Kingdom of Ayutthaya

The kingdom of Ayutthaya was a Thai kingdom of 1350 to 1767. The king Ramathibodi I (Uthong) founded the city (อยธยา) of Ayutthaya as capital of his kingdom in 1350 and annexed (สุโขทัย) Sukhothai, 640 kilometers in north, in 1376. During four centuries following the kingdom took expansion to become Siam, whose borders were roughly those of modern Thailand, except for the Lannathai kingdom in north. Ayutthaya was opened to the foreign tradesmen, including the Chinese, the Indians, the Japanese and the Persan ones and later the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutchmen, the British and the French, enabling them to install villages apart from the walls of city. The court of King Narai (1656-1688) wove very strong bonds with that of the king Louis XIV of France, whose ambassadors compared the city in its face and its richness with that of Paris.

Historic insight

The Siamese State based with Ayutthaya in the valley of the river (แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา) Chao Phraya developed starting from the preceding kingdom of (ลพบุร) Lopburi, which it absorbed and increased towards the south moving towards the center of gravity of the people of language Thai. U Thong was an adventurer allegedly descended from a rich person Chinese commercial family having relationships to the royalty by the bonds of a marriage. In 1350, to escape the threat from an epidemic, it moved its court in the south in the easily flooded flat rich person of the river Chao Phraya. On an island in the river it based a new capital, which it called Ayutthaya (its complete name is Phra Nakhon If Ayutthaya พระนครศรีอยุธยา), drawn from the name of the town of Ayodhya in Scandinavian India, the city of the hero Rāma of the Hindu epic history of Ramayana. King U Thong assumed the royal name of Ramathibodi (1350-1369).

King Ramathibodi tried to unify his kingdom. In 1360, he declared the Bouddhisme theravāda the official religion of Ayutthaya and asked members of a sangha, a Buddhist monastic community of the Ceylon to establish a new religious order and to propagate the faith among his subjects. He also compiled a legal code, based on the Indian (a Hindu legal text) and the habit thaïe, who became the base of the royal legislation. Composed in Faded, an Indo-Aryan language closely related to the Sanskrit, language of the Buddhist scriptes Theravada, it had force of divine injunction. Supplemented by royal decrees, the legal code of Ramathibodi is remained generally into force until the end of the nineteenth century.

At the end of the 14th century, Ayutthaya is regarded as the political entity most powerful of Southeast Asia. In the last years of its reign, Ramathibodi succeeded in seizing Angkor. Its objective was to make safe the Eastern border of the kingdom by preceding the ambitions Viêt on the Khmer territories .

However, Ayutthaya often had to send troops for subduing rebellions with Sukhothai or conducting campaigns against Chiang May, which continued to resist its expansion.

After the death of Ramathibodi, its kingdom is recognized by the court of China, maintaining under the dynasty of the Ming like the legitimate successor of Sukhothai.

Ayutthaya was not a unified State but rather a whole of autonomous principalities and provinces tributary which lent allegiance to its king. These territories were controlled by royal family members. They had their own army and often guerroyaient the ones against the others.

The king was permanently to take care that the princes of blood are not combined between them against him, or with the enemies of Ayutthaya. Quan burst a quarrel of succession, the princes gathered their troops and walked on the capital to take advantage of their rights.

During a good part of the 15th century, Ayutthaya will devote its energy to the Malayan Péninsule, where Malacca was, the most important port of the Southeast Asia. Malacca and the other States Malayan in the south of the old kingdom of Tambralinga had gradually converted with Islam during the 15th century. The Thais failed to subject Malacca, which had been put under the protection of China.

Ayutthaya succeeds in nevertheless controlling the Isthme of Kra, where the Chinese merchants in search came from luxury items very snuffed in China.

Royalty thaïe

The Thai kings were absolute monarchs, religious representatives and controlling same seat. Their authority had sat on ideal qualities which they thought of having. The king was the moral model, which personified the virtues of its people, and its country lived in peace and thrived because of its actions méritoires. With Sukhothai, according to the history, the king Ramkhamhaeng heard the petitions of any subject which sounded the bell of the door of the palate to call it, the king was adored as a father by his people. But the paternal aspects of the royalty disappeared in Ayutthaya, where, under the khmère influence, monarchy was withdrawn behind a wall of taboos and the ritual ones. The king was regarded as the chakkraphat, term Sanskrit-Faded for chakravartin which by its adherence with the laws, leads the world to turn around him. As the Hindu god Shiva which is “the Lord of the universe”, the Thai king also became by analogy “the Lord of the ground”, distinguished in his aspect and worthy of his subjects. According to the refined label of the court, a special language, Phasa Ratchasap, were employed to communicate with or about the royalty.

