Journal of the Siam Society; 73

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JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY

JANUARY & JULY 1 985 volume 7 3 parts 1 & 2

THE SIAM SOCIETY PATRON

His Majesty the King

VICE-PATRONS

Her Majesty the Queen Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

HON . PRESIDENT

Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana

HON . VICE-PRESIDENTS Mr. Alexander B. Griswold Mom Kobkaew Ab hakara Na Ayudhya H.S.H. Prince Subhadradis Disk ul HON . MEMBERS

The Yen . Buddhadasa Bhikkhu The Yen. Phra Rajavaramuni (Payutto) Mr. Fua Haripitak Dr. Mary R. Haas Dr. Puey Ungphakorn Soedjatmoko Dr. Sood Saengvichien H.S.H. Prince Chand Chirayu Rajni Professor William J. Gedney Professor Prawase Wasi M.D Sao Saimong Mangra i

HON . AUDITOR HON. ARCHITECT

Mr. Yukta na Thalang Mr. Sirichai Nar umit

COUNCIL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY FOR 1985/86

President Vice-President and Leader, Natural History Section Vice- President Vice- President Honorary Treasurer Honorary Secretary Honorary Editor Honorary Editor of the Natural History Bulletin Honorary Librarian Assistant Honorary Treasurer Assistant Honorary Secretary Assistant Honorary Librarian Mr. Sulak Sivaraksa Mr. Henri Pagau-Clarac Dr. Piriya Krai ri ksh Dr. Warren Y. Brockelman H.E. Mr. W .F.M . Schmidt Mr. Hartmut Schneider Dr. Pa ul P . Blackbmn Mr. Kaset Pitakpaivan

•

M:R. Patanachai J aya nt

Dr. Tern Smitinand Mr. Dacre F.A. Raikes Dr. Svasti Srisukh Mrs. Katherine B. Buri Mrs. Nongyao Narumit Dr. Tej Bunnag Dr. Thawatchai Santisuk Khun Varun Yupha Snidvongs Mr. James Stent Mrs. Virginia M. Di Crocco Mrs. Bonnie Davis Mr. Wilhelm Mayer Dr. Pornchai Suchitta Miss A.B. Lambert Mr. Rolf E. Von Bueren Mr. Richard Engelhardt Dr. Rachit Buri Mr. Teddy S pha Palas thira Mr. Jitkasem Sangsingkeo

PRINTED IN THAILAND BY SAHAMITR PRINTING CO., LTD. TEL. 271 - 0755-7, 271-0764

JSS JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY

JANUARY & JULY 1985 VOLUME 73 PARTS 1 & 2

4

THE SIAM SOCIETY 1985 Honorary Editor : Dr. Tej Bunnag Honorary Associate Editor : Mr. Sulak Sivaraksa Contributed manuscripts should be typed doubl~spaced on quarto paper (approximately 8 . x 11 inches), with generous margins. The top copy should be submitted. All notes and references should be similarly typed double-spaced. References should include name of author (s), title, name and volume of periodical or relevant publication series (where applicable), date and place of publication (or nature of reference, if unpublished), and pagination (where appropriate) . Pag~proofs of Articles and Review Articles are normally sent to authors; proofs of Notes, Reviews and other contributions will be sent to authors on request only. Originals of illustrations will be returned on request. Authors of published contributions receive 30 offprints free of charge. Additional copies will be supplied at cost price, but must be paid for in advance. The Siam Society encourages readers to communicate to the Honorary Editor any differing opinion on, or corrections to, material which appears in JSS. Suitably documented correspondence will be published as a Communication, bearing the writer's name.

Manuscripts, books for review, and all correspondence should be sent to the Honorary Editor, Journal of the Siam Society, G.P.O. Box 65, Bangkok, Thailand. Subscription and membership enquiries, and publications orders, should be addressed to the Administrative Secretary, Siam Society, G.P.O. Box 65, Bangkok Thailand. Exchange copies of periodicals should be sent to the Honorary Librarian, Siam Society, G.P.O. Box 65, Bangkok, Thailand. ISSN 0304 - 226X

. ""'! 111UHIIII KROt.tAMUt~

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7 November 1985 Centenary of H.H. Prince Dhani Nivat Kromamun Bidyalabh Brdihyakorn President of the Siam Society 1940-1944, 1949-1965

JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY Contents of Volume 73 1985 oj

...

~:IJ 1fl'il'W1~f\11t'U ~-311

(L'il;f\1 'f!111V!(Jl.I1U

U.ti.

'W'J::'Ii'J'UJLVI flU 1 fl'Jl VI 'li'W'J~U Vlfl'Ul

9)

Articles Erik Cohen Philip Hughes Geoffrey C. Gunn Chetana Nagavajara Malinee Dilokwanich .

-

Natalie V. Robinson Larry Stemstein Lorraine Gesick Jim Placzek Hans Penth Suriya Ratanakul Bennet Bronson

A Soi in Bangkok - the Dynamics of Lateral Urban Expansion Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand A Scandal in Colonial Laos: The Death of Bac My and the Wounding of Kommadan Revisited Literary Historiography and Socio-Cultural Transformation: The Case of Thailand A Study of SAMKOK : The First Thai Translation of a Chinese Novel Sino-Thai Ceramics "Low" Maps of Siam "Reading the .Landscape": Reflections on a Sacred Site in South Thailand The Missing "Long Things" in the Thai Noun Classifier ~ystem Mai Han Akat The Lawa Las~m !£Poetry Notes on the History of Iron in Thailand

1 23 42

60 77 113 132 157 162 176 · 183 205

Notes

Aye Kyaw

Note on Betty Gosling:s Article: Why Were ·':' the Jatakas "Hidden Away" at Wat Si Chum? (JSS vol. 72). Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

235

Ul'I~Wtll ~9b.ll

Lflu3-ifi11~V'I

250

Michael Wright

Correspondence Elizabeth Moore

The Williams-Hunt Collection of aerial photographs of the Archaeological Research Trust for Thailand

226

252

Reviews Michael Smithies Phan-ngam Gothamasan Anders Tandrup S. Sivarak

Richard B. Noss, An Overview of Language Issues in South East Asia 1950-1980 S. Sivaraksa, Siamese Resurgence Wiwat Mungkandi & William Warren (eds), A Century and a half of Thai-American Relations

256 259

fl\J~Di

261

ff.fl1NifHI,

•

nT~1L'YilfflJ1V'IJtJ'I1fltl

253

Charivat Santaputra, Thai Foreign Policy 1932- 1946.

Michael Smithies William J. Klausner Michael Smithies

Obituary S. Sivaraksa

Erik Seidenfaden, 1928 Guide to Bangkok 264 Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, The Buddhist 266 Saints of the Forests and the Cult of Amulets Neils Mulder, Jav!!:J'hailand, A Compara-: 269 tive Perspective. -Dawn Rooney, Khmer Ceramics. C.E. Wurtzburg, Raffles of the Eastern Isles. Koentjaraningrat, Javanese Culture. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Child of All Nations. John Ingleson, Road to Exile - . The Indonesian Nationalist Movement 19271934. Eliza R. Scidmore, Java, the Garden of the east. Augusta de Wit, Java, Facts and Fancies. Cesar Guillen-Nunez, Macao.

M.C. Sipban Sonakul (1894-1985)- an Appreciation.

288

JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY

JANUARY & JULY 1 985 volume 7 3 parts 1 & 2

THE SIAM SOCIETY PATRON

His Majesty the King

VICE-PATRONS

Her Majesty the Queen Her Royal Highness the Princess Mother Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

HON . PRESIDENT

Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana

HON . VICE-PRESIDENTS Mr. Alexander B. Griswold Mom Kobkaew Ab hakara Na Ayudhya H.S.H. Prince Subhadradis Disk ul HON . MEMBERS

The Yen . Buddhadasa Bhikkhu The Yen. Phra Rajavaramuni (Payutto) Mr. Fua Haripitak Dr. Mary R. Haas Dr. Puey Ungphakorn Soedjatmoko Dr. Sood Saengvichien H.S.H. Prince Chand Chirayu Rajni Professor William J. Gedney Professor Prawase Wasi M.D Sao Saimong Mangra i

HON . AUDITOR HON. ARCHITECT

Mr. Yukta na Thalang Mr. Sirichai Nar umit

COUNCIL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY FOR 1985/86

President Vice-President and Leader, Natural History Section Vice- President Vice- President Honorary Treasurer Honorary Secretary Honorary Editor Honorary Editor of the Natural History Bulletin Honorary Librarian Assistant Honorary Treasurer Assistant Honorary Secretary Assistant Honorary Librarian Mr. Sulak Sivaraksa Mr. Henri Pagau-Clarac Dr. Piriya Krai ri ksh Dr. Warren Y. Brockelman H.E. Mr. W .F.M . Schmidt Mr. Hartmut Schneider Dr. Pa ul P . Blackbmn Mr. Kaset Pitakpaivan

•

M:R. Patanachai J aya nt

Dr. Tern Smitinand Mr. Dacre F.A. Raikes Dr. Svasti Srisukh Mrs. Katherine B. Buri Mrs. Nongyao Narumit Dr. Tej Bunnag Dr. Thawatchai Santisuk Khun Varun Yupha Snidvongs Mr. James Stent Mrs. Virginia M. Di Crocco Mrs. Bonnie Davis Mr. Wilhelm Mayer Dr. Pornchai Suchitta Miss A.B. Lambert Mr. Rolf E. Von Bueren Mr. Richard Engelhardt Dr. Rachit Buri Mr. Teddy S pha Palas thira Mr. Jitkasem Sangsingkeo

PRINTED IN THAILAND BY SAHAMITR PRINTING CO., LTD. TEL. 271 - 0755-7, 271-0764

JSS JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY

JANUARY & JULY 1985 VOLUME 73 PARTS 1 & 2

4

THE SIAM SOCIETY 1985 Honorary Editor : Dr. Tej Bunnag Honorary Associate Editor : Mr. Sulak Sivaraksa Contributed manuscripts should be typed doubl~spaced on quarto paper (approximately 8 . x 11 inches), with generous margins. The top copy should be submitted. All notes and references should be similarly typed double-spaced. References should include name of author (s), title, name and volume of periodical or relevant publication series (where applicable), date and place of publication (or nature of reference, if unpublished), and pagination (where appropriate) . Pag~proofs of Articles and Review Articles are normally sent to authors; proofs of Notes, Reviews and other contributions will be sent to authors on request only. Originals of illustrations will be returned on request. Authors of published contributions receive 30 offprints free of charge. Additional copies will be supplied at cost price, but must be paid for in advance. The Siam Society encourages readers to communicate to the Honorary Editor any differing opinion on, or corrections to, material which appears in JSS. Suitably documented correspondence will be published as a Communication, bearing the writer's name.

Manuscripts, books for review, and all correspondence should be sent to the Honorary Editor, Journal of the Siam Society, G.P.O. Box 65, Bangkok, Thailand. Subscription and membership enquiries, and publications orders, should be addressed to the Administrative Secretary, Siam Society, G.P.O. Box 65, Bangkok Thailand. Exchange copies of periodicals should be sent to the Honorary Librarian, Siam Society, G.P.O. Box 65, Bangkok, Thailand. ISSN 0304 - 226X

. ""'! 111UHIIII KROt.tAMUt~

f5'

--

-

II'UHIU U •UI UU,II HllfJI U111"1

HIDYALADH

BRIOHYAKORN

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A

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tt1t~n~t~1~~~1fl~

l!l~Q'm-l!J~Q'b1/, 1!1~~1!1-l!lei!oQ'

7 November 1985 Centenary of H.H. Prince Dhani Nivat Kromamun Bidyalabh Brdihyakorn President of the Siam Society 1940-1944, 1949-1965

JOURNAL OF THE SIAM SOCIETY Contents of Volume 73 1985 oj

...

~:IJ 1fl'il'W1~f\11t'U ~-311

(L'il;f\1 'f!111V!(Jl.I1U

U.ti.

'W'J::'Ii'J'UJLVI flU 1 fl'Jl VI 'li'W'J~U Vlfl'Ul

9)

Articles Erik Cohen Philip Hughes Geoffrey C. Gunn Chetana Nagavajara Malinee Dilokwanich .

-

Natalie V. Robinson Larry Stemstein Lorraine Gesick Jim Placzek Hans Penth Suriya Ratanakul Bennet Bronson

A Soi in Bangkok - the Dynamics of Lateral Urban Expansion Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand A Scandal in Colonial Laos: The Death of Bac My and the Wounding of Kommadan Revisited Literary Historiography and Socio-Cultural Transformation: The Case of Thailand A Study of SAMKOK : The First Thai Translation of a Chinese Novel Sino-Thai Ceramics "Low" Maps of Siam "Reading the .Landscape": Reflections on a Sacred Site in South Thailand The Missing "Long Things" in the Thai Noun Classifier ~ystem Mai Han Akat The Lawa Las~m !£Poetry Notes on the History of Iron in Thailand

1 23 42

60 77 113 132 157 162 176 · 183 205

Notes

Aye Kyaw

Note on Betty Gosling:s Article: Why Were ·':' the Jatakas "Hidden Away" at Wat Si Chum? (JSS vol. 72). Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

235

Ul'I~Wtll ~9b.ll

Lflu3-ifi11~V'I

250

Michael Wright

Correspondence Elizabeth Moore

The Williams-Hunt Collection of aerial photographs of the Archaeological Research Trust for Thailand

226

252

Reviews Michael Smithies Phan-ngam Gothamasan Anders Tandrup S. Sivarak

Richard B. Noss, An Overview of Language Issues in South East Asia 1950-1980 S. Sivaraksa, Siamese Resurgence Wiwat Mungkandi & William Warren (eds), A Century and a half of Thai-American Relations

256 259

fl\J~Di

261

ff.fl1NifHI,

•

nT~1L'YilfflJ1V'IJtJ'I1fltl

253

Charivat Santaputra, Thai Foreign Policy 1932- 1946.

Michael Smithies William J. Klausner Michael Smithies

Obituary S. Sivaraksa

Erik Seidenfaden, 1928 Guide to Bangkok 264 Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, The Buddhist 266 Saints of the Forests and the Cult of Amulets Neils Mulder, Jav!!:J'hailand, A Compara-: 269 tive Perspective. -Dawn Rooney, Khmer Ceramics. C.E. Wurtzburg, Raffles of the Eastern Isles. Koentjaraningrat, Javanese Culture. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Child of All Nations. John Ingleson, Road to Exile - . The Indonesian Nationalist Movement 19271934. Eliza R. Scidmore, Java, the Garden of the east. Augusta de Wit, Java, Facts and Fancies. Cesar Guillen-Nunez, Macao.

M.C. Sipban Sonakul (1894-1985)- an Appreciation.

288

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1

A Soi in Bangkok the Dynamics of Lateral Urban Expansion 1 ERIK COHEN*

Introduction Bangkok has been extensively, but selectively studied. The bulk of studies refers to historical or sociological aspects of the city as a whole. 2 Micro-level studies of local areas and neighborhoods are, however, limited to slums3 and new suburban developments,4 to the neglect of other forms of urban life. No studies of socio-ecological change in the already urbanized areas of the city have been published in English. Particularly conspicuous is the absence of studies of one of the most ubiquitous and characteristic ecological features of the citythe numerous and variegated sois (lanes) which branch out of the major traffic arteries all over the urban area. In 1971, the number of sois was estimated at 2000 (Yinyeod, 1971); today there are probably many more. Virtually nothing, except for a few newspaper articles, 5 is available on the sois of Bangkok. It was partly with a view to help close this gap that the study on which this paper is based was inititiated in 1981. The aim of this paper, however, is not merely to describe a little noticed urban phenomenon; its wider theoretical aim is to conceptualize and illustrate the. dynamics of soi development as a process of "lateral urban expansion," i.e. the growth of urbanization away from the main arteries of the city into their *Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1.

This paper reports part of the findings of a longitudinal urban anthropological study conducted in the summers of 1981 - 4 in Bangkok under a grant from the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose support is here gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to the National Research Council of Thailand for its kind assistance in the conduct of this study, and to Arie Shachar for his useful comments.

2. For some of the principal studies of Bangkok see Sternstein (1982) and (1984); London (1980), Urbanization (1976), O'Connor (1979). 3. See e.g. Morell and Morell (1972), Rabibhadana (1975) and (1977), Korff (1983), Boonyabancha (1983), Hongladaromp (1973), and Teilhet- Waldorf (1978);· for a bibliography see Slum (1982). 4. See e.g. Bunnag, 1978, Pramuanratkarn, 1979. 5. See e.g. Yingeod. 1971.

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Erik Cohen

hinterland. The Process of Expansion of Bangkok Bangkok expanded and still expands at a tremendous and accelerating According to Pramuanratkarn (1979 : 58-60), this expansion proceeded mainly along the major traffic arteries which extend to the north and the east of the city, engendering a "ribbon-development" (ibid : 58) in the outer areas of urban penetration. Bunnag (1978 : 187) has similarly argued that : "Expansion in Bangkok generally takes the form of strip development into the rural areas along main roads or highways." Areas remote from the main arteries often remain in a rural or semi-rural state long after the emergence of these urban "ribbons" or "strips." Since such areas usually lie between major arteries, they are "interstitial," even if the distances between the arteries, in the outer regions of the city, may be very large. Urbanization, however, does not stop with the penetration of ribbons or strips. These are eventually followed by a process of ever deeper expansion of the city into this interstitial hinterland, until the whole area is eventually urbanized, as are the mature, inner regions of the city. However, little attention has been paid to that process, whether in Bangkok, or for that matter, in other rapidly growing cities in the developing world. rate. 6

The sois of Bangkok : Definition, Characteristics, and Variety A soi is a lane· or a "small street branching off a main road (thanon)" (Allison, 1978 : 223). From the main roads such as Sukhumvit and Pahonyothin, which are two of the principal axes of penetration, branch off tens of sois, some short, some several kilometers long, which are the secondary carriers of urbanization into the interstitial areas. In the inner city, where urbanization reached a mature stage, the sois are by now often indistinguishable from the roads, creating with them an often irregular grid-like street pattern. Outside this central area, however, significant differences between the sois and the roads still persist; and the further out one goes, the greater these differences. The major roads are by now at least 6.

The urban area of Bangkok expanded at an accelerating rate, from 13kd in 1900, to 46kd in 1936, 96kd in 1958, 184km2 in 1971 and 330kd in 1981 (Sternstein, 1982:9o- 91). Population estimates, especially for the earlier periods are unreliable (ibid: 93}, but a similarly accel!!rating trend of growth can be established: the population of Bangkok in 1900 counted probably fewer than 500,000 inhabitants (Pramuanratkarn, 1979:50); by 1982 it reached about 5 million (Sternstein, 1982:92 - 93).

3

A soi in Bangkok six lanes broad, straight, well constructed and well lit and drained mass-transit arteries intended to serve the huge volume of traffic characteristic of the city (ill. (I) - (2)). They are equipped with traffic-lights, pedestrian over-passes and traffic signs, intended to facilitate the flow of traffic. They are served by mass transport facilities consisting of air conditioned buses, regular buses, and, particularly at night, converted passenger trucks. In contrast to the roads, the sois are generally much narrower, at most two or three lanes wide, and often irregular and poorly constructed, lit and drained. Initially, many were no more than dirt roads or paths along irrigation canals (klongs); while by now many are asphalted, they frequently lack sidewalks. During the rainy season, many sois are regularly flooded owing to inadequate drainage (e.g. Yingyeod, 1971). The sois were not built to handle heavy traffic, but the major ones are by now frequently congested, especially since the introduction of the one-way traffic system on the main roads in 1984 (ill. 3). Though they all branch off into the hinterland of the main roads, the sois are far from homogenous. They differ considerably in length, ecological . density and residential and functional heterogeneity. While a full typology of sois cannot yet be proposed, two polar types can be distinguished. The crucial variable for the distinction is the role of the soi in the wider urban traffic system : whether it leads to a dead end or connects between major arteries. Dead-end sois are generally sliort and quiet, less dense and functionally homogenous, mainly residential, areas (ill. (4)). Through-sois tend to be longer and noisier, denser and functionally more heterogeneous. Their greater accessibility makes them attractive to commerce, services and light industrial enterprises, which here coexist with residential areas. As they become heavily used secondary traffic arteries, however, they are shunned by higher class residents, who retreat into the quieter dead-end sois or the smaller sub-sois, branching off from the main soi. The most important larger through-sois are served by the urban bus system. Other big sois have regular song-theo (pick-up truck) collective services, while shorter ones have merely taxis, sam/or (motorcycle taxi) or just motorcyclefor-hire services. The shortest ones lack any means of public transport. The urban street-network of Bangkok becomes sparser the further one moves away from the central, mature urban area into the outer regions of the city. The number of dead-end sois hence grows relative to the number of through -sois and the differences between the two become more and more marked. The

4

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outer dead-end sois are frequently still undeveloped and of very short length, soon petering out into the countryside. The through-sois, because they are few, acquire considerable importance in the urban traffic network; their intensive use, in turn, leads to an increase in their ecological density and functional heterogeneity, differentiating them from the neighboring dead-end sois. A soi, particularly a through-soi, is usually not just a simple, single lane. Rather, from the main soi secondary sub-sois (soi-lek) and tertiary subsub-sois branch off, frequently creating a maze of little streets and alleyways; most of these terminate in a dead-end; some sub-so is however, lead into the sub-sois of neighboring main sois, thus creating a secondary traffic system, paralleling the main road, but usually used only by those drivers who are familiar with the area. Within the area of a soi, particularly a through-soi with its adjacent sub-sois, considerable internal ecological variation is usually found. Typically, the main soi is most heterogeneous and densely used, with shops and services lining the fronts of the houses. The sub-sois tend to be more purely residential, although they may harbor some workshops, small factories and other businesses, which are not dependent on the immediate access to passing pedestrians and vehicles. The density and functional complexity of the main through-soi also tends to vary along its length. It is greatest at the terminal sections, where it issues into a main road, and lowest in its middle sections : here the developed, urban area aqjoining the soi is frequently quite narrow, resembling the ribbonpattern characteristic of the outlying areas of the principal roads. Extensive areas of sparsely settled, undeveloped land are thus frequently found in the interstices between main roads. These harbor a significant potential for large-scale urban development, once the area of the soi is hit by a new wave of urban expansion, emanating from the city center (Diagram (l)).

"Soi Sunlight" : General Ecological Characteristics The particular soi chosen for study-here to be called "Soi Sunlight" (Map (1)) - is a major through-soi, connecting two main urban arteries in the eastern part of Bangkok, Sukhumvit Road and Rama IV Road. It is located a few kilometers outside the central area of the city. Its length is 1.6 km. From the main soi issue more than 40 sub-sois and narrow walkways. From some sub-sois issue additional sub-sub-sois, which at some points lead into the

A soi in Bangkok neighboring sois to both east and west. Soi Sunlight, with its sub-sois and subsub-sois thus constitutes a complex and fuzzily bounded ecological sub-system of the city. The shape of this system, however, differs along the length of the area of the soi. Which sub-soi will link up with the neighboring soi and which will not is certainly partly determined by chance factors of historical development; partly, it results from natural causes - e.g. cast of the lower-middle section, a marshy area behind a slum blocks further communication; partly, however, it is determined by social factors - thus the backs of both slums were partly fenced off, presumably to prevent the slum-dwellers access to the better residential areas, located on sub-sois of the adjoining main soi. Soi Sunlight is one of the most heterogeneous sois in the whole of Bangkok -which was one of the reasons for its selection for study. It comprises a bewildering variety of habitations, frequently coexisting at close proximity, and a variety industrial, commercial and institutional functions. The following short description of the main features of the soi cannot do justice to this variety. In 1981, when this study was initiated, Soi Sunlight featured three local markets: one at each of its ends and one close to the middle of the soi; by 1984 the market at the upper end, on the corner of Sukhumvit Rd., was demolished to make place for new construction. The length of the main soi is lined with several hundred shops, offering a wide variety of goods and services; several dozen workshops and small industries are also located along the main soi and in some of the sub-sois; their number increases towards the lower section of the main soi. Business offices began recently to penetrate its upper section. About a third down the main soi is located a major school complex, which creates a wedge between the upper, and middle and lower sections of the soi; there is also another, smaller school close to the lower end of the soi, and a fire-station. There are no other public services in the soi. Much of the main soi, and many of the sub-sois are lined by shop-houses; between these and behind them are located residential areas. A small slum area (the "First Slum") consisting of densely built wooden houses is located in the upper section of the soi, close to Sukhumvit Road; a more extensive slum area (the "Second Slum"), consisting of more sparsely built wooden-houses and shacks is located in the middle and lower sections of the soi. This slum at present takes up most of the area to the east of the main soi, up to the marshy area (Map (I) ); in the past it also extended into the area west of the soi, where its last remnants were demolished

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Erik Cohen

by 1983. The main soi is an asphalted street with sidewalks, fairly well lit at night, but badly drained. Consequently, it is frequently flooded during the rainy season,. like many other sois in the city. The soi has no bus or permanent song-theo services, but a great number of pick-ups serve the central school complex in the morning and afternoon hours. Sam/or$ and, from 1983 onwards, motorcycles-for-hire, ply the soi and its sub-sois, from and to the two major roads. The ecological and social development and present character of the soi is significantly influenced by its wider environment; the upper section is influence~ by the middle-class residential and commercial services characteristic of the adjoinin~ section of Sukhumvit Road; by its proximity to one of the city's major tourist hotel and entertainment areas located lower down on that road; and, most recently, by the expansion of CBD (central business district) functions from the central city area into Sukhumvit Road. The lower section of Soi Sunlight is influenced by its proximity to the Klong Toey Market, the major lower-class market of the city; by the intensive lower-class commercial area characteristic of the section of Rama IV Road adjoining the: soi; and, less directly, by the port of Bangkok which is situated to the south of Rama IV Road. The Ecological Dynamics of Soi Sunlight The development of Soi Sunlight can be schematically divided into four major, partly overlapping stages: (1) Rural (2) Semi-urban (3) Early urban (4) Mature urban Each of these stages is characterized by a particular type of construction and ecological differentiation; it expresses the impact on the soi of forces emanating from the wider urban framework, and brings into the area of the soi new kinds of population and new functions. Rather than attempting a detailed historical description, we shall follow this four-fold scheme in our analysis of the ecological dynamics of the soi: Stage (1): Rural: Like other areas surrounding the city, the area of the soi was, prior to the penetration of urban forces, a rural agricultural area, part of the

7

A soi in Bangkok village of Ban Kapi. The land served for rice-fields and orchards, though a significant part was marshy and unsuited for agricultural purposes. A wide area to the east of Soi Sunlight is still a marsh - though much of the marsh land had by now been drained and turned into urban use. Like much of the area surrounding the city, the land of the soi was originally owned by members of the royal family. A secondary klong (irrigation canal servin~ as a water way)ran through the area, emanating from the major klong upon which Sukhumvit Road was constructed at a later time. The soi emerged along this canal, which was eventually covered up, as part of the process of transition of the land-use in the area from rural to urban; in this the fate of the klong in Soi Sunlight resembles that of most other klongs in the city, which disappeared in the last two or three decades (Sternstein, 1982: 87, 89). As Morell and Morell (1972 : 6) pointed out, "All rice farming in the area [of Soi Sunlight] stopped after [the Second .World] war, as farmers topk jobs in the surrounding area.'' However, at the time of their study, in 1972, there were still "some poultry and pig farms, on land rented by the Chinese ... " (ibid : 6), and they remark that " ... this is ... a very advantageous location for the latter enterprise, as land rents are cheap and markets are nearby" (ibid : 6). I have observed the last of these pig farms in 1981, on the margins of the marsh; by 1982 they were gone. At the time of writing, the only remaining signs of the agricultural past of the area, are a few patches of forlorn banana trees remaining here and there on some as yet undeveloped spots in the soi (ill. (5) ). The change in land-use patterns was accompanied, and probably also partly caused, by a change in land ownership patterns. There are still one or two mom rachawong (the penultimate grade of royalty) who own tracts of land in the soi. Otherwise, however, land ownership patterns have changed. Morell and Morell (1972 : 6) already reported that "During World War II, many farmers in the area ... sold their land to speculators and then moved away from Bangkok, which was endangered by Allied bombings." The new'landlords were presumably not interested in farming, but in a more profitable, urban use of their newly acquired land. The end of the Second World War thus marks the virtual termination of the rural stage; it also marks the beginning of urban penetration. Stage (2): Semi-urban: As the pace of immigration into Bangkok increased after the Second World War, the soi became a reception ar~a for an expanding urban 'population. At first the area of the soi was but sparsely settled, but soon "People began to move into the area [of the soi] in great numbers ... building simple houses

8

Erik Cohen

and shacks on rented land" (Morell and Morell, 1972 : 6). Eventually, " ... houses and shacks built of cheap materials have been constructed on every available plot of land." By 1972, there was a "large sprawling slum straddling on both sides of the soi" (ibid : 5); it was located " ... in the center of the soi, on a piece of undeveloped land flooded throughout the year ... lt is estimated that almost 1,000 families (6,000 people) now [i.e. in 1972] live there" [ibid : 5]. The available plots of land were fou.nd mainly in the central section, ~ince the terminal sections of the soi were by then already taken up by more intensive forms of land use, under the influence of the "ribbon pattern" development on the two principal roads into which the soi issues. Though many sparsely settled areas of Bangkok became after the war "high density reception areas for newly arrived rural immigrants" (Boonyabancha, 1983 : 255), only part of those who moved into the slum on Soi Sunlight came directly from the rural areas; a significant percentage are old-timers in the city, or moved into it from smaller towns (cf. Morell and Morell, 1972:26). The slum was thus from the outset not a pure in-migrant settlement; and in the 1980's many of the residents of the "Second Slum" and of the families in the "First Slum," were inhabitants of old standing, in sharp contrast to the large and growing transient population of highly mobile singles, mainly single women, who moved mainly into the area on and around the "First Slum," deriving their livelihood from the nearby tourist area. Most of the central area of Soi Sunlight was thus eventually converted from a rural to a semi-urban land use: in terms of density and occupation the population was urban, and many inhabitants, indeed, were long-time residents in the city. But their simple, mostly one - story wooden dwellings were:informally constructed - i.e. without planning and official permits, supervision or recognition. The area was in Turner's (1969) sense, one of "uncontrolled" urban settlement. Accordingly, the locations which this "uncontrolled" housing occupied were left blank on offi cia! maps of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, as if the land on which they are located was actually empty. While at the time of writing the slums are not lift without any urban services -· water and electricity are available-some essential services do not reach them; in particular, there is no efficient system of drainage and of garbage collection. As a consequence, it is true for 1984, as it was for 1972, that in the slums of Soi Sunlight, " ... refuse and waste usually go into the swamps" {Slum People, 1972:11) upon which the slums are built, since "Municipal garbage collection services do not

9

A soi in Bangkok benefit slum households unless they happen to be on the fringe of a slum ... " This is so because, "Owing to the narrow walkways, garbage trucks could not get into the slum anyway" (ibid:1). As a consequence, as can be seen in Ill. (6), great amounts of garbage accumulate around the houses and on the walkways; and much of the slum area is frequently flooded during the rainy season - as is the section of· the main soi adjoining the slums (ill. (7) ). The people who moved into the area which was to become a slum were not "squatters" in a technical sense of the term. Rather, they rented their land from landlords at-low rates, which in 1972 were "2 baht per 4 square meters per month" (Morell and Morell, 1972:6). Ten years later the rate increased to about 3 baht per square meter, but was as yet low relative to the increase of housing rents and land prices in this part of the city. In the absence of any formal agreement, however, the landlords were at liberty to evict their slum tenants whenever 1they found it opportune (cf. Boonyabancha, 1983). Indeed, over the years the slum area contracted considerably, particularly in the middle and lower sections of the soi. The enclave of the "First Slum" persisted in the upper section of the soi, probably because of its attractiveness to the population of single females, as a consequence of which new wooden shacks and houses were added over time, the last as late as 1983. The increase in density (ill. (6)) and the relatively high rents asked by the landlords for this type of lodgings, appears to preserve the profitability of slum housing despite the rising land values. By 1983, all the remaining slum areas to the west of the main soi have been eliminated, to make place for new, intensive urban development. Thereby the difference between the western and the eastern part of the soi area has been magnified: the western part is now free of slums and its newer developments merge into the higher class area in its hinterland and in the adjoining soi. The remaining slum areas are all located to the east of the main soi; the big "Second Slum" (Ill. (8)) indeed stretches between the middle and lower part of the main soi and up to the remaining marshy area (map (1)). In terms of employment, many of the male slum dwellers work outside the slum, as laborers, factory workers, guards, hotel employees or drivers. Morell and Morell (1972:109) have already noticed in 1972 that a good deal of these are employed near their homes, and this remains also true for 1984. · Many indeed work at home, as .do e.g. many peddlars, small shop and work-shop owners, who are particularly numerous in the "Second Slum."

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Erik Cohen

Among women the phenomenon of working at home is even more widespread. In the "Second Slum" some productive activity goes on in almost every second household; this consists mainly of preparation of foods or sweets for sale, and of "front porch enterprises'~ (Slum People,l972:11 ), selling edibles and other commonly consumed products such as soft drinks, cigarettes and toiletries. Many small stores dot the area of the "Second Slum." Morell and Morell (1972:10) already pointed out the high percentage of "working wives [employed as] street hawkers, vendors, stall operators [and] shop owners·~· They also noticed that " ... the slum mother [who] works, frequently does so on her own front porch" (ibid: 111); and they continue: "This is one of the most important aspects of slum life in Bangkok. Walking through any slum, one may see a mother frying bananas over a charcoal pot while she suckles her child, another twirling egg yolks and sugar through a kettle of boiling syrup to make candy, another giving her neighbor a fastidiousjpedicure over a plastic bowl of cold soapy water ... At day's end, the left-over bananas are either eaten or. .. thrown down under the walkways, the 'shops' closed, and the day's earnings spent at the house of yet another neighbor who sells eggs, vegetables, and fish sauce." (ibid:111). Concomitantly, "Other housewives manage to supplement the family income by contracting work to do at home, such as paper bag making ... a popular activity in which other family members can also participate, particularly the elderly. Some women take in laundry, others make candy and desserts on a contractual basis, look after other people's children, make the paper flowers required for religious purposes in Chinese temples, or make flower garlands for their children to sell in the streets." (ibid: 111). This description continues generally to hold true for the slums in Soi Sunlight in 1984, as it did in 1972. It should be added, however, that even those male or female peddlars and vendors who ply their trade outside their homes, do this also predominantly in the area of the soi: either on the main soi itself, or in one of the many sub-sois and yards around it. Such activity is particularly intensive in the front and the surroundings of the "First Slum," owing to the large mobile population of singles in that area, who do not normally maintain a household, but acquire all of their daily necessities, including food, from the shops, stalls and food peddlars in their immediate neighborhood (Cf. Cohen, in press). We can thus conclude that the semi-urban style is characterized by a low degree of ecological differentiation. This is manifest on several levels: ( 1) . A significant part of the production process is conducted in the house-

11

A soi in Bangkok holds; women in particular work at home at a variety of productive tasks. (2) The place of work of those who do not work in their household, is frequently located in its vicinity, in the soi itself, or, indeed, in the very sub-soi or slum in which they live. (3) Much of the production in the soi - of goods as well as services - is consumed by the inhabitants of the soi itself. Stage (3): Early urban: In Soi Sunlight this stage started about twenty to thirty years ago, but the period of its major impact was probably in the 1970's. It continued up to the early 1980's even as the area of the soi was hit by the more recent stage of mature urban development. In the early-urban stage, buildings of hard materials were constructed in an at least minimally "controlled" manner; the houses were laid out in an orderly way along the soi and the sub-sois and duly numbered and entered into the maps of the urban administration - as against the haphazard location and official disregard for the wooden dwellings in the slums. The dominant form of construction in this stage were shop-houses, owned and inhabited primarily by the Chinese7 (ill. (9) and (10)). During the period dominated by the construe~ tion of shop-houses, some other types of dwellings, such as colonial-type houses and a few villas were also constructed in the quieter areaS of the sub-soiS and sub-sub-

sois. The shop-houses were constructed in a ribbon-like pattern along much of the front of the main soi, and particularly its lower sections. They also formed several short sub-sois in the upper section of the soi. The shop houses replaced part of the "uncontrolled" wooden structures of the earlier, semi-urban stage along the front of the main soi and in the sub-sois. Thus the basic geographic pattern, prevailing in much of the middle and lower sections of the soi until the present day developed: front-row shop-houses screening off the wooden houses and shacks of the slum in their hinterland. Most shop-houses enjoy more orderly urban services than the slum areas, even though their shops also frequently suffer from flooding, since drainage of the main soi is in many sections still faulty (ill. (7)). But on the whole the environmental conditions of the shop-houses are significantly better th~. those characteristic of most wooden houses in the slums. 7. Chinese shop houses (also called row - houses) are an ubiquitous feature of Bangkok's urban landscape; however, they only rarely attracted the attention of students of the city.

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Erik Cohen

The appearance and quality of shop-houses underwent considerable evolution over the years. The early shop-houses were simple, two story edifices (ill. (11)). The predominant type of shop-houses later on became three-story buildings of the kind common all over the city (ill. (10)). Shop-houses of this type line the main soi. The last major complex of shop-houses, built in the 1980's in an area off the soi. also consists primarily of this type. This complex filled a large interstitial piece of land to the west of the lower middle section of the soi (ill. (12) and (13)). 8 A more advanced type of three-story shop-houses was also used for part of the housing in another major and more modern and heterogeneous complex, here to be dubbed "Cinema Complex," constructed at about the same time on a heretofore marshy area to the east of the upper section of the soi. along Sukhumvit Road (map (1)). This complex is many respects signifies the transition from the early to the mature urban stage, as we shall yet see. Most recently, modern four-story buildings with shops at their first floor started to appear in the soi (ill. (14)). While technically still "shop-houses," in that the access to the upper floors is possible only through the shops (since the houses have no separate entrances), stylistically and functionally these modern structures are far removed indeed. from the traditional Chinese shop-houses of an earlier period, and should be regarded as part of the mature stage of urban development. The shop-houses differ structurally from the wooden houses and shacks of the semi-urban stage in that they are formally recognized or approved and constructed of hard building materials. Functionally, however, they still support a "traditional" rather than modern urban way of life. Their distinguishing feature is the unification of the residential and the productive functions in the same location, even if these functions are separated within the building itself. As Ong (1978:91) pointed out, in the shop-house, "Shops and homes are a single unit: if a shop is located in a simple one-story building. the rear is used as a home; if it is a building with more than two stories, the second floor is used for storage and living quarters." In the past, in particular, the shop-houses in the soi were typically inhabited by members of a single household, who lived and worked within its precincts. Even at present, most streetlevel "shops". serve productive purposes, either as . stores or .as work-shops, service. shops, or storage rooms of business enterprises. Many, however, especially in the sub-sols'. are empty or used as garages or living rooms. In some shop-houses, especially in the upper part of the soi. rooms or cubicles are rented to lodgers; they thus cease 8.

This complex was marked, but it is no! fully detailed, on the left margin of Map (1).

13

A soi in Bangkok

to be simple single-household dwellings. It appears that many of the most recently constructed buildings which, as mentioned above, still preserve the form of the shophouse, are not used in the traditional way at all, the upper stories being used for business or rented out, while the owners of the business establishments live elsewhere. The shops and services of most of the traditional shop-houses were at the outset oriented primarily to the local population, i.e.to the inhabitants of the soi and of its hinterland. In the early stage of urbanization Soi Sunlight remained thus in many respects still a semi-autonomous ecological sub-system, with the inhabitants living and working within its confines an~ satisfying most of their needs from the shops and services located in it. It is this relatively high degree of ecological integration which came under attack as Soi Sunlight was hit by the new forces of metropolitan penetration emananting from the central city, which initiated the transition from the early to the mature stage .of urban development. Stage (4): Mature Urban: This stage, which began in the late 1970's, engendered by 1984 some significant changes in the appearance and functioning of the soi. It is characterized by the erection of modem types of buildings, a growing separation between places of residence and work, and the penetration of urban-wide services and CBD functions into the area of Soi Sunlight; all these processes gradually weaken the ecological integration of the soi. While colonial houses and villas were the early harbingers of the approaching differentiation between the residential and productive functions, the stage of mature urban development came into prominence with the construction of a series of apartment houses facing the upper part of the main soi from the west, opposite the "First Slum." However, like the frontal parts of this slum, these apartment houses catered, and still cater, primarily to a transient local and foreign population rather than to permanent residents, for whom the soi is "home." The lower part of the soi, characterized heretofore by mostly Chinese shophouses and light industrial work-shops, was in the early 1980's also invaded by modem residential construction: several sub-sois were .built up with rows of modem duplexes, which in one area constituted a fenced-oif.muban (housing estate) (ill. (15) and Map (1)). As land values rose rapidly in Bangkok in general (Durand-Lasserve, 1980) and in the area of Sukhumvit Road in particular, the rentability of more intensive housing developments increased. As in many other parts of the city in the early 1980's several high-rise condominia (Meeker-Buppha, 1980) were constructed in

14

Erik Cohen

the dead-end sois in 'the immediate neighborhood of Soi Sunlight (ill. (i6) and (17)), but not, however, in that soi itself. Their absence is here probably due to the traffic, noise and pollution common on this very active through-soi,· which is not considered attractive to prospective higher-class residents of condomonia. Apparently for the same reasons, some more expensive apartment houses and a high-class housing estate have also located in the dead-end soi to the west of Soi Sunlight, thus creating a high-class enclave contrasting sharply with the slums and unattractive shop-houses on Soi Sunlight.However, the accessibility and commercial character of that soi attracted to it new and modern construction projects and new types of functions oriented to a city-wide, rather than local, clientele.· The most massive expression of the penetration of metropolitan forces into the soi are several big modern complexes and single buildings which in the 1980's began to transform the earlier parochial appearance of the soi. In contrast to other sois in the area, which were transformed by high-rise condominia, in Soi Sunlight the transformation is in the first place effected by the introduction of complexes co~taining residential, business, service and office functions. Two such complexes were established during the 1980's: the earlier and more heterogeneous "Cinema Complex" already mentioned above (Map (1 )), is located off Sukhumvit Road, and serves as a receptacle for the overspill of metropolitan functions from the main road into its hinterland, i.e. the area of the soi. It is centered on an English-language cinema, and includes both shop-houses and office-buildings. The second, more recently constructed "Pillared House Complex," is close to, but does not adjoin, Rama IV Road (Map ( 1)); it is influenced by the forces of commercial expansion active on that road. Here the first pillared building in the ostentatiously monumental style, fashionable in recent commercial construction in Bangkok was erected (ill. ( 18)). In addition to these two major complexes, individual modern buildings are presently cropping up on various other location on the main soi. Prominent among these are a four-story luxurious shopping and residential structure, built in the upper part of the soi, backcto-back with a condominium located on the dead-end soi to the west of Soi Sunlight (ill. (19) an{4 .Map (1 )); and another four story building behind which expensive duplexed are in' process of construction, built on land previously occupied by the remnants of a slum, to the west of the middle section of the main soi (Map (1)). Paralleling this new kind of development, a trend of change in the nature of the businesses and services located in Soi Sunlight became perceptible. New types

15

A soi in Bangkok

of enterprises which cater to a city-wide clientele rather than merely to the local inhabitants were attracted to the area of the soi. These consist of specialized businesses such as a number of trading companies, a huge carpet store, electrical equipment stores, a sports goods store and a dental depot, as well as of specialized services, such as veterinary clinics and tourist and shipping agencies, and the above mentioned English-language cinema. In addition, some shops selling high-quality goods, such as a ladies' fashion shop, which obviously cater to a larger population than the middle and upper class inhabitants of the sub-sois, also appeared in the soi. Such enterprises are located mostly in the recently constructed modern complexes; but they are also found in some of the older shop-houses. Many of these enterprises represent an over-spill of similar functions from the main roads into their immediate hinterland; others, however, are dispersed through the length of Soi Sunlight, which is apparently in the process of becoming a secondary urban artery, like some other through-sois in this part of Bangkok. The emergence of businesses and services catering to a wider population is thus a functional correlate to the structural changes in the soi; both are expressions of the lateral urban expansion, effected by the impact of novel metropolitan forces upon the soi. One interesting visual aspect of these developments is the recent proliferation of large, highly visible, frequently illuminated signs, advertising the businesses or the goods they offer. This visual innovation is an obvious consequence of the orientation of these new enterprises and services to an anonymous public, coming from outside the soi and hence unacquainted with its business life - unlike the local inhabitants for whom such aavertisements would be superfluous. Moreover, since the new businesses are interested in attracting outsiders who merely pass through the soi, usually by the advertisements must be big and loud enough to catch car or on motorcycle, their attention. The most prominent example of the penetration of metropolitan forces into the area of Soi Sunlight, however, is the growing presence in this area of CBD functions -company headquarter and business associations. These chose their abode in the upper section of the soi, close to the Sukhumvit Road, and especially in the new complex adjoining that road, where several buildings serve them exclusively, offering no residential space at all; this is the first case of specialized non-residential construction in the area of the soi. At the time of writing, this form of metropolitan penetration is mostly an overspill phenomenon, but with the construction of ever more spacious modern buildings in the soi, such functions will in all probability

16

Erik Cohen

penetrate it to a greater depth. The penetration of the soi by modern businesses and company offices, in turn, l;lrings a new day-time working population into the area of the soi: office employees and personnel whose place of work is located in the area of the soi, but who reside elsewhere; these, as we shall see, have in turn a further effect on the services offered by the soi. The mature stage of urban development of the soi thus leads to a process of growing separation between the place of residence and the place of work: on the one hand, it brings into the soi a population - living in apartment houses, duplexes and other residential structures, - whose places of work are outside the soi, ou the other the new businesses and offices penetrating the area of the soi bring into it hand, employees who reside elsewhere. The mature urban stage leads to a gradual weakening of the ecological integration of the soi and to its greater incorporation into the citywide ecological division of labor. In this study only the recent inception of this process has been observed; but there is little doubt that it will continue in the future, eventually changing not only the physical appearance of the soi, but also its ecology, and with it its social composition. Discussion The four stages of the ecological development of the soi, described above, can be analytically represented as specific configurations of three principal variables, i.e. the nature of land use, the extent of formal control over construction and ecological differentiation (Table (1)): Table (1): Stages of Ecological Development of'Soi Sunlight by Principal.Variables

Stage Stage (1): Stage (2): Stage (3): Stage (4):

Rural Semi-urban Early urban Mature urban

Land Use

Control by Authorities

Ecological Differentiation

RuralUrban+

UncontrolledControlled +

LowHigh+

+ + +

+ +

+

17

A soi in Bangkok Table (l) demonstrates that the process of urran development of the soi is constituted of stages which form an ordered Guttman-scale: the transition from rural (stage (I)) to urban begins with "uncontrolled" housing and a low degree of ecological differentiation (stage (2)); it is followed by a stage of "controlled" construction under continuing low differentiation (stage (3)); it eventuates in the currently evolving stage of "controlled" construction accompanied by a high degree of ecological differentiation (stage (4)). It should be emphasized, however, that the stages had no sharp temporal boundaries; neither did they completely supersede one another. Rather, a considerable overlap between them is evident, with the last phase of an earlier stage continuing into the early phase of the following one. Since the later stages invaded only part of the area taken up by the preceding ones, the present landscape of the soi features elements of all four stages. Of the rural stage (1), only isolated reminders can be encountered in some marginal or as yet undeveloped spots in the area of the soi (Ill. (5)). The semi-urban stage (2) is represented by extensive but receding slum areas, particularly in the lower part of the soi. The early urban stage (3), expanding until recently, provided most of the principal housing stock in the soi; it began to recede only in 1984 with the destruction of some of the oldest shotrhouses to make way for new construction; the late urban stage (4) is represented by several modern complexes and buildings, some still in process of construction; it is at present expanding rapidly, invading particularly the remaining slum areas. As a consequence of the distinctive pattern of its ecological development, Soi Sunlight is presently marked by considerable ecological heterogeneity, accompanied by social diversity. Structures pertaining to various stage of its development, with correspondingly different populations, closely adjoin one another (ill. (20) - (21)): the soi is thus a geographical and social mosaic, composed of buildings of sharply varying appearance, quality and function, and of populations of diverse ethnic, sociocultural and socio-economic backgrounds: The veteran slum dwellers are mainly central Thais, and Chinese. The more recent arrivals to the slums are predominantly Thai-Lao speaking north-easterners (lsan people). Some higher class Thais, including low-ranking royalty, occupy some of the most sumptuous residences in the soi, which at least in one case border on a slum. The shop houses are occupied primarily by Chinese, though some are at the time of writing also inhabited by Thais. In the upper part of the soi, close to Sukhumvit Road, there is a small concentration of .Indian families. The inhabitants of the apartment houses are highly mixed, with a strong foreign (farang) element. Foreigners also live in some of the colonial houses and villas in the sub-sois; some foreign drotrouts live in the slums (Cohen, forth-

18

Erik Cohen

coming). Though they often live in close proximity, there is little social intercourse between the different groups of inhabitants of the soi. People living in one type of habitation, e.g. wooden slum-houses or shop-houses have little interest in and contact with the inhabitants of the other types. There persists, however, a considerable degree of functional integration, with the socio-economically lower groups, in particular, deriving much of their income from work in the soi and buying in it many of their daily necessities. Much of this economic activity is highly localized in sub-sois or other sections of the area of the soi. Social life, i.e. daily interaction between the inhabitants, is similarly localized in the immediate neighborhood, the yard or the house. The Chinese shop keepers keep to themselves, the residents of apartment houses are isolated from street life, though within the larger ones there is much mutual visiting between residents. Socializing is common in the many small restaurants and eating places in front of the slums (Ill. (22)). This endows the soi with the ambience of a vibrant street-life, but this is actually restricted to a relatively small number of lower-class inhabitants, many of them transients. Higher class residents are rarely seen on the street, but mostly rush through it in their cars. The soi as a whole, hence, lacks an over-all social integration and does not consitute a "community." Among the lower class residents in the upper section of the soi one particular group stands out, endowing much of this area with a peculiar character: this section is the abode of a large transient population of si~gles, mostly Thai girls engaged in different forms of tourist-oriented prostitution (Cohen, 1982 and in press) and of some young Thai males who live among and sometimes with the girls. The penetration and proliferation of this population in the soi is mainly due to the fact that at the period of the expansion of the nearby tourist hotel and entertainment area,during the Vietnam war, when large numbers of American G.I.'s came to Bangkok on R. & R. furloughs, the girls working in that area found in the soi, and particularly in the "First Slum," conveniently located and cheap accommodations. With the penetration and expansion of this transient population into that area, the soi acquired a reputation as a place of cheap lodging and food, which attracted to it additional Thai girls engaged in Tourist - oriented prostitution, as well as other transient elements, including foreign drop-outs (Cohen, forthcoming). The transient population, in

19

A soi in Bangkok turn, had some significant effects on the ecology of this part of the soi:9 as it tended to concentrate in the area close to the main soi, landlords constructed additional rooming-houses, specifically for rent to transients, in some cases even bringing in old barracks and erecting them in the "First Slum." This increased the density of that slum and probably contributed to its preservation as an enclave of low-level housing in an area close to Sukhumvit Road_. the land prices in which are rapidly rising. The presence of that transient population, encouraged the establishment of a variety of shops and services catering to their needs, particularly restaurants, eating-places and food-stalls (ill. (22)). The arrival of a growing number of employees of the offices and businesses which have been established in the upper section of the soi in the wake of its recent penetration by metropolitan forces, created an additional demand for such services, thus leading to their further proliferation. Only the future will show how resilient this particular enclave of the "First Slum" will be to the growing forces of metropolitan expansion. Conclusions This paper examined the process of "lateral urban expansion" which was rarely, if ever, reported in the literature: the expansion of urbanization from the maio arteries penetrating the countryside from the central city, into the hinterland lying between them. This process was illustrated with a detailed case study of a soi (lane) in Bangkok. The principal finding of this study is that the process of lateral urban expansion has, in the case under investigation, proceeded by four analytically distinct but temporarily partly overlapping stages. While the latter stages invaded some areas built up in the earlier ones, none supersed~d its predecessors completely, so that the present landscape of the soi is a highly heterogeneous mosaic of areas built up during different stages, with a correspondingly segmented population. It was demonstrated that during the earlier stages of development, the soi constituted in significant respects a semi-autonomous ecological sub-system, even though it was never a socially integrated community. The recent penetration of metropolitan forces gradually destroys this autonomy as it integrates the soi into the city-wide ecological division of labor. These forces are presently accelerating and striking at the weakest constituents of "the present ecological structure of the soi - the still extensive slum areas. The eviction of these areas, in Soi Sunlight as elsewhere in Bangkok, will

9.

The specific ecological effects of the presence of this population will be the subject of a separate publication.

20

Erik Cohen

make available large tracts of land for big new urban construction complexes, for which there is not sufficient available space along the main arteries. Such "interstitial developments" may eventually completely transform the appearance and ecology of the soi and turn it into an integral part of the central city, while forcing its slum dwellers to look for alternative habit~tions elsewhere. Since such processes as described here occur, in fact, throughout the city (Boonyabancha, 1983), this population will probably experience increasing hardships in its search for housing commensurate to the means at its disposal. As in other sois, the ecological intensity and complexity was also found to be greatest at both terminal sections of Soi Sunlight, which were greatly affected by the overspill from the two main urban arteries linked by the soi. The nature of the developments at each terminal, however, differed according to the nature of the land use in the adjoining main artery. Since Sukhumvit Road is generally more modern than Rama IV Road, it was mainly from the side of this road that modern enterprises and CBD functions penetrated Soi Sunlight. The middle section of the soi has until recently been least intensely used. This section, therefore, offers the greatest opportunities for "interstitial development" in the future, of the kind exemplified by the last major shop-house complex, built in the 1980's. As the interstitial areas are built up, and the main soi comes to serve city-wide rather than localized functions, Soi Sunlight will gradually lose its character as a "lane" and become a regular "street," serving as a secondary artery of the urban network. The process of urbanization, spear-headed many years ago by the penetration of major urban arteries into the agricultural land surrounding the central city, will thereby reach completion - and only small enclaves of buildings hailing from the earlier stages of the soi's development will remind the visitor of its past.

IGl ·· r ~-::S 6ii :

:I

>('} 1 : : : : : _

MAIN RD.

~

Urbanized area

[ ···]

Semi - urbanized area

I

Und eve loped area

•

~

Shop houses

k;}::j

Recent constructions

~

Buildings under construction

!::::;::::::: :::)]

S Iu m s

0

•

•••

•

I

Main rd.

Source: BMA , planning di v ision(revised by author)

Ma p (1): Soi Sunlight: Principal Ecological Features

-

Soi Sub-soi (direction only)

Diagram (1): Schematic Representation of Ecological Structure of Typical Through-soi

MAIN RD .

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

' l

: : ::::::::::::::: :\

::::::::::::::::: :!

.: : :::::: : : : ::: :: : :! :::::: :::: :: : :::: :;

w.~~:~9:~5. :::

:\

.·· ..· .··· .... · · ~·' • .······· . .... . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I · . . .... .

. . . • • • . -tO · . . . .• • . .. .. . . . . . . ...... . ::: ::::: l il::::::: : •

•

••

•

0

••

••

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•

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•

•

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•••••

(JJ • • • • • •

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. . . . . . . . ·o· . . .... .

:::::::: l-:::::::::

21

A soi in Bangkok

References ALLISON, G. H., 1978: Jumbo English- Thai Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Bangkok:Odeon Store. BOONYABANCHA, S., 1983: Causes and Effects of Slum Eviction in Bangkok, in; Sh. Angel et. al. (eds.): Land for Housing the Poor, Bangkok:Select Books, pp. 254-280. BUNNAG, A., 1978: A Study of Land Use and Socio-economic and Geographic Change in the Suburban Areas of Bangkok, in: R. D. Hill, J. M. Bray (eds.): Geography and the Environment in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong:Hong Kong University Press, pp. 185-192. COHEN, E., 1982: Thai Girls and Farang Men: The Edge of Ambiguity, Annals of Tourism Research, 9(3):403-428. _ _ _ _ _ _, in press: Open-ended Prostitution as a Skillful Game of Luck; Opportunity, Risk and Security among Tourist-Oriented Prostitutes in Bangkok; in: H. Phillips (ed.): Urban Anthropology in Thailand (Provisional title). _ _ _ _ _ _,,forthcoming: Drop Out Expatriates, Urban Anthropology. DURAND-LASSERVE, A., 1980: Speculation on Urban Land, Land Development and Housing in Bangkok: Historical Process and Social Function, Paper, Thai-European Seminar on Social Change in Thailand, Amsterdam:University of Amsterdam (mimeo). HONGLADAROMP, T., 1973: Klong Toey- 1973: A House to House Survey of the Squatter Slum, Bangkok:Thammasat University and Asian Institute of Technology. KORFF, R.,1983: Bangkok: Urban Systems and Everyday Life, Bielefeld: University of Bielefeld, Fakultat fur Sozologie, (mimeo). LONDON, B., 1980: Metropolis and Nation in Thailand, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. MEEKER-BUPPHA, L., 1982: Condominium: the Great Divide, ASEAN Investor, (September). MORELL, S. AND D. MORELL, 1972: Six Slums in Bangkok: Problems of Life and Options for Action, Bangkok: UNICEF. O'CONNOR, R. A., 1979: Hierarchy and Community in Bangkok, [Sewaneez, Tenn.]. University of the South, Department of Anthropology. ONG, Sh. E., 1978: The Impact of Urbanization on the Environment- a Case Study of Bangkok, in: Hill, R. D. and J. M. Bray (eds.): Geography and the Environment in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 87-104.

22

Erik Cohen PRAMUANRATKARN, A., Th., 1979: Impact of Urbanization on a Peripheral Area of Bangkok. Thailand. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Washington. RABIBHADANA, A., 1975: Bangkok Slum: Aspects of Social Organization. Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University. _ _ _ _ __, 1977: Bangkok Slum: Organization and Needs. Bangkok:Thammasat

University, Thai Khadi Research Institute. Slum, 1982: Slum: on Annotated Bibliography. Bangkok:Chulalongkorn University, Academic Resource Center and Social Research Institute. Slum People, 1972: The Slum People: Everything Goes Into the Swamp, The Notion. 3.12.1972:11.

STERNSTEIN, L., 1982: Portrait of Bangkok. Bangkok:Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. _ _ _ _ _ _, 1984: The Growth of the Population of the World's Preeminent "Primate City:" Bangkok at its Bicentenary, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 15(1):43-68. TEILHET-WALDORF, S., 1978: Self-Employed in o Bangkok Neighborhood: An Anthropological Study of on Informal Sector, Ph.D. Diss., Binghampton: State University of New York. TURNER, J. F. C., 1969: Uncontrolled Urban Settlement: Problems and Policies, in: G. Breese·(ed.): The City in Newly Developing Countries. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, pp, 507-534. Urbanization, 1975: Urbanization in the Bangkok Central Region. Bangkok:Social Science Association of Thailand. YINGYEOD, S., 1971: Soi Problem on the Rise, Bangkok Post. 25.7.1971.

1. Sukhumvit Rd. -- General View* '

2. Traffic on Sukhumvit Rd. *ALL photographs by the author

3.

Traffic Congestion on Soi Sunlight

4. Dead-end Soi

5.

Wooden Houses and Banana Clump on Margin of the Area of Soi Sunlight

6.

Garbage Accumulation in "First Slum"

7.

Flooding infront of "First Slum"

8.

Wooden Shacks in "Second Slum"

9. Shop-Houses in Soi Sunlight

10. Shop- Houses in Soi Sunlight

11. Early Shop-Houses, Lower Section of Soi Sunlight

\

12. Shop-House Complex Under Construction in Interstitial Area off Soi Sunlight

13. Shop- House Complex in Interstitial Area (1983)

14.

New Four- St01y Building Under Construction (1984)

15.

Housing Estate ojf Lower Section of Soi Sunlight

16.

Condominia in Soi adjoining Soi Sunlight(1981)

17. Condominium in Neighboring Soi (1984)

18. New Construction in Ostentatious Commercial Style in Soi Sunlight (1984)

19.

Condominium at back of New Four-story Building 20. New Shop Houses Adjoining First Slum (1980) (ill.J4) on Soi Sunlight (1984)

..

.'-- ... -4flll ... ,·..,.., 1,11.

",! ..,. I ,'II

21. Mix of Old and New Construction in the Area of 12. Food-stalls in Front of "First Slum" Soi Sunlight (1984)

1

A Soi in Bangkok the Dynamics of Lateral Urban Expansion 1 ERIK COHEN*

Introduction Bangkok has been extensively, but selectively studied. The bulk of studies refers to historical or sociological aspects of the city as a whole. 2 Micro-level studies of local areas and neighborhoods are, however, limited to slums3 and new suburban developments,4 to the neglect of other forms of urban life. No studies of socio-ecological change in the already urbanized areas of the city have been published in English. Particularly conspicuous is the absence of studies of one of the most ubiquitous and characteristic ecological features of the citythe numerous and variegated sois (lanes) which branch out of the major traffic arteries all over the urban area. In 1971, the number of sois was estimated at 2000 (Yinyeod, 1971); today there are probably many more. Virtually nothing, except for a few newspaper articles, 5 is available on the sois of Bangkok. It was partly with a view to help close this gap that the study on which this paper is based was inititiated in 1981. The aim of this paper, however, is not merely to describe a little noticed urban phenomenon; its wider theoretical aim is to conceptualize and illustrate the. dynamics of soi development as a process of "lateral urban expansion," i.e. the growth of urbanization away from the main arteries of the city into their *Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

1.

This paper reports part of the findings of a longitudinal urban anthropological study conducted in the summers of 1981 - 4 in Bangkok under a grant from the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose support is here gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to the National Research Council of Thailand for its kind assistance in the conduct of this study, and to Arie Shachar for his useful comments.

2. For some of the principal studies of Bangkok see Sternstein (1982) and (1984); London (1980), Urbanization (1976), O'Connor (1979). 3. See e.g. Morell and Morell (1972), Rabibhadana (1975) and (1977), Korff (1983), Boonyabancha (1983), Hongladaromp (1973), and Teilhet- Waldorf (1978);· for a bibliography see Slum (1982). 4. See e.g. Bunnag, 1978, Pramuanratkarn, 1979. 5. See e.g. Yingeod. 1971.

2

Erik Cohen

hinterland. The Process of Expansion of Bangkok Bangkok expanded and still expands at a tremendous and accelerating According to Pramuanratkarn (1979 : 58-60), this expansion proceeded mainly along the major traffic arteries which extend to the north and the east of the city, engendering a "ribbon-development" (ibid : 58) in the outer areas of urban penetration. Bunnag (1978 : 187) has similarly argued that : "Expansion in Bangkok generally takes the form of strip development into the rural areas along main roads or highways." Areas remote from the main arteries often remain in a rural or semi-rural state long after the emergence of these urban "ribbons" or "strips." Since such areas usually lie between major arteries, they are "interstitial," even if the distances between the arteries, in the outer regions of the city, may be very large. Urbanization, however, does not stop with the penetration of ribbons or strips. These are eventually followed by a process of ever deeper expansion of the city into this interstitial hinterland, until the whole area is eventually urbanized, as are the mature, inner regions of the city. However, little attention has been paid to that process, whether in Bangkok, or for that matter, in other rapidly growing cities in the developing world. rate. 6

The sois of Bangkok : Definition, Characteristics, and Variety A soi is a lane· or a "small street branching off a main road (thanon)" (Allison, 1978 : 223). From the main roads such as Sukhumvit and Pahonyothin, which are two of the principal axes of penetration, branch off tens of sois, some short, some several kilometers long, which are the secondary carriers of urbanization into the interstitial areas. In the inner city, where urbanization reached a mature stage, the sois are by now often indistinguishable from the roads, creating with them an often irregular grid-like street pattern. Outside this central area, however, significant differences between the sois and the roads still persist; and the further out one goes, the greater these differences. The major roads are by now at least 6.

The urban area of Bangkok expanded at an accelerating rate, from 13kd in 1900, to 46kd in 1936, 96kd in 1958, 184km2 in 1971 and 330kd in 1981 (Sternstein, 1982:9o- 91). Population estimates, especially for the earlier periods are unreliable (ibid: 93}, but a similarly accel!!rating trend of growth can be established: the population of Bangkok in 1900 counted probably fewer than 500,000 inhabitants (Pramuanratkarn, 1979:50); by 1982 it reached about 5 million (Sternstein, 1982:92 - 93).

3

A soi in Bangkok six lanes broad, straight, well constructed and well lit and drained mass-transit arteries intended to serve the huge volume of traffic characteristic of the city (ill. (I) - (2)). They are equipped with traffic-lights, pedestrian over-passes and traffic signs, intended to facilitate the flow of traffic. They are served by mass transport facilities consisting of air conditioned buses, regular buses, and, particularly at night, converted passenger trucks. In contrast to the roads, the sois are generally much narrower, at most two or three lanes wide, and often irregular and poorly constructed, lit and drained. Initially, many were no more than dirt roads or paths along irrigation canals (klongs); while by now many are asphalted, they frequently lack sidewalks. During the rainy season, many sois are regularly flooded owing to inadequate drainage (e.g. Yingyeod, 1971). The sois were not built to handle heavy traffic, but the major ones are by now frequently congested, especially since the introduction of the one-way traffic system on the main roads in 1984 (ill. 3). Though they all branch off into the hinterland of the main roads, the sois are far from homogenous. They differ considerably in length, ecological . density and residential and functional heterogeneity. While a full typology of sois cannot yet be proposed, two polar types can be distinguished. The crucial variable for the distinction is the role of the soi in the wider urban traffic system : whether it leads to a dead end or connects between major arteries. Dead-end sois are generally sliort and quiet, less dense and functionally homogenous, mainly residential, areas (ill. (4)). Through-sois tend to be longer and noisier, denser and functionally more heterogeneous. Their greater accessibility makes them attractive to commerce, services and light industrial enterprises, which here coexist with residential areas. As they become heavily used secondary traffic arteries, however, they are shunned by higher class residents, who retreat into the quieter dead-end sois or the smaller sub-sois, branching off from the main soi. The most important larger through-sois are served by the urban bus system. Other big sois have regular song-theo (pick-up truck) collective services, while shorter ones have merely taxis, sam/or (motorcycle taxi) or just motorcyclefor-hire services. The shortest ones lack any means of public transport. The urban street-network of Bangkok becomes sparser the further one moves away from the central, mature urban area into the outer regions of the city. The number of dead-end sois hence grows relative to the number of through -sois and the differences between the two become more and more marked. The

4

Erik Cohen

outer dead-end sois are frequently still undeveloped and of very short length, soon petering out into the countryside. The through-sois, because they are few, acquire considerable importance in the urban traffic network; their intensive use, in turn, leads to an increase in their ecological density and functional heterogeneity, differentiating them from the neighboring dead-end sois. A soi, particularly a through-soi, is usually not just a simple, single lane. Rather, from the main soi secondary sub-sois (soi-lek) and tertiary subsub-sois branch off, frequently creating a maze of little streets and alleyways; most of these terminate in a dead-end; some sub-so is however, lead into the sub-sois of neighboring main sois, thus creating a secondary traffic system, paralleling the main road, but usually used only by those drivers who are familiar with the area. Within the area of a soi, particularly a through-soi with its adjacent sub-sois, considerable internal ecological variation is usually found. Typically, the main soi is most heterogeneous and densely used, with shops and services lining the fronts of the houses. The sub-sois tend to be more purely residential, although they may harbor some workshops, small factories and other businesses, which are not dependent on the immediate access to passing pedestrians and vehicles. The density and functional complexity of the main through-soi also tends to vary along its length. It is greatest at the terminal sections, where it issues into a main road, and lowest in its middle sections : here the developed, urban area aqjoining the soi is frequently quite narrow, resembling the ribbonpattern characteristic of the outlying areas of the principal roads. Extensive areas of sparsely settled, undeveloped land are thus frequently found in the interstices between main roads. These harbor a significant potential for large-scale urban development, once the area of the soi is hit by a new wave of urban expansion, emanating from the city center (Diagram (l)).

