Tambralinga
Tambralinga or Ho-ling was an Indianised kingdom located on the Malay Peninsula, existing at least from the 2nd to 13th centuries CE. It possibly was under the influence of Srivijaya for some time, but later became independent from it or were generally allies rather than conqueror and vassal. The name had been forgotten until scholars recognized Tambralinga as Nakhon Si Thammarat. In Sanskrit and Prakrit, tāmra means "copper", "copper-coloured" or "red" and linga means "symbol" or "creation", typically representing the divine energy of Shiva.
Tambralinga first sent an embassy to China under the Song dynasty in 1001. In the 12th century it may or may not have been under the suzerainty of the Burmese Pagan Kingdom and a kingdom of Sri Lanka. At its height in the mid-13th century, under King Chandrabhanu, Tambralinga was independent, regrouping and consolidating its power and even invading Sri Lanka. By the end of the 13th century, Tambralinga was recorded in Siamese history as Nakhon Si Thammarat, under the suzerainty of the Tai Sukhothai Kingdom.
Location
In his 13th-century work Zhu Fan Zhi, Chinese historian Zhao Rugua mentions the state Danmaling, describing it as a vassal of Srivijaya. Whether Danmaling can be identified with Tambralinga is dubious; sinologist Roderich Ptak proposes instead to locate it in the Tembeling region of Pahang. In contrast, the Sung shih gives an account of Tambralinga under the name of Tan-mei-liu, and says Tambralinga seems to have been a dependency of the Khmer Empire during all the reigns of Jayavarman VII.An indigenous source of Tambralinga history is an inscription dating to 1183, written in Old Khmer, engraved on the base of a bronze Buddha statue found at Wat Hua Wiang in Chaiya District, Surat Thani Province. It gives an impression of the political situation of Tambralinga in the late-twelfth century. Another important source is a Sanskrit inscription ascribed to King Chandrabhanu of Tambralinga, dated 1230. It gives the king the epithet "Śrī Dharmarāja", which is an evidence for the identification of Tambralinga with Nakhon Si Thammarat.
History
Early coastal polities: 5th century BCE – 5th century CE
Present-peninsular Thailand has long been considered an important area in social interaction as the gateway between the South China Sea and the India Ocean since the protohistoric period. Hermann Kulke suggests that complex pre-Indianized political entities in present-day peninsular Thailand existed before the first millennium CE and developed to the centralized polities around the mid-first millennium CE through the Indianization, by adopting Indic ideologies to extent the power as well as institutionalizing god-king statuses and dynamic traditions. Tambralinga was one of the significant centralized polities in the area that was mentioned in Indian literature of the 2nd century CE. Previous scholars assume that Tambralingawas situated near modern Nakhon Si Thammarat or Ligor, based on text given in the inscription No. 28 found in Phra Maha That temple at the center of modern Nakhon Si Thammarat, engraved with Pallava scripts in Sanskrit language dated to the 5th century CE.However, based on Chinese chronicles and ignored local inscriptions, some academics are inclined to believe that the beginning of Tambralinga as an autonomous polity dates to the 10th or 11th century instead, and before that date, it was overshadowed by the northern neighbor Pan Pan centered at the area around the Bay of Bandon in present-day Thailand's Surat Thani province.
The region was under the domination first of Funan and then of Chenla from the beginning of the 3rd century until it was conquered by Srivijaya in the latter part of the 8th.
Early mandalas: 5th – 10th centuries CE
The Chinese Songhuiyaogao chronicle mentions a country named Danliumei ', stating many details during the period from 970 to 1070. It gives the impression that the kingdom was an independent state at that time, sending embassies to the court of China under the Song dynasty in 1001, 1016 and 1070. Danliumei is assumed to be a Chinese rendering of Tambralinga, the location of that state however is not precisely described. The chronicle of Ma Duanlin and the Songshi, mention similarly named states, Zhoumeiliu ' and Danmeiliu '''' respectively, that are also reported to have sent their first mission to China in 1001, which makes it likely that they refer to the same state.In this era, Tambralinga consisted of five main mandalas located on the bank of Khlong Tha Khwai, Khlong Tha Chieo – Tha Thon, Khlong Tha Lat, Maying River, and the largest one on the Haad Sai Keao dune, which was speculated to be the center of Tambralinga. Each of these mandalas formed by several communities in the surrounding area with the shrine of the most sacred site be the center and were connected with other mandalas by waterways and land paths. Vaishnavism was the prominent belief system unlike Dvaravati in central Thailand and Korat plateau where Hinayana Buddhism was dominant. The kings of Tambralinga were institutionalized as Siva-king but the king's power was probably shared by administrative subordinates and his kinship groups.
