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To understand of the amazing
wealth and character of Thailand's cultural heritage, you
must begin with the influence of ancient India. This first
entered Southeast Asia perhaps 2,300 years ago. It continued
for several centuries as Indian merchants and scholars
settled in the region.
It is easy to see how important this influence is to modern
Thailand. Buddhist religion and popular myth are the most
obvious examples. Much of Thailand's royal tradition is also
rooted in Indian culture. The present dynasty, of which his
Majesty King Bhumibol is the ninth monarch , is known
formally as the House of Chakri. While this title comes
directly from the name of the founding monarch before he
became king, the word chakra actually means the discuss of
Hindu mythology. It provides a clear link to Hindu beliefs.
According to ancient belief, his
Majesty is the fount of everything. His representative still
presides over the stately Ploughing Ceremony in May each
year to foretell the state of the annual harvest. The
precise date and time of the event are determined by court
astrologers. Both the ceremony and the astrology come
directly from India.
So does the riotous
water throwing fun of Songkran, Thailand's traditional New Year in
mid-April. Its date was originally fixed by the Hindu solar calendar.
Another example is the Giant Swing next to Wat Suthat near the Bangkok
Municipality offices. Its rites, now discontinued, were administered
by Brahman priests.
But to think only in
terms of Indian influence on Thailand would be deeply misleading. Who
were the people who received that culture? How did they transform it
and make it distinctively and gloriously Thai?
People have lived in
what is now Thailand for at least 27,000 years. Early man may have
been here as long as 700,000 years ago. Evidence is increasingly
common, the telltale signs being flint tools and other remains found
near rock shelters in the country's plentiful limestone hills.
The first signs of
true culture emerge about 12,000 years ago, with formal burial of the
dead, along with food for their journey, at a cave called Tham Phra in
the western province of Kanchanaburi. By 8,000 years ago, settled cave
dwellers in Mae Hong Son province in Thailand's far North had begun
making pottery with simple linear decorations. They included these
pots in their burial rites too.
From those pots to
the ones produced by Thailand's famous Ban Chiang civilization near
Udon Thani in the Northeast 5,000 years ago is a step of huge
significance. By this time, cave-dwelling communities of
hunter-gatherers had given way to recognizably modern agricultural
settlements. People lived in their own houses raised on stilts. The
sophistication of the Ban Chiang pots and their decoration is
remarkable.
The events of the
next few thousand years are still shrouded in uncertainly. What is
clear is that the transition to large settlements and then groups of
settlements requiring developed social and cultural structures began
to occur some 3,000 to 2,000 years ago. This "proto-civilization"
provided the fertile ground on which Indian influence was sown.
Four such
civilizations are important. One of the earliest though perhaps least
understood was that of the animist and possibly indigenous Lawa
people. It centered on modern Lop Buri and spread south to north in
the Chao Phraya River basin. To the west and in southern Burma, the
Mon people subsequently established the Dvaravati civilization, one of
whose main centers was Nakhon Pathom. To the east, meanwhile, and
perhaps deriving from Ban Chiang, the great Khmer civilization
gradually took root along the mighty Mekong River.
Buddhism is thought
to have first come to Thailand at Nakhon Pathom, while Indian concepts
of divine kingship first took root in the Khmer empire. Fed by these
ideas, both civilizations grew, squeezing the less sophisticated Lawa
northwards. Eventually, some 1,000 years ago, the Khmer also
vanquished the Dvaravati civilization, becoming so powerful that they
ruled the entire area.
Only the southern
isthmus where the Srivijaya civilization had taken root was
unaffected. But even here Indian influence was strong.
Considerable
scholarly controversy now rages as to where the Thai people were at
this time.
The conventional
view is that they, together with their Shan and Lao cousins and
their distinctive animist beliefs, were beginning to migrate
southwards along the Mekong from Southern China. A more recent
proposal is that they either filtered in
from Laos and Vietnam or were here all the time.
However that may be,
they assimilated a blend of animism, Buddhism, and kingship that has
proven amazingly powerful. Beginning by nibbling away at the perimeter
of
the Khmer empire at Sukhothai and in Lanna (northern) Thailand some
700 years ago, they later established the glorious court at Ayutthaya,
and eventually Bangkok.
Many peoples, among
them the Chinese, Arabs, Malays, and Westerners, have contributed to
Thailand's cultural heritage. Yet one symbol encapsulates it all, and
you will see it wherever you go.
It is the spirit
house. This is the tiny model of a temple or palace that is planted
all
over the country, on any piece of property or just by the roadside. It
is always, out of respect, raised on a pedestal. It often looks
Chinese and is usually now made using Western technology. But its entirely serious purpose is to accommodate the spirits
of the land who have been disturbed by our activities.