"Soi Sunlight" : General Ecological Characteristics The particular soi chosen for study-here to be called "Soi Sunlight" (Map (1)) - is a major through-soi, connecting two main urban arteries in the eastern part of Bangkok, Sukhumvit Road and Rama IV Road. It is located a few kilometers outside the central area of the city. Its length is 1.6 km. From the main soi issue more than 40 sub-sois and narrow walkways. From some sub-sois issue additional sub-sub-sois, which at some points lead into the

A soi in Bangkok neighboring sois to both east and west. Soi Sunlight, with its sub-sois and subsub-sois thus constitutes a complex and fuzzily bounded ecological sub-system of the city. The shape of this system, however, differs along the length of the area of the soi. Which sub-soi will link up with the neighboring soi and which will not is certainly partly determined by chance factors of historical development; partly, it results from natural causes - e.g. cast of the lower-middle section, a marshy area behind a slum blocks further communication; partly, however, it is determined by social factors - thus the backs of both slums were partly fenced off, presumably to prevent the slum-dwellers access to the better residential areas, located on sub-sois of the adjoining main soi. Soi Sunlight is one of the most heterogeneous sois in the whole of Bangkok -which was one of the reasons for its selection for study. It comprises a bewildering variety of habitations, frequently coexisting at close proximity, and a variety industrial, commercial and institutional functions. The following short description of the main features of the soi cannot do justice to this variety. In 1981, when this study was initiated, Soi Sunlight featured three local markets: one at each of its ends and one close to the middle of the soi; by 1984 the market at the upper end, on the corner of Sukhumvit Rd., was demolished to make place for new construction. The length of the main soi is lined with several hundred shops, offering a wide variety of goods and services; several dozen workshops and small industries are also located along the main soi and in some of the sub-sois; their number increases towards the lower section of the main soi. Business offices began recently to penetrate its upper section. About a third down the main soi is located a major school complex, which creates a wedge between the upper, and middle and lower sections of the soi; there is also another, smaller school close to the lower end of the soi, and a fire-station. There are no other public services in the soi. Much of the main soi, and many of the sub-sois are lined by shop-houses; between these and behind them are located residential areas. A small slum area (the "First Slum") consisting of densely built wooden houses is located in the upper section of the soi, close to Sukhumvit Road; a more extensive slum area (the "Second Slum"), consisting of more sparsely built wooden-houses and shacks is located in the middle and lower sections of the soi. This slum at present takes up most of the area to the east of the main soi, up to the marshy area (Map (I) ); in the past it also extended into the area west of the soi, where its last remnants were demolished

6

Erik Cohen

by 1983. The main soi is an asphalted street with sidewalks, fairly well lit at night, but badly drained. Consequently, it is frequently flooded during the rainy season,. like many other sois in the city. The soi has no bus or permanent song-theo services, but a great number of pick-ups serve the central school complex in the morning and afternoon hours. Sam/or$ and, from 1983 onwards, motorcycles-for-hire, ply the soi and its sub-sois, from and to the two major roads. The ecological and social development and present character of the soi is significantly influenced by its wider environment; the upper section is influence~ by the middle-class residential and commercial services characteristic of the adjoinin~ section of Sukhumvit Road; by its proximity to one of the city's major tourist hotel and entertainment areas located lower down on that road; and, most recently, by the expansion of CBD (central business district) functions from the central city area into Sukhumvit Road. The lower section of Soi Sunlight is influenced by its proximity to the Klong Toey Market, the major lower-class market of the city; by the intensive lower-class commercial area characteristic of the section of Rama IV Road adjoining the: soi; and, less directly, by the port of Bangkok which is situated to the south of Rama IV Road. The Ecological Dynamics of Soi Sunlight The development of Soi Sunlight can be schematically divided into four major, partly overlapping stages: (1) Rural (2) Semi-urban (3) Early urban (4) Mature urban Each of these stages is characterized by a particular type of construction and ecological differentiation; it expresses the impact on the soi of forces emanating from the wider urban framework, and brings into the area of the soi new kinds of population and new functions. Rather than attempting a detailed historical description, we shall follow this four-fold scheme in our analysis of the ecological dynamics of the soi: Stage (1): Rural: Like other areas surrounding the city, the area of the soi was, prior to the penetration of urban forces, a rural agricultural area, part of the

7

A soi in Bangkok village of Ban Kapi. The land served for rice-fields and orchards, though a significant part was marshy and unsuited for agricultural purposes. A wide area to the east of Soi Sunlight is still a marsh - though much of the marsh land had by now been drained and turned into urban use. Like much of the area surrounding the city, the land of the soi was originally owned by members of the royal family. A secondary klong (irrigation canal servin~ as a water way)ran through the area, emanating from the major klong upon which Sukhumvit Road was constructed at a later time. The soi emerged along this canal, which was eventually covered up, as part of the process of transition of the land-use in the area from rural to urban; in this the fate of the klong in Soi Sunlight resembles that of most other klongs in the city, which disappeared in the last two or three decades (Sternstein, 1982: 87, 89). As Morell and Morell (1972 : 6) pointed out, "All rice farming in the area [of Soi Sunlight] stopped after [the Second .World] war, as farmers topk jobs in the surrounding area.'' However, at the time of their study, in 1972, there were still "some poultry and pig farms, on land rented by the Chinese ... " (ibid : 6), and they remark that " ... this is ... a very advantageous location for the latter enterprise, as land rents are cheap and markets are nearby" (ibid : 6). I have observed the last of these pig farms in 1981, on the margins of the marsh; by 1982 they were gone. At the time of writing, the only remaining signs of the agricultural past of the area, are a few patches of forlorn banana trees remaining here and there on some as yet undeveloped spots in the soi (ill. (5) ). The change in land-use patterns was accompanied, and probably also partly caused, by a change in land ownership patterns. There are still one or two mom rachawong (the penultimate grade of royalty) who own tracts of land in the soi. Otherwise, however, land ownership patterns have changed. Morell and Morell (1972 : 6) already reported that "During World War II, many farmers in the area ... sold their land to speculators and then moved away from Bangkok, which was endangered by Allied bombings." The new'landlords were presumably not interested in farming, but in a more profitable, urban use of their newly acquired land. The end of the Second World War thus marks the virtual termination of the rural stage; it also marks the beginning of urban penetration. Stage (2): Semi-urban: As the pace of immigration into Bangkok increased after the Second World War, the soi became a reception ar~a for an expanding urban 'population. At first the area of the soi was but sparsely settled, but soon "People began to move into the area [of the soi] in great numbers ... building simple houses

8

Erik Cohen

and shacks on rented land" (Morell and Morell, 1972 : 6). Eventually, " ... houses and shacks built of cheap materials have been constructed on every available plot of land." By 1972, there was a "large sprawling slum straddling on both sides of the soi" (ibid : 5); it was located " ... in the center of the soi, on a piece of undeveloped land flooded throughout the year ... lt is estimated that almost 1,000 families (6,000 people) now [i.e. in 1972] live there" [ibid : 5]. The available plots of land were fou.nd mainly in the central section, ~ince the terminal sections of the soi were by then already taken up by more intensive forms of land use, under the influence of the "ribbon pattern" development on the two principal roads into which the soi issues. Though many sparsely settled areas of Bangkok became after the war "high density reception areas for newly arrived rural immigrants" (Boonyabancha, 1983 : 255), only part of those who moved into the slum on Soi Sunlight came directly from the rural areas; a significant percentage are old-timers in the city, or moved into it from smaller towns (cf. Morell and Morell, 1972:26). The slum was thus from the outset not a pure in-migrant settlement; and in the 1980's many of the residents of the "Second Slum" and of the families in the "First Slum," were inhabitants of old standing, in sharp contrast to the large and growing transient population of highly mobile singles, mainly single women, who moved mainly into the area on and around the "First Slum," deriving their livelihood from the nearby tourist area. Most of the central area of Soi Sunlight was thus eventually converted from a rural to a semi-urban land use: in terms of density and occupation the population was urban, and many inhabitants, indeed, were long-time residents in the city. But their simple, mostly one - story wooden dwellings were:informally constructed - i.e. without planning and official permits, supervision or recognition. The area was in Turner's (1969) sense, one of "uncontrolled" urban settlement. Accordingly, the locations which this "uncontrolled" housing occupied were left blank on offi cia! maps of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, as if the land on which they are located was actually empty. While at the time of writing the slums are not lift without any urban services -· water and electricity are available-some essential services do not reach them; in particular, there is no efficient system of drainage and of garbage collection. As a consequence, it is true for 1984, as it was for 1972, that in the slums of Soi Sunlight, " ... refuse and waste usually go into the swamps" {Slum People, 1972:11) upon which the slums are built, since "Municipal garbage collection services do not

9

A soi in Bangkok benefit slum households unless they happen to be on the fringe of a slum ... " This is so because, "Owing to the narrow walkways, garbage trucks could not get into the slum anyway" (ibid:1). As a consequence, as can be seen in Ill. (6), great amounts of garbage accumulate around the houses and on the walkways; and much of the slum area is frequently flooded during the rainy season - as is the section of· the main soi adjoining the slums (ill. (7) ). The people who moved into the area which was to become a slum were not "squatters" in a technical sense of the term. Rather, they rented their land from landlords at-low rates, which in 1972 were "2 baht per 4 square meters per month" (Morell and Morell, 1972:6). Ten years later the rate increased to about 3 baht per square meter, but was as yet low relative to the increase of housing rents and land prices in this part of the city. In the absence of any formal agreement, however, the landlords were at liberty to evict their slum tenants whenever 1they found it opportune (cf. Boonyabancha, 1983). Indeed, over the years the slum area contracted considerably, particularly in the middle and lower sections of the soi. The enclave of the "First Slum" persisted in the upper section of the soi, probably because of its attractiveness to the population of single females, as a consequence of which new wooden shacks and houses were added over time, the last as late as 1983. The increase in density (ill. (6)) and the relatively high rents asked by the landlords for this type of lodgings, appears to preserve the profitability of slum housing despite the rising land values. By 1983, all the remaining slum areas to the west of the main soi have been eliminated, to make place for new, intensive urban development. Thereby the difference between the western and the eastern part of the soi area has been magnified: the western part is now free of slums and its newer developments merge into the higher class area in its hinterland and in the adjoining soi. The remaining slum areas are all located to the east of the main soi; the big "Second Slum" (Ill. (8)) indeed stretches between the middle and lower part of the main soi and up to the remaining marshy area (map (1)). In terms of employment, many of the male slum dwellers work outside the slum, as laborers, factory workers, guards, hotel employees or drivers. Morell and Morell (1972:109) have already noticed in 1972 that a good deal of these are employed near their homes, and this remains also true for 1984. · Many indeed work at home, as .do e.g. many peddlars, small shop and work-shop owners, who are particularly numerous in the "Second Slum."

10

Erik Cohen

Among women the phenomenon of working at home is even more widespread. In the "Second Slum" some productive activity goes on in almost every second household; this consists mainly of preparation of foods or sweets for sale, and of "front porch enterprises'~ (Slum People,l972:11 ), selling edibles and other commonly consumed products such as soft drinks, cigarettes and toiletries. Many small stores dot the area of the "Second Slum." Morell and Morell (1972:10) already pointed out the high percentage of "working wives [employed as] street hawkers, vendors, stall operators [and] shop owners·~· They also noticed that " ... the slum mother [who] works, frequently does so on her own front porch" (ibid: 111); and they continue: "This is one of the most important aspects of slum life in Bangkok. Walking through any slum, one may see a mother frying bananas over a charcoal pot while she suckles her child, another twirling egg yolks and sugar through a kettle of boiling syrup to make candy, another giving her neighbor a fastidiousjpedicure over a plastic bowl of cold soapy water ... At day's end, the left-over bananas are either eaten or. .. thrown down under the walkways, the 'shops' closed, and the day's earnings spent at the house of yet another neighbor who sells eggs, vegetables, and fish sauce." (ibid:111). Concomitantly, "Other housewives manage to supplement the family income by contracting work to do at home, such as paper bag making ... a popular activity in which other family members can also participate, particularly the elderly. Some women take in laundry, others make candy and desserts on a contractual basis, look after other people's children, make the paper flowers required for religious purposes in Chinese temples, or make flower garlands for their children to sell in the streets." (ibid: 111). This description continues generally to hold true for the slums in Soi Sunlight in 1984, as it did in 1972. It should be added, however, that even those male or female peddlars and vendors who ply their trade outside their homes, do this also predominantly in the area of the soi: either on the main soi itself, or in one of the many sub-sois and yards around it. Such activity is particularly intensive in the front and the surroundings of the "First Slum," owing to the large mobile population of singles in that area, who do not normally maintain a household, but acquire all of their daily necessities, including food, from the shops, stalls and food peddlars in their immediate neighborhood (Cf. Cohen, in press). We can thus conclude that the semi-urban style is characterized by a low degree of ecological differentiation. This is manifest on several levels: ( 1) . A significant part of the production process is conducted in the house-

11

A soi in Bangkok holds; women in particular work at home at a variety of productive tasks. (2) The place of work of those who do not work in their household, is frequently located in its vicinity, in the soi itself, or, indeed, in the very sub-soi or slum in which they live. (3) Much of the production in the soi - of goods as well as services - is consumed by the inhabitants of the soi itself. Stage (3): Early urban: In Soi Sunlight this stage started about twenty to thirty years ago, but the period of its major impact was probably in the 1970's. It continued up to the early 1980's even as the area of the soi was hit by the more recent stage of mature urban development. In the early-urban stage, buildings of hard materials were constructed in an at least minimally "controlled" manner; the houses were laid out in an orderly way along the soi and the sub-sois and duly numbered and entered into the maps of the urban administration - as against the haphazard location and official disregard for the wooden dwellings in the slums. The dominant form of construction in this stage were shop-houses, owned and inhabited primarily by the Chinese7 (ill. (9) and (10)). During the period dominated by the construe~ tion of shop-houses, some other types of dwellings, such as colonial-type houses and a few villas were also constructed in the quieter areaS of the sub-soiS and sub-sub-

sois. The shop-houses were constructed in a ribbon-like pattern along much of the front of the main soi, and particularly its lower sections. They also formed several short sub-sois in the upper section of the soi. The shop houses replaced part of the "uncontrolled" wooden structures of the earlier, semi-urban stage along the front of the main soi and in the sub-sois. Thus the basic geographic pattern, prevailing in much of the middle and lower sections of the soi until the present day developed: front-row shop-houses screening off the wooden houses and shacks of the slum in their hinterland. Most shop-houses enjoy more orderly urban services than the slum areas, even though their shops also frequently suffer from flooding, since drainage of the main soi is in many sections still faulty (ill. (7)). But on the whole the environmental conditions of the shop-houses are significantly better th~. those characteristic of most wooden houses in the slums. 7. Chinese shop houses (also called row - houses) are an ubiquitous feature of Bangkok's urban landscape; however, they only rarely attracted the attention of students of the city.

12

Erik Cohen

The appearance and quality of shop-houses underwent considerable evolution over the years. The early shop-houses were simple, two story edifices (ill. (11)). The predominant type of shop-houses later on became three-story buildings of the kind common all over the city (ill. (10)). Shop-houses of this type line the main soi. The last major complex of shop-houses, built in the 1980's in an area off the soi. also consists primarily of this type. This complex filled a large interstitial piece of land to the west of the lower middle section of the soi (ill. (12) and (13)). 8 A more advanced type of three-story shop-houses was also used for part of the housing in another major and more modern and heterogeneous complex, here to be dubbed "Cinema Complex," constructed at about the same time on a heretofore marshy area to the east of the upper section of the soi. along Sukhumvit Road (map (1)). This complex is many respects signifies the transition from the early to the mature urban stage, as we shall yet see. Most recently, modern four-story buildings with shops at their first floor started to appear in the soi (ill. (14)). While technically still "shop-houses," in that the access to the upper floors is possible only through the shops (since the houses have no separate entrances), stylistically and functionally these modern structures are far removed indeed. from the traditional Chinese shop-houses of an earlier period, and should be regarded as part of the mature stage of urban development. The shop-houses differ structurally from the wooden houses and shacks of the semi-urban stage in that they are formally recognized or approved and constructed of hard building materials. Functionally, however, they still support a "traditional" rather than modern urban way of life. Their distinguishing feature is the unification of the residential and the productive functions in the same location, even if these functions are separated within the building itself. As Ong (1978:91) pointed out, in the shop-house, "Shops and homes are a single unit: if a shop is located in a simple one-story building. the rear is used as a home; if it is a building with more than two stories, the second floor is used for storage and living quarters." In the past, in particular, the shop-houses in the soi were typically inhabited by members of a single household, who lived and worked within its precincts. Even at present, most streetlevel "shops". serve productive purposes, either as . stores or .as work-shops, service. shops, or storage rooms of business enterprises. Many, however, especially in the sub-sols'. are empty or used as garages or living rooms. In some shop-houses, especially in the upper part of the soi. rooms or cubicles are rented to lodgers; they thus cease 8.

This complex was marked, but it is no! fully detailed, on the left margin of Map (1).

13

A soi in Bangkok

to be simple single-household dwellings. It appears that many of the most recently constructed buildings which, as mentioned above, still preserve the form of the shophouse, are not used in the traditional way at all, the upper stories being used for business or rented out, while the owners of the business establishments live elsewhere. The shops and services of most of the traditional shop-houses were at the outset oriented primarily to the local population, i.e.to the inhabitants of the soi and of its hinterland. In the early stage of urbanization Soi Sunlight remained thus in many respects still a semi-autonomous ecological sub-system, with the inhabitants living and working within its confines an~ satisfying most of their needs from the shops and services located in it. It is this relatively high degree of ecological integration which came under attack as Soi Sunlight was hit by the new forces of metropolitan penetration emananting from the central city, which initiated the transition from the early to the mature stage .of urban development. Stage (4): Mature Urban: This stage, which began in the late 1970's, engendered by 1984 some significant changes in the appearance and functioning of the soi. It is characterized by the erection of modem types of buildings, a growing separation between places of residence and work, and the penetration of urban-wide services and CBD functions into the area of Soi Sunlight; all these processes gradually weaken the ecological integration of the soi. While colonial houses and villas were the early harbingers of the approaching differentiation between the residential and productive functions, the stage of mature urban development came into prominence with the construction of a series of apartment houses facing the upper part of the main soi from the west, opposite the "First Slum." However, like the frontal parts of this slum, these apartment houses catered, and still cater, primarily to a transient local and foreign population rather than to permanent residents, for whom the soi is "home." The lower part of the soi, characterized heretofore by mostly Chinese shophouses and light industrial work-shops, was in the early 1980's also invaded by modem residential construction: several sub-sois were .built up with rows of modem duplexes, which in one area constituted a fenced-oif.muban (housing estate) (ill. (15) and Map (1)). As land values rose rapidly in Bangkok in general (Durand-Lasserve, 1980) and in the area of Sukhumvit Road in particular, the rentability of more intensive housing developments increased. As in many other parts of the city in the early 1980's several high-rise condominia (Meeker-Buppha, 1980) were constructed in

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Erik Cohen

the dead-end sois in 'the immediate neighborhood of Soi Sunlight (ill. (i6) and (17)), but not, however, in that soi itself. Their absence is here probably due to the traffic, noise and pollution common on this very active through-soi,· which is not considered attractive to prospective higher-class residents of condomonia. Apparently for the same reasons, some more expensive apartment houses and a high-class housing estate have also located in the dead-end soi to the west of Soi Sunlight, thus creating a high-class enclave contrasting sharply with the slums and unattractive shop-houses on Soi Sunlight.However, the accessibility and commercial character of that soi attracted to it new and modern construction projects and new types of functions oriented to a city-wide, rather than local, clientele.· The most massive expression of the penetration of metropolitan forces into the soi are several big modern complexes and single buildings which in the 1980's began to transform the earlier parochial appearance of the soi. In contrast to other sois in the area, which were transformed by high-rise condominia, in Soi Sunlight the transformation is in the first place effected by the introduction of complexes co~taining residential, business, service and office functions. Two such complexes were established during the 1980's: the earlier and more heterogeneous "Cinema Complex" already mentioned above (Map (1 )), is located off Sukhumvit Road, and serves as a receptacle for the overspill of metropolitan functions from the main road into its hinterland, i.e. the area of the soi. It is centered on an English-language cinema, and includes both shop-houses and office-buildings. The second, more recently constructed "Pillared House Complex," is close to, but does not adjoin, Rama IV Road (Map ( 1)); it is influenced by the forces of commercial expansion active on that road. Here the first pillared building in the ostentatiously monumental style, fashionable in recent commercial construction in Bangkok was erected (ill. ( 18)). In addition to these two major complexes, individual modern buildings are presently cropping up on various other location on the main soi. Prominent among these are a four-story luxurious shopping and residential structure, built in the upper part of the soi, backcto-back with a condominium located on the dead-end soi to the west of Soi Sunlight (ill. (19) an{4 .Map (1 )); and another four story building behind which expensive duplexed are in' process of construction, built on land previously occupied by the remnants of a slum, to the west of the middle section of the main soi (Map (1)). Paralleling this new kind of development, a trend of change in the nature of the businesses and services located in Soi Sunlight became perceptible. New types

15

A soi in Bangkok

of enterprises which cater to a city-wide clientele rather than merely to the local inhabitants were attracted to the area of the soi. These consist of specialized businesses such as a number of trading companies, a huge carpet store, electrical equipment stores, a sports goods store and a dental depot, as well as of specialized services, such as veterinary clinics and tourist and shipping agencies, and the above mentioned English-language cinema. In addition, some shops selling high-quality goods, such as a ladies' fashion shop, which obviously cater to a larger population than the middle and upper class inhabitants of the sub-sois, also appeared in the soi. Such enterprises are located mostly in the recently constructed modern complexes; but they are also found in some of the older shop-houses. Many of these enterprises represent an over-spill of similar functions from the main roads into their immediate hinterland; others, however, are dispersed through the length of Soi Sunlight, which is apparently in the process of becoming a secondary urban artery, like some other through-sois in this part of Bangkok. The emergence of businesses and services catering to a wider population is thus a functional correlate to the structural changes in the soi; both are expressions of the lateral urban expansion, effected by the impact of novel metropolitan forces upon the soi. One interesting visual aspect of these developments is the recent proliferation of large, highly visible, frequently illuminated signs, advertising the businesses or the goods they offer. This visual innovation is an obvious consequence of the orientation of these new enterprises and services to an anonymous public, coming from outside the soi and hence unacquainted with its business life - unlike the local inhabitants for whom such aavertisements would be superfluous. Moreover, since the new businesses are interested in attracting outsiders who merely pass through the soi, usually by the advertisements must be big and loud enough to catch car or on motorcycle, their attention. The most prominent example of the penetration of metropolitan forces into the area of Soi Sunlight, however, is the growing presence in this area of CBD functions -company headquarter and business associations. These chose their abode in the upper section of the soi, close to the Sukhumvit Road, and especially in the new complex adjoining that road, where several buildings serve them exclusively, offering no residential space at all; this is the first case of specialized non-residential construction in the area of the soi. At the time of writing, this form of metropolitan penetration is mostly an overspill phenomenon, but with the construction of ever more spacious modern buildings in the soi, such functions will in all probability

16

Erik Cohen

penetrate it to a greater depth. The penetration of the soi by modern businesses and company offices, in turn, l;lrings a new day-time working population into the area of the soi: office employees and personnel whose place of work is located in the area of the soi, but who reside elsewhere; these, as we shall see, have in turn a further effect on the services offered by the soi. The mature stage of urban development of the soi thus leads to a process of growing separation between the place of residence and the place of work: on the one hand, it brings into the soi a population - living in apartment houses, duplexes and other residential structures, - whose places of work are outside the soi, ou the other the new businesses and offices penetrating the area of the soi bring into it hand, employees who reside elsewhere. The mature urban stage leads to a gradual weakening of the ecological integration of the soi and to its greater incorporation into the citywide ecological division of labor. In this study only the recent inception of this process has been observed; but there is little doubt that it will continue in the future, eventually changing not only the physical appearance of the soi, but also its ecology, and with it its social composition. Discussion The four stages of the ecological development of the soi, described above, can be analytically represented as specific configurations of three principal variables, i.e. the nature of land use, the extent of formal control over construction and ecological differentiation (Table (1)): Table (1): Stages of Ecological Development of'Soi Sunlight by Principal.Variables

Stage Stage (1): Stage (2): Stage (3): Stage (4):

Rural Semi-urban Early urban Mature urban

Land Use

Control by Authorities

Ecological Differentiation

RuralUrban+

UncontrolledControlled +

LowHigh+

+ + +

+ +

+

17

A soi in Bangkok Table (l) demonstrates that the process of urran development of the soi is constituted of stages which form an ordered Guttman-scale: the transition from rural (stage (I)) to urban begins with "uncontrolled" housing and a low degree of ecological differentiation (stage (2)); it is followed by a stage of "controlled" construction under continuing low differentiation (stage (3)); it eventuates in the currently evolving stage of "controlled" construction accompanied by a high degree of ecological differentiation (stage (4)). It should be emphasized, however, that the stages had no sharp temporal boundaries; neither did they completely supersede one another. Rather, a considerable overlap between them is evident, with the last phase of an earlier stage continuing into the early phase of the following one. Since the later stages invaded only part of the area taken up by the preceding ones, the present landscape of the soi features elements of all four stages. Of the rural stage (1), only isolated reminders can be encountered in some marginal or as yet undeveloped spots in the area of the soi (Ill. (5)). The semi-urban stage (2) is represented by extensive but receding slum areas, particularly in the lower part of the soi. The early urban stage (3), expanding until recently, provided most of the principal housing stock in the soi; it began to recede only in 1984 with the destruction of some of the oldest shotrhouses to make way for new construction; the late urban stage (4) is represented by several modern complexes and buildings, some still in process of construction; it is at present expanding rapidly, invading particularly the remaining slum areas. As a consequence of the distinctive pattern of its ecological development, Soi Sunlight is presently marked by considerable ecological heterogeneity, accompanied by social diversity. Structures pertaining to various stage of its development, with correspondingly different populations, closely adjoin one another (ill. (20) - (21)): the soi is thus a geographical and social mosaic, composed of buildings of sharply varying appearance, quality and function, and of populations of diverse ethnic, sociocultural and socio-economic backgrounds: The veteran slum dwellers are mainly central Thais, and Chinese. The more recent arrivals to the slums are predominantly Thai-Lao speaking north-easterners (lsan people). Some higher class Thais, including low-ranking royalty, occupy some of the most sumptuous residences in the soi, which at least in one case border on a slum. The shop houses are occupied primarily by Chinese, though some are at the time of writing also inhabited by Thais. In the upper part of the soi, close to Sukhumvit Road, there is a small concentration of .Indian families. The inhabitants of the apartment houses are highly mixed, with a strong foreign (farang) element. Foreigners also live in some of the colonial houses and villas in the sub-sois; some foreign drotrouts live in the slums (Cohen, forth-

18

Erik Cohen

coming). Though they often live in close proximity, there is little social intercourse between the different groups of inhabitants of the soi. People living in one type of habitation, e.g. wooden slum-houses or shop-houses have little interest in and contact with the inhabitants of the other types. There persists, however, a considerable degree of functional integration, with the socio-economically lower groups, in particular, deriving much of their income from work in the soi and buying in it many of their daily necessities. Much of this economic activity is highly localized in sub-sois or other sections of the area of the soi. Social life, i.e. daily interaction between the inhabitants, is similarly localized in the immediate neighborhood, the yard or the house. The Chinese shop keepers keep to themselves, the residents of apartment houses are isolated from street life, though within the larger ones there is much mutual visiting between residents. Socializing is common in the many small restaurants and eating places in front of the slums (Ill. (22)). This endows the soi with the ambience of a vibrant street-life, but this is actually restricted to a relatively small number of lower-class inhabitants, many of them transients. Higher class residents are rarely seen on the street, but mostly rush through it in their cars. The soi as a whole, hence, lacks an over-all social integration and does not consitute a "community." Among the lower class residents in the upper section of the soi one particular group stands out, endowing much of this area with a peculiar character: this section is the abode of a large transient population of si~gles, mostly Thai girls engaged in different forms of tourist-oriented prostitution (Cohen, 1982 and in press) and of some young Thai males who live among and sometimes with the girls. The penetration and proliferation of this population in the soi is mainly due to the fact that at the period of the expansion of the nearby tourist hotel and entertainment area,during the Vietnam war, when large numbers of American G.I.'s came to Bangkok on R. & R. furloughs, the girls working in that area found in the soi, and particularly in the "First Slum," conveniently located and cheap accommodations. With the penetration and expansion of this transient population into that area, the soi acquired a reputation as a place of cheap lodging and food, which attracted to it additional Thai girls engaged in Tourist - oriented prostitution, as well as other transient elements, including foreign drop-outs (Cohen, forthcoming). The transient population, in

19

A soi in Bangkok turn, had some significant effects on the ecology of this part of the soi:9 as it tended to concentrate in the area close to the main soi, landlords constructed additional rooming-houses, specifically for rent to transients, in some cases even bringing in old barracks and erecting them in the "First Slum." This increased the density of that slum and probably contributed to its preservation as an enclave of low-level housing in an area close to Sukhumvit Road_. the land prices in which are rapidly rising. The presence of that transient population, encouraged the establishment of a variety of shops and services catering to their needs, particularly restaurants, eating-places and food-stalls (ill. (22)). The arrival of a growing number of employees of the offices and businesses which have been established in the upper section of the soi in the wake of its recent penetration by metropolitan forces, created an additional demand for such services, thus leading to their further proliferation. Only the future will show how resilient this particular enclave of the "First Slum" will be to the growing forces of metropolitan expansion. Conclusions This paper examined the process of "lateral urban expansion" which was rarely, if ever, reported in the literature: the expansion of urbanization from the maio arteries penetrating the countryside from the central city, into the hinterland lying between them. This process was illustrated with a detailed case study of a soi (lane) in Bangkok. The principal finding of this study is that the process of lateral urban expansion has, in the case under investigation, proceeded by four analytically distinct but temporarily partly overlapping stages. While the latter stages invaded some areas built up in the earlier ones, none supersed~d its predecessors completely, so that the present landscape of the soi is a highly heterogeneous mosaic of areas built up during different stages, with a correspondingly segmented population. It was demonstrated that during the earlier stages of development, the soi constituted in significant respects a semi-autonomous ecological sub-system, even though it was never a socially integrated community. The recent penetration of metropolitan forces gradually destroys this autonomy as it integrates the soi into the city-wide ecological division of labor. These forces are presently accelerating and striking at the weakest constituents of "the present ecological structure of the soi - the still extensive slum areas. The eviction of these areas, in Soi Sunlight as elsewhere in Bangkok, will

9.

The specific ecological effects of the presence of this population will be the subject of a separate publication.

20

Erik Cohen

make available large tracts of land for big new urban construction complexes, for which there is not sufficient available space along the main arteries. Such "interstitial developments" may eventually completely transform the appearance and ecology of the soi and turn it into an integral part of the central city, while forcing its slum dwellers to look for alternative habit~tions elsewhere. Since such processes as described here occur, in fact, throughout the city (Boonyabancha, 1983), this population will probably experience increasing hardships in its search for housing commensurate to the means at its disposal. As in other sois, the ecological intensity and complexity was also found to be greatest at both terminal sections of Soi Sunlight, which were greatly affected by the overspill from the two main urban arteries linked by the soi. The nature of the developments at each terminal, however, differed according to the nature of the land use in the adjoining main artery. Since Sukhumvit Road is generally more modern than Rama IV Road, it was mainly from the side of this road that modern enterprises and CBD functions penetrated Soi Sunlight. The middle section of the soi has until recently been least intensely used. This section, therefore, offers the greatest opportunities for "interstitial development" in the future, of the kind exemplified by the last major shop-house complex, built in the 1980's. As the interstitial areas are built up, and the main soi comes to serve city-wide rather than localized functions, Soi Sunlight will gradually lose its character as a "lane" and become a regular "street," serving as a secondary artery of the urban network. The process of urbanization, spear-headed many years ago by the penetration of major urban arteries into the agricultural land surrounding the central city, will thereby reach completion - and only small enclaves of buildings hailing from the earlier stages of the soi's development will remind the visitor of its past.

IGl ·· r ~-::S 6ii :

:I

>('} 1 : : : : : _

MAIN RD.

~

Urbanized area

[ ···]

Semi - urbanized area

I

Und eve loped area

•

~

Shop houses

k;}::j

Recent constructions

~

Buildings under construction

!::::;::::::: :::)]

S Iu m s

0

•

•••

•

I

Main rd.

Source: BMA , planning di v ision(revised by author)

Ma p (1): Soi Sunlight: Principal Ecological Features

-

Soi Sub-soi (direction only)

Diagram (1): Schematic Representation of Ecological Structure of Typical Through-soi

MAIN RD .

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

' l

: : ::::::::::::::: :\

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•

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:::::::: l-:::::::::

21

A soi in Bangkok

References ALLISON, G. H., 1978: Jumbo English- Thai Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Bangkok:Odeon Store. BOONYABANCHA, S., 1983: Causes and Effects of Slum Eviction in Bangkok, in; Sh. Angel et. al. (eds.): Land for Housing the Poor, Bangkok:Select Books, pp. 254-280. BUNNAG, A., 1978: A Study of Land Use and Socio-economic and Geographic Change in the Suburban Areas of Bangkok, in: R. D. Hill, J. M. Bray (eds.): Geography and the Environment in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong:Hong Kong University Press, pp. 185-192. COHEN, E., 1982: Thai Girls and Farang Men: The Edge of Ambiguity, Annals of Tourism Research, 9(3):403-428. _ _ _ _ _ _, in press: Open-ended Prostitution as a Skillful Game of Luck; Opportunity, Risk and Security among Tourist-Oriented Prostitutes in Bangkok; in: H. Phillips (ed.): Urban Anthropology in Thailand (Provisional title). _ _ _ _ _ _,,forthcoming: Drop Out Expatriates, Urban Anthropology. DURAND-LASSERVE, A., 1980: Speculation on Urban Land, Land Development and Housing in Bangkok: Historical Process and Social Function, Paper, Thai-European Seminar on Social Change in Thailand, Amsterdam:University of Amsterdam (mimeo). HONGLADAROMP, T., 1973: Klong Toey- 1973: A House to House Survey of the Squatter Slum, Bangkok:Thammasat University and Asian Institute of Technology. KORFF, R.,1983: Bangkok: Urban Systems and Everyday Life, Bielefeld: University of Bielefeld, Fakultat fur Sozologie, (mimeo). LONDON, B., 1980: Metropolis and Nation in Thailand, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. MEEKER-BUPPHA, L., 1982: Condominium: the Great Divide, ASEAN Investor, (September). MORELL, S. AND D. MORELL, 1972: Six Slums in Bangkok: Problems of Life and Options for Action, Bangkok: UNICEF. O'CONNOR, R. A., 1979: Hierarchy and Community in Bangkok, [Sewaneez, Tenn.]. University of the South, Department of Anthropology. ONG, Sh. E., 1978: The Impact of Urbanization on the Environment- a Case Study of Bangkok, in: Hill, R. D. and J. M. Bray (eds.): Geography and the Environment in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 87-104.

22

Erik Cohen PRAMUANRATKARN, A., Th., 1979: Impact of Urbanization on a Peripheral Area of Bangkok. Thailand. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Washington. RABIBHADANA, A., 1975: Bangkok Slum: Aspects of Social Organization. Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University. _ _ _ _ __, 1977: Bangkok Slum: Organization and Needs. Bangkok:Thammasat

University, Thai Khadi Research Institute. Slum, 1982: Slum: on Annotated Bibliography. Bangkok:Chulalongkorn University, Academic Resource Center and Social Research Institute. Slum People, 1972: The Slum People: Everything Goes Into the Swamp, The Notion. 3.12.1972:11.

STERNSTEIN, L., 1982: Portrait of Bangkok. Bangkok:Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. _ _ _ _ _ _, 1984: The Growth of the Population of the World's Preeminent "Primate City:" Bangkok at its Bicentenary, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 15(1):43-68. TEILHET-WALDORF, S., 1978: Self-Employed in o Bangkok Neighborhood: An Anthropological Study of on Informal Sector, Ph.D. Diss., Binghampton: State University of New York. TURNER, J. F. C., 1969: Uncontrolled Urban Settlement: Problems and Policies, in: G. Breese·(ed.): The City in Newly Developing Countries. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall, pp, 507-534. Urbanization, 1975: Urbanization in the Bangkok Central Region. Bangkok:Social Science Association of Thailand. YINGYEOD, S., 1971: Soi Problem on the Rise, Bangkok Post. 25.7.1971.

1. Sukhumvit Rd. -- General View* '

2. Traffic on Sukhumvit Rd. *ALL photographs by the author

3.

Traffic Congestion on Soi Sunlight

4. Dead-end Soi

5.

Wooden Houses and Banana Clump on Margin of the Area of Soi Sunlight

6.

Garbage Accumulation in "First Slum"

7.

Flooding infront of "First Slum"

8.

Wooden Shacks in "Second Slum"

9. Shop-Houses in Soi Sunlight

10. Shop- Houses in Soi Sunlight

11. Early Shop-Houses, Lower Section of Soi Sunlight

\

12. Shop-House Complex Under Construction in Interstitial Area off Soi Sunlight

13. Shop- House Complex in Interstitial Area (1983)

14.

New Four- St01y Building Under Construction (1984)

15.

Housing Estate ojf Lower Section of Soi Sunlight

16.

Condominia in Soi adjoining Soi Sunlight(1981)

17. Condominium in Neighboring Soi (1984)

18. New Construction in Ostentatious Commercial Style in Soi Sunlight (1984)

19.

Condominium at back of New Four-story Building 20. New Shop Houses Adjoining First Slum (1980) (ill.J4) on Soi Sunlight (1984)

..

.'-- ... -4flll ... ,·..,.., 1,11.

",! ..,. I ,'II

21. Mix of Old and New Construction in the Area of 12. Food-stalls in Front of "First Slum" Soi Sunlight (1984)

23

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand Philip Hughes*

In an article on the ways in which Western culture has been assimilated in Thailand, Michael Moerman, an anthropologist, wrote, The objects, organizations, and ideas which Thailand receives from the West must be modified if they are to enter and sustain the Thai way of life ... Things borrowed, whether Europe's Christianity or a New York pizza, are all, of necessity, different in form and substance from the original idea on which they are based. Borrowed traits are universally transformed. 1 Western Christianity has led to the building of new institutions in Thailand: the churches. These institutions have, . by and large, adopted the rituals and practices of their Western counterparts. Has Christianity in fact been assimilated to Thai culture? This article will examine that question with respect to one part of the Christian presence in Thailand: the Protestants, and one aspect of Protestant Christianity: the soteriological patterns. Soteriological patterns may be defined as those patterns of belief and behaviour through which people seek total or partial salvation. They are the basic and underlying patterns of beliefs and practices in which people seek to make life worthwhile and to overcome life's fundamental problems and evils. In soteriological religions, states

* Philip

Hughes was born in London, but has lived most of his life in Australia He graduated from Melbourne University with the degress of bachelor of arts in philosophy, master of arts, and master of education. He also completed the degree of bachelor of divinity awarded by the Melbourne College of Divinity. He is an ordained minister of religion, and has worked both as a minister and as "a university teacher.

In 1978, he began work towards a doctorate. Following preparatory study in Britain, he went to Chiang Mai, Thailand. He spent three years there, teaching at Payap College, Chiang Mai, and doing research on the relationship of the beliefs and values of Thai Christians to those of the Thai Buddhists. He returned to Australia in June 1982. He received the degree of doctor of theology from the South East Asia Graduate School of Theology in August 1983. Apart from journal articles, he has written two small books on Thailand: Thai Culture, Values, and Religion: An Annotated Bibliography of En!{lish Language Materials and Proclamation and Response: A Study of the History oj the Christian Faith in Northern Thailand. Both books have been published by the Payap College Archives, Chiang Mai. 1.

Michael Moerman, "Western Culture and the Thai Way of Life", Asia, 1, 1964, pp. 32-33.

24

Philip Hughes

of being or non-being are posited in which an ultimate condition of bliss or "worthwhileness" is achieved and in which all evils are finally overcome. Not all soteriological patterns involve the attempt to achieve such ultimate states, however. Basic patterns of improving life and dealing with evils may also be included in the consideration of a culture's soteriology. The sociologist, Max Weber, claimed that both Theravada Buddhism and Protestant Calvinistic Christianity were soteriological religions typifying extreme and diametrically opposed positions. Weber argued that there were two fundamental directions in which one can go in attempting to resolve the tension between reality with all its frustrations, suffering, and evil and the ideal state of existence. The first direction involves the attempt to escape from the conflicts of worldly existence into an "other-worldly" state of existence. Weber used the term "mysticism" to describe this direction. The second involves the attempt to transcend present reality and attain the ideal by actively trying to bring the state of the world into conformity with the ideal. Weber used the term ''asceticism" to describe this direction. According to Weber, the distinction between asceticism and mysticism is the distinction between oriental and Asiatic types of religion on the one hand, and Occidental on the other. While Asia has tended to turn towards mysticism and to seek salvation by withdrawing from the world, the West has tended to look for salvation through changing the world. 2 It is interesting to note that, according to Weber's analysis, the two extreme positions have met in Thailand. The Protestant missionary movement has been dominated by American Presbyterians with a Calvinistic heritage, who have come into the bastion of Theravada Buddhism. What, then, has happened to Christianity in Thailand? Are its soteriological patterns Western, reflecting those of the missionaries who taught Christianity? Or do the Thai Christian patterns show signs of assimilation to Thai culture? The following discussion of this question arises out of three years study of Thai soteriological patterns, both Christian and Buddhist, through the literature on Thai culture, through detailed and numerous interviews with Thai Christians and Buddhists, through the analysis of sermons preached by Thai Christians and Buddhists, through the analysis of approximately one thousand three hundred responses to three questionnaires distributed by the researcher, and through a study of the historical development of Christianity in Thailand. 2.

See Max Weber, Sociology of Religion, translated by Ephraim Fischoff, London : .Methuen, 1963. ch.XI.

25

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

The discussion will proceed with a consideration of the major soteriological patterns in the Thai culture and the attitudes of the Thai Christians to these patterns. Then the soteriology of the Protestant. missionaries to Thailand will be outlined. This article will conclude with an examination of the soteriological patterns of the Thai Christians in relation to those of the Thai Buddhists and the Protestant missionaries.

Soteriological Patterns in the Thai Culture Nirvana At the heart of the Buddha's teaching lies an explanation of the problems and predicament of humanity, and a way to overcome these and attain a worth-while life. The essence of this teaching is summarized in the Four Noble Truths in which it is stated that the root of the human predicament, or unsatisfactoriness, is desire. 3 By overcoming desire, one can attain a state in which there is no suffering, and in which all problems and all misery is overcome. This state is called nirvana. The means to attain the cessation of desire and overcome all suffering and misery, according to the Four Noble Truths, is the Eightfold Path. :This path is described as right belief, right resolve, right speech, right endeavour, right occupation, right effort, right contemplation, and right concentration. 4 By following this path, one can attain nirvana. It is traditionally said that there are three levels in this Eightfold Path, each of which are attained at different points in one's spiritual career. These three levels are sila (precepts or virtues), samadhi (concentration), and pan ita (wisdom or understanding). 5 According to the reports of anthropologists and sociologists, the idea of nirvana has little direct significance for majority of Thai people. To most of them, it is too remote to be relevant. Konrad Kingshill, an anthropologist, reported in a study of Ku Daeng, a village in northern Thailand, the ideas of the Buddhist monks there. 3.

tanha- flW.'V\1

4.

From Vinaya Mahavagga I : 6: 10 as translated by Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism: In Translations, New York : Atheneum, 1977, originally published by Harvard University Press, 18%, pp. 368 -

5.

373.

These three levels are described in Sunthorn Na-Rangsi, The Buddhist Concepts of Karma and

Rebirth, Bangkok : Mahamakut Press, 1976, p. 257 f.

26

Philip Hughes

Nibpha-n (U'Vi'Vi1U} is the place of the highest happiness, according to one of the Ku Daeng priests. It is a peaceful place without birth or death. The spirits (winja-n 1tyqpm) of people are there, but not the persons themselves. The Lord Buddha is in Nibpha-n and so are his disciples who are araban (m,.;'u~). But today people are no longer good and cannot get to Nibpha-n. Not even the priests get there, or at least, he added on second thoughts, one does not know. This view was supported by other priests and ex-priests. None believed that by being a priest a person would be assured or even able to reach Nibpha-n. 6 The view that nirvana is unattainable to virtually everyone is held by many Thai people. In a book written on Buddhism as professed in Thailand by a Thai scholar, it is written that "nirvana is the innate property attained by the Buddha alone": 7 no one else has attained nirvana.

Nirvana does not have much significance for Thai Buddhist students. In a survey of Buddhist beliefs and practices among university students in Thailand, it was found that twenty-three percent of the students did not believe in nirvana at all. 8 When students at Chiang Mai University were asked whether the concept of nirvana had any influence on their thinking and/or behaviour, eighty-nine percent said that it had none or hardly any, and only three percent said that it was very influential. 9 In contrast to these attitudes, Bhikkhu Buddhadasa, a contemporary Thai Buddhist scholar, has emphasized the attainment of nirvana, particularly that aspect which he considers may be experienced in this life. He wrote, One can be peaceful and calm during the day. No matter what the causes of this calm, its amount and characteristics, and its level are, 6.

Konrad Kingshill, Ku Daeng, the Red Tomb: A Village Study in Northern Thailand, A.D. 1954 - 1974, 3rd edition, Bangkok : Suriyaban, 1976, p. 234.

7.

M. L. Manich Jumsai, Understanding Thai Buddhism, Bangkok : Chalermnit Press, 1980, pp. 28-29.

8.

A. de Juan Penalosa, Change in the Belief and Practise of Buddhism Among Thai University Students. Ph.D. thesis, Pontificlae Universitatis Gregorianae, Rome, 1977, pp. 221 - 222.

9.

These results were obtained by A. de Juan Penalosa. They are not reported separately in his thesis, but have been taken from the computer print-outs of the results of his survey.

27

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

all can be called nibbana. 10 For Buddhadasa, nirvana is a state of mind that is completely calm, without anxiety, or delusion, hatred or greed, and, most importantly, detached. To attain this state, he says, the mind must be free from all "attachments" and "clinging". Buddhadasa says that all one needs to do to experience this state of nirvana is to verify every day and all day the truth of the statement that "nothing is worth getting or being". 11 While most Thai people do not refer to their own states of calm as being nirvana, it is at this level that the conceptions underlying nirvana have most significance for Thai people. It is widely accepted that "desire" is wrong, particularly if it leads to discontent. If one can control one's emotions, if one can remain calm, one can attain a state of contentment. This idea of remaining cool, calm, and content is expressed in the ideas of being indifferent and unattached (chooj - L\1.£1 j), and in the expression "it doesn't ma.tter" (mai pen rai- 'aJLilu.h). Suntaree Komin and Snit Smuckarn, two Thai sociologists, have noted the connection between the idea of nirvana and the importance of keeping cool as reflected in a statement they used in a survey of Thai values and attitudes. They put the statement "Not holding on or attaching oneself to lustful desires and possessions is the best way to develop peace and happiness in the heart" to their respondants. Eighty percent agreed with it. There were no significant differences in agreement between males and females, urban or rural people, or between people of different occupations or incomes levels. 12 In another questionnaire distributed to students by myself, the following statement was included: "Problems arise only because we attach importance to ourselves, and if we do not follow our own interests, these things will cease to be problems". In this form of the idea of detachment from the self, forty-seven percent of the Buddhist students affirmed that this did help them to cope with personal problems. In dealing with the general problems of mankind, ninety percent of the same students said that "controlling one's heart in order to make it more peaceful" would help a great deal, more, in fact, than any of another seven 10. Buddhadasa lndapanno, In Samsara Exist Nibbana, translated by Thawee Sribunruang, Bangkok : Sublime Life Mission, 1970, p. 10. 11. Buddhadasa h\dapanno, Handbook For Mankind, Bangkok: Sublime Life Mission, 1%9, p. 109.

12. Suntaree Komin and Snit Smuckarn, Thai Values and Value Systems : A Survey Instrument, Bangkok : Nida, 1979. In Thai. p. 258.

28

Philip Hughes

possibilities which were suggested. The concept of nirvanq is distinctively Buddhist, and most Christians refer to it as such. It has no place in the Christian system of ideas. Nevertheless, in the comparison between the Christian and Buddhist responses to the questionnaire I used, there was little difference in attitudes to coolness and detachment. The Buddhist word for the cause of unsatisfactoriness, "desire", or "craving", was rated more evil by the Thai Christians than by the Thai Buddhists, although the difference was not statistically significant. The Christians expressed equal interest to that of the Buddhists in the value of "calm contentment", and they saw Christianity as helping to give them that calmness and sense of peace. The only difference between the Christians and Buddhists in responses to questions on this area was that the Buddhists affirmed more than the Christians the helpfulness of detachment in dealing with personal problems. In conclusion, then, the explicit doctrines about nirvana hav~ little direct soteriological significance for the Thai people and are explicitly rejected by the Christians. However, the related i~eas that the worth-while life should involve coolness and calmness, and that this comes through extinguishing desire or craving is affirmed almost as much by the Thai Christians as by the Thai Buddhists. 13 To the extent that Christianity is seen in Thailand to contribute to a sense of coolness .and calmness, it has been assimilated to Thai cultural patterns.

Karma and Merit A second soteriological theme in the Thai culture has to do with the Buddhist themes of karma and merit. The law of karma is summarized in the popular phrase "Do good, receive good; do evil, receive evil". Buddhism teaches that all of a person's actions will bear results commensurate with those actions. Thus, it is up to each person to live according to the teaching of the Dharma, doing what is right, and gaining the benefits. · Buddhism does not offer salvation freely, but teaches people what the world is like so that people know what to do and how to live, and are thus able to attain salvation themselves. The law of karma is generally accepted by most people in Thailand. Suntaree 13. The Thai Christians' responses were significantly different from those of control groups of American students and missionaries, for example in their higher rating of the value of "calm contentment".

29

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

and Snit put the following sentence to their sample of one thousand five hundred Thai people, "I believe that in regard to what we did in the past, some day the consequences of those deeds that we have done in the past will return". Seventy-five percent of the sample agreed with the statement, thirteen percent disagreed, and twelve percent said they did not know. In the rural areas, belief was much stronger: eighty-four percent were willing to affirm the statement as true. 14 Merit-making can be considered as one particular application of the more general law of karma. One makes merit by doing good deeds, and particularly by engaging in religious activities, such as by giving gifts to the wat. Merit-making is often explicitly connected with salvation in terms of being a means to attain a higher status and better life in future existences. One's balance of merit and demerit determines whether one goes to heaven at death, or to hell, and how long one stays there. It also affects what one's life will be like, and what status one will have, when one is re-born on earth. 15 The ideas of karma and merit are generally regarded by the Thai Christians as distinctively Buddhist ideas. In interviews in the churches, a number of pastors and elders said that "karma" was a Buddhist word, and not a Christian term. Others were willing to offer a reinterpretation, suggesting, for example, that karma is one's actions and their consequences, or even that it was what God ordained. However, when the law of karma was expressed in terms of the saying "Do good, receive good; do evil, receive evil" in a questionnaire given to Christian and Buddhist students, its truth was affirmed just as stongly by the Christians as by the Buddhists. Eighty-one percent of the Christian students completing that questionnaire affirmed that they thought merit-making was important. Their reasons were similar to those of the Buddhists. The ideas of karma and merit are not discussed using those terms in the Protestant churches because of their Buddhist connotations. Yet, the general principles underlying karma and merit-making are generally affirmed. The Christians are just as sure as the Buddhists that if one does good, one will receive good, and if one does evil, one will receive evil. There is a tendency for the Christians to see 14. Suntaree and Snit, p. 249. IS. S.J. Tambiah, Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, p. 54; B. J. Terwiel, Monks and Magic: An Analysis of Religious Ceremonies in Central Thailand, Bangkok : Craftsman Press, 1975, p. 247 ; and K. Kingshill, p. 233., for examples.

30

Philip Hughes

merit-making more in terms of doing good deeds to help others, and less in terms of doing religious acts for the purpose of making themselves feel content, than the Buddhists. But both reasons for making merit are found among both Christians and Buddhists. The difference between them is one of degree rather than kind.

Rituals, Magic, and Spirits Apart from the Buddhist soteriological patterns, there are other patterns of behaviour in Thai culture which are used to bring about particular benefits and overcome certain types of problems. A large variety of techniques have traditionally been considered to have the power to produce certain effects. In a village in central Thailand, an anthropologist, Robert Textor, identified fifty-seven types of nonanthropomorphic objects which were said to have some magical power. Most of these objects could not produce evil effects, but, if used properly, were thought to be able to benefit the user. Some of these objects were used to bring about a good harvest, rainfall, success in trading, or, more diffusely, good luck, prosperity, and wealth. Others were used for protection, including protection against ghosts or spirits, protection in fights, and invulnerability to guns. Others were used for curing illnesses and exorcising spirits. 16 There is also a variety of spells used for similar ends. Indeed, the anthropologist, B. J. Terwiel, has argued that the concept of merit is similar to that of magical power in the understanding of many rural Thai people. Merit is seen as a beneficial and protective force which has general effects over a long period of time. 17 There is also a range of spiritual beings to whom many Thai people turn for help and support. These include gods of the Indic traditions such as Brahma, the demi-gods of nature such as the Rice Mother Mae Posop, and the mother goddess of the earth, Mae Nang Thorani, and a wide range of spirits. The spirits, and, to a lesser extent, the gods, are part of a cosmology which extends the range of agents who interact in the human world beyond human beings. Like human beings, these spirits are thought to be able to cause problems and misfortunes, and bring rewards. In the rural areas, nature and its anthropomorphic 16. Robert B. Textor, Patterns of Worship: A Formal Analysis of the Supernatural in a Thai Village, New Haven, Connecticut : HRAF I ex books, 1973, pp. 228-230, 306-8. 17. B. J. Terwiel, "A Model for the Study of Thai Buddhism", Journal of Asian Studies, 35 : 3, 1976, p. 401.

31

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

representations are important. In the city, the forces of nature have less significance, but the social world of the city is often unstable, rapidly changing, and leads to its own range of concerns. The spirit cults reflect short-term concerns and desires for relatively quick, specific, and tangible ends. Buddhism, on the other hand, tends to address itself more to a longer-term general sense of well-being. As has been commented by one anthropologist, Steven Piker, both magic and spirit ideas reflect an 'ad hoc' piecemeal approach to the opportunities and crises of life. There is little commitment to the benefactors. Rewards and punishments are dependent largely upon the ritualized expressions of respect and the whims of the supernatural agents. There is no explicit ethic in this. The bad person may be rewarded just as much as the good. 18 There is comparatively little use of explicitly magical techniques or objects among the Thai Christians. They do not generally use the charms, amulets, or spells of the Buddhists. Some Christians wear crosses around their necks and have suggested that these are alternatives to the Buddha images and other amulets which Buddhists wear. At the same time, however, they have maintained that the cross represents the God to whom they pray and does not have any power in itself. Occasionally, people use objects such as a Bible to place under the pillow of a sick person. Other Thai Christians have spoken scathingly of such magical and superstitious practices. On important occasions such as at weddings and birthdays, some Thai Christians make special offerings to the church. For some of them, this is a similar act to making merit. Others stress that this is an appropriate response to God's love and will not produce blessings in itself. The idea of a power which is able to protect and bless is found among the Thai Christians. While the Christians turn to this power on similar occasions to the Buddhists, they understand the power to reside in a personal god, rather than in objects or rituals. They appeal to this power for help through prayer. They may make special offerings to God, and the Catholics often make vows, 19 but the power 18. Steven Piker, "The Relationship of Belief Systems to Behaviour in Rural Thai Society", Asian Survey, 8 : 5, 1968, pp. 388-389. 19. Francis Xavier Bell found that over fifty percent of Thai Catholics make vows in times of crisis. See A Socio-Religious Survey of the Catholic Church in Thailand, 1974, Bangkok : Catholic Research Centre of Thailand, mimeographed. p. 2.

32

Philip Hughes

is not generally considered to be manipulatable in the same way as the impersonal powers which reside in magical objects and rituals. In a questionnaire I distributed, Christians and Buddhists were asked about what could be possible causes of such problems as road accidents and sickness. As many Christians as Buddhists indicated that spirits could be the causes of such problems. The spirits are just as much a part of the world for the Christians as for the Buddhists. But few Christians would supplicate the spirits when they have problems, even if they think that their problems miglit have been caused by the spirits. They believe that there is greater power in Jesus, God, or the Holy Spirit, than in the local spirits, and it is to the Christian God that they turn for help. Even many Buddhists believe that there is greater power in the Holy Spirit than in the local spirits. 20 In the comparison between Jesus and the local spirits, the idea of "power" is similar. Christians seek the help of the power of Jesus in similar circumstances to those in which many Thai people seek the help of the power of the local spirits, such as in times of sickness. Christians compare and contrast the power of Jesus with the power of the local spirits. . The comparison between the power of Jesus and that of other spirit lords, such as those who possess spirit mediums, was particularly evident at a series of Christian meetings held in Chiang Mai in March, 1982. Thousands of people, most of whom were not Christians, filled a large sports stadium to listen to an American evangelist. Many of these people had come from villages, some many miles away. The series of meetings had been advertised as "Miracles, Miracles", and an important part of the meetings were sessions of healing. It was commented by some Thai people that what the evangelist did was similar to the spirit mediums. He told people that all they had to do was to have faith in his Lord. Then he asked the Lord to heal the people. A number of people claimed at the meetings that they had been healed at that time.

Salvation from Sin through the Death of Christ · The major soteriological system preached by the Protestant missionaries to 20. When asked in A questionnaire about the statement "The power of the Holy Spirit is stronger than the power of the spirits" 280Jo of Buddhists respondants said that this was true, and sixtythree percent said that they did not know.

33

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

Thailand has centred on the notion of sin. 21 The root of all human problems is proclaimed to be sin. God has provided a means for dealing with this fundamental cause through the death of Christ on the cross. Salvation is found in the forgiveness of sin, which has become available to human beings through Christ's sacrificial death. The explanation of this has been described in terms of what is known as the theory of atonement. The idea that Christ came, or Christ died, to save mankind from sin was occasional!y mentioned in sermons preached by northern Thai Christians. Out of thirty sermons that were recorded during the research, this idea was mentioned as a point in the sermon six times. In three of these sermons, how Christ saves mankind, or what redemption by his death means, was not expounded. In the other three sermons, three different accounts were given of Christ's death. One spoke of it in terms of the struggle against the powers of darkness on mankind's behalf. In a second sermon, death was seen as the pattern of "sacrificing oneself for others". The third sermon spoke of it as the supreme expression of God's love. The idea of atonement was never mentioned or expounded in any of the sermons. The significance of sin and forgiveness for the Thai Christians is different from the major significance it has for the missionaries. The missionaries conceive "sin" primarily as the condition of the human race. This sinful condition is understood as the alienation of human beings from God, and it lies at the essence of personal and social existence. This state of affairs is reflected in what people say, do, and think, but sin is not totally identified with these individual actions and thoughts. Salvation involves a change in this human condition, and new relationship of human beings with God. This new relationship, it is believed, should be reflected in a change in the person's behaviour and actions. For the Thai Christians, on the other hand, sin is conceived primarily in terms of particular actions. In interviews with pastors and elders in churches, a number of examples of sins were given. Sexual sins were mentioned most frequently as those about which people were most concerned. People taking revenge on others, betting, and drinking alcoholic beverages were also mentioned. It is for these sins that one requires God's forgiveness. As such, 'Sin" is not the root problem of human beings, or a condition of the human race, but one particular problem and 21. The soteriological patterns of the Protestant missionaries to northern Thailand are discussed and documented in Philip J. Hughes, Proclamation and Response: A Study of the History of the Christian Faith in Northern Thailand, Chiang Ma• : Manuscript Division, Payap College, 1982.

34

Philip Hughes

concern. If the forgiveness of sins was an all-encompassing soteriological schema, it might be expected that " the forgiveness of sin" would be the major reason for the importance of religion. Such was the case for most of the missionaries who completed the questionnaire. However, it was rated as seventh in importance out of ten possibilities by the Thai Christians who completed the questionnaire. The fact that Christianity teaches people how to live, for example, was considered much more important by most of the Christians. Nevertheless, the Thai Christians expressed much greater concern than the missionaries about doing sinful things. In another questionnaire, the difference was apparent in that missionaries tended to affirm that (it was the nature of human beings which caused them to do evil, and that) the essence of human nature and society was evil. The Thai Christians, on the other hand, were doubtful whether the problem lay in the nature of human beings, and generally affirmed that the essence of human nature and of society was good. The difference in the conception of sin is reflected also in a difference in the conception of the means of forgiveness. For the missionaries, salvation has involved dealing with the sinful condition, which has been done through Christ's death on the cross. When Thai Christians were asked in interviews how salvation was possible in Christianity, neither Christ nor his death were ever mentioned. There was no suggestion in any of the interviews, or in any of the sermons recorded, that the death of Christ was essential to forgiveness and salvation. The general response was that God forgives people because He loves them.

Soteriological Patterns in Thai Christianity In the research on Thai Christianity, two major soteriological patterns emerged. The first of these centred on the fact that Christianity was seen as a religion which teaches one how to live. The second involved seeking the aid of the power of God.

In answers to the major questionnaire used in the research both Christian and Buddhist students gave as one of the chief reasons for the importance of religion that religions teach how one should live. In responding to another questionnaire, Christian students affirmed even more strongly than Buddhists that if we do good, we will receive good, and if we do evil, we will receive evil. Christianity is seen as a set of teachings about how one can do good. Thus, by following religious teaching, one will receive the benefits of doing good. If one follows the teaching of

35

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

Christianity, then one should be able to enjoy a good life, and things will go well for one. This was one of the two major soteriological patterns in Thai expressions of the Christian faith. Doing good was often discussed by Thai Christians in terms of following the will of God. Ninety-three percent of the sermons recorded spoke about doing God's will. Indeed, this was a major motif in most of the sermons. The underlying theme of much preaching is the call to people to live better lives, following God's will. The congregations are reminded that they will reap the consequent blessings. In the main questionnaire used in the research, respondants were asked what would most help human beings to overcome the problems of their predicament. Christian respondants answered that following this higher way of life would help more than anything else. Following the way of Buddhism more closely would also be of benefit, they said. Both Christians and Buddhists agreed that selfcontrol was of major importance. The basic human problem was not one of ignorance, for people have the Christian and Buddhist teachings as to how they should live. The problem was one of self-control in following these teachings. It is believed that God has revealed the dharma, the teaching about how to live through Jesus. In following it, problems are overcome, and people can enjoy peace and happiness. It is in this context of Christianity as teaching about how to live that sin is significant to the Thai Christians. What is evil or sinful is understood For Christians, this means, above all, primarily in terms of breaking the law. breaking the law of God, or failing to obey the Christian teaching or dharma. The failure to keeping religious rules and practices was considered particularly serious. In the responses to the initial questionnaire used in the research, sixtyfive percent of Christians who responded said that not praying regularly was Forty-five percent considered not going either seriously or very seriously sinful. If one does not to church regularly also as seriously or very seriously sinful. keep the dharma, one may expect to suffer the consequences of that failure. A survey of Catholics in Thailand suggested that they also considered that keeping religious practices was very important. When asked what was the most important thing for Catholics to do, twenty-seven percent of all respondants, and thirty-eight percent of the laity, answered to attend Sunday Mass. In comparison, only thirteen percent, and eight percent of the laity, said that helping

36

Philip Hughes

one's neighbour was most important. 22 Most of the .northern Thai Christians interviewed believed that one would be rewarded for following the teaching of Christianity not only in this life, but also in the next. They generally affirmed that if one did good, one would go to heaven, and if one did evil, one would go to hell. A few people did want to qualify this. Thirteen percent said that this only applied to non-Christians, and Christians who had faith would go to heaven irrespective of their deeds. Nevertheless, the dominant attitude seemed to parallel the Buddhist beliefs about both the short-term and long-term effects of merit-making. One northern Thai Christian confirmed that this comparison was valid when she explained that she and many other Christians considered the way of Christianity to be higher than that of Buddhism just as the way of the monk is higher than that of a lay-person within Buddhism. The Christian has more rules to keep and a higher standard of morality to maintain than the Buddhist. One can change from the lower standards of Buddhism to the higher standards of Christianity through repentance and acceptance of God's. forgiven~ss for the failures and inadequacies of the lower way.. After that, one is expected to keep the higher way, with God's help. While it may be more difficult to maintain the higher standards, the corresponding benefits would be much greater. The terminology of karma and merit-making are not used among the Christians, but the general principles underlying them are generally affirmed. The Christians are just as sure as the Buddhist that if one does good, one will receive good, and if one does evil, one will receive evil. They see Christianity as providing an alternative teaching to Buddhism on how to do good and thus receive the benefits. The second major soteriological theme in Thai expressions of Christianity has to do with the power and beneficience of God. Many powers and forces in the world, apart from one's personal karma, are recognized. For Buddhists, these include all kinds of anthropomorphic spirits and gods, and non-anthropomorphic magical objects, spells, and rituals. For the Christians, the major power and force in the world, which takes its place over that of spirits and magic, is God. Prote~tant

The Christians look to God for similar sorts of blessings that Buddhists and animists seek from the spirits and from magic. For example, when going on 22. Francis Xavier Bell, table 82, p. '56.

37

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

a long journey, the Christians will not buy amulets for protection, but will often ask God for his protection in prayer. Sometimes it is the church congregation which gathers to pray for the person, as a communal activity, comparable to the khwan ceremony. In times of sickness, the first action is generally to turn to God in prayer to seek healing. If the illness is serious, the pastor or elders of the church may be asked to go to the home for prayer. 23 Prayer is the most important resource for the Thai Christians when facing personal problems. 24 Indeed, prayer was far more important to the Christians than turning to the spirits of seeking the help of the monks or making merit was to the Buddhists. Ninety-three percent of the Christians who responded to the major questionnaire said that they prayed to God when they faced problems, while only fifty-five percent of the Buddhists said that they called on the Three Gems : the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. In times of sickness, sixty-seven percent of the Christians who responded to the major questionnaire said they would pray. A similar number said they would pray before going on a long journey. None of the Buddhist or animist resources, including making merit, seeking auspicious times and places, making offerings to spirits, or holding a khwon ceremony, had the significance to the Buddhists that1 prayer had for the Christians. God can be compared to a great spirit patron for many Thai Christians, in that they believe that he gives blessings to those who seek his help in prayer. Like the spirits, it is considered that God may cause sickness sometimes, and even such occurrences as road accidents. He does this, they say, to teach people. As with the spirit patrons, the Thai Christians do not expect God's blessings to be granted necessarily on the basis of ethical principles. One does not need to earn special blessings by good deeds. Many Thai Christians believe that God will give blessings to all who come to him in prayer and believe in his power and beneficience. God is not usually explicitly compared with the spirits by the Thai Christians. The comparisons are implicit in the ways in which they relate to him, the sort of expectations they have of him, and the kinds of occasions on which 23. This was demonstrated in the results of the major questionnaire. Prayer was also given as the most important resource of christians in the interviews. At a number of places, communal prayer was also mentioned. 24. As indicated in the results of the major questionnaire.

38

Philip Hughes

they turn to him for help. God, as the Thai Christians see him, differs from other spirit patrons in several ways. His power is considered to be very much greater, both in scope, and in the fact that it is not limited to a particular geographical area. Also, he is considered to be much greater in his beneficience than the local spirits, and more dependable in the distribution of his benefits. On the other hand, it is believed that God's expectations of those who seek his patronage are very much greater than the requirements made by the local spirits of their patrons. Many of the early converts to Christianity turned to the Christian God particularly because they saw him as having greater power and beneficience than that of local spirits. The superior power to heal was seen as a demonstration that the missionaries had access to a power superior to that of the local spirits. From 1911 to 1913 there was a great epidemic of malaria in northern Thailand. It was accompanied by famine. Dr. McKean, one of the missionary doctors, tells that, at first, people made a lot of offerings to the local spirits. But these did not help. The epidemic continued and the famine grew more severe. The people became poorer through the cost of the offerings. Finally, as a last resort, many tried the Christian medicines which evangelists distributed, and turned to the Christian God for help. 25 Large numbers of people became Christians at this time, some records indicating as many as two thousand people in the Chaing Mai area alone. The missionaries 'also helped a significant number of people who had been accused of witchcraft. They reported that in some cases of illness, spirit doctors would conduct a ceremony in which the sick person had to call out the name. of the spirit causing the illness. The person who was responsible for the spirit could be identified. In some cases, the homes of these people, and all their possessions were burnt to the ground, and they were ostracised from the community. Other villages would not accept them because they were considered to be dangerous. Many such people found shelter among the missionaries who were unafraid of the spirits. The missionaries taught that once these people turned to God, these spirits Some which had caused them so much trouble could no longer touch them. people were able to avoid ostracism by becoming Christians when first .accused of witchcraft. It was recognized, even by many Buddhists, that Christians cut 25.

James W. McKean, "Medical Notes-Chiengmai", Laos News, II : 4, October 1914, pp. 116-119.

39

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

all connections with spmts, and placed themselves under a higher power. One missionary, John Freeman, described what used to happen. People who had no prior connection with Christianity invited the elders or leaders of the nearest group of Christians to come and hold a service in their house. At this time, all spirit shrines in the house were torn down. By this act, the people declared that they had changed their allegiance and were now Christians. Freeman said that often, though not always, there was an end to the accusation and suspicion. 26 Help given to people accused of witchcraft was quite significant in the early growth of the church in Thailand. This belief in the power of God, a power similar in kind, but greater in extent and beneficience, than that of spirits, or magical techniques or objects, continues to be a major theme in Thai Christian soteriology. The appeal to the power of God is an important resource for dealing with problems, particularly It helps to provide a sense of security, and can those of a short-term kind. be called upon to help in achieving a more worth-while life.

Conclusions

There are two major soteriological patterns, then, in Thai religious thinking and One of these is the karmatic pattern which involves reliance on oneself practice. and doing good deeds to attain beneficial consequences. Central to the second This power is a-moral, and it is pattern is the concept of spiritual power. believed that it is found in non-anthropomorphic objects and techniques, and in anthropomorphic spirits gods. In neither of these themes is an ultimate, final salvation important, but both through the karmatic soteriology and the power soteriology the Thai people seek to improve their states of affairs. The power theme tends to appear particulary in relation to short-term ends; while the concept of karma and the related idea of merit tend to appear more in relation to long-term ends, including re-birth in heaven and on earth. It is significant that both of these themes of karma and power are found as two major soteriological patterns of Thai Christianity. These patterns of karma and power appear in Thai Christianity under different terminology. Their expressions are different from those in Thai Buddhism, in as far as power, for 26. J. H. Freeman, An. Oriental Land of the Free, Philadelphia : Westminster Press, 1910, pp. 51-52.

40

Philip Hughes

instance, is seen to relate almost entirely in God, rflther than in objects or muals. The two themes relate to each other in different ways in Christianity when compared with Buddhism. For exampl~. Christians emphasize that they need to rely on the power of God to help them to do good deeds. Similarly, the blessings which come from obeying God on the one hand, and from praying to him on the other, are not generally distinguished. Nevertheless, the two themes of karma and power are both present in Thai Christianity, demonstrating the assimilation of Christianity to Thai cultural patterns. These two patterns are quite distinct from the major soteriological preached by the Protestant missionaries to Thailand who emphasized salvation as the overcoming of the state of sin through the death of Christ. The word for salvation is itself is not clearly understood by many Thai Christians. This was evident in· the interviews with elders and pastors in the churches, and was reflected in the A similar comment was variety of interpretations given to "salvation" by them. made in a thesis by a Thai Christian student at the Thailand Theological Seminary. He wrote, This word (salvation)· does not make sense to most Thai Christians, even to the writer himself who was born in a Thai Christian family. Salvation is of no interest at all; what is expected in a Christian life is the hope of a future life, a life after death, a life with Christ in Heaven if we walk carefully with him in the present. That means if we keep morals and follow them carefully, trying to do only good things. This idea is also possessed by a large number of Thai Christians. 27 The idea of a totally new, transcendent state of affairs has little meaning in Thai Christianity, just as the state of nirvana has little direct significance for most Thai Buddhists. Thai cosmology is basically monistic, although spiritual and The Thai people, both Christians and material aspects of it are distinguished. Buddhists, seek for a better, more worth-while life within the one arena of existence. They seek of the help of spiritual powers, especially when facing problems and difficulties. and look for its benefits within this life. They hope for a good life in heaven, or, for the Buddhists, on earth, after death, as a reward for keeping the teachings of their religion, but tend to conceive the next life as 27.

Praphan Chantraboon, St. Paul's Teaching on Salvation in the Epistle to the Romans, thesis for B. Theol, Thailand Theological Seminary, Chiang Mai, Thailand, October, 1%5, p. 14.

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Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

an extension of this present life. Christianity has not produced a new culture among the Christians in It has involved the introduction of a new set of institutions. The Thailand. converts to Christianity have had to change their institutional affiliations from Buddhist wats to Christian churches. Christianity has involved the introduction of some new ideas, such as the idea of a powerful and loving God. These new institutional affiliations and new beliefs have led to the formation of a distinctive Christian community in Thailand. However, while the Christians have their own distinctive religious resources, and their own terminology for them, the soteriological patterns follow the patterns in Thai Buddhism and animism in the ways in Which they are conceived.

1

23

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand Philip Hughes*

In an article on the ways in which Western culture has been assimilated in Thailand, Michael Moerman, an anthropologist, wrote, The objects, organizations, and ideas which Thailand receives from the West must be modified if they are to enter and sustain the Thai way of life ... Things borrowed, whether Europe's Christianity or a New York pizza, are all, of necessity, different in form and substance from the original idea on which they are based. Borrowed traits are universally transformed. 1 Western Christianity has led to the building of new institutions in Thailand: the churches. These institutions have, . by and large, adopted the rituals and practices of their Western counterparts. Has Christianity in fact been assimilated to Thai culture? This article will examine that question with respect to one part of the Christian presence in Thailand: the Protestants, and one aspect of Protestant Christianity: the soteriological patterns. Soteriological patterns may be defined as those patterns of belief and behaviour through which people seek total or partial salvation. They are the basic and underlying patterns of beliefs and practices in which people seek to make life worthwhile and to overcome life's fundamental problems and evils. In soteriological religions, states

* Philip

Hughes was born in London, but has lived most of his life in Australia He graduated from Melbourne University with the degress of bachelor of arts in philosophy, master of arts, and master of education. He also completed the degree of bachelor of divinity awarded by the Melbourne College of Divinity. He is an ordained minister of religion, and has worked both as a minister and as "a university teacher.

In 1978, he began work towards a doctorate. Following preparatory study in Britain, he went to Chiang Mai, Thailand. He spent three years there, teaching at Payap College, Chiang Mai, and doing research on the relationship of the beliefs and values of Thai Christians to those of the Thai Buddhists. He returned to Australia in June 1982. He received the degree of doctor of theology from the South East Asia Graduate School of Theology in August 1983. Apart from journal articles, he has written two small books on Thailand: Thai Culture, Values, and Religion: An Annotated Bibliography of En!{lish Language Materials and Proclamation and Response: A Study of the History oj the Christian Faith in Northern Thailand. Both books have been published by the Payap College Archives, Chiang Mai. 1.

Michael Moerman, "Western Culture and the Thai Way of Life", Asia, 1, 1964, pp. 32-33.

