental Southeast Asia, with a strong emphasis on the Tai polities. He recently guest edited the special issue entitled Upland Peoples in the Making of History in Northern Continental Southeast Asia in Southeast Asian Studies (April 2013) which includes his “Blocking the Path of Feral Pigs with Rotten Bamboo: The Role of Upland Peoples in the Crisis of a Tay Polity in Southwest Yunnan, 1792 to 1836”, and published “Script Without Buddhism: Burmese Influence on the Tay (Shan) Script of Mäng2 Maaw2 as seen in a Chinese Scroll Painting of 1407” in the International Journal of Asian Studies (July 2012). Dhiravat na Pombejra taught history at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, from 1985 till 2006, and is now an independent researcher on Thai history of the 17th and 18th centuries. He has written, edited or co-edited several works on the history of Ayutthaya, for example “Ayutthaya at the End of the Seventeenth Century: Was There a Shift to Isolation?” in Anthony Reid, ed., Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era. Trade, Power, and Belief (1993); “VOC Employees and their Relationships with Mon and Siamese Women: a Case Study of Osoet Pegua” in Barbara Watson Andaya, ed., Other Pasts: Women, Gender and History in Early Modern Southeast Asia (2000); and co-edited with Anthony Farrington. The English Factory in Siam 1612-1685 (2007). Jan R. Dressler is a doctoral candidate at the Asia-Africa-Institute of Hamburg University, currently pursuing a research project on the development of Siamese deputy kingship (mahā uparāja) under the Chakri Dynasty. His research focuses on the Southeast Asian mainland states and their intertwined relations, including the development of institutions, traditional historiography and its influence on society, diplomacy, and the judicial system. Ralph Isaacs is an independent researcher. From 1989 to 1994 he was Director of the British Council in Burma. He formed a collection of lacquerware which he and his wife Ruth donated to the British Museum. Ralph co-authored with Richard Blurton Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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the illustrated catalogue of the exhibition “Visions from the Golden Land: Burma and the Art of Lacquer” (BMP 2000). Ralph’s special interest is the inscriptions on lacquerware. Another interest is sazigyo, Burmese tablet-woven manuscript binding tapes, the subject of his articles in Textiles from Burma (Dell and Dudley eds, 2003) and Connecting Empires and States (2012). Liam Kelley has a PhD from the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he now teaches Southeast Asian history. He is the author of Beyond the Bronze Pillars: Envoy Poetry and the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship (2005) and has recently been examining the medieval invention of Vietnamese antiquity (Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2012). Charles F. Keyes is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and International Studies at the University of Washington, where he has mentored 40 doctoral students, one quarter of whom are Thai. He has long been affiliated with the Faculty of Social Science at Chiang Mai University and has received an honorary doctorate from Maha Sarakham University. Having authored or edited 14 publications and over 80 articles, he has just completed work on a book, tentatively entitled, Finding Their Voice: Northeastern Villagers and the Thai State to be published by Silkworm Books. Eugene and Mary Long are missionaries who have lived and worked among the Mla Bri people since 1980. They have three children, all of whom were home schooled and grew up having Mla Bri children as their friends and confidants. The case histories in this study are based on contemporaneous field notes made by Mary Long. Jovan Maud has a doctorate from Macquarie University and is a lecturer at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Georg-August University, Göttingen. His research interests include popular religion in Thailand, Buddhism and politics, and religious transnationalism. He is currently working on a book on the southern Thai Buddhist saint, Luang Pho Thuad. Elizabeth Howard Moore is Reader in Southeast Asian art and archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and presently Visiting Scholar, CSEAS, Kyoto University. She also assists teaching in the Department of Archaeology, University of Yangon and at Sitagu International Buddhist Academy, Sagaing. Her recent publications include “Pagoda Desecration and Myanmar Archaeology” in M.J. Klokke and V. Degroot, eds, Materializing Southeast Asia’s Past (2013) and “Ta Mok Shwe-gu-gyi Temple: Local Art in Upper Myanmar 11-17th century AD” with Win Maung (Tampawaddy) and Htwe Htwe Win, in M. L. TjoaBonatz, A. Reinecke and D. Bonatz (eds), Connecting Empires and States (2013). Journal of the Siam Society, Vol 101, 2013

