Ayutthaya Kingdom
The Ayutthaya Kingdom or the Empire of Ayutthaya was a Thai kingdom that existed in Southeast Asia from 1351 to 1767, centered around the city of Ayutthaya, in Siam, or present-day Thailand. European travellers in the early 16th century called Ayutthaya one of the three great powers of Asia, although the Chinese chronicles recognise the kingdom as one of its tributary states. The Ayutthaya Kingdom is considered to be the precursor of modern Thailand, and its developments are an important part of the history of Thailand.
The name Ayutthaya originates from Ayodhya, a Sanskrit word. This connection stems from the Ramakien, Thailand's national epic. The Ayutthaya Kingdom emerged from the mandala or merger of three maritime city-states on the Lower Chao Phraya Valley in the late 13th and 14th centuries. The early kingdom was a maritime confederation, oriented to post-Srivijaya Maritime Southeast Asia, conducting raids and tribute from these maritime states. After two centuries of political organization from the Northern Cities and a transition to a hinterland state, Ayutthaya centralized and became one of the great powers of Asia. From 1569 to 1584, Ayutthaya was a vassal state of Toungoo Burma; but quickly regained independence. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Ayutthaya emerged as a center of international trade and its culture flourished. The reign of Narai was known for Persian and later, European, influence and the sending of the 1686 Siamese embassy to the French court of King Louis XIV. The Late Ayutthaya Period saw the departure of the French and English but growing prominence of the Chinese. This period has been described as a "golden age" of Siamese culture and saw the rise in Chinese trade and the introduction of capitalism into Siam, a development that would continue to expand in the centuries following the fall of Ayutthaya.
Ayutthaya's failure to create a peaceful order of succession and the introduction of capitalism undermined the traditional organization of its elite and the old bonds of labor control which formed the military and government organization of the kingdom. In the mid-18th century, the Burmese Konbaung dynasty invaded Ayutthaya in 1759–1760 and 1765–1767. In April 1767, after a 14-month siege, the city of Ayutthaya fell to besieging Burmese forces and was completely destroyed, thereby ending the 417-year-old Ayutthaya Kingdom. Siam, however, quickly recovered from the collapse and the seat of Siamese authority was moved to Thonburi-Bangkok within the next 15 years.
Toponymy
In foreign accounts, Ayutthaya was called "Siam" but people of Ayutthaya called themselves Tai, and their kingdom Krung Tai meaning 'Tai country'. The Fra Mauro map of the world, made in circa 1450, features Ayutthaya city under the Latin name "Scierno". This name was derived from the Persian "Shahr-I-Naw", meaning 'New City'. Early Iberian and Italian sources preserve several related variant spellings that also appear to refer to Ayutthaya, including forms such as Cernouem and Cernomé in Portuguese and Spanish compilations, and Xarnauz and Sarnau in other accounts. A handwritten nautical chart attributed to Vesconte de Maggiolo labels Ayutthaya as Zerena. Some early Portuguese descriptions characterize Xarnauz as a "Christian" kingdom, a wording that may reflect European assumptions about non-Muslim states rather than local religion. It was also referred to as Iudea in a c. 1662–1663 bird's-eye view painting of Ayutthaya attributed to Johannes Vingboons, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company. Alternative spelling is Iudia in a 1683 illustration by Alain Mallet. The capital city of Ayutthaya is officially known as Krung Thep Dvaravati Si Ayutthaya, as documented in historical sources.History
Origins
The lower Chao Phraya Basin around the turn of the second millennium was split between Lavo Kingdom, which dominated the eastern half of the Lower Chao Phraya, and Suphannabhum, which dominated the west. The western lower Chao Phraya Basin was also influenced by Angkorian culture but not direct Angkorian political and military influence. Ayutthaya, argued by Charnvit Kasetsiri, was the merger of four different port polities along the Lower Chao Phraya Basin: Lopburi, Suphanburi, Ayutthaya, and Phetchaburi. Suphanburi had first sent a tribute mission to Song dynasty in 1180 and Phetchaburi to the Yuan dynasty in 1294 and tribute missions to Vijaynagar empire between 1400 and 1500. The earliest written records of Ayutthaya in the Chinese chronicles is that a Chinese official fled to Xian in 1282/83. Xian first sent an embassy to the Yuan dynasty in 1292, after which the Yuan requested another embassy. While older and traditional scholars argue that the ethnically Thai Sukhothai or Suphanburi was the Xiān mentioned in Chinese sources, more recent scholarship, like Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, argue that Xian referred to Ayutthaya as that was the same name later used for Ayutthaya by the Chinese court. Michael Vickery argued that it is likely the Chinese used Xian to refer to the lower Chao Phraya Basin from its inception.One of the earliest foreign sources to mention Xiān are the Đại Việt texts compiled during the reign of Lý Anh Tông, says merchants from Xiān Kingdom and others arrived at Hǎidōng and requested permission to trade and set up a trading post at Yún tún in 1149. Other requests for trade were sent in 1241 and 1360. Xian also sent tributes to Đại Việt in 1182 and 1334. In 1313–1315, Xiān attempted to annex Champa but failed due to the reinforcements from Đại Việt. There was also a record of Siamese led by Passara, son of the king of Siam, settled in Java and established the city of Passaraan in 800.
Archaeological findings have found evidence of buildings on the island of Ayutthaya prior to the 12th century. Pottery shards have been discovered to have been dated as early as the 1270s. Some temples to the east of Ayutthaya, off the island, have been known to exist before the traditional founding of the kingdom in 1351. Recent archaeological works reveal pre-existing barays superimposed on by subsequent structures. The Tamnan mulasasana Buddhist chronicle notes that in the 1320s, two Buddhist monks visited Ayutthaya in search of scriptures and that a previous monk had been honored by the "King of Ayodhia" on his return from Lanka. Since the late 13th century, expeditions were sent to the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra in the goal of extracting resources to gain a share of the maritime trade. Other contemporary scholars argued that Ayutthaya had been an important commercial center since the 11th century or at least several centuries prior to 1351.