24

Philip Hughes

of being or non-being are posited in which an ultimate condition of bliss or "worthwhileness" is achieved and in which all evils are finally overcome. Not all soteriological patterns involve the attempt to achieve such ultimate states, however. Basic patterns of improving life and dealing with evils may also be included in the consideration of a culture's soteriology. The sociologist, Max Weber, claimed that both Theravada Buddhism and Protestant Calvinistic Christianity were soteriological religions typifying extreme and diametrically opposed positions. Weber argued that there were two fundamental directions in which one can go in attempting to resolve the tension between reality with all its frustrations, suffering, and evil and the ideal state of existence. The first direction involves the attempt to escape from the conflicts of worldly existence into an "other-worldly" state of existence. Weber used the term "mysticism" to describe this direction. The second involves the attempt to transcend present reality and attain the ideal by actively trying to bring the state of the world into conformity with the ideal. Weber used the term ''asceticism" to describe this direction. According to Weber, the distinction between asceticism and mysticism is the distinction between oriental and Asiatic types of religion on the one hand, and Occidental on the other. While Asia has tended to turn towards mysticism and to seek salvation by withdrawing from the world, the West has tended to look for salvation through changing the world. 2 It is interesting to note that, according to Weber's analysis, the two extreme positions have met in Thailand. The Protestant missionary movement has been dominated by American Presbyterians with a Calvinistic heritage, who have come into the bastion of Theravada Buddhism. What, then, has happened to Christianity in Thailand? Are its soteriological patterns Western, reflecting those of the missionaries who taught Christianity? Or do the Thai Christian patterns show signs of assimilation to Thai culture? The following discussion of this question arises out of three years study of Thai soteriological patterns, both Christian and Buddhist, through the literature on Thai culture, through detailed and numerous interviews with Thai Christians and Buddhists, through the analysis of sermons preached by Thai Christians and Buddhists, through the analysis of approximately one thousand three hundred responses to three questionnaires distributed by the researcher, and through a study of the historical development of Christianity in Thailand. 2.

See Max Weber, Sociology of Religion, translated by Ephraim Fischoff, London : .Methuen, 1963. ch.XI.

25

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

The discussion will proceed with a consideration of the major soteriological patterns in the Thai culture and the attitudes of the Thai Christians to these patterns. Then the soteriology of the Protestant. missionaries to Thailand will be outlined. This article will conclude with an examination of the soteriological patterns of the Thai Christians in relation to those of the Thai Buddhists and the Protestant missionaries.

Soteriological Patterns in the Thai Culture Nirvana At the heart of the Buddha's teaching lies an explanation of the problems and predicament of humanity, and a way to overcome these and attain a worth-while life. The essence of this teaching is summarized in the Four Noble Truths in which it is stated that the root of the human predicament, or unsatisfactoriness, is desire. 3 By overcoming desire, one can attain a state in which there is no suffering, and in which all problems and all misery is overcome. This state is called nirvana. The means to attain the cessation of desire and overcome all suffering and misery, according to the Four Noble Truths, is the Eightfold Path. :This path is described as right belief, right resolve, right speech, right endeavour, right occupation, right effort, right contemplation, and right concentration. 4 By following this path, one can attain nirvana. It is traditionally said that there are three levels in this Eightfold Path, each of which are attained at different points in one's spiritual career. These three levels are sila (precepts or virtues), samadhi (concentration), and pan ita (wisdom or understanding). 5 According to the reports of anthropologists and sociologists, the idea of nirvana has little direct significance for majority of Thai people. To most of them, it is too remote to be relevant. Konrad Kingshill, an anthropologist, reported in a study of Ku Daeng, a village in northern Thailand, the ideas of the Buddhist monks there. 3.

tanha- flW.'V\1

4.

From Vinaya Mahavagga I : 6: 10 as translated by Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism: In Translations, New York : Atheneum, 1977, originally published by Harvard University Press, 18%, pp. 368 -

5.

373.

These three levels are described in Sunthorn Na-Rangsi, The Buddhist Concepts of Karma and

Rebirth, Bangkok : Mahamakut Press, 1976, p. 257 f.

26

Philip Hughes

Nibpha-n (U'Vi'Vi1U} is the place of the highest happiness, according to one of the Ku Daeng priests. It is a peaceful place without birth or death. The spirits (winja-n 1tyqpm) of people are there, but not the persons themselves. The Lord Buddha is in Nibpha-n and so are his disciples who are araban (m,.;'u~). But today people are no longer good and cannot get to Nibpha-n. Not even the priests get there, or at least, he added on second thoughts, one does not know. This view was supported by other priests and ex-priests. None believed that by being a priest a person would be assured or even able to reach Nibpha-n. 6 The view that nirvana is unattainable to virtually everyone is held by many Thai people. In a book written on Buddhism as professed in Thailand by a Thai scholar, it is written that "nirvana is the innate property attained by the Buddha alone": 7 no one else has attained nirvana.

Nirvana does not have much significance for Thai Buddhist students. In a survey of Buddhist beliefs and practices among university students in Thailand, it was found that twenty-three percent of the students did not believe in nirvana at all. 8 When students at Chiang Mai University were asked whether the concept of nirvana had any influence on their thinking and/or behaviour, eighty-nine percent said that it had none or hardly any, and only three percent said that it was very influential. 9 In contrast to these attitudes, Bhikkhu Buddhadasa, a contemporary Thai Buddhist scholar, has emphasized the attainment of nirvana, particularly that aspect which he considers may be experienced in this life. He wrote, One can be peaceful and calm during the day. No matter what the causes of this calm, its amount and characteristics, and its level are, 6.

Konrad Kingshill, Ku Daeng, the Red Tomb: A Village Study in Northern Thailand, A.D. 1954 - 1974, 3rd edition, Bangkok : Suriyaban, 1976, p. 234.

7.

M. L. Manich Jumsai, Understanding Thai Buddhism, Bangkok : Chalermnit Press, 1980, pp. 28-29.

8.

A. de Juan Penalosa, Change in the Belief and Practise of Buddhism Among Thai University Students. Ph.D. thesis, Pontificlae Universitatis Gregorianae, Rome, 1977, pp. 221 - 222.

9.

These results were obtained by A. de Juan Penalosa. They are not reported separately in his thesis, but have been taken from the computer print-outs of the results of his survey.

27

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

all can be called nibbana. 10 For Buddhadasa, nirvana is a state of mind that is completely calm, without anxiety, or delusion, hatred or greed, and, most importantly, detached. To attain this state, he says, the mind must be free from all "attachments" and "clinging". Buddhadasa says that all one needs to do to experience this state of nirvana is to verify every day and all day the truth of the statement that "nothing is worth getting or being". 11 While most Thai people do not refer to their own states of calm as being nirvana, it is at this level that the conceptions underlying nirvana have most significance for Thai people. It is widely accepted that "desire" is wrong, particularly if it leads to discontent. If one can control one's emotions, if one can remain calm, one can attain a state of contentment. This idea of remaining cool, calm, and content is expressed in the ideas of being indifferent and unattached (chooj - L\1.£1 j), and in the expression "it doesn't ma.tter" (mai pen rai- 'aJLilu.h). Suntaree Komin and Snit Smuckarn, two Thai sociologists, have noted the connection between the idea of nirvana and the importance of keeping cool as reflected in a statement they used in a survey of Thai values and attitudes. They put the statement "Not holding on or attaching oneself to lustful desires and possessions is the best way to develop peace and happiness in the heart" to their respondants. Eighty percent agreed with it. There were no significant differences in agreement between males and females, urban or rural people, or between people of different occupations or incomes levels. 12 In another questionnaire distributed to students by myself, the following statement was included: "Problems arise only because we attach importance to ourselves, and if we do not follow our own interests, these things will cease to be problems". In this form of the idea of detachment from the self, forty-seven percent of the Buddhist students affirmed that this did help them to cope with personal problems. In dealing with the general problems of mankind, ninety percent of the same students said that "controlling one's heart in order to make it more peaceful" would help a great deal, more, in fact, than any of another seven 10. Buddhadasa lndapanno, In Samsara Exist Nibbana, translated by Thawee Sribunruang, Bangkok : Sublime Life Mission, 1970, p. 10. 11. Buddhadasa h\dapanno, Handbook For Mankind, Bangkok: Sublime Life Mission, 1%9, p. 109.

12. Suntaree Komin and Snit Smuckarn, Thai Values and Value Systems : A Survey Instrument, Bangkok : Nida, 1979. In Thai. p. 258.

28

Philip Hughes

possibilities which were suggested. The concept of nirvanq is distinctively Buddhist, and most Christians refer to it as such. It has no place in the Christian system of ideas. Nevertheless, in the comparison between the Christian and Buddhist responses to the questionnaire I used, there was little difference in attitudes to coolness and detachment. The Buddhist word for the cause of unsatisfactoriness, "desire", or "craving", was rated more evil by the Thai Christians than by the Thai Buddhists, although the difference was not statistically significant. The Christians expressed equal interest to that of the Buddhists in the value of "calm contentment", and they saw Christianity as helping to give them that calmness and sense of peace. The only difference between the Christians and Buddhists in responses to questions on this area was that the Buddhists affirmed more than the Christians the helpfulness of detachment in dealing with personal problems. In conclusion, then, the explicit doctrines about nirvana hav~ little direct soteriological significance for the Thai people and are explicitly rejected by the Christians. However, the related i~eas that the worth-while life should involve coolness and calmness, and that this comes through extinguishing desire or craving is affirmed almost as much by the Thai Christians as by the Thai Buddhists. 13 To the extent that Christianity is seen in Thailand to contribute to a sense of coolness .and calmness, it has been assimilated to Thai cultural patterns.

Karma and Merit A second soteriological theme in the Thai culture has to do with the Buddhist themes of karma and merit. The law of karma is summarized in the popular phrase "Do good, receive good; do evil, receive evil". Buddhism teaches that all of a person's actions will bear results commensurate with those actions. Thus, it is up to each person to live according to the teaching of the Dharma, doing what is right, and gaining the benefits. · Buddhism does not offer salvation freely, but teaches people what the world is like so that people know what to do and how to live, and are thus able to attain salvation themselves. The law of karma is generally accepted by most people in Thailand. Suntaree 13. The Thai Christians' responses were significantly different from those of control groups of American students and missionaries, for example in their higher rating of the value of "calm contentment".

29

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

and Snit put the following sentence to their sample of one thousand five hundred Thai people, "I believe that in regard to what we did in the past, some day the consequences of those deeds that we have done in the past will return". Seventy-five percent of the sample agreed with the statement, thirteen percent disagreed, and twelve percent said they did not know. In the rural areas, belief was much stronger: eighty-four percent were willing to affirm the statement as true. 14 Merit-making can be considered as one particular application of the more general law of karma. One makes merit by doing good deeds, and particularly by engaging in religious activities, such as by giving gifts to the wat. Merit-making is often explicitly connected with salvation in terms of being a means to attain a higher status and better life in future existences. One's balance of merit and demerit determines whether one goes to heaven at death, or to hell, and how long one stays there. It also affects what one's life will be like, and what status one will have, when one is re-born on earth. 15 The ideas of karma and merit are generally regarded by the Thai Christians as distinctively Buddhist ideas. In interviews in the churches, a number of pastors and elders said that "karma" was a Buddhist word, and not a Christian term. Others were willing to offer a reinterpretation, suggesting, for example, that karma is one's actions and their consequences, or even that it was what God ordained. However, when the law of karma was expressed in terms of the saying "Do good, receive good; do evil, receive evil" in a questionnaire given to Christian and Buddhist students, its truth was affirmed just as stongly by the Christians as by the Buddhists. Eighty-one percent of the Christian students completing that questionnaire affirmed that they thought merit-making was important. Their reasons were similar to those of the Buddhists. The ideas of karma and merit are not discussed using those terms in the Protestant churches because of their Buddhist connotations. Yet, the general principles underlying karma and merit-making are generally affirmed. The Christians are just as sure as the Buddhists that if one does good, one will receive good, and if one does evil, one will receive evil. There is a tendency for the Christians to see 14. Suntaree and Snit, p. 249. IS. S.J. Tambiah, Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, p. 54; B. J. Terwiel, Monks and Magic: An Analysis of Religious Ceremonies in Central Thailand, Bangkok : Craftsman Press, 1975, p. 247 ; and K. Kingshill, p. 233., for examples.

30

Philip Hughes

merit-making more in terms of doing good deeds to help others, and less in terms of doing religious acts for the purpose of making themselves feel content, than the Buddhists. But both reasons for making merit are found among both Christians and Buddhists. The difference between them is one of degree rather than kind.

Rituals, Magic, and Spirits Apart from the Buddhist soteriological patterns, there are other patterns of behaviour in Thai culture which are used to bring about particular benefits and overcome certain types of problems. A large variety of techniques have traditionally been considered to have the power to produce certain effects. In a village in central Thailand, an anthropologist, Robert Textor, identified fifty-seven types of nonanthropomorphic objects which were said to have some magical power. Most of these objects could not produce evil effects, but, if used properly, were thought to be able to benefit the user. Some of these objects were used to bring about a good harvest, rainfall, success in trading, or, more diffusely, good luck, prosperity, and wealth. Others were used for protection, including protection against ghosts or spirits, protection in fights, and invulnerability to guns. Others were used for curing illnesses and exorcising spirits. 16 There is also a variety of spells used for similar ends. Indeed, the anthropologist, B. J. Terwiel, has argued that the concept of merit is similar to that of magical power in the understanding of many rural Thai people. Merit is seen as a beneficial and protective force which has general effects over a long period of time. 17 There is also a range of spiritual beings to whom many Thai people turn for help and support. These include gods of the Indic traditions such as Brahma, the demi-gods of nature such as the Rice Mother Mae Posop, and the mother goddess of the earth, Mae Nang Thorani, and a wide range of spirits. The spirits, and, to a lesser extent, the gods, are part of a cosmology which extends the range of agents who interact in the human world beyond human beings. Like human beings, these spirits are thought to be able to cause problems and misfortunes, and bring rewards. In the rural areas, nature and its anthropomorphic 16. Robert B. Textor, Patterns of Worship: A Formal Analysis of the Supernatural in a Thai Village, New Haven, Connecticut : HRAF I ex books, 1973, pp. 228-230, 306-8. 17. B. J. Terwiel, "A Model for the Study of Thai Buddhism", Journal of Asian Studies, 35 : 3, 1976, p. 401.

31

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

representations are important. In the city, the forces of nature have less significance, but the social world of the city is often unstable, rapidly changing, and leads to its own range of concerns. The spirit cults reflect short-term concerns and desires for relatively quick, specific, and tangible ends. Buddhism, on the other hand, tends to address itself more to a longer-term general sense of well-being. As has been commented by one anthropologist, Steven Piker, both magic and spirit ideas reflect an 'ad hoc' piecemeal approach to the opportunities and crises of life. There is little commitment to the benefactors. Rewards and punishments are dependent largely upon the ritualized expressions of respect and the whims of the supernatural agents. There is no explicit ethic in this. The bad person may be rewarded just as much as the good. 18 There is comparatively little use of explicitly magical techniques or objects among the Thai Christians. They do not generally use the charms, amulets, or spells of the Buddhists. Some Christians wear crosses around their necks and have suggested that these are alternatives to the Buddha images and other amulets which Buddhists wear. At the same time, however, they have maintained that the cross represents the God to whom they pray and does not have any power in itself. Occasionally, people use objects such as a Bible to place under the pillow of a sick person. Other Thai Christians have spoken scathingly of such magical and superstitious practices. On important occasions such as at weddings and birthdays, some Thai Christians make special offerings to the church. For some of them, this is a similar act to making merit. Others stress that this is an appropriate response to God's love and will not produce blessings in itself. The idea of a power which is able to protect and bless is found among the Thai Christians. While the Christians turn to this power on similar occasions to the Buddhists, they understand the power to reside in a personal god, rather than in objects or rituals. They appeal to this power for help through prayer. They may make special offerings to God, and the Catholics often make vows, 19 but the power 18. Steven Piker, "The Relationship of Belief Systems to Behaviour in Rural Thai Society", Asian Survey, 8 : 5, 1968, pp. 388-389. 19. Francis Xavier Bell found that over fifty percent of Thai Catholics make vows in times of crisis. See A Socio-Religious Survey of the Catholic Church in Thailand, 1974, Bangkok : Catholic Research Centre of Thailand, mimeographed. p. 2.

32

Philip Hughes

is not generally considered to be manipulatable in the same way as the impersonal powers which reside in magical objects and rituals. In a questionnaire I distributed, Christians and Buddhists were asked about what could be possible causes of such problems as road accidents and sickness. As many Christians as Buddhists indicated that spirits could be the causes of such problems. The spirits are just as much a part of the world for the Christians as for the Buddhists. But few Christians would supplicate the spirits when they have problems, even if they think that their problems miglit have been caused by the spirits. They believe that there is greater power in Jesus, God, or the Holy Spirit, than in the local spirits, and it is to the Christian God that they turn for help. Even many Buddhists believe that there is greater power in the Holy Spirit than in the local spirits. 20 In the comparison between Jesus and the local spirits, the idea of "power" is similar. Christians seek the help of the power of Jesus in similar circumstances to those in which many Thai people seek the help of the power of the local spirits, such as in times of sickness. Christians compare and contrast the power of Jesus with the power of the local spirits. . The comparison between the power of Jesus and that of other spirit lords, such as those who possess spirit mediums, was particularly evident at a series of Christian meetings held in Chiang Mai in March, 1982. Thousands of people, most of whom were not Christians, filled a large sports stadium to listen to an American evangelist. Many of these people had come from villages, some many miles away. The series of meetings had been advertised as "Miracles, Miracles", and an important part of the meetings were sessions of healing. It was commented by some Thai people that what the evangelist did was similar to the spirit mediums. He told people that all they had to do was to have faith in his Lord. Then he asked the Lord to heal the people. A number of people claimed at the meetings that they had been healed at that time.

Salvation from Sin through the Death of Christ · The major soteriological system preached by the Protestant missionaries to 20. When asked in A questionnaire about the statement "The power of the Holy Spirit is stronger than the power of the spirits" 280Jo of Buddhists respondants said that this was true, and sixtythree percent said that they did not know.

33

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

Thailand has centred on the notion of sin. 21 The root of all human problems is proclaimed to be sin. God has provided a means for dealing with this fundamental cause through the death of Christ on the cross. Salvation is found in the forgiveness of sin, which has become available to human beings through Christ's sacrificial death. The explanation of this has been described in terms of what is known as the theory of atonement. The idea that Christ came, or Christ died, to save mankind from sin was occasional!y mentioned in sermons preached by northern Thai Christians. Out of thirty sermons that were recorded during the research, this idea was mentioned as a point in the sermon six times. In three of these sermons, how Christ saves mankind, or what redemption by his death means, was not expounded. In the other three sermons, three different accounts were given of Christ's death. One spoke of it in terms of the struggle against the powers of darkness on mankind's behalf. In a second sermon, death was seen as the pattern of "sacrificing oneself for others". The third sermon spoke of it as the supreme expression of God's love. The idea of atonement was never mentioned or expounded in any of the sermons. The significance of sin and forgiveness for the Thai Christians is different from the major significance it has for the missionaries. The missionaries conceive "sin" primarily as the condition of the human race. This sinful condition is understood as the alienation of human beings from God, and it lies at the essence of personal and social existence. This state of affairs is reflected in what people say, do, and think, but sin is not totally identified with these individual actions and thoughts. Salvation involves a change in this human condition, and new relationship of human beings with God. This new relationship, it is believed, should be reflected in a change in the person's behaviour and actions. For the Thai Christians, on the other hand, sin is conceived primarily in terms of particular actions. In interviews with pastors and elders in churches, a number of examples of sins were given. Sexual sins were mentioned most frequently as those about which people were most concerned. People taking revenge on others, betting, and drinking alcoholic beverages were also mentioned. It is for these sins that one requires God's forgiveness. As such, 'Sin" is not the root problem of human beings, or a condition of the human race, but one particular problem and 21. The soteriological patterns of the Protestant missionaries to northern Thailand are discussed and documented in Philip J. Hughes, Proclamation and Response: A Study of the History of the Christian Faith in Northern Thailand, Chiang Ma• : Manuscript Division, Payap College, 1982.

34

Philip Hughes

concern. If the forgiveness of sins was an all-encompassing soteriological schema, it might be expected that " the forgiveness of sin" would be the major reason for the importance of religion. Such was the case for most of the missionaries who completed the questionnaire. However, it was rated as seventh in importance out of ten possibilities by the Thai Christians who completed the questionnaire. The fact that Christianity teaches people how to live, for example, was considered much more important by most of the Christians. Nevertheless, the Thai Christians expressed much greater concern than the missionaries about doing sinful things. In another questionnaire, the difference was apparent in that missionaries tended to affirm that (it was the nature of human beings which caused them to do evil, and that) the essence of human nature and society was evil. The Thai Christians, on the other hand, were doubtful whether the problem lay in the nature of human beings, and generally affirmed that the essence of human nature and of society was good. The difference in the conception of sin is reflected also in a difference in the conception of the means of forgiveness. For the missionaries, salvation has involved dealing with the sinful condition, which has been done through Christ's death on the cross. When Thai Christians were asked in interviews how salvation was possible in Christianity, neither Christ nor his death were ever mentioned. There was no suggestion in any of the interviews, or in any of the sermons recorded, that the death of Christ was essential to forgiveness and salvation. The general response was that God forgives people because He loves them.

Soteriological Patterns in Thai Christianity In the research on Thai Christianity, two major soteriological patterns emerged. The first of these centred on the fact that Christianity was seen as a religion which teaches one how to live. The second involved seeking the aid of the power of God.

In answers to the major questionnaire used in the research both Christian and Buddhist students gave as one of the chief reasons for the importance of religion that religions teach how one should live. In responding to another questionnaire, Christian students affirmed even more strongly than Buddhists that if we do good, we will receive good, and if we do evil, we will receive evil. Christianity is seen as a set of teachings about how one can do good. Thus, by following religious teaching, one will receive the benefits of doing good. If one follows the teaching of

35

Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

Christianity, then one should be able to enjoy a good life, and things will go well for one. This was one of the two major soteriological patterns in Thai expressions of the Christian faith. Doing good was often discussed by Thai Christians in terms of following the will of God. Ninety-three percent of the sermons recorded spoke about doing God's will. Indeed, this was a major motif in most of the sermons. The underlying theme of much preaching is the call to people to live better lives, following God's will. The congregations are reminded that they will reap the consequent blessings. In the main questionnaire used in the research, respondants were asked what would most help human beings to overcome the problems of their predicament. Christian respondants answered that following this higher way of life would help more than anything else. Following the way of Buddhism more closely would also be of benefit, they said. Both Christians and Buddhists agreed that selfcontrol was of major importance. The basic human problem was not one of ignorance, for people have the Christian and Buddhist teachings as to how they should live. The problem was one of self-control in following these teachings. It is believed that God has revealed the dharma, the teaching about how to live through Jesus. In following it, problems are overcome, and people can enjoy peace and happiness. It is in this context of Christianity as teaching about how to live that sin is significant to the Thai Christians. What is evil or sinful is understood For Christians, this means, above all, primarily in terms of breaking the law. breaking the law of God, or failing to obey the Christian teaching or dharma. The failure to keeping religious rules and practices was considered particularly serious. In the responses to the initial questionnaire used in the research, sixtyfive percent of Christians who responded said that not praying regularly was Forty-five percent considered not going either seriously or very seriously sinful. If one does not to church regularly also as seriously or very seriously sinful. keep the dharma, one may expect to suffer the consequences of that failure. A survey of Catholics in Thailand suggested that they also considered that keeping religious practices was very important. When asked what was the most important thing for Catholics to do, twenty-seven percent of all respondants, and thirty-eight percent of the laity, answered to attend Sunday Mass. In comparison, only thirteen percent, and eight percent of the laity, said that helping

36

Philip Hughes

one's neighbour was most important. 22 Most of the .northern Thai Christians interviewed believed that one would be rewarded for following the teaching of Christianity not only in this life, but also in the next. They generally affirmed that if one did good, one would go to heaven, and if one did evil, one would go to hell. A few people did want to qualify this. Thirteen percent said that this only applied to non-Christians, and Christians who had faith would go to heaven irrespective of their deeds. Nevertheless, the dominant attitude seemed to parallel the Buddhist beliefs about both the short-term and long-term effects of merit-making. One northern Thai Christian confirmed that this comparison was valid when she explained that she and many other Christians considered the way of Christianity to be higher than that of Buddhism just as the way of the monk is higher than that of a lay-person within Buddhism. The Christian has more rules to keep and a higher standard of morality to maintain than the Buddhist. One can change from the lower standards of Buddhism to the higher standards of Christianity through repentance and acceptance of God's. forgiven~ss for the failures and inadequacies of the lower way.. After that, one is expected to keep the higher way, with God's help. While it may be more difficult to maintain the higher standards, the corresponding benefits would be much greater. The terminology of karma and merit-making are not used among the Christians, but the general principles underlying them are generally affirmed. The Christians are just as sure as the Buddhist that if one does good, one will receive good, and if one does evil, one will receive evil. They see Christianity as providing an alternative teaching to Buddhism on how to do good and thus receive the benefits. The second major soteriological theme in Thai expressions of Christianity has to do with the power and beneficience of God. Many powers and forces in the world, apart from one's personal karma, are recognized. For Buddhists, these include all kinds of anthropomorphic spirits and gods, and non-anthropomorphic magical objects, spells, and rituals. For the Christians, the major power and force in the world, which takes its place over that of spirits and magic, is God. Prote~tant

The Christians look to God for similar sorts of blessings that Buddhists and animists seek from the spirits and from magic. For example, when going on 22. Francis Xavier Bell, table 82, p. '56.

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Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

a long journey, the Christians will not buy amulets for protection, but will often ask God for his protection in prayer. Sometimes it is the church congregation which gathers to pray for the person, as a communal activity, comparable to the khwan ceremony. In times of sickness, the first action is generally to turn to God in prayer to seek healing. If the illness is serious, the pastor or elders of the church may be asked to go to the home for prayer. 23 Prayer is the most important resource for the Thai Christians when facing personal problems. 24 Indeed, prayer was far more important to the Christians than turning to the spirits of seeking the help of the monks or making merit was to the Buddhists. Ninety-three percent of the Christians who responded to the major questionnaire said that they prayed to God when they faced problems, while only fifty-five percent of the Buddhists said that they called on the Three Gems : the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. In times of sickness, sixty-seven percent of the Christians who responded to the major questionnaire said they would pray. A similar number said they would pray before going on a long journey. None of the Buddhist or animist resources, including making merit, seeking auspicious times and places, making offerings to spirits, or holding a khwon ceremony, had the significance to the Buddhists that1 prayer had for the Christians. God can be compared to a great spirit patron for many Thai Christians, in that they believe that he gives blessings to those who seek his help in prayer. Like the spirits, it is considered that God may cause sickness sometimes, and even such occurrences as road accidents. He does this, they say, to teach people. As with the spirit patrons, the Thai Christians do not expect God's blessings to be granted necessarily on the basis of ethical principles. One does not need to earn special blessings by good deeds. Many Thai Christians believe that God will give blessings to all who come to him in prayer and believe in his power and beneficience. God is not usually explicitly compared with the spirits by the Thai Christians. The comparisons are implicit in the ways in which they relate to him, the sort of expectations they have of him, and the kinds of occasions on which 23. This was demonstrated in the results of the major questionnaire. Prayer was also given as the most important resource of christians in the interviews. At a number of places, communal prayer was also mentioned. 24. As indicated in the results of the major questionnaire.

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Philip Hughes

they turn to him for help. God, as the Thai Christians see him, differs from other spirit patrons in several ways. His power is considered to be very much greater, both in scope, and in the fact that it is not limited to a particular geographical area. Also, he is considered to be much greater in his beneficience than the local spirits, and more dependable in the distribution of his benefits. On the other hand, it is believed that God's expectations of those who seek his patronage are very much greater than the requirements made by the local spirits of their patrons. Many of the early converts to Christianity turned to the Christian God particularly because they saw him as having greater power and beneficience than that of local spirits. The superior power to heal was seen as a demonstration that the missionaries had access to a power superior to that of the local spirits. From 1911 to 1913 there was a great epidemic of malaria in northern Thailand. It was accompanied by famine. Dr. McKean, one of the missionary doctors, tells that, at first, people made a lot of offerings to the local spirits. But these did not help. The epidemic continued and the famine grew more severe. The people became poorer through the cost of the offerings. Finally, as a last resort, many tried the Christian medicines which evangelists distributed, and turned to the Christian God for help. 25 Large numbers of people became Christians at this time, some records indicating as many as two thousand people in the Chaing Mai area alone. The missionaries 'also helped a significant number of people who had been accused of witchcraft. They reported that in some cases of illness, spirit doctors would conduct a ceremony in which the sick person had to call out the name. of the spirit causing the illness. The person who was responsible for the spirit could be identified. In some cases, the homes of these people, and all their possessions were burnt to the ground, and they were ostracised from the community. Other villages would not accept them because they were considered to be dangerous. Many such people found shelter among the missionaries who were unafraid of the spirits. The missionaries taught that once these people turned to God, these spirits Some which had caused them so much trouble could no longer touch them. people were able to avoid ostracism by becoming Christians when first .accused of witchcraft. It was recognized, even by many Buddhists, that Christians cut 25.

James W. McKean, "Medical Notes-Chiengmai", Laos News, II : 4, October 1914, pp. 116-119.

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Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

all connections with spmts, and placed themselves under a higher power. One missionary, John Freeman, described what used to happen. People who had no prior connection with Christianity invited the elders or leaders of the nearest group of Christians to come and hold a service in their house. At this time, all spirit shrines in the house were torn down. By this act, the people declared that they had changed their allegiance and were now Christians. Freeman said that often, though not always, there was an end to the accusation and suspicion. 26 Help given to people accused of witchcraft was quite significant in the early growth of the church in Thailand. This belief in the power of God, a power similar in kind, but greater in extent and beneficience, than that of spirits, or magical techniques or objects, continues to be a major theme in Thai Christian soteriology. The appeal to the power of God is an important resource for dealing with problems, particularly It helps to provide a sense of security, and can those of a short-term kind. be called upon to help in achieving a more worth-while life.

Conclusions

There are two major soteriological patterns, then, in Thai religious thinking and One of these is the karmatic pattern which involves reliance on oneself practice. and doing good deeds to attain beneficial consequences. Central to the second This power is a-moral, and it is pattern is the concept of spiritual power. believed that it is found in non-anthropomorphic objects and techniques, and in anthropomorphic spirits gods. In neither of these themes is an ultimate, final salvation important, but both through the karmatic soteriology and the power soteriology the Thai people seek to improve their states of affairs. The power theme tends to appear particulary in relation to short-term ends; while the concept of karma and the related idea of merit tend to appear more in relation to long-term ends, including re-birth in heaven and on earth. It is significant that both of these themes of karma and power are found as two major soteriological patterns of Thai Christianity. These patterns of karma and power appear in Thai Christianity under different terminology. Their expressions are different from those in Thai Buddhism, in as far as power, for 26. J. H. Freeman, An. Oriental Land of the Free, Philadelphia : Westminster Press, 1910, pp. 51-52.

40

Philip Hughes

instance, is seen to relate almost entirely in God, rflther than in objects or muals. The two themes relate to each other in different ways in Christianity when compared with Buddhism. For exampl~. Christians emphasize that they need to rely on the power of God to help them to do good deeds. Similarly, the blessings which come from obeying God on the one hand, and from praying to him on the other, are not generally distinguished. Nevertheless, the two themes of karma and power are both present in Thai Christianity, demonstrating the assimilation of Christianity to Thai cultural patterns. These two patterns are quite distinct from the major soteriological preached by the Protestant missionaries to Thailand who emphasized salvation as the overcoming of the state of sin through the death of Christ. The word for salvation is itself is not clearly understood by many Thai Christians. This was evident in· the interviews with elders and pastors in the churches, and was reflected in the A similar comment was variety of interpretations given to "salvation" by them. made in a thesis by a Thai Christian student at the Thailand Theological Seminary. He wrote, This word (salvation)· does not make sense to most Thai Christians, even to the writer himself who was born in a Thai Christian family. Salvation is of no interest at all; what is expected in a Christian life is the hope of a future life, a life after death, a life with Christ in Heaven if we walk carefully with him in the present. That means if we keep morals and follow them carefully, trying to do only good things. This idea is also possessed by a large number of Thai Christians. 27 The idea of a totally new, transcendent state of affairs has little meaning in Thai Christianity, just as the state of nirvana has little direct significance for most Thai Buddhists. Thai cosmology is basically monistic, although spiritual and The Thai people, both Christians and material aspects of it are distinguished. Buddhists, seek for a better, more worth-while life within the one arena of existence. They seek of the help of spiritual powers, especially when facing problems and difficulties. and look for its benefits within this life. They hope for a good life in heaven, or, for the Buddhists, on earth, after death, as a reward for keeping the teachings of their religion, but tend to conceive the next life as 27.

Praphan Chantraboon, St. Paul's Teaching on Salvation in the Epistle to the Romans, thesis for B. Theol, Thailand Theological Seminary, Chiang Mai, Thailand, October, 1%5, p. 14.

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Christianity and Buddhism in Thailand

an extension of this present life. Christianity has not produced a new culture among the Christians in It has involved the introduction of a new set of institutions. The Thailand. converts to Christianity have had to change their institutional affiliations from Buddhist wats to Christian churches. Christianity has involved the introduction of some new ideas, such as the idea of a powerful and loving God. These new institutional affiliations and new beliefs have led to the formation of a distinctive Christian community in Thailand. However, while the Christians have their own distinctive religious resources, and their own terminology for them, the soteriological patterns follow the patterns in Thai Buddhism and animism in the ways in Which they are conceived.

1

:42

A Scandal in Colonial Laos: The Death of Bac My and the Wounding of Kommadan Revisited Geoffrey C. Gunn * The "Holy Man's Uprising" or the rebellion of the "Phu Mi Boun" (lit. men with merit) which stirred the Lao and minority populations of northeast Thailand and southern Laos between 1901 - 1902 has not only become the object of speculation on the part of modern historians but was equally the subject of controversy in the local press of the day. 1 In the broader context of researching the nature of anti- colonial and anti-"feudal" rebellions in colonial Laos, with a view to determining the pre-conditions of revolutionary change in that country, I have had the occasion to recover a sample of the documentation on the rebellion from French archival sources. 2 Without seeking to duplicate Murdoch's exemplary study on the historical setting of the rebellion - notably the events surrounding the replacement of Thai hegemony over the east bank of the Mekong by French colonial power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - and Moppert's fine archivalbased longitudinal study of the entire rebellion, I will seek here, firstly, to throw new light on the revolt as an anti-colonial phenomenon - as revealed by the colonial record and the colonial press - and, secondly, to reopen the inquest into a barely suppressed scandal which ensued in the context of the revolt, namely, that surrounding the death of Bac My, one of the principals of the "Holy Man's Uprising", and the wounding of his more celebrated accomplice, Kommadan, an erstwhile national hero in Laos. * University of Queensland I. T. Bunnag, The Provincial Administration of Siam, 1892-1915, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford, 1977 J.B. Murdoch, "The 1901-1902 'Holy Man's Rebellion", Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 62, part I, January 1974, pp. 47-65. Y. Ishii, "A Note on Buddhist Millenarian Revolts in Northeast Siam", The University of Hawaii,_ Honolulu, 1977, pp. 67-75 C. F. Keyes, The Golden Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia, New York, Macmillan, 1977 F. Moppert, "Mouvement de resistance au pouvoir colonial francais de Ia minorite proto-lndochinoise du plateau des Bolovens au Sud-Laos a 1901-1936". These pour le doctoral de 3ieme cycle en histoire, Universite de Paris, 1978 2. see the author's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation submitted to Monash University, 1983, viz. "The Road Through the Mountains: Vietnamese Communist Power in the .Lao Struggle for National Independence: 190 1-1954".

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The Revolt : Preludes and Leading Actors

While it is well documented that the "Holy Man's Uprising" began in 1901, Bac My, the individual most closely identified with the Phu Mi Boun, had hitherto attracted official attention as early as January 1895. 3 Actually described in period colonial reports as a Phu Mi Boun, he initially attracted the surveillance of the colonial authorities in the context of having "concealed cult objects from the Catholic missionaries" en mission in the Bahnar country of Cochinchina. His accomplice in this affair was a certain Ong Dam (Black God) who had earlier evaded capture by agents of the King of Bassac (Rasadanai) and who had sought sanctuary in the "Kha" ( montagnard) villages at Ban Nasia. 4 According to Jean Jacques Dauplay, the leading colonial protagonist in the repression of the ethnic minority rebellions in southern Laos and who took up his official appointment as the French Administrator of Saravane in January 1906, Bac My, a Kha Alack by ethnicity, was the son of a Pho Ban (village chief) of the little village of Chakam, tributary to the Lao "mandarins" of Saravane. Not of the mandarin class and holding no position higher than that of village chief, Bac My was nevertheless considered "more intelligent than his fellows". Proficient not only in Lao but in Pali, he had prior experience of the study of Buddhist texts and had even made a pilgrimage to Bangkok, all of which lent him a certain prestige in the eyes of his fellow Kha Alack tribesmen. Having proclaimed himself Phu Mi Boun in the opening months of 1901, Bac My then assumed the appellation, Pha Ong Keo (Pha meaning "sacred saint", Ong meaning "king, prince or divine person of high rank" and Keo meaning "diamond or precious stone"). Similarly, he employed a title otherwise reserved for the king of Luang Prabang, namely, "Chao Sam Det Phali Pha Nhoc Thong Phou Zhong Pha Sat Na Maha Khong Thai" (Supreme Chief of the religion or Pontifus Maxim us). 5 3. (a) That would place Bac My/Ong Keo as four years senior to the Thai phu wise/ (wise man) who appeared in the northeast in 1899, rather than two year junior as stated by Keyes. See Keyes, op. cit. p. 295n (b) While the reports and missives drawn up by the first French commercial agents and Residents in colonial Laos were - to degrees - more carefully researched than those submitted by their counterparts in later decades and are therefore more interesting as history, they suffer from deteriorating condition, poor classification and are subject to major lacunae. 4. Archives Outre Mer (AOM) Aix Laos F6, "The Commercial Agent in Bassac to the Administration", Bassac, 24 January 1895 5. AOM Aix F6, "The Administrator-Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane 1910

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

Significant preludes to the Phu Mi Boun rebellions of 1901-1902 should not, however, be ignored and indeed other uprisings labelled millenarian have been recorded in Thailand from the seventeenth century onwards. 6 With respect to Laos, according to one colonial observer, the Kha of the Bolovens plateau (the geographic locus of the revolt) had risen up twice before during the nineteenth century. On the first occasion, a certain Asa Thiet Guon and his rebel forces pushed onto the Bolovens to free it from Lao domination. The revolt lasted two years and terminated with the capture of Asa Thiet Guon and his subsequent decapitation in Bangkok. Around 1850 a "sorcerer" or shaman known as Mo Ha, a native of Sisakhet (Thailand) fomented a similar uprising to that of the first. In an analogous manner, this movement came to an end with the capture and death of its leader. 7 Archival sources reveal that within two years of the establishment of the French protectorate in Laos in 1893, agents of the colonial state were successful in collecting taxes from the various Kha "tribes" inhabiting the Bolovens plateau. Erroneously, as it transpired, the prospect of rebellion on the plateau was then viewed as a distant prospect. As elsewhere in the colonial periphery where colonial state power had been imposed over a subject people, a certain social, political and economic restructuring of local society was involved. In tandem with the imposition of taxation and corvee demands over the subject peoples (paid or requitted in cash in lieu of payment in kind) and the redrawing by the colonial administration of the local muong or province boundaries came the appointment of an indigenous class of collaborators in replacement of uncompliant or "independent" indigenous authorities. Thus by 1895 the Kha of the Bolovens had been administratively removed from the jurisdiction of the local province of Bassac, to which they traditionally existed in tributory relationship, and according to geographic location were reassigned under the jurisdiction of a number of provincial mandarins. These new French appointed or approved indigenous authorities included the Phaya Ma Ha Tilat and the Phaya Mong Hoa of Saravane and Kamtong. 8 By 1901, then, the province of Saravane had been subdivided into eight muong, namely, as one proceded up the Sedone river, Kamtong-niai, Kong-wape, Lakone-peng, Kamtong-noi, Sapath, Samia, Saravane and Soutably. The entire province englobed 183 Lao and 194 Kha villages and included 4,853 registered 6. Ishii, 1977, p. 6 7. AOM Aix F5, "Rapport du 24 October 1907 de M. Dauplay, Commissaire du Gouvernement a Saravane". 8. AOM Aix E6, "Rapport sur Ia reconnaisance du plateau des Bolovens", January 1895

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos

Lao tax- payers versus 2,971 Kha. A total of 24,934 Lao were deemed to have "submitted" to colonial authority, versus 12,084 Kha. That left a balance of some 30,000 "independent" or unpacified and hence non- taxpaying Kha in the province. Among the "submitted" Kha were such sub-groups as the Kha Bolovens, the Kha Hin, the Khatong, the Kha Nie and the Kha Alack. The "independent" Kha included a section of the Kha Alack as well as the Kha Poli Kao, the Kha Khou Tou and the Kha Ta Hoi sub-groups. The official French record reveals that the province of Saravane then hosted a European population of three only.9 During early 1901, Bac My withdrew to Phu Tatun, a local mountain redoubt, while his devotees displayed his portrait in numerous temples throughout the province. In March his movement had taken a more threatening turn, the prelude to a general insurrection. Indeed the rebels responded to the burning by the Commissioner of Saravane of a temple erected in Bac My's honour on the Nong Met plateau by murdering, during April of the same year, a Frenchman named Menard. 10 The Resident Superior of Laos, who was apprised of the deteriorating security situation in southern Laos on 13 June, immediately set about organising the machinery for the suppression of the rebellion. The "pacification" operation involved the dispatch of military reinforcements to the Bolovens plateau from Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina. During the rainy season the rebels divided into two groups; while Ong Keo's group refuged in the mountains at the source of the Sedone, a second group based itself in the upper reaches of the Sepion. Both resisted the French forces with impunity. Although the French themselves suffered heavy losses in operations against the rebels, their tactics of starving the latter of rice and depriving them of outside supplies of powder, lead, sulphur, saltpetre, salt and opium proved to be efficacious . t h e Iong run. II m Aside from Bac My - clearly only primus inter pares in the revolt at this stage- other chiefs included Ong Luong, Luong Sakda and Vong Tasseng, a Kha Bolovens chief from Nong Bok. The presence from June onwards of Lao mandarins among the rebel population must have been particularly damaging to the French cause, however. Prominent among the latter were the Chaomuong of Khamtong Niai, the Oupahat of Kamtong Moi, the Ratsavang of Saravane, the Oupahat 9.

lndochine Francoise Annuaire de!' Indochine: 1901

10. Murdoch, op. cit. pp. 55-61 II.

AOM Paris A30 (106) carton 21, "Rapport special sur les evenements survenus sur Ia plateau des Bolovens et sur I' incident sur la Poste de Psi", Saigon, 26 September 1901

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Luong of Attopeu. Among the montagnard adherents to the rebel cause were found, Kha Bolovens, Alacks, Nhaheuns, Kha Phou Thong, Loven and Souk Kha. 12 Thus by November 1901, as a consequence of armed actions by the rebels and armed repression by the colonial military, one third of the local population of the greater Bolovens region had been annihilated with 28 Garde Principal and 100 militia killed. Only after two years of military operations was the western part of the Bolovens considered pacified. 13 Continuing through 1901, however, a parallel non-violent movement emerged in northeast Thailand. In March 1902, this rebellion had been joined by Ong Man ·a so-called Phu Wiest - and his followers in a confrontation against a Thai army dispatched to the northeast to crush the movement. Driven back into Laos, Ong Man joined forces with the followers of Ong Keo in a mass atack on the French Commissariat before e1scaping to Phou Luong in the Bolovens in league with other 14 Loven rebels including Kommadan. Following an attack by Ong Man's 1000 strong band on the provincial Thai town of Kemmarat on 28 March 1902, the Resident Superior of Laos took precautions that events in Thailand did not ramify in Laos. The French record reveals that the original request to suppress the rebellion in the 24 kilometre "neutral" zone along the Mekong came from the Thai side. The French Minister in Bangkok was of the view that the authorisation be given to the Thai to intercede militarily in the zone provided that "cooperation" would be entered into. The ensuing French response was to immediately dispatch a company of 200 Vietnamese riflemen reinforced by 30 Europeans to Bassac from where, according to circumstances, they would assist the Thai in suppressing the revolt by way of a march on Udom. 15 In the event, the 16 Thai authorities forbade the French to cross the Thai side of the Mekong. Reservations over allowing the Thai authorities a free hand in suppressing the revolt in the neutral zone were in turn expressed by the Minister of France in Bangkok. Observing inter alia that Japanese agents circulating in the Mekong valley were encouraging antiFrench sentiment at Korat, Ubon and Battambang, he argued that Thai military 12.

ibid.

13. F. Moppert, "Le revolte des Bo1ovens (1901-1936)" , in Histoire de /' Asie du sud-est: Revoltes, Reformes, Revolutions (ed). P . Brocheux, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1981 14.

Murdoch op. cit. p. 55-61

15. AOM Aix F16, Governor General to Minister of Colonies, Hanoi, 10 April1902 16. Murdoch, op. cit. p. 59

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actions would have the unfortunate results for the prestige of France in what he clearly implied was a French sphere of influence. 17 As a response to the success of the Thai military operation, Ong Man and his followers, 15,000 strong and armed with 300 rifles departed Thailand for the region between Savannakhet, Muong Phine and Song Khone where they set about cutting telephone communication between Hanoi and southern Laos. On 24 April 1902, the band led by "Phu Mi Boun" attacked Savannakhet on three occasions in the same day. Driven back by the colonial Garde Indigene, the rebels suffered 100 dead. Further detachments of military were directed towards rebel headquarters in Song Khone. Despite the manifest religious colouration of the revolt, the Governor General of Indochina, Brevie - with some degree of understatement - declared it a "rebellion against French authority" . 18 Following the Savannakhet incident the rebels withdrew to Phou Luong mountains in the northeast of the Bolovens. The situation remained relatively calm up until 1905 when on 30 November a group of rebels surrounded Ban Nang Pok Kao and massacred 41 Loven tribesmen. 19 It was at this time and in this context that Kommadan first became known to colonial observers?0 According to Dauplay, even by the confession of the rebels they were discouraged, almost reduced to powerlessness by the end of 1903 following the shortlived rebellion of 1901. Contrary to expectations that the administration might have redressed the underlying grievances of the rebels, the years of administrative inaction between 1904-05 turned out to be favourable to the rebels and the respite gave then the chance to resupply themselves with munitions. Indeed, during September 1905 the Kha Bolovens of Nang Lao approached the Commissariat and bought up supplies of salt which they then offered to Bac My in his redoubt on the left bank of the Sekong. 21 According to Dauplay, an underlying anxiety on the part of the French was that Bac My could conceivably be the beneficiary of rapid firing rifles passed on by sympathetic anti-French Vietnamese emigres based in Thailand. 22 ~ No matter the 17. AOM Aix Fl6, "Governor General to Commander-in-chief of the Forces", Hanoi, 5 May 1902 18. AOM Aix Fl6, Governor General of Indochina, Broni, to the Commander-in-chief of Division, Hanoi, 5 May 1902 19. Murdoch, op. cit. p. 61 20. Moppert, op. cit p. 51 21. AOM Aix F5, "Rapport Dauplay", 24 October 1907 22. AOM Aix F6, "The Administrator Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane, 15 September 1910

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seeming incongruity of such an alliance, Dauplay's anxiety was actually borne out by events, albeit at a different juncture in Lao history, when Vietnamese and montagnard elements coalesced in an anticolonial coalition. 23 By that stage, however, the colonial state no longer has a monopoly on coercion while the antagonists of the French received a much more active level of support from non-montagnard and non-Lao elements. But at the time when Dauplay took up his post as Commissioner of Saravane in 1905, Bac My and his band were one among four rebel groups in the province. In his version, the first was the Ka Due band (five rifles) and which was dissolved following the capture and "death in prison" of its 'leader in April 1906. The second was the Ong Xit and Ong Veun Bands which mustered a force of 100 rifles until their surrender and return to their ray or village gardens in December 1906. The Bac Preuil (Ong Thong) band composed of forty rifles constituted the third, and fortified itself in the Phou Kate volcano situated twenty kilometres from Saravane where it was attacked by the militia in April 1906. This band was finally eliminated in October 1907. The fourth of these groups, that of Bac My, was in turn composed of three sub-groups. a) Bac My with Mun Viset and Luong Thep b) the rebel Latsavang along with Chan Thong Thip c) the Bolovens under the leadership of Kommadan (father of the future Pathet Lao leader and hero, Sithon) along with Kommaseng together headed a band with a reputation for "ferocity". Kommadan, for one, made his headquarters at Thong Vai in the northeast of the Bolovens. The entire band, however, was composed of "all the known races of lower Laos"- Lao, Souei, Phoi Theng, Kha, Bolovens, Alack Nge and even Cambodians and Burmese. Characteristically all of these groups supported their respective bao or clientele. 24 The foregoing notwithstanding, Dauplay was of the opinion that Bac My was only a "straw man" and that the real heart and soul of rebellion was the Latsavang, a person with a "reputation for intelligence" and whose forefathers had exercised authority in the muong of Saravane. The roots of the revolt of the Latsavang, he pointed out, go back in history and accordingly must be viewed in that context. According to local myth - no doubt historically founded - the king of Vientiane, towards the end of proselytizing the Buddhist faith, founded muong OJ_! the east bank of the Sekong to which the name Muong Laman was given. Simultaneously the conversion of the Kha was undertaken. Following the success of 23. see author's Ph. D., op. cit. 24.

AOM Aix F5, "Rapport", Dauplay 1907

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the "pioneers". numerous other Lao families established themselves at Laman. For an unknown reason this group was stricken with discord. The dissidents among them crossed the Sekong and founded a new muong at Ban Phone. This muong was centred on the village of Vieng Khma prior to its transformation into the muong of Saravane. The muong of Laman in turn went into decline and when the last chaomuong or provincial lord died in the early eighteenth century he was not replaced by a successor. His descendknts then settled at either Ban Phone or Saravane. Lao and Kha residents of Ban Phone and Don Chan and its environs only tolerated with impatience the domination of Saravane. Rather. they sought to have the last descendants of the Chaomuong of Laman - which included the rebel Latsavang and the Chaomuong of Soutabali (then in prison in Vientiane) - shake off the domination of Saravane and recover their traditional autonomy or at least semi ,..... autonomy. 25 In the event, Dauplay continues, when the rebellion burst out in 1901, the Latsavang and the Chaomuong believed the moment was opportune for them to make their running and at that point took up the rebel cause along with Bac My. With the surrender of the Latsavang on 14 June 1907. a corresponding spread of French influence over the dissident montagnard population was recorded. The reenrollment of 32 villages onto the tax rolls and the end of tension between Dong Chan and Ban Phone and the indigenous authorities of ' Saravane was directly attributed to the capitulation of the Chaomuong. Yet, as ,Dauplay conceded, not only was the Latsavang the most loved and popular figure in the region but his better qualities - notably his honesty - was even recognised by his enemies. Accordingly Dauplay applauded the tactic of reconstituting the muong of Laman and in confiding its leadership upon the Latsavang as the most appropriate measure towards winning him over and in restoring the pax gallica. 26 Bereft of the realleadel;' of the rebel band, Dauplay surmised the disaggregation of Bac My's band would· necessarily follow. 27 As it happened, Bac My surrendered at Lamman on 13 October 1907. Conditions drawn up on this occasion specified that 1) he would remain at Lamman for some time 2) he would surrender all his weapons 3) he would renounce his titles and 4) he would henceforth adhere to the rites and 'Customs of the Kha Alacks and abandon the religion that he founded. 25. ibid.

26. ibid. 27. AOM Aix FS, "Rapport du 24 October 1907".

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Geoffrey C. Gunn.

Although he acquiesced in all conditions, he retained some of the rifles and did not relinquish the title of Chao Sadet. 28 In consideration of Bac My's surrender, as Dauplay had written some three years earlier, there were a number of points to take into consideration: his "person", his "partisans" and his "arms". Whatever prestige the rebel chief may have derived in the past, Dauplay commented, would have been lost in the act of coming to seek grace from a representative of the colonial power (ie. Dauplay) whom he had otherwise boasted to drive out of Laos. This was borne out, he continued, by the relative state of indifference of the population over the surrender of Bac My compared to that of the Latsavang. 29 Certainly what comes through in this account is the degree of personal antagonism displayed by the French official towards the rebel leader. Bac My's surrender, notwithstanding, his partisans commenced to launch 'propaganda' all over the plateau to the effect that whoever fell into line with the rebel chief would have their personal tax and labour due (prestation) obligation paid by him. The anti-French character of this activity was revealed on the occasion of a projected tour by the Governor General to Pakse in January 1909. In the manner of upstaging the visit, which in the event was cancelled, the population of Pakse and Dong Khe offered up two great boun (r-eligious ceremonies) in honour of Bac My. The Bolovens was 'flooded' with invitations to attend the boun. Bac My was offered the greatest marks of respect by villagers throughout the country he travelled, receiving such offerings as candles, flowers and mats. His devotees, moreover, built him what the colonial rapporteur described as "without doubt the most beautiful indigenous habitation in the province''. On his part, Bac My increased the number of his wives and, no doubt, his perceived merit. In the event, the boun given on the occasion of the inauguration of his new sa/a (rest house) appeared, in the words of the colonial official, as a "bizarre religious melange of Buddhist cults and gross and bloody Alack rites". 3 Clearly, as it transpired, Bac My was more of a danger to the colonial order as a prisoner than as a rebel in the mountains. Thus while all the notables who had taken part in the rebellion on the Bolovens likewise surrendered along with Bac My on 13 October 1907, a notable exception was Bac Preuil who, until captured and executed at Pakse on November

°

28.

AOM Aix F6, "The Administrative Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane, 15 September 1910

29.

AOM Aix F5, "Rapport du 24 October 1907", op. cit.

30. AOM Aix F6, The Administrator Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane, 15 September 1910

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1909, had taken refuge in Bassac. 31 However, several weeks before the surrender of the Latsavang, Kommadan and Kommasan had become separated from Bac My along with the rest of the rebels on the Bolovens whereupon they proceded to organise a resistance centre in Attopeu province. 32 Bac My, on his part, was adamant in denying contact with Kommadan at this point and professed not to have known the exact location of rebel headquarters on Phou Louang. In February 1908, Kommadan signalled his appearance as rebel to be reckoned with by attacking Pak Bong. On 5 December he wrote to Bac My scoffing at the "indifference" of the latter's bao. Bac My, while not actually doing anything to facilitate Kommadan's surrender, had by that juncture clearly diminished in the latter's eyes as a meritorious rebel chief. 33 Bac My's Death, the Wounding of Kommadan and the Exoneration of Dauplay The death in captivity during December 1910 of Bac My is graphically recorded in a colonial memo dispatched by Dauplay to the Resident Superior of Laos. In his own words, the rebel chief and his confreres, Xieng Kham and Boun Ta, were invited into his quarters under the pretext of being photographed in a room without strong light. Having closed the door to the room, Dauplay wrote, he then took out his revolver and ordered the trio to sit down if they did not want to be killed. Understandably the rebels fell into line with this order. Dauplay's deputy Stoeckel, Garde Principal of the Garde Indigene, also with revolver in hand, then barred the exit and summqned the militia who proceded to chain up the rebels. Xieng Kham's last utterance took the form of a public address to Bac My: "leo leo" (all is finished). In turn Bac My's last words took the form of a plea to Dauplay not to do him any evil, "because he loved his sons and wife". Bac My, in the event, was bayonetted to death by a Lao called Doi Nhan, sixty metres from the house while "attempting to escape", although the Frenchman was still evidently holding onto one end of the 31. ibid. 32. AOM Aix FS, "Rapport du 24 October 1907" During April 1909, Bac Preuil and his followers were observed to have crosed the Mekong and installed themselves in the frontier region. Bac Preuil, who had earlier been propositioned by the French authorities with a view to surrendering retorted that he feared capital punishment. Two phobans accused of rendering support to Bac Preuil were imprisoned on 22 November 1907. Their defense was that in so far as the population feared or were in awe of Bac Preuil, they lacked the wherewithal to intercede. AOM Aix E6, M.F. Simon, Commissioner of the Government at Bassac to M. the Resident Superior of Laos, April 1909. 33. AOM Aix F6, IS September 1910

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chain. In the event, Bac My was decapitated and his head sent to Saravane where it was preserved in formalahyde. As Dauplay cQmmented upon this macabre act: " .... the spectacle of Bac My preserving his head on his shoulders after all the crimes that had been committed would have constituted the most deplorable example to offer the indigenous people, that is tangible proof that one could attack French domination and human laws with impunity". 34 On 13 December, Vang Na, an homme de confiance of the rebel chief Kommadan, presented himself at Dauplay's residence bearing a set of demands from. the rebel chief in the form of a letter as well as an invitation to visit him in his sa/a (rest-house) in order to enter into negotiations over these demands. These included: 1) the revocation of the position of Chaomuong and all positions of authority in Muong Bolovens 2) the nomination of a "Phya Khome" ("Khome" according to the same account was an old word used by the Thai to designate what the French called the Bolovens), ie., a chief of the .Bolovens, including the respective parts of the territories of the muong of Pakse, Saravane and Attopeu 3) other races inhabiting the plateau such as the Nha Eun, Souei and Phou Thay were to be driven off 4) tax imposed on the Kha was to be limited io 1.5 piastres a year including corvee redemption fees. Further, as Kommadan's letter continued not without pathos: " ... When the French came to the plateau to annoy or oppress the Khomes, was it necessary for me to give them the rotin, put them in prison, that I inflict penalties upon them. At the same ·time they enjoined me to change my title from Mahaekaphachomchaochaidi to that of Commissioner". 35 As this program indicates, the notion of paying taxes was not questioned by Kommadan, what mattered more was that his tribal cohorts' place in history would be upheld in the new order of values. The French reply to this demarche, however, proved to be in violent opposition to the spirit and letter of Kommadan's program. The following day at 7 o'clock 34. 34. AOM Aix F6, "Mort de Bac My et capture de ses lieutenants", Dauplay to the Resident Superior of Saravane, 19 December 1910 Moppert, op. cit., without revealing a source, reproduces Burchett's basic version of events, namely that Dauplay (or another French agent) profiting from a local custom of not. touching anothers' head, shot Ong Keo with a pistol which he had concealed in his pith helmut. See W. Burchett, Mekong Upstream, Hanoi, Red River Publishing House, 1957, pp. 207-212. 35.

"Mort de Bac My", ibid.

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in the morning, Vangna again sought out Dauplay, inviting him to visit the rebel chiers sa/a where Kommadan himself along with Kammaseng, One, Sakdan, Cheui Bam and other lesser "lords" were assembled. As recorded by Dauplay, the invitation was accepted. Indeed the events which ensued merit elaboration not only as history but as confession: "The reception of the envoys of the great Turk by Louis XIV was certainly no less remote nor more haughty than Kommadan when he deigned to take my hand at the moment when I entered the sa/a" After an interval of ten minutes Dauplay decided to take the initiative. "Deftly removing my pith helmet, I took hold of the Browning. and delivered from two metres, two shots, striking him (Kommadan) under the armpit and in line with his liver; the points of impact were clearly indicated by the little red spots on his white vest. Three shots hit Loung Visa at this moment when he rushed to the aid of his brother. In an instant all the rebels, including Kommadan, leapt out of the sa/a as the rifles of the partisans started to crackle". With scant attention to the consequences of his own actions or indeed the ramifications of his own report, Dauplay observed with supreme irony that although Kommadan possessed considerable strength, it appeared "impossible" that he could have survived his wounds. The village, including Kommadan's sa/a was put to fire. Three days later the heads of Bac My and Xieng Van Di (another rebel chief) along with seven prisoners in chains were exposed in front of the Garde Indigene quarters to serve as an example to the population. 36 Dauplay, however, did not reckon with Kommadan's physical resilience nor the colonial press. On 20 February, the Advocate Lefevre published in L' lmpar.tiel, a Saigon newspaper, an article exposing the circumstances surrounding the wounding of Kommadan who, in the event, survived the vicious assault. According to an official colonial memo in the form of a telegram, Lefevre's informant was a certain Doctor C., a witness to the scene. Lefevre, in turn, raised the issue with the Advocate General in Saigon. The latter, evidently sufficiently impressed with the seriousness of the allegations of administrative excesses in dealing with the rebels, raised questions with the Governor General of Indochina. The latter, in turn, requested the Resident Superior of Laos to supply information with a view to conducting an enquiry into the affair. As the Resident Superior retorted in a missive delivered to the French 36. ibid.

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

Counsellor Jurist on tour in Laos, the newspaper account misrepresented the facts of the case. The "untoward" article, the Resident Superior noted with apprehensio~, potentially had the capacity to create a new scandal. 37 According to another intra-governmental memo, the Deputy Outrey requested the Governor of Cochinchina to i ssue a clarification to the effect that the allegations of Lefevre, the editor-in-chief of L' lmpartiel and the Advocate General in Saigon were "unjustified" and that, to the contrary, Dauplay had rendered services to the cause of the French in the Bolovens region. 38 This and other interventions were clearly symptomatic of the degree of solidarity evinced by colonial officials in support of Dauplay's role. In the event, Dauplay was completely exonerated "I have the honour to make it known to you that following the enquiry into the decease of the Lao, Bac My, and the wounding of his compatriot, Kommadan, in 1910, the case is definitely closed. I am happy to give you the assurance that your attitude in the conduct of these events leaves no place for criticism". 39 Causes of the Revolt If those colonial actors most closely associated with the suppression of the

revolt tended to stress its religious dimension, there was a nagging anxiety on the part of the colonial authorities - and more acerbically - the colonial press, that religious epiphenomena disguised structural abuses and administrative excesses. For instance, on 1 July 1901, Le Courier Saigonais reported that the revolt of th~ Kha had become permanent and presented ifself as an "oil stain" in the recently acquired French possession. Noting that the capitation tax had been abruptly increased from one to four piastres along with an increase in corvee obligation, the author of the article pointed out that the intention of the Kha to defend their liberty was obvious. Three days later, the same newspaper, while scoring the excesses of the local administration in exacerbating the revolt, entered the plea: "It is high time to lift the pretense which hermetically seals the system of governmental administration practiced in Laos in the 37. AOM Aix E7, "Official Telegram", Resident Superior Laos, Garnier to Counsellor Juriste, mission Xieng Khouang, 2 March 1918 38. AOM Aix E7, "official telegram", Vientiane, 14 March 1918 39. AOM Aix E7, Governor General to Dauplay, Hanoi, 9 July 1918

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos.

name of France". 40 In another article published in Le Courier Saigonais on June 10, the blame was laid upon Disiere, Commissioner of the government at Muonang for permitting such excesses to be perpetrated as looting and burning villages, "raids" on coolies and women and particularly the "ill considered" practice of offering firearms to the Lao notables. Although the Lao themselves had not joined in the revolt alongside the Kha, the same journalist remarked that little wonder the "rebellion against capitation tax" was growing day by day and that the population of southern Laos had risen up against the French administration. 41 The underlying fear of the administration was expressed by yet another journalist writing in Le Courier d' Indochine of 1 August 1901 and who observed that should the revolt spread beyond the regions bordering Cambodia, Cochinchina and Annam and should communications be cut between upper Laos and Cochinchina, then the French conquete morale (moral conquest) of Indochina would be in peril. 42 A contrary explanation of the causes of the revolt - not surprisingly - was provided by Dauplay. The Bolovens like the Israelites, he averred, awaited the arrival of a Phu Mi Boun who would purportedly assume leadership of the country and lead them on the path to happiness and justice. This was abundantly proven, he continued, by the simultaneous occurrence of the revolt in several places in southern Laos and Siam as well as the involvement of monks, mass massacres of albino animals (suspected of being reincarnations of the souls of Europeans!) and other occurrences. Yet the overtly religious phase of the rebellion soon dissipated; as the rebels lost their mass following and returned to their villages the rebellion lost its momentum. At that point, Dauplay contended, the rebel band could be described simply as the "party of discontents". As the redoubtable French administrator stated in a remark that would not palpably have been challenged by many of his colleagues and contemporaries: 'Who would boast to know what transpired in the brain of this brute of a Kha Alack?". Bac My, he contended, had developed his implacable hatred of the French as a consequence of his brutalisation at the hands of certain Europeans - notably the Garde Principal, Sicre - at a time when he was employed as a coolie in Pakse. 43 . The revolt of the Latsavang, Dauplay also attributed to a version of 40. Le Courier Saigonais, I July 1901 41. ibid., 10 June 1901 42. :Le Courier d'Indochine, 1 August 1901 43. AOM Aix FS, "Rapport du 24 October 1907"

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

psychological alienation, in this case out of frustration at seeing the position of Oupahat awarded to another as well as being on bad ·terms with the majority of mandarins in Saravane. Similarly, he described Kommadan and Kommaseng as "rebels before the rebellion". However, by dismissing them as "chiefs of a band of elephant and cattle robbers" he sought to deny them their status as aggrieved victims. Moreover, by joining up with Bac My, the latter merely attempted to impart a "quasi-legal" existence to their band.44 Notwithstanding the acknowledged "brutality" of certain subordinate French officials- notably Remy - in the way they went about collecting corvee tax redemption fees, Dauplay remarked that such actions were merely the spark which ignited the brushfires. Rather, he identified the underlying cause of the revolt on the Bolovens as the lam kha or tribal intermediaries who imposed themselves between the Kha and the Lao, especially in consideration of their function in facilitating commercial exchanges. At the same time, however, the Kha Bolovens also reproach~d certain Frenchmen, namely Demoly and Menard (killed at the outset of the revolt) for acts of bad faith in their commercial dealings with the Kha. To redress this situation, Dauplay undertook to revoke the positions of the lam kha. Indeed, he claimed to have revoked nine-tenths of those lam kha in "office" in the period since the took up his position in Saravane, leaving remain only those intermediaries whose presence had been endorsed even by their victims. To a similar end, the Lao were requested to leave the plateau altogether, which in any case was reorganised under a single muong and placed under the authority of local indigenous authorities. 45 As the French Minister of Colonies commented upon this report, while the events in question may have had as their origin a religious ferment and may have been exacerbated by the "imprudence" of certain French colons, the conclusion was inescapable that the "troubles" in Laos were equally caused by the activities of the French agents and the implementation of "fiscal measures", meaning the resented collection of the capitation tax and corvee demands placed upon the population.46 While in retrospect this would appear to be a more accurate assessment of the situation, the fact that anomalies in the system were not addressed at that point is 44. ibid. 45. ibid.

46. AOM Paris A30 (106) carton 21, Minister of Colonies to the Governor General, Paris, 20 January 1902 .

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos.

a telling commentary on the modus operandi of the French colonial state project as it worked itself out locally, especially in the impecunious montagnard milieu. As far as the "imprudence" of certain French officials were concerned, they did not reckon on the manifestly hard-hitting and relatively fearless local colonial press of the day. If the memory of the repression of the revolt was not lost in the collective memory of the Kha- as subsequent events demonstrated- neither could individual "tyrants" among the colonial officials act with impunity and in total disregard for the consequences of their actions - although that is in fact what they thought they could achieve. For instance, in an open letter to the Governor General of Indochina published in L • Opinion of Saigon, Jacques Ducroit, a French journalist, laid the blame for the turmoil in Laos squarely at the feet of the ex-Resident at Bassac, Colonel Tournier and his agents. As Ducroit phrased the matter, if a fictitious peace reigned in the capital of Poland, otherwise drowned in the blood of the massacred, then in the Laos of the ex-colonel, in spite of the presence of corpses strewn around the forest by him and his agents, disorder reigned. Although the dead were no longer in a position to testify against Tournier, as Ducroit acerbically commented, it was patently obvious that the colonel was accomplice to what amounted to an armed version of the civilising mission. At Bassac, he continued, an "incapable and violent alcoholic" acted as administrative delegate to Tournier, "a brute who did not set himself apart from the savages he avowed to civilize" Yet another accomplice of Tournier was the French Garde Principal of the militia, a person whose name was synonomous with "brutality and ferocity". Ducroit compared the barbarous actions perpetrated in Laos by the trio and their agents to the kind of disorder committed in Europe in the dark ages. Their direct inspiration, he pondered, must have been such "devourers of the dark continent" as Voulet, Chanoine, Stanley, Lemare, Marchand, etc. While the tacit complicity of Tournier in these "murderous crimes" doubtless served to protect their proteges, justice nevertheless should be forthcoming, Ducroit thundered. 47 The tenor of this and other press accounts of the day, then, is to be contrasted with the views of such colonial actors as Dauplay, who tended to separate the disruptive and intrusive role of the lam kha from that of the colonial state per se. As he pointed out, the reaction on the part of the Kha to the excesses committed by 47. "Letter ouverte a M. le Gouverneur General", Jacques Duroit, L' Opinion, Saigon, 9 February 1908

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

the Lao mandarins of Bassac, Saravane and Attopeu as well as by the infamous lam kha had already set in by 1899. The Bolovens, rich in such produce as cardamone, "ortie de Chine", ginger and herds of elephant, served as the "milch cow" to which the lam kha attached themselves. 48 While the tendency of colonial rapporteurs has been to hive off blame for the rebellion upon indigenous actors, the colonial state and its agents were by no means neutral agents in the pacification of the country. The possibilities of colonialisation of the temporate Bolovens along with the exploitation of its mineral and agricultural wealth was not lost upon the French. As one official source acknowledged in 1908, the slopes of Phou Kate mountain and other regions inhabited by the rebels were rich in saltpetre, sulphur, copper and iron ore, worked primitively by the Kha, but raising the prospect of commercial exploitation.49 The philosophical concommitant of the mission civilitrice, moreover, was the opening up of the country- largely by way of corvee-built highway systems (route colonia/e)- linking Laos to the rest .of Indochina, to metropolitan France and the external economy. Clearly, then, and a theme which has emerged in this study, the seeds to future dissent on the part of the Kha were sown by the colonial power in the way that traditional relationships and human and physical boundaries were disposed of indiscriminately. Sequels

The sequels to the affair were not without consequence. The French were neither disabused of the rectitude of their conquete morale and, indeed, continued along the same philosophical trajectory for the duration of the colonial era. On the other hand, the Kha confirmed their worst expectations in their interactions with outsiders, whether as agents of "feudal" power or whether colonial state actors. Thus exonerated, Dauplay continued his career in the local administration, rising from Commissioner Administrator to an administrative position in northern Laos where he acted as local savant on minority affairs. Perhaps in the manner of closing the case once and for all, Dauplay went on to publish in 1929 his version of the revolt, 50 although the capstone of his career in Laos was undoubtedly the 48. AOM Aix F5, "Rapport du October 1907 de M. Dauplay", Commissioner of the Government at Saravane. 49. lndochine Francoise Annuaire Generale de/' Indochine, 1908 50. J.J. Dauplay, Les Terres Rouges du Plateau des Bolovens, Saigon, 1929

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos.

occasion of his appointment to acting Resident Superior, a position he held from 8 April until 14 May 1928. Kommadan, on his part, resisted French efforts to pacify the Bolovens until 1937 when he was killed by military units led by elephant brigades which converged on Phu Luong as part of a general pacification campaign in the "Moi'' or montagnard hinterland of French Indochina. Whether shared montagnard ethnic identity or sense of separateness from outsiders was the more primordial cause of montagnard resistance to pacification, there can be no doubt that the collective memory on the part of the montagnard of the iniquitous colonial tax and corvee structure linked with the abuses of the lam kha and exacerbated by armed repression was a leading factor in alienating the Kha from central power through colonial and postcolonial times. More crucially, from the perspective of students of social change, even revolutionary change in Laos, the legacy of the contest between local and central power in the montagnard milieu had its sequel at that point in time during the late 1940's when the Kha commenced to enter into tactical alliances with the Lao nationalists and the Viet Minh.