As a devaraja (word Sanskrit meaning “the divine king”), the king became finally a terrestrial incarnation of Shiva and became the object of a worship politico-monk officiated by a body of royal Brahmans which belonged to a Buddhist escort of the court. In the Buddhist context, the devaraja was a Bodhisattva (an enlightened being which, by compassion, gives up the Nirvāna in order to help the others). The belief in the divine royalty perduré at the eighteenth century, although at this time its religious implications had a limited impact. The abbot of Choisy, a French who came in Ayutthaya in 1685, wrote that, “the king with the absolute power. He is really God of the Siamese one: nobody dares to pronounce his name. ” Another author of the 17th century, the Netherlander Van Vliet, stresses that the king of the Siam “was honoured and adored by his more than one God. ”

One of the many institutional innovations of king Trailok (1448-1488) was to adopt the position of the uparaja, translated like viceroy or claiming with the throne, usually held by the oldest son or the full brother of the king, in order to regularize the succession with the throne, a particularly difficult exploit for a polygamous dynasty. In practice, there was an inherent conflict between the king and the uparaja and of frequent disputes of successions.

Social development and policy

The king was with the apex of a social and political hierarchy strongly laminated on all the levels of the company. The basic unit of the social organization was the community of village made up of households of wide families. Generally, the chief of village, elected official, controlled the communal projects. He preserved the documents of title of the ground in the name of the community, although the rural owners could preserve it as a long time as they cultivated it.

With important ground reserves available for the culture, the viability of the State depended on acquisition and the order on a labor to be distributed between work with the farm and defense. The political primacy of Ayutthaya required a constant war, because none the states in the area not having of technological advantage, the result of the battles were usually determined by the size armies. After each victorious countryside, Ayutthaya off-set part of the people overcome on his own territory, where they comparable and were added to local labor.

Each free man was to be recorded as a servant, or a " phrai" , near the local lord, or " Nai" , for the military service and the drudgeries of public works on the ground of the civil servant with whom it had been affected. Will phrai could also fulfill its obligations of work by paying a tax. If it found work obligatory under its too painful Nai, it could be sold in slavery in more attractive Nai, which then paid a compensation with the government for the loss of work of drudgeries. Not less than one third of labor to the nineteenth century was composed of phrais.

List sovereigns

Dynasty Uthong (first reign)

Ramathibodi Ier (Prince Uthong) 1350-1369
Ramesuan 1369-1370 (abdication)

Dynasty Suphannaphum (first reign)

Borommaracha I (Pangua) 1370-1388
Thong Chan 1388 (7 days)

Dynasty Uthong (second reign)

Ramesuan 1388-1395 (second reign)
Ramaratcha 1395-1409

Dynasty Suphannaphum (second reign)

Inthararatcha 1409-1424
Borommaratcha II (Samphraya) 1424-1448
Boromtrailokanat 1448-1488
Borommaratcha III (Inthararatcha II) 1488-1491
Ramathibodi II (1491-1529)
Borommaratcha IV 1529-1533
Ratsada, Ratthathirat 1533-1534 (5 months)
Chairacha 1534-1546
Keofa, Yodfa 1546-1548
Worawongsa 1548
Chakkraphat reigns 1548-1568
Mahin 1568-1569

The Burma conquers Ayutthaya in 1569 and becomes its suzerain.

Sukhothai dynasty

Maha Thammaracha (Sanpet I) 1569-1590

The kingdom of Ayutthaya becomes again independent in 1584.

Naresuan (Sanpet II) 1590 -1605
Ekathotsarot (Sanpet III) 1605-1610
If Saowaphak (Sanpet IV) 1610-1611
Songtham (Intharacha) 1611-1628
Jettharaja II, Jetthathirat 1628-1630
Athittyawong 1630 (one month)

Dynasty Prasat Thong

Prasat Tong 1630-1656
Chao Fa Jai 1656 (a few days)
Sri Suthammaraja 1656-1657
Rowed Thibodi III, Narai 1657-1688

Dynasty Round of applause Phlu Luang

Phéthraja 1688-1703
Chao Sweated, Sarasak 1703-1708
Phumintharacha (Sanpet IX, Thai Its) 1709-1733
Borommakot (Boromaratcha III) 1733-1758
Uthumpon (Boromaratchathirat IV) 1758
Suriyamarin gold Ekkathat (Boromaratcha V) 1758-1767

References

Text adapted of the Library original off Congress, Country Study off Thailand
From Isfahan to Ayutthaya: Contacts between Iran and Siam in the 17th Century, Mr. Ismail Marcinkowski, Singapore, Pustaka Nasional, 2005 (ISBN 9971774917).

Other historical sources

Pongsawadarn Krung Sri Ayutthaya (Chronicles off Ayutthaya) - There are several editions of historical files on the kingdom of Ayutthaya
Pongsawadarn Krung Kao (Chabab Luang Prasertaksaranit)
Pongsawadarn Krung Sri Ayutthaya Chabab Pra Jakaphadiphong (Jad)
Pongsawadarn Krung Sri Ayutthaya Chabab Pan Jantanumas
Pongsawadarn Chabab Pra rajhathalekha
Pongsawadarn Krung Sri Ayutthaya Chabab Pra Ponarat
Culayuddhakaravamsa (Edition in faded)
Pongsawadarn Krung Sri Ayutthaya Chabab British Museum
Kam hai karn khong chow krungkao (translated from the Burmese)

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