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Shireen Naziree is an independent curator and art historian. Her international curatorial practice includes working with some of Southeast Asia’s most important artists and emerging talents from the region as well as interacting with art institutions in Southeast Asia and in Europe. She has written extensively on both the traditional and contemporary art practices of the region, with particular focus on Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam. She has served two terms as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Art Gallery of Malaysia. Nipaporn Ratchatapattanakul holds a doctorate from Kyoto University and is a lecturer at the Department of History, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. Pratima Nimsamer is a lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Architecture, Silpakorn University in Bangkok. Her research interest is in traditional and vernacular architecture in Thailand and Southeast Asia. She earned her doctorate in vernacular architecture at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford. She is currently researching vernacular houses and their adaptability to climate change, and the study of Thai architecture from paintings in the Ayutthaya period. Matthew Reeder is a doctoral student in the Department of History at Cornell University. He completed his master’s studies at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa, where he wrote about buffalo robberies and the provincial police force in Central Siam during the Fifth Reign. He is conducting his doctoral research on the use of ethnic categories in political writing—chronicles, poetry, and administrative documents—in late18th and early 19th century Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Nicolas Revire is a doctoral candidate at the Université la Sorbonne Nouvelle– Paris 3. He has been lecturer in French language at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University since 2003 and guest lecturer at Silpakorn University and Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University, Thailand. He is co-editor of a prospective publication of the Siam Society on new insights into the art and archeology of premodern Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Burma. Joyanto K. Sen has a PhD in engineering and worked in the aviation industry. He has over 50 technical publications and has been invited by universities in three continents. In his other passion, South and Southeast Asian art and history, he studies the influences which have molded the civilizations of SE Asia. He has travelled extensively and has a wide collection of photographs, taken on site, recording events and monuments of Funan, Cham, Khmer, Mon and Thai civilizations. He has translated into English P. Dupont’s L’archéologie mône de Dvāravatī.

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Michael Smithies was twice editor of Journal of the Siam Society (1969–1971 and 2003–2009). After an academic career in Southeast Asia from 1960, he retired in 1992 from the United Nations in Bangkok. Among his recent publications he edited 500 Years of Thai-Portuguese Relations on behalf of the Society and the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, and published Seventeenth century Siamese explorations (2012), a collection of 20 reprinted articles to commemorate his 80th birthday. He was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2006. Donald A. Stadtner was for many years an associate professor of art history at the University of Texas, Austin, after receiving his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Ancient Pagan: A Buddhist Plain of Merit (2005), Sacred Sites of Burma: Myth and Folklore in an Evolving Spiritual Realm (2011) and numerous articles. Barend J. Terwiel retired in 2007 from the Chair of Thai and Lao Languages and Literatures, Hamburg University, and recently taught on Buddhism at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written extensively on Thai history and the Tai of Assam. His most recent publications were “Siam”, Ten Ways to Look at Thailand’s Past (2012), and “The Burden of Owning Land: Habitat in Pre-Modern and Early-Modern Thailand”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (2011). Nicholas Walliman is a qualified architect and Senior Lecturer in the School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University and a researcher associate in the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development. He is currently conducting research in nationally and internationally funded projects on aspects of building technology, such as energy saving building envelope design, mitigation of the effects of floods on buildings and advanced construction methods. His work with research students covers many other aspects of architecture and its relationship to society, such as vernacular architecture, architectural education, design theory, conservation, administration and sustainable design. He has written several books on research theory and methods for students and practitioners at various levels of expertise. Tony Waters is professor of sociology at California State University, Chico. He worked in Phrae, Thailand, as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1980 to 1982, during which time he first came in contact with Gene and Mary Long, and through them, with the Mla Bri people. He has returned to Thailand in recent years in connection with study abroad programs for his California-based students.

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Notes for Contributors The Journal of the Siam Society welcomes original articles and notes of a scholarly nature in conformity with the principles and objectives of the Siam Society, of investigating the arts and sciences of Thailand and neighbouring countries. Articles—Articles should be primarily in English, and must be accompanied by an abstract in English (of fewer than 200 words) and a brief biographical note about the author(s). The word length of the manuscript contribution must be given in a covering letter, with full postal and e-mail addresses. The author(s) must confirm that the article has not been published elsewhere in any form, nor is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Articles submitted to JSS are subject to review by external referees. Typescripts should not normally exceed 7,000 words (including footnotes and references). They may be sent by email or mailed on a CD to the Society, preferably as an MSWord® document, with an accompanying pdf of the same content. Contributors using special fonts, such as for various Asian languages, should consult the editor in advance. Citations in the text should, where possible, follow the author—date system (e. g., Jones 1970: 82) and full details should appear in the list of references at the end of the article. These references must be complete bibliographical entries and include the full name of the author(s), title, and publication data, including the place of publication, publisher and date of publication (including the original date of publication, if the item is a reprint). Titles of the books and periodicals should, of course, be italicized. N.B. Thai authors are to be cited and listed according to their first name (not their surname, as most non-Thai authors are). Footnotes are to appear as such, not as endnotes, and should be numbered consecutively. References to articles or books written in Thai should include the title in romanized Thai followed by a translation into English in parentheses. Romanization in general follows the system of the Royal Institute. If in doubt concerning form or how to reference non-standard sources, please consult the Chicago Manual of Style (most recent edition), or Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at OUP (most recent edition). If in doubt over spelling, use, as with the United Nations, the Concise Oxford Dictionary (most recent edition), taking the first entry where variants are allowed. Style—Each paper should follow a consistent form of dating, capitalization (to be kept to a minimum), and other aspects. The style should be appropriate for scholarly journals with a readership of specialists in a diversity of fields and nationalities; this said, jargon is to be avoided and articles should be readily comprehensible by non-specialists. Numbers below 11 are to be written out, as are century numbers (e. g., 19th century) and the First or Second World War. Date forms should be day—month—year, without contractions; e. g., 13 April 2007. Acronyms must Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 101, 2013