:42

A Scandal in Colonial Laos: The Death of Bac My and the Wounding of Kommadan Revisited Geoffrey C. Gunn * The "Holy Man's Uprising" or the rebellion of the "Phu Mi Boun" (lit. men with merit) which stirred the Lao and minority populations of northeast Thailand and southern Laos between 1901 - 1902 has not only become the object of speculation on the part of modern historians but was equally the subject of controversy in the local press of the day. 1 In the broader context of researching the nature of anti- colonial and anti-"feudal" rebellions in colonial Laos, with a view to determining the pre-conditions of revolutionary change in that country, I have had the occasion to recover a sample of the documentation on the rebellion from French archival sources. 2 Without seeking to duplicate Murdoch's exemplary study on the historical setting of the rebellion - notably the events surrounding the replacement of Thai hegemony over the east bank of the Mekong by French colonial power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - and Moppert's fine archivalbased longitudinal study of the entire rebellion, I will seek here, firstly, to throw new light on the revolt as an anti-colonial phenomenon - as revealed by the colonial record and the colonial press - and, secondly, to reopen the inquest into a barely suppressed scandal which ensued in the context of the revolt, namely, that surrounding the death of Bac My, one of the principals of the "Holy Man's Uprising", and the wounding of his more celebrated accomplice, Kommadan, an erstwhile national hero in Laos. * University of Queensland I. T. Bunnag, The Provincial Administration of Siam, 1892-1915, Kuala Lumpur, Oxford, 1977 J.B. Murdoch, "The 1901-1902 'Holy Man's Rebellion", Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 62, part I, January 1974, pp. 47-65. Y. Ishii, "A Note on Buddhist Millenarian Revolts in Northeast Siam", The University of Hawaii,_ Honolulu, 1977, pp. 67-75 C. F. Keyes, The Golden Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia, New York, Macmillan, 1977 F. Moppert, "Mouvement de resistance au pouvoir colonial francais de Ia minorite proto-lndochinoise du plateau des Bolovens au Sud-Laos a 1901-1936". These pour le doctoral de 3ieme cycle en histoire, Universite de Paris, 1978 2. see the author's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation submitted to Monash University, 1983, viz. "The Road Through the Mountains: Vietnamese Communist Power in the .Lao Struggle for National Independence: 190 1-1954".

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos

The Revolt : Preludes and Leading Actors

While it is well documented that the "Holy Man's Uprising" began in 1901, Bac My, the individual most closely identified with the Phu Mi Boun, had hitherto attracted official attention as early as January 1895. 3 Actually described in period colonial reports as a Phu Mi Boun, he initially attracted the surveillance of the colonial authorities in the context of having "concealed cult objects from the Catholic missionaries" en mission in the Bahnar country of Cochinchina. His accomplice in this affair was a certain Ong Dam (Black God) who had earlier evaded capture by agents of the King of Bassac (Rasadanai) and who had sought sanctuary in the "Kha" ( montagnard) villages at Ban Nasia. 4 According to Jean Jacques Dauplay, the leading colonial protagonist in the repression of the ethnic minority rebellions in southern Laos and who took up his official appointment as the French Administrator of Saravane in January 1906, Bac My, a Kha Alack by ethnicity, was the son of a Pho Ban (village chief) of the little village of Chakam, tributary to the Lao "mandarins" of Saravane. Not of the mandarin class and holding no position higher than that of village chief, Bac My was nevertheless considered "more intelligent than his fellows". Proficient not only in Lao but in Pali, he had prior experience of the study of Buddhist texts and had even made a pilgrimage to Bangkok, all of which lent him a certain prestige in the eyes of his fellow Kha Alack tribesmen. Having proclaimed himself Phu Mi Boun in the opening months of 1901, Bac My then assumed the appellation, Pha Ong Keo (Pha meaning "sacred saint", Ong meaning "king, prince or divine person of high rank" and Keo meaning "diamond or precious stone"). Similarly, he employed a title otherwise reserved for the king of Luang Prabang, namely, "Chao Sam Det Phali Pha Nhoc Thong Phou Zhong Pha Sat Na Maha Khong Thai" (Supreme Chief of the religion or Pontifus Maxim us). 5 3. (a) That would place Bac My/Ong Keo as four years senior to the Thai phu wise/ (wise man) who appeared in the northeast in 1899, rather than two year junior as stated by Keyes. See Keyes, op. cit. p. 295n (b) While the reports and missives drawn up by the first French commercial agents and Residents in colonial Laos were - to degrees - more carefully researched than those submitted by their counterparts in later decades and are therefore more interesting as history, they suffer from deteriorating condition, poor classification and are subject to major lacunae. 4. Archives Outre Mer (AOM) Aix Laos F6, "The Commercial Agent in Bassac to the Administration", Bassac, 24 January 1895 5. AOM Aix F6, "The Administrator-Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane 1910

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

Significant preludes to the Phu Mi Boun rebellions of 1901-1902 should not, however, be ignored and indeed other uprisings labelled millenarian have been recorded in Thailand from the seventeenth century onwards. 6 With respect to Laos, according to one colonial observer, the Kha of the Bolovens plateau (the geographic locus of the revolt) had risen up twice before during the nineteenth century. On the first occasion, a certain Asa Thiet Guon and his rebel forces pushed onto the Bolovens to free it from Lao domination. The revolt lasted two years and terminated with the capture of Asa Thiet Guon and his subsequent decapitation in Bangkok. Around 1850 a "sorcerer" or shaman known as Mo Ha, a native of Sisakhet (Thailand) fomented a similar uprising to that of the first. In an analogous manner, this movement came to an end with the capture and death of its leader. 7 Archival sources reveal that within two years of the establishment of the French protectorate in Laos in 1893, agents of the colonial state were successful in collecting taxes from the various Kha "tribes" inhabiting the Bolovens plateau. Erroneously, as it transpired, the prospect of rebellion on the plateau was then viewed as a distant prospect. As elsewhere in the colonial periphery where colonial state power had been imposed over a subject people, a certain social, political and economic restructuring of local society was involved. In tandem with the imposition of taxation and corvee demands over the subject peoples (paid or requitted in cash in lieu of payment in kind) and the redrawing by the colonial administration of the local muong or province boundaries came the appointment of an indigenous class of collaborators in replacement of uncompliant or "independent" indigenous authorities. Thus by 1895 the Kha of the Bolovens had been administratively removed from the jurisdiction of the local province of Bassac, to which they traditionally existed in tributory relationship, and according to geographic location were reassigned under the jurisdiction of a number of provincial mandarins. These new French appointed or approved indigenous authorities included the Phaya Ma Ha Tilat and the Phaya Mong Hoa of Saravane and Kamtong. 8 By 1901, then, the province of Saravane had been subdivided into eight muong, namely, as one proceded up the Sedone river, Kamtong-niai, Kong-wape, Lakone-peng, Kamtong-noi, Sapath, Samia, Saravane and Soutably. The entire province englobed 183 Lao and 194 Kha villages and included 4,853 registered 6. Ishii, 1977, p. 6 7. AOM Aix F5, "Rapport du 24 October 1907 de M. Dauplay, Commissaire du Gouvernement a Saravane". 8. AOM Aix E6, "Rapport sur Ia reconnaisance du plateau des Bolovens", January 1895

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos

Lao tax- payers versus 2,971 Kha. A total of 24,934 Lao were deemed to have "submitted" to colonial authority, versus 12,084 Kha. That left a balance of some 30,000 "independent" or unpacified and hence non- taxpaying Kha in the province. Among the "submitted" Kha were such sub-groups as the Kha Bolovens, the Kha Hin, the Khatong, the Kha Nie and the Kha Alack. The "independent" Kha included a section of the Kha Alack as well as the Kha Poli Kao, the Kha Khou Tou and the Kha Ta Hoi sub-groups. The official French record reveals that the province of Saravane then hosted a European population of three only.9 During early 1901, Bac My withdrew to Phu Tatun, a local mountain redoubt, while his devotees displayed his portrait in numerous temples throughout the province. In March his movement had taken a more threatening turn, the prelude to a general insurrection. Indeed the rebels responded to the burning by the Commissioner of Saravane of a temple erected in Bac My's honour on the Nong Met plateau by murdering, during April of the same year, a Frenchman named Menard. 10 The Resident Superior of Laos, who was apprised of the deteriorating security situation in southern Laos on 13 June, immediately set about organising the machinery for the suppression of the rebellion. The "pacification" operation involved the dispatch of military reinforcements to the Bolovens plateau from Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina. During the rainy season the rebels divided into two groups; while Ong Keo's group refuged in the mountains at the source of the Sedone, a second group based itself in the upper reaches of the Sepion. Both resisted the French forces with impunity. Although the French themselves suffered heavy losses in operations against the rebels, their tactics of starving the latter of rice and depriving them of outside supplies of powder, lead, sulphur, saltpetre, salt and opium proved to be efficacious . t h e Iong run. II m Aside from Bac My - clearly only primus inter pares in the revolt at this stage- other chiefs included Ong Luong, Luong Sakda and Vong Tasseng, a Kha Bolovens chief from Nong Bok. The presence from June onwards of Lao mandarins among the rebel population must have been particularly damaging to the French cause, however. Prominent among the latter were the Chaomuong of Khamtong Niai, the Oupahat of Kamtong Moi, the Ratsavang of Saravane, the Oupahat 9.

lndochine Francoise Annuaire de!' Indochine: 1901

10. Murdoch, op. cit. pp. 55-61 II.

AOM Paris A30 (106) carton 21, "Rapport special sur les evenements survenus sur Ia plateau des Bolovens et sur I' incident sur la Poste de Psi", Saigon, 26 September 1901

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

Luong of Attopeu. Among the montagnard adherents to the rebel cause were found, Kha Bolovens, Alacks, Nhaheuns, Kha Phou Thong, Loven and Souk Kha. 12 Thus by November 1901, as a consequence of armed actions by the rebels and armed repression by the colonial military, one third of the local population of the greater Bolovens region had been annihilated with 28 Garde Principal and 100 militia killed. Only after two years of military operations was the western part of the Bolovens considered pacified. 13 Continuing through 1901, however, a parallel non-violent movement emerged in northeast Thailand. In March 1902, this rebellion had been joined by Ong Man ·a so-called Phu Wiest - and his followers in a confrontation against a Thai army dispatched to the northeast to crush the movement. Driven back into Laos, Ong Man joined forces with the followers of Ong Keo in a mass atack on the French Commissariat before e1scaping to Phou Luong in the Bolovens in league with other 14 Loven rebels including Kommadan. Following an attack by Ong Man's 1000 strong band on the provincial Thai town of Kemmarat on 28 March 1902, the Resident Superior of Laos took precautions that events in Thailand did not ramify in Laos. The French record reveals that the original request to suppress the rebellion in the 24 kilometre "neutral" zone along the Mekong came from the Thai side. The French Minister in Bangkok was of the view that the authorisation be given to the Thai to intercede militarily in the zone provided that "cooperation" would be entered into. The ensuing French response was to immediately dispatch a company of 200 Vietnamese riflemen reinforced by 30 Europeans to Bassac from where, according to circumstances, they would assist the Thai in suppressing the revolt by way of a march on Udom. 15 In the event, the 16 Thai authorities forbade the French to cross the Thai side of the Mekong. Reservations over allowing the Thai authorities a free hand in suppressing the revolt in the neutral zone were in turn expressed by the Minister of France in Bangkok. Observing inter alia that Japanese agents circulating in the Mekong valley were encouraging antiFrench sentiment at Korat, Ubon and Battambang, he argued that Thai military 12.

ibid.

13. F. Moppert, "Le revolte des Bo1ovens (1901-1936)" , in Histoire de /' Asie du sud-est: Revoltes, Reformes, Revolutions (ed). P . Brocheux, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1981 14.

Murdoch op. cit. p. 55-61

15. AOM Aix F16, Governor General to Minister of Colonies, Hanoi, 10 April1902 16. Murdoch, op. cit. p. 59

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos

actions would have the unfortunate results for the prestige of France in what he clearly implied was a French sphere of influence. 17 As a response to the success of the Thai military operation, Ong Man and his followers, 15,000 strong and armed with 300 rifles departed Thailand for the region between Savannakhet, Muong Phine and Song Khone where they set about cutting telephone communication between Hanoi and southern Laos. On 24 April 1902, the band led by "Phu Mi Boun" attacked Savannakhet on three occasions in the same day. Driven back by the colonial Garde Indigene, the rebels suffered 100 dead. Further detachments of military were directed towards rebel headquarters in Song Khone. Despite the manifest religious colouration of the revolt, the Governor General of Indochina, Brevie - with some degree of understatement - declared it a "rebellion against French authority" . 18 Following the Savannakhet incident the rebels withdrew to Phou Luong mountains in the northeast of the Bolovens. The situation remained relatively calm up until 1905 when on 30 November a group of rebels surrounded Ban Nang Pok Kao and massacred 41 Loven tribesmen. 19 It was at this time and in this context that Kommadan first became known to colonial observers?0 According to Dauplay, even by the confession of the rebels they were discouraged, almost reduced to powerlessness by the end of 1903 following the shortlived rebellion of 1901. Contrary to expectations that the administration might have redressed the underlying grievances of the rebels, the years of administrative inaction between 1904-05 turned out to be favourable to the rebels and the respite gave then the chance to resupply themselves with munitions. Indeed, during September 1905 the Kha Bolovens of Nang Lao approached the Commissariat and bought up supplies of salt which they then offered to Bac My in his redoubt on the left bank of the Sekong. 21 According to Dauplay, an underlying anxiety on the part of the French was that Bac My could conceivably be the beneficiary of rapid firing rifles passed on by sympathetic anti-French Vietnamese emigres based in Thailand. 22 ~ No matter the 17. AOM Aix Fl6, "Governor General to Commander-in-chief of the Forces", Hanoi, 5 May 1902 18. AOM Aix Fl6, Governor General of Indochina, Broni, to the Commander-in-chief of Division, Hanoi, 5 May 1902 19. Murdoch, op. cit. p. 61 20. Moppert, op. cit p. 51 21. AOM Aix F5, "Rapport Dauplay", 24 October 1907 22. AOM Aix F6, "The Administrator Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane, 15 September 1910

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seeming incongruity of such an alliance, Dauplay's anxiety was actually borne out by events, albeit at a different juncture in Lao history, when Vietnamese and montagnard elements coalesced in an anticolonial coalition. 23 By that stage, however, the colonial state no longer has a monopoly on coercion while the antagonists of the French received a much more active level of support from non-montagnard and non-Lao elements. But at the time when Dauplay took up his post as Commissioner of Saravane in 1905, Bac My and his band were one among four rebel groups in the province. In his version, the first was the Ka Due band (five rifles) and which was dissolved following the capture and "death in prison" of its 'leader in April 1906. The second was the Ong Xit and Ong Veun Bands which mustered a force of 100 rifles until their surrender and return to their ray or village gardens in December 1906. The Bac Preuil (Ong Thong) band composed of forty rifles constituted the third, and fortified itself in the Phou Kate volcano situated twenty kilometres from Saravane where it was attacked by the militia in April 1906. This band was finally eliminated in October 1907. The fourth of these groups, that of Bac My, was in turn composed of three sub-groups. a) Bac My with Mun Viset and Luong Thep b) the rebel Latsavang along with Chan Thong Thip c) the Bolovens under the leadership of Kommadan (father of the future Pathet Lao leader and hero, Sithon) along with Kommaseng together headed a band with a reputation for "ferocity". Kommadan, for one, made his headquarters at Thong Vai in the northeast of the Bolovens. The entire band, however, was composed of "all the known races of lower Laos"- Lao, Souei, Phoi Theng, Kha, Bolovens, Alack Nge and even Cambodians and Burmese. Characteristically all of these groups supported their respective bao or clientele. 24 The foregoing notwithstanding, Dauplay was of the opinion that Bac My was only a "straw man" and that the real heart and soul of rebellion was the Latsavang, a person with a "reputation for intelligence" and whose forefathers had exercised authority in the muong of Saravane. The roots of the revolt of the Latsavang, he pointed out, go back in history and accordingly must be viewed in that context. According to local myth - no doubt historically founded - the king of Vientiane, towards the end of proselytizing the Buddhist faith, founded muong OJ_! the east bank of the Sekong to which the name Muong Laman was given. Simultaneously the conversion of the Kha was undertaken. Following the success of 23. see author's Ph. D., op. cit. 24.

AOM Aix F5, "Rapport", Dauplay 1907

49

A Scandal in Colonial Laos

the "pioneers". numerous other Lao families established themselves at Laman. For an unknown reason this group was stricken with discord. The dissidents among them crossed the Sekong and founded a new muong at Ban Phone. This muong was centred on the village of Vieng Khma prior to its transformation into the muong of Saravane. The muong of Laman in turn went into decline and when the last chaomuong or provincial lord died in the early eighteenth century he was not replaced by a successor. His descendknts then settled at either Ban Phone or Saravane. Lao and Kha residents of Ban Phone and Don Chan and its environs only tolerated with impatience the domination of Saravane. Rather. they sought to have the last descendants of the Chaomuong of Laman - which included the rebel Latsavang and the Chaomuong of Soutabali (then in prison in Vientiane) - shake off the domination of Saravane and recover their traditional autonomy or at least semi ,..... autonomy. 25 In the event, Dauplay continues, when the rebellion burst out in 1901, the Latsavang and the Chaomuong believed the moment was opportune for them to make their running and at that point took up the rebel cause along with Bac My. With the surrender of the Latsavang on 14 June 1907. a corresponding spread of French influence over the dissident montagnard population was recorded. The reenrollment of 32 villages onto the tax rolls and the end of tension between Dong Chan and Ban Phone and the indigenous authorities of ' Saravane was directly attributed to the capitulation of the Chaomuong. Yet, as ,Dauplay conceded, not only was the Latsavang the most loved and popular figure in the region but his better qualities - notably his honesty - was even recognised by his enemies. Accordingly Dauplay applauded the tactic of reconstituting the muong of Laman and in confiding its leadership upon the Latsavang as the most appropriate measure towards winning him over and in restoring the pax gallica. 26 Bereft of the realleadel;' of the rebel band, Dauplay surmised the disaggregation of Bac My's band would· necessarily follow. 27 As it happened, Bac My surrendered at Lamman on 13 October 1907. Conditions drawn up on this occasion specified that 1) he would remain at Lamman for some time 2) he would surrender all his weapons 3) he would renounce his titles and 4) he would henceforth adhere to the rites and 'Customs of the Kha Alacks and abandon the religion that he founded. 25. ibid.

26. ibid. 27. AOM Aix FS, "Rapport du 24 October 1907".

50

Geoffrey C. Gunn.

Although he acquiesced in all conditions, he retained some of the rifles and did not relinquish the title of Chao Sadet. 28 In consideration of Bac My's surrender, as Dauplay had written some three years earlier, there were a number of points to take into consideration: his "person", his "partisans" and his "arms". Whatever prestige the rebel chief may have derived in the past, Dauplay commented, would have been lost in the act of coming to seek grace from a representative of the colonial power (ie. Dauplay) whom he had otherwise boasted to drive out of Laos. This was borne out, he continued, by the relative state of indifference of the population over the surrender of Bac My compared to that of the Latsavang. 29 Certainly what comes through in this account is the degree of personal antagonism displayed by the French official towards the rebel leader. Bac My's surrender, notwithstanding, his partisans commenced to launch 'propaganda' all over the plateau to the effect that whoever fell into line with the rebel chief would have their personal tax and labour due (prestation) obligation paid by him. The anti-French character of this activity was revealed on the occasion of a projected tour by the Governor General to Pakse in January 1909. In the manner of upstaging the visit, which in the event was cancelled, the population of Pakse and Dong Khe offered up two great boun (r-eligious ceremonies) in honour of Bac My. The Bolovens was 'flooded' with invitations to attend the boun. Bac My was offered the greatest marks of respect by villagers throughout the country he travelled, receiving such offerings as candles, flowers and mats. His devotees, moreover, built him what the colonial rapporteur described as "without doubt the most beautiful indigenous habitation in the province''. On his part, Bac My increased the number of his wives and, no doubt, his perceived merit. In the event, the boun given on the occasion of the inauguration of his new sa/a (rest house) appeared, in the words of the colonial official, as a "bizarre religious melange of Buddhist cults and gross and bloody Alack rites". 3 Clearly, as it transpired, Bac My was more of a danger to the colonial order as a prisoner than as a rebel in the mountains. Thus while all the notables who had taken part in the rebellion on the Bolovens likewise surrendered along with Bac My on 13 October 1907, a notable exception was Bac Preuil who, until captured and executed at Pakse on November

°

28.

AOM Aix F6, "The Administrative Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane, 15 September 1910

29.

AOM Aix F5, "Rapport du 24 October 1907", op. cit.

30. AOM Aix F6, The Administrator Commissioner of the Government to the Resident Superior of Laos", Saravane, 15 September 1910

51

A Scandal in Colonial Laos

1909, had taken refuge in Bassac. 31 However, several weeks before the surrender of the Latsavang, Kommadan and Kommasan had become separated from Bac My along with the rest of the rebels on the Bolovens whereupon they proceded to organise a resistance centre in Attopeu province. 32 Bac My, on his part, was adamant in denying contact with Kommadan at this point and professed not to have known the exact location of rebel headquarters on Phou Louang. In February 1908, Kommadan signalled his appearance as rebel to be reckoned with by attacking Pak Bong. On 5 December he wrote to Bac My scoffing at the "indifference" of the latter's bao. Bac My, while not actually doing anything to facilitate Kommadan's surrender, had by that juncture clearly diminished in the latter's eyes as a meritorious rebel chief. 33 Bac My's Death, the Wounding of Kommadan and the Exoneration of Dauplay The death in captivity during December 1910 of Bac My is graphically recorded in a colonial memo dispatched by Dauplay to the Resident Superior of Laos. In his own words, the rebel chief and his confreres, Xieng Kham and Boun Ta, were invited into his quarters under the pretext of being photographed in a room without strong light. Having closed the door to the room, Dauplay wrote, he then took out his revolver and ordered the trio to sit down if they did not want to be killed. Understandably the rebels fell into line with this order. Dauplay's deputy Stoeckel, Garde Principal of the Garde Indigene, also with revolver in hand, then barred the exit and summqned the militia who proceded to chain up the rebels. Xieng Kham's last utterance took the form of a public address to Bac My: "leo leo" (all is finished). In turn Bac My's last words took the form of a plea to Dauplay not to do him any evil, "because he loved his sons and wife". Bac My, in the event, was bayonetted to death by a Lao called Doi Nhan, sixty metres from the house while "attempting to escape", although the Frenchman was still evidently holding onto one end of the 31. ibid. 32. AOM Aix FS, "Rapport du 24 October 1907" During April 1909, Bac Preuil and his followers were observed to have crosed the Mekong and installed themselves in the frontier region. Bac Preuil, who had earlier been propositioned by the French authorities with a view to surrendering retorted that he feared capital punishment. Two phobans accused of rendering support to Bac Preuil were imprisoned on 22 November 1907. Their defense was that in so far as the population feared or were in awe of Bac Preuil, they lacked the wherewithal to intercede. AOM Aix E6, M.F. Simon, Commissioner of the Government at Bassac to M. the Resident Superior of Laos, April 1909. 33. AOM Aix F6, IS September 1910

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

chain. In the event, Bac My was decapitated and his head sent to Saravane where it was preserved in formalahyde. As Dauplay cQmmented upon this macabre act: " .... the spectacle of Bac My preserving his head on his shoulders after all the crimes that had been committed would have constituted the most deplorable example to offer the indigenous people, that is tangible proof that one could attack French domination and human laws with impunity". 34 On 13 December, Vang Na, an homme de confiance of the rebel chief Kommadan, presented himself at Dauplay's residence bearing a set of demands from. the rebel chief in the form of a letter as well as an invitation to visit him in his sa/a (rest-house) in order to enter into negotiations over these demands. These included: 1) the revocation of the position of Chaomuong and all positions of authority in Muong Bolovens 2) the nomination of a "Phya Khome" ("Khome" according to the same account was an old word used by the Thai to designate what the French called the Bolovens), ie., a chief of the .Bolovens, including the respective parts of the territories of the muong of Pakse, Saravane and Attopeu 3) other races inhabiting the plateau such as the Nha Eun, Souei and Phou Thay were to be driven off 4) tax imposed on the Kha was to be limited io 1.5 piastres a year including corvee redemption fees. Further, as Kommadan's letter continued not without pathos: " ... When the French came to the plateau to annoy or oppress the Khomes, was it necessary for me to give them the rotin, put them in prison, that I inflict penalties upon them. At the same ·time they enjoined me to change my title from Mahaekaphachomchaochaidi to that of Commissioner". 35 As this program indicates, the notion of paying taxes was not questioned by Kommadan, what mattered more was that his tribal cohorts' place in history would be upheld in the new order of values. The French reply to this demarche, however, proved to be in violent opposition to the spirit and letter of Kommadan's program. The following day at 7 o'clock 34. 34. AOM Aix F6, "Mort de Bac My et capture de ses lieutenants", Dauplay to the Resident Superior of Saravane, 19 December 1910 Moppert, op. cit., without revealing a source, reproduces Burchett's basic version of events, namely that Dauplay (or another French agent) profiting from a local custom of not. touching anothers' head, shot Ong Keo with a pistol which he had concealed in his pith helmut. See W. Burchett, Mekong Upstream, Hanoi, Red River Publishing House, 1957, pp. 207-212. 35.

"Mort de Bac My", ibid.

53

A Scandal in Colonial Laos

in the morning, Vangna again sought out Dauplay, inviting him to visit the rebel chiers sa/a where Kommadan himself along with Kammaseng, One, Sakdan, Cheui Bam and other lesser "lords" were assembled. As recorded by Dauplay, the invitation was accepted. Indeed the events which ensued merit elaboration not only as history but as confession: "The reception of the envoys of the great Turk by Louis XIV was certainly no less remote nor more haughty than Kommadan when he deigned to take my hand at the moment when I entered the sa/a" After an interval of ten minutes Dauplay decided to take the initiative. "Deftly removing my pith helmet, I took hold of the Browning. and delivered from two metres, two shots, striking him (Kommadan) under the armpit and in line with his liver; the points of impact were clearly indicated by the little red spots on his white vest. Three shots hit Loung Visa at this moment when he rushed to the aid of his brother. In an instant all the rebels, including Kommadan, leapt out of the sa/a as the rifles of the partisans started to crackle". With scant attention to the consequences of his own actions or indeed the ramifications of his own report, Dauplay observed with supreme irony that although Kommadan possessed considerable strength, it appeared "impossible" that he could have survived his wounds. The village, including Kommadan's sa/a was put to fire. Three days later the heads of Bac My and Xieng Van Di (another rebel chief) along with seven prisoners in chains were exposed in front of the Garde Indigene quarters to serve as an example to the population. 36 Dauplay, however, did not reckon with Kommadan's physical resilience nor the colonial press. On 20 February, the Advocate Lefevre published in L' lmpar.tiel, a Saigon newspaper, an article exposing the circumstances surrounding the wounding of Kommadan who, in the event, survived the vicious assault. According to an official colonial memo in the form of a telegram, Lefevre's informant was a certain Doctor C., a witness to the scene. Lefevre, in turn, raised the issue with the Advocate General in Saigon. The latter, evidently sufficiently impressed with the seriousness of the allegations of administrative excesses in dealing with the rebels, raised questions with the Governor General of Indochina. The latter, in turn, requested the Resident Superior of Laos to supply information with a view to conducting an enquiry into the affair. As the Resident Superior retorted in a missive delivered to the French 36. ibid.

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

Counsellor Jurist on tour in Laos, the newspaper account misrepresented the facts of the case. The "untoward" article, the Resident Superior noted with apprehensio~, potentially had the capacity to create a new scandal. 37 According to another intra-governmental memo, the Deputy Outrey requested the Governor of Cochinchina to i ssue a clarification to the effect that the allegations of Lefevre, the editor-in-chief of L' lmpartiel and the Advocate General in Saigon were "unjustified" and that, to the contrary, Dauplay had rendered services to the cause of the French in the Bolovens region. 38 This and other interventions were clearly symptomatic of the degree of solidarity evinced by colonial officials in support of Dauplay's role. In the event, Dauplay was completely exonerated "I have the honour to make it known to you that following the enquiry into the decease of the Lao, Bac My, and the wounding of his compatriot, Kommadan, in 1910, the case is definitely closed. I am happy to give you the assurance that your attitude in the conduct of these events leaves no place for criticism". 39 Causes of the Revolt If those colonial actors most closely associated with the suppression of the

revolt tended to stress its religious dimension, there was a nagging anxiety on the part of the colonial authorities - and more acerbically - the colonial press, that religious epiphenomena disguised structural abuses and administrative excesses. For instance, on 1 July 1901, Le Courier Saigonais reported that the revolt of th~ Kha had become permanent and presented ifself as an "oil stain" in the recently acquired French possession. Noting that the capitation tax had been abruptly increased from one to four piastres along with an increase in corvee obligation, the author of the article pointed out that the intention of the Kha to defend their liberty was obvious. Three days later, the same newspaper, while scoring the excesses of the local administration in exacerbating the revolt, entered the plea: "It is high time to lift the pretense which hermetically seals the system of governmental administration practiced in Laos in the 37. AOM Aix E7, "Official Telegram", Resident Superior Laos, Garnier to Counsellor Juriste, mission Xieng Khouang, 2 March 1918 38. AOM Aix E7, "official telegram", Vientiane, 14 March 1918 39. AOM Aix E7, Governor General to Dauplay, Hanoi, 9 July 1918

55

A Scandal in Colonial Laos.

name of France". 40 In another article published in Le Courier Saigonais on June 10, the blame was laid upon Disiere, Commissioner of the government at Muonang for permitting such excesses to be perpetrated as looting and burning villages, "raids" on coolies and women and particularly the "ill considered" practice of offering firearms to the Lao notables. Although the Lao themselves had not joined in the revolt alongside the Kha, the same journalist remarked that little wonder the "rebellion against capitation tax" was growing day by day and that the population of southern Laos had risen up against the French administration. 41 The underlying fear of the administration was expressed by yet another journalist writing in Le Courier d' Indochine of 1 August 1901 and who observed that should the revolt spread beyond the regions bordering Cambodia, Cochinchina and Annam and should communications be cut between upper Laos and Cochinchina, then the French conquete morale (moral conquest) of Indochina would be in peril. 42 A contrary explanation of the causes of the revolt - not surprisingly - was provided by Dauplay. The Bolovens like the Israelites, he averred, awaited the arrival of a Phu Mi Boun who would purportedly assume leadership of the country and lead them on the path to happiness and justice. This was abundantly proven, he continued, by the simultaneous occurrence of the revolt in several places in southern Laos and Siam as well as the involvement of monks, mass massacres of albino animals (suspected of being reincarnations of the souls of Europeans!) and other occurrences. Yet the overtly religious phase of the rebellion soon dissipated; as the rebels lost their mass following and returned to their villages the rebellion lost its momentum. At that point, Dauplay contended, the rebel band could be described simply as the "party of discontents". As the redoubtable French administrator stated in a remark that would not palpably have been challenged by many of his colleagues and contemporaries: 'Who would boast to know what transpired in the brain of this brute of a Kha Alack?". Bac My, he contended, had developed his implacable hatred of the French as a consequence of his brutalisation at the hands of certain Europeans - notably the Garde Principal, Sicre - at a time when he was employed as a coolie in Pakse. 43 . The revolt of the Latsavang, Dauplay also attributed to a version of 40. Le Courier Saigonais, I July 1901 41. ibid., 10 June 1901 42. :Le Courier d'Indochine, 1 August 1901 43. AOM Aix FS, "Rapport du 24 October 1907"

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

psychological alienation, in this case out of frustration at seeing the position of Oupahat awarded to another as well as being on bad ·terms with the majority of mandarins in Saravane. Similarly, he described Kommadan and Kommaseng as "rebels before the rebellion". However, by dismissing them as "chiefs of a band of elephant and cattle robbers" he sought to deny them their status as aggrieved victims. Moreover, by joining up with Bac My, the latter merely attempted to impart a "quasi-legal" existence to their band.44 Notwithstanding the acknowledged "brutality" of certain subordinate French officials- notably Remy - in the way they went about collecting corvee tax redemption fees, Dauplay remarked that such actions were merely the spark which ignited the brushfires. Rather, he identified the underlying cause of the revolt on the Bolovens as the lam kha or tribal intermediaries who imposed themselves between the Kha and the Lao, especially in consideration of their function in facilitating commercial exchanges. At the same time, however, the Kha Bolovens also reproach~d certain Frenchmen, namely Demoly and Menard (killed at the outset of the revolt) for acts of bad faith in their commercial dealings with the Kha. To redress this situation, Dauplay undertook to revoke the positions of the lam kha. Indeed, he claimed to have revoked nine-tenths of those lam kha in "office" in the period since the took up his position in Saravane, leaving remain only those intermediaries whose presence had been endorsed even by their victims. To a similar end, the Lao were requested to leave the plateau altogether, which in any case was reorganised under a single muong and placed under the authority of local indigenous authorities. 45 As the French Minister of Colonies commented upon this report, while the events in question may have had as their origin a religious ferment and may have been exacerbated by the "imprudence" of certain French colons, the conclusion was inescapable that the "troubles" in Laos were equally caused by the activities of the French agents and the implementation of "fiscal measures", meaning the resented collection of the capitation tax and corvee demands placed upon the population.46 While in retrospect this would appear to be a more accurate assessment of the situation, the fact that anomalies in the system were not addressed at that point is 44. ibid. 45. ibid.

46. AOM Paris A30 (106) carton 21, Minister of Colonies to the Governor General, Paris, 20 January 1902 .

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos.

a telling commentary on the modus operandi of the French colonial state project as it worked itself out locally, especially in the impecunious montagnard milieu. As far as the "imprudence" of certain French officials were concerned, they did not reckon on the manifestly hard-hitting and relatively fearless local colonial press of the day. If the memory of the repression of the revolt was not lost in the collective memory of the Kha- as subsequent events demonstrated- neither could individual "tyrants" among the colonial officials act with impunity and in total disregard for the consequences of their actions - although that is in fact what they thought they could achieve. For instance, in an open letter to the Governor General of Indochina published in L • Opinion of Saigon, Jacques Ducroit, a French journalist, laid the blame for the turmoil in Laos squarely at the feet of the ex-Resident at Bassac, Colonel Tournier and his agents. As Ducroit phrased the matter, if a fictitious peace reigned in the capital of Poland, otherwise drowned in the blood of the massacred, then in the Laos of the ex-colonel, in spite of the presence of corpses strewn around the forest by him and his agents, disorder reigned. Although the dead were no longer in a position to testify against Tournier, as Ducroit acerbically commented, it was patently obvious that the colonel was accomplice to what amounted to an armed version of the civilising mission. At Bassac, he continued, an "incapable and violent alcoholic" acted as administrative delegate to Tournier, "a brute who did not set himself apart from the savages he avowed to civilize" Yet another accomplice of Tournier was the French Garde Principal of the militia, a person whose name was synonomous with "brutality and ferocity". Ducroit compared the barbarous actions perpetrated in Laos by the trio and their agents to the kind of disorder committed in Europe in the dark ages. Their direct inspiration, he pondered, must have been such "devourers of the dark continent" as Voulet, Chanoine, Stanley, Lemare, Marchand, etc. While the tacit complicity of Tournier in these "murderous crimes" doubtless served to protect their proteges, justice nevertheless should be forthcoming, Ducroit thundered. 47 The tenor of this and other press accounts of the day, then, is to be contrasted with the views of such colonial actors as Dauplay, who tended to separate the disruptive and intrusive role of the lam kha from that of the colonial state per se. As he pointed out, the reaction on the part of the Kha to the excesses committed by 47. "Letter ouverte a M. le Gouverneur General", Jacques Duroit, L' Opinion, Saigon, 9 February 1908

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Geoffrey C. Gunn

the Lao mandarins of Bassac, Saravane and Attopeu as well as by the infamous lam kha had already set in by 1899. The Bolovens, rich in such produce as cardamone, "ortie de Chine", ginger and herds of elephant, served as the "milch cow" to which the lam kha attached themselves. 48 While the tendency of colonial rapporteurs has been to hive off blame for the rebellion upon indigenous actors, the colonial state and its agents were by no means neutral agents in the pacification of the country. The possibilities of colonialisation of the temporate Bolovens along with the exploitation of its mineral and agricultural wealth was not lost upon the French. As one official source acknowledged in 1908, the slopes of Phou Kate mountain and other regions inhabited by the rebels were rich in saltpetre, sulphur, copper and iron ore, worked primitively by the Kha, but raising the prospect of commercial exploitation.49 The philosophical concommitant of the mission civilitrice, moreover, was the opening up of the country- largely by way of corvee-built highway systems (route colonia/e)- linking Laos to the rest .of Indochina, to metropolitan France and the external economy. Clearly, then, and a theme which has emerged in this study, the seeds to future dissent on the part of the Kha were sown by the colonial power in the way that traditional relationships and human and physical boundaries were disposed of indiscriminately. Sequels

The sequels to the affair were not without consequence. The French were neither disabused of the rectitude of their conquete morale and, indeed, continued along the same philosophical trajectory for the duration of the colonial era. On the other hand, the Kha confirmed their worst expectations in their interactions with outsiders, whether as agents of "feudal" power or whether colonial state actors. Thus exonerated, Dauplay continued his career in the local administration, rising from Commissioner Administrator to an administrative position in northern Laos where he acted as local savant on minority affairs. Perhaps in the manner of closing the case once and for all, Dauplay went on to publish in 1929 his version of the revolt, 50 although the capstone of his career in Laos was undoubtedly the 48. AOM Aix F5, "Rapport du October 1907 de M. Dauplay", Commissioner of the Government at Saravane. 49. lndochine Francoise Annuaire Generale de/' Indochine, 1908 50. J.J. Dauplay, Les Terres Rouges du Plateau des Bolovens, Saigon, 1929

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A Scandal in Colonial Laos.

occasion of his appointment to acting Resident Superior, a position he held from 8 April until 14 May 1928. Kommadan, on his part, resisted French efforts to pacify the Bolovens until 1937 when he was killed by military units led by elephant brigades which converged on Phu Luong as part of a general pacification campaign in the "Moi'' or montagnard hinterland of French Indochina. Whether shared montagnard ethnic identity or sense of separateness from outsiders was the more primordial cause of montagnard resistance to pacification, there can be no doubt that the collective memory on the part of the montagnard of the iniquitous colonial tax and corvee structure linked with the abuses of the lam kha and exacerbated by armed repression was a leading factor in alienating the Kha from central power through colonial and postcolonial times. More crucially, from the perspective of students of social change, even revolutionary change in Laos, the legacy of the contest between local and central power in the montagnard milieu had its sequel at that point in time during the late 1940's when the Kha commenced to enter into tactical alliances with the Lao nationalists and the Viet Minh.

60

Literary Historiography and Socio-Cultural Transformation: The Case of Thailand. 1 Chetana Nagavajara * INTRODUCTION The present paper proposes to deal with significant features in the development of Thai literary historiography. By way of an introduction, it may be worthwhile to make some general remarks about literary historiography in Thailand. It must be admitted that literary historiography is an area to which scholars of Thai literature have yet to address themselves systematically. The absence of interest is partly due to a widespread beli.ef among Thai scholars and within Thai literary circles that the major responsibility of literary studies is that of the investigation of the literary work itself and that it is less rewarding to apply oneself to the study of how the Thai have looked at their literature or how Thai literary historians have written their histories of literature. A corollary from the allied field of literary criticism may help to shed light on the issue; it is often thought that the writing of a history of criticism is a thankless task, for one should more gainfully be busying oneself with the writing of criticism itself. Besides, experience from a sister-discipline, namely history, has shown that debates on Thai historiography have tended to assume the character of an ideological conflict which many literary scholars would be chary to enter into. The wounds from the 1973-76 period of political storm and stress are still smarting, and some scholars cannot help feeling that the short-lived flirtation with a political enticement almost robbed Thai literary studies of its time-consecrated philological purity, ilot to say, philological puritanism. And yet one could look· at the problem from another angle. If we take literary studies to be a textual discipline, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with texts within contexts, and more often than not, within historical contexts. In the case of Thai literature, we must admit that these contexts are to a

.-----------------------------------------------------------Silpakorn University I.

The present paper was presented at tlu: XVIth Congress of the "Federation Internationale des Langues et Litteratures Modernes" (FILLM), Budapest, August 22-27, 1984. It was written for an audience not necessarily familiar with Thai culture and literature.

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The Case of Thailand

considerable extent identifiable. Literary historians make efforts to interpret texts within those contexts, but the way they interpret them can be illuminating in the sense that, as interpreters, they too are conditioned by their own contexts. The interaction between the context of the original literary work and that of the literary historian at the receiving end is an extremely interesting phenomenon which merits serious consideration. Recent historiographical disputes in Thailand, as mentioned earlier, have centred around this kind of problem, and issues have come to the fore whereby certain historians and certain historical "schools" have been accused of deliberate misreading of the "text" and misinterpretation of the "context" as a result of their own ideological preoccupations. One might ask whether the same could happen, or might have happened, to Thai literary historiography. But more important than his adjudicating role in deciding as to which interpretation is or is not faithful to the original context is the literary historian's ability to capture trends of thoughts, models of thinking, intellectual orientations or even socio-cultural patterns that are reflected in the actual writing of literary history at a particular period or through a certain span of time. An example from Thai literary history may serve as an illustration. Why, one may ask, do almost all manuals of Thai literature written over the past 40 years incorporate King Ramkhamhaeng's Stone Inscription No. 1 into the repertoire of Thai literature? Strictly speaking, this is more of a historical account of the Kingdom of Sukhothai in the 13th Century. But Thai literary historians have no qualms in treating it as a literary work and in justifying its literariness. Is this an instance of academic chauvinism of a particular period or are we to interpret this as a more perennial phenomenon of the Thai concept of literature? The present paper does not attempt to give a comprehensive account of the evolution of Thai literary historiography, but is meant to serve as prologomena to more detailed and systematic studies which, hopefully, will be carried out in the near future. It seeks to see literary history as a code, the deciphering of which may reveal messages of a more general kind which, for want of a more appropriate term, might hli said to be of "national dimensions". This is not because some of our eminent literary historians have been men of high standing who have wielded influence far beyond the confines of literature and literary history, but because in the writing of literary history they have had to deal with issues of high seriousness that demand of them the kind of perspicacity and farsightedness that may not be necessarily called for in their literary musings or in their reading of a particular "autonomous text". In this respect, the present paper tries to demonstrate that at certain crucial moments,

62

Chetana Nagavajara

Thai literary history may even rise to the level of a cross-examination of its own national conscience. THE RESTORATIVE EFFORT AND THE BENT FOR SELF-ASSERTION

As fortune will have it, one of the earliest records which could be regarded as an "extrinsic" evidence contributing towards the construction of Thai literary history is an account of the life of the 17th-Century poet Siprat contained in the portion of a Mon Chronicle known as ''Evidence given by a citizen of the Old Capital (of Ayuthya)". The citizen in question is supposed to be ex-King Uthumporn who was taken as a hostage to Burma after the sack of Ayuthya by the Burmese in 1767. This is an account of the life of a poetic genius which bears certain resemblances to the Western image of a "poete maudit" characteristic of the "fin de slecle". One modern scholar is of the opinion that the account contains inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies which could be interpreted as a deliberate stratagem to confuse the Burmese 2 ·, while another scholar thinks that there was an attempt on the part of the "citizen" to create a myth of Siprat to outdo a similar Burmese myth about the sixteenth-century poet Nawade. 3 Be that as it may, the myth of Siprat has been perpetuated in Thailand itself right up to the present, whereby school children are made to recite his verses by heart and to treasure the memory of a genius who could effortlessly extemporize exquisite poetry and whose tempestuous nature, as befitting a great artist, led him to a bad end. It is a known fact that most school textbooks derive such information from a work written during the first half of the present century called "The Legend of Siprat"4 in which the author, Phraya Phariyatithamthada, was indulging in unabashed myth-making, drawing his materials from "oral" sources whose veracity cannot be proved.Later scholars even suspect that some of the poems attributed to Siprat could have been the scholar's own concoctions. The myth of Siprat does show up tendencies that will prove to be significant in the later development of Thai literary history. These may be summarized as follows. First, the biographical approach seems to have a special appeal within Thai literary circles. Secondly, facts and fiction get entangled in the form of myth or (secular) legend that often defy analysis. Thirdly, the reliance on oral sources makes it extremely difficult

a

2.

P. Na Pramuanmak: Kamsuan Siprat and Nirat Narin, 1959, p. 17.

3.

Gilles Delouche: Contribution une hypothese de datation d'un po'eme thai.' Le Kamsuam Siprat, These, Paris III, 1981-1982, p. 50, (in French).

4.

In: P. Na Pramuanmak, op. cit., pp. 18-57.

a

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The Case of Thailand

to determine the authenticity of the text. Fourthly, the breaking up of the Kingdom after the fall of Ayuthya in 1767 and the subsequent restoration efforts seem to have left an indelible mark upon Thai thinking in general as may be witnessed from the mythologization of Siprat, in itself an unmistakably self-assertive act! The rise of literary history after 1767 therefore was part and parcel of a larger endeavour in the reconstitution of political unity. Although the actual writing of what we can strictly call "literary history" did not take place until much later, early efforts in the recovery of literary texts could be viewed as contributing towards the foundation of literary history. Much labour and insight in the way of "textual criticism" must have gone into the reconstitution of literary texts, for it is commonly known that roughly nine-tenths of written records were lost. Textual restoration took the form of both a rehashing from available written and oral sources and recomposition of commonly known stories and tales. 5 Since these early pundits did not bother to put down in writing the principles guiding their restorative efforts, we shall never be able to know for certain as to what "approaches" to "literary history" were adopted by them. However, it might be possible to draw certain conclusions from the process of restoration on the whole that literature figured prominently among the lost treasures to be restored. King Taksin, whose prime concern was the regaining of Thai sovereignty and the unification of the Kingdom, did find time to compose his version of the Ramakian. King Rama I of the Chakri Dynasty likewise presided over the restoration of older literary texts and commissioned the composition of various literary works, His Majesty himself finding sufficient leisure to engage in the composition of three works, including another version of the Ramakian, which was written to commemorate the inauguration of the new capital of Bangkok. There was no doubt that the upsurge in literary creation during the early years of the Bangkok era was part of a cultural consolidation which served as a prop to the overall political restoration. The "national" aspiration of such artistic fervours became explicit in the monumental endeavour undertaken during the reign of King Rama III, namely, the Stone Inscriptions of Wat Pho. Three important aspects are to be noted in connection with this "encyclopaedia in stone" 6 First, in this striving for permanency, literature was accorded an important place alongside Buddhist teachings and medicinal treatises. Secondly, the inscriptions pertaining to literature consist of two main types, namely, models of traditional 5.

Damrong Rachanuphab, Prince: History of the Royal Library, 1969, p.57, (First Edition: 1916).

6.

Dhani Nivat, Prince: "The Inscriptions of Wat Phra Jetubon", in: Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. XXVI, Pt. 2, October 1933, p. 163, (in English).

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prosody and didactic verses, both traditional and newly commissioned, thus embodying a "restorative" philosophy as well as a utilitarian preoccupation necessary for a self-assertive process of nation-building. Thirdly, knowledge and wisdom were transferred from private to public domain, the dedication (also in stone) of 1836 being explicit on this issue. "In undertaking to restore the monastery and in fitly dedicating it, His Majesty has not been actuated by a wish for reward (in future lives) such as universal sovereignty or even heavenly joys, but by an aspiration to arrive at full and complete knowledge whereby human beings will be restored from the wheel of misery ... " 7 The point to be noted here is that our "literary historians" of the early 19th Century, in their selection and propagation of literary works, were imbued with a certain measure of faith in the text. Their particular brand of utilitarianism goes beyond the material welfare of the people to the realm of spiritual salvation. If stone could be used to serve the cause of public dissemination, what about the printing machine? The introduction of the printing press into Thailand by American mi-ssionaries in the middle of the 19th Century is a factor relevant to the consideration of the evolution of literary history. In this connection, special mention must be made of the great work of the Royal Library and the leadership provided by Prince Damrong Rachanuphab (1862-1943). Prince Damrong's epithet as "the founding father of Thai historiography" is apposite, although some modern historians may contest certain interpretations of his, and we can probably make further claim that he too was " the founding father of Thai literary historiography". Although he never wrote a complete history of Thai literature, it can be said that no subsequent histories of Thai literature would have been possible without his pioneering efforts. The responsibility of the Royal Library was manifold and was later to be shared among various government agencies such as the Royal Institute, the National Library, the National Archives, the Fine Arts Department, the Office of the National Cultural Committee, the National Identity Board and the Teachers Council Press. First, its staff had to act as collectors of manuscripts, and this, in Prince Damrong's own words, had to be carried out as efficiently as pos.sible since they had to compete with Western collectors who were buying up manuscripts to be taken to Europe and the United States. Secondly, they had to fulfll the function of editors, and this was probably their most arduous task, for Prince Damrong and his collaborators had no solid tradition of textual criticism to. fall back on and the volume of work was immense. 7.

Ibid., p. 145.

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Thirdly, the personnel also engaged themselves in the dissemination and promotion of Thai literary heritage. In this, the task was alleviated by that characteristically Thai custom of distributing books at cremation rites; hence the Royal Library did not always have to invest in the actual printing of literary works, for which it did not have sufficient funds in any case. It can be seen that the "restorative" work and the "self-assertive" bent of the early years have borne fruit. Literature became public property, and with the advancement of modem education (in which Prince Damrong himself had had a hand in the capacity of Minister of Education), literature became part of public education. If we look more closely at the work of Prince Damrong as a literary historian, we shall see that, in many respects, his efforts were dictated by an educational preoccupation, which accounts for both his virtues and weaknesses. It is known that he was high-handed in his editing of literary texts: he did not give sufficient grounds for distinguishing a "good" text from a "bad" text. He emended profusely, and later scholars suspect that he tolerated or even commissioned recompositions of parts of "classical" texts, since the printed versions, first published under his direction, contain long passages which do not correspond to the dozens of manuscripts now still extant in complete form! There was an air of princely authority about him, even when he made a judgement on a poet he otherwise revered like Sunthon Phu.

"(Sunthon Phu's) poetry cannot be compared to that of poets of high status like H.M. King Rama II. This is only natural, for they have had different kinds of education. People of high status have learned not only basic literacy, but have also been initiated into the subtleties of the language and the discipline of letters before they start writing, whereas people of low status like Sunthon ·Phu have only learned to read and write without knowledge of the great poetics. They just love to write verses... and acquire skill in verse writing. They regard poetic fluency above ihe proper use of language. " 8 It appears that in this case the concern of an educator has coloured the judgement of a literary historian, and it is also to be noted in this connection One that evaluative judgements are accepted practice in Thai literary history. must not forget that Prince Damrong had played an important role in the modernization process of Thailand, having been Minister of Education and sub8.

Damrong Rachanuphab, Prince: "The Life of Sunthon Phu", in: Phra Aphaimani, 1924,pp. 40-41. On the work of Prince Damrong, see: Punya Borisuthi: Etude sur !'oeuvre du Prince Damrong, These, Paris, 1967.

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sequently, Minister of Interior, and it is only natural that, as a literary historian, he should have adopted a somewhat utilitarian approach to literature. His editing of the Stone Inscriptions of Wat Pho reflects this tendency : what is to be perpetuated is what has utilitarian values. In the Preface of 1929, he explained why certain sections of the Stone Inscriptions had been left out. "... Certain parts are not of much use because the state of knowledge at present has gone much further than that prevalent in the age of the Inscriptions, for example in the fields of medicine and therapy. We have therefore decided not to print them."9 The same principle applies to his handling of literary texts as well, for he would leave out texts which he considered to be of less practical value. This attitude is very remote from the historicist's notion of history, and as far as literary history is concerned, Prince Damrong had perhaps set the tone for a trend which rarely admits of a doctrine like "Art for Art's Sake". The great achievements of Prince Damrong and his team lie in their attempt to create a system, or rather a set of systems, for Thai literary history. The Prince himself, according to the records kept at the Damrong Memorial Library, contributed altogether 199 prefaces or introductions to literary works. Some of these are fairly solid studies taking the form of genre-histories or literary biographies. When dealing with a particular work, he would normally attempt the dating of the work,, and if it was a work with historical roots, he would try to distinguish between the dating of the historical event and that of the composition, such as in the Preface to the verse narrative Khun Chang Khun Phaen, first published in 1917. His data gathering was comprehensive, and he never failed to make use of oral sources when they were of real significance. The question of authorship was also of interest to him, and when confronting a work with collective authorship, he used stylistic comparisons to determine the authors. In line with the much-favoured biographical approach as mentioned earlier, he also wrote literary biographies, the best-known being that of Sunthon Phu. In the absence of written materials, he had to rely on oral sources, and more importantly, on autobiographical information in the actual works of the poet, a practice which subsequent literary historians and critics have followed, sometimes uncritically, and which have resulted in many instances of what is known in literary criticism as "intentional fallacies". But it was on the study 9.

Damrong Rachanuphab, Prince: Preface to The Inscriptions of Wat Phra Jetubon,

1929, p. iii.

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of the evolution of literary genres that he really expended much thought and research effort. He was a conscientious historian in the sense that he tried to relate a literary work to its historical context as well as to its generic framework and at the same time to trace the development of that genre within a historical framework. He wrote studies on such important genres as the drama, the "sepa" (a form of verse-narrative), the "kap he rua" (boat song), the "sakawa" (verse repartee). The immensity of the task, the absence of adequate written data and the controversial nature of certain of his conclusions have somehow intimidated later scholars who hesitate to engage themselves on similar lines, and apart from the works of some foreign scholars, notably members of the "Hamburg School" of Thai Studies, there have been few studies by Thai scholars themselves that can claim to have surpassed the work of the pioneer. And yet one has to admit that the Prince was, more often than not, circumspect in formulating his conclusions : words like "probably", "perhaps", "may-be", "possibly" abound in. his writings. 10 In many instances, it is the later manuals of Thai literary history· that have blindly appropriated his views and put them in apodictic form. Should a controversy arise, one could always refer back to Prince Damrong. In some ways, the father of Thai literary history has become the scapegoat of Thai literary scholarship. When all is said and done, Prince Damrong's work could be considered the crowning achievement of an epoch, the restorative and self -assertive period which picked up the remnants of a Burmese invasion and consolidated them into a cultural bastion against Western imperialism. It may be appropriate at this juncture to quote the opinion of a French scholar. "The general aim which emanated from all his work was to preserve all that appeared to him to be running the risk of disappearing under the menace of the West, all that constituted the beauty and the greatness of his country. 11 LITERATURE AND EDUCATION: mE ROAD TO SELF-CRITICISM If the work of the Royal Librar was more of a historiographical nature, the task of the Literary Academy, founded in 1914 probably with the "Academie Franiaise" in mind. was to be that of the guardian of the purity of the Thai language and of literary quality, and hence it had to deal with contemporary 10. See: Klaus Wenk: Studien zur Literatur der Thai, Band I, Hamburg,l982, p. 19. In a number of recent works, Wenk has raised doubts as to the editorial soundness of the classical works published under the auspices of the Royal Library. II. Schweisguth, P.: Etude sur Ia litterature siamoise, Paris, 1951, p. 344, (in French).

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literature as well. The Royal Proclamation inaugurating the Academy now sounds almost like a school master's comment on a pupil's essay, with admonitions on corrupt usages comparable to the present-day "franglais". It also pinpoints bad books that are translated from "bad foreign books", for its patron, King Rama VI, was Western-trained and was engaged in the promotion not only of classical Thai literature, but also of "high" European literature, such as Shakespeare which he himself translated magnificently. Whatever one may say, with the benefit of hindsight, on the parochialism of the Literary Academy, its concern with contemporary literature was a significant step in the evolution of Thai literary history. It is only to be regretted that it addressed itself mainly to the criticism and evaluation of literary works which were in line with the King's preoccupation with an "lndological Renaissance", 12 and did not deign to tackle newly emerging works of prose-fiction or essays. "Self-criticism", in this respect, was far too elitist to be of real significance. One remarkable feature about the development of Thai literary history is its occasional imperviousness to socio-cultural change. The 1932 Revolution which ushered in democracy and constitutional monarchy did not have immediate effe~t on literary historiography. Perhaps the didactic and educational mission embedded in the early efforts of literary propagation did not leave room for much innovation. Political scientists have been debating for years now as to whether the· 1932 Revolution and the political and ideological movements that preceded it have really instituted significant changes in Thai society. As far as literature is concerned, a lay-man can easily discern that the leaders of the Revolution and the power-mongers of the later generations have not really allied themselves with topnotch educationists, or to be more precise, have not really given serious thought to the use of literature as an instrument of political education. The same could not be said of the literary-minded political leaders under the absolute monarchy. Literary education subsequent to the Revolution was, for many years, probably based on the repertoire set up by Prince Damrong and his followers, less the "restorative" fervour. Some scholars in the 1940's and 1950's were still talking the same language as Prince Damrong. In his book Thai Literature (1959), Phra Worawetphisit, a scholar of immense erudition, paid no 12. King Rama VI had great interest in classical Sanskrit literature, which he read in English translations. The interest was shared by some of his learned contemporaries, for example, Prince Phitayalonkorn. The King composed a number of poetic works based on Indian classical themes.

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attention to contemporary literature and shared the views of earlier literary historians that Thai literature had served as a safeguard against Western colonialism, because through literature, we could prove to Westerners that ours is a nation endowed with high culture. 13 He firmly believed in the correlation between the advancement of education and the quality of literature. In his opinion, the reign of King Rama VI represents the culminating point of Thai literature, because "town people (sic) all received a good education. Scholars went abroad for further studies, and those who stayed back either received education up to the secondary level or could go on to the university level. For these reasons, literary creation was moving in leaps and bounds:' 14 This is indeed literary history for the educationists! Another work of literary history worth mentioning in this conection is Pluang Na Nakhon's History of Thai Literature, first published in 1952, which has since gone through 8 editions. This is probably the most systematic and consistent of all histories of Thai literature that we possess. It is meant to be a manual for the student and serves the additional purpose of an anthology. The need for an anthology was urgent at that time, since many of the works published by the Royal Library had gone out of print. Pluang himself, during the early part of his career, had distinguished himself as a poet and fictionwriter and he selected his texts with rare discriminating power. The book possesses a remarkable variety, containing a "standard" repertoire as well as rare pieces of journalistic virtuosity.l 5 In a recent interview, Pluang maintained that he wrote the book out of a "pleasure of the text" and had no intention of making any claim regarding the greatness of Thai literary heritage. Be that as it may, the History of Thai Literature does convey the impression that Thai literature possesses a "great tradition" that derives its strength from the legacy of a long history, and there is no denying that Pluang's anthology has been shaping the literary taste of his readers. To many readers, the anthology provides the first systematic exposure to traditional Thai literature. It is only to be regretted that this History-cum-Anthology does not take us beyond the 1932 Revolution, and the final Chapter, a mere two-page account of the "Literature in the Democratic Age", ends on a pessimistic note with a quotation from Goethe : "The 13. Phra Worawetphisit: Thai Literature, 1959, p. 31. 14. Ibid., p. 172. 15. Pluang Na Nakhon: History of Thai Literature for the Student, 1980, pp. 455-479.

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decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation" . 16 We have said earlier that Thai literary historians have a natural bent for evaluative criticism, but in the case of Pluang Na Nakhon, literary evaluation seems to betray a regrettably restricted literary taste. The "pleasure of the text" turns out to be coloured by a slight tinge of royal blue. Whatever be its shortcomings, a work like Pluang's History fulfilled an imIt portant educational role in providing access to a solid classical repertoire. was left to the individual readers themselves to probe deeper into this literary treasure--house and to form their own judgements. It could be said that the kind of "literary education" offered at the secondary and tertiary levels in the post- war period was not as bad as it is often made out to be, and that an inquisitive, critical and original mind could very well rise to its heights from such a nurturing ground. Chit Phumisak (1930-1966) was the supreme example of such an original mind. It is not easy to talk objectively about the life and work of this scholar-critic, for his revolutionary activities, his subsequent imprisonment and his being killed "in action" have proved to be ample materials for a myth. That he was more or less "canonized" by the young revolutionaries of the 1973-76 period of democratic boom added further strength to the "Myth of Chit Phumisak". When all is said and done, one has to admit that his influence on young writers, critics and students of literature has been immense. He has created a new consciousness of the moral nature and the social relevance of literature. It is only regrettable that he did not always know how to put his staggering erudition to good use, for he was at times preoccupied with a propagandist mission, which in manyways coloured his critical writings. Yet Chit was an important milestone in the development of Thai literary historiography, His although he never attempted to write a systematic history of Thai literature. major approach is that of reinterpretation and revaluation of classical Thai lite ,rature. On the one hand, he saw classical Thai literature as a product of a corrupt and oppressive aristocratic ruling class, the history of Thai literature being that of an exploitation of the common people. Chit very often adopted a content oriented approach, and in this respect he may have even founded a "school". Another point worth mentioning is his constant attacks on the aristocratic ruling class on account of their incurable sexual obsessions. Naturally, he could find sufficient evidence from classical Thai literature to substantiate his diatribes. On 16. Ibid., p. 549.

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the whole, Chit scrounged traditional Thai. literature for two things, namely, the repressive bent on the part of the ruling class and the resistance on the part of the people. He may have been more successful in his search for the first than for the second. One cannot help feeling that he at times dramatized and even exaggerated traits of popiar resistance in Thai literature : his Preface to Nirat Nongkhai is a case in point. 17 In spite of propagandist aberrations, Chit is important in one particular respect. He has shown that the study of literature can take the form of a crossexamination of national conscience. Thai literature is a testimony to national pride as well as national shame. It is the message of a general nature like this rather than his interpretations, re-interpretations or (deliberate) mis-interpretations that is likely to survive the "Myth of Chit Phumisak". We are dealing here with "selfcriticism" of a singular kind. But the young revolutionaries of 1973-76 did not really have time to The digest Chit's message, and they even radicalized some of his viewpoints. call to "set fire to literature", meaning to do away with all traditional literature, was something that Chit would never have approved of. All in all, many of his ideas and methodological approaches were appropriated by young writers and critics, particularly the idea about literature being used as an instrument of political tyranny and about the sexual mania of the ruling class. Some particular works of classical literature fared badly during this period, especially Phra Lo, an • epic-romance usually regarded as the acme of its kind, which was now regarded as the epitome of sexual aberration of the aristocratic class. The OathTaking Proclamation (Ongkarn Chaengnam) had its bad days as well. Even a university scholar, Chonthira Kladyu, who was otherwise a great admirer of classical Thai literature, interpreted the 14th Century cosmological treatise Trai Phum as serving a political purpose of strengthening the status of kingship. 18 When all is said and done, credit must be given to the young critics of the 1973-76 period for their interest in ·modern and contemporary Thai literature, and in this respect, they went beyond their master Chit Phumisak. Some of their re-discoveries and revaluations are of significant value, especially the reinstatement of writers like Seni Soawapong, whose social novels are now recognized as standard works of modern Thai literature. 17. Chit Phumisak: Preface to Nirat Nongkhai, 1975, pp. 1-116, (originally written in 1961). 18. Chonthira K1atyu: Literature for the People, 1974, pp. 44-49.

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As mentioned earlier, most Thai literary historians have paid far too little attention to contemporary literature, and in this respect, the critical works of Mom Luang Bunlua Thepyasuwan must be regarded as pioneering efforts. An educationist of international repute, a noted language teacher, a fiction-writer of some stature, Mom Luang Bunlua turned to literary history late in her career, but what she did produce was epoch-making.A long essay called "The Turning Point of Thai Literature" published in the Festschrift Wanwaithayakon (1971), and later published as a text-book, deals with the rise of modern Thai literature towards the turn of the Century and takes the reader up to the late 1960's. For the first time, the novel as a literary genre receives an objective, scholarly treatment, and Mom Luang Blinlua's evaluation of contemporary "popular" novels is illumJnating, for she knows how to point to their virtues as well as weaknesses. More interesting still is her treatment of the essay and non-fictional prose which, she thinks, have progressed very far after 1932, the reason being that the new democracy has proved to be an impetus to literary expression of this kind and that higher literacy has naturally created a larger reading public. Due credit is therefore given to the democratic government, and this coming from a "Mom Luang" a member of the royal family! In a full-length study entitled Analysis of Thai Literature (1974) Mom Luang Bunlua offers a work of theoretical as well as practical criticism. It is not a literary history in the strict sense of the word, but in her analysis of certain classical works, she also adopts a historical approach and relates a work to its historical context. Some of her interpretations could be regarded as innovations in Thai literary history. For example, she adopts a sociological approach in her chapter on Khun Chang Khun Phaen, taking this literary masterpiece to be a reflection of the Thai way of life and concluding that Thai society as seen through this work was a "society that lacks discipline" . 19 She is quite explicit in saying that even the king in this work lacks discipline and a sure sense of justice in the governing of his own kingdom. Instead of taking the traditional stance of seeing didactic elements in classical literature, Mom Luang Bunlua warns against using literature for didactic purposes. Literature, according to her, is an image of life in all its facets and demands a cert~in level of maturity for a proper comprehension. The liberal-mindedness and the sobriety that· inform her critical works provided a soothing antidote to the revolutionary paroxysm of Chit Phumisak's disciples. Here is a kind of self-criticism that can lead to constructive self-knowledge. Both in scholarly and in journalistic circles, Mom Luang 19. Mom Luang Bun1ua Thepyasuwan: Analysis of Thai Literature, 1974, p. 40.

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Bunlua's contributions to literary studies have been fully recognized. She has given confidence to many young scholars and critics that a "middle course" is possible and that serious consideration of contemporary literature is an integral part of literary history.

EPILOGUE : THE SEARCH FOR SELF-KNOWLEDGE

The period following the political event of 1976 did not tum out to be totally bereft of constructive literarv activities. In the field of creative writing, the "literature of social consciousness" 20 has even gained strength, and soul-searching questions have been dealt with in contemporary fiction and poetry. Literary criticism and literary history did not really suffer the same fate as the political avantgardism. Within months after the political upheaval of October 1976, a new literary magazine Bookworld was launched, and for a period of 6 years, it provided a forum for writers, critics and scholars of all "denominations" to air their literary views. Its significance to the development of literary history cannot be denied, for apart from printing criticisms of contemporary literature by critics from both the academia and the world of journalism, it strove to fulfil the role of a chronicler of modem literature, devoting single issues to important modern writers, both Thai and foreign. Its contribution to Thai literary historiography probably cannot be gauged fully at the present, but a few years from now, literary historians writing a history of modern Thai literature will certainly have to rely on this magazine as the most important source of information on Thai literature and criticism. One particular feature of Thai literary life needs Ito be mentioned here: in the field of literary criticism and literary studies, a literary magazine has sometimes been able to perform functions that in other societies would normally be reserved for learned journals. There is no clear-cut distinction between the "learned" and the "journalistic". When Bookworld ceased publication in 1983 as a result of financial losses, another literary magazine "Bookpath" (Thanon Nangsu) came into being. It too has the ambition of making its contribution to literary history. The May 1984 Issue contains a lengthy article on the "Evolution of the Thai Free-Verse", a genre-history that harks back to the tradition of Prince Damrong! Although no conclusive answer has been given to a number of questions, particulary those concerning the origin of the Thai free-verse, 20. See: Thai-PEN Anthology: Short Stories and Poems of Social Consciousness, 1984, (in English). The term is used to describe recent development in Thai literature which is marked by a tendency for social criticism.

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it can be seen that an inquisitive mind is at work in this magazine article. We really want to know ourselves better. Even the "school" ~f Chit Phumisak has mellowed over the years, and when Sathian Chantimathon published his Stream of Thai Literature for Life in 1981, he was already concentrating more on the "secondary" mission of finding the selfassertive urge of the "people" as expressed in Thai literature rather than being bogged down with the "primary" mission of denigrating the aristocratic class. The book contains two parts, the first part being an attempt to re-write the history of Thai literature from the point of view of the "people", and the second part being a collection of earlier articles. It is the first part that merits special attention, for the author very interestingly establishes the unity and continuity of the Thai "literature for life'' 21 which he sees as an endless_'' stream''. Without any doubt, this is a literary history of the modern period whose data base is more comprehensive than that of any existing history. Reading it one could not help feeling that the author might have produced a more meaningful history, had he not imposed upon himself a somewhat rigid dichotomical framework of class struggle that appears rather con trived at times. This is probably characteristic of the new "scientific" approach to literature : Sathian seems to believe that seeing things through a frame is ~to see things more clearly. Are we dealing here with the quest for self-knowledge through a "partial" vision? The application of a theoretical framewori?¢>also characterizes Nithi leosiwong's Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature (1981), which can be called the first consistent attempt at a social history of Thai literature. The literature of the early Bangkok period, as distinct from that of the earlier period of Ayuthya, represents a merging between court and popular cultures, the intermediary being the rising bourgeoisie (which included Chinese immigrants). While viewing with some detached amusement the aristocracy's readiness to befriend the wealthy bourgeosie on the basis of common mercantile interest, Nithi seems to welcome the transformation which took place in literature as a move towards a more agile and more liberal form of artistic expression. It can be said that Nithi's work offers fresh insights into the relationship between literature and socio-economic conditions, but some of his interpretations may appear a little far-fetched. For example, he thinks that the rise of literacy is supportive of the dissemination of literature, and that we owe it to the 21. "Literature for Life" is a Thai version of "litterature engagee", probably marked by greater acerbity than the Sartrian original!

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money-minded bourgeosie (who promoted literacy as part of the promotion of business) that literature should have progressed so far in the early Bangkok period. 22 The novelty of Nithi's approach (which may not be so novel in some other countries) lies in the fact that knowledge of history, including economic history, can help us understand literary transformation, and in this respect, he goes much further than Mom Luang Bunlua's sociological reading of traditional literature, for Nithi views such transformation as being conditioned by socio-economic change. This is a method· that has its merits as well as pitfalls, and Nithi has been criticized by some literary scholars as having tried to bend his facts to suit a theoretical framework. Be that as it may, credit must be given to this eminent historian for having asked questions that no earlier scholar has asked and for providing answers that no previous literary student has thought of. He has helped literary historians to look at Thai literature from fresh angles. There is no denying that these various perspectives contribute towards a better understanding of ourselves and our literary culture. Our understanding has been enriched also through studies in "regional literatures" and folk-literature which scholars have been pursuing vigorously for the past 10-15 years. Knowledge of the literatures of the North, South and NorthEast of Thailand has extended our notion of literature, which formerly used to be confined to the literature of our successive capital cities. It is appropriate to mention here Thawat Punothok's work Regional Literature (1982). This is indeed a bold step in the direction of a synthesis. Although he relies chiefly on written sources and does not as yet appear confident enough to put to good use recent research into the oral tradition, Thawat succeeds in creating a new consciousness of a literary heritage that is a great deal more comprehensive than the traditional image of "Thai literature''. There is one cultural trait that emerges quite clearly from his investigation, namely, that the majority of works of "regional literature" are deeply anchored in Buddhist beliefs and traditions. The role of the Buddhist temple in the propagation of the literary culture is also very much in evidence. Are we to assume that through the study of regional literatures, we may arrive at a deeper understanding of our cultural roots than hitherto? It can be seen that the major works of literary history that have appeared after 1976 seem to be imbued with a certain measure of sobriety and perspicacity 22. Nithi Ieosiwong: "Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature", in: Thammasat University Journal. Vol. 11, No. I. March 1982, p. 77. (The full version appeared as a research report in mimeographed form, published by Thai Khadi Research Institute, Thammasat University, 1981).

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that contribute towards the consolidation of Thai literary historiography. Although we still do not possess a complete history of Thai literature that gives an overall picture of our literary heritage, these "partial" views can provide a basis for future work of synthesis. It is an irony of history that a period of political doldrum has not engendered a corresponding lull period in literary creation and literary studies. Perhaps literary history, by its very nature as a reflective discipline, does not give its best when called to respond to immediate needs. It needs time to reflect upon literature and to reflect upon itself. This does not mean that it should retire to some cozy Olympian heights; rather it should position itself in a realm of Buddhist detachment.