Twenty-first century archaeological surveys found that the name of the pre-Ayutthaya cities on the Khao Kop Inscription dated to the 14th–15th centuries is Ayothaya Si Ram Thep Nakhon, as stated in the Thai Chronicle, Phraratchaphongsawadan Nuea. At least three royal decrees in Thai were enacted during that period, and the name of the king who ruled Ayodhaya in the oldest of the three royal decrees, The Miscellaneous Laws , is found as King Uthong II, who reigned from 1205 to 1253. It was also found that Thai was used as the official language at that time, which reflected the social changes of the people in the Chao Phraya River Basin.
The existence of Ayothaya Si Ram Thep Nakhon is also mentioned in the Burmese chronicle, Hmannan Yazawin, which mentions the Gywan warriors, who are descendants of the Thai Yuan, marched to Thaton kingdom in 1056 as inscribed on the Burmese inscriptions at Arakan Pagoda, Mandalay. The Hmannan Yazawin said the south-eastward country of the Gywans, also called Ayoja. George Cœdès pointed out that Ayoja or Arawsa meant Ayudhya or Siam.
The Malay annals and History of the Malay Kingdom of Patani say that prior to 1160, the Siam-Thai of Ayutthaya were migrating southward and penetrating far into the Malay Peninsula. The History of the Malay Kingdom of Patani highlights the fact that Patani rulers treated the Siam-Thai of Ayutthaya as equals rather than vassals when discussing the southward expansion of Siam. In the 12th century, the Malays were successful in establishing states such as Kedah, Melaka, and Temasek. However, Patani and other surrounding territories remained under the control of the aboriginal Siamese.
Pre-Ayutthaya cities
Archaeology surveys performed near Wat Khun Mueang Chai have found traces of pre–1100s buildings. Old temples in the area to the east may have been forest monasteries, similar to the pattern of other early towns. Digs have yielded pottery shards dating back to the 1270s. According to the Northern Chronicle, the earliest settlement was found in 944 on the south bank of Lopburi River near the present-day Wat Thammikarat by a royal lineage from Bang Pan, Phra Maha Phuttha Sakhon, who ruled the city until he died in 964. However, his successor was despoiled by Narai, the son of King Chandrachota from Lavo Kingdom, who was of the Suphannabhum lineage. Narai renamed the city Ayodhya and eventually set it Lavo's new capital. The former capital was then renamed Lopburi. The majority of Ayodhya's inhabitants are supposed to have migrated from Dvaravati's Ayojjhapura following its fall in 946, as well as residents from Lavo's Lavapura who fled after the city was destroyed by Angkor in 1001. The rising of Ayodhya happened after the fall of Kamalanka or Mevilimbangam, centered at Nakhon Pathom, which was sacked by the Chola and Pagan in 1030 and 1058, respectively. Ayodhya then overshadowed Lopburi and other cities in the lower Chaophraya Plain by exploiting opportunities created by the decline of the Srivijaya trading network in the 13th century.After the end of Narai's reign in 1087, Ayodhya fell under the power struggles between nine amatyas for two years, and was won by Phra Chao Luang, who relocated the city, in 1097, southward to the east bank of the Chao Phraya River near the mouth of the Mae Bia River, south of the present Wat Phanan Choeng. However, since he had no male heir, he had his only daughter marry Sai Nam Phueng, son of Kraison Rat who was of Mon's Chaliang and Tai's Chiang Saen lineages and served as the Lavapura king at that time. Their descendants, later known as the Uthong dynasty, continued to rule Ayodhya until the traditional establishment of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1351.
During the pre-Aytthaya period, Ayodhya was mentioned as Xiān in several Chinese and Đại Việt texts from 1149 to the official establishment of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1351. There are many records of Xiān invasion of Champa, Dān mǎ xī, Xī lǐ, Ma-li-yü-êrh, and Samudera Pasai Sultanate on Sumatra, as well as a well-known bas relief panel of Angkor Wat showing mercenaries of the Khmer army, who, among others, are identified as syam-kuk, perhaps "of the land of Siam." One cannot be certain what ethnolinguistic group these mercenaries belonged to, but many scholars have thought them to be Siam people. In 1431, a Ryukyu ship reported that “the King of Xian had punished the previous chief of Palembang and had put a new chief in power.
According to The Customs of Cambodia written by Zhou Daguan as an official delegation sent by the Yuan Dynasty to Angkor from 1296–1297, the Siamese people exerted significant influence over Lavo's Lavapura and appeared in huge numbers in the Angkorian capital of Yasodharapura. It was recorded by Zhou Daguan that Cambodia also imported cloth and silkworms from Xian, and suffered from repeated attacks by its people. Thus, the Siamese invasion of Angkor might have begun in the 1290s.
The Laotian Phra That Phanom Chronicle refers to Ayodhya before the traditional formation of the Ayutthaya Kingdom by several names, including Pahalanakhon, Dvaravati, and Sri Ayodhiya Dvaravati Nakhon. Meanwhile, the Lan Na's Yonok Chronicle mentions Ayodhya during this period as Guru Rath, which is almost identical to the Kolo Kingdom 哥罗国 or Kamalanka in several Chinese texts that existed from the 1st to 11th century. It was ruled by King Guru Wongsa, and its people were called Khlom, which has been mispronounced as Khom till the present day.