The region began receiving the immigrants of the Mon people around the 7th century. According to the legend of Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phraya Sri Thammasokaraj or Norabadi from the Mon's Hanthawaddy, together with his younger brother named Dharanont, brought their relatives and 30,000 soldiers, along with two Monks Phra Phutthakhamphien and Phra Phutthasakon, moved south to settle in Khao Chawa Prab in present-day Krabi Province and later relocated to establish Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Golden age: 10th – mid 13th centuries
North expansion: 10th – 11th centuries
During the 10th–11th centuries, after gaining independence from Srivijaya by the liberation of King Sujita, Tambralinga was very strong politically and economically since it sent several missions to the Chinese court and even supported the troops to conquer the Lavo Kingdom as well as seizing the throne of the Angkor, two of the great mandalas in that period.The origin of Sujita remains unclear. Cœdès interprets the term “Jivakas” to mean Javanese, indicating the king’s lineage as a native Javanese-Malay descended from the Srivijaya dynasty centered on Java. Meanwhile, Pierre Dupont argues that Jivakas was likely of Angkorian descent, or at least his wife must have been an Angkor princess. Dupont additionally comments that to avoid the loss of Angkorian influences over Lavo in the [|925–927 Tambralinga–Lavo–Haripuñjaya wars], Sujita moved the troops north to occupy the Lavo before it was taken by the Mon's Haripuñjaya. However, Dupont's theory is rebutted by an expert in Srivijaya Studies, Pratum Chumphengphan, who defines that the wars happened before the Angkorians exercised political power to the Menam Valley. Therefore, the conflict between “Lavo–Haripuñjaya” at that time was not yet a fight between the “Angkorian and Mon,” but rather a struggle for power between “Mon of Dvaravati” in the central and northern regions, who were relatives.
During this period, at Angkor's Yaśodharapura to the northeast, since the reign of Candravaṃśa's Jayavarman V of the Bhavapura house, the aristocratic families dominated the royal court. The throne then fell into two Tambralinga princes, Udayadityavarman I and Jayavirahvarman, who ruled Angkor from 1001–1011, which considered the period of the 9-year civil war between the two brothers and Suryavarman I of the Shailendra dynasty who controlled the east and southern regions and was supported by the Bhavapura house of the overthrown king.
In contrast, according to the Prasat Khna Inscription, some scholar believes that Narapativiravarman was Sujita, the successor king of both Tambralinga and Lavo, who gave the throne at Tambralinga to his younger brother, Udayadityavarman I, in 1001, and then successfully launched a campaign to conquer Yaśodharapura and enthroned Jayavirahvarman, a new Angkorian king, the following year. In the same year, Udayadityavarman I of Tambralinga/Lavo was replaced by his nephew, an usurper Suryavarman I or Kampoch, who also allied with the house of the overthrown Angkorian king, Jayavarman V, and waged war against Jayavirahvarman to control Yaśodharapura.
Buddhism dominant: 11th–13th centuries
After the Sujita dynasty's losses in the [|war against the Chola empire] in 1026, Tambralinga was revived by Padmavamsa, a noble clan from the north. The influx of people and monks from Sri Lanka was recorded, which made Buddhism the dominant belief in the kingdom.Thai academic proposes that after losing the war to the Chola Empire in 1026, the center of power in the eastern Siam peninsula was shifted from Chaiya to Nakhon Si Thammarat in 1077, according to the information given to the Chinese court by the diplomat sent in 1168. The previous king's son was enthroned as the new ruler. Gordon Luce speculates that the region was possibly controlled by the Pagan Kingdom from 1060 to 1200, as recorded in the Dhammarajaka inscription, which gives the southern limits of the kingdom to Takwā, Salankre and two other places hardly legible, ending with a city with the suffix nakuiw'. Meanwhile, D.K. Wyatt said Tambralinga was the vassal of the Pagan Kingdom from 1130–1176, with the agreement of the King of Sri Lanka. However, this claim remains disputed; speculated that even the polities in the Mergui-Tenasserim region to the north of the Isthmus of Kra most probably enjoyed the status of independent chiefdoms during the period under consideration.
The conflict between the Pagan Kyanzittha's grandson and Ceylon's Parakramabahu I to have concerned rights of passage over the Isthmus of Kra was recorded in 1164. This quarrel would continue and be the cause of the [|invasion of Sri Lanka] in 1247 by Chandrabhanu, whose lineage was believed to have moved from the north. Chandrabhanu is of the Padmavamsa. This clan has ruled Tambralinga at least since 1156.
The relationships between Tambralinga and the Tai leaders in the north of the Kra Isthmus was speculated to have begun during the reign of Chandrabhanu I, which was expected to be one of the reasons that Srivijaya lost influence over Tambralinga. During the reign of Chandrabhanu II, Ligor was known as Pataliputra as the area of the Kra Isthmus was called Vartma–setu or Varttma dvayantara and was controlled by Kalinga family.
In 1244, King Chandrabhanu invaded Sri Lanka, adopting the regnal name 'Srīdḥarmarāja' and installing himself as the king of Jaffna. This era ended with the losses of Tambralinga in the [|1247–1270 Tambralinga–Sri Lanka Wars]. Several local legends said the Padmavamsa clan ended due to the plague.