Notes (All sources cited are in the Thai language when not otherwise stated)

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Literary Historiography and Socio-Cultural Transformation: The Case of Thailand. 1 Chetana Nagavajara * INTRODUCTION The present paper proposes to deal with significant features in the development of Thai literary historiography. By way of an introduction, it may be worthwhile to make some general remarks about literary historiography in Thailand. It must be admitted that literary historiography is an area to which scholars of Thai literature have yet to address themselves systematically. The absence of interest is partly due to a widespread beli.ef among Thai scholars and within Thai literary circles that the major responsibility of literary studies is that of the investigation of the literary work itself and that it is less rewarding to apply oneself to the study of how the Thai have looked at their literature or how Thai literary historians have written their histories of literature. A corollary from the allied field of literary criticism may help to shed light on the issue; it is often thought that the writing of a history of criticism is a thankless task, for one should more gainfully be busying oneself with the writing of criticism itself. Besides, experience from a sister-discipline, namely history, has shown that debates on Thai historiography have tended to assume the character of an ideological conflict which many literary scholars would be chary to enter into. The wounds from the 1973-76 period of political storm and stress are still smarting, and some scholars cannot help feeling that the short-lived flirtation with a political enticement almost robbed Thai literary studies of its time-consecrated philological purity, ilot to say, philological puritanism. And yet one could look· at the problem from another angle. If we take literary studies to be a textual discipline, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with texts within contexts, and more often than not, within historical contexts. In the case of Thai literature, we must admit that these contexts are to a

.-----------------------------------------------------------Silpakorn University I.

The present paper was presented at tlu: XVIth Congress of the "Federation Internationale des Langues et Litteratures Modernes" (FILLM), Budapest, August 22-27, 1984. It was written for an audience not necessarily familiar with Thai culture and literature.

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considerable extent identifiable. Literary historians make efforts to interpret texts within those contexts, but the way they interpret them can be illuminating in the sense that, as interpreters, they too are conditioned by their own contexts. The interaction between the context of the original literary work and that of the literary historian at the receiving end is an extremely interesting phenomenon which merits serious consideration. Recent historiographical disputes in Thailand, as mentioned earlier, have centred around this kind of problem, and issues have come to the fore whereby certain historians and certain historical "schools" have been accused of deliberate misreading of the "text" and misinterpretation of the "context" as a result of their own ideological preoccupations. One might ask whether the same could happen, or might have happened, to Thai literary historiography. But more important than his adjudicating role in deciding as to which interpretation is or is not faithful to the original context is the literary historian's ability to capture trends of thoughts, models of thinking, intellectual orientations or even socio-cultural patterns that are reflected in the actual writing of literary history at a particular period or through a certain span of time. An example from Thai literary history may serve as an illustration. Why, one may ask, do almost all manuals of Thai literature written over the past 40 years incorporate King Ramkhamhaeng's Stone Inscription No. 1 into the repertoire of Thai literature? Strictly speaking, this is more of a historical account of the Kingdom of Sukhothai in the 13th Century. But Thai literary historians have no qualms in treating it as a literary work and in justifying its literariness. Is this an instance of academic chauvinism of a particular period or are we to interpret this as a more perennial phenomenon of the Thai concept of literature? The present paper does not attempt to give a comprehensive account of the evolution of Thai literary historiography, but is meant to serve as prologomena to more detailed and systematic studies which, hopefully, will be carried out in the near future. It seeks to see literary history as a code, the deciphering of which may reveal messages of a more general kind which, for want of a more appropriate term, might hli said to be of "national dimensions". This is not because some of our eminent literary historians have been men of high standing who have wielded influence far beyond the confines of literature and literary history, but because in the writing of literary history they have had to deal with issues of high seriousness that demand of them the kind of perspicacity and farsightedness that may not be necessarily called for in their literary musings or in their reading of a particular "autonomous text". In this respect, the present paper tries to demonstrate that at certain crucial moments,

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Thai literary history may even rise to the level of a cross-examination of its own national conscience. THE RESTORATIVE EFFORT AND THE BENT FOR SELF-ASSERTION

As fortune will have it, one of the earliest records which could be regarded as an "extrinsic" evidence contributing towards the construction of Thai literary history is an account of the life of the 17th-Century poet Siprat contained in the portion of a Mon Chronicle known as ''Evidence given by a citizen of the Old Capital (of Ayuthya)". The citizen in question is supposed to be ex-King Uthumporn who was taken as a hostage to Burma after the sack of Ayuthya by the Burmese in 1767. This is an account of the life of a poetic genius which bears certain resemblances to the Western image of a "poete maudit" characteristic of the "fin de slecle". One modern scholar is of the opinion that the account contains inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies which could be interpreted as a deliberate stratagem to confuse the Burmese 2 ·, while another scholar thinks that there was an attempt on the part of the "citizen" to create a myth of Siprat to outdo a similar Burmese myth about the sixteenth-century poet Nawade. 3 Be that as it may, the myth of Siprat has been perpetuated in Thailand itself right up to the present, whereby school children are made to recite his verses by heart and to treasure the memory of a genius who could effortlessly extemporize exquisite poetry and whose tempestuous nature, as befitting a great artist, led him to a bad end. It is a known fact that most school textbooks derive such information from a work written during the first half of the present century called "The Legend of Siprat"4 in which the author, Phraya Phariyatithamthada, was indulging in unabashed myth-making, drawing his materials from "oral" sources whose veracity cannot be proved.Later scholars even suspect that some of the poems attributed to Siprat could have been the scholar's own concoctions. The myth of Siprat does show up tendencies that will prove to be significant in the later development of Thai literary history. These may be summarized as follows. First, the biographical approach seems to have a special appeal within Thai literary circles. Secondly, facts and fiction get entangled in the form of myth or (secular) legend that often defy analysis. Thirdly, the reliance on oral sources makes it extremely difficult

a

2.

P. Na Pramuanmak: Kamsuan Siprat and Nirat Narin, 1959, p. 17.

3.

Gilles Delouche: Contribution une hypothese de datation d'un po'eme thai.' Le Kamsuam Siprat, These, Paris III, 1981-1982, p. 50, (in French).

4.

In: P. Na Pramuanmak, op. cit., pp. 18-57.

a

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The Case of Thailand

to determine the authenticity of the text. Fourthly, the breaking up of the Kingdom after the fall of Ayuthya in 1767 and the subsequent restoration efforts seem to have left an indelible mark upon Thai thinking in general as may be witnessed from the mythologization of Siprat, in itself an unmistakably self-assertive act! The rise of literary history after 1767 therefore was part and parcel of a larger endeavour in the reconstitution of political unity. Although the actual writing of what we can strictly call "literary history" did not take place until much later, early efforts in the recovery of literary texts could be viewed as contributing towards the foundation of literary history. Much labour and insight in the way of "textual criticism" must have gone into the reconstitution of literary texts, for it is commonly known that roughly nine-tenths of written records were lost. Textual restoration took the form of both a rehashing from available written and oral sources and recomposition of commonly known stories and tales. 5 Since these early pundits did not bother to put down in writing the principles guiding their restorative efforts, we shall never be able to know for certain as to what "approaches" to "literary history" were adopted by them. However, it might be possible to draw certain conclusions from the process of restoration on the whole that literature figured prominently among the lost treasures to be restored. King Taksin, whose prime concern was the regaining of Thai sovereignty and the unification of the Kingdom, did find time to compose his version of the Ramakian. King Rama I of the Chakri Dynasty likewise presided over the restoration of older literary texts and commissioned the composition of various literary works, His Majesty himself finding sufficient leisure to engage in the composition of three works, including another version of the Ramakian, which was written to commemorate the inauguration of the new capital of Bangkok. There was no doubt that the upsurge in literary creation during the early years of the Bangkok era was part of a cultural consolidation which served as a prop to the overall political restoration. The "national" aspiration of such artistic fervours became explicit in the monumental endeavour undertaken during the reign of King Rama III, namely, the Stone Inscriptions of Wat Pho. Three important aspects are to be noted in connection with this "encyclopaedia in stone" 6 First, in this striving for permanency, literature was accorded an important place alongside Buddhist teachings and medicinal treatises. Secondly, the inscriptions pertaining to literature consist of two main types, namely, models of traditional 5.

Damrong Rachanuphab, Prince: History of the Royal Library, 1969, p.57, (First Edition: 1916).

6.

Dhani Nivat, Prince: "The Inscriptions of Wat Phra Jetubon", in: Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. XXVI, Pt. 2, October 1933, p. 163, (in English).

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Chetana Nagavajara

prosody and didactic verses, both traditional and newly commissioned, thus embodying a "restorative" philosophy as well as a utilitarian preoccupation necessary for a self-assertive process of nation-building. Thirdly, knowledge and wisdom were transferred from private to public domain, the dedication (also in stone) of 1836 being explicit on this issue. "In undertaking to restore the monastery and in fitly dedicating it, His Majesty has not been actuated by a wish for reward (in future lives) such as universal sovereignty or even heavenly joys, but by an aspiration to arrive at full and complete knowledge whereby human beings will be restored from the wheel of misery ... " 7 The point to be noted here is that our "literary historians" of the early 19th Century, in their selection and propagation of literary works, were imbued with a certain measure of faith in the text. Their particular brand of utilitarianism goes beyond the material welfare of the people to the realm of spiritual salvation. If stone could be used to serve the cause of public dissemination, what about the printing machine? The introduction of the printing press into Thailand by American mi-ssionaries in the middle of the 19th Century is a factor relevant to the consideration of the evolution of literary history. In this connection, special mention must be made of the great work of the Royal Library and the leadership provided by Prince Damrong Rachanuphab (1862-1943). Prince Damrong's epithet as "the founding father of Thai historiography" is apposite, although some modern historians may contest certain interpretations of his, and we can probably make further claim that he too was " the founding father of Thai literary historiography". Although he never wrote a complete history of Thai literature, it can be said that no subsequent histories of Thai literature would have been possible without his pioneering efforts. The responsibility of the Royal Library was manifold and was later to be shared among various government agencies such as the Royal Institute, the National Library, the National Archives, the Fine Arts Department, the Office of the National Cultural Committee, the National Identity Board and the Teachers Council Press. First, its staff had to act as collectors of manuscripts, and this, in Prince Damrong's own words, had to be carried out as efficiently as pos.sible since they had to compete with Western collectors who were buying up manuscripts to be taken to Europe and the United States. Secondly, they had to fulfll the function of editors, and this was probably their most arduous task, for Prince Damrong and his collaborators had no solid tradition of textual criticism to. fall back on and the volume of work was immense. 7.

Ibid., p. 145.

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The Case of Thailand

Thirdly, the personnel also engaged themselves in the dissemination and promotion of Thai literary heritage. In this, the task was alleviated by that characteristically Thai custom of distributing books at cremation rites; hence the Royal Library did not always have to invest in the actual printing of literary works, for which it did not have sufficient funds in any case. It can be seen that the "restorative" work and the "self-assertive" bent of the early years have borne fruit. Literature became public property, and with the advancement of modem education (in which Prince Damrong himself had had a hand in the capacity of Minister of Education), literature became part of public education. If we look more closely at the work of Prince Damrong as a literary historian, we shall see that, in many respects, his efforts were dictated by an educational preoccupation, which accounts for both his virtues and weaknesses. It is known that he was high-handed in his editing of literary texts: he did not give sufficient grounds for distinguishing a "good" text from a "bad" text. He emended profusely, and later scholars suspect that he tolerated or even commissioned recompositions of parts of "classical" texts, since the printed versions, first published under his direction, contain long passages which do not correspond to the dozens of manuscripts now still extant in complete form! There was an air of princely authority about him, even when he made a judgement on a poet he otherwise revered like Sunthon Phu.

"(Sunthon Phu's) poetry cannot be compared to that of poets of high status like H.M. King Rama II. This is only natural, for they have had different kinds of education. People of high status have learned not only basic literacy, but have also been initiated into the subtleties of the language and the discipline of letters before they start writing, whereas people of low status like Sunthon ·Phu have only learned to read and write without knowledge of the great poetics. They just love to write verses... and acquire skill in verse writing. They regard poetic fluency above ihe proper use of language. " 8 It appears that in this case the concern of an educator has coloured the judgement of a literary historian, and it is also to be noted in this connection One that evaluative judgements are accepted practice in Thai literary history. must not forget that Prince Damrong had played an important role in the modernization process of Thailand, having been Minister of Education and sub8.

Damrong Rachanuphab, Prince: "The Life of Sunthon Phu", in: Phra Aphaimani, 1924,pp. 40-41. On the work of Prince Damrong, see: Punya Borisuthi: Etude sur !'oeuvre du Prince Damrong, These, Paris, 1967.

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sequently, Minister of Interior, and it is only natural that, as a literary historian, he should have adopted a somewhat utilitarian approach to literature. His editing of the Stone Inscriptions of Wat Pho reflects this tendency : what is to be perpetuated is what has utilitarian values. In the Preface of 1929, he explained why certain sections of the Stone Inscriptions had been left out. "... Certain parts are not of much use because the state of knowledge at present has gone much further than that prevalent in the age of the Inscriptions, for example in the fields of medicine and therapy. We have therefore decided not to print them."9 The same principle applies to his handling of literary texts as well, for he would leave out texts which he considered to be of less practical value. This attitude is very remote from the historicist's notion of history, and as far as literary history is concerned, Prince Damrong had perhaps set the tone for a trend which rarely admits of a doctrine like "Art for Art's Sake". The great achievements of Prince Damrong and his team lie in their attempt to create a system, or rather a set of systems, for Thai literary history. The Prince himself, according to the records kept at the Damrong Memorial Library, contributed altogether 199 prefaces or introductions to literary works. Some of these are fairly solid studies taking the form of genre-histories or literary biographies. When dealing with a particular work, he would normally attempt the dating of the work,, and if it was a work with historical roots, he would try to distinguish between the dating of the historical event and that of the composition, such as in the Preface to the verse narrative Khun Chang Khun Phaen, first published in 1917. His data gathering was comprehensive, and he never failed to make use of oral sources when they were of real significance. The question of authorship was also of interest to him, and when confronting a work with collective authorship, he used stylistic comparisons to determine the authors. In line with the much-favoured biographical approach as mentioned earlier, he also wrote literary biographies, the best-known being that of Sunthon Phu. In the absence of written materials, he had to rely on oral sources, and more importantly, on autobiographical information in the actual works of the poet, a practice which subsequent literary historians and critics have followed, sometimes uncritically, and which have resulted in many instances of what is known in literary criticism as "intentional fallacies". But it was on the study 9.

Damrong Rachanuphab, Prince: Preface to The Inscriptions of Wat Phra Jetubon,

1929, p. iii.

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The Case of Thailand

of the evolution of literary genres that he really expended much thought and research effort. He was a conscientious historian in the sense that he tried to relate a literary work to its historical context as well as to its generic framework and at the same time to trace the development of that genre within a historical framework. He wrote studies on such important genres as the drama, the "sepa" (a form of verse-narrative), the "kap he rua" (boat song), the "sakawa" (verse repartee). The immensity of the task, the absence of adequate written data and the controversial nature of certain of his conclusions have somehow intimidated later scholars who hesitate to engage themselves on similar lines, and apart from the works of some foreign scholars, notably members of the "Hamburg School" of Thai Studies, there have been few studies by Thai scholars themselves that can claim to have surpassed the work of the pioneer. And yet one has to admit that the Prince was, more often than not, circumspect in formulating his conclusions : words like "probably", "perhaps", "may-be", "possibly" abound in. his writings. 10 In many instances, it is the later manuals of Thai literary history· that have blindly appropriated his views and put them in apodictic form. Should a controversy arise, one could always refer back to Prince Damrong. In some ways, the father of Thai literary history has become the scapegoat of Thai literary scholarship. When all is said and done, Prince Damrong's work could be considered the crowning achievement of an epoch, the restorative and self -assertive period which picked up the remnants of a Burmese invasion and consolidated them into a cultural bastion against Western imperialism. It may be appropriate at this juncture to quote the opinion of a French scholar. "The general aim which emanated from all his work was to preserve all that appeared to him to be running the risk of disappearing under the menace of the West, all that constituted the beauty and the greatness of his country. 11 LITERATURE AND EDUCATION: mE ROAD TO SELF-CRITICISM If the work of the Royal Librar was more of a historiographical nature, the task of the Literary Academy, founded in 1914 probably with the "Academie Franiaise" in mind. was to be that of the guardian of the purity of the Thai language and of literary quality, and hence it had to deal with contemporary 10. See: Klaus Wenk: Studien zur Literatur der Thai, Band I, Hamburg,l982, p. 19. In a number of recent works, Wenk has raised doubts as to the editorial soundness of the classical works published under the auspices of the Royal Library. II. Schweisguth, P.: Etude sur Ia litterature siamoise, Paris, 1951, p. 344, (in French).

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Chetana Nagavajara

literature as well. The Royal Proclamation inaugurating the Academy now sounds almost like a school master's comment on a pupil's essay, with admonitions on corrupt usages comparable to the present-day "franglais". It also pinpoints bad books that are translated from "bad foreign books", for its patron, King Rama VI, was Western-trained and was engaged in the promotion not only of classical Thai literature, but also of "high" European literature, such as Shakespeare which he himself translated magnificently. Whatever one may say, with the benefit of hindsight, on the parochialism of the Literary Academy, its concern with contemporary literature was a significant step in the evolution of Thai literary history. It is only to be regretted that it addressed itself mainly to the criticism and evaluation of literary works which were in line with the King's preoccupation with an "lndological Renaissance", 12 and did not deign to tackle newly emerging works of prose-fiction or essays. "Self-criticism", in this respect, was far too elitist to be of real significance. One remarkable feature about the development of Thai literary history is its occasional imperviousness to socio-cultural change. The 1932 Revolution which ushered in democracy and constitutional monarchy did not have immediate effe~t on literary historiography. Perhaps the didactic and educational mission embedded in the early efforts of literary propagation did not leave room for much innovation. Political scientists have been debating for years now as to whether the· 1932 Revolution and the political and ideological movements that preceded it have really instituted significant changes in Thai society. As far as literature is concerned, a lay-man can easily discern that the leaders of the Revolution and the power-mongers of the later generations have not really allied themselves with topnotch educationists, or to be more precise, have not really given serious thought to the use of literature as an instrument of political education. The same could not be said of the literary-minded political leaders under the absolute monarchy. Literary education subsequent to the Revolution was, for many years, probably based on the repertoire set up by Prince Damrong and his followers, less the "restorative" fervour. Some scholars in the 1940's and 1950's were still talking the same language as Prince Damrong. In his book Thai Literature (1959), Phra Worawetphisit, a scholar of immense erudition, paid no 12. King Rama VI had great interest in classical Sanskrit literature, which he read in English translations. The interest was shared by some of his learned contemporaries, for example, Prince Phitayalonkorn. The King composed a number of poetic works based on Indian classical themes.

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The Case of Thailand

attention to contemporary literature and shared the views of earlier literary historians that Thai literature had served as a safeguard against Western colonialism, because through literature, we could prove to Westerners that ours is a nation endowed with high culture. 13 He firmly believed in the correlation between the advancement of education and the quality of literature. In his opinion, the reign of King Rama VI represents the culminating point of Thai literature, because "town people (sic) all received a good education. Scholars went abroad for further studies, and those who stayed back either received education up to the secondary level or could go on to the university level. For these reasons, literary creation was moving in leaps and bounds:' 14 This is indeed literary history for the educationists! Another work of literary history worth mentioning in this conection is Pluang Na Nakhon's History of Thai Literature, first published in 1952, which has since gone through 8 editions. This is probably the most systematic and consistent of all histories of Thai literature that we possess. It is meant to be a manual for the student and serves the additional purpose of an anthology. The need for an anthology was urgent at that time, since many of the works published by the Royal Library had gone out of print. Pluang himself, during the early part of his career, had distinguished himself as a poet and fictionwriter and he selected his texts with rare discriminating power. The book possesses a remarkable variety, containing a "standard" repertoire as well as rare pieces of journalistic virtuosity.l 5 In a recent interview, Pluang maintained that he wrote the book out of a "pleasure of the text" and had no intention of making any claim regarding the greatness of Thai literary heritage. Be that as it may, the History of Thai Literature does convey the impression that Thai literature possesses a "great tradition" that derives its strength from the legacy of a long history, and there is no denying that Pluang's anthology has been shaping the literary taste of his readers. To many readers, the anthology provides the first systematic exposure to traditional Thai literature. It is only to be regretted that this History-cum-Anthology does not take us beyond the 1932 Revolution, and the final Chapter, a mere two-page account of the "Literature in the Democratic Age", ends on a pessimistic note with a quotation from Goethe : "The 13. Phra Worawetphisit: Thai Literature, 1959, p. 31. 14. Ibid., p. 172. 15. Pluang Na Nakhon: History of Thai Literature for the Student, 1980, pp. 455-479.

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Chetana Nagavajara

decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation" . 16 We have said earlier that Thai literary historians have a natural bent for evaluative criticism, but in the case of Pluang Na Nakhon, literary evaluation seems to betray a regrettably restricted literary taste. The "pleasure of the text" turns out to be coloured by a slight tinge of royal blue. Whatever be its shortcomings, a work like Pluang's History fulfilled an imIt portant educational role in providing access to a solid classical repertoire. was left to the individual readers themselves to probe deeper into this literary treasure--house and to form their own judgements. It could be said that the kind of "literary education" offered at the secondary and tertiary levels in the post- war period was not as bad as it is often made out to be, and that an inquisitive, critical and original mind could very well rise to its heights from such a nurturing ground. Chit Phumisak (1930-1966) was the supreme example of such an original mind. It is not easy to talk objectively about the life and work of this scholar-critic, for his revolutionary activities, his subsequent imprisonment and his being killed "in action" have proved to be ample materials for a myth. That he was more or less "canonized" by the young revolutionaries of the 1973-76 period of democratic boom added further strength to the "Myth of Chit Phumisak". When all is said and done, one has to admit that his influence on young writers, critics and students of literature has been immense. He has created a new consciousness of the moral nature and the social relevance of literature. It is only regrettable that he did not always know how to put his staggering erudition to good use, for he was at times preoccupied with a propagandist mission, which in manyways coloured his critical writings. Yet Chit was an important milestone in the development of Thai literary historiography, His although he never attempted to write a systematic history of Thai literature. major approach is that of reinterpretation and revaluation of classical Thai lite ,rature. On the one hand, he saw classical Thai literature as a product of a corrupt and oppressive aristocratic ruling class, the history of Thai literature being that of an exploitation of the common people. Chit very often adopted a content oriented approach, and in this respect he may have even founded a "school". Another point worth mentioning is his constant attacks on the aristocratic ruling class on account of their incurable sexual obsessions. Naturally, he could find sufficient evidence from classical Thai literature to substantiate his diatribes. On 16. Ibid., p. 549.

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The Case of Thailand

the whole, Chit scrounged traditional Thai. literature for two things, namely, the repressive bent on the part of the ruling class and the resistance on the part of the people. He may have been more successful in his search for the first than for the second. One cannot help feeling that he at times dramatized and even exaggerated traits of popiar resistance in Thai literature : his Preface to Nirat Nongkhai is a case in point. 17 In spite of propagandist aberrations, Chit is important in one particular respect. He has shown that the study of literature can take the form of a crossexamination of national conscience. Thai literature is a testimony to national pride as well as national shame. It is the message of a general nature like this rather than his interpretations, re-interpretations or (deliberate) mis-interpretations that is likely to survive the "Myth of Chit Phumisak". We are dealing here with "selfcriticism" of a singular kind. But the young revolutionaries of 1973-76 did not really have time to The digest Chit's message, and they even radicalized some of his viewpoints. call to "set fire to literature", meaning to do away with all traditional literature, was something that Chit would never have approved of. All in all, many of his ideas and methodological approaches were appropriated by young writers and critics, particularly the idea about literature being used as an instrument of political tyranny and about the sexual mania of the ruling class. Some particular works of classical literature fared badly during this period, especially Phra Lo, an • epic-romance usually regarded as the acme of its kind, which was now regarded as the epitome of sexual aberration of the aristocratic class. The OathTaking Proclamation (Ongkarn Chaengnam) had its bad days as well. Even a university scholar, Chonthira Kladyu, who was otherwise a great admirer of classical Thai literature, interpreted the 14th Century cosmological treatise Trai Phum as serving a political purpose of strengthening the status of kingship. 18 When all is said and done, credit must be given to the young critics of the 1973-76 period for their interest in ·modern and contemporary Thai literature, and in this respect, they went beyond their master Chit Phumisak. Some of their re-discoveries and revaluations are of significant value, especially the reinstatement of writers like Seni Soawapong, whose social novels are now recognized as standard works of modern Thai literature. 17. Chit Phumisak: Preface to Nirat Nongkhai, 1975, pp. 1-116, (originally written in 1961). 18. Chonthira K1atyu: Literature for the People, 1974, pp. 44-49.

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Chetana Nagavajara

As mentioned earlier, most Thai literary historians have paid far too little attention to contemporary literature, and in this respect, the critical works of Mom Luang Bunlua Thepyasuwan must be regarded as pioneering efforts. An educationist of international repute, a noted language teacher, a fiction-writer of some stature, Mom Luang Bunlua turned to literary history late in her career, but what she did produce was epoch-making.A long essay called "The Turning Point of Thai Literature" published in the Festschrift Wanwaithayakon (1971), and later published as a text-book, deals with the rise of modern Thai literature towards the turn of the Century and takes the reader up to the late 1960's. For the first time, the novel as a literary genre receives an objective, scholarly treatment, and Mom Luang Blinlua's evaluation of contemporary "popular" novels is illumJnating, for she knows how to point to their virtues as well as weaknesses. More interesting still is her treatment of the essay and non-fictional prose which, she thinks, have progressed very far after 1932, the reason being that the new democracy has proved to be an impetus to literary expression of this kind and that higher literacy has naturally created a larger reading public. Due credit is therefore given to the democratic government, and this coming from a "Mom Luang" a member of the royal family! In a full-length study entitled Analysis of Thai Literature (1974) Mom Luang Bunlua offers a work of theoretical as well as practical criticism. It is not a literary history in the strict sense of the word, but in her analysis of certain classical works, she also adopts a historical approach and relates a work to its historical context. Some of her interpretations could be regarded as innovations in Thai literary history. For example, she adopts a sociological approach in her chapter on Khun Chang Khun Phaen, taking this literary masterpiece to be a reflection of the Thai way of life and concluding that Thai society as seen through this work was a "society that lacks discipline" . 19 She is quite explicit in saying that even the king in this work lacks discipline and a sure sense of justice in the governing of his own kingdom. Instead of taking the traditional stance of seeing didactic elements in classical literature, Mom Luang Bunlua warns against using literature for didactic purposes. Literature, according to her, is an image of life in all its facets and demands a cert~in level of maturity for a proper comprehension. The liberal-mindedness and the sobriety that· inform her critical works provided a soothing antidote to the revolutionary paroxysm of Chit Phumisak's disciples. Here is a kind of self-criticism that can lead to constructive self-knowledge. Both in scholarly and in journalistic circles, Mom Luang 19. Mom Luang Bun1ua Thepyasuwan: Analysis of Thai Literature, 1974, p. 40.

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The Case of Thailand

Bunlua's contributions to literary studies have been fully recognized. She has given confidence to many young scholars and critics that a "middle course" is possible and that serious consideration of contemporary literature is an integral part of literary history.

EPILOGUE : THE SEARCH FOR SELF-KNOWLEDGE

The period following the political event of 1976 did not tum out to be totally bereft of constructive literarv activities. In the field of creative writing, the "literature of social consciousness" 20 has even gained strength, and soul-searching questions have been dealt with in contemporary fiction and poetry. Literary criticism and literary history did not really suffer the same fate as the political avantgardism. Within months after the political upheaval of October 1976, a new literary magazine Bookworld was launched, and for a period of 6 years, it provided a forum for writers, critics and scholars of all "denominations" to air their literary views. Its significance to the development of literary history cannot be denied, for apart from printing criticisms of contemporary literature by critics from both the academia and the world of journalism, it strove to fulfil the role of a chronicler of modem literature, devoting single issues to important modern writers, both Thai and foreign. Its contribution to Thai literary historiography probably cannot be gauged fully at the present, but a few years from now, literary historians writing a history of modern Thai literature will certainly have to rely on this magazine as the most important source of information on Thai literature and criticism. One particular feature of Thai literary life needs Ito be mentioned here: in the field of literary criticism and literary studies, a literary magazine has sometimes been able to perform functions that in other societies would normally be reserved for learned journals. There is no clear-cut distinction between the "learned" and the "journalistic". When Bookworld ceased publication in 1983 as a result of financial losses, another literary magazine "Bookpath" (Thanon Nangsu) came into being. It too has the ambition of making its contribution to literary history. The May 1984 Issue contains a lengthy article on the "Evolution of the Thai Free-Verse", a genre-history that harks back to the tradition of Prince Damrong! Although no conclusive answer has been given to a number of questions, particulary those concerning the origin of the Thai free-verse, 20. See: Thai-PEN Anthology: Short Stories and Poems of Social Consciousness, 1984, (in English). The term is used to describe recent development in Thai literature which is marked by a tendency for social criticism.

74

Chetana Nagavajara

it can be seen that an inquisitive mind is at work in this magazine article. We really want to know ourselves better. Even the "school" ~f Chit Phumisak has mellowed over the years, and when Sathian Chantimathon published his Stream of Thai Literature for Life in 1981, he was already concentrating more on the "secondary" mission of finding the selfassertive urge of the "people" as expressed in Thai literature rather than being bogged down with the "primary" mission of denigrating the aristocratic class. The book contains two parts, the first part being an attempt to re-write the history of Thai literature from the point of view of the "people", and the second part being a collection of earlier articles. It is the first part that merits special attention, for the author very interestingly establishes the unity and continuity of the Thai "literature for life'' 21 which he sees as an endless_'' stream''. Without any doubt, this is a literary history of the modern period whose data base is more comprehensive than that of any existing history. Reading it one could not help feeling that the author might have produced a more meaningful history, had he not imposed upon himself a somewhat rigid dichotomical framework of class struggle that appears rather con trived at times. This is probably characteristic of the new "scientific" approach to literature : Sathian seems to believe that seeing things through a frame is ~to see things more clearly. Are we dealing here with the quest for self-knowledge through a "partial" vision? The application of a theoretical framewori?¢>also characterizes Nithi leosiwong's Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature (1981), which can be called the first consistent attempt at a social history of Thai literature. The literature of the early Bangkok period, as distinct from that of the earlier period of Ayuthya, represents a merging between court and popular cultures, the intermediary being the rising bourgeoisie (which included Chinese immigrants). While viewing with some detached amusement the aristocracy's readiness to befriend the wealthy bourgeosie on the basis of common mercantile interest, Nithi seems to welcome the transformation which took place in literature as a move towards a more agile and more liberal form of artistic expression. It can be said that Nithi's work offers fresh insights into the relationship between literature and socio-economic conditions, but some of his interpretations may appear a little far-fetched. For example, he thinks that the rise of literacy is supportive of the dissemination of literature, and that we owe it to the 21. "Literature for Life" is a Thai version of "litterature engagee", probably marked by greater acerbity than the Sartrian original!

75

The Case of Thailand

money-minded bourgeosie (who promoted literacy as part of the promotion of business) that literature should have progressed so far in the early Bangkok period. 22 The novelty of Nithi's approach (which may not be so novel in some other countries) lies in the fact that knowledge of history, including economic history, can help us understand literary transformation, and in this respect, he goes much further than Mom Luang Bunlua's sociological reading of traditional literature, for Nithi views such transformation as being conditioned by socio-economic change. This is a method· that has its merits as well as pitfalls, and Nithi has been criticized by some literary scholars as having tried to bend his facts to suit a theoretical framework. Be that as it may, credit must be given to this eminent historian for having asked questions that no earlier scholar has asked and for providing answers that no previous literary student has thought of. He has helped literary historians to look at Thai literature from fresh angles. There is no denying that these various perspectives contribute towards a better understanding of ourselves and our literary culture. Our understanding has been enriched also through studies in "regional literatures" and folk-literature which scholars have been pursuing vigorously for the past 10-15 years. Knowledge of the literatures of the North, South and NorthEast of Thailand has extended our notion of literature, which formerly used to be confined to the literature of our successive capital cities. It is appropriate to mention here Thawat Punothok's work Regional Literature (1982). This is indeed a bold step in the direction of a synthesis. Although he relies chiefly on written sources and does not as yet appear confident enough to put to good use recent research into the oral tradition, Thawat succeeds in creating a new consciousness of a literary heritage that is a great deal more comprehensive than the traditional image of "Thai literature''. There is one cultural trait that emerges quite clearly from his investigation, namely, that the majority of works of "regional literature" are deeply anchored in Buddhist beliefs and traditions. The role of the Buddhist temple in the propagation of the literary culture is also very much in evidence. Are we to assume that through the study of regional literatures, we may arrive at a deeper understanding of our cultural roots than hitherto? It can be seen that the major works of literary history that have appeared after 1976 seem to be imbued with a certain measure of sobriety and perspicacity 22. Nithi Ieosiwong: "Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature", in: Thammasat University Journal. Vol. 11, No. I. March 1982, p. 77. (The full version appeared as a research report in mimeographed form, published by Thai Khadi Research Institute, Thammasat University, 1981).

76

Chetana Nagavajara

that contribute towards the consolidation of Thai literary historiography. Although we still do not possess a complete history of Thai literature that gives an overall picture of our literary heritage, these "partial" views can provide a basis for future work of synthesis. It is an irony of history that a period of political doldrum has not engendered a corresponding lull period in literary creation and literary studies. Perhaps literary history, by its very nature as a reflective discipline, does not give its best when called to respond to immediate needs. It needs time to reflect upon literature and to reflect upon itself. This does not mean that it should retire to some cozy Olympian heights; rather it should position itself in a realm of Buddhist detachment.

Notes (All sources cited are in the Thai language when not otherwise stated)

77

A STUDY OF SAMKOK: The First Thai Translation of a Chinese Novel Malinee Dilokwanich *

SOmkok «111fin is a Thai translation of a 14th-century Chinese novel, San-kuo yen-i 3by Lo Kuan-chung ~ by a team of translators under the editorial supervision of Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon), a prominent Thai poet and nobleman. The translation was started in the late 18th century and finished in the early 19th century. It was commissioned by King Rama I during a time of military and political change and was largely intended as a text of military tactics, but it became a major literary work in its own right. SOmkok is an important work in Thai literary history not only because it is the first work of translation made from a Chinese source, but also because it has a unique place in Thai literature as the only translation from Chinese to receive general acclaim as a literary work. To be sure, there are translations and reworkings of other foreign literature that are recognized. But SOmkok is the only one from Chinese that is respected and recognized as a work of art and a great source of literary entertainment. There are serveral subsequent translations from Chinese fiction but none has received such a prestigious appraisal. There are two possible approaches to studying SOmkok and thereby accounting for its unique position in Thai literature. One is to study SOmkok as a work of Thai literature in its own right. The other is to investigate SOmkok as a translation and see how the translation treats its original by comparing the two texts to find what features are derived and what features are new. A comparison of SOmkok with the Chinese original shows the following differences. In format of presentation, SOmkok changes the literary form to pure prose, rearranges the chapters, provides new chapter headings and a new table of contents. It changes the literary medium, the style, and the format so that a new genre of prose fiction is created. The language of SOmkok is idiomatically adjusted to Thai usage, including the use of royal speech, special pronouns, various systems of measurement, and the lunar calendar. It changes the language and the content in compliance with Thai language usages and cultural context, with the

1.1 ;:1! A ,

• Chinese Department, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasiit University.

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78

Malinee Dilokwanich

result that the translation becomes natural, understandable, and appealing. And it also uses language at a high literary level and of high quality. Silmkok discardes the technique of creating suspense, the use of verse for narrative purposes, and the exciting way of introducing the characters. It adopted instead a simple, straightforward style of narration and made use of an omniscient narrator. Only 400Jo of the text of Samkok gives approximate translation, while the majority is largely a rewriting of the ideas gathered from the original Chinese. The content of Samkok also reveals a major change in the philosophical framework; it leaves out the Chinese concept of T' ien as the Creator and systematically adopts the Buddhist concept of bun-kam or the principle of moral retribution. In consequence, the idea of fate, heroism, and tragedy, which is central to the Chinese original, has changed in its meaning and significance to the story. It becomes clear from the investigation that Samkok is drastically changed from its original. It makes a total adaptation to Thai literary conventions, to the Thai language, and to the Thai world view. Samkok, a unique Thai work of high

literary quality, is not a strict translation, but a highly adaptive work. Being so, it has achieved widespread acceptance not only as a didactic work but also as a popular source of entertainment. I Social and Political Setting

With the sudden increase of Chinese immigrants after the fall of the Ayutthaya e:J~n-m Kingdom (1350-1767), particularly during the reigns of King Taksin ~11f1HU. (r. 1767-1782) and King Rama I (r. 1782-1809) (1), Chinese influence on diverse aspects of the Thai life including literature was phenomenal. Immigration of Chinese to Siam was of course not a new movement, for early Chinese settlers could be found as early as the thirteenth century when the first diplomatic missions between Siam and China took place. (2) Henceforth, the growth of Chinese immigrants increased steadily but slowly. The former had Thonburi as its capital and was often referred to as the Thonburi period. King Rama I, who ruled the Kingdom after King Taaksin, moved the capital to Bangkok and proclaimed his own dynasty of Chakri. 2. For further information as to the Sino-Thai historical relations and the early movement of Chinese immigration to Thailand during the period from the thirteenth century to 1767, see Kenneth P. Landon, The Chinese in Thailand (1941; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1973), pp. 1-6; Likhit Hoontrakul, The Historical Records of the Siamese-Chinese Relations (Bangkok: n.p., 1953), p. 103; George William Skinner, Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 1-20; Phaithil_!l Mikuson 1Vl-.:J1fi il~f!~ Prawattisat Thai t.h:::~fi1Hm1:rm (Thai History), (Mahlisarakhrlim: Prida klinphim, 1978), pp. 209-214.

I.

79

A Study of SAMKOK

It was only after the collapse of Ayutthaya that the influx of Chinese people became extraordinary.

There are three major factors that contributed to the unprecedented flow of Chinese immigrants in 18th-century Thailand. The first factor has to do with the problem of underpopulation which was a serious situation right after the deva~tating attack on Ayutthaya by the Burmese in 1767. The capital city of Ayutthaya was left in a state of total ruin most of its population of approximately two hundred thousand having been either plundered or evacuated as captives. The country's population which was already low relative to agricultural productivity because of war with its toll in deaths and forced emigration, was especially depleted during the ruinous wars with Burma after 1759. (3) Upon the ascension of King Taksin who unified the country four months afterwards, there occurred a crisis in which the demand for manpower was critical, for the new ruler had only about ten thousand followers in the new capital. (4) This was 5117o of the number of population of Ayutthaya city prior to its destruction. Throughout the course of Thai history such events pertaining to the lack of population or manpower had been quite common following each war between Siam and her neighbors. (5) However, the destruction of Ayutthaya and the diminution of its citizens by 1767 was so great that the new ruler was forced to build a new center of Thai civilization at ThonburT li'\.1.~ as well as to make recruiting manpower the first priority. The need of manpower was at that time critical not only for agricultural cultivation which was the mainstay of the economy of the country, but also for military purposes, in view of the necessity to ensure the freedom and stability of the country. (6) Under these circumstances the movement of people from neighboring countries and China was especially welcome. Since Chinese people were recognized by the Thais as free men, the former could offer all kinds of labor services. The necessity to reestablish international commerce with China was the second factor that resulted in the great influx of Chinese merchants and tradesmen 3. Skinner, p. 30. 4. Chiinwit Kasetsiri, "Mong Prawattisat ton Rattanakosin," 3JeJ;Jt.h::~fi1Hm~u7m.~.1niht'Yl7 (Viewing the History of Early Rattanakosin Period) Sinlapa watthanatham fit'ltl"i~'Uli773J 2, No. 18 (April 1981), 16.

5. Akin Rabhibhadana, Wilailak Mekarat, and Walwipha Burutrattanaphan, Social History of the Thai Kingdom 1782-1873, Part I of Persistence within Change (Bangkok: Thai Khadi Research Institute, Thammasat University, 1981), p. 5. 6. Akin, p. 6.

80

Malinee Dilokwanich

to Thailand during this period. With many wars going on, the country needed to have enough sources of revenues to cover military and other expenses. The Chinese played a significant role in acquiring a major amount of the state income, as Thailand's international trade depended largely on the assistance of Chinese agents and crews. Her trade with China at that time represented the country's sole economic output. (7) It is known that the government of King Rama I received a large part of the revenues from trading activities with China. (8) Due to mutual promotion in trade there was then a rapid expansion in, the volume and variety of the goods of the two countries. And since the Europeans were for the most part effectively excluded from the Siam trade during this period, its growth was borne mainly by Chinese and Thai. (9) The general position of Chinese merchants and shippers improved in consequence, not only because of the increased private trade sponsored financially by Thai officials and nobles, but also because Chinese were largely used in the royal trading enterprises. (10) As a result of these developments, the Thai government could only encourage Chinese immigration. As one writer comments: The first two Jakkri kings developed state trading and royal monopolies to an unprecedented degree. In order to increase the production of Siam's exports and provide crews for their royal ships, they encouraged Chinese immigration. Even the ships belonging to the kings brought back Chinese passengers, in direct violation of Manchu tributary and trading regulations. Writing in 1822, Finlayson stated that, because the king and his ministers wished to increase the produce of the country, "Chinese emigrants were . . . encouraged beyond all former example." From this we may assume that the upward trend in Chinese immigration, begun 7. Skinner, pp. 11, 18; Phonlakiin 'Angkinan VH'I~& '!l..:~lhtunu Botbiit chiio Chin nai Prather Thai nai ratchasamai Phrabiit Somdet Phra ~hunla'Chomkliio Chiiojfilua 'I.J't11J1mf11Wluili::L't1fl1'Yinlui''!ltnjg Vi1::'1.J1't1":JJLtl~VI1::t~t'I~El:JJLna1L~1llU«1 (The Role of Chinese People in Thailand in the Reign of King Chulalongkon)', (Bangkok: Pr~l!hak kiinphim, 1972), pp. 14-S. 8. Akin, p. 142. 9. Skinner, p. 18. 10. Manlikii Rii angraphi ~&im L7a..:11::Yl Botbiit khong chiio Chin nai diin setthakit sangkhom lae sin/apakam Thai samai ratchakiin thi nu' ng thu' ng ratchakiin thi j; haeng Krupg Rattanakosin 'I.J't11J1't1'll£l,j'!I11Wl'U.~1'U.Lf!1l!tjii~ W-llfi:JJ LL&::fim..lm1:JJl't1!1 ditli''!lm&Yi 1 ii-\li''!lm&Yi 4 LLvl-IITn;-lli'fl'U.lniiuni (The Role of Chinese People in Thai Economics, Society, and Artistic Activities during the Period from the First to the Fourth Reigns of Rattanakosin Dynasty), (Bangkok: Chuliilongkon University Press, 1975), p. 46.

81

A Study of SAMKOK

in King Taksin's reign, continued without break into the nineteenth century. (11) The third factor that attracted Chinese immigrations was the fact that the new Thai leaders were themselves of Chinese descent. The case of King Talcsin· whose father (12) was a native of the Ch' a'hwfu flfl'jj1fl'U1tlf117Li:iu \ILL~::f111ft \lfi11:1J LL ~:: LLfi\I~ElVl\1~ \1

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The Work of Samkok is not a common chronicle. It is called in Chinese "Sam-kok-chi" [San-kuo chih] which means the Record of the Three Kingdoms Period. It is a work written by a Chinese scholar who composed it from materials selected from a portion of the [Chinese] historical chronicles, with the intention of making it a text for studying political and military tactics. The book is so well written that it became one of the works which is highly regarded throughout China as well as in other countries. With regard to the history of the work, SlJmkok, it is known originally as a folk tale. In the T' ang dynasty (B.E. 11611449) [A.D. 618-906] there appeared [Chinese] opera performances in China in which the San-kuo story was dramatized. Later, in the period of the Yuan dynasty (B.E. 1820-1910) [A.D. 1277-1367] fictional writing increasingly flourished. There were writers who liked to write stories based on historical annals. By that time, however, the history of the San-kuo period had not been fictionalized. By the time of the Ming dynasty (B.E. 1911-2186) [A.D. 1368-1643]

92

Malinee Dilokwanich a Chinese scholar from Hang-chiu [Hang-chou ~til · t11 ] named Lo ·~uan-tung [Lo Kuan-:chung lft 'f ] 2 wrote the work of Samkok [i.e. the San-kuo yen-i _ ~ ;~ in one hundred and tw~nty chapters. 3 In the above passage, Prince Damrong quotes an incorrect title for the Chinese work which he· is discussing. From his description about the book, it is obvious that Prince Damrong is actually referring to San-kuo yen-i, not San-kuo chih which is a ~ompletely different piece of literature written· much earlier, in the third century A.i>~; by a Chinese hi~torian named Ch' en Shou ~j.. (233-297). 4 Later· Thai scholars have failed to point out this mistake, although they are able to distinguish the wor~ of San--kuo chih from the fictional version of Lo Kuan-chung. 5 Perhaps .one reason behind this restraint of criticism is the fact that Prince Damrong has been regarded by the Thais to be the most outstanding and the most

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2. Lo Kuan-chung, tht: supposed author of San-kuo yen-i, was variously known as Lo Pen .Mt 4:- , Lo Kuan . . and Lo Tao-pen Eft ~ _.f. . Little is known of Lo Kuan-chung's life. He was either a native ofT' ai-yuan A .J.it , or of Ch' ien-t' ang · it in modem Hang-chou. It was believed that he lived during the late Yuan and early Ming periods, approximately between the years 1330 and 1400. Many historical romances and plays were attributed .to him but t!;le lack- of knowledge about him makes it difficult Jor later scholars and writers to accept Lo's authorship. For more information on Lo Kuan-chung's life and works, see Dictionttry of Ming Biography; Vol. I, ed: L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 978-908; Winston Yang, "The Use of the San-kuo chih," pp. 62-64; tfsi~h Wu-liang ij.f ~f1..1 Lo Kuan-chung yii Ma Chih-yuan ~ !iJ f3c ~ (Lo Kuan-chung and Ma Chih-yiian), (Shanghai: Shang-wu yiil-shu-kuan, 1930), pp: 12-6i; Chao Ts'ung ~· .Jf,~ , Chung-kuo szu ta hsiao-shuo chih yen-chiu · · "f ·· fjB \!9 ;.:_ ~J, t}t i. hj 'ft. (The Study of the Four Great Chinese Novels), ,(Hong Kong: Yu-lien ch' u-pan-she. 1964), pp. 114-117; Wu Shuang-i ~ . . ~ ~- , Ming Ch' ing hsiao-shuo chiang-hua 1!1}3 ~J' t}L i~ (Discussion 'of the Ming and Ch' ing Fiction), (Hong Kong: Shanghai shu-chu, 1976), pp. 30-31; Wen Chi ;t *~ ed., Chung-kuo ku-tien hsiao-shuo chiang-hua li /, ·~ ~h ti (Discussion of Traditional Chinese Fiction), (Hong Kong: Shanghai shu-chu,1973), P• 68. ·

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5. See Prapin Mariorriaivibool 1h::vhu. iJl'Ua!iJlj'lJ\'16, "Slimkok: Kiin su' ksii pnepthiep," W1:1Jfifl: fl11fffl1~1LLI'IIl.JL~II1!. (Slimkok:·.A Co111parativ~ Study) .Thesis,; Chuliilongkon University 1966, p. 43; Sang Ph~tthanothai i~ ~~lu,;u "~hamnam khong phutaeqg," ~1'1.h~lil.:I~LLfl.:l (Author's Introduction)' in the. PhiCiiai songkhram ·samkok . flfuw~m1aJW'iaJfin. (The Military Tactics in SiimkOk); (Bangkok:· Sun tanphim, 1969), pp. 1-3.

93

A Study of SAMKOK

knowledgable historian in the country. 6 His writings seem to be automatically accepted as factual knowledge. In any case, there remain in the above quotation a few items of incorrect information about the San-kuo yen-i that have not yet been rectified by later scholars and writers. First of all, it is not at all true to say that by the Yuan times "the history of the San-kuo period had not been fictionalized," because a work in the genre of historical narration or chiang-shih '¢_ known ~ ,;£, f (A p• ing-hua of the as the San-kuo-chih p'ing-hua _ History of the Three Kingdoms Period) had already appeared in the Yuan dynasty. 7 Both Western and Chinese scholars believe that the San-kuo yen-i has, to. a certain degree, made use of the narrative framework of the P' ing-hua, and that the latter presented popular history while the former rendered popularized history. 8 It is also incorrect to state that Lo Kuan-chung wrote his work "in one hundred and twenty chapters," as the earliest surviving edition of La's original writing was divided into 240 chapters. 9 · The abridgment in the organization of the chapter divisions was actually done a few hundred years later by Mao Tsung-kang ~ }~ 10 (fl. 1679) in the early Ch' ing }"~ period (1644-1911). Since the appearance of Prince Damrong's article in 1928, there have never been any studies focusing specifically on the background history of the Chinese work that was used for the translation of Samkok. Subsequent studies on Samkok

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6. In Thailand Prince Damrong is called "the Father of Thai History" as he is the author of many important surveys and treatises in the field. He wrote, moreover, numerous essays that touch on a wide range of topics. See the list of his works in the sources given in note I above. 7. Yang, p. 52. 8. See, for examples, W .L. Idema, "Some Remarks and Speculations Concerning .P' ing-hua,"

T'oung Pao, 60, Nos. 1-3 (1974), pp. 156-157; Yang, pp. 5~?7, 66-79; Cheng ~en-to ~~ J,Ai "San-kuo yen-i te yen-hua," ;;:, 00 )~ ,l {!~ >~ {~

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(The Evolution of San-kuo yen-i), Hsiao-shuo yueh-pao 20, No. 10 (Oct. 1929), pp. 1546-1553, 1557-1558; Chao Ts'ung, pp. 105··113; Li Ch' en-tung, San-kuo Shui-lw yii Jfsi-yu (Sun-kuo yen-i, Sh11i-hu chuan, an(i Hsi-yu chi), (Peking: Ta-tao ch' u-pan-she, 1946), pp. 6-r6. 9. The earliest surviving text of San-kuo yen-i in 240 chiian was published in the year 1522 and is preserved in the Peking Library. Sun K-ai-ti .J.~ · Chung-kuo t' ung-su ,J, ~~· 8 (Bibliography of Chinese Popular hsiao-shuo shu-mu T Iii jJ!L Fiction), (Peking: Tso-chia ch' u-pan-she, 1957), p. 30. See also note 15 below.

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10. Scholars, such as, Chao Ts' ung and··winston Yang, believe that the revision of the ·novel by Mao Tsung-kang was completed in the early years of the Ch' ing dynasty, probably before 1679. See Chao Ts' ung, p. 119 and Yang, p. 82. The latter source also includes information on Mao and his works.

94

Malinee Dilokwanich including those by Sang Phatthanothai ~~ ,.q'Ji lu~l! and Prapin Manomaivibool th::-Am &~1uiillll'Jdi16 rely exclusively on Prince Damrong's information 11 ·, and therefore are ·still lacking in sufficient evidence to identify the right version of the San-kuo text frortt which Samkok was translated. Since there is no surviving external evidence that has the information to clarify the point in question, it seems necessary to resort to the method of textual investigation in order to determine this version. Based on ihe discrepancies in form and content, the worlfof San-kuo chih by Ch' en Shou seems very unlikely to have been the work used' ~s· thtdranslation model of the Thai version. The San-kuo chih is a collection of· biog~aphies of important personages of the Three Kingdoms period (A.D. 220-280), organized into 65 chiian ~ or chapters. It contains altogether 442 biographies of which 230 are those of Wei j~ figures, 83 o( Shu lj , and 129 of Wu ~ . 12 The 230 biographies of Wei figures constitute the first 30 chiian, the 83 of Shu make up the following 15 chilan, and the 129 of Wu take up the remaining 20 chuan. The author of San-kuo chih derived his sources from earlier historical records and categorized the compiled materials into different types of biographies, namely, the annals of the ~mperor known as chi Ia ~ , exclusive biography or chuan-chuan combined biography or ho-chuan ~t and appended biography or ju-chuan ffl ~ach biography 1s presented in chronological order with concise and compact language strictly following the style of traditional Chinese historiography. 13 As one writer remarks:

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Like other historians of the old school, Ch' en Shou, in his San-kuo chih, seldom thinks of working historical facts into a unified structure that will be in accord with reality; he makes no attempt to "evoke," "conjure" and "revive" past events. I;Ie fails to work 11. Prapin, p. 43 and Sang, pp. 1-3. 12. Nine of the 442 biographies are not listed in the Table of Contents. However, there are twenty-five biographies not found in the text but listed in the Table of Contents. Winston Yang places the responsibility for such mistakes on later careless scribes. Yang, p. 21.

~ -~a bio~phicalstyleofwritingintheShihChi

1?. "!~

13. Szu-maCh'ien's. Following Dennis Twitchett's study entitled "Chinese Biographical Writing," Yang is inclined to believe that there was a mod~ for this type of biogaphical writing already existing b'efore the time of the Shih chi (fust century A.D.). See Yang, p.44, footnote 54. Dennis Twitchett's article can be found in W.O. Beasley and E.G. Pulleyblank, eds., Historians of China and Japan (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 95 - 114.

95

A Study of SAMKOK

up his historical sources and to combine the facts he has found in successive chains. What he has done is to arrange them in certain categories. He has made no attempt to create any sort of coherent picture of the San-kuo period; he has merely presented the material that has been preserved in a most accessible form to the reader .... he conceived of the San-kuo period as a series of concrete events and overt acts; he views history as a registration of them which .should be ex~ct and dispassionate, without any projection across . t~e. s~ne Qf the personality of the registrar. At its best, his work is but a reliable yet impersonal record of unconnected events. 14 In contrast to the biography form of San-kuo chih, SDmkok is presented in the form of narrative fiction which has the characteristics of contextual unity and thematic cohesiveness. Unlike the San-kuo chih with unconnected pieces of biography, the different episodes in SDmkok are linked together by the plot scheme to produce certain thematic meanings and to create a variety of lively and imaginatively interesting characters. With these qualities, SDmkok most likely originates from the novel San-kuo yen-i by Lo Kuan-chung. The length of the Thai translation and its general content show closer affinity to the San-kuo yen-i text than any other · fictionalized version of the San-kuo story. For instance, the San-kuo. chih p'ing-hua which is the. only extant version written before Lo's novel can hardly be the work from which SDmkok was translated because, firstly, the length ~f texts is not comparable, and secondly, the stories contained in the two texts do not match. The p•ing-hua consists only of three chuan while Slzmkok has eighty~seven chapters a length that is close to that of San-kuo yen-i. The story of the p• ing-hua starts with a tale of moral retribution dealing with the disintegration of the Han empire into three separate states, and it ends with the death of Chu-ko Liang. Slzmkok neither contains such a moral tale nor stops short at that death scene. In fact, the story line of San-kuo yen-i is found to be closely followed in SDmkok. It has been known that many revised versions and different editions have been made since the completion of Lo's original writing at the end of the fourteenth century. l5 The version' that was revised and edited in early Ch'ing period by the scholar named Mao Tsung-kang and his father Mao Lun~ ~(fl. 1616-1670) l6

14. Yang, pp. 38-39.

96

Malinee Dilokwanich

became today's standard version. In previous studies by Thai autbors, it has been commonly agreed that the Mao Tsung-kang version is the one used by the translators of SOmkoksimply by virtue of the fact that the translation was done during the time when the Mao version had already become, for over one hundred years, the sole popular standard text and the most widely read version of the San-kuo stories in China. The following textual comparison will provide more solid evidence that SOmkok was actually translated from the Mao Tsung-kang edition of the San-kuo yen-i text. Many studies have been done to show the textual differences between the Mao Tsung-kang version and Lo's original work. 17 The discrepancies lie in stylistic improvements 18 and a number of minor revisions of content. It is the latter aspect

15. Discussions on the original work of Lo Kuan-chung's novel and its different versions and editions

:! ,

Ku-tien hsiao-shuo hsi-ch ' can be found in the following sources: I) Liu Hsiu-yeh ~·J 1t ii ts 'ung-k 'ao ;!; #{ d, t;(, 4~ ~ t_ ~ (Compiled Investigations of Traditional Fiction and Drama), (Peking: Tso-chia ch' u-pan-she , 1958), pp. 63 - 72; 2) Meng Yao i; .!~ , Chungkuo hsiao-shuo shih cf> §'I .J, t)L '/?... (The History of Chinese Fiction), (Taipei: Wen-hsing shu-tien, 1966), Vol. III, pp. 304- 312; 3) Yang, pp. 59- 64; 4) Liu Ts' un- jen 44P ;(;t. -{::.. ," Lo Kuan-chung chiang-shih hsiao-shuo chih chen-wei hsing-chih, " 1j t t!, ;!!_/.J. t;{. :i. li I-ttl, .•f.i '}!!. (The Nature of the Authenticity in Lo Kuan-chung's Historical Novel), i Hsiang-kang chung-wen 0 ~ ·t ):.. A ~ 'I' @ :k 1C. .Gil 'Jr., }'(f ta-hsueh chung-kuo wen-hua yen-chiu-so hsueh-pao -tj! ~It , 8, No. 1 (1976), 171 - 185. According to Liu Ts' un- jen's recent study, · Lo Kuan-chung's original work assumes the general title of ".San-kuo chih chuan";:;.. Iii i~. 1~ from which the later editions of the San-kuo yen-i were derived." (p. 233) Perhaps the most important among the later ~ publication of1609 editions of Lo's San-kuo chih chuan is the Ch' iao-shan-t ·' ang ~ J.1 under the :title. Hsrn ·chin ·ch' uan· hsiang · 1' un'g~su yen-i san-kilo ·chih chuari j~ · · ~l. ~ 1:&. 1i!L % ;-;, .;i ..z. ~ ,;t 1'/l (New Engraved and Illustrated Version of Popular Elaboration of the. Story of the · Three Kingdoms Period) which is now preserved in the British Museum. Liu believes that this Ch'iaoshan-t' ang edition is a reprint of an early. orlginid copy that precedes even the 1S22 Chi a- c'hing .edition entitled San'-kuo chih t'ung-su yen-i :=.. ~ ;t;, hll, 17,1- j)l{ (Popular Eleboration of t~e Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms Period). See Liu, pp. 184- 185 .. Liu Ts' un- jen's finding about Lo's earliest extant text has obviously challenged the idea shared among previous scholars that the Chia-ching edition is the earliest surviving edition of Lo's original writing: ·See Cheng Chen - to, p: 1545; Sun K' ai-ti J,fl. ~g' "San-kuo chih p'ing-hua '}U San-kuo chilr chuan I' ung-.su yen-i:,''

tu

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K' ai-ti (Peking: ' Chung-hua shu-chii, 1%5), pp. 109- 120; Li Ch' en-tung , p.B; Chao Ts' ung, · pp. liS- 123; Meng Yao, p.309; Yang; p.9, ·footnot~ 20. · · · · ·

16. These dates are taken from Yang, p. 14.

97

A Study of SAMKOK

that is significant and useful to the problem at hand. If the text of SOmkok shows similarity to the Mao version in those changes, we show for the first time beyond any reasonable doubt that SOmkok was translated from the Mao version. Mao Tsung-kang made the revision of the content in three different ways: deletion, addition, and alteration. There are at least two incidents that are removed from the revised version. The first is the incident about Chu-ko Liang attacking Szu-ma I~-~ f~~ at the Shang-fang_t i,r valley by using fire, which appears in chapter 103 of the Mao text. In Lo's original text the scene also includes the story that Chu-ko Liang wishes to harm Wei Yen j>t, Jt. in the same attack by using the same means. The Wei Yen episode is not found in the Mao text; nor does it appear in Samkok. 19 Another minor deletion is found in the episode about the fight $1; and Teng Ai ~/1 in chapter 117. between Chu-ko Chan Teng Ai made the diplomatic move to settle the conflict by asking for Chu-ko Chan's submission. The latter received the letter of proposal in great hesitation. It was his ~ who disagreed and insisted on making the son, Chu-ko Shang 'tl final decisive attack. This last incident which shows the important role of Chu-ko Shang in the fight is omitted in the Mao text and the same is omitted in Silmkok. 20

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,

As for the additon of content that is found in the Mao version, Silmkok appears

to include all of Mao's additional passages. For instance, the matching of the opening and ending statements about the cyclical pattern of history 21 is an important 17. Important works ·are: 1) Cheng Chen- to, pp. 1572- 1576; 2) Sun K' ai- ti, pp. 119- 120; 3) Meng Yao, p.308; 4) Hsieh Ch'ao - ch'ing t~1 VJ }~ , "San - kuo yen - i chih yen - chiu yii hsing - ch'eng z til ~ i JiJf }t ~ M iY, (The Study and Development of San - kuo yen - i}," Hsin T'ien- ti $f' ~ #!, ,7, Nos. 2- 3 (1968), pp. 20- 21; 5) Chao Ts' ung, pp. 121 - 123.

g

18. The stylistic improvements in the Mao version include refinement of the language, clarity of diction, polishing of lyrical passages, and reorganization of chapter division.

A

19. See Lo Kuan- chung .fft ~ "(' , San- kuo yen- i .$. IJ J'j! .(The Elaboration of the Three Kingdoms Period),.,(Taipei: San -~min sh_!l- chu, 1978),n ch. 103, pp. 656- 657, and Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) L'il1'Vn::tJ1'Vi1::tlih'l ('11114), Samkok tnunn (Three Kingdoms), (Bangkok: Ruamsan, 1973), Vol. II, ch. 78, pp. 836 - 838. The San - min edition of San - kuo Yen - i and the Ruamsan edition of Slimkok are the two main texts used in this research. Henceforth the first volume of Slimkok will be referred to as "Siimkok, I" and the second volume of Samkok as "Siimkok, II" 20. See San-kuo, ch. 17, p. 739 and Siimkok, ii, ch. 86, p. 1044. 21. See San-kuo, ch. 1, p. 1 and Siimkok, I, pp. 1-2; San-kuo, ch. 120, p. 759 and Siimkok, II, ch. 87, p. 1086.

98

Malinee Dilokwanich

example of evidence to support the view that the Thai author of Silmkok was actually working with the Mao version. Furthermore, the Mao text and 8lJmkok agree in the scene where Ts'ao Ts'ao arranged to share his possessions among his wives and concubines before his death 22, and also in the scene in which Sun fu-jenJ~~A.A committed suicide by plunging into the Ch'ang-chiang river. 23 Since these two incidents represent details which were incorporated by Mao Tsung-kang, it is obvious that the Ch'ing revised version was used for the translation of SOmkok. Moreover, one finds that a number of changes in the content made by Mao so as to adhere to historical facts are reproduced in the Thai version. The SOmkok text follows the Mao text even in the minor details. One of the most interesting episodes that has gone through changes in the Mao version is the scene narrating how Ma T'eng .~ )jj meets his death at Hsii-ch'ang t~ ~ Hear are some 24 of difference between the Lo text and that of Mao and SOmkok. points

.

Lo text - Ma T' eng with his two younger sons and nephew left for Hsu-ch' ang to report to Ts'ao Ts'ao in response to the latter's letter of summons leaving Ma Ch'ao ..~ J§_ , his eldest son, in charge of Hsi-liang ~~ Jj, city.

Mao text and Slimkok - Before making the decision to leave Hsi-liang, Ma T'eng consulted with Ma Ch'ao as the former became suspicious of Ts'ao Ts'ao's intention. was appointed as - Han Sui Ma Ch'ao's assistant at Hsi-liang.

-After Ma T'eng's arrival at Hsu-ch'ang, Ts'ao Ts'ao conferred on him an official title and provided him with material rewards.

-When Ma T'eng approached Hsu-ch' ang, Ts'ao Ts'ao immediately sent Huang K'uei to order Ma T' eng to settle his troops outside the city and entered Hsuch' ang with a few of his senior officials.

- One day during his stay in the capital, Ma T' eng had the chance to be in audience with Emperor Hsien who commis-

(This scene is not in either the Mao or Siimkok texts.)

ff J.t,

22. This scene can be found in San-kuo, ch. 78, p. 489 and Siimkok, II, ch. 62, p. 450. 23. This can be found in San-kuo, ch. 84, p. 524 and Siimkok, II, ch. 65, p. 541. 24. Textual comparison between the Mao and Lo texts of the scene about Ma T' eng's death is treated in detail in Cheng Chen-to, pp. 1574-1575. See San-kuo, pp. 353-354 and Siimkok, II, pp. 69-74.

99

A Study of SAMKOK

sioned the former to eliminate Ts'ao. And Ma T' eng agreed to carry out the Emperor's wish.

-f:

agreed to co- Huang K'uei ~' operate with Ma T' eng in the assassination plan against Ts'ao Ts'ao. Unfortunately, Ts'ao secretly learned of the scheme from member of Huang K'uei's household

- There are an extra few lines of dialogue between Huang K'uei and his concubine discussing the details of the plan. -Having learned of Ma T'eng's secret scheme, Ts'ao Ts'ao made plans with his four able generals.

- Ma T'eng was captured by TS'ao's force even before the assassination could be carried out. Only Ma Tai .~ was able to make the escape.

- Ma T' eng was attacked unguarded from four sides by Ts'ao's generals as planned. All were captured and executed including Huang K'uei and all his clansmen.

-m

There are still three other episodes that illustrate the fact that SOmkok corresponds well to the Mao version rather the Lo text. 25 B. The Date and the Author It is very unfortunate that the prefatory section of the original text of Sllmkok has not survived to give us some light on the questions of date and authorship. According to Thai traditional custom any literary project under royal sponsorship was supposed to state in its preface the date of writing and the purpose of the work itself. The following, for instance, is an introductory passage from Rachathirat 11"11'1lr11"ll', a work under royal command, providing background information on the work. m::Vi'Yl1H'lf171"ll' 2328... 'Vi7::'1J1'Yl«3JL~~m::Vi'Ylli£Je:J~~1~'Vf11t'ln 'Vi1::Vi'Ylli-

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25. These three episodes are discussed in Cheng Chen-to, pp. 1572-1575. They are: I) Liu Pei's conversation with Ts' ao Ts' ao in San-kuo, pp. 131-132 which is found in Siimkok, I, pp. 421-425; 2) Kuan Yu's response to the royal appointment in San-kuo, p. 161 and Siimkok, I, pp. 525-526; 3) Ts' ao Hou's f.; reaction to Ts' ao P' ei's usurping the kingship from Emperor Hsien in San-kuo, p. 497 and Siimkok, II, pp. 468-469.

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100

Malinee Dilokwanich t 1u9lnt~u

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In the year of 2328 of the Buddhist Era [A.D. 1785] ... Phrabat Somdet Phraphutthayotra ChulalOk [Rama I], the King, appeared in audience at Chakraphat Phiman Hall. He ordered . . . that the story of Phrachao Rachathirat who made war with Phrachao Farang Mangkhong --an epic war recorded in the annals of the Raman [the Mon] - - which was translated into Siamese for Somdet Anuchathirat Krom Phraratchawang Bawon [younger brother of Rama I], differs from what has been heard. [The King] therefore would like to make an adaptation of the story of Rachathirat. As for those neglected and missing episodes, the King ordered that they be retold in Thai with the intent of making the work a useful source of intellectual enlightenment in the future for the royal family and for y military and civil servants great and small. I, Chaophraya Phrakhlang. together with three persons, Phraya 'Inthara' akkharat, Phra Phiromratsami, and Phra Srlphliripricha, respectively took this grand occasion to compile the story of Rachathirat in response to His Majesty's command. 26 The loss of the prefatory page of Samkok has consequently raised some unresolved speculations on the problem of the date of writing among concerned scholars in Thailand. It still remains unsolved as to the exact year in which the translation of Samkok was completed. However, there is strong evidence to believe that the work was launched and perhaps finished during the reign of King Rama I. The work of Samkok is referred to by name in the lyrical text of the dramatic piece

.,

26. Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang (Hon) L~1Vi7::tJ1Vi7::flfl.:J {'I'IU), Riichiithiriit 1"1'll1ih1'll (King of Kings), (Bangkok: Khlang Witthayii, 1970), pp. 1-2.

101

A Study of SAMKOK

called Khawi fl1l which was composed by King Rama II (1767-1824), the son of Rama I. 27 This indicates that the Thai version of the San-Kuo yen-i novel had been available and well-known at least before Rama II wrote his work which was, unfortunately, undated. At any rate, it is known that during the reign of Rama II (r. 1809-1824) a few new projects of translation, like that of Samkok, were ordered by the King to follow the rich literary spirit of the past. One of these projects was dated the year 1819, and it is believed to have been undertaken in order to follow in the tradition of Samkok. 28 One can now say for sure at least that by 1819 Samkok was already appreciated by its readers. But it is tempting to believe that Samkok was finished even before Rama II succeeded to the throne in 1809. One of the reasons is that Prince Damrong received words passed down from his ancestors (he was the great grandson of Rama I) indicating that the Samkok project was ordered by Rama I to be handled under the " supervision of Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon). 29 Although this information regarding the authorship is based on hearsay, it may very well have a pretty good degree of truth as one detects the similarity of language between Samkok and Rachathirat which was attributed to the same Phrakhlang and dated 1785. 30 1/ In fact, Thai literary historians have attributed the work of Samkok toChaophray a. Phrakhlang (Hon). 31 Accordingly, the safest approximate date of Samkok should be the period between 1782, the year Ram a I became King, and 1805, the year Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) died. It is interesting to note that, although Prince Damrong had assigned a time 1805 as the date of Samkok, he expressed a doubt, however, as to whether before v Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) really conducted all of the editing of the translation. Prince Damrong's suspicion is based on his impression that the language of Samkok shows two different styles and qualities. According to him, the first fifty-five chapters of Samkok, which contain beautifully polished Thai prose, must have been v written by Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon), whereas the remaining thirty-two 27.

"Tamniin," p. 12.

28.

"Tamniin," p. 13.

29.

"Tamniin," p. II.

30.

See comparison of language between the two texts in article to be followed.

31. This information on the authorship of Phrakhlang can be found in a number of texts on the history of Thai literature. Recommended works are listed in the Bibliography.

!"02

Malinee Dilokwanich

chapters demonstrate a different and less elegant style of prose writing. 32 The implication here is that perhaps Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) died before the translation was finished and therefore the task was taken over by another literary person. Sang Phatthanothai seems to agree with Prince Damrong on this point, and for the same reason. 33 However, neither scholars provide any illustrations to substantiate their view, although their doubt can raise an important question concerning the date of completion of Samkok : was Samkok finished after 1805? But such a question is hardly appropriate since it is impossible to prove whether or \1 not Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) actually edited the language of the entire Samkok text due to the lack of knowledge about those individuals who gave assistance in .and contribution to the translation project. The cause for the language of the later chapters being less polished than that of the early ones could very well be the fact y . that such a huge work (about Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) could not therefore be personally involved in the whole task. In any case, it is still reasonable to believe that Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon), who was a very highly respected official and outstanding poet and prose writer of his time, was entrusted by the King with such a grand and important project. Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) was originally known by the given name Hon 'VI'U or Honthang 'VI'U'YI1~. and he was the son of a Thonburl nobleman, Chaophraya Surabodin Surinrii' chai L~Wf7::V1~1"tl.,WYI7 ~1un7~1l'21'v, originally known as Bunma llll!ll1, and Thanphiiying Charoen vl1'U~'VI'{j)~ Lnll!. 34 Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) began his official career in the reign of King Taksin of the Thonbur1 era. During the reign of King Rama I Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) advanced rapidly in office and was promoted to one of the highest ranks. 35 Perhaps his literary genius and ability was even more appreciated. He composed eleven classic pieces of literature in prose and poetry which even today are regarded as pieces of valuable 32. "Tamniin," p. 31. 33. Sang, "Author's Introduction," p. 4.