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always be spelt out when first used; e. g., National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB). Measurements should be metric, not imperial. Non-native speakers of English are strongly advised to have their contributions checked by a native speaker before submission. Both British and American English variants are admitted, but an article must be internally consistent in the use of whichever is selected. Illustrations—Photographs, drawings, site plans, maps and other illustrative materials should be produced on strong paper, white card or good quality tracing film, and suitably lettered for printing. They should measure approximately twice the intended final size, which should be indicated where possible. lf they have been scanned or are computergenerated, the appropriate files should be sent indicating format, together with hard copy. Do not embed any graphics in the text on the disk or printout, but send them separately. A published full-page illustration may not exceed 210 mm x 140 mm. Photographs should be printed on glossy paper and mounted on thin card. Figures, maps and plates should be titled and numbered; originals should be numbered lightly on the back in pencil only. A list of captions to the illustrations must be provided on separate sheets. Authors must obtain approval, before submission, for the reproduction in JSS of illustrations or other material not their own. Redrawing or lettering of maps or figures cannot be undertaken by the Siam Society or the editor, who may omit or return substandard work for re-presentation. The number of illustrations in an article should be limited to a maximum of ten; many articles may need no accompanying visuals. The Siam Society and its editors stress that the safekeeping of illustrations is entirely the responsibility of contributors and the Society will not be held responsible for any loss or misplacement of visuals. Copies of illustrations must be retained by contributors until after the publication of the relevant article. Illustrations submitted will not be returned to contributors. Proofs and Copies—Page proofs will be sent to authors if time allows. Authors are reminded that proofs are intended for checking, not rewriting: substantial changes to the text at this stage will result in the contribution being rejected. Failure to respond about corrections by the required date may lead to substitution of the editor’s corrected proofs. One copy of the Journal and 20 photocopy prints will be supplied free to authors on publication of the issue in which their contribution is included. Reviews—Unsolicited book reviews are not normally accepted. Offers to write reviews should be directed to the Editor, JSS. Reviews should normally be 1,000–2,000 words in length, written in English and supplied in the same form as for articles. Full bibliographic details about the book under review must be supplied, including ISBN, number of pages and price, if known. Disclaimer—The opinions expressed in the JSS are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Siam Society. The editor’s decision is final in all disputed issues. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol 101, 2013

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General Information

The Siam Society, under Royal Patronage, is one of Thailand’s oldest and most active learned organizations. The object of the Society is to investigate and to encourage the arts and sciences in Thailand and neighbouring countries. Established in 1904, the Journal of the Siam Society has become one of the leading scholarly publications in SouthEast Asia. JSS is international in outlook, publishing original articles of enduring value in English. All articles are subject to peer review. The Society also publishes the Natural History Bulletin. Since its inception, the Society has collected monographs, journals and material of scholarly interest on Thailand and its neighbours. The Society’s library, open to members, has one of the best research collections in the region. For those interested in the Society’s library, lectures, tours, publications and other benefits, information is given below on how to become a member. Correspondence—-Typescripts, books for review and all correspondence should be sent to: The Editor, Journal of the Siam Society 131 Sukhumwit Soi 21 (Asoke-Montri Road) Bangkok 10110, Thailand Tel. (662) 661 6470-7 Fax. (662) 258 3491 E-mail: [email protected] Subscription requests, membership enquiries and orders for publications should be addressed to Membership Services, at the address given above. Information about exchange copies of Siam Society periodicals may be obtained from the Honorary Librarian, at the same address. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol 101, 2013

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