A magnificence of kingdoms
Khmer Kingdom
The divine kings
Khmer culture, at
its height from 900 to 1300 CE, was strongly Indian, particularly in
its concept of a divine monarch as head of state and its strongly
centralized administration. These characteristics can clearly be seen
in the magnificent shrines that still adorn several Thai cities.
The best example of
Khmer culture is undoubtedly at Phimai, some 60 kilometres north-east
of Nakhon Ratchasima. The old temple stands in the middle of the
modern town. The outlines of the old fortified town can still be
traced. It was strictly
rectangular in plan, as were all Khmer settlements, and it was made
doubly secure
by placing it on an artificial island. This combination of man-made
and natural
defenses became a common feature of later Thai cities.
Phimai clearly shows
the strong central orientation of the Khmer administration. Although
the old town may well pre-date the surviving structures at Angkor by
some
50 years, its main southern gate faced the Khmer capital, and a
240-kilometre road
led directly to it. The road passed the Phanom Rung and Muang Tham
sanctuaries roughly 70 kilometers to the south. Both these sites can
easily be reached from Nakhon Ratchasima on the Ubon Ratchathani road.
Happily, Phimai was
restored by the same team that restored Angkor while Phanom Rung and
Muang Tham, both well preserved in rolling countryside, offer some
superb vistas. Phanom Rung in particular conveys the stately sense of
power and mass, the sheer grandeur that is the hallmark of Khmer
architecture.
But don't miss the
vibrant, superbly executed scenes from the Indian Ramayana epic set
out in bas-relief at Phimai. These three sites thus offer some of the
finest, most perfect examples of Khmer architecture and decorative art
to be found anywhere in
the world.
Other outstanding
Khmer treasures in Thailand include the powerfully evocative sanctuary
at Muang Singh (Lion City) which, far to the west in Kanchanaburi
province, demonstrates the sheer extent of the empire at its height.
The imposing
triple-spired shrines at Lop Buri that stand dramatically within the
modern city, one spire each for the triumvirate of Hindu gods Brahma,
Vishnu, and Shiva, are another example. Like Phimai, Lop Buri was an
important Khmer center and was to serve
other civilizations too.
Sukhothai Kingdom
The dawn of happiness
Sukhothai, some 480
kilometers north of Bangkok, is where most Thais believe their
country's amazing culture really began. From 1238, this ancient,
magical city, some
13 kilometers west of the modern town, was the capital of the first
truly Thai kingdom. Its third king, the great Ramkhamhaeng, is
credited with devising the Thai alphabet
from ancient Mon and Khmer scripts. He also established and engraved
in stone the basis for a just and humane absolute monarchy and
introduced Theravada Buddhism
to his people.
The kingdom is
credited with producing the most sublime religious art and sculpture
ever seen in Thailand, and for manufacturing the most perfect pottery.
The slender, delicate , compassionate lines of the enormous Buddha
images that still tower over
the old town are indeed utterly distinctive. Experts point out that
they incorporate Khmer, Dvaravati, and Srivijaya sculptural elements.
Similarly, the soft
silky greys of Sawankhalok stoneware, produced first at Sukhothai
itself and later at Si Satchanalai to the north to take advantage of
superior clays, cannot be mistaken. The pottery incorporated Chinese
skills. Hundreds of massive kilns at Si Satchanalai are still being
excavated.
But Sukhothai was
much more than this. Although it lasted less than 200 years and was
established on the flanks of the waning Khmer empire, it also
developed the concept of the Thai town. For while Sukhothai itself,
set four-square on the plain and protected by triple walls and
intervening moats, was built substantially on the Khmer model, its
sister cities at Si Satchanalai to the north and Kamphaeng Phet to the
west were not.
These cities are
irregular trapezoids. This pattern was so successful in terms of
defense (it allowed more wall forts) and flexibility to match the
terrain that it was
never abandoned. Most interesting of all, it also represented a
marriage of Hindu
ideas from India and animist beliefs from the Lawa of Lop Buri or
perhaps from Haripunchai (now Lamphun) in the north, which was also
initially Lawa.
Ayutthaya Kingdom
City of enchantment
Ayutthaya, about 80
kilometers north of Bangkok, was described in these terms by European
traders some 350 years ago. The cultural base from which it derived in
1350 was as much Dvaravati (centred on U Thong) as Thai from
Sukhothai, although
of course it emerged from the Sukhothai kingdom.