34. Information on the family history of Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang (Hon) is provided in Natthawut Sutthisongkhriirn 11t,11~ ~'Ylh-3fn"1!J 29 Chaophraya 29 L~1'Vi1::01 (Twenty-nine Chiiophrayii), (Bangkok: n.p., 1966), pp. 441-452, and in Wannakhadi 'l'fHU.fl~ (Literature), ed. Krom Sinlapakon n1!Jfl1.'1U1n1 (Department of Fine Arts), (Bangkok: Banniikhiin, 1972), pp. 9-12. 35.

In the Thonburi perjod, the Phrakhlang was first appointed as Liiang Sorawichit ~1.'l'HW1~'Dfl in charge of Uthaithiini il~rnntt city. After that he was promoted sucsessively to higher positions, being ftiven the titles Phrayii Phiphatthanakosii 'Vi1::U1Vl~~'U.1m~f1, Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang, and then Chiiophrayii Mahii Kosiithibadi L~1'Vi1::01!J~1 1n~1~l.J~. He was best known by the title Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang which is found attached to all of his literary works.

103

A Study of SAMKOK

national literature. 36 Among them Samkok stands out as the most well-known and most widely read among the Thai readers of past and present. 37 Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) died in 1805, four years before the death of Rama I. 38 A word should be mentioned about the translators who worked for " Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) in the project. It is most likely that some native Chinese scholars were summoned to help with the translation since there was not an individual Thai scholar at that time who was competant in both the Thai and Chinese languages. 39 It is believed that the King commissioned two groups of scholars: a group of knowledgable Chinese to translate the Chinese text and a group of Thai scholars to improve and edit the translated text. Sang Phatthanothai who did comprehensive glossaries of the names of characters and places in Samkok and in San-kuo yen-i gave an interesting opinion on these two groups of the translating committee as follows:

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ChulalOk, the First Ruler [Rama I], commissioned Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) to supervise in translating Samkok from Chinese into Thai ... There must have been powerful officials who perceived the importance of Samkok and consequently gave strong support 36. The list of Chliophrayli Phrakhlang (Hon) 's works are included in the biographical pieces already

cited in note 34 above. 37.

See the "Introduction" of Wannakhadi, p. 10.

38. There is no record as to Chliophrayli Phrakhlang (Hon) 's date of birth.

39. "Tamniin," p. 30.

104

Malinee Dilokwanich

to the project. One may notice from the translation of SQmkok into Thai that a Fukienese was most likely the chief edit-or, since the names of people and places transcribed from the Chinese in the translation were, for the most part, pronounced in the Fukienese dialect. In .addition, however, there were probably also speakers of Ch' ao-chou, the K' e-chia, the Cantonese, and the Hainanese dialects, who served as members of the editorial committee for the translation. 40

" Being in charge of the project, it was Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon)'s duty not only to polish the Thai translation but also to assure that the two groups of scholars were able to cooperate and communicate well with one another. For such v a difficult position Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) appeared to be the most appropriate person. The position of Phrakhlang in those days was equivalent to that of the present-day the Ministers of Finance and Commerce combined. The Phrakhlang was endowed with the authority to govern and control the Chinese immigrants in the country as well as to handle the trade with China. With such administrative power and cultural exposure, the Phrakhlang must have received the kind of respect from both groups of translators which was needed to maintain his superior· status and the success of the translation. C. Different Editions Due to the difficulty in gaining access to the early editions of S'iimkok which are preserved as rare boo.ks in the Library of the National Academy of Thailand, the present work must, unfortunately, rely on secondary sources. The following information on the different editions of Siimkok is derived mostly from two pieces of writing by Prince Damrong. 41 There are altogether three different editions of the Siimkok text. The first edition, which is comprised of ninety-five samutthai ~n.j~hm (volumes), is the original work purportedly edited by Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon). This 1805 edition was circulated for about sixty years in the form of hand-written copies using various implements, such as, lead pencil (sen dinso Lft'U.~'IUUl), powdered pencil (sen fun Lft'U.~'U.). and realgar (sen horadiin Lft'U.'VI''l"fl1'U.}. Most of these copies of Siimkok were reproduced under the order and sponsorship of rich and noble people who wished 40. Sang, "Author's Introduction," p. 4. 41. These two sources are: 1) Prince Damrong's "Introduction" to the 1928 edition of Siimkok reprinted in the 1973 edition by Bamrungsii.n, pp. 1-7; 2) "Tamnii.n," pp. 34-39.

105

A Study of SAMKOK

to have possession of this work in their library collections. A few of these hand-written copies originally owned by noble members are now kept as rare books in the Library of the National Academy of Thailand. Prince Damrong in 1928 remarked that not all of the Siimkok copies in the National Academy Library are complete and that only the one which originally belonged to Kromliiang Worasetsudi mli'V1~1~TIL«1,!"~1 appears intact. Since these Library copies are now inaccessible to the public, there is no way to check whether Prince Damrong' s above statement remains true. A printed edition of Siimkok appeared for the first time in 1865 when the first publishing company in the country, owned by the American missionary, "Mo Bratle" 'VIllilm~L~fi or Dr. Bradley (d. 1871), began to publish Thai literary works. 42 The text of this printed edition represents the revised version made from ·three different copies 43 of the hand-written edition. Dr. Bradley, who did the editing, rearranged the printed work into a four-volume set. According to Prince Damrong, about fifty sets were sold to King Rama IV (r. 1851-1868) who had all along given encouragement to the progress of publication. 44 Dr. Bradley's first printed edition of Siimkok was so popularly received by the reading public that the work was reprinted five times during the period of sixty-three years, from 1865 to 1928. The last three publications of Siimkok were not printed by Dr. Bradley and in them many minor mistakes were made. The third edition of S""amkok appeared in early 1928 on the day the cremation of HRH Princess Sukhumin Marasri ftl1Lfl';Jfi1::'U.HL~1 ""ljll1~ll11f'l'1 Vi1::am11'!JL'YI~ was held. 45 This new edition of Siimkok was provided as a funeral gift for this event. The selection of the funeral gift was made by the Princess's son, Prince 42. Dr. D.B. Bradley was a medical doctor who came to Thailand in 1835 as a member of the American missionaries. He was the first person to introduce the use of printing presses into the country and he owned the first printing company of Thailand. The first publication of Thai books appeared on June 3, 1836. Dr. Bradley also published the first newspaper, the Bangkok Recorder, which was launched on the 4th of July, 1844. His contributions during the 36 years he spent in Thailand are considerable, especially in the area of modern medicine, the technique and progress of publication, and the growth and circulation of Thai language texts and literature. For more information, see Niii Honhiiai 'U.1!1l'I'I'U.'I'I'JrJ, MO Platre kap Krung Sayiim '1'13J8uff!Lt'16rium-3W!l13J (Dr. Bradley and Siam), (Bangkok: Phraephitthaya, 1954) and Khurusaphi tp,W1l1, ed., Prachum phongsawadlin tl1:::"!3JVHfl11fl11 (Compiled Chronicles) Vol. 18 (Bangkok: Su'ksaphan, 1965). 43. One of these copies belonged to Somdet Chiophrayi Barommaha Srisuriyawong ft3JL~~L~1V41:::!11lJ13J3J'I'I1fl'&;li!l1-3ft, who sponsored the translations of at least eighteen Chinese historical novels during the reigns of Rama IV and V (1851-1910). 44. "Tamnin," p. 35. 45. She died on July 9, 1927.

106

Malinee.Dilokwanich Boriphat Lf1'rhtl1~m. who had a special interest in and a deep appreciation for the Samkok novel. With great concern for the degraded quality of the existing printed text, Prince Boriphat requested that Prince Damrong, who was then the President of the National Academy of Thailand, make a comprehensive textual re-examination so that the language of Samkok could be preserved in its original greatness of quality. Prince Damrong, similarly concerned with the problem, accepted Prince BOriphat's proposal, which promised full financial support for the project of; editing and ·printing. 46 Three· men were commissioned to the responsibility for the publication: Phraya Pot~hanaprlcha -.,,.::li1VHI~t11~1 as the chief editor, Khun Wannarakwi~hit ~~n,.mi'n~~~m as the editor's assistant, and Phra Phinitwannakin -.,,.::~il ~n,.mm,. who arranged the table of contents. 47 In doing the research and documentation, Prince Damrong was assisted by Phra Chen~hin' akson m::L~~1wan~,.. A Thai expert on Chinese, and by Professor George Coed~s. In re-examinging the text, three different versions were used as sources, namely, the original hand-written edition of Samkok. the Bradley early printed version, . and the Mao ·Tsung-kang version. of San-kuo yen-i. 48 · Since then the revised National Academy edition has been used as the standard text of Samkok in Thailand. The main purpose of this 1928 edition was to preserve the

original body and quality of the 1805 edition. However, the new edition bears some extra features. It provides explanatory footnotes to the main text, gives the equivalent Thai year of the Buddhist Era in parenthesis following the Chinese year, and incorporates illustrations portraying some of the major scenes along with the main text. From the above discussion, it is clear that the Mao .Tsung-kang version of the San-kuo yen-i novel is the original Chinese text that was used for the translation " of SQmkok, and it was probably completed by Chiophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) before the year 1805. The 1928 edition of Samkok. which is the current standard text, is valuable to the present study exactly because of its achievement in preserving the " style, the text, and the language originally embodied in Chaophraya Phrakhlang 46. Prince Damrong's "Introduction," p. 2. 47. Prince Damrong's "Introduction," p. 4. 48. The hand-written copy used for the 1928 edition was owned by Kromliiang Worasetsudi f11:tJ'I'IM'l'l nL~1J"fl1, and it is now preserved in the Library of the National Academy of Thailand. As for the Bradley edition, many copies were borrowed from individual owners. Prince Damrong failed to give the bibliographical information regarding the Chinese text of San-kuo yen-i that was used by the editor of the 1928 version.

107

A Study of SAMKOK

(Hon)'s version. It is therefore quite legitimate to use the Mao version of San-kuo yen-i and the 1928 edition of Samkok as sources for the textual comparison.

108

Matinee Dilokwanich Bibliography A. Chinese Sources

.1f

Chao Ts' ang _t "Kuan-yU San-kuo yen-i te chi ko wen-t'i ~, ~.s.. !jl ~ ~ ~ 118 f.1.t1 (SOme Questions Regarding the San-kuo yen-1)." Hsin chien-she l:tf it t1, 3 tMarch 1956), 46-52. Chao Ts'ung i! ~·. Chung-kuo szu ta hsiao-shuo chih yen-chiu cf li 11!1 A·l·'ti. :Z. .;JJ 'k.. (A Study of the four Great Chinese Novels). Hong Kong: Yu-lien ch'u-pan-she, 1964. Ch'en Yung PJ j~. "San-kuo yen-i chien Lun .%-J&il ;~ ~~ (Simple Discussion on the Sankuo yen.:.!)." Wen-hsiieh yen-chiu chi-k'an .~ ~ ZJf ~ 1l f'J , 1 (July 1955), 27-40. Cheng Chen-to lJ!..tiil. "San-kuo yen-i te yen-hua .:!..lij* $g, ~~}~-it. (The Evolution of the San-kuo yen-1):" Hsiao-shuo yUeh-pao ~1. i.lt. ~ ~. 20, No. 10 (Oct. 1929), 1543-1578. ~. San-kuo jen-wu tun chi .:!-l!ll A~· iii ~. (Collected Discussions on the Cho Meng-an·.f! San-kuo 'Characters)." Taipei: T'ai-wan shang-wu yin-shu kuan, 1976. Hsieh Ch'ao-ch'ing ·~~ fJI JA. "San-kuo yen-i chih yen-chiu yii.hsing.-ch'eng:!.. II Y1. 11 i.'}~ji! ~ ~ ~ (The Evolution and Formation of the San-kuo yen-1)." Hsin t'ien-ti .~ ~K., 7, Nos. 2-3 (1968), 20--21. Hsieh Wu-liang t~t !.1 . Lo Kuan-chung yUMa Chih-yiian !it l 't ~ J. ft.!£.. (Lo Kuan-chung and Ma Chih-yiian). Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu kuan, 1930. Hsu Shih-nien :ft. .J: !If . Ku-tien hsiao-shuo lun-chi ~ ~ -h t!L it f.. (Collected Discussion on Traditional Fiction). Shanghai: Shang-hai ch'u-pan kung-szu, 1955. Hu Shih tJI .i! . Chung-kuo chang-hui hsiao-shuo k'ao cheng 'f ~ $' liJ.J.'tll.. ~ tf: (Investigation of the Chinese chang-hui Fiction). Dairen: Shih-yeh yin-shu kuan, 1943. - - - - - - · "San-kuo chih yen-i hsu .!!-li'l ;t. )~ hlf (Preface to the San-kuo chih yen-1)." In Hu Shih wen-ts'un ;tlJ ~:t 4 (Collection of Hu Shih's Works). Shanghai: Oriental Book Company, 1929. Vol. VIII, pp. 219-231. Jen-an l1J.~. Chung-kuo li-tai hsiao-shuo chia '1' Jjl)!t ft ~· t;L.ing Somdet PhralhOo BarommawongthlJe Kromphraya Damrong Rachanuphiip m::1h::~LL11:: -31\l'llil-3 ft&JLfi•m::Li1tn&J1-3thla n1&Jmtu1t'111-1111'll1"\l11Vl (Biography and Works of Prince Damrong), 3 Volumes (Bangkok: Su' ksaphan, 1965).

91

A Study of SAMKOK

"Tamnan nangsii' Samkok," Prince Damrong writes:

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The Work of Samkok is not a common chronicle. It is called in Chinese "Sam-kok-chi" [San-kuo chih] which means the Record of the Three Kingdoms Period. It is a work written by a Chinese scholar who composed it from materials selected from a portion of the [Chinese] historical chronicles, with the intention of making it a text for studying political and military tactics. The book is so well written that it became one of the works which is highly regarded throughout China as well as in other countries. With regard to the history of the work, SlJmkok, it is known originally as a folk tale. In the T' ang dynasty (B.E. 11611449) [A.D. 618-906] there appeared [Chinese] opera performances in China in which the San-kuo story was dramatized. Later, in the period of the Yuan dynasty (B.E. 1820-1910) [A.D. 1277-1367] fictional writing increasingly flourished. There were writers who liked to write stories based on historical annals. By that time, however, the history of the San-kuo period had not been fictionalized. By the time of the Ming dynasty (B.E. 1911-2186) [A.D. 1368-1643]

92

Malinee Dilokwanich a Chinese scholar from Hang-chiu [Hang-chou ~til · t11 ] named Lo ·~uan-tung [Lo Kuan-:chung lft 'f ] 2 wrote the work of Samkok [i.e. the San-kuo yen-i _ ~ ;~ in one hundred and tw~nty chapters. 3 In the above passage, Prince Damrong quotes an incorrect title for the Chinese work which he· is discussing. From his description about the book, it is obvious that Prince Damrong is actually referring to San-kuo yen-i, not San-kuo chih which is a ~ompletely different piece of literature written· much earlier, in the third century A.i>~; by a Chinese hi~torian named Ch' en Shou ~j.. (233-297). 4 Later· Thai scholars have failed to point out this mistake, although they are able to distinguish the wor~ of San--kuo chih from the fictional version of Lo Kuan-chung. 5 Perhaps .one reason behind this restraint of criticism is the fact that Prince Damrong has been regarded by the Thais to be the most outstanding and the most

1\

It]

$

2. Lo Kuan-chung, tht: supposed author of San-kuo yen-i, was variously known as Lo Pen .Mt 4:- , Lo Kuan . . and Lo Tao-pen Eft ~ _.f. . Little is known of Lo Kuan-chung's life. He was either a native ofT' ai-yuan A .J.it , or of Ch' ien-t' ang · it in modem Hang-chou. It was believed that he lived during the late Yuan and early Ming periods, approximately between the years 1330 and 1400. Many historical romances and plays were attributed .to him but t!;le lack- of knowledge about him makes it difficult Jor later scholars and writers to accept Lo's authorship. For more information on Lo Kuan-chung's life and works, see Dictionttry of Ming Biography; Vol. I, ed: L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 978-908; Winston Yang, "The Use of the San-kuo chih," pp. 62-64; tfsi~h Wu-liang ij.f ~f1..1 Lo Kuan-chung yii Ma Chih-yuan ~ !iJ f3c ~ (Lo Kuan-chung and Ma Chih-yiian), (Shanghai: Shang-wu yiil-shu-kuan, 1930), pp: 12-6i; Chao Ts'ung ~· .Jf,~ , Chung-kuo szu ta hsiao-shuo chih yen-chiu · · "f ·· fjB \!9 ;.:_ ~J, t}t i. hj 'ft. (The Study of the Four Great Chinese Novels), ,(Hong Kong: Yu-lien ch' u-pan-she. 1964), pp. 114-117; Wu Shuang-i ~ . . ~ ~- , Ming Ch' ing hsiao-shuo chiang-hua 1!1}3 ~J' t}L i~ (Discussion 'of the Ming and Ch' ing Fiction), (Hong Kong: Shanghai shu-chu, 1976), pp. 30-31; Wen Chi ;t *~ ed., Chung-kuo ku-tien hsiao-shuo chiang-hua li /, ·~ ~h ti (Discussion of Traditional Chinese Fiction), (Hong Kong: Shanghai shu-chu,1973), P• 68. ·

r11 lf ,

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1

rtt

I.' ,

cp

J.t

.

4'

tl. · t!

3. "Tamnan," p.·8,

1,4.

•·,·

4. A good discussion on the ·autha'r ~d the te~t of the dissertation. · ·· · · · '

San~kuo chih caq b~ found i~ Winston Yang's ·

·

5. See Prapin Mariorriaivibool 1h::vhu. iJl'Ua!iJlj'lJ\'16, "Slimkok: Kiin su' ksii pnepthiep," W1:1Jfifl: fl11fffl1~1LLI'IIl.JL~II1!. (Slimkok:·.A Co111parativ~ Study) .Thesis,; Chuliilongkon University 1966, p. 43; Sang Ph~tthanothai i~ ~~lu,;u "~hamnam khong phutaeqg," ~1'1.h~lil.:I~LLfl.:l (Author's Introduction)' in the. PhiCiiai songkhram ·samkok . flfuw~m1aJW'iaJfin. (The Military Tactics in SiimkOk); (Bangkok:· Sun tanphim, 1969), pp. 1-3.

93

A Study of SAMKOK

knowledgable historian in the country. 6 His writings seem to be automatically accepted as factual knowledge. In any case, there remain in the above quotation a few items of incorrect information about the San-kuo yen-i that have not yet been rectified by later scholars and writers. First of all, it is not at all true to say that by the Yuan times "the history of the San-kuo period had not been fictionalized," because a work in the genre of historical narration or chiang-shih '¢_ known ~ ,;£, f (A p• ing-hua of the as the San-kuo-chih p'ing-hua _ History of the Three Kingdoms Period) had already appeared in the Yuan dynasty. 7 Both Western and Chinese scholars believe that the San-kuo yen-i has, to. a certain degree, made use of the narrative framework of the P' ing-hua, and that the latter presented popular history while the former rendered popularized history. 8 It is also incorrect to state that Lo Kuan-chung wrote his work "in one hundred and twenty chapters," as the earliest surviving edition of La's original writing was divided into 240 chapters. 9 · The abridgment in the organization of the chapter divisions was actually done a few hundred years later by Mao Tsung-kang ~ }~ 10 (fl. 1679) in the early Ch' ing }"~ period (1644-1911). Since the appearance of Prince Damrong's article in 1928, there have never been any studies focusing specifically on the background history of the Chinese work that was used for the translation of Samkok. Subsequent studies on Samkok

ii

tl

i\

6. In Thailand Prince Damrong is called "the Father of Thai History" as he is the author of many important surveys and treatises in the field. He wrote, moreover, numerous essays that touch on a wide range of topics. See the list of his works in the sources given in note I above. 7. Yang, p. 52. 8. See, for examples, W .L. Idema, "Some Remarks and Speculations Concerning .P' ing-hua,"

T'oung Pao, 60, Nos. 1-3 (1974), pp. 156-157; Yang, pp. 5~?7, 66-79; Cheng ~en-to ~~ J,Ai "San-kuo yen-i te yen-hua," ;;:, 00 )~ ,l {!~ >~ {~

-£l ,

(The Evolution of San-kuo yen-i), Hsiao-shuo yueh-pao 20, No. 10 (Oct. 1929), pp. 1546-1553, 1557-1558; Chao Ts'ung, pp. 105··113; Li Ch' en-tung, San-kuo Shui-lw yii Jfsi-yu (Sun-kuo yen-i, Sh11i-hu chuan, an(i Hsi-yu chi), (Peking: Ta-tao ch' u-pan-she, 1946), pp. 6-r6. 9. The earliest surviving text of San-kuo yen-i in 240 chiian was published in the year 1522 and is preserved in the Peking Library. Sun K-ai-ti .J.~ · Chung-kuo t' ung-su ,J, ~~· 8 (Bibliography of Chinese Popular hsiao-shuo shu-mu T Iii jJ!L Fiction), (Peking: Tso-chia ch' u-pan-she, 1957), p. 30. See also note 15 below.

-m.

.3!

"f .

J ,

10. Scholars, such as, Chao Ts' ung and··winston Yang, believe that the revision of the ·novel by Mao Tsung-kang was completed in the early years of the Ch' ing dynasty, probably before 1679. See Chao Ts' ung, p. 119 and Yang, p. 82. The latter source also includes information on Mao and his works.

94

Malinee Dilokwanich including those by Sang Phatthanothai ~~ ,.q'Ji lu~l! and Prapin Manomaivibool th::-Am &~1uiillll'Jdi16 rely exclusively on Prince Damrong's information 11 ·, and therefore are ·still lacking in sufficient evidence to identify the right version of the San-kuo text frortt which Samkok was translated. Since there is no surviving external evidence that has the information to clarify the point in question, it seems necessary to resort to the method of textual investigation in order to determine this version. Based on ihe discrepancies in form and content, the worlfof San-kuo chih by Ch' en Shou seems very unlikely to have been the work used' ~s· thtdranslation model of the Thai version. The San-kuo chih is a collection of· biog~aphies of important personages of the Three Kingdoms period (A.D. 220-280), organized into 65 chiian ~ or chapters. It contains altogether 442 biographies of which 230 are those of Wei j~ figures, 83 o( Shu lj , and 129 of Wu ~ . 12 The 230 biographies of Wei figures constitute the first 30 chiian, the 83 of Shu make up the following 15 chilan, and the 129 of Wu take up the remaining 20 chuan. The author of San-kuo chih derived his sources from earlier historical records and categorized the compiled materials into different types of biographies, namely, the annals of the ~mperor known as chi Ia ~ , exclusive biography or chuan-chuan combined biography or ho-chuan ~t and appended biography or ju-chuan ffl ~ach biography 1s presented in chronological order with concise and compact language strictly following the style of traditional Chinese historiography. 13 As one writer remarks:

.S

1i .

t

1'"t ,

Like other historians of the old school, Ch' en Shou, in his San-kuo chih, seldom thinks of working historical facts into a unified structure that will be in accord with reality; he makes no attempt to "evoke," "conjure" and "revive" past events. I;Ie fails to work 11. Prapin, p. 43 and Sang, pp. 1-3. 12. Nine of the 442 biographies are not listed in the Table of Contents. However, there are twenty-five biographies not found in the text but listed in the Table of Contents. Winston Yang places the responsibility for such mistakes on later careless scribes. Yang, p. 21.

~ -~a bio~phicalstyleofwritingintheShihChi

1?. "!~

13. Szu-maCh'ien's. Following Dennis Twitchett's study entitled "Chinese Biographical Writing," Yang is inclined to believe that there was a mod~ for this type of biogaphical writing already existing b'efore the time of the Shih chi (fust century A.D.). See Yang, p.44, footnote 54. Dennis Twitchett's article can be found in W.O. Beasley and E.G. Pulleyblank, eds., Historians of China and Japan (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 95 - 114.

95

A Study of SAMKOK

up his historical sources and to combine the facts he has found in successive chains. What he has done is to arrange them in certain categories. He has made no attempt to create any sort of coherent picture of the San-kuo period; he has merely presented the material that has been preserved in a most accessible form to the reader .... he conceived of the San-kuo period as a series of concrete events and overt acts; he views history as a registration of them which .should be ex~ct and dispassionate, without any projection across . t~e. s~ne Qf the personality of the registrar. At its best, his work is but a reliable yet impersonal record of unconnected events. 14 In contrast to the biography form of San-kuo chih, SDmkok is presented in the form of narrative fiction which has the characteristics of contextual unity and thematic cohesiveness. Unlike the San-kuo chih with unconnected pieces of biography, the different episodes in SDmkok are linked together by the plot scheme to produce certain thematic meanings and to create a variety of lively and imaginatively interesting characters. With these qualities, SDmkok most likely originates from the novel San-kuo yen-i by Lo Kuan-chung. The length of the Thai translation and its general content show closer affinity to the San-kuo yen-i text than any other · fictionalized version of the San-kuo story. For instance, the San-kuo. chih p'ing-hua which is the. only extant version written before Lo's novel can hardly be the work from which SDmkok was translated because, firstly, the length ~f texts is not comparable, and secondly, the stories contained in the two texts do not match. The p•ing-hua consists only of three chuan while Slzmkok has eighty~seven chapters a length that is close to that of San-kuo yen-i. The story of the p• ing-hua starts with a tale of moral retribution dealing with the disintegration of the Han empire into three separate states, and it ends with the death of Chu-ko Liang. Slzmkok neither contains such a moral tale nor stops short at that death scene. In fact, the story line of San-kuo yen-i is found to be closely followed in SDmkok. It has been known that many revised versions and different editions have been made since the completion of Lo's original writing at the end of the fourteenth century. l5 The version' that was revised and edited in early Ch'ing period by the scholar named Mao Tsung-kang and his father Mao Lun~ ~(fl. 1616-1670) l6

14. Yang, pp. 38-39.

96

Malinee Dilokwanich

became today's standard version. In previous studies by Thai autbors, it has been commonly agreed that the Mao Tsung-kang version is the one used by the translators of SOmkoksimply by virtue of the fact that the translation was done during the time when the Mao version had already become, for over one hundred years, the sole popular standard text and the most widely read version of the San-kuo stories in China. The following textual comparison will provide more solid evidence that SOmkok was actually translated from the Mao Tsung-kang edition of the San-kuo yen-i text. Many studies have been done to show the textual differences between the Mao Tsung-kang version and Lo's original work. 17 The discrepancies lie in stylistic improvements 18 and a number of minor revisions of content. It is the latter aspect

15. Discussions on the original work of Lo Kuan-chung's novel and its different versions and editions

:! ,

Ku-tien hsiao-shuo hsi-ch ' can be found in the following sources: I) Liu Hsiu-yeh ~·J 1t ii ts 'ung-k 'ao ;!; #{ d, t;(, 4~ ~ t_ ~ (Compiled Investigations of Traditional Fiction and Drama), (Peking: Tso-chia ch' u-pan-she , 1958), pp. 63 - 72; 2) Meng Yao i; .!~ , Chungkuo hsiao-shuo shih cf> §'I .J, t)L '/?... (The History of Chinese Fiction), (Taipei: Wen-hsing shu-tien, 1966), Vol. III, pp. 304- 312; 3) Yang, pp. 59- 64; 4) Liu Ts' un- jen 44P ;(;t. -{::.. ," Lo Kuan-chung chiang-shih hsiao-shuo chih chen-wei hsing-chih, " 1j t t!, ;!!_/.J. t;{. :i. li I-ttl, .•f.i '}!!. (The Nature of the Authenticity in Lo Kuan-chung's Historical Novel), i Hsiang-kang chung-wen 0 ~ ·t ):.. A ~ 'I' @ :k 1C. .Gil 'Jr., }'(f ta-hsueh chung-kuo wen-hua yen-chiu-so hsueh-pao -tj! ~It , 8, No. 1 (1976), 171 - 185. According to Liu Ts' un- jen's recent study, · Lo Kuan-chung's original work assumes the general title of ".San-kuo chih chuan";:;.. Iii i~. 1~ from which the later editions of the San-kuo yen-i were derived." (p. 233) Perhaps the most important among the later ~ publication of1609 editions of Lo's San-kuo chih chuan is the Ch' iao-shan-t ·' ang ~ J.1 under the :title. Hsrn ·chin ·ch' uan· hsiang · 1' un'g~su yen-i san-kilo ·chih chuari j~ · · ~l. ~ 1:&. 1i!L % ;-;, .;i ..z. ~ ,;t 1'/l (New Engraved and Illustrated Version of Popular Elaboration of the. Story of the · Three Kingdoms Period) which is now preserved in the British Museum. Liu believes that this Ch'iaoshan-t' ang edition is a reprint of an early. orlginid copy that precedes even the 1S22 Chi a- c'hing .edition entitled San'-kuo chih t'ung-su yen-i :=.. ~ ;t;, hll, 17,1- j)l{ (Popular Eleboration of t~e Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms Period). See Liu, pp. 184- 185 .. Liu Ts' un- jen's finding about Lo's earliest extant text has obviously challenged the idea shared among previous scholars that the Chia-ching edition is the earliest surviving edition of Lo's original writing: ·See Cheng Chen - to, p: 1545; Sun K' ai-ti J,fl. ~g' "San-kuo chih p'ing-hua '}U San-kuo chilr chuan I' ung-.su yen-i:,''

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K' ai-ti (Peking: ' Chung-hua shu-chii, 1%5), pp. 109- 120; Li Ch' en-tung , p.B; Chao Ts' ung, · pp. liS- 123; Meng Yao, p.309; Yang; p.9, ·footnot~ 20. · · · · ·

16. These dates are taken from Yang, p. 14.

97

A Study of SAMKOK

that is significant and useful to the problem at hand. If the text of SOmkok shows similarity to the Mao version in those changes, we show for the first time beyond any reasonable doubt that SOmkok was translated from the Mao version. Mao Tsung-kang made the revision of the content in three different ways: deletion, addition, and alteration. There are at least two incidents that are removed from the revised version. The first is the incident about Chu-ko Liang attacking Szu-ma I~-~ f~~ at the Shang-fang_t i,r valley by using fire, which appears in chapter 103 of the Mao text. In Lo's original text the scene also includes the story that Chu-ko Liang wishes to harm Wei Yen j>t, Jt. in the same attack by using the same means. The Wei Yen episode is not found in the Mao text; nor does it appear in Samkok. 19 Another minor deletion is found in the episode about the fight $1; and Teng Ai ~/1 in chapter 117. between Chu-ko Chan Teng Ai made the diplomatic move to settle the conflict by asking for Chu-ko Chan's submission. The latter received the letter of proposal in great hesitation. It was his ~ who disagreed and insisted on making the son, Chu-ko Shang 'tl final decisive attack. This last incident which shows the important role of Chu-ko Shang in the fight is omitted in the Mao text and the same is omitted in Silmkok. 20

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As for the additon of content that is found in the Mao version, Silmkok appears

to include all of Mao's additional passages. For instance, the matching of the opening and ending statements about the cyclical pattern of history 21 is an important 17. Important works ·are: 1) Cheng Chen- to, pp. 1572- 1576; 2) Sun K' ai- ti, pp. 119- 120; 3) Meng Yao, p.308; 4) Hsieh Ch'ao - ch'ing t~1 VJ }~ , "San - kuo yen - i chih yen - chiu yii hsing - ch'eng z til ~ i JiJf }t ~ M iY, (The Study and Development of San - kuo yen - i}," Hsin T'ien- ti $f' ~ #!, ,7, Nos. 2- 3 (1968), pp. 20- 21; 5) Chao Ts' ung, pp. 121 - 123.

g

18. The stylistic improvements in the Mao version include refinement of the language, clarity of diction, polishing of lyrical passages, and reorganization of chapter division.

A

19. See Lo Kuan- chung .fft ~ "(' , San- kuo yen- i .$. IJ J'j! .(The Elaboration of the Three Kingdoms Period),.,(Taipei: San -~min sh_!l- chu, 1978),n ch. 103, pp. 656- 657, and Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) L'il1'Vn::tJ1'Vi1::tlih'l ('11114), Samkok tnunn (Three Kingdoms), (Bangkok: Ruamsan, 1973), Vol. II, ch. 78, pp. 836 - 838. The San - min edition of San - kuo Yen - i and the Ruamsan edition of Slimkok are the two main texts used in this research. Henceforth the first volume of Slimkok will be referred to as "Siimkok, I" and the second volume of Samkok as "Siimkok, II" 20. See San-kuo, ch. 17, p. 739 and Siimkok, ii, ch. 86, p. 1044. 21. See San-kuo, ch. 1, p. 1 and Siimkok, I, pp. 1-2; San-kuo, ch. 120, p. 759 and Siimkok, II, ch. 87, p. 1086.

98

Malinee Dilokwanich

example of evidence to support the view that the Thai author of Silmkok was actually working with the Mao version. Furthermore, the Mao text and 8lJmkok agree in the scene where Ts'ao Ts'ao arranged to share his possessions among his wives and concubines before his death 22, and also in the scene in which Sun fu-jenJ~~A.A committed suicide by plunging into the Ch'ang-chiang river. 23 Since these two incidents represent details which were incorporated by Mao Tsung-kang, it is obvious that the Ch'ing revised version was used for the translation of SOmkok. Moreover, one finds that a number of changes in the content made by Mao so as to adhere to historical facts are reproduced in the Thai version. The SOmkok text follows the Mao text even in the minor details. One of the most interesting episodes that has gone through changes in the Mao version is the scene narrating how Ma T'eng .~ )jj meets his death at Hsii-ch'ang t~ ~ Hear are some 24 of difference between the Lo text and that of Mao and SOmkok. points

.

Lo text - Ma T' eng with his two younger sons and nephew left for Hsu-ch' ang to report to Ts'ao Ts'ao in response to the latter's letter of summons leaving Ma Ch'ao ..~ J§_ , his eldest son, in charge of Hsi-liang ~~ Jj, city.

Mao text and Slimkok - Before making the decision to leave Hsi-liang, Ma T'eng consulted with Ma Ch'ao as the former became suspicious of Ts'ao Ts'ao's intention. was appointed as - Han Sui Ma Ch'ao's assistant at Hsi-liang.

-After Ma T'eng's arrival at Hsu-ch'ang, Ts'ao Ts'ao conferred on him an official title and provided him with material rewards.

-When Ma T'eng approached Hsu-ch' ang, Ts'ao Ts'ao immediately sent Huang K'uei to order Ma T' eng to settle his troops outside the city and entered Hsuch' ang with a few of his senior officials.

- One day during his stay in the capital, Ma T' eng had the chance to be in audience with Emperor Hsien who commis-

(This scene is not in either the Mao or Siimkok texts.)

ff J.t,

22. This scene can be found in San-kuo, ch. 78, p. 489 and Siimkok, II, ch. 62, p. 450. 23. This can be found in San-kuo, ch. 84, p. 524 and Siimkok, II, ch. 65, p. 541. 24. Textual comparison between the Mao and Lo texts of the scene about Ma T' eng's death is treated in detail in Cheng Chen-to, pp. 1574-1575. See San-kuo, pp. 353-354 and Siimkok, II, pp. 69-74.

99

A Study of SAMKOK

sioned the former to eliminate Ts'ao. And Ma T' eng agreed to carry out the Emperor's wish.

-f:

agreed to co- Huang K'uei ~' operate with Ma T' eng in the assassination plan against Ts'ao Ts'ao. Unfortunately, Ts'ao secretly learned of the scheme from member of Huang K'uei's household

- There are an extra few lines of dialogue between Huang K'uei and his concubine discussing the details of the plan. -Having learned of Ma T'eng's secret scheme, Ts'ao Ts'ao made plans with his four able generals.

- Ma T'eng was captured by TS'ao's force even before the assassination could be carried out. Only Ma Tai .~ was able to make the escape.

- Ma T' eng was attacked unguarded from four sides by Ts'ao's generals as planned. All were captured and executed including Huang K'uei and all his clansmen.

-m

There are still three other episodes that illustrate the fact that SOmkok corresponds well to the Mao version rather the Lo text. 25 B. The Date and the Author It is very unfortunate that the prefatory section of the original text of Sllmkok has not survived to give us some light on the questions of date and authorship. According to Thai traditional custom any literary project under royal sponsorship was supposed to state in its preface the date of writing and the purpose of the work itself. The following, for instance, is an introductory passage from Rachathirat 11"11'1lr11"ll', a work under royal command, providing background information on the work. m::Vi'Yl1H'lf171"ll' 2328... 'Vi7::'1J1'Yl«3JL~~m::Vi'Ylli£Je:J~~1~'Vf11t'ln 'Vi1::Vi'Ylli-

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25. These three episodes are discussed in Cheng Chen-to, pp. 1572-1575. They are: I) Liu Pei's conversation with Ts' ao Ts' ao in San-kuo, pp. 131-132 which is found in Siimkok, I, pp. 421-425; 2) Kuan Yu's response to the royal appointment in San-kuo, p. 161 and Siimkok, I, pp. 525-526; 3) Ts' ao Hou's f.; reaction to Ts' ao P' ei's usurping the kingship from Emperor Hsien in San-kuo, p. 497 and Siimkok, II, pp. 468-469.

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100

Malinee Dilokwanich t 1u9lnt~u

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In the year of 2328 of the Buddhist Era [A.D. 1785] ... Phrabat Somdet Phraphutthayotra ChulalOk [Rama I], the King, appeared in audience at Chakraphat Phiman Hall. He ordered . . . that the story of Phrachao Rachathirat who made war with Phrachao Farang Mangkhong --an epic war recorded in the annals of the Raman [the Mon] - - which was translated into Siamese for Somdet Anuchathirat Krom Phraratchawang Bawon [younger brother of Rama I], differs from what has been heard. [The King] therefore would like to make an adaptation of the story of Rachathirat. As for those neglected and missing episodes, the King ordered that they be retold in Thai with the intent of making the work a useful source of intellectual enlightenment in the future for the royal family and for y military and civil servants great and small. I, Chaophraya Phrakhlang. together with three persons, Phraya 'Inthara' akkharat, Phra Phiromratsami, and Phra Srlphliripricha, respectively took this grand occasion to compile the story of Rachathirat in response to His Majesty's command. 26 The loss of the prefatory page of Samkok has consequently raised some unresolved speculations on the problem of the date of writing among concerned scholars in Thailand. It still remains unsolved as to the exact year in which the translation of Samkok was completed. However, there is strong evidence to believe that the work was launched and perhaps finished during the reign of King Rama I. The work of Samkok is referred to by name in the lyrical text of the dramatic piece

.,

26. Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang (Hon) L~1Vi7::tJ1Vi7::flfl.:J {'I'IU), Riichiithiriit 1"1'll1ih1'll (King of Kings), (Bangkok: Khlang Witthayii, 1970), pp. 1-2.

101

A Study of SAMKOK

called Khawi fl1l which was composed by King Rama II (1767-1824), the son of Rama I. 27 This indicates that the Thai version of the San-Kuo yen-i novel had been available and well-known at least before Rama II wrote his work which was, unfortunately, undated. At any rate, it is known that during the reign of Rama II (r. 1809-1824) a few new projects of translation, like that of Samkok, were ordered by the King to follow the rich literary spirit of the past. One of these projects was dated the year 1819, and it is believed to have been undertaken in order to follow in the tradition of Samkok. 28 One can now say for sure at least that by 1819 Samkok was already appreciated by its readers. But it is tempting to believe that Samkok was finished even before Rama II succeeded to the throne in 1809. One of the reasons is that Prince Damrong received words passed down from his ancestors (he was the great grandson of Rama I) indicating that the Samkok project was ordered by Rama I to be handled under the " supervision of Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon). 29 Although this information regarding the authorship is based on hearsay, it may very well have a pretty good degree of truth as one detects the similarity of language between Samkok and Rachathirat which was attributed to the same Phrakhlang and dated 1785. 30 1/ In fact, Thai literary historians have attributed the work of Samkok toChaophray a. Phrakhlang (Hon). 31 Accordingly, the safest approximate date of Samkok should be the period between 1782, the year Ram a I became King, and 1805, the year Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) died. It is interesting to note that, although Prince Damrong had assigned a time 1805 as the date of Samkok, he expressed a doubt, however, as to whether before v Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) really conducted all of the editing of the translation. Prince Damrong's suspicion is based on his impression that the language of Samkok shows two different styles and qualities. According to him, the first fifty-five chapters of Samkok, which contain beautifully polished Thai prose, must have been v written by Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon), whereas the remaining thirty-two 27.

"Tamniin," p. 12.

28.

"Tamniin," p. 13.

29.

"Tamniin," p. II.

30.

See comparison of language between the two texts in article to be followed.

31. This information on the authorship of Phrakhlang can be found in a number of texts on the history of Thai literature. Recommended works are listed in the Bibliography.

!"02

Malinee Dilokwanich

chapters demonstrate a different and less elegant style of prose writing. 32 The implication here is that perhaps Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) died before the translation was finished and therefore the task was taken over by another literary person. Sang Phatthanothai seems to agree with Prince Damrong on this point, and for the same reason. 33 However, neither scholars provide any illustrations to substantiate their view, although their doubt can raise an important question concerning the date of completion of Samkok : was Samkok finished after 1805? But such a question is hardly appropriate since it is impossible to prove whether or \1 not Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) actually edited the language of the entire Samkok text due to the lack of knowledge about those individuals who gave assistance in .and contribution to the translation project. The cause for the language of the later chapters being less polished than that of the early ones could very well be the fact y . that such a huge work (about Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) could not therefore be personally involved in the whole task. In any case, it is still reasonable to believe that Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon), who was a very highly respected official and outstanding poet and prose writer of his time, was entrusted by the King with such a grand and important project. Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) was originally known by the given name Hon 'VI'U or Honthang 'VI'U'YI1~. and he was the son of a Thonburl nobleman, Chaophraya Surabodin Surinrii' chai L~Wf7::V1~1"tl.,WYI7 ~1un7~1l'21'v, originally known as Bunma llll!ll1, and Thanphiiying Charoen vl1'U~'VI'{j)~ Lnll!. 34 Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) began his official career in the reign of King Taksin of the Thonbur1 era. During the reign of King Rama I Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) advanced rapidly in office and was promoted to one of the highest ranks. 35 Perhaps his literary genius and ability was even more appreciated. He composed eleven classic pieces of literature in prose and poetry which even today are regarded as pieces of valuable 32. "Tamniin," p. 31. 33. Sang, "Author's Introduction," p. 4.

34. Information on the family history of Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang (Hon) is provided in Natthawut Sutthisongkhriirn 11t,11~ ~'Ylh-3fn"1!J 29 Chaophraya 29 L~1'Vi1::01 (Twenty-nine Chiiophrayii), (Bangkok: n.p., 1966), pp. 441-452, and in Wannakhadi 'l'fHU.fl~ (Literature), ed. Krom Sinlapakon n1!Jfl1.'1U1n1 (Department of Fine Arts), (Bangkok: Banniikhiin, 1972), pp. 9-12. 35.

In the Thonburi perjod, the Phrakhlang was first appointed as Liiang Sorawichit ~1.'l'HW1~'Dfl in charge of Uthaithiini il~rnntt city. After that he was promoted sucsessively to higher positions, being ftiven the titles Phrayii Phiphatthanakosii 'Vi1::U1Vl~~'U.1m~f1, Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang, and then Chiiophrayii Mahii Kosiithibadi L~1'Vi1::01!J~1 1n~1~l.J~. He was best known by the title Chiiophrayii Phrakhlang which is found attached to all of his literary works.

103

A Study of SAMKOK

national literature. 36 Among them Samkok stands out as the most well-known and most widely read among the Thai readers of past and present. 37 Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) died in 1805, four years before the death of Rama I. 38 A word should be mentioned about the translators who worked for " Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) in the project. It is most likely that some native Chinese scholars were summoned to help with the translation since there was not an individual Thai scholar at that time who was competant in both the Thai and Chinese languages. 39 It is believed that the King commissioned two groups of scholars: a group of knowledgable Chinese to translate the Chinese text and a group of Thai scholars to improve and edit the translated text. Sang Phatthanothai who did comprehensive glossaries of the names of characters and places in Samkok and in San-kuo yen-i gave an interesting opinion on these two groups of the translating committee as follows:

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ChulalOk, the First Ruler [Rama I], commissioned Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) to supervise in translating Samkok from Chinese into Thai ... There must have been powerful officials who perceived the importance of Samkok and consequently gave strong support 36. The list of Chliophrayli Phrakhlang (Hon) 's works are included in the biographical pieces already

cited in note 34 above. 37.

See the "Introduction" of Wannakhadi, p. 10.

38. There is no record as to Chliophrayli Phrakhlang (Hon) 's date of birth.

39. "Tamniin," p. 30.

104

Malinee Dilokwanich

to the project. One may notice from the translation of SQmkok into Thai that a Fukienese was most likely the chief edit-or, since the names of people and places transcribed from the Chinese in the translation were, for the most part, pronounced in the Fukienese dialect. In .addition, however, there were probably also speakers of Ch' ao-chou, the K' e-chia, the Cantonese, and the Hainanese dialects, who served as members of the editorial committee for the translation. 40

" Being in charge of the project, it was Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon)'s duty not only to polish the Thai translation but also to assure that the two groups of scholars were able to cooperate and communicate well with one another. For such v a difficult position Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) appeared to be the most appropriate person. The position of Phrakhlang in those days was equivalent to that of the present-day the Ministers of Finance and Commerce combined. The Phrakhlang was endowed with the authority to govern and control the Chinese immigrants in the country as well as to handle the trade with China. With such administrative power and cultural exposure, the Phrakhlang must have received the kind of respect from both groups of translators which was needed to maintain his superior· status and the success of the translation. C. Different Editions Due to the difficulty in gaining access to the early editions of S'iimkok which are preserved as rare boo.ks in the Library of the National Academy of Thailand, the present work must, unfortunately, rely on secondary sources. The following information on the different editions of Siimkok is derived mostly from two pieces of writing by Prince Damrong. 41 There are altogether three different editions of the Siimkok text. The first edition, which is comprised of ninety-five samutthai ~n.j~hm (volumes), is the original work purportedly edited by Chaophraya Phrakhlang (Hon). This 1805 edition was circulated for about sixty years in the form of hand-written copies using various implements, such as, lead pencil (sen dinso Lft'U.~'IUUl), powdered pencil (sen fun Lft'U.~'U.). and realgar (sen horadiin Lft'U.'VI''l"fl1'U.}. Most of these copies of Siimkok were reproduced under the order and sponsorship of rich and noble people who wished 40. Sang, "Author's Introduction," p. 4. 41. These two sources are: 1) Prince Damrong's "Introduction" to the 1928 edition of Siimkok reprinted in the 1973 edition by Bamrungsii.n, pp. 1-7; 2) "Tamnii.n," pp. 34-39.

105

A Study of SAMKOK

to have possession of this work in their library collections. A few of these hand-written copies originally owned by noble members are now kept as rare books in the Library of the National Academy of Thailand. Prince Damrong in 1928 remarked that not all of the Siimkok copies in the National Academy Library are complete and that only the one which originally belonged to Kromliiang Worasetsudi mli'V1~1~TIL«1,!"~1 appears intact. Since these Library copies are now inaccessible to the public, there is no way to check whether Prince Damrong' s above statement remains true. A printed edition of Siimkok appeared for the first time in 1865 when the first publishing company in the country, owned by the American missionary, "Mo Bratle" 'VIllilm~L~fi or Dr. Bradley (d. 1871), began to publish Thai literary works. 42 The text of this printed edition represents the revised version made from ·three different copies 43 of the hand-written edition. Dr. Bradley, who did the editing, rearranged the printed work into a four-volume set. According to Prince Damrong, about fifty sets were sold to King Rama IV (r. 1851-1868) who had all along given encouragement to the progress of publication. 44 Dr. Bradley's first printed edition of Siimkok was so popularly received by the reading public that the work was reprinted five times during the period of sixty-three years, from 1865 to 1928. The last three publications of Siimkok were not printed by Dr. Bradley and in them many minor mistakes were made. The third edition of S""amkok appeared in early 1928 on the day the cremation of HRH Princess Sukhumin Marasri ftl1Lfl';Jfi1::'U.HL~1 ""ljll1~ll11f'l'1 Vi1::am11'!JL'YI~ was held. 45 This new edition of Siimkok was provided as a funeral gift for this event. The selection of the funeral gift was made by the Princess's son, Prince 42. Dr. D.B. Bradley was a medical doctor who came to Thailand in 1835 as a member of the American missionaries. He was the first person to introduce the use of printing presses into the country and he owned the first printing company of Thailand. The first publication of Thai books appeared on June 3, 1836. Dr. Bradley also published the first newspaper, the Bangkok Recorder, which was launched on the 4th of July, 1844. His contributions during the 36 years he spent in Thailand are considerable, especially in the area of modern medicine, the technique and progress of publication, and the growth and circulation of Thai language texts and literature. For more information, see Niii Honhiiai 'U.1!1l'I'I'U.'I'I'JrJ, MO Platre kap Krung Sayiim '1'13J8uff!Lt'16rium-3W!l13J (Dr. Bradley and Siam), (Bangkok: Phraephitthaya, 1954) and Khurusaphi tp,W1l1, ed., Prachum phongsawadlin tl1:::"!3JVHfl11fl11 (Compiled Chronicles) Vol. 18 (Bangkok: Su'ksaphan, 1965). 43. One of these copies belonged to Somdet Chiophrayi Barommaha Srisuriyawong ft3JL~~L~1V41:::!11lJ13J3J'I'I1fl'&;li!l1-3ft, who sponsored the translations of at least eighteen Chinese historical novels during the reigns of Rama IV and V (1851-1910). 44. "Tamnin," p. 35. 45. She died on July 9, 1927.

106

Malinee.Dilokwanich Boriphat Lf1'rhtl1~m. who had a special interest in and a deep appreciation for the Samkok novel. With great concern for the degraded quality of the existing printed text, Prince Boriphat requested that Prince Damrong, who was then the President of the National Academy of Thailand, make a comprehensive textual re-examination so that the language of Samkok could be preserved in its original greatness of quality. Prince Damrong, similarly concerned with the problem, accepted Prince BOriphat's proposal, which promised full financial support for the project of; editing and ·printing. 46 Three· men were commissioned to the responsibility for the publication: Phraya Pot~hanaprlcha -.,,.::li1VHI~t11~1 as the chief editor, Khun Wannarakwi~hit ~~n,.mi'n~~~m as the editor's assistant, and Phra Phinitwannakin -.,,.::~il ~n,.mm,. who arranged the table of contents. 47 In doing the research and documentation, Prince Damrong was assisted by Phra Chen~hin' akson m::L~~1wan~,.. A Thai expert on Chinese, and by Professor George Coed~s. In re-examinging the text, three different versions were used as sources, namely, the original hand-written edition of Samkok. the Bradley early printed version, . and the Mao ·Tsung-kang version. of San-kuo yen-i. 48 · Since then the revised National Academy edition has been used as the standard text of Samkok in Thailand. The main purpose of this 1928 edition was to preserve the

original body and quality of the 1805 edition. However, the new edition bears some extra features. It provides explanatory footnotes to the main text, gives the equivalent Thai year of the Buddhist Era in parenthesis following the Chinese year, and incorporates illustrations portraying some of the major scenes along with the main text. From the above discussion, it is clear that the Mao .Tsung-kang version of the San-kuo yen-i novel is the original Chinese text that was used for the translation " of SQmkok, and it was probably completed by Chiophraya Phrakhlang (Hon) before the year 1805. The 1928 edition of Samkok. which is the current standard text, is valuable to the present study exactly because of its achievement in preserving the " style, the text, and the language originally embodied in Chaophraya Phrakhlang 46. Prince Damrong's "Introduction," p. 2. 47. Prince Damrong's "Introduction," p. 4. 48. The hand-written copy used for the 1928 edition was owned by Kromliiang Worasetsudi f11:tJ'I'IM'l'l nL~1J"fl1, and it is now preserved in the Library of the National Academy of Thailand. As for the Bradley edition, many copies were borrowed from individual owners. Prince Damrong failed to give the bibliographical information regarding the Chinese text of San-kuo yen-i that was used by the editor of the 1928 version.

107

A Study of SAMKOK

(Hon)'s version. It is therefore quite legitimate to use the Mao version of San-kuo yen-i and the 1928 edition of Samkok as sources for the textual comparison.

108

Matinee Dilokwanich Bibliography A. Chinese Sources

.1f

Chao Ts' ang _t "Kuan-yU San-kuo yen-i te chi ko wen-t'i ~, ~.s.. !jl ~ ~ ~ 118 f.1.t1 (SOme Questions Regarding the San-kuo yen-1)." Hsin chien-she l:tf it t1, 3 tMarch 1956), 46-52. Chao Ts'ung i! ~·. Chung-kuo szu ta hsiao-shuo chih yen-chiu cf li 11!1 A·l·'ti. :Z. .;JJ 'k.. (A Study of the four Great Chinese Novels). Hong Kong: Yu-lien ch'u-pan-she, 1964. Ch'en Yung PJ j~. "San-kuo yen-i chien Lun .%-J&il ;~ ~~ (Simple Discussion on the Sankuo yen.:.!)." Wen-hsiieh yen-chiu chi-k'an .~ ~ ZJf ~ 1l f'J , 1 (July 1955), 27-40. Cheng Chen-to lJ!..tiil. "San-kuo yen-i te yen-hua .:!..lij* $g, ~~}~-it. (The Evolution of the San-kuo yen-1):" Hsiao-shuo yUeh-pao ~1. i.lt. ~ ~. 20, No. 10 (Oct. 1929), 1543-1578. ~. San-kuo jen-wu tun chi .:!-l!ll A~· iii ~. (Collected Discussions on the Cho Meng-an·.f! San-kuo 'Characters)." Taipei: T'ai-wan shang-wu yin-shu kuan, 1976. Hsieh Ch'ao-ch'ing ·~~ fJI JA. "San-kuo yen-i chih yen-chiu yii.hsing.-ch'eng:!.. II Y1. 11 i.'}~ji! ~ ~ ~ (The Evolution and Formation of the San-kuo yen-1)." Hsin t'ien-ti .~ ~K., 7, Nos. 2-3 (1968), 20--21. Hsieh Wu-liang t~t !.1 . Lo Kuan-chung yUMa Chih-yiian !it l 't ~ J. ft.!£.. (Lo Kuan-chung and Ma Chih-yiian). Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu kuan, 1930. Hsu Shih-nien :ft. .J: !If . Ku-tien hsiao-shuo lun-chi ~ ~ -h t!L it f.. (Collected Discussion on Traditional Fiction). Shanghai: Shang-hai ch'u-pan kung-szu, 1955. Hu Shih tJI .i! . Chung-kuo chang-hui hsiao-shuo k'ao cheng 'f ~ $' liJ.J.'tll.. ~ tf: (Investigation of the Chinese chang-hui Fiction). Dairen: Shih-yeh yin-shu kuan, 1943. - - - - - - · "San-kuo chih yen-i hsu .!!-li'l ;t. )~ hlf (Preface to the San-kuo chih yen-1)." In Hu Shih wen-ts'un ;tlJ ~:t 4 (Collection of Hu Shih's Works). Shanghai: Oriental Book Company, 1929. Vol. VIII, pp. 219-231. Jen-an l1J.~. Chung-kuo li-tai hsiao-shuo chia '1' Jjl)!t ft ~· t;L.iStudy. of Ceramic Wares in Southeast• ASia'',· The Journal of the Institute of . Chinese Studies, Vol. II, No.2 (Hoqg Kqng : 1972), p. 33, #58-#59, shows tV~:O Qencharong pieces with Qianlong r(;!ign marks attributed to the Chaozhou kilns. · ·

23. Shiwan

·

·· .

·

· · · · · ·· · ·

W~r~;(~o~g.Ko~g; University of H~ngKong,: Fung Ping Shan M~seum, 1979), #71; p: 47. . . . : : . . . . .--

.

-

:

~

.

'

-

. .-

.

24. A. Silice and G. Groslier, "La Ceramique dans L'Ancien Cambodge (Essai D'Inventaire General)" Arts et Archeo/ogie Khmers, Vol. 2 (Paris: 1924-1926), p. 38. 25. Adhyatman, Sumarah, .Antiqu~ C(mimics Found in Indonesia (Jakarta : The Ceramic Society Indonesia, 1981), p. 168. 26. Rajanubhab, op. cit., p. 47.

~f

123

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Dating is very difficult. There are no records of importations and very few reign or shop marks. One way of dating is to compare the wares with other enameled ceramics produced in China. Since the reigns of the Thai kings of the early Chakri dynasty over-lapped two, and in one case three, reigns of Chinese emperors (Chart B), in some cases it is impossible to date a piece to a Thai reign. The following tentative dating by reign is mine, and I welcome corrections. I have worked within a framework of century dates provided by the National Museum, Bangkok. The earliest known piece with a Ming dynasty-1\.yutthaya period Wanli mark has been mentioned. Ayutthaya period wares are few. Recently, in a private collection, I have seen an indubitably Kangxi (Ayutthaya period) Thepanom ware covered jar of a shape found in the Kangxi reign, and with an empty double ring of underglaze blue on the base-- one of the Kangxi marks. Blue enamel forms part of its decoration (Fig. 57), and it is a rare piece. Overglaze blue enamel was experimentally employed in the WanH period, became part of the Kangxi famil/e verte palette, and increased in use thereafter. 27 On Bencharong, this is the earliest use of blue enamel I have found. The National Museum, Bangkok, has two pieces it dates 17th to 18th century Ayutthaya period (Figs. 36 and 40). These also would be from the Ka11gxi reign, 1662-1722. They have black backgrounds; red footrims; green interiors; Thepanom on red triangular, ogival backgrounds with demons or Norasinghs between; and fire patterns of iron-red. The enamels are famille verte -- green,. black, iron-red, dark and light yellow. There is no blue. The black is greenish -- one of five overglaze, rather than on-the-biscuit, blacks used in the Qing dynasty and described by Hobson. It is made by washing a transparent green over a brown-black derived from manganese.28 . Ayutthaya period borders are simple. The open-lotus motifof the green interior is composed of the water-lettuce-leaf, lai dok chQk, surrounded by bo~ders . ~Fig. 58) . . The Bangkok Museum has seven pieces it dates 18th century Ayutthaya period. Five are almost exact copies of Thepanom ware with Norasinghs and could be from either the Kangxi or Yongzheng period. The others, with white. backgrounds, red footrims, green interiors; and with rajasinghs on ogival medallions (Fig. 38) are probably Yongzheng, 1723-1735. These have blue in the pattern. Their thick; opaque, 27.

Hobson, op. cit., Vol. II, pp.

28. Ibid., pp. 229-230.

1~161.

124

Natalie V.Robinson

white enamel backgrounds also point to the Yongzheng period when a mat, arsenical white was much in use. 29 After Ayutthaya fell in 1767, General Taksin seized power, and the capital was moved South to Thonburi. Taksin became mentally deranged. He was killed and the capital re-established across the river at Bangkok. Rama I became the first king of the Chakri dynasty in 1782. The Transitional period, from King Taksin through King Rama I, 1767-1809, corresponded to the reigns of Qianlong, 1736-1795, and Jiaqing, 1796-1820, in ·China. Ayutthaya-type Thepanom wares were the principal imports to replace tablewares lost at Ayutthaya. On these, fire patterns change from iron-red to famille rose pinks, and black· backgrounds lose their greenish color and are possibly a famille rose black made by mixing manganese-black and copper-green together. 30 On some Transitional Thepanom wares, rhombs replace Norasinghs or demons, and on other ceramics become the sole motif (Fig. 59). A few pieces have turquoise interiors. Opaque turquoise interiors were popular in the Qianlong period and continued in the Jiaqing. 31 There are a few blue backgrounds and a few green footrims. The green footrims are probably the weak, runny European green introduced in the Qianlong reign and continued in the Jiaqing. 32 Many coarsely decorated pieces, some stoneware rather than porcelain, were made-- probably in provincial kilns (Figs. 14, 21 right, 30, and 60). The lotusblossom toh jar of Fig . 60 has Chinese style Thepanom, possibly because during a period of so many more pressing demands, Thai supervisors may not have been sent to the kilns with the orders. Wares of these types were not made after the reign of King Rama I. In the reign of King Rama I, 1782-1809, green interiors vanished, and a new kind of Thepanom ware appeared (Fig. 61). This has a white-glazed interior. Colors besides black, white, or blue are used as backgrounds. Thepanom are on double-pointed rather than triangular ogival medallions, often of colors other than red. Twisting· stems usually replace Chinese frre patterns, which when used are often of colors besides red and pink. 29. Michel Beurdeley, ·Chinese Trade Porcelain (Rutland, Vt. & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1969), p. 31. 30. Hobson, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 230. 31. Ibid., p. 238 and p. 262. 32. Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain (London: Faber & Faber, 1971), p. 67.

125

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Garudas and Thepanom on pointed medallions between freely drawn twistingstems, particularly when this combination is on an iron-red background, may indicate the early Riuna I reign coincident with the Qianlong period. Iron-red is a common background color of the Qianlong reign, 33 and this combination of motifs on ironred backgrounds appears only on wares dated 18th-19th century by the Museum. Meticulously drawn twisting stems (Figs. 17 and 62) may perhaps indicate ceramics from the latter part of the Rama I reign corresponding to the Jiaqing (17961820) period, which was noted for symmetrical, carefully drawn designs. Rama I center-l~tus motifs usually have no borders and are called lotus-star,

lai dao klip bua (Fig. 63). Rama I borders are more varied than Ayutthaya and Transitional period borders. The biggest importation of Sino-Thai wares was in the reign of Rama II, 1809-1824. His rule coincided with those of Jiaqing and Daoguang, 1821-1850. In Thailand, Rama II wares are considered to be the best. They employ more colors than before, these from the famille rose palette. On Thepanom wares, Thepanom are the sole motif or are separated by rhombs (Fig. 64). The lotus-blossom toh jar has disappeared, also the Norasingh. One kind of Lai Nam Thong with a Chinese flowers-and-birds pattern and a turquoise interior is called Thonburi or Taksin ware (Fig. 65). Since a number of these bear a Jiaqing mark, they must have appeared after King Taksin, probably in the reign of King ~ama II when most of the Lai Nam Thong was imported. New motifs to designate royal ceramics are figures from the Ramayana and dancing fairies (Fig. 33). There are many Chinese motifs, some on Bencharong but many more on Lai Nam Thong (Fig. 2). · Footrims have multicolor floral patterns. Center-lotus designs are either very elaborate lotus-stars or extremely simple phikul flowers (Fig. 66). Another new design, the lotus-seed-pod occurs in interiors and also on the tiers of toh jars (Fig. 67). King Rama III, 1824-1851, and Daoguang, 1821-1850, ruled almost simultaneously. During the Daoguang reign, the quality of many porcelains deteriorated in biscuit, enamels, and decoration, probably caused by lack of supervision in the kilns when Daoguang reduced imperial orders as an economy .34 ImpQrts of 33. Hobson, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 244. 34. H.A. Van Oort Chinese Porr:eloin of t/Je 19th and 20th Centuries, (The Netherlands : Uitgeversmaatschappij de Tijdstroom, B.V., Lochem, 1977), p. 18.

126

Natalie V.Robinson.

Sin0:-Thai war:es ·decreased ii:t Thailand after the· number of kilns at Jingdezhen shrank to a J:nere 500, res~lting in a loss of .half the population of the porcelain city. 35 Increased importation of European wares by Thailand also resulted in smaller orders of Sino-Thai wares. Bencharong, too, deteriorated in the Rama III period. Many patterns lack colored enamel backgrounds, as does the Thepanom ware covered bowl with a Daoguang mark·of.Fig. 68. The Bangkok Museuin has a stoneware Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with a Chinese-influenced iron-red floral design outlined in gold on the white glaze (Fig. 69). This pi~e has a Daoguang mark, With this as a precedent, I have put numerous other pieces with iron-red patterns outlined in gold on white glaze backgrounds into the Daogu~ng-:Rama III period. The Taiping Rebellion brought about the destruction of the kilns at Jingdezhen during t.he reign.of Rama IV, 1851-1868, and Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong were discontinued. Blue-and-.white ceramics with Thai patterns were imported, probably from provincial Chinese kilns. Since Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong were not available, Chinese blue-and-white was overpainted, or clobbered, with Thai patterns in Thailand (Fig. 70) . . Overpainting continued in the reign ofRama V, 1868-1910, as an avocation for noblemen. Blank forms (Fig. 71) were. also imported from China and Germany and painted in Thailand •.. .Kaolin and petuntse deposits had been found in Thailand, 36 and it was therefore possible· for the Thai .to make porcelain. The little stem plate of Fig. 72 is thought to have been made, painted, and fired in the Palace of the Second King, now the National Museum. Copies of Bencharong (especially stem plates) of heavy glazed or painted pottery were also made in Thailand in the Northeast pro:vinces in this reign. 37 King Rama V, who toured Europe, had teasets of Bencharong style made in France, and ordered .other teasets from China--:- the .famed Chakrj teasets. The· reign of KiQg Rama V overJapped those f Tongzhi, 1862-18.74, 35. Ibid., p. 23. Also Homer Eaton Keyes, "Centres of Manufacture and a Classification : "reprinted ·rroin' Antiques Magazine, Nov. 1928, Chinese Export Porcelain, an Historical Survey, edited by Elinor Gordon (New York: Universe Books, 1977), p. 23. 36. Rajanubhab, op. cit., p. 61 .. 37. Ibid., p. 61.

127

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Guangxu, 1875-1908, and Xuantong, 1909-1911. The kiins at Jingdezhen had been rebuilt under Tongzhi. Porcelain-making reviv~ in the reign of Guangx.u, and copies of earlier wares were made, including reproductions of Kangxi jamil/e noire. King Rama V sent orders for Bencharong and Lai Nam TIJ.ong, including those with famille noire backgrounds. Rama V Thepanom wares have very large Thepanom and rajasinghs (Fig; 73). Norasinghs reappear - but very large ones. Some designs are European. Toh jars are huge -- about 36 em. high. Many cups have handles - another European influence. Soft, weak enamel colors characteristic of Guangxu wares decorate other pieces. Importation of Sino-Thai wares canie to an end shortly after th~ death of King Rama V in 1910 and the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911.. Without imperial patronage,· manufacture of Chinese porcelain declined, and the export trade diminished. By this time, European porcelain trade had eclipsed that of the Chinese. Indian-derived shapes and patterns may be considered Thailand's contribution to Chinese export ceramics. These are unique and little known. The eclectic SinoThai wares, with the various influences they evidence, provide a :lively study and give a fascinating synopsis of the history of Thailand. There are still- many questions to be answered, and I hope that in time this will happen. I also hope that those with an Asian rather than a Western point of view will correct and augment what I offer here.

r,,

'

128 Natalie V.Robinson

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adhyatman, Sumarah. Antique Ceramics Found in Indonesia. Jakarta : The Ceramic Society. of Indonesia, 1981. Beurdeley, Michel. Chinese Trade Porcelain. Rutland, Vt., & · Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1969. Beurdeley, Michel and Cecile. Chinese Ceramics. London: Thames & Hudson, 1974. Brown, Roxanna. The Ceramics of South-East Asia. Kuala Lumpur : Oxford University Press, 1977. Bussabarger, Robert F. and Ropins, Betty Dashew, The Everyday Art of India. New York City: Dover Publications, Inc., 1968. Chakrabongse, H.R.H. Prince Chula. Lords of Life. London: Alvin Redman, Ltd., 1960. Chandavij, Bhujjong. "Chinese Ceramics in Thailand, "National Museum Bulletin, May-June, 1979. Taiwan : National Museum, Taipeh. Cheng Te-K'un, "The Study of Ceramic Wares in Southeast Asia", The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Vol. II, No. 2, Hong Kong; 1972. Chongkol, Chira. Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong. Bangkok : Department of Fine Arts, 1977. Crossman, Carl L. Chinese Export Porcelain. Salem, Mass. : The peabody Museum, 1969. Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 18, "Pottery and Porcdain"; Vol. 20, "Silversmiths' and Goldsmiths' Work". Chicago: William Benton, 1959. Fickle, Dorothy. A Glossary Used in the Arts of Thailand. Bangkok: National Museum Volunteers, 1974. Frasche, Dean< F. Southeast Asian Ceramics. New York City: The Asian Society, 1976. Garrett, John. A Classical Dictionary of India. Delhi : Oriental Publishers, 1975. Hartman, Simone. "Saleroom News", Arts of Asia. Hong Kong : Arts of Asia Publications, JulyAugust, 1976. Hobson, R.L. Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. from Cassell & Co., London, 1915.

New York: Dover Publications, 1976.

Reprinted

Jenyns, Soame. Later Chinese Porcelain. London : Faber & Faber, 1971. Keyes, Homer Eaton, "Centres of Manufacture and a Classification," reprinted from Antiques Magazine, Nov. 1928, Chinese Export Porcelain, ao Historical Survey, edited by Eimor Gordon (New York: Universe Books, 1977), p. 23. Khmer Ceramics, 9th-14th Century. Singapore: Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, 1981. Leach, Bernard. A Potter's Book. London: Faber & Faber, 1976. Legend and Reality. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977. Maury, Curt. Folk Origins of Indian Art. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1969. Medley, Margaret. The Chinese Potter. Oxford : Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1976. Miki, Sakae. The Sawankaloke Kiln in Siam. Tokyo: 1931. Rajanubhab, H.R.H. Prince Damrong. A History of Chinese Porcelain, in Thai, translated by Siwarn

129

Sino - Thai Ceramics Pochanyon. Bangkok : Prince Prida Commemorative Volume, 1917. Rawson, Philip. Ceramics. London : Oxford University Press, 1971. Refuge, B. Swankalok. Netherlands : De Tijdstroom, Lochem, 1976. Rowland, Benjamin. The Art and Architecture of India, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain. Penguin Books, Ltd., 1967.

Middlesex, UK :

Robinson, Natalie V. "Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong Ceramics" The Artistic Heritage of Thailand. Bangkok: Sawaddi Magazine and The National Museum Volunteers, 1979. - - - - - - - - "Indian Influences on Sino-Thai Ceramics", Arts of Asia. of Asia Publications, May-.June, 1981.

Hong Kong : Arts

- - - - - - - - Sino- Thai Ceramics in the National Museu"!, Bangkok, and in private collections. Bangkok : The Fine Arts Dept., 1982. Rosenfield, Clare S. "The Mythical Animal Statues at the Prasat Prathepphabidon", In Memoriam Phya Anuman Rajadhon. Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1970. Sheppard, Mubin. Taman lndera. Kuala Lumpur : Oxford University Press, 1972. Shiwan Wares. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Fung Ping Shan Museum, 1979. Silice, A. and Groslier, G. "La Ceramique dans L' Ancien Cambodge (Essai D'lnventaire General)", Arts Et Archeologie Khmers, Vol. 2. Paris: 1924-1926. Stutley, Margaret and James. A Dictionary of Hinduism-- Its Mytholo!:)', Folklore and Development, 1500-B.C.-A.D. 1500. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1977. Thewaphinimit, Phra. Thai Patterns. Bangkok : 1974. Van Oort, H.A. Chinese Porcelain of the 19th and 20th Centuries. smaatschappij de Tijdstroom B.V., Lochem, 1977.

The Netherlands : Uitgever-

Woodward, Hiram. The Art and Architecture of the Ayudhya Period. Bangkok : Fine Arts Department, 1971.

130

Natalie V.Robinson

ChartA CHINA Ming Period Chinese Emperors Hongwu

Jianwen Hongwu Yongle Hongxi Xuande Zhengtong Jingtai Tianshun Chenghua Hongihi ·zhengde Jiajing

Longqing Wanli

Taichang Tianqi Chongzhen Quing Period Shunzhi

THAILAND 1368 - 1644 Ayutthaya Period

1350- 1767

nai Kings 1368 - 1398 Ramathibodi I Ramesuan Boromachathirat I Thong Lan Ramesuan (2nd Reign) 1399- 1402 Ramachathirat 1402 1403- 1424 Nakhon Inthrathirat 1425 Boromrachathirat II 1426- 1435 1436- 1449 1450- 1456 Boromtrailokanat 1457- 1464 Wucai 1465- 1487 1488- 1505 Boromrachathirat III 1506 - 1521 Ramathibodi II 1522 - 1566 Boromrachathirat IV Ratsadathirat Kuman Chai Rachathirat Kaeo Fa (Yodfa) Mahachakraphat 1567- 1572 Mahinthrathirat 1573 - 1620 Mahathamaracha Naresuan the Gre~t Ekathosarot 1620 Chao-Fa Sisaowaphak 1621 - 1627 Song Tham 1628- 1644 Chetthathirat 1644 - 1911 Athitayawong 1644- 1661 Prasat Thong Chao-Fa Chai Si Suthamaracha

1350136913701388 13881395-

1369 1370 1388 1395 1409

1409- 1424 1424- 1448

1448- 1488

1488- 1491 1491- 1529 1529- 1533 1533- 1534 1534- 1546 1546- 1548 1548- 1568 1568- 1569 1569- 1590 1590- 1605 1605- 1620 1620 1620- 1628 1628- 1630 1630 1630- 1655 1655 1656

ILLUSTRATIONS

Tentative dating of all Sino- Thai wares by Natalie V. Ro binson

j

Fig. 1.

Bencharong covered bowls , H 1-r:- 14.1 em.; 12.2 em .; 8.6 em. Rama I, 1782-1809. National Museum, Bangkok; Dinorah Kranker (photographer).

Fig. 2.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl, H 16.4 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 3.

Sino-Thai covered bowl with Jataka motifs, H 9 em. Probably Rama III, 1824-1851. Jim Thompson House, Bangkok. Denis Robinson .

F ig. 4.

Sino- Thai toh jar with Chinese pattern, H 20.2 em. Probably Rama III, 1824-1851. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah -Kranker.

1

Fig. 5. Chinese blue- and-white depressed globular jar, H 19.5 em. 15th C . Early Ming dynasty. Found in Thailand. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 6.

Bencharong Thepanom were toh prik jar H 7.8 em. Transitional National period, 1767-1809. Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker.

Chinese blue- and- white stem plate with Chinese decoration and Thai shape, and with Jiajing reign mark, 1522-1566, H c. 5 em. Ming dynasty, 16th C. National Museum, Bangkok. Found in foundation of a Thai wat. Bhujjong Chandavij.

Fig. 8.

Bencharong stem plate, H 12.6 em .; W 28 em . Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 9.

Sawankhalok covered box of Indian reliquary urn shape, H 12.2 em. 15th • C. Private Collection. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 10.

Chinese underglaze-blue and overglaze-enameled box of Indian reliquary urn shape and with a Xuande reign mark, 1426-1435, H c. 13 em., but more probably Shunzhi, 1644-1661, National Museum, Bangkok. Found at dam site in Thailand. Bhujjong Chandavij.

Fig. II . Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar of Indian reliquary urn shape, H 12.1 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 12. Bencharong Thepanom ware bowl with Wanli reign mark, 1573 - 1619, H 9.5 em. Ming dynasty, 16th- 17th C. Pangkongchuen Collection , Bangkok. Bhujjong Chandavij.

Fig. 13 .

Bench arong toh jar of

Chinese shape, H 17 .8 em. Rama I, 1782-1809.

National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

..

Fig. 14. Bencharong toh jar of lotusblosso m shape, H c. 15 em . Transitional period , 1767- 1809. C hantara Kasem Palace Museum , Ay utt haya, Thailand, Denis Robinso n.

Fig. 15.

La i Nam Thong teapot wit h Chinese shape, H 8.2 em. Rama II , 1809- 1824. Nat ional Muscum , Bangkok. Dinora h Kranker.

Fig. 16.

Bencharong Thepanom ware spoons of Chinese shape. L c. 14 em. Rama II, 1809- 1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 17.

Bencharong Thepanom ware plate, W 18.6 em . Rama II, 1809-1824 (perhaps Jiaqing, 1796-1820). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 18.'furned stone Indian reliquary urn, H 11.5 em., n.d. National Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Fig. 20. Carved stone Indian reliquary urn with stupa- form cover, H 10 em. 2nd-3rd C. National Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Fig. 19. Thai blue-and-w hite · covered bo x of Indian reliquary urn shape, H 8 em. Modern. Private Collection . Denis Robinso n.

Fig. 21 . Left:- Cambodian Kulen-type urn with stupa-form cover, H 16.2 em., lOth- lith C. Friis Collection, Singapore. Right:- Bencharong toh jar with stupa-form cover, H 13.3 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. Private Collection. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 22.

Bencharong toh jar with stupa Fig. 23. on cover, H 28.2 em. Late Rama II, 1809-1824, or Rama Ill, 1824-1851. National Monica Museum, Bangkok. Lange.

Plaster copy of a 4th C. B.C. Indian reliquary urn with stupa on cover. H 16.5 em. National Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan.

·Fig. 24.

Kalasas on Shore Temple, 7th-8th C. Mamallapuram, S. India. Robinson.

Fig. 25. Bencharong Thepanom ware Fig. 26. toh jar, H 19.9 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum , Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Denis

Two Thai metal limepots, H 8.5 em.; 12.5 em., Possibly Ayutthaya period, 1350-1767. Friis Collection, Singapore. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 27.

Sa wa nkh a lok li mepo t , H 5 em. 15th C.

P ri va te Co ll ec ti on.

Deni s Ro bin so n .

Fig. 29.

13encharong

Thepanom

ware

toh p ri k ja r w ith C hi nese depr es~ed

glob ula r bod y and Incli a n

~ tupa - l'orm

cover, H 10.8 em .

Tran~itional

period , 1767-1809.

National

l\1u seum ,

13angkok .

Di nora h Kra nk er.

Fig. 28.

Lai Nam T ho ng to h pr ik jars, H 1-r: - 10.6 em .; 10.3 em.; 10. 1 em . Ra ma II, 1809- 1824 . Natio na l Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kra n ker.

Fig. 30.

Bencharong Thepanom ware spittoon , H c. 10 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. Chantara Kasem Palace M useum, Ayutthaya, Thailand. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 31.

P urn a kalasa at th e base of a Fig. 32. Cambodian pot, H 5.4 em. II th co lum n on a 16th C. ga teway, C. From Ban Kruat, Buriram Eka mb ara nath a Temp le, Co nProvince, Thailand. Private jeeveram, S. Indi a. Denis Collection. Denis Robinson. Robin son.

Fig. 33.

Bencharong spittoon with dancing fairies and singhakalas, H 13 .7 em . Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 34.

Chinese blue-and-white covered jar, H not recorded. Probably late Ming. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 35 .

Beneharong bowl with singhakalas, H 12.6 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 36.

Beneharong Thepanom ware bowl , H 9.1 em . 17th-18th C. Ayutthaya period (Kangxi, 1662-1722). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 37.

Garuda on Lai Nam Thong toh jar. Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Rama II , 1809-1824.

National

Fig. 38.

Bencharong bowl with rajasinghs, H 5.8 em . 18th C. Ayutthaya period (possibly Yongzhen, 1723-1735). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 39.

Yaksha on Bharhut stupa railing, Sunga dynasty, 2nd C. B.C. Calcutta Museum, India. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 40.

Bencharong Thepanom ware bowl with demons, H 8.3 em . 17th-18th C. Ayutthaya period. (Kangxi, 1662-1722) . National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 41.

Chaitya hall, Cave #26, 6th-7th C. Ajanta, India. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 42.

Bencharong Thepanom ware toh prik jars with ogival medallions. 1-r:- 10.8 em.; 7.8 em. National Museum, Bangkok. Monica Lange.

H

Fig. 43.

Puma ghata on Bharhut stupa railing, Sunga dynasty, 2nd C. B.C. Calcutta Museum, India. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 44.

Sino-Thai covered cup with Kinnaris, H 7.4 em. Perhaps Rama I, 17821809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 45.

Bencharong bowl with singhakalas, H 9.2 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 46 . Trellis-and-rice ball motif on Lai Nam Thong jar. H 22.5 em. Rama V, 1868-1910. National Museum , Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 47.

Trellis design on 17th- 18th C. textile. Jaipur Museum, India. Natalie V. Robinson.

Fig. 48.

Twisting-vine on 1st C. B.C. Roman Maison Carree, Nimes, France. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 49.

Lai Nam Thong octagonal Bowl, H 6.4 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 50.

Beneharong Thepanom ware covered bowl with twisting-stem motifs, H 9.9 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 51.

Sugar-cane-eyes on Buddhaisawan Temple, Bangkok. Rama I, 1782- 1809. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 52.

Sino-Thai blue-and- white toh jar with European influence. H 18.3 em . Rama IV, 1851-1868, or Rama V, 1868-1910. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 53.

Sino- Thai toh jars with butterflies-and-flowers pattern, a Chinese export pattern for the West, H 17 em. Rama II, 1809-1824, or Rama III, 18241851. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 54.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with Thai trellis-and-rice-ball design on exterior, Chinese Rose Canton design on interior, H 12.8 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

•

Fig. 55.

Interior of Fig. 54. Dinorah Kranker.

• •

Fig, 56.

Stoneware Iimepot with degraded Himaphan-forest-flowers decoration of Bencharong style found in Brunei, H 8.8 em . 18th-19th C. Private CoLlection. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 57. Porcelain Thepanom ware covered jar with blue enamel in the decorat ion. H 15.5 em. Ayutt haya period (Kangxi, 1662-1722) . Co llecti o n of His Excellency Sanan Plang-prayoon, former ,. Thai Ambassado r to

Fig . 59.

Fig. 58.

Interiors of Ayu tth aya period Natio na l Museum , bow ls. Bangkok. Mo ni ca La nge .

Bencharong bowl with rhomb pattern, H 7.4 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 60.

Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar, H c. 18 em . Transitional period, 1767-1809. Chantara Kasem Palace Museum, Ayutthaya, Thailand. Denis Robinson .

Fig. 61.

Red Bencharong Thepanom ware bowl, H 8.8 em. Rama I, 1782-1809 (possibly Qianlong, 1736-1795). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 62 .

Bencharong covered bowl with meticulously drawn twisting stem motif, H 10.2 em. Rama I, 1782-1809 (possibly Jiaqing, 1796-1820). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

F ig. 63 .

Lotus-star pattern in Rama I bowl. National Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker .

---

Fig. 64 .

Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar, H 23.3 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 65.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with Jiaqing mark, 1796-1820, H 11.7 em. Rama II, 1809-1 824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 66.

Phikul flower in center of Rama II bowl. Monica Lange.

National Museum, Bangkok .

Fig. 67.

Lotus-seed-pod motif in interior of Rama II toh jar. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 68.

Bencharong Thepanom ware covered bowl with designs painted on white glaze and with Daoguang reign mark, 1821-1850, H 14.2 em. Rama III, 1824- 1851. National Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 69.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with designs in iron-red and gold painted on white glaze and Daoguang reign mark, 1821-1850, H 12.9 em. Rama III, 1824-1851. National Museum,. Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 70.

On the footrim of this jar, a design in underglaze blue shows through the enamel overpainting. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 71.

Unpainted (blank) toh jar, probably Chinese, with metal mountings added in Thailand . H 20.6 em . Rama V, 1868-1910. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 72.

Lai Nam Thong stem plate thought to have been made in the Palace of the Second King , Bangkok. H 3.6 em.; W 9.4 em. Rama V, 1868-1910. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 73. Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar, H 35 .5cm.Rama V, I 868-1910. Private Collection . Dinorah Kranker.

131

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Chart B THAILAND

CHINA Qing Period

1644- 1911

Ayutthaya Period

1350- 1767

Kings

Emperors Kangxi

1662- 1722

Yongzheng Qianlong

1723- 1735 1736- 1795

Narai the Great Phra Phetaracha Phra Chao Sua Thai Sa Boromalcot Uthumphon SuriyatAmarin Fall of Ayutthaya to Burmese

165616881702170917321758 1758-

1688 1702 1709 1732 1758 1767 1767

Transitional Period Taksin

1767- 1782

Thonburi Capital Bangkok or Ratanakosin Period .Bangkok Capital

Jiaqing· Daoguang Xianfeng Tongzhi Guangxu .Xuantong

1796- 1820 1821- 1850 1851 - 1861 1862- 1874 1875- 1908 1909- 1911

Chakri Period

1782 - Present

Ramal

1782- 1809

Rama II Rama III Rama IV (Mongkut) RamaV (Chulalongkorn)

1809182418511868-

1824 1851 1868 191l>

113

Sino - Thai Ceramics Natalie V.Robinson Bencharong (Fig. 1) and Lai Nam Thong (Fig. 2) are the two main divisions of Sino-Thai ceramics, which are wares made in China to Thai specifications. The earliest Bencharong dates' from the late Ming period corresponding to the Ayutthaya period of Thailand, but most of it was made in the 18th and 19th centuries of the Qing period - the Bangkok or Ratanakosin period of Thailand. All Lai Nam Thong is 18th and 19th century. The word Bencharong comes from the Sanskrit panch, meaning five, and rong, meaning color. It is a type of wu_cai, or five-color overglaze-enameled ware, although colors on Bencharong often number more or fewer than five. At first Bencharong was made only for Thai royalty, but as time went on, it became available to others, usually nobles or those of the upper classes. Overglaze enamels were painted on previously fired glazed porcelains or stonewares, then fired again in a low-temperature muffle kiln in an oxidizing atmosphere. The enamels contained lead, which melted at a low temperature and fused them to the glaze. 1 Lai Nam Thong means gold-washed patterns. On these wares, gold may appear as a background, as outlines, or as accents on the motifs. Only the Thai put gold-decorated pieces into a separate classification, perhaps because they were always royal wares, 2 and perhaps because gold leaf is used as a votive offering in Thai temples. Gold-decorated wares were fired in a muffle kiln in an oxidizing atmosphere. In the Qing dynasty, gold dust was mixed with iron-red enamel and gum arabic and frred at about 800°C. The gold was added last, after the glaze and enamels had been frred, and fired once more. 3 Therefore glazed porcelain with both enamel and gold decorations required at least three firings. This made them too expensive for the common people. 1. R.L. Hobson, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain (New York: Dover Publications, 1976; reprinted from Cassell and Company, UK, 1915), Vol. II, pp. 100-101. 2. Chira Chongkol, Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong (Bangkok: Department of Fine Arts, 1977), First page of text. 3. Bernard Leach, A Potter's Book (London: Faber & Faber, 1976), p. 246. Also Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: William Benton, 1959), Vol. 18, "Pottery and porcelain," p. 340.

114

Natalie V.Robinson

There is also a third, and much smaller, group of Sino-Thai ceramics which is neither Bencharong nor Lai Nam Thong. These usually have predominatly Chinese characteristics, but in addition have designs or shapes which modify them for the Thai trade. They are decorated in overglaze enamels and occasionally in underglaze blue (Fig. 52). A covered bowl (Fig. 3) combines Chinese sea and landscape elements and asymmetrical Chinese decoration with a Thai Jataka story of the rescue of the incarnated Buddha-to-be from the sea. A covered jar (Fig. 4) has a Thai shape but is enameled with Chinese asymmetrical landscapes. The first question concerning Sino-Thai wares is:- Did they suddenly appear, or did they evolve from earlier wares? Let us go back in time and look for precedents. In the Sukhothai period of Thai history, which began around 1220, relationships were established with China, and gifts were exchanged. China regarded these as tributary and claimed suzerainty over Thailand, but without ever exerting any political control. The Thai never considered that they were vassal to China and regarded the gifts merely as a means to secure friendship and trading privileges. Nonetheless, there were Thai tributary missions to China and exchanges of gifts which assured trade for the Thai in China. The missions continued until1863 when Tongzhi . d.m Ch'ma. 4 re1gne In the 14th to 15th century corresponding to the Ming period in China, kilns established at Sukhothai and Sawankhalok in Northern Thailand produced and exported stonewares showing Chinese influence, although it is not known whether the potters actually came from China. One kind of ware made at the Sawankhalok kilns was a depressed globular jar of Chinese origin but manufactured in enough quantity in the Thai kilns that it could be considered a preferred Thai shape. The Sawankhalok jar is shaped like the early Ming 15th century Chinese jar of Fig. 5, which was found in Thailand. This globular shape often occurs in the later SinoThai ceramics (Fig. 6). A blue-and-white stem plate with a Jiajing mark, 1522-1566, was excavated from the foundation of a wat in Northern Thailand (Fig. 7). This type of stem plate with a low pedestal, shallow cavetto, and foliated rim is the most prevalent shape of Sino-Thai stem plates (Fig. 8) -- another example of an early Chinese import to Thai preference which reappeared as a Sino-Thai shape. 4. H.R.H. Prince Chula Chakrabongse, Lords of Life (London : Alvin Redman, 1967), pp. 24-25; 100 ; 202-203.

115

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Many covered boxes of Indian reliquary urn shape were produced at the Sawankhalok kilns (Fig. 9). While earth was being removed for a dam in Central Thailand, an underglaze-blue and over-glaze-enamel box with a reliquary urn shape and a Xuande mark, 1426-1435, was discovered (Fig. 10), but it more probably dates from Shunzhi, 1644-1661. This shape occurs more frequently in Sawankhalok than in Chinese wares. The Chinese piece could be one made in China to Thai taste. The shape appears again in 18th to 19th century Qing dynasty Bencharong (Fig. 11). Export of wares for the Thai market continued in the early Qing dynasty corresponding to the late Ayutthaya period. A Kangxi covered jar, 1662-1722, illustrated in Arts of Asia (July-August, 1976, p. 87) again has a depressed globular shape. Its pattern is not Chinese, as on the previous Chinese imports, but Thai, in underglaze-blue. It is therefore evident that some blue-and-white ceramics with shapes appealing to the Thai were imported from the 15th century, and Thai shapes in blue-and-white with enamels from the 17th century, and that Thai patterns in underglaze-blue were made in China by the 17th to 18th century. However, it is not at all clear when wholly enameled wares with Thai designs were first imported. Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, Thailand's frrst art historian, believed that Bencharong importation began in the reign of King Boromrachathirat I, 1370-1388. 5 This date is too early because wucai enameling: started in the reign of Chenghua, 1465-1487.6 Sakae Miki, a Japanese ceramist, suggests that the first Bencharong arrived between the reigns of Jiajing and Wanli, which is probable. 7 (See Chart A.)

The earliest Bencharong yet discovered is a bowl with a Wanli mark, 15731620 (Fig. 12). There seems no reason to doubt the authenticity of the mark, because it is on an export bowl with a Thai design little thought of by the Chinese, and would therefore not have been made with intent to deceive. The colors-- tomato-red, yellow, green, dark and light aubergine, and turquoise-- conform to the Wanli wucai palette. Perhaps the bowl was not an order from a Thai king, conceivably Naresuan the Great, but a gift to him from Emperor Wanli. The reign mark, infrequently found on SinStudy. of Ceramic Wares in Southeast• ASia'',· The Journal of the Institute of . Chinese Studies, Vol. II, No.2 (Hoqg Kqng : 1972), p. 33, #58-#59, shows tV~:O Qencharong pieces with Qianlong r(;!ign marks attributed to the Chaozhou kilns. · ·

23. Shiwan

·

·· .

·

· · · · · ·· · ·

W~r~;(~o~g.Ko~g; University of H~ngKong,: Fung Ping Shan M~seum, 1979), #71; p: 47. . . . : : . . . . .--

.

-

:

~

.

'

-

. .-

.

24. A. Silice and G. Groslier, "La Ceramique dans L'Ancien Cambodge (Essai D'Inventaire General)" Arts et Archeo/ogie Khmers, Vol. 2 (Paris: 1924-1926), p. 38. 25. Adhyatman, Sumarah, .Antiqu~ C(mimics Found in Indonesia (Jakarta : The Ceramic Society Indonesia, 1981), p. 168. 26. Rajanubhab, op. cit., p. 47.

~f

123

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Dating is very difficult. There are no records of importations and very few reign or shop marks. One way of dating is to compare the wares with other enameled ceramics produced in China. Since the reigns of the Thai kings of the early Chakri dynasty over-lapped two, and in one case three, reigns of Chinese emperors (Chart B), in some cases it is impossible to date a piece to a Thai reign. The following tentative dating by reign is mine, and I welcome corrections. I have worked within a framework of century dates provided by the National Museum, Bangkok. The earliest known piece with a Ming dynasty-1\.yutthaya period Wanli mark has been mentioned. Ayutthaya period wares are few. Recently, in a private collection, I have seen an indubitably Kangxi (Ayutthaya period) Thepanom ware covered jar of a shape found in the Kangxi reign, and with an empty double ring of underglaze blue on the base-- one of the Kangxi marks. Blue enamel forms part of its decoration (Fig. 57), and it is a rare piece. Overglaze blue enamel was experimentally employed in the WanH period, became part of the Kangxi famil/e verte palette, and increased in use thereafter. 27 On Bencharong, this is the earliest use of blue enamel I have found. The National Museum, Bangkok, has two pieces it dates 17th to 18th century Ayutthaya period (Figs. 36 and 40). These also would be from the Ka11gxi reign, 1662-1722. They have black backgrounds; red footrims; green interiors; Thepanom on red triangular, ogival backgrounds with demons or Norasinghs between; and fire patterns of iron-red. The enamels are famille verte -- green,. black, iron-red, dark and light yellow. There is no blue. The black is greenish -- one of five overglaze, rather than on-the-biscuit, blacks used in the Qing dynasty and described by Hobson. It is made by washing a transparent green over a brown-black derived from manganese.28 . Ayutthaya period borders are simple. The open-lotus motifof the green interior is composed of the water-lettuce-leaf, lai dok chQk, surrounded by bo~ders . ~Fig. 58) . . The Bangkok Museum has seven pieces it dates 18th century Ayutthaya period. Five are almost exact copies of Thepanom ware with Norasinghs and could be from either the Kangxi or Yongzheng period. The others, with white. backgrounds, red footrims, green interiors; and with rajasinghs on ogival medallions (Fig. 38) are probably Yongzheng, 1723-1735. These have blue in the pattern. Their thick; opaque, 27.

Hobson, op. cit., Vol. II, pp.

28. Ibid., pp. 229-230.

1~161.

124

Natalie V.Robinson

white enamel backgrounds also point to the Yongzheng period when a mat, arsenical white was much in use. 29 After Ayutthaya fell in 1767, General Taksin seized power, and the capital was moved South to Thonburi. Taksin became mentally deranged. He was killed and the capital re-established across the river at Bangkok. Rama I became the first king of the Chakri dynasty in 1782. The Transitional period, from King Taksin through King Rama I, 1767-1809, corresponded to the reigns of Qianlong, 1736-1795, and Jiaqing, 1796-1820, in ·China. Ayutthaya-type Thepanom wares were the principal imports to replace tablewares lost at Ayutthaya. On these, fire patterns change from iron-red to famille rose pinks, and black· backgrounds lose their greenish color and are possibly a famille rose black made by mixing manganese-black and copper-green together. 30 On some Transitional Thepanom wares, rhombs replace Norasinghs or demons, and on other ceramics become the sole motif (Fig. 59). A few pieces have turquoise interiors. Opaque turquoise interiors were popular in the Qianlong period and continued in the Jiaqing. 31 There are a few blue backgrounds and a few green footrims. The green footrims are probably the weak, runny European green introduced in the Qianlong reign and continued in the Jiaqing. 32 Many coarsely decorated pieces, some stoneware rather than porcelain, were made-- probably in provincial kilns (Figs. 14, 21 right, 30, and 60). The lotusblossom toh jar of Fig . 60 has Chinese style Thepanom, possibly because during a period of so many more pressing demands, Thai supervisors may not have been sent to the kilns with the orders. Wares of these types were not made after the reign of King Rama I. In the reign of King Rama I, 1782-1809, green interiors vanished, and a new kind of Thepanom ware appeared (Fig. 61). This has a white-glazed interior. Colors besides black, white, or blue are used as backgrounds. Thepanom are on double-pointed rather than triangular ogival medallions, often of colors other than red. Twisting· stems usually replace Chinese frre patterns, which when used are often of colors besides red and pink. 29. Michel Beurdeley, ·Chinese Trade Porcelain (Rutland, Vt. & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1969), p. 31. 30. Hobson, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 230. 31. Ibid., p. 238 and p. 262. 32. Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain (London: Faber & Faber, 1971), p. 67.

125

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Garudas and Thepanom on pointed medallions between freely drawn twistingstems, particularly when this combination is on an iron-red background, may indicate the early Riuna I reign coincident with the Qianlong period. Iron-red is a common background color of the Qianlong reign, 33 and this combination of motifs on ironred backgrounds appears only on wares dated 18th-19th century by the Museum. Meticulously drawn twisting stems (Figs. 17 and 62) may perhaps indicate ceramics from the latter part of the Rama I reign corresponding to the Jiaqing (17961820) period, which was noted for symmetrical, carefully drawn designs. Rama I center-l~tus motifs usually have no borders and are called lotus-star,

lai dao klip bua (Fig. 63). Rama I borders are more varied than Ayutthaya and Transitional period borders. The biggest importation of Sino-Thai wares was in the reign of Rama II, 1809-1824. His rule coincided with those of Jiaqing and Daoguang, 1821-1850. In Thailand, Rama II wares are considered to be the best. They employ more colors than before, these from the famille rose palette. On Thepanom wares, Thepanom are the sole motif or are separated by rhombs (Fig. 64). The lotus-blossom toh jar has disappeared, also the Norasingh. One kind of Lai Nam Thong with a Chinese flowers-and-birds pattern and a turquoise interior is called Thonburi or Taksin ware (Fig. 65). Since a number of these bear a Jiaqing mark, they must have appeared after King Taksin, probably in the reign of King ~ama II when most of the Lai Nam Thong was imported. New motifs to designate royal ceramics are figures from the Ramayana and dancing fairies (Fig. 33). There are many Chinese motifs, some on Bencharong but many more on Lai Nam Thong (Fig. 2). · Footrims have multicolor floral patterns. Center-lotus designs are either very elaborate lotus-stars or extremely simple phikul flowers (Fig. 66). Another new design, the lotus-seed-pod occurs in interiors and also on the tiers of toh jars (Fig. 67). King Rama III, 1824-1851, and Daoguang, 1821-1850, ruled almost simultaneously. During the Daoguang reign, the quality of many porcelains deteriorated in biscuit, enamels, and decoration, probably caused by lack of supervision in the kilns when Daoguang reduced imperial orders as an economy .34 ImpQrts of 33. Hobson, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 244. 34. H.A. Van Oort Chinese Porr:eloin of t/Je 19th and 20th Centuries, (The Netherlands : Uitgeversmaatschappij de Tijdstroom, B.V., Lochem, 1977), p. 18.

126

Natalie V.Robinson.

Sin0:-Thai war:es ·decreased ii:t Thailand after the· number of kilns at Jingdezhen shrank to a J:nere 500, res~lting in a loss of .half the population of the porcelain city. 35 Increased importation of European wares by Thailand also resulted in smaller orders of Sino-Thai wares. Bencharong, too, deteriorated in the Rama III period. Many patterns lack colored enamel backgrounds, as does the Thepanom ware covered bowl with a Daoguang mark·of.Fig. 68. The Bangkok Museuin has a stoneware Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with a Chinese-influenced iron-red floral design outlined in gold on the white glaze (Fig. 69). This pi~e has a Daoguang mark, With this as a precedent, I have put numerous other pieces with iron-red patterns outlined in gold on white glaze backgrounds into the Daogu~ng-:Rama III period. The Taiping Rebellion brought about the destruction of the kilns at Jingdezhen during t.he reign.of Rama IV, 1851-1868, and Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong were discontinued. Blue-and-.white ceramics with Thai patterns were imported, probably from provincial Chinese kilns. Since Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong were not available, Chinese blue-and-white was overpainted, or clobbered, with Thai patterns in Thailand (Fig. 70) . . Overpainting continued in the reign ofRama V, 1868-1910, as an avocation for noblemen. Blank forms (Fig. 71) were. also imported from China and Germany and painted in Thailand •.. .Kaolin and petuntse deposits had been found in Thailand, 36 and it was therefore possible· for the Thai .to make porcelain. The little stem plate of Fig. 72 is thought to have been made, painted, and fired in the Palace of the Second King, now the National Museum. Copies of Bencharong (especially stem plates) of heavy glazed or painted pottery were also made in Thailand in the Northeast pro:vinces in this reign. 37 King Rama V, who toured Europe, had teasets of Bencharong style made in France, and ordered .other teasets from China--:- the .famed Chakrj teasets. The· reign of KiQg Rama V overJapped those f Tongzhi, 1862-18.74, 35. Ibid., p. 23. Also Homer Eaton Keyes, "Centres of Manufacture and a Classification : "reprinted ·rroin' Antiques Magazine, Nov. 1928, Chinese Export Porcelain, an Historical Survey, edited by Elinor Gordon (New York: Universe Books, 1977), p. 23. 36. Rajanubhab, op. cit., p. 61 .. 37. Ibid., p. 61.

127

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Guangxu, 1875-1908, and Xuantong, 1909-1911. The kiins at Jingdezhen had been rebuilt under Tongzhi. Porcelain-making reviv~ in the reign of Guangx.u, and copies of earlier wares were made, including reproductions of Kangxi jamil/e noire. King Rama V sent orders for Bencharong and Lai Nam TIJ.ong, including those with famille noire backgrounds. Rama V Thepanom wares have very large Thepanom and rajasinghs (Fig; 73). Norasinghs reappear - but very large ones. Some designs are European. Toh jars are huge -- about 36 em. high. Many cups have handles - another European influence. Soft, weak enamel colors characteristic of Guangxu wares decorate other pieces. Importation of Sino-Thai wares canie to an end shortly after th~ death of King Rama V in 1910 and the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911.. Without imperial patronage,· manufacture of Chinese porcelain declined, and the export trade diminished. By this time, European porcelain trade had eclipsed that of the Chinese. Indian-derived shapes and patterns may be considered Thailand's contribution to Chinese export ceramics. These are unique and little known. The eclectic SinoThai wares, with the various influences they evidence, provide a :lively study and give a fascinating synopsis of the history of Thailand. There are still- many questions to be answered, and I hope that in time this will happen. I also hope that those with an Asian rather than a Western point of view will correct and augment what I offer here.

r,,

'

128 Natalie V.Robinson

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adhyatman, Sumarah. Antique Ceramics Found in Indonesia. Jakarta : The Ceramic Society. of Indonesia, 1981. Beurdeley, Michel. Chinese Trade Porcelain. Rutland, Vt., & · Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1969. Beurdeley, Michel and Cecile. Chinese Ceramics. London: Thames & Hudson, 1974. Brown, Roxanna. The Ceramics of South-East Asia. Kuala Lumpur : Oxford University Press, 1977. Bussabarger, Robert F. and Ropins, Betty Dashew, The Everyday Art of India. New York City: Dover Publications, Inc., 1968. Chakrabongse, H.R.H. Prince Chula. Lords of Life. London: Alvin Redman, Ltd., 1960. Chandavij, Bhujjong. "Chinese Ceramics in Thailand, "National Museum Bulletin, May-June, 1979. Taiwan : National Museum, Taipeh. Cheng Te-K'un, "The Study of Ceramic Wares in Southeast Asia", The Journal of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Vol. II, No. 2, Hong Kong; 1972. Chongkol, Chira. Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong. Bangkok : Department of Fine Arts, 1977. Crossman, Carl L. Chinese Export Porcelain. Salem, Mass. : The peabody Museum, 1969. Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 18, "Pottery and Porcdain"; Vol. 20, "Silversmiths' and Goldsmiths' Work". Chicago: William Benton, 1959. Fickle, Dorothy. A Glossary Used in the Arts of Thailand. Bangkok: National Museum Volunteers, 1974. Frasche, Dean< F. Southeast Asian Ceramics. New York City: The Asian Society, 1976. Garrett, John. A Classical Dictionary of India. Delhi : Oriental Publishers, 1975. Hartman, Simone. "Saleroom News", Arts of Asia. Hong Kong : Arts of Asia Publications, JulyAugust, 1976. Hobson, R.L. Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. from Cassell & Co., London, 1915.

New York: Dover Publications, 1976.

Reprinted

Jenyns, Soame. Later Chinese Porcelain. London : Faber & Faber, 1971. Keyes, Homer Eaton, "Centres of Manufacture and a Classification," reprinted from Antiques Magazine, Nov. 1928, Chinese Export Porcelain, ao Historical Survey, edited by Eimor Gordon (New York: Universe Books, 1977), p. 23. Khmer Ceramics, 9th-14th Century. Singapore: Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, 1981. Leach, Bernard. A Potter's Book. London: Faber & Faber, 1976. Legend and Reality. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977. Maury, Curt. Folk Origins of Indian Art. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1969. Medley, Margaret. The Chinese Potter. Oxford : Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1976. Miki, Sakae. The Sawankaloke Kiln in Siam. Tokyo: 1931. Rajanubhab, H.R.H. Prince Damrong. A History of Chinese Porcelain, in Thai, translated by Siwarn

129

Sino - Thai Ceramics Pochanyon. Bangkok : Prince Prida Commemorative Volume, 1917. Rawson, Philip. Ceramics. London : Oxford University Press, 1971. Refuge, B. Swankalok. Netherlands : De Tijdstroom, Lochem, 1976. Rowland, Benjamin. The Art and Architecture of India, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain. Penguin Books, Ltd., 1967.

Middlesex, UK :

Robinson, Natalie V. "Bencharong and Lai Nam Thong Ceramics" The Artistic Heritage of Thailand. Bangkok: Sawaddi Magazine and The National Museum Volunteers, 1979. - - - - - - - - "Indian Influences on Sino-Thai Ceramics", Arts of Asia. of Asia Publications, May-.June, 1981.

Hong Kong : Arts

- - - - - - - - Sino- Thai Ceramics in the National Museu"!, Bangkok, and in private collections. Bangkok : The Fine Arts Dept., 1982. Rosenfield, Clare S. "The Mythical Animal Statues at the Prasat Prathepphabidon", In Memoriam Phya Anuman Rajadhon. Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1970. Sheppard, Mubin. Taman lndera. Kuala Lumpur : Oxford University Press, 1972. Shiwan Wares. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Fung Ping Shan Museum, 1979. Silice, A. and Groslier, G. "La Ceramique dans L' Ancien Cambodge (Essai D'lnventaire General)", Arts Et Archeologie Khmers, Vol. 2. Paris: 1924-1926. Stutley, Margaret and James. A Dictionary of Hinduism-- Its Mytholo!:)', Folklore and Development, 1500-B.C.-A.D. 1500. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1977. Thewaphinimit, Phra. Thai Patterns. Bangkok : 1974. Van Oort, H.A. Chinese Porcelain of the 19th and 20th Centuries. smaatschappij de Tijdstroom B.V., Lochem, 1977.

The Netherlands : Uitgever-

Woodward, Hiram. The Art and Architecture of the Ayudhya Period. Bangkok : Fine Arts Department, 1971.

130

Natalie V.Robinson

ChartA CHINA Ming Period Chinese Emperors Hongwu

Jianwen Hongwu Yongle Hongxi Xuande Zhengtong Jingtai Tianshun Chenghua Hongihi ·zhengde Jiajing

Longqing Wanli

Taichang Tianqi Chongzhen Quing Period Shunzhi

THAILAND 1368 - 1644 Ayutthaya Period

1350- 1767

nai Kings 1368 - 1398 Ramathibodi I Ramesuan Boromachathirat I Thong Lan Ramesuan (2nd Reign) 1399- 1402 Ramachathirat 1402 1403- 1424 Nakhon Inthrathirat 1425 Boromrachathirat II 1426- 1435 1436- 1449 1450- 1456 Boromtrailokanat 1457- 1464 Wucai 1465- 1487 1488- 1505 Boromrachathirat III 1506 - 1521 Ramathibodi II 1522 - 1566 Boromrachathirat IV Ratsadathirat Kuman Chai Rachathirat Kaeo Fa (Yodfa) Mahachakraphat 1567- 1572 Mahinthrathirat 1573 - 1620 Mahathamaracha Naresuan the Gre~t Ekathosarot 1620 Chao-Fa Sisaowaphak 1621 - 1627 Song Tham 1628- 1644 Chetthathirat 1644 - 1911 Athitayawong 1644- 1661 Prasat Thong Chao-Fa Chai Si Suthamaracha

1350136913701388 13881395-

1369 1370 1388 1395 1409

1409- 1424 1424- 1448

1448- 1488

1488- 1491 1491- 1529 1529- 1533 1533- 1534 1534- 1546 1546- 1548 1548- 1568 1568- 1569 1569- 1590 1590- 1605 1605- 1620 1620 1620- 1628 1628- 1630 1630 1630- 1655 1655 1656

ILLUSTRATIONS

Tentative dating of all Sino- Thai wares by Natalie V. Ro binson

j

Fig. 1.

Bencharong covered bowls , H 1-r:- 14.1 em.; 12.2 em .; 8.6 em. Rama I, 1782-1809. National Museum, Bangkok; Dinorah Kranker (photographer).

Fig. 2.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl, H 16.4 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 3.

Sino-Thai covered bowl with Jataka motifs, H 9 em. Probably Rama III, 1824-1851. Jim Thompson House, Bangkok. Denis Robinson .

F ig. 4.

Sino- Thai toh jar with Chinese pattern, H 20.2 em. Probably Rama III, 1824-1851. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah -Kranker.

1

Fig. 5. Chinese blue- and-white depressed globular jar, H 19.5 em. 15th C . Early Ming dynasty. Found in Thailand. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 6.

Bencharong Thepanom were toh prik jar H 7.8 em. Transitional National period, 1767-1809. Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker.

Chinese blue- and- white stem plate with Chinese decoration and Thai shape, and with Jiajing reign mark, 1522-1566, H c. 5 em. Ming dynasty, 16th C. National Museum, Bangkok. Found in foundation of a Thai wat. Bhujjong Chandavij.

Fig. 8.

Bencharong stem plate, H 12.6 em .; W 28 em . Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 9.

Sawankhalok covered box of Indian reliquary urn shape, H 12.2 em. 15th • C. Private Collection. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 10.

Chinese underglaze-blue and overglaze-enameled box of Indian reliquary urn shape and with a Xuande reign mark, 1426-1435, H c. 13 em., but more probably Shunzhi, 1644-1661, National Museum, Bangkok. Found at dam site in Thailand. Bhujjong Chandavij.

Fig. II . Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar of Indian reliquary urn shape, H 12.1 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 12. Bencharong Thepanom ware bowl with Wanli reign mark, 1573 - 1619, H 9.5 em. Ming dynasty, 16th- 17th C. Pangkongchuen Collection , Bangkok. Bhujjong Chandavij.

Fig. 13 .

Bench arong toh jar of

Chinese shape, H 17 .8 em. Rama I, 1782-1809.

National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

..

Fig. 14. Bencharong toh jar of lotusblosso m shape, H c. 15 em . Transitional period , 1767- 1809. C hantara Kasem Palace Museum , Ay utt haya, Thailand, Denis Robinso n.

Fig. 15.

La i Nam Thong teapot wit h Chinese shape, H 8.2 em. Rama II , 1809- 1824. Nat ional Muscum , Bangkok. Dinora h Kranker.

Fig. 16.

Bencharong Thepanom ware spoons of Chinese shape. L c. 14 em. Rama II, 1809- 1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 17.

Bencharong Thepanom ware plate, W 18.6 em . Rama II, 1809-1824 (perhaps Jiaqing, 1796-1820). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 18.'furned stone Indian reliquary urn, H 11.5 em., n.d. National Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Fig. 20. Carved stone Indian reliquary urn with stupa- form cover, H 10 em. 2nd-3rd C. National Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Fig. 19. Thai blue-and-w hite · covered bo x of Indian reliquary urn shape, H 8 em. Modern. Private Collection . Denis Robinso n.

Fig. 21 . Left:- Cambodian Kulen-type urn with stupa-form cover, H 16.2 em., lOth- lith C. Friis Collection, Singapore. Right:- Bencharong toh jar with stupa-form cover, H 13.3 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. Private Collection. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 22.

Bencharong toh jar with stupa Fig. 23. on cover, H 28.2 em. Late Rama II, 1809-1824, or Rama Ill, 1824-1851. National Monica Museum, Bangkok. Lange.

Plaster copy of a 4th C. B.C. Indian reliquary urn with stupa on cover. H 16.5 em. National Museum, Peshawar, Pakistan.

·Fig. 24.

Kalasas on Shore Temple, 7th-8th C. Mamallapuram, S. India. Robinson.

Fig. 25. Bencharong Thepanom ware Fig. 26. toh jar, H 19.9 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum , Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Denis

Two Thai metal limepots, H 8.5 em.; 12.5 em., Possibly Ayutthaya period, 1350-1767. Friis Collection, Singapore. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 27.

Sa wa nkh a lok li mepo t , H 5 em. 15th C.

P ri va te Co ll ec ti on.

Deni s Ro bin so n .

Fig. 29.

13encharong

Thepanom

ware

toh p ri k ja r w ith C hi nese depr es~ed

glob ula r bod y and Incli a n

~ tupa - l'orm

cover, H 10.8 em .

Tran~itional

period , 1767-1809.

National

l\1u seum ,

13angkok .

Di nora h Kra nk er.

Fig. 28.

Lai Nam T ho ng to h pr ik jars, H 1-r: - 10.6 em .; 10.3 em.; 10. 1 em . Ra ma II, 1809- 1824 . Natio na l Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kra n ker.

Fig. 30.

Bencharong Thepanom ware spittoon , H c. 10 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. Chantara Kasem Palace M useum, Ayutthaya, Thailand. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 31.

P urn a kalasa at th e base of a Fig. 32. Cambodian pot, H 5.4 em. II th co lum n on a 16th C. ga teway, C. From Ban Kruat, Buriram Eka mb ara nath a Temp le, Co nProvince, Thailand. Private jeeveram, S. Indi a. Denis Collection. Denis Robinson. Robin son.

Fig. 33.

Bencharong spittoon with dancing fairies and singhakalas, H 13 .7 em . Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 34.

Chinese blue-and-white covered jar, H not recorded. Probably late Ming. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 35 .

Beneharong bowl with singhakalas, H 12.6 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 36.

Beneharong Thepanom ware bowl , H 9.1 em . 17th-18th C. Ayutthaya period (Kangxi, 1662-1722). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 37.

Garuda on Lai Nam Thong toh jar. Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Rama II , 1809-1824.

National

Fig. 38.

Bencharong bowl with rajasinghs, H 5.8 em . 18th C. Ayutthaya period (possibly Yongzhen, 1723-1735). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 39.

Yaksha on Bharhut stupa railing, Sunga dynasty, 2nd C. B.C. Calcutta Museum, India. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 40.

Bencharong Thepanom ware bowl with demons, H 8.3 em . 17th-18th C. Ayutthaya period. (Kangxi, 1662-1722) . National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 41.

Chaitya hall, Cave #26, 6th-7th C. Ajanta, India. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 42.

Bencharong Thepanom ware toh prik jars with ogival medallions. 1-r:- 10.8 em.; 7.8 em. National Museum, Bangkok. Monica Lange.

H

Fig. 43.

Puma ghata on Bharhut stupa railing, Sunga dynasty, 2nd C. B.C. Calcutta Museum, India. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 44.

Sino-Thai covered cup with Kinnaris, H 7.4 em. Perhaps Rama I, 17821809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 45.

Bencharong bowl with singhakalas, H 9.2 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 46 . Trellis-and-rice ball motif on Lai Nam Thong jar. H 22.5 em. Rama V, 1868-1910. National Museum , Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 47.

Trellis design on 17th- 18th C. textile. Jaipur Museum, India. Natalie V. Robinson.

Fig. 48.

Twisting-vine on 1st C. B.C. Roman Maison Carree, Nimes, France. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 49.

Lai Nam Thong octagonal Bowl, H 6.4 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 50.

Beneharong Thepanom ware covered bowl with twisting-stem motifs, H 9.9 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 51.

Sugar-cane-eyes on Buddhaisawan Temple, Bangkok. Rama I, 1782- 1809. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 52.

Sino-Thai blue-and- white toh jar with European influence. H 18.3 em . Rama IV, 1851-1868, or Rama V, 1868-1910. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 53.

Sino- Thai toh jars with butterflies-and-flowers pattern, a Chinese export pattern for the West, H 17 em. Rama II, 1809-1824, or Rama III, 18241851. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 54.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with Thai trellis-and-rice-ball design on exterior, Chinese Rose Canton design on interior, H 12.8 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

•

Fig. 55.

Interior of Fig. 54. Dinorah Kranker.

• •

Fig, 56.

Stoneware Iimepot with degraded Himaphan-forest-flowers decoration of Bencharong style found in Brunei, H 8.8 em . 18th-19th C. Private CoLlection. Denis Robinson.

Fig. 57. Porcelain Thepanom ware covered jar with blue enamel in the decorat ion. H 15.5 em. Ayutt haya period (Kangxi, 1662-1722) . Co llecti o n of His Excellency Sanan Plang-prayoon, former ,. Thai Ambassado r to

Fig . 59.

Fig. 58.

Interiors of Ayu tth aya period Natio na l Museum , bow ls. Bangkok. Mo ni ca La nge .

Bencharong bowl with rhomb pattern, H 7.4 em. Transitional period, 1767-1809. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 60.

Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar, H c. 18 em . Transitional period, 1767-1809. Chantara Kasem Palace Museum, Ayutthaya, Thailand. Denis Robinson .

Fig. 61.

Red Bencharong Thepanom ware bowl, H 8.8 em. Rama I, 1782-1809 (possibly Qianlong, 1736-1795). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 62 .

Bencharong covered bowl with meticulously drawn twisting stem motif, H 10.2 em. Rama I, 1782-1809 (possibly Jiaqing, 1796-1820). National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

F ig. 63 .

Lotus-star pattern in Rama I bowl. National Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker .

---

Fig. 64 .

Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar, H 23.3 em. Rama II, 1809-1824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 65.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with Jiaqing mark, 1796-1820, H 11.7 em. Rama II, 1809-1 824. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 66.

Phikul flower in center of Rama II bowl. Monica Lange.

National Museum, Bangkok .

Fig. 67.

Lotus-seed-pod motif in interior of Rama II toh jar. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 68.

Bencharong Thepanom ware covered bowl with designs painted on white glaze and with Daoguang reign mark, 1821-1850, H 14.2 em. Rama III, 1824- 1851. National Museum, Bangkok . Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 69.

Lai Nam Thong covered bowl with designs in iron-red and gold painted on white glaze and Daoguang reign mark, 1821-1850, H 12.9 em. Rama III, 1824-1851. National Museum,. Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 70.

On the footrim of this jar, a design in underglaze blue shows through the enamel overpainting. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 71.

Unpainted (blank) toh jar, probably Chinese, with metal mountings added in Thailand . H 20.6 em . Rama V, 1868-1910. Zimmermann Collection, Washington, D.C. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 72.

Lai Nam Thong stem plate thought to have been made in the Palace of the Second King , Bangkok. H 3.6 em.; W 9.4 em. Rama V, 1868-1910. National Museum, Bangkok. Dinorah Kranker.

Fig. 73. Bencharong Thepanom ware toh jar, H 35 .5cm.Rama V, I 868-1910. Private Collection . Dinorah Kranker.

131

Sino - Thai Ceramics

Chart B THAILAND

CHINA Qing Period

1644- 1911

Ayutthaya Period

1350- 1767

Kings

Emperors Kangxi

1662- 1722

Yongzheng Qianlong

1723- 1735 1736- 1795

Narai the Great Phra Phetaracha Phra Chao Sua Thai Sa Boromalcot Uthumphon SuriyatAmarin Fall of Ayutthaya to Burmese

165616881702170917321758 1758-

1688 1702 1709 1732 1758 1767 1767

Transitional Period Taksin

1767- 1782

Thonburi Capital Bangkok or Ratanakosin Period .Bangkok Capital

Jiaqing· Daoguang Xianfeng Tongzhi Guangxu .Xuantong

1796- 1820 1821- 1850 1851 - 1861 1862- 1874 1875- 1908 1909- 1911

Chakri Period

1782 - Present

Ramal

1782- 1809

Rama II Rama III Rama IV (Mongkut) RamaV (Chulalongkorn)

1809182418511868-

1824 1851 1868 191l>

132

''LOW'' Maps of· Siam* Larry Sternstein **

On the 3rd of April 1824, the Secretary to Government of Prince of Wales Island (now Penang) received from Lieutenant James Low, Commandant of the Local Corps, an outsize sheet of paper on which was drawn a map of "Siam Camboja & Laos" (approximately 94 x 67 centimeters) accompanied by a letter in wbich the maker of the map underlined his outlays: I have the honour to forward to you for the purpose of being laid before the Honorable the Governor in Council a Map of Siam, Camboja and Laos, which was first completed by me in the year 1822 from a large mass of original, and I firmly believe, authentic Native Plans, & Itineraries, and oral information, and which I have since that period amended and enlarged. The constant resort to this Island of Siamesea (marginal note: (a) independent of the numerous Siamese settlers on it.] and of Natives of other Indo Chinese Countries, has enabled me in a very satisfactory manner to submit these Plans and Papers to ample and repeated tests - without which advantage I should scarcely have ventured to submit them among the materials for the construction of the Mapb. [~arginal note: (b) Sir William Jones observes generally "that all asiatic Nations must be far better acquainted with their several Countries than mere European Scholars and travellers" (Discourse X Asiatic Researches.)] The fact that existing Maps of the World exhibit the Countries alluded to nearly as a blanK, was a certain [?] incentive to my attempt. But I was also aware that unless the entirl confidence of the Natives could be gained little information of value was to be expected from them. My attention was therefore directed to the operose preliminary task of studying * **

Presented, in part, at the International Conference on Thai Studies held in Bangkok in August 1984. Department of Geography, the Faculties, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

133

"Low" Maps of Siam

the Thai or Siamese language - a task which the total absence of any Elementary Works rendered peculiarly irksome. The (I allow limited) knowledge which I thus acquired of that language became · of the most essential Service, as it enabled me at the outset to overcome the scruples of the natives, to detect error and to obviate a hazardous and blind reliance upon Interpreters. With what success my endeavours have been followed it does not become me to determine. But it may be allowed me to remark that I have not spared years of unwearied and cautious Research or grudged that precuniary outlay without which it is well known that Investigations of this kind cannot be carried on in India, in order to render the Map of Geographical Utility - and that, if great precision, which the very nature and manner of this investigation precluded, has not been attained, yet that I indulge a hope, and do believe, that a justness has been preserved in all the principal outlines and features and that the sites have been disposed with relative correctness at the least. Where geometrical data have been so scantily afforded it may seem no small object gained if in this Map an approximation even has been made to the truth. I .can safely add that a desire after truth has implicitly guided me all along. The chief already known positions on which the construction of this Map of Siam hinges are- Prince of Wales Island [Penang]Keddah [Kedah]- Tavay [Tavoy]- Patani- Ligor [Nakhon Si Thammarat] - Ayoothaya [Ayutthaya], and Chanthaboon [ Chanthaburi] - For Camboja [Cambodia] - its Capital as laid down in Modern Maps and the embouchure of its grand river - For Laos the two Capitals of Lanchang [Luang Prabang] - and Chering Mai [Chiang Mai]. The Geographical Memoir to which the Map will afterwards be an accompaniment is nearly arranged. But before bringing it forward it seems highly desirable that it should be collated with the scattered Notices, which I learn, have been offered by Roman Catholic Missionaries of the Indo Chinese Countries visited by them. As the works which, it has been stated to me, contain these notices, are not in our Library and are indeed very rare in India, some delay

134

Larry Sternstein

becomes unavoidable. Besides, it is my intention to elucidate the Memoir by many individual Plans and Drawings of which I have not yet got duplicates made. In the mean time a Copy of the Map will perhaps prove a useful accompaniment to the first Part of An Inquiry into the History, Religion and Literature etc etc of Siam, which I have been preparing with the view of sending it for publication either to England or to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. May I now solicit, that should the Honble Board deem this Map of value sufficient to justify its being made public, they may be pleased to adopt the methods which seem best adapted to promote that object. P. W. Island 3rd April 1824

I have etc etc etc James Low Lieut 23rd Regiment Madras N.I. and Commandant of the P. W. Island Local Corps

(Straits Settlements Factory Records, Prince of Wales Island Public Consultations, 15 April1824, pages 437-441.) This extraordinary submission was immediately laid before the Governor of Prince of Wales Island who was moved to record a Minute on the 5th of April1824: It is with no common fellings of satisfaction that I have to

draw the notice of my Colleagues to the accompanying Map of Siam, Camboja and Laos, Countries exhibited nearly as a blank in every Chart hitherto published, which Lieutenant Low has prepared after some years laborious study and investigation of the Siamese Language and various authentic Native Plans, Itineraries and other means of information both written and oral. I recommend that a Copy of this Map be transmitted by the first opportunity to our Honorable Masters, and that another Copy be forwarded the Supreme Government apprising it at the same time of the fact so creditable to Lieutenant Low that unassisted by any Elementary works or prospect of pecuniary reward he has succeeded in acquiring a greater proficiency in the Siamese or Thai language than perhaps any other European in India.

135

"Low" Maps of Siam

He is capable of reading and writing the Character with great ease and fluency and of conversing and interpreting in that tongue in a manner fully competent to conduct a direct correspondence with the Siamese Authorities, as I have myself lately had occasion to witness. It has been my pride and anxiety whilst at the head of the Government to do everything in my power to encourage the acquisition of information respecting the situation and condition of the Countries surrounding us, not only for the purpose of science, but because I am well aware that such information will afford the best means for enabling us to diffuse among our ruder and less fortunate fellow Creatures the blessings of useful knowledge and the comforts of civilized life, - objects which I conceive all men in high station and particularly those in India should never lose sight of.

Whatever may be the opinions of Geographical Scholars as to the critical accuracy of Lieutenant Low's Map, there can be no doubt that this work and his promised Memoir of the History, Religion, Literature etc of Siam will place before the Government a Mass of useful and most authentic information regarding the extraordinary race which has lately over-run [?] Kedah and established itself in our vicinity, information by which we may soon be called upon to regulate or improve our mutual intercourse. But, My Honorable Masters have ever been foremost in encouraging the acquisition of Oriental tongues, and in proportion as the language was intricate and difficult of attainment has their munificence been displayed. I do therefore conscientiously believe that if this Board with its highest approbation tender to Lieutenant Low a Donation of 2000 Dollars as a remuneration not only for his Map and Memoir, but for having attained so creditable a Knowledge of the Siamese or Thai language, we shall act in the spirit of our generous Employers, and at the same time do an honor to ourselves, and holdforth a lasting incentive to useful diligence and to the exertions of modest and unassuming Merit. 5 April1824 W .E. Phillips (Straits Settlements Factory Records, Prince of Wales Island Public Consultations, 15 April1824, pages 442-445.)

136

Larry Sternstein

Shortly thereafter, on the 9th of April1824, a Senior Member of the Council of Prince of Wales Island, minuted his seconding of the sentiments of the Governor: I cordially join with the Honorable the President [Governor] in acknowledging the eminent Merits of Lieutenant Low who has prosecuted so long-so indefatigably, and so successfully the study of the Language, Literature, Religion and Geography of Siam - Points of the utmost importance and which will tend to place the Government on an independent footing with respect to Communications with any Siamese Authority. Lieutenant Low does not assume the Merit of Critical accuracy in the preparation of the Chart which he has submitted, but I have long known how indefatigable he has been in obtaining the materials for framing it, with the view of giving some reasonable Idea of the surrounding Countries and.the very Circumstance of that Gentleman being the only European on the Island who has hitherto made that difficult Language his peculiar study and devoted himself to it with a perseverance and success which are most highly creditable seems to me to require that especial Notice should be taken of it, as a reward for his own Exertions and an incentive to the public Servants of this Establishment to the same laudable pursuits. The Honorable the Presidents [Governor's] Sentiments and recommendation are therefore entirely concurred in by me. 9th April 1824

W .A. Clubley

(Straits Settlements Factory Records, Prince of Wales Island Public Consultations, 15 April 1824, pages 446-447 .) Accordingly, it was Ordered in conformity with the Presi.dent' s [Governor's] Minute that Copies of the Map be transmitted by the first opportunity to the Honorable the Court of Directors and to the Supreme Government, that Lieutenant Low be so acquainted, and that the distinguished approbation of Government be conveyed to him, not only for the Map, but for his highly meritorious acquirement of the Siamese or Thai language, evidence of which he so amply afforded both in writing and interpreting fluently during several long conferences between the Governor and some Envoys deputed by the Rajah of Ligore [Nakhon Si Thammarat].

137

"Low" Maps of Siam

Resolved further as a reward for such useful diligence, and an encouragement to complete the Memoir of the History, Religion and Literature of Siam, which he is now preparing, that the sum of 2,000 Dollars be also tendered to Lieutenant Low as a Donation from Government. (Straits Settlements Factory Records, Prince of Wales Island Public Consultations, 15 April, 1824, pages 447-448.) The Secretary to Government transmitted the sentiments of the Governor to Lieutenant Low precisely in a lengthy, laudatory letter dated 19th April 1824 which ended ... the Governor in Council has resolved on tendering to you a Donation of 2,000 Dollars, and I am directed to acquaint you that the Paymaster has been authorized accordingly to disburse that sum to you. (Straits Settlements Factory Records, Prince of Wales Island Public Consultations, 15 Aprill824, pages 451-452.) Two thousand dollars ("Spanish" specie) was a handsome sum; Low, a Lieutenant in the Madras Native Infantry, would have been paid such an amount in little less than a year, even with his emoluments as Commandant of the Prince of Wales Island Local Corps. 1 The Honorable William Edward Phillips, Governor of Prince of Wales Island and Its Dependencies, to whom the map of "Siam Camboja & Laos" is dedicated, certainly was impressed with Lieutenant Low's accomplishments. The Honorable John Macalister, Magistrate and Senior Member of the Council of the Presidency of Prince of Wales Island, certainly was not impressed with the accomplishments of Lieutenant Low, though he minuted this sentiment with a deal of circumspection: I am sorry I cannot concur in the sentiments contained in the Honorable Presidents [Governor's] Minute of this date, respecting the merits of Lieutenant Low's Map etc and hope I may not be called upon to give my sentiments more at large. 5 April 1824

J. Macalister

(Straits Settlements Factory Records, Prince of Wales Island Public Consultations, I.

See Singh, Major M.P., Indian Army Under the East India Company, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1976; particularly pages 98-102.

138

Larry Sternstein

15 April1824, page 445.) John Macalister's circumspection may be laid to the "many estimable qualities which adorned his character", he being "possessed in a pre-eminent degree [with] all the genuine qualities ... which characterise the Natives of its Isles (the Hebrides) from whence he derived a high descent: Brave, open, charitable, unsuspecting, benevolent and kind hearted to all mankind and nobly generous even to his enemies" ;2 or to the fact that he had been "severely reprimanded by the authorities at home" for having once challenged a f~llow magistrate to flght a duel. 3 His reasons for dissent from the opinion of the Governor on Lieutenant Low's Map cannot be so readily laid, though the Honorable W.A. Clubley's written seconding of the Governor's sentiments implies it was the accuracy of the map submitted by Lieutenant Low which led Mr Macalister to demur. The map "Siam Camboja & Laos" despite being of a large size is in places barely readable for being congested with place names, most of which it appears, are transliterated according to a formula based on the way they sounded when pronounced to Lieutenant Low; this formula being known to him alone. That the map may be "seen", it is here reproduced under three themes: the flrst (Figure 1) carries the title of the map and shows all landform features (excepting a few vag~e indications of hills), major inter-and intra-country areas named, and routes; the second (Figure 2) shows all "centres" but names only major ones; the third (Figure 2) shows all intracountry areas named. Not shown are a number of notes which allude in the main to cultural features. Although representing a motley assemblage of information from sources diverse, "Siam Camboja & Laos" proffers more topographical information about the Siamese kingdom than do all previous maps of the area. Its maker makes only a qualified claim for accuracy, however, and rightly so for the map is almost entirely based on hearsay. Lieutenant Low had not stood on Siamese soil or, in fact, on much

2. Obituary of John Macalister Esq. under "Deaths" Prince of Wales Island Gazette, October 13, 1824, front page.

Wednesday,

3. Garnier, Rev. K., "Early Days in Penang" Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 1, Number 87, April 1923, pages I

(da + but as an entity or as a fixed formula "ldl plus short /9./ plus /n/" (d +a + il)

In other words : The traditional concept or understanding "Keep the fi short, inherent /8./ but drop the second short, inherent Iii" changed to "Keep the first /a!" and to "Pronounce short /a/ between 2 consonants" This, it seems, may have been how the virama, formerly a suppressor mark for the short, inherent /8./ of the second of two consonants, became a letter for short /a/ in between two consonants. That change of concept probably also was the reason why later scribes moved the mai han akat from the right to the left, a visual indication of the sequence of pronounciation: Consonant- short I i i - consonant. The reasons for the eventual choice of the mai han akat over reduplicated consonants probably had to do with certain peculiarities of t,he Thai dialects, Siamese and Yuan. Both have many words ending on a consonant without inherent /a/, which was bound to cause clumsiness in writing: An expression like 1-u ,f'U had to be written 1'U'U'U'U'U.ll Another difficulty would have been created by pairs such as ~~ and fl~. Still other difficulties would be coming from such words as ....,. and ~il, and spellings like '1f11 and 'V\11 in inscriptions (modern ~1 and ~1) further attest to the difficulties the scribes had with consonant reduplication. The notion that the mai han akat originally was related to the second consonant, and not to the first, was not easily lost. An inscription of A.D. 1445 has the mai han akat already in its modern position, to the left above the space between the two consonants. However, at the end of a line and at the beginning of the next line, the word 1-u is divided 1-\l'. In contrast, already in 1404, inscription no. 10 C.S. 766 had divided 1- 'U. A second doubt in the validity of the above mentioned theory concerning the history of the writing of short /8./ is created by the fact that we either do not know or only have assorted views on the date of a good number of early inscriptions. In other words, we do not know the year in which a number of inscriptions were written, and thus we cannot very well use these inscriptions to back a theory on the evolution of the mai akat. I do not want to enter here in a discussion. of the weaknesses underlying certain datings but would like to refer the reader to an article by Michael +

13. Inscription no. 3 Phra Maha That (Nakhon Chum) 1357 actually has /'l'U.'U.'U.'U.'U./.

182

Hans Penth*

BlbUograpby d1 "8~thmm "'Mfnm»1L'llan" "'~L"'"-:~ 2520 fhmttf~~ .4 (2503 fla.~~trf~~ 1) t.h::LriJ m 14fl1 "N11~14tmfl,t.l1::1'at11ttfdl"ll LL11:: L48~8~Lnil8 (laJ) L~IJ" lJHLW 2514 ( ~14 Ynt11'11"114L'"i~fl .... 14111t.jtiiL'8~ m 14fl1) 118, L'JILflf "~114114fn1!t1l"ll" "'~L"'""l 2472 fl1J~trf~~ 3 (2468 f4a.~~flf~~ 1) f14f L..,14f "t.h::'lafl'l1aJLiJ141.fl'l18~l114141l"ll" Lf11~\'MaJ Wll11l'14151Jf~fiiJ IJ'M115"111fDLfa~\'MaJ 2526 f14f L..,14f ..,,,niflm14lua.~ LL11::fl11aJLiJ141J1'll8~fn»1l"ll" Lfu\'Mll 2528 (fa.~w1m14141flfifin»1 t.h::'lafl1tttrfLL11::lm1mflfi IU. 15"111fDfllLfa~\'MaJ) Aymonier, E. : Le Cambodge (3 vols.). Paris 1901 -

1903

Burnay, J. I Coedes, G. : The Origins of the Sukhodaya Script JSS (21.2) 1927 p. 87 -

Coed~ 1929 Tamnan: See 118,

102

L'JILflf

C~. G.: Les origines de Ia dynastic de Sukhodaya JA (IS) 1920 p. 233- 24S

Finot, Louis: Recherches sur Ia litterature laotienne. DEFEO (17.5) 1917 p. I - 219 Oosling, Betty: Once More, Inscription 2 - an Art Historian's View JSS (69.1+2) 1981 p. 13-42 Griswold, A.B. :Prince Yudhi~hira. Artibus Asiae (26.3-4) 1983 p. 215- 229 Griswold, A.B. I Nagara, Prasert na: King l.Odaiya of Sukhodaya and his Contemporaries. JSS (60.1) 1972 p. 21 - 152 Griswold, A.B. I Nagara, Prasert na: The Epigraphy of Mahidharmarija I of Sukhodaya. JSS (61.1) 1973 p. 71 - 179 Griswold, A.B. I Nagara, Prasert na: The second oldest known Writing in Siamese. JSS (67.1) 1979 p. 63-67 Krairiksh, Piriya: The. Earliest Datable Buddha Images of LanNa Thai. Bangkok 1984 (Paper presented at the International Conference on Thai Studies) Nagana. Prasert na: Kings and Kingdom of Sukhothai: Reconsideration. Bangkok 1984 (Paper presented at the International Conference on Thai Studies) Penth, Hans : Notizen zur Oesc:hichte der Yuan-Sc:hrift. Ac:ta Orientalia (25) 1973 p. 161 -

165

Penth. Hans : Inscriptions and

Images on the Phra Mahi 1bit in Lamphiin. Bangkok 1984 (Paper presented at the International Conference on Thai Studies)

Penth, Hans: The WatKin Thi»n Inscriptions and the Development of Thai letters. Chiang Mai 1984 (Paper presented at the Seminar on Lin Ni History and Archaeology, Chiang Mai Teachers College) Penth, Hans : New Evidence from Lin Nii concerning the Development of early Thai Letters and Buddha Images. Lecture given at the Siam Society on Thursday, II June 1985. The Siam Society's Newsletter(l.3) 1985 p. 3-7. Singeravelu, S. : A Note on the possible Relationship of King Rama Khamhaeng's Sukhodaya Script of Thailand to the Grantha Script of South India. JSS (57 .I) 1969 p. 1 - 28 Vickery, Michael: Guide through some recent Sukhothai Historiography. JSS (66.2) 1978 p. 182- 246

181

Mai HanAkat 14 • Journal where many. Vi.eak pomts . are discussed and retierences giVen. . Vickery in this

If it is thus posSible to have· serious doubts about the vaiidity of the t&eory of the mai han akat belng a; latecomer in Thai writing, the practical question arises: Which are the inscriptions that have mai han ikat and can be supposed to be older than 1361 A.D. ? Out of a·· number I shall mention only three.

One' example is a· group· of 4 ·inscriptions on the Mahadhatucetiya, the main stiipa of Wat .Phra. That Hariphunchai, Lamphiin. They accompany 8 Buddha images and have mai han akat as well as reduplicated consonants. When I first saw them, I dated them and the images to 1360- 1380 A.D. 15 Later, on evidence from chronicles, and corroborated by an art historical analysis involving the Buddha images, 16 I had to chang~ my ~lind to about 1330 A.D. 17 Another example are the Sukh&hai Jataka inscriptions from Wat Maha That, now in the.staircase of Wat'SI Chum. They are usually dated to about the middle of the 14th century, presumably post-1361 because some of them have mai han akat (others have reduplicated consonants). On reasons supplied by epigraphy, they can be supposed to date.from around 1330 A.D. 18 On similar grounds, one can assume that the Jataka engravings are those mentioned in inscription no. 2 Phra Maha Thit (SukhOthai), and that that inscription dates, not from thel360i~, but from around 1340- 1345 A.D. 19 In conclusion, it seems that there are good reasons to consider a new theory to the effect tha:t the mai han akat was known to and used by Thai scribes before 1361 A.D. Definite pr09f is still lacking, such as an inscription with mai han ikat and ~ith a date before 136( but in the meantime it seems to be fruitful to keep an open mind and to accept the possibility that some of our inscriptions with mai han akat are older -than previously thought. Double consonants and mai han akat are no safe criteria for the age of an inscription.

14. Vickery 1978 Guide.

IS.

LMd 2526

th::-r.i

76.

16. Krairiksh 1984 Earliest Datable Images. 17. Pentlt 1984 lnscriptipps. 18. Gosling 1981 Inscription 2.P· 18, 30, 36, 38.-•GriswoJcVNagata 1972 King LOdiliya 77, 12S. 19. Already in -1920, ·Coedes supposed that the inscription was Written in the time of Phayii Lo Thai (Coedes 1920 Origines 236, 243). See also footnotes I and 4 above.

183

The Lawa

L~sJrn

1£ Poetry*

Suriya Ratanakul* *

Background information

In this paper the term 'Lawa' is referred to as the language of a tribal group whose population is estimated to be about 9,841 1 and is concentrated in two Northern provinces, Chiengmai and Maehongsorn? Specifically the Lawa villages are found between Baw Luang, Hot district, Chiengmai province in the East and Maesariang district, Maehongsorn province in the West3 . These Lawa or, as they call themselves, (lav\Q), belong to different linguistic groups from the so-called 'Lawa' of Kanchanaburi province, from the 'Lu;;l' (Mal, Thin) of Nan province, and from the 'Lawa' (Chaobon, Nahkur)4 of Petchabun, Nakorn Rajseema and Chaiyaphum provinces. Historically, the Lawa are the descendants of the powerful Lawa whose kingdom was recorded in the early Northern Thai chronicles. The history of these Lawa has been a subject of discussion by many historians and anthropologists. For example, according to two Thai scholars, Sisawat and Khanthathatbamroong, the Lawa were once the lords of the land in the upper part of the Golden Peninsula before the southward

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Symposium on Austro-Asiatic Languages, Helsingor,

Denmark, October 24-26, 1979

**

Mahidol University

1. The number was given by the Tribal Research Center in its reports, Tribal Population Summary in Thailand, 1979. 2. The Lawa population in Chiengmai is 7,139, consisting of 1,239 households in 19 villages. In Maehongsorn, the number is decreased to 2,570, consisting of 499 households in 13 villages. There is also a Lawa village in Chiengrai where there are only 132 Lawa and 29 households; cf. the above mentioned Tribal Population Summary in Thailand. 3. A vivid description of a two-day trek to these Lawa villages was given by the late Princess Viphavadee Rangsit in her article "niienuey phra? rajchathan khl.n khao" (when the Royal Aid comes to the hills) in her collected papers "rie!] l;i rot" (Different tastes), Bangkok, Prae Pittaya Press, 1971. 4. A description of the Chaobon language was done by Miss Payao Meemanas in her A Description of Chaobon (nahkur) : an Austroasiatic Language in Thailand, an unpublished M.A. thesis, Southeast Asian Language Center, Mahidol University, 1979, 314 pages (in English).

184

Suriya Ratanakul

migration of the Thai race from China5 • Gordon Young mentioned a story told to i him by a great Wa chieftain who claimed that his people had journeyed thousands of years ago northward along the Mae Ping river and settled for a long time in what is now Chiengmai valley 6 • Princess Viphavadee Rangsit believed that the Lawa once had attained a state of civilization whereby human society consisted of classes. The belief was based on her discovery in 1969 when she visited the Lawa village of Umphai in Chiengmai province where it was found that the Lawa community actually consists of four classes, i.e., (1) The samal] (royal blood), (2) the lam (mandarin), (3) the koyit (sorcerer and shaman) and (4) the ordinary lavi.:l. Besides, from her observation of the crocodile motives carved on the pillars of an ancient ceremonial pavillion in that village together with the samaiJ'S use of fish as their herald, she advanced the theory about the sea origin or the northward migration of the Lawa 8 • Linguistically speaking, the Lawa language belongs to the Palaungic branch of the Moo-Khmer family in the Austroasiatic Phylum? The Lawa language described in this paper is the one spoken in Ban Pa Pae village [yueiJ pe], Maesariang district, Maehongsorn province. The author has been working on this lauguage since 1974 with the purpose of compiling a Lawa- Thai and Thai- Lawa dictionary10. Even if more than 4,000 words together with phrases and sentences illustrating their usage have already been collected, the author always finds it difficult to finish the planned dictionary. New interesting words come up every time the author interviews her informants. Attracted by the richness of its vocabulary and by the poetic expression of this language, the author shifted her interest from the planned S.

Sisawat, Bunchiiai 's~m sip chat nai Chiengrai' (Thirty Nationalities in Chiengrai), Outhai Press, Bangkok, 1952 (in Thai). Khanthathatbamroong, Manas 'kan sonkhrJ? chao khao nai phak nia[ch:m tamruet phuth:m chaiden' (An assistant to the hilltribes in the North by the Royal Patrol Police), an unpublished M.A thesis, Thammasart University, 1965 (in Thai).