Its scintillating
art and architecture was a delicate blend of Dvaravati, Khmer, Mon,
and Lawa cultures that received a further Khmer infusion as a result
of Ayutthaya's conquest of Cambodia. All the amazing splendor of the
Ayutthaya court that so awed its visitors derives directly from this
fantastic cultural coming-together.
It was no accident.
The city site at the heart of the river line system of the lower
Chao Phraya basin was carefully chosen to allow a mooted trapezoid
plan and a
water-borne way of life. This more than anything else enchanted its
visitors, but it
was practical too.
Ayutthaya's sister
city, Lop Buri, was just a short distance north. It shared in the
capital's splendor. One of Thailand's greatest kings, Narai, built a
palace there that
can still be seen. It was these two glorious cities that Europeans
first saw.
Unhappily, all these
fabulous glories were ruthlessly sacked by a Burmese invasion
in 1767. All that remains of 417 glorious years are the ruins you can
see today. They are now a World Heritage Site.
To capture the sense
of this amazing period of Thai culture, it is best to travel by boat
up to Ayutthaya from Bangkok. Once there, use the hands-on
audio-visual system at the museum to grasp its magnificence.
Lanna Kingdom
Mountain fastness
At much the same
time as Ramkhamhaeng was establishing the first truly Thai kingdom at
Sukhothai, other dramatic events were unfolding further north. In
Chiang Saen, an early Thai city on the banks of the Mekong River, a
young prince named Mengrai set out to unify the mountainous region
immediately to the south of him.
In doing so, he
founded both Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai and subdued the Mon city
of Haripunchai (now Lamphun) and Lampang. His kingdom, Lanna, extended
into
what is now Burma and bordered Sukhothai. As it happens, the two kings
were good friends. But the mountainous nature of Lanna meant that it
developed and still maintains a very different culture from the rest
of Thailand. At least two distinctions stand out.
The first is the
astonishing diversity of cultures contained in the small Lanna area.
Whereas lowland populations were relatively homogeneous, those in
Lanna diverged sharply. The main division was between the farmers and
townspeople of the valleys
and the hill tribes of the uplands. The hill tribes themselves
represent several very distinct ethnic stocks, so that a multitude of
languages, customs, beliefs, architecture's, diets, and styles of
dress exist harmoniously side by side.
The second
difference is that Lanna was isolated. It was open to repeated Burmese
and Lao attacks and occupations throughout its history, although
Lanna, too, did its share of fighting. The prolonged Burmese influence
is particularly noticeable in the square tiered towers on many of the
temples. Place names still reflect a Burmese presence.
-
Important links between Lanna and the rest of Thailand were also
forged. The revered Emerald Buddha originally came to light at Chiang
Rai in 1434. It was housed for over a century at Lampang and Chiang
Mai before eventually finding its way to Bangkok via Vientiane. Thai
and Lanna royalty inter-married.
This exciting mixture of cultures in all its diversity is now easily
accessible to visitors
via a first-class road system and air network. You will be dazzled by
the cultural
brilliance of this small area.-
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Dvaravati Kingdom
Compassion and the rule of law
-
- Dvaravati is the
name of an early Mon civilization. It was influential from the 6th to
11th centuries CE, predating both Srivijaya in the south and the
Khmers by at least
a century. It also faded before both of them, eventually all but
overwhelmed by Khmer vigor.
-
- Mon communities have
survived along Thailand's western border and even in pockets close to
Bangkok right up to the present. Lamphun in northern Thailand was also
Mon. Strong traces of its civilization remain.
-
- Dvaravati culture
was centered on the area between Nakhon Pathom, a little-fortified
town some 50 kilometers west of Bangkok, and U Thong to the north. Its
enduring emblem is Phra Pathom Chedi, the massive bell-shaped Buddhist
shrine with its
golden spire at Nakhon Pathom. This is where Buddhism is believed to
have been
first taught in Thailand. The stupa, at 120.45 meters, is the tallest
Buddhist structure in the world.
-
- Theravada Buddhism
was not the only Dvaravati contribution to Thai culture. It also
introduced the Thammasat Code of Law. While the Khmer approach based
on a
divine monarchy and strong centralization of authority proved more
powerful in the
short run, the more gentle, peaceable Buddhist approach based on
common rules eventually prevailed.
-
- It was the prince of
U Thong who founded Ayutthaya and wrested power from Sukhothai. The
Ayutthaya kings began to decentralize royal authority, initially by
appointing four Great. Officers to oversee the Royal Household, Local
Government, Finance, and Agriculture. This process of gradual
decentralization continues to this day.
-
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If you can afford the
time, travel at least part of the way to these sites by boat. This is how most journeys were
made in those days. You will be rewarded by a
delightfully different perspective of a beautiful country.
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