6. Young, Oliver Gordon (The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, 1961, fifth edition published by the Siam Society, Bangkok, 1974, 96 pages, page 53.

7. Kauffmann, H. E gave a slightly different account of the Lawa system of classes in his article 'Some Social and Religious Institutions of the Lawa' part I'. Journal of the Siam Society 60, 1, 1972. 8. Viphavadee Rangsit, "mianua{Y phra rajchathan khin khao", page 336-337.

9. Thomas, David D., and Headley, Robert K., 'More on Mon-Khmer Subgrouping', Lingua 25, 4 page 398-418.

10. Ratanakul, Suriya, 'ruapl'llQm kham phasa Lawa' (A collection of Lawa vocabq]ary), paper presented to the Symposium on Humanities Disciplines, organized by the National Research Council of Thailand, Mjlrch 24-26, 1977, 40 pages.

185

The Lawa L~:>m !£ Poetry

linguistic investigation to the study of the culture and literature of the Lawa. This paper is a report of part of her findings of such study. In this paper an attempt will be made to give (a) a brief phonological description of the Ban Papae dialect; (b) a short account of the coming of age of Lawa adolescents together with courtship and marriage, all of which are entwined with I as:>m }e;(c) an analysis of different types of I~s:>m ~e; and (d) a translation of some selected texts of l~s:>m Is.

A brief phonological description of the Ban Pa Pae dialect 11

Ban Pa Pae village 12 , situated in Tam bon Ban Pa Pae, Mae Sariang district, Maehongsorn Province, consists of 284 Lawa living in 54 households. The majority of the population are animistic Buddhists and accept the samaiJ as their leaders. Christian missionaries came to the village 20 years ago and converted a small number of the Lawa. Perhaps the greatest contribution by those missionaries to the Lawa was the introduction of the Roman and Thai alphabets as the means of writing Lawa 13 • As a result, the Lawa have been using these alphabets in their daily correspondences including the writing of Las:>m .le. Even if the widespread written language introduced by these missionaries was based on the pronunciation of people from another village, Ban La-up, the Ban Pa Pae people have no difficulty in using it as an effective means of correspondence because all of them know the systematic sound correspondence between the pronunciation of Ban La- up and their own. In the phonological description that follows, IPA symbols are used with some exceptions: y = IPA j; ii = IPA Jl; II! etc preglottalized. Ban Pa Pae Lawa has 37 initial consonants as shown in the following chart.

II. The phonological description is based on the pronunciation of the author's principle informant, Khun Bunphob Bo? bl ages 31. 12. Kunstadter, Peter gave a description of Lawa circle of life in Ban Pa Pae village in his article 'Living With Thailand's Gentle Lua' in the National Geographic Magazine, July, 1966, page 123-146. 13. Schlatter, Donald gave a detailed description of the analysis and development of orthography for writing the Lawa language, in Phonemes and Orthography : Language Planning in Ten Minority Languages of Thailand, William A. Smalley (editor), Pacific Linguistics Series C- No. 43, Australian National University._l976, chapter II, page 273-281.

bilabial

ca ""

0

labio-dental

alveola

ca ~

velar

voiceless unasp.

p

t

c

k

voiceless asp.

ph

th

ch

kh

voiced

b

prenasal.

mb

glottal ?

y

nd

preglottalized

"'0. 0 ..... "'

palatal

ii

ng

c

'

til

¥

~

voiced

m

n

fi

voiceless

hm

hn

hfi

hi]

preglottalized

m

n

fi

IJ

i

n

~

l

s=

.::....."' G)

slit

voiceless

f

voiced

v

h

r

tiS

.~

.:::

groove

laterals

.

voiceless

s

voiceless

hi

voiced

I

preglottalized

I

.r

-

..... 00 CD

187

The Lawa

L~s:m

1£ Poetry

examples: pag t:)m cak ka? ?ai? phen thu ChU~IJ khi~t bak ybm mbok ,.ndoiJ ncaim ng:)k

bottle egg deer fish

Y.-

Y,h

mnN n-

maic nok

medicine good, beautiful to make an offering to the spirits house knee to hear blood the narrow part of a piece of cloth paddy, unhusked rice rope only one "Never mind!" eye monkey bee sword turtle post, pillar elephant leaf

p-

tck-

,_ phthchkhb-

y mb-

:~nc ng

iii::.?

hmhnhii-

IJOIJ hlll:)n hnam hnoic

hiJ-

hiJ~?

mn.., nIJfhv-

1110? f!OIJ mah ~ok IJai

I)-

fi~?

T-

he vee raih

shi-

PIJ sag hla?

r

I

white mountain foot to bite small frog to weep to ride pot (cooking utensil) (finger) ring ugly

188

Suriya Ratanakul

11-

laic pig !ol) boat In Lawa /II and /y/ can function as the second consonant.

example I - pi kl phi khl mbl ngl y- py ky

pbl) kloi) phlok mble 0 glo? pyaI) kyak

grass used for thatching river, stream elephant's task to lick bracelet swamp roof buffalo

y- phy khy mby ngy

phyu? khyai mbY:YIJ ngyoi)

blanket gold horse to carry (two or more people)

khll~k

Final consonants: Lawa has both open syllables and closed syllable. Open syllables occurs only after long vowels. Closed syllable can have the following 10 consonants as final consonants: example -p -t -c -k

?aop ?alt laic ?ak kho? maih

-? -h -m -n ,.. -n -IJ

cooked rice to be pig crossbow tree nose salty child mud river, stream

?~m

ku~n

mbifi kloi) Vowels: front

high

central-back i

back u

189

The Lawa L:)SJm IE Poetry

mid-high mid low

w

e

~

0

e

a

J

Lawa has a nine- vowel types. It is the author's hypothesis that the mid-high /w/ may have been recently introduced. It is found only in 9 words, all of which are undoubtedly Thai (or Kam Mu~l)) loan words. examples:

khWIJ twk kwt vwn swk

to stretch to get stuck (to, in) to obstruct, to be in the way of to feel lonely and nostalgic enemy etc.

" Thai khiiJ Thai tit ' Thai kiit Thai waiJ weeiJ ' Thai sik

Diptbongs: i~

i~

ei

~i

e:>

~I ·~O

ai ai ao

ui u~

oi :>i :>e

Syllables Most Lawa words are monosyllabic. Disyllabic words have a preliminary syllable and a main syllable. Preliminary syllable receives no stress. This first vowel position is filled by only two vowels (a and ~). ~ is more frequent than a. It is a neutralization of all points of vowel articulation. However, when reduplication (such as in an onomatopoea) is present, any short vowel may occur. The second syllable, the main syllable, receives stress. It may be filled by all vowel phonemes. Coming of Age in Ban Pa Pae Unlike the Meo, the Yao, the Lisu or the Akha, the Lawa do not enjoy festivities. They are more repressive and subtle in their emotional expressions. In our relationship with them, their mannerism, slight facial expression and other bodily

190

Suriya Ratanakul

signs must ~.lways be taken into account. 14 Therefore one should not be surprised that the coming of age ceremony of the Lawa adolescents is much simpler than that of other tribes. Tradition was established with the belief that after the age ot puberty, these Lawa boys and girls would become young adults, ready for courtship and marriage and for taking up social responsibities (e.g. making and receiving social visits and reciting l~s;,m !e at funerals). In this tradition the coming of age of the girls is more defined than that of the boys. For a girl to come of age she must be 13 years old and in accordance with the need of the community where she lives. If, on that specific period there exists in the community a large number of unmarried debutantes, to use the Western terminology, whom the community could ask to recite the l~,;,m !e: in funeral ceremonies, her coming of age can be postponed for 6 months or a year if she so desires. On the contrary, if on that time there are few maidens, the girl's coming of age can be hastened to the age of 12. Such decision is made partially by the girl herself and by the elder maidens of the community. If the girl's older sister has just been married and if the number of the older maidens in the community is much limited, the girl will recite or ask to be taught l~;,m !£. This indicates her readiness to assume social duties. If her intention is in accordance with the wishes of the older maidens in the community, a piece of meat will be sent to the girl's house, indicating the latters' willingness to accept her in their circle. With this sign, the girl is ready to welcome night visits from young boys and to assume social duties by participating in funeral ceremonies. A knowledge of l~s;,m !e: is required for these two occasions. As for the boys, when they are 12 or 13 years old, they need no encouragement nor social approval of their behavior on the matter of their coming of age. Usually, boys go where people are gathering, be it at a house-warming or funeral. They hear and learn the l~s;,m le: recited by their older brothers in the community. When a boy 15 acquires the l~;,m 1~ . skill, he starts paying night visits to the "visitable" girls. . Coming of age and courtship among the Lawa are not sexual orgies as 14. For example, if when the author's linguistic informant wanted to work with her, he would be dressed in his best suit walking leisurely with his friendly cleaned-shaven face. But if he did not want to be bothered his dress was shabby and he sat serenely in the garden. 15.

There is no definite age specifying when he should pay these visits. If he is precocious, he can start paying visits at the age of 14-15 years. If he is shy, he can postpone this social duty a little longer. However, these visits are a must for all Lawa boys. If any boy has never paid such a visit he becomes "odd" in the eyes of people in the community. This is because the visit is essentially social and not necessarily a courtship. Of course the visit might turn into courtship later.

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The Lawa L~:>m !£ Poetry

many tourists seem to believe. There is no "special" rendez-yous for the young Lawa. The boy has to visit the girl in her own one-room house where all family members sleep together. Only a fireplace is between the girl's sleeping quarter and her parents'. Both the visitor and the girl are each conscious of the social aspect of the visit. Both consider the visit as a duty. For the boy it is his duty to pay a visit to every "visitable" girl at least once. Similarly for the girl it is her duty to welcome the guest. Hence they treat each other with good manners and each talks to the other in l~:nn !&. Only a serious illness can be used as an excuse for the girl's unwillingness to talk in las;,m !& with her guest. If the boy feels attached to her, he will increase his visits and use the laS:>m !& as a means of courtship. In addition, as a sign of his love a small gift such as a box of matches or a beautiful sea shell filled with tobacco will be given to the girl. Unless the girl likes him his gift will not be accepted. The giving, refusal or acceptance of the gift all are done by means of the las:>m !e. When both of them are sure of their feelings for each other, the suiter will give the girl of his choice a "big gift". The gift is a beautiful object such as a comb or jewelry plus cash of at least 20 baht. The acceptance of this gift indicates her willingness to be his bride. A marriage ceremony will take place later. After marriage the las:>m !e: will no longer be used by the couple. Marriage is considered by the Lawa as the zenith of adulthood and the door to old age. An analysis of different types of lasam !e: Ias:>m !& is Lawa poetry used by the Lawa adolescents in their social visits and courtships and by the young unmarried Lawa in a funeral ceremony. The theme of bs:>m I& therefore varies in accordance with the occasion of its use. At a funeral ceremon; the las:>m !& is usually recited by groups of boys and girls taking turns with each other. The las:>m !& for the funeral ceremony can be recited only on that particular occasion. A fine is imposed by the samal) on those who break this tradition. Married people will recite the las:>m !& only when they are asked to instruct the las;,m Ie: to the young Lawa at a funeral ceremony. In this case it is the boy that needs such instruction more than the girl. This is because usually the girl takes her social duties more seriously than the boy. She learns about alllas:>m !& of different themes from the older maidens of the village before her willingness to come of age.

We may classify l~s:>m !& into six kinds each with a single different theme. Our classification does not include what is known as las:>m ibi which not only has various traditional themes but also leaves room for innovative themes. The 6 laS:>m !-& are as follow:

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Suriya Ratanakul

1. las3m IelJa Tit lu~l) "in the direction of, side"; Tit means "tradition". l~s:>m lu~J;J fit is a traditional poetry recited only during a funeral ceremony. Its text is traditionally fixed and cannot be changed nor improvised. Z. las3m kam khuib kam is the Kam Muau loan word meaning "word, language". khuih means "to desire". The main theme of this l~:>m is an expression

of the reciters's desire, e.g., love, the wish for happiness and prosperity for the girl, the desire to be able to give beautiful presents. l~s:>m kam khuih consists of 10 different texts. 3. las3111 °doin ?ein kbe? 0 doin means "to climb, to walk along the narrow path of the rough mountain trail"; ?ein means "to come back, to return"; khe? means "back, at the back of''. The theme of this l~s:>m is a description of the difficulty of the reciter's journey and his desire to return to his beloved. The l~s:>m 0 doifi' ?ein khe? is usually recited by the boy in his first night visit to the girl and also when he has to depart from her by making a rather long journey from the village (e.g. to Chiengmai). I~s:>m 0 doi·ii ?ein khe? consists of 10 texts. 4. las3m hao ka h~o means "to go"; ka is a loan word from Kam MuaJ;J, Chiengmai dialect, meaning "to do business". This l~s:>;m has as its main theme a description of how the reciter did business ill another place. In the Lawa tradition, to do business means also to "sell one's labour". In the present day Lawa village there is not enough fertile land for the whole population. Therefore Lawa men tend to go "selling" their labour outside the village twice a year, usually in September after rice planting, and in February or March after the harvest. There are 7 texts of bs:>m h~ ka. 5. las3m 7aok bao r~k means "to bring someone along"; h~ means "to go". This I.~s:>m is the reciter's invitation of his beloved to go with him to other . places. In his invitation the girl is assured of having a pleasant journey. The invitation is only formal, because no Lawa girls will go out with their suitors unless . they are married. l~s:>m r ~ok h~o may therefore be regarded as an expression of the reciter's wis~ for his beloved to share a·delightful experience (i.e. making a journey) with him. l~s:>m r~k h~o consists of 6 texts. 6. las3m pua IelJa? pu~ means "to ask for something"; lel)a? means "to play". The theme of this l~s:>;m is the reciter's asking permission to talk with, to play with, to be in the presence of the other. This l~s:>m is usually recited by both the boy and the girl who are not familiar to each other. The reciter may also use this l~s:>m to ask the other to teach him (or her) l~s:>m !& adding that he (she) has

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The Lawa L~s::m !£ Poetry

only a little knowledge about it. l~m pu;) IeiJa? has 4 texts. · All these 6 l~s::>m !e: have a definite number of texts composed by anonymous Lawa poets handed down from generation to generation in the form of oral literature and are kept alive by the young Lawa. The texts of these 6 l~s:>m !e: cannot be revised nor can they be changed. Only by learning these texts by heart can the Lawa adolescents perform their social functions properly. As stated before there is another l~s:>m Ie: (i.e. las:>m iGi) which leaves room for innovative themes to be composed by contemporary Lawa poets, l~s:>m roi means "miscellaneous l~s:>m". There is no definite text for las:>m ibi, and the reciter can put in any theme appropriate to his feelings on a particular occasion. For example Khun Bunphob, the author's principal informant, once in sympathy for his people, composed a l;)S:>m Ibi expressing his feelings for the misery and poverty of his people in the village. The fact that there exists in Lawa culture different kinds of subtle l~s:>m le: is probably an indication of the high culture of this tribal group whose Kingdom once dominated the Golden Penninsula. At present anyone who visits the Lawa village in Ban Pa Pae will see poverty and misery, the same conditions witnessed in other hill tribes in Thailand. But poor as they are these people carry their long lasting traditions within their hearts. These living traditions are expressed in the subtle l~:>m !e:. A translations of some selected texts n.lem ?e? l~p~o ll}lii me? ra? ndah ?e? yum haic nfi] yo? kloiJ cak me? n'iiJ thu 1~? aom ndu hle? ndah ?e? yum ngoiJ n'iiJ yo? phye? me? bik niiJ IJi~k chfk l~heiJ n pat n&.h laiJlaiJ 1~? aom s~? aom s~ gyoiJ pat neb lol)lOI) 1~? aom klOI) ra? main neb nfiJ ? e? l~ha? :>? 0 daip ndaip ne.h nil) ? e? l~haio naiJSl tit nsh ~moiii khyoiii. s~mo? s~k:>k ku~n ndo? khyoiii ngo? phui khf~h mab bmbin mbyin l~ih lOI) khf~h mah sangYOIJ mbyi~IJ l~ih pe:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

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Suriya Ratanakul

khf~h ?e? mbyin !J&h 111ai kyatl) klo?

(14)

khf~h ?e? mbyin phyo? 111ai s~mal)

(15) (16) (17)

khi01h phyo? har;)halJ s~malJ ro ?c. khf~h phyo? hehs tJk kskho? etc.

translation and explanation This text belongs to l~sJm pu~ l~l)a?. (1) - ni~m

- ? e?

- mai -me? - ra?

when I (poetic term. As an ordinary word for the first person singular pronoun is? ai?). to splash water (poetic expression; in everyday language the phrase p~o l01? aom is used instead). with, together you big

A rough translation of the first verse would be when I am playing water-splashing with you. Such is the boy's subtle way of comparing the recitation of l;JsJm !e to water - splashing game. (2) - ndah if - yum to die to dry up - haic - yo? to be without at - nilJ a stream, a river - klolJ A rough translation of this second verse would be if I die within a dried up stream. The literal meaning of this verse is : reciting a l~sJm !.S to you is like playing water - splashing in a strea111 if there is no more water the stream would dry up and thus cease to be a stream. Similarly if all of my knowledge is spent in reciting l~sJm ! & to you, please · - - - - - (3) - cak to bring water into one's field - thu mountain - );J? aom water - ndu a waterway hie? rain This discourse continues from the second verse. "Please bring rainwater from the

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The Lawa L~s:>m

!E Poetry

mountain through the waterway". (4) - l}gOlJ - phye?

to die of malnutrition (in humanbeings) or to die of the lack of water and fertilizer (in plants) cultivated land

A direct translation of this fourth verse would be If I am dried up and die without a place for cultivation. Here it should be noted that the boy is comparing himself to a tree which must die if there is no earth to sustain its roots. (5) - blk - IJi~k - chik

to explore a land, to be a pioneer a narrow trail where two ranges of mountain meet a rice field is an adjective whose use is restricted only to qualifying the word "chik". l~hSlJ means (a ricefield) where only rain water is used as means of cultivation.

The fifth verse is the boy's begging the girl to open up the narrow trail between the pressing mountains and make it a place for cultivation. (6) - pat

- neh - laQlaQ - s;)?aom

to flow (used with water only) always, never cease continuously, on and on archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants. the name of a river of which the location is unknown to the author's informants.

The direct meaning of this sixth verse is water flows continuously in S;)9gyOlJ river. Literally the boy is imploring the girl to be generous and help him unc~asingly like the flow of water in s~IJgyoQ river. (7) - loQlOlJ

an onomatopae imitating the sound of the running water.

The direct meaning of this seventh verse is water flows continuously in a large river. In summary the literal meaning of the sixth and seventh verses is the boy's request for the continuation of the exchange of l;)s:>m !e. -

l~ha

to count joint, node (of bamboo)

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Suriya Ratanakul

- ? :>? - ndaip

bamboo to be close in succession, to be of high frequency

The direct meaning of this eighth verse is to count continuously the frequent joints of bamboo at me. Literally this also is the request to continue the exchange of l;)s:>m 1~:;. (9) - l;)haip - na!JSI

archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants. a Thai loan word meaning "book".

The meaning of the ninth verse is not clear. Generally speaking it is the request for the continuation of the recitation of l;)s:>m 1~:; What is worth mentioning in this ninth verse is the word "na!JSI". If we interpret the word na!JSI as referring to knowledge, this verse can be considered as the boy's humble request for the girl to teach him the knowledge which she has. If the word "na]Jsi" is referred to "a written text" or to "an orthography", it can be speculated that l;)s:>m \~:;had once been recorded in written language before the introduction of orthography by the Christian missionaries in the 1950's. This hypothesis is entertained because the author believes that this l;)sJm was composed more than 30 years ago since there are many archaic words in this verse, the meaning of which is unknown even to older informants (50-60 years old). (10) - tit - S;)mOII1 '"' h - k yo111 •N

- S;)mo?

to attach (a Thai loan word) star every rock

A direct translation of this tenth verse is "Please continue to attach a star to every piece of rock". This is the boy's subtle way of complimenting the girl. His words are compared to a worthless objects such as a rock and her words to celestial objects i.e. the stars. He asks the girl to shed the stardust of her words on his earthly clumsy words so that he would become more enchanting. (11) - s;)kJk to teach - ku;)n ndo? a child - ngo? each person - phui man, human-being A direct translation of this eleventh verse would be "Please teach every child". In this verse the boy is comparing himself to a child waiting for instruction from a teacher. Please note from this eleventh verse that on this occasion there must be

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The Lawa L~::Sm ·! £ Poetry

more than one boy. Therefore originally this verse was probably composed with the purpose of being recited in public such as during the funeral ceremony where a group of boy take turns in reciting the l~s:>m !S with a group of girls. This belief is based on the fact that in Lawa tradition many suiters cannot woo a girl at the same time, each in his own way, trying to capture her attention. People look down on anyone who does this. Therefort the only occasion where several boys can recite a l~s:>m !s to gether is public ceremony such as the warming up of a new house and particularly the funeral. (12) - khi~h

let it be that - mah to be - lgmbif: the Lawa name for the Mae Ping river in the north of Thailand. m ..J - byin as (good, fast, beautiful, etc.) as, like - l~ih to go down a boat - !IJ A direct translation of this twelveth verse is Let (you) be like the Mae Ping river where a boat can go down. (13) - mbyi~l;) as (long, short, big, small etc.) as, like a raft (a Thai loan word) - ps A direct translation of this thirteenth verse would be Let (you) be like the s~IJgyoQ river where a raft can go down. Literally the twelveth and thirteenth verses convey the boy's request for the girl's generosity. (14) - l:>eh

- kyailJ klo?

loud a kind of drum made of alloy metal much treasured by the Lawa.

A direct translation of this fourteenth verse is Let (me) be as loud as the kyai!J klo? drum. A literal translation would be an expression of the boy's wish or his solicitation of help from some spirits to make him famous. (15) - phyo? famous the highest class in the Lawa society generally - s~malJ believed to be of royal blood. Nowadays a s~ma!J lives in poverty as other Lawa, but he still enjoys some privileges given to him by his high birth such as he has the privilege of being the flrst to choose land for cultivation. However

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as the keeper of Lawa traditions he has many obligations. He must also observe a special code of manner such as never to utter any abusive language. There are female sama!J and male sama!J. A sama!J'S daughter is entitled to receive a higher "bride price" and better gifts than ordinary brides. In this fifteenth vetse the boy expresses his wish to be as famous as a sama!J. ( 16) - ha:ohaiJ

- ro - ?s - s~ma!J

ro ? e.

This word has no meaning. It is put here to fill the required number of words in a verse (5-7 words with a majority of 6 words), and also to rhyme with the word s~maiJ in the preceding verse. a cock's crow. The use of this word is restricted only to the cause where it crows because it sees a spirit. chicken, cock, hen Is the name of a Lawa princess (s~maiJ) in the past. She was so beautiful and her hair was so long that when she wanted to comb it she had to stand on a rock so that her hair would not touch the ground. Later this princess decided to marry a spirit. Since then, whenever she comb her hair, cocks crow in the same manner as when they see a spirit.

In the sixteenth verse the boy expresses his wish to be as famous as that princess whose name is still known among the Lawa today. (17) - h&hs This word has no meaning. It is put here so that this verses have the required number of words. It also rhymes with the last word of the sixteenth verse. like, as - t:>k - k&kho? chief of the foresters The seventeenth verse expresses the boy's wish to be as famous as the chief of the foresters.

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The Lawa Las:)m !£ Poetry

bot som kh:mom niiJ kat ndah mian rnoifi kh)l€c yuh ta? ne ndah mi.an moin mbye chJm ta? ~t nt;)m raok me'J h;)O mb;)O l;)laif}' raok tao kyaih tho? yo? layia ?'aok tao hdo tpic ni!J yo? tain raok tao?? a in plain lalahl ha\n pui Took tao som ngia? khet vi? klo!J r;)ok t;)O som J!OIJ pJD phOIJ na? niem Taok me? hao mb;)O )a}aiff pa!J be lako? chan Y.iakYaok pa!J k:>e ndo!J te? chan );'iak kbm niem ;:~ok me? hao mbao }d}aifi hao mbit fl!ai me? pJn lakhia? hao thia? fi!ai me? pJn lalan hao no? IJ!ai me? nam hoi na hdO p:>n mai pa hoi nJ£ hao som l;ka th1m Iannuic h;)o ?e h laka hoic Japhaom hao som laka th1m khyoin kho? hdO pJn laka ko? khyoin klo!J hao som phi yia mbla );)}a!J hao som phi tan phya? setu? toh yo? v!dt!Jia? som phi tan toh yo? viat mblam kin tan sem etc.

r

r

l;)S:)m ;)Ok h;)O (1)

(2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

(10) (11)

(12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24)

Translation and explanation (1) - ndah

- mian ·"' -mom - khyec - yuh ta?ne

if like, as ...... as (Thai loan word). word as it was already mentioned archaic expression, unknown to the author's informants

The whole meaning of this first verse is if it is like the word that was already agreed.

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Suriya Ratanakul

They might have talked about their trip to the town. (2) - mbye as it was already mentioned. sweet, appealing, charming. Sex appeal is - chJm probably not included in the meaning. - ta? ne:t like 'ta? ne', this is an archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants. The meaning of this second verse is if it is like the word that was nicely agreed. (3) - DI;}m - r;}ok

-me? - h;}O

- mb;}o - );});}in

when to bring you to go to spin cotton instrument for cotton spinning

This third verse means if you come with me, (your trip will be like) cotton-spinning. Cotton spinning is considered a delightful work to most Lawa girls. (4) -

-

t;}O

ky;}ih tho? yo? l;}yi;}

not maiden little, not the eldest to see painful experiences such as lack of food or hardship during a journey etc.

In this verse the boy promises not to bring the girl (whom he regards as his younger sister) to trouble. to take off (one's dress, shoes etc.) (5) - p.:>ic at - nilJ - yo? lack, without - tain cloth weaving A direct translation of this verse would be will not let you be without clothes, because there is no cloth weaving. Literally the boy promises not to let the girl be in trouble without any clothes on. ? ;}ifi - plaifl - l;}laiiJ

(6) -

- h;}In

to return, to come back starving, lack of rice, lack of water among a large number of

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The Lawa L:»s:m ~£ Poetry

people - phui Literally this verse means that. the boy will not take the girl to starvation among large ·number of people who have enough to eat. (7) - som - llgi;).? - khet - vi? - klOJ;J

a

to eat rice to eat only rice without even salt archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants a kind of vegetable a stream, a river

In this verse the boy promises that he will not take the girl to eat rice with that kind of vegetable only. (8) -

J!OJJ p:m pho:Q na?

. only, alone to eat rice with other kind of food bamboo shoot sour

The boy promises not to take the girl to eat rice with sour bamboo shoQts. (9) - repetition of the third verse (10) - paJJ - ,k:>e - l:»ko? -chan - Y,i:»k

although to have husked rice to intend elder brother

The boy indicates his willingness to take some rice grain with him. (11) - 0 doJJ cooking pot - te? earth to carry - kl:>m The boy says "I have an earthen cooking pot which I will carry with me to cook rice for you during our journey so that you will not starve.'' (12) repetition of the third verse (13) - mbit to take a wood to bar water, to use earth as ·a barrier to water in a river until the water dries up. This is done in order to catch fish. the dried up place in a stream where there is a barrier for fish catching.

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Suriya Ratanakul

The boy says "I will go to make a barrier in a river with you and eat the fish from that barrier with you.'' He does not talk directiy about fish. To mention the two words whose meanings are related to fishcatching is enough. Besides, l~khl~? rhymes nicely with the following word th'i~?. (14) th'i~?

to cast a fishing net . a kind of big fish which is delicious to eat.

- l~lan The boy says "I will go casting nets with you and eat this delicious fish with you." (15) - no?

- nam - hoi

to drink water (Thai word miam) head (Thai word h u~) rice field (Thai word)

- na "I will go and drink water with you at the head (starting point) of the rice field." (16) - pa

- hoi - n;)e

fish (Thai word) stream (Thai word hu~y) small (Thai word nS:>y)

"I will go and eat fish from the small stream with you." (17) - l:lka

th'im -

l~iiuic

in front of, in place ahead ripe fully, really (used only to qualify ripe fruit and fat pigs)

In this verse the boy persuades the girl to go with him where ripe fruits are waiting for them. (18) - ?e:h to take - hoic to feel satisfied - l~phaom heart He continues his persuasion. The girl is encouraged to go and seek satisfaction in the future with him. (19) - khyoin every "Every tree that we will meet on our way ahead will have ripe fruit. Let us go and eat them." (20) - ko? water animals such as fish, shrimps, crabs and turtles "In every stream that lies ahead, there are plenty of water animals, let us go and eat them."

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The Lawa Las:>m !£Poetry

(21) - phiyia mb'ia

- lalalJ

easily available things thin membrance inside a piece of bamboo. When the Lawa roast glutinous rice in a bamboo section, this thin membrance will envelop the glutinous rice, making the glutinous rice delicious, according to the Lawa. glutinous rice roasted in a section of bamboo shoot

"Let us go and eat easily available and delicious thing such as bamboorice." (22) - phitan phya? - s::~tu?

what is offered to monks novice monk

"Let us go and eat food that was offered to novices and monks". In Buddhist festivities, food will be offered to monks and novices more than they can take. This is because people want the rest to be shared to other people who come to participate in the ceremony. The boy in this las:>m !e invites the girl to go with him to a buddhist monastery during a ceremony and partake in such food. to meet. In everyday usage this word is latoh. (23) - toh The presyllable is reduced here in accordance with the rhythm of the l::~s:>m !e:. a buddhist monastery - viat the Shan - 1Ji3? "Let us go to see the Shan monasteries and partake of the food offered there." (24) - mblam the Burmese the Northern Thai - s&m "Let us go to see the Burmese monasteries and partake of the food offered by the Northern Thai." The full text of this l::~s:>m comprised of 64 verses. The above text and translation are only examples.

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References Hutchinson, E.W., 1935. The Lawa in Northern Siam. Journal of the Siam Society 27, 2, page 153-174, page 178-182. Kauffmann, H.E., 1972. Some Social and Religious Institutions of the Lawa (N.W.- Thailand) part I. .Journal of the Siam Society 60, 1, page 237-306. Kerr, A.F.G., 1924. Ethnologic Notes; The Lawii of the Baw Luang Plateau. Journal of the Siam Society 18, 1, page 135-146. Kerr, A.F.G., 1927. Two "Lawa" Vocabularies; the Lawa of the Baw Luang Plateau. Journal of the Saim Society 21, 1, page 53-56. Khanthathatbamroong, Manas, 1965. 'Kan s6ngkhr:i? chao khao nai phak nia khoq tamruet phuth:m chai d£n' (An assistant to the hilltribes in the North by the Royal Patrol Police), an unpublished M.A. thesis, Thammasart University, 1965, (in Thai) Kunstadter, Peter, 1966. Living with Thailand's Gentle Lua. National Geographic Magazine, July, 1966, page 123-146. Leber, Frank M., Gerald C. Hickey, John K. Musgrave, 1964. Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven., 288 pages, the Lawa section is on page 1:20--121. Meemanas, Payao, 1979. A Description of Chaobon (nahkur) : an Austroasiatic Language in Thailand, an unpublished M.A. thesis, Southeast Asian Language Center, Mahidol University, 1979, 314 pages (in Engligh). Obayashi, Taryo., 1964. The Lawa and Sgau Karen in Northwestern Thailand. Journal of the Siam Society. 52, 2, page 199-216. Rangsit, M.C. Sanidh., 1942/45. Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Lawa sprachen von

No~d-Siam

Anthropos

37/40, 689-710.

Rangsit, M.C. Viphavadee, 1971. written under the pseudonym of V. na Pramualmark, "mia nuey phra? rajchathan khin kha'o", (When the Royal Aid comes to the hills) in her collected papers "rieg lai rot" (Different tastes), Bangkok, Prae Pittaya Press, 1971. (in Thai) Ratanakul, Suriya, 1977. 'ruapruam kham phasa Lawa' (a collection of Lawa vocabulary), paper presented to the Symposium on Humanities Disciplines, organized by the National Research Council of Thailand, March 24-26. (in Thai) Sisawat, Bunchuai, 1952. 's~ sip chat nai Chiengrai' (Thirty Nationalities in Chiengrai), Outhai Press, Bangkok, (in Thai). Schlatter, Donald, 1976. Phonemes and Orthography: Language Planning in Ten Minority Languages of Thailand, William A. Smalley (editor), Pacific Linguistics Series C-No. 43, the Australian National University, chapter 11, page 273-281. Thomas, David D., and Headley, Robert K., 1965. 'More on Moo-Khmer Subgrouping', Lingua 25, 4, page 398-418. Tribal Research Center, 1978. Tribal Population Summary in Thailand. Young, Oliver Gordon, 1961. The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, flfth edition published by the Siam Society, Bangkok, 1974, 96 pages.

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The Lawa

L~sJrn

1£ Poetry*

Suriya Ratanakul* *

Background information

In this paper the term 'Lawa' is referred to as the language of a tribal group whose population is estimated to be about 9,841 1 and is concentrated in two Northern provinces, Chiengmai and Maehongsorn? Specifically the Lawa villages are found between Baw Luang, Hot district, Chiengmai province in the East and Maesariang district, Maehongsorn province in the West3 . These Lawa or, as they call themselves, (lav\Q), belong to different linguistic groups from the so-called 'Lawa' of Kanchanaburi province, from the 'Lu;;l' (Mal, Thin) of Nan province, and from the 'Lawa' (Chaobon, Nahkur)4 of Petchabun, Nakorn Rajseema and Chaiyaphum provinces. Historically, the Lawa are the descendants of the powerful Lawa whose kingdom was recorded in the early Northern Thai chronicles. The history of these Lawa has been a subject of discussion by many historians and anthropologists. For example, according to two Thai scholars, Sisawat and Khanthathatbamroong, the Lawa were once the lords of the land in the upper part of the Golden Peninsula before the southward

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Symposium on Austro-Asiatic Languages, Helsingor,

Denmark, October 24-26, 1979

**

Mahidol University

1. The number was given by the Tribal Research Center in its reports, Tribal Population Summary in Thailand, 1979. 2. The Lawa population in Chiengmai is 7,139, consisting of 1,239 households in 19 villages. In Maehongsorn, the number is decreased to 2,570, consisting of 499 households in 13 villages. There is also a Lawa village in Chiengrai where there are only 132 Lawa and 29 households; cf. the above mentioned Tribal Population Summary in Thailand. 3. A vivid description of a two-day trek to these Lawa villages was given by the late Princess Viphavadee Rangsit in her article "niienuey phra? rajchathan khl.n khao" (when the Royal Aid comes to the hills) in her collected papers "rie!] l;i rot" (Different tastes), Bangkok, Prae Pittaya Press, 1971. 4. A description of the Chaobon language was done by Miss Payao Meemanas in her A Description of Chaobon (nahkur) : an Austroasiatic Language in Thailand, an unpublished M.A. thesis, Southeast Asian Language Center, Mahidol University, 1979, 314 pages (in English).

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Suriya Ratanakul

migration of the Thai race from China5 • Gordon Young mentioned a story told to i him by a great Wa chieftain who claimed that his people had journeyed thousands of years ago northward along the Mae Ping river and settled for a long time in what is now Chiengmai valley 6 • Princess Viphavadee Rangsit believed that the Lawa once had attained a state of civilization whereby human society consisted of classes. The belief was based on her discovery in 1969 when she visited the Lawa village of Umphai in Chiengmai province where it was found that the Lawa community actually consists of four classes, i.e., (1) The samal] (royal blood), (2) the lam (mandarin), (3) the koyit (sorcerer and shaman) and (4) the ordinary lavi.:l. Besides, from her observation of the crocodile motives carved on the pillars of an ancient ceremonial pavillion in that village together with the samaiJ'S use of fish as their herald, she advanced the theory about the sea origin or the northward migration of the Lawa 8 • Linguistically speaking, the Lawa language belongs to the Palaungic branch of the Moo-Khmer family in the Austroasiatic Phylum? The Lawa language described in this paper is the one spoken in Ban Pa Pae village [yueiJ pe], Maesariang district, Maehongsorn province. The author has been working on this lauguage since 1974 with the purpose of compiling a Lawa- Thai and Thai- Lawa dictionary10. Even if more than 4,000 words together with phrases and sentences illustrating their usage have already been collected, the author always finds it difficult to finish the planned dictionary. New interesting words come up every time the author interviews her informants. Attracted by the richness of its vocabulary and by the poetic expression of this language, the author shifted her interest from the planned S.

Sisawat, Bunchiiai 's~m sip chat nai Chiengrai' (Thirty Nationalities in Chiengrai), Outhai Press, Bangkok, 1952 (in Thai). Khanthathatbamroong, Manas 'kan sonkhrJ? chao khao nai phak nia[ch:m tamruet phuth:m chaiden' (An assistant to the hilltribes in the North by the Royal Patrol Police), an unpublished M.A thesis, Thammasart University, 1965 (in Thai).

6. Young, Oliver Gordon (The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, 1961, fifth edition published by the Siam Society, Bangkok, 1974, 96 pages, page 53.

7. Kauffmann, H. E gave a slightly different account of the Lawa system of classes in his article 'Some Social and Religious Institutions of the Lawa' part I'. Journal of the Siam Society 60, 1, 1972. 8. Viphavadee Rangsit, "mianua{Y phra rajchathan khin khao", page 336-337.

9. Thomas, David D., and Headley, Robert K., 'More on Mon-Khmer Subgrouping', Lingua 25, 4 page 398-418.

10. Ratanakul, Suriya, 'ruapl'llQm kham phasa Lawa' (A collection of Lawa vocabq]ary), paper presented to the Symposium on Humanities Disciplines, organized by the National Research Council of Thailand, Mjlrch 24-26, 1977, 40 pages.

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The Lawa L~:>m !£ Poetry

linguistic investigation to the study of the culture and literature of the Lawa. This paper is a report of part of her findings of such study. In this paper an attempt will be made to give (a) a brief phonological description of the Ban Papae dialect; (b) a short account of the coming of age of Lawa adolescents together with courtship and marriage, all of which are entwined with I as:>m }e;(c) an analysis of different types of I~s:>m ~e; and (d) a translation of some selected texts of l~s:>m Is.

A brief phonological description of the Ban Pa Pae dialect 11

Ban Pa Pae village 12 , situated in Tam bon Ban Pa Pae, Mae Sariang district, Maehongsorn Province, consists of 284 Lawa living in 54 households. The majority of the population are animistic Buddhists and accept the samaiJ as their leaders. Christian missionaries came to the village 20 years ago and converted a small number of the Lawa. Perhaps the greatest contribution by those missionaries to the Lawa was the introduction of the Roman and Thai alphabets as the means of writing Lawa 13 • As a result, the Lawa have been using these alphabets in their daily correspondences including the writing of Las:>m .le. Even if the widespread written language introduced by these missionaries was based on the pronunciation of people from another village, Ban La-up, the Ban Pa Pae people have no difficulty in using it as an effective means of correspondence because all of them know the systematic sound correspondence between the pronunciation of Ban La- up and their own. In the phonological description that follows, IPA symbols are used with some exceptions: y = IPA j; ii = IPA Jl; II! etc preglottalized. Ban Pa Pae Lawa has 37 initial consonants as shown in the following chart.

II. The phonological description is based on the pronunciation of the author's principle informant, Khun Bunphob Bo? bl ages 31. 12. Kunstadter, Peter gave a description of Lawa circle of life in Ban Pa Pae village in his article 'Living With Thailand's Gentle Lua' in the National Geographic Magazine, July, 1966, page 123-146. 13. Schlatter, Donald gave a detailed description of the analysis and development of orthography for writing the Lawa language, in Phonemes and Orthography : Language Planning in Ten Minority Languages of Thailand, William A. Smalley (editor), Pacific Linguistics Series C- No. 43, Australian National University._l976, chapter II, page 273-281.

bilabial

ca ""

0

labio-dental

alveola

ca ~

velar

voiceless unasp.

p

t

c

k

voiceless asp.

ph

th

ch

kh

voiced

b

prenasal.

mb

glottal ?

y

nd

preglottalized

"'0. 0 ..... "'

palatal

ii

ng

c

'

til

¥

~

voiced

m

n

fi

voiceless

hm

hn

hfi

hi]

preglottalized

m

n

fi

IJ

i

n

~

l

s=

.::....."' G)

slit

voiceless

f

voiced

v

h

r

tiS

.~

.:::

groove

laterals

.

voiceless

s

voiceless

hi

voiced

I

preglottalized

I

.r

-

..... 00 CD

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The Lawa

L~s:m

1£ Poetry

examples: pag t:)m cak ka? ?ai? phen thu ChU~IJ khi~t bak ybm mbok ,.ndoiJ ncaim ng:)k

bottle egg deer fish

Y.-

Y,h

mnN n-

maic nok

medicine good, beautiful to make an offering to the spirits house knee to hear blood the narrow part of a piece of cloth paddy, unhusked rice rope only one "Never mind!" eye monkey bee sword turtle post, pillar elephant leaf

p-

tck-

,_ phthchkhb-

y mb-

:~nc ng

iii::.?

hmhnhii-

IJOIJ hlll:)n hnam hnoic

hiJ-

hiJ~?

mn.., nIJfhv-

1110? f!OIJ mah ~ok IJai

I)-

fi~?

T-

he vee raih

shi-

PIJ sag hla?

r

I

white mountain foot to bite small frog to weep to ride pot (cooking utensil) (finger) ring ugly

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Suriya Ratanakul

11-

laic pig !ol) boat In Lawa /II and /y/ can function as the second consonant.

example I - pi kl phi khl mbl ngl y- py ky

pbl) kloi) phlok mble 0 glo? pyaI) kyak

grass used for thatching river, stream elephant's task to lick bracelet swamp roof buffalo

y- phy khy mby ngy

phyu? khyai mbY:YIJ ngyoi)

blanket gold horse to carry (two or more people)

khll~k

Final consonants: Lawa has both open syllables and closed syllable. Open syllables occurs only after long vowels. Closed syllable can have the following 10 consonants as final consonants: example -p -t -c -k

?aop ?alt laic ?ak kho? maih

-? -h -m -n ,.. -n -IJ

cooked rice to be pig crossbow tree nose salty child mud river, stream

?~m

ku~n

mbifi kloi) Vowels: front

high

central-back i

back u

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The Lawa L:)SJm IE Poetry

mid-high mid low

w

e

~

0

e

a

J

Lawa has a nine- vowel types. It is the author's hypothesis that the mid-high /w/ may have been recently introduced. It is found only in 9 words, all of which are undoubtedly Thai (or Kam Mu~l)) loan words. examples:

khWIJ twk kwt vwn swk

to stretch to get stuck (to, in) to obstruct, to be in the way of to feel lonely and nostalgic enemy etc.

" Thai khiiJ Thai tit ' Thai kiit Thai waiJ weeiJ ' Thai sik

Diptbongs: i~

i~

ei

~i

e:>

~I ·~O

ai ai ao

ui u~

oi :>i :>e

Syllables Most Lawa words are monosyllabic. Disyllabic words have a preliminary syllable and a main syllable. Preliminary syllable receives no stress. This first vowel position is filled by only two vowels (a and ~). ~ is more frequent than a. It is a neutralization of all points of vowel articulation. However, when reduplication (such as in an onomatopoea) is present, any short vowel may occur. The second syllable, the main syllable, receives stress. It may be filled by all vowel phonemes. Coming of Age in Ban Pa Pae Unlike the Meo, the Yao, the Lisu or the Akha, the Lawa do not enjoy festivities. They are more repressive and subtle in their emotional expressions. In our relationship with them, their mannerism, slight facial expression and other bodily

190

Suriya Ratanakul

signs must ~.lways be taken into account. 14 Therefore one should not be surprised that the coming of age ceremony of the Lawa adolescents is much simpler than that of other tribes. Tradition was established with the belief that after the age ot puberty, these Lawa boys and girls would become young adults, ready for courtship and marriage and for taking up social responsibities (e.g. making and receiving social visits and reciting l~s;,m !e at funerals). In this tradition the coming of age of the girls is more defined than that of the boys. For a girl to come of age she must be 13 years old and in accordance with the need of the community where she lives. If, on that specific period there exists in the community a large number of unmarried debutantes, to use the Western terminology, whom the community could ask to recite the l~,;,m !e: in funeral ceremonies, her coming of age can be postponed for 6 months or a year if she so desires. On the contrary, if on that time there are few maidens, the girl's coming of age can be hastened to the age of 12. Such decision is made partially by the girl herself and by the elder maidens of the community. If the girl's older sister has just been married and if the number of the older maidens in the community is much limited, the girl will recite or ask to be taught l~;,m !£. This indicates her readiness to assume social duties. If her intention is in accordance with the wishes of the older maidens in the community, a piece of meat will be sent to the girl's house, indicating the latters' willingness to accept her in their circle. With this sign, the girl is ready to welcome night visits from young boys and to assume social duties by participating in funeral ceremonies. A knowledge of l~s;,m !e: is required for these two occasions. As for the boys, when they are 12 or 13 years old, they need no encouragement nor social approval of their behavior on the matter of their coming of age. Usually, boys go where people are gathering, be it at a house-warming or funeral. They hear and learn the l~s;,m le: recited by their older brothers in the community. When a boy 15 acquires the l~;,m 1~ . skill, he starts paying night visits to the "visitable" girls. . Coming of age and courtship among the Lawa are not sexual orgies as 14. For example, if when the author's linguistic informant wanted to work with her, he would be dressed in his best suit walking leisurely with his friendly cleaned-shaven face. But if he did not want to be bothered his dress was shabby and he sat serenely in the garden. 15.

There is no definite age specifying when he should pay these visits. If he is precocious, he can start paying visits at the age of 14-15 years. If he is shy, he can postpone this social duty a little longer. However, these visits are a must for all Lawa boys. If any boy has never paid such a visit he becomes "odd" in the eyes of people in the community. This is because the visit is essentially social and not necessarily a courtship. Of course the visit might turn into courtship later.

191

The Lawa L~:>m !£ Poetry

many tourists seem to believe. There is no "special" rendez-yous for the young Lawa. The boy has to visit the girl in her own one-room house where all family members sleep together. Only a fireplace is between the girl's sleeping quarter and her parents'. Both the visitor and the girl are each conscious of the social aspect of the visit. Both consider the visit as a duty. For the boy it is his duty to pay a visit to every "visitable" girl at least once. Similarly for the girl it is her duty to welcome the guest. Hence they treat each other with good manners and each talks to the other in l~:nn !&. Only a serious illness can be used as an excuse for the girl's unwillingness to talk in las;,m !& with her guest. If the boy feels attached to her, he will increase his visits and use the laS:>m !& as a means of courtship. In addition, as a sign of his love a small gift such as a box of matches or a beautiful sea shell filled with tobacco will be given to the girl. Unless the girl likes him his gift will not be accepted. The giving, refusal or acceptance of the gift all are done by means of the las:>m !e. When both of them are sure of their feelings for each other, the suiter will give the girl of his choice a "big gift". The gift is a beautiful object such as a comb or jewelry plus cash of at least 20 baht. The acceptance of this gift indicates her willingness to be his bride. A marriage ceremony will take place later. After marriage the las:>m !e: will no longer be used by the couple. Marriage is considered by the Lawa as the zenith of adulthood and the door to old age. An analysis of different types of lasam !e: Ias:>m !& is Lawa poetry used by the Lawa adolescents in their social visits and courtships and by the young unmarried Lawa in a funeral ceremony. The theme of bs:>m I& therefore varies in accordance with the occasion of its use. At a funeral ceremon; the las:>m !& is usually recited by groups of boys and girls taking turns with each other. The las:>m !& for the funeral ceremony can be recited only on that particular occasion. A fine is imposed by the samal) on those who break this tradition. Married people will recite the las:>m !& only when they are asked to instruct the las;,m Ie: to the young Lawa at a funeral ceremony. In this case it is the boy that needs such instruction more than the girl. This is because usually the girl takes her social duties more seriously than the boy. She learns about alllas:>m !& of different themes from the older maidens of the village before her willingness to come of age.

We may classify l~s:>m !& into six kinds each with a single different theme. Our classification does not include what is known as las:>m ibi which not only has various traditional themes but also leaves room for innovative themes. The 6 laS:>m !-& are as follow:

192

Suriya Ratanakul

1. las3m IelJa Tit lu~l) "in the direction of, side"; Tit means "tradition". l~s:>m lu~J;J fit is a traditional poetry recited only during a funeral ceremony. Its text is traditionally fixed and cannot be changed nor improvised. Z. las3m kam khuib kam is the Kam Muau loan word meaning "word, language". khuih means "to desire". The main theme of this l~:>m is an expression

of the reciters's desire, e.g., love, the wish for happiness and prosperity for the girl, the desire to be able to give beautiful presents. l~s:>m kam khuih consists of 10 different texts. 3. las3111 °doin ?ein kbe? 0 doin means "to climb, to walk along the narrow path of the rough mountain trail"; ?ein means "to come back, to return"; khe? means "back, at the back of''. The theme of this l~s:>m is a description of the difficulty of the reciter's journey and his desire to return to his beloved. The l~s:>m 0 doifi' ?ein khe? is usually recited by the boy in his first night visit to the girl and also when he has to depart from her by making a rather long journey from the village (e.g. to Chiengmai). I~s:>m 0 doi·ii ?ein khe? consists of 10 texts. 4. las3m hao ka h~o means "to go"; ka is a loan word from Kam MuaJ;J, Chiengmai dialect, meaning "to do business". This l~s:>;m has as its main theme a description of how the reciter did business ill another place. In the Lawa tradition, to do business means also to "sell one's labour". In the present day Lawa village there is not enough fertile land for the whole population. Therefore Lawa men tend to go "selling" their labour outside the village twice a year, usually in September after rice planting, and in February or March after the harvest. There are 7 texts of bs:>m h~ ka. 5. las3m 7aok bao r~k means "to bring someone along"; h~ means "to go". This I.~s:>m is the reciter's invitation of his beloved to go with him to other . places. In his invitation the girl is assured of having a pleasant journey. The invitation is only formal, because no Lawa girls will go out with their suitors unless . they are married. l~s:>m r ~ok h~o may therefore be regarded as an expression of the reciter's wis~ for his beloved to share a·delightful experience (i.e. making a journey) with him. l~s:>m r~k h~o consists of 6 texts. 6. las3m pua IelJa? pu~ means "to ask for something"; lel)a? means "to play". The theme of this l~s:>;m is the reciter's asking permission to talk with, to play with, to be in the presence of the other. This l~s:>m is usually recited by both the boy and the girl who are not familiar to each other. The reciter may also use this l~s:>m to ask the other to teach him (or her) l~s:>m !& adding that he (she) has

193

The Lawa L~s::m !£ Poetry

only a little knowledge about it. l~m pu;) IeiJa? has 4 texts. · All these 6 l~s::>m !e: have a definite number of texts composed by anonymous Lawa poets handed down from generation to generation in the form of oral literature and are kept alive by the young Lawa. The texts of these 6 l~s:>m !e: cannot be revised nor can they be changed. Only by learning these texts by heart can the Lawa adolescents perform their social functions properly. As stated before there is another l~s:>m Ie: (i.e. las:>m iGi) which leaves room for innovative themes to be composed by contemporary Lawa poets, l~s:>m roi means "miscellaneous l~s:>m". There is no definite text for las:>m ibi, and the reciter can put in any theme appropriate to his feelings on a particular occasion. For example Khun Bunphob, the author's principal informant, once in sympathy for his people, composed a l;)S:>m Ibi expressing his feelings for the misery and poverty of his people in the village. The fact that there exists in Lawa culture different kinds of subtle l~s:>m le: is probably an indication of the high culture of this tribal group whose Kingdom once dominated the Golden Penninsula. At present anyone who visits the Lawa village in Ban Pa Pae will see poverty and misery, the same conditions witnessed in other hill tribes in Thailand. But poor as they are these people carry their long lasting traditions within their hearts. These living traditions are expressed in the subtle l~:>m !e:. A translations of some selected texts n.lem ?e? l~p~o ll}lii me? ra? ndah ?e? yum haic nfi] yo? kloiJ cak me? n'iiJ thu 1~? aom ndu hle? ndah ?e? yum ngoiJ n'iiJ yo? phye? me? bik niiJ IJi~k chfk l~heiJ n pat n&.h laiJlaiJ 1~? aom s~? aom s~ gyoiJ pat neb lol)lOI) 1~? aom klOI) ra? main neb nfiJ ? e? l~ha? :>? 0 daip ndaip ne.h nil) ? e? l~haio naiJSl tit nsh ~moiii khyoiii. s~mo? s~k:>k ku~n ndo? khyoiii ngo? phui khf~h mab bmbin mbyin l~ih lOI) khf~h mah sangYOIJ mbyi~IJ l~ih pe:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

194

Suriya Ratanakul

khf~h ?e? mbyin !J&h 111ai kyatl) klo?

(14)

khf~h ?e? mbyin phyo? 111ai s~mal)

(15) (16) (17)

khi01h phyo? har;)halJ s~malJ ro ?c. khf~h phyo? hehs tJk kskho? etc.

translation and explanation This text belongs to l~sJm pu~ l~l)a?. (1) - ni~m

- ? e?

- mai -me? - ra?

when I (poetic term. As an ordinary word for the first person singular pronoun is? ai?). to splash water (poetic expression; in everyday language the phrase p~o l01? aom is used instead). with, together you big

A rough translation of the first verse would be when I am playing water-splashing with you. Such is the boy's subtle way of comparing the recitation of l;JsJm !e to water - splashing game. (2) - ndah if - yum to die to dry up - haic - yo? to be without at - nilJ a stream, a river - klolJ A rough translation of this second verse would be if I die within a dried up stream. The literal meaning of this verse is : reciting a l~sJm !.S to you is like playing water - splashing in a strea111 if there is no more water the stream would dry up and thus cease to be a stream. Similarly if all of my knowledge is spent in reciting l~sJm ! & to you, please · - - - - - (3) - cak to bring water into one's field - thu mountain - );J? aom water - ndu a waterway hie? rain This discourse continues from the second verse. "Please bring rainwater from the

195

The Lawa L~s:>m

!E Poetry

mountain through the waterway". (4) - l}gOlJ - phye?

to die of malnutrition (in humanbeings) or to die of the lack of water and fertilizer (in plants) cultivated land

A direct translation of this fourth verse would be If I am dried up and die without a place for cultivation. Here it should be noted that the boy is comparing himself to a tree which must die if there is no earth to sustain its roots. (5) - blk - IJi~k - chik

to explore a land, to be a pioneer a narrow trail where two ranges of mountain meet a rice field is an adjective whose use is restricted only to qualifying the word "chik". l~hSlJ means (a ricefield) where only rain water is used as means of cultivation.

The fifth verse is the boy's begging the girl to open up the narrow trail between the pressing mountains and make it a place for cultivation. (6) - pat

- neh - laQlaQ - s;)?aom

to flow (used with water only) always, never cease continuously, on and on archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants. the name of a river of which the location is unknown to the author's informants.

The direct meaning of this sixth verse is water flows continuously in S;)9gyOlJ river. Literally the boy is imploring the girl to be generous and help him unc~asingly like the flow of water in s~IJgyoQ river. (7) - loQlOlJ

an onomatopae imitating the sound of the running water.

The direct meaning of this seventh verse is water flows continuously in a large river. In summary the literal meaning of the sixth and seventh verses is the boy's request for the continuation of the exchange of l;)s:>m !e. -

l~ha

to count joint, node (of bamboo)

196

Suriya Ratanakul

- ? :>? - ndaip

bamboo to be close in succession, to be of high frequency

The direct meaning of this eighth verse is to count continuously the frequent joints of bamboo at me. Literally this also is the request to continue the exchange of l;)s:>m 1~:;. (9) - l;)haip - na!JSI

archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants. a Thai loan word meaning "book".

The meaning of the ninth verse is not clear. Generally speaking it is the request for the continuation of the recitation of l;)s:>m 1~:; What is worth mentioning in this ninth verse is the word "na!JSI". If we interpret the word na!JSI as referring to knowledge, this verse can be considered as the boy's humble request for the girl to teach him the knowledge which she has. If the word "na]Jsi" is referred to "a written text" or to "an orthography", it can be speculated that l;)s:>m \~:;had once been recorded in written language before the introduction of orthography by the Christian missionaries in the 1950's. This hypothesis is entertained because the author believes that this l;)sJm was composed more than 30 years ago since there are many archaic words in this verse, the meaning of which is unknown even to older informants (50-60 years old). (10) - tit - S;)mOII1 '"' h - k yo111 •N

- S;)mo?

to attach (a Thai loan word) star every rock

A direct translation of this tenth verse is "Please continue to attach a star to every piece of rock". This is the boy's subtle way of complimenting the girl. His words are compared to a worthless objects such as a rock and her words to celestial objects i.e. the stars. He asks the girl to shed the stardust of her words on his earthly clumsy words so that he would become more enchanting. (11) - s;)kJk to teach - ku;)n ndo? a child - ngo? each person - phui man, human-being A direct translation of this eleventh verse would be "Please teach every child". In this verse the boy is comparing himself to a child waiting for instruction from a teacher. Please note from this eleventh verse that on this occasion there must be

197

The Lawa L~::Sm ·! £ Poetry

more than one boy. Therefore originally this verse was probably composed with the purpose of being recited in public such as during the funeral ceremony where a group of boy take turns in reciting the l~s:>m !S with a group of girls. This belief is based on the fact that in Lawa tradition many suiters cannot woo a girl at the same time, each in his own way, trying to capture her attention. People look down on anyone who does this. Therefort the only occasion where several boys can recite a l~s:>m !s to gether is public ceremony such as the warming up of a new house and particularly the funeral. (12) - khi~h

let it be that - mah to be - lgmbif: the Lawa name for the Mae Ping river in the north of Thailand. m ..J - byin as (good, fast, beautiful, etc.) as, like - l~ih to go down a boat - !IJ A direct translation of this twelveth verse is Let (you) be like the Mae Ping river where a boat can go down. (13) - mbyi~l;) as (long, short, big, small etc.) as, like a raft (a Thai loan word) - ps A direct translation of this thirteenth verse would be Let (you) be like the s~IJgyoQ river where a raft can go down. Literally the twelveth and thirteenth verses convey the boy's request for the girl's generosity. (14) - l:>eh

- kyailJ klo?

loud a kind of drum made of alloy metal much treasured by the Lawa.

A direct translation of this fourteenth verse is Let (me) be as loud as the kyai!J klo? drum. A literal translation would be an expression of the boy's wish or his solicitation of help from some spirits to make him famous. (15) - phyo? famous the highest class in the Lawa society generally - s~malJ believed to be of royal blood. Nowadays a s~ma!J lives in poverty as other Lawa, but he still enjoys some privileges given to him by his high birth such as he has the privilege of being the flrst to choose land for cultivation. However

198

Suriya Ratanakul

as the keeper of Lawa traditions he has many obligations. He must also observe a special code of manner such as never to utter any abusive language. There are female sama!J and male sama!J. A sama!J'S daughter is entitled to receive a higher "bride price" and better gifts than ordinary brides. In this fifteenth vetse the boy expresses his wish to be as famous as a sama!J. ( 16) - ha:ohaiJ

- ro - ?s - s~ma!J

ro ? e.

This word has no meaning. It is put here to fill the required number of words in a verse (5-7 words with a majority of 6 words), and also to rhyme with the word s~maiJ in the preceding verse. a cock's crow. The use of this word is restricted only to the cause where it crows because it sees a spirit. chicken, cock, hen Is the name of a Lawa princess (s~maiJ) in the past. She was so beautiful and her hair was so long that when she wanted to comb it she had to stand on a rock so that her hair would not touch the ground. Later this princess decided to marry a spirit. Since then, whenever she comb her hair, cocks crow in the same manner as when they see a spirit.

In the sixteenth verse the boy expresses his wish to be as famous as that princess whose name is still known among the Lawa today. (17) - h&hs This word has no meaning. It is put here so that this verses have the required number of words. It also rhymes with the last word of the sixteenth verse. like, as - t:>k - k&kho? chief of the foresters The seventeenth verse expresses the boy's wish to be as famous as the chief of the foresters.

199

The Lawa Las:)m !£ Poetry

bot som kh:mom niiJ kat ndah mian rnoifi kh)l€c yuh ta? ne ndah mi.an moin mbye chJm ta? ~t nt;)m raok me'J h;)O mb;)O l;)laif}' raok tao kyaih tho? yo? layia ?'aok tao hdo tpic ni!J yo? tain raok tao?? a in plain lalahl ha\n pui Took tao som ngia? khet vi? klo!J r;)ok t;)O som J!OIJ pJD phOIJ na? niem Taok me? hao mb;)O )a}aiff pa!J be lako? chan Y.iakYaok pa!J k:>e ndo!J te? chan );'iak kbm niem ;:~ok me? hao mbao }d}aifi hao mbit fl!ai me? pJn lakhia? hao thia? fi!ai me? pJn lalan hao no? IJ!ai me? nam hoi na hdO p:>n mai pa hoi nJ£ hao som l;ka th1m Iannuic h;)o ?e h laka hoic Japhaom hao som laka th1m khyoin kho? hdO pJn laka ko? khyoin klo!J hao som phi yia mbla );)}a!J hao som phi tan phya? setu? toh yo? v!dt!Jia? som phi tan toh yo? viat mblam kin tan sem etc.

r

r

l;)S:)m ;)Ok h;)O (1)

(2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

(10) (11)

(12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24)

Translation and explanation (1) - ndah

- mian ·"' -mom - khyec - yuh ta?ne

if like, as ...... as (Thai loan word). word as it was already mentioned archaic expression, unknown to the author's informants

The whole meaning of this first verse is if it is like the word that was already agreed.

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Suriya Ratanakul

They might have talked about their trip to the town. (2) - mbye as it was already mentioned. sweet, appealing, charming. Sex appeal is - chJm probably not included in the meaning. - ta? ne:t like 'ta? ne', this is an archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants. The meaning of this second verse is if it is like the word that was nicely agreed. (3) - DI;}m - r;}ok

-me? - h;}O

- mb;}o - );});}in

when to bring you to go to spin cotton instrument for cotton spinning

This third verse means if you come with me, (your trip will be like) cotton-spinning. Cotton spinning is considered a delightful work to most Lawa girls. (4) -

-

t;}O

ky;}ih tho? yo? l;}yi;}

not maiden little, not the eldest to see painful experiences such as lack of food or hardship during a journey etc.

In this verse the boy promises not to bring the girl (whom he regards as his younger sister) to trouble. to take off (one's dress, shoes etc.) (5) - p.:>ic at - nilJ - yo? lack, without - tain cloth weaving A direct translation of this verse would be will not let you be without clothes, because there is no cloth weaving. Literally the boy promises not to let the girl be in trouble without any clothes on. ? ;}ifi - plaifl - l;}laiiJ

(6) -

- h;}In

to return, to come back starving, lack of rice, lack of water among a large number of

201

The Lawa L:»s:m ~£ Poetry

people - phui Literally this verse means that. the boy will not take the girl to starvation among large ·number of people who have enough to eat. (7) - som - llgi;).? - khet - vi? - klOJ;J

a

to eat rice to eat only rice without even salt archaic word whose meaning is unknown to the author's informants a kind of vegetable a stream, a river

In this verse the boy promises that he will not take the girl to eat rice with that kind of vegetable only. (8) -

J!OJJ p:m pho:Q na?

. only, alone to eat rice with other kind of food bamboo shoot sour

The boy promises not to take the girl to eat rice with sour bamboo shoQts. (9) - repetition of the third verse (10) - paJJ - ,k:>e - l:»ko? -chan - Y,i:»k

although to have husked rice to intend elder brother

The boy indicates his willingness to take some rice grain with him. (11) - 0 doJJ cooking pot - te? earth to carry - kl:>m The boy says "I have an earthen cooking pot which I will carry with me to cook rice for you during our journey so that you will not starve.'' (12) repetition of the third verse (13) - mbit to take a wood to bar water, to use earth as ·a barrier to water in a river until the water dries up. This is done in order to catch fish. the dried up place in a stream where there is a barrier for fish catching.

202

Suriya Ratanakul

The boy says "I will go to make a barrier in a river with you and eat the fish from that barrier with you.'' He does not talk directiy about fish. To mention the two words whose meanings are related to fishcatching is enough. Besides, l~khl~? rhymes nicely with the following word th'i~?. (14) th'i~?

to cast a fishing net . a kind of big fish which is delicious to eat.

- l~lan The boy says "I will go casting nets with you and eat this delicious fish with you." (15) - no?

- nam - hoi

to drink water (Thai word miam) head (Thai word h u~) rice field (Thai word)

- na "I will go and drink water with you at the head (starting point) of the rice field." (16) - pa

- hoi - n;)e

fish (Thai word) stream (Thai word hu~y) small (Thai word nS:>y)

"I will go and eat fish from the small stream with you." (17) - l:lka

th'im -

l~iiuic

in front of, in place ahead ripe fully, really (used only to qualify ripe fruit and fat pigs)

In this verse the boy persuades the girl to go with him where ripe fruits are waiting for them. (18) - ?e:h to take - hoic to feel satisfied - l~phaom heart He continues his persuasion. The girl is encouraged to go and seek satisfaction in the future with him. (19) - khyoin every "Every tree that we will meet on our way ahead will have ripe fruit. Let us go and eat them." (20) - ko? water animals such as fish, shrimps, crabs and turtles "In every stream that lies ahead, there are plenty of water animals, let us go and eat them."

203

The Lawa Las:>m !£Poetry

(21) - phiyia mb'ia

- lalalJ

easily available things thin membrance inside a piece of bamboo. When the Lawa roast glutinous rice in a bamboo section, this thin membrance will envelop the glutinous rice, making the glutinous rice delicious, according to the Lawa. glutinous rice roasted in a section of bamboo shoot

"Let us go and eat easily available and delicious thing such as bamboorice." (22) - phitan phya? - s::~tu?

what is offered to monks novice monk

"Let us go and eat food that was offered to novices and monks". In Buddhist festivities, food will be offered to monks and novices more than they can take. This is because people want the rest to be shared to other people who come to participate in the ceremony. The boy in this las:>m !e invites the girl to go with him to a buddhist monastery during a ceremony and partake in such food. to meet. In everyday usage this word is latoh. (23) - toh The presyllable is reduced here in accordance with the rhythm of the l::~s:>m !e:. a buddhist monastery - viat the Shan - 1Ji3? "Let us go to see the Shan monasteries and partake of the food offered there." (24) - mblam the Burmese the Northern Thai - s&m "Let us go to see the Burmese monasteries and partake of the food offered by the Northern Thai." The full text of this l::~s:>m comprised of 64 verses. The above text and translation are only examples.

204

Suriya Ratanakul

References Hutchinson, E.W., 1935. The Lawa in Northern Siam. Journal of the Siam Society 27, 2, page 153-174, page 178-182. Kauffmann, H.E., 1972. Some Social and Religious Institutions of the Lawa (N.W.- Thailand) part I. .Journal of the Siam Society 60, 1, page 237-306. Kerr, A.F.G., 1924. Ethnologic Notes; The Lawii of the Baw Luang Plateau. Journal of the Siam Society 18, 1, page 135-146. Kerr, A.F.G., 1927. Two "Lawa" Vocabularies; the Lawa of the Baw Luang Plateau. Journal of the Saim Society 21, 1, page 53-56. Khanthathatbamroong, Manas, 1965. 'Kan s6ngkhr:i? chao khao nai phak nia khoq tamruet phuth:m chai d£n' (An assistant to the hilltribes in the North by the Royal Patrol Police), an unpublished M.A. thesis, Thammasart University, 1965, (in Thai) Kunstadter, Peter, 1966. Living with Thailand's Gentle Lua. National Geographic Magazine, July, 1966, page 123-146. Leber, Frank M., Gerald C. Hickey, John K. Musgrave, 1964. Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven., 288 pages, the Lawa section is on page 1:20--121. Meemanas, Payao, 1979. A Description of Chaobon (nahkur) : an Austroasiatic Language in Thailand, an unpublished M.A. thesis, Southeast Asian Language Center, Mahidol University, 1979, 314 pages (in Engligh). Obayashi, Taryo., 1964. The Lawa and Sgau Karen in Northwestern Thailand. Journal of the Siam Society. 52, 2, page 199-216. Rangsit, M.C. Sanidh., 1942/45. Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Lawa sprachen von

No~d-Siam

Anthropos

37/40, 689-710.

Rangsit, M.C. Viphavadee, 1971. written under the pseudonym of V. na Pramualmark, "mia nuey phra? rajchathan khin kha'o", (When the Royal Aid comes to the hills) in her collected papers "rieg lai rot" (Different tastes), Bangkok, Prae Pittaya Press, 1971. (in Thai) Ratanakul, Suriya, 1977. 'ruapruam kham phasa Lawa' (a collection of Lawa vocabulary), paper presented to the Symposium on Humanities Disciplines, organized by the National Research Council of Thailand, March 24-26. (in Thai) Sisawat, Bunchuai, 1952. 's~ sip chat nai Chiengrai' (Thirty Nationalities in Chiengrai), Outhai Press, Bangkok, (in Thai). Schlatter, Donald, 1976. Phonemes and Orthography: Language Planning in Ten Minority Languages of Thailand, William A. Smalley (editor), Pacific Linguistics Series C-No. 43, the Australian National University, chapter 11, page 273-281. Thomas, David D., and Headley, Robert K., 1965. 'More on Moo-Khmer Subgrouping', Lingua 25, 4, page 398-418. Tribal Research Center, 1978. Tribal Population Summary in Thailand. Young, Oliver Gordon, 1961. The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand, flfth edition published by the Siam Society, Bangkok, 1974, 96 pages.

205

Notes on The History of Iron in Thailand Bennet Bronson * INTRODUCTION ·When a general history of the use of metals in Thailand is written, the chapters on iron are likely to focus on two topics. One of these has already aroused lively interest among archaeologists and historians of technology: the question of the date when iron in Southeast Asia first came into use. The other, though, scarcely yet recognized as a problem for research, is equally puzzling and interesting: the question of the date when and the reasons why the original one-stage or "direct" process of ironmaking was replaced by the two-stage "indirect" process. The latter appears to have been unknown in Thailand during the periods usually studied by archaeologists. Yet it was dominant there by the time that historical sources first took notice of such things. In the 17th-18th centuries, the complex but efficient indirect ironmaking process was still unknown in most parts of the world. There were only three exceptions: Western Europe, Eastern Asia, and Thailand. This paper essays a preliminary treatment of both topics. The first section discusses the earliest iron in Thailand and neighboring regions. The second outlines the distribution of ·and the technical differences between the direct and indirect processes, suggesting that in its preference for the former, early Thailand is more like South As.ia and the Middle East than like China. The third presents archaeological evidence indicating that the direct process was the only one known in Southeast Asia in ancient times. The fourth presents historical evidence showing that a change had occurred by the 17th or 18th century, that ironmakers in Thailand (but not in the rest of Southeast Asia) had shifted to the indirect process. The fifth and last section summarizes the preceding sections and considers a few possible explanations for this minor but significant industrial revolution.

1. THE EARLIEST IRON Most researchers are now agreed that iron came into use in mainland • Associate Curator, Asian Archaeology and Ethnology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.

206

Bennet Bronson

Southeast Asia a thousand years or more after the appearance there of locally made copper and bronze. Most also agree that iron antedates the advent in the region of substantial Indian or Chinese influence, which does not become evident before 100 BC-AD 100. Higham (1983:7) accepts a 400 BC date for the earliest iron in Northeast Thailand on the basis of radiocarbon dates from the site of Ban Chiang Hian. Kijngam (1983:10) uses the same evidence to suggest a date .of 600 BC. Bayard (1984:6) notes that several radiocarbon dates and no fewer than ten thermoluminescence (TL) dates on objects from Northeast and Central Thailand place the beginnings of the use of iron in the first half of the first millennium BC. A number of researchers, however, are skeptical about the validity of the TL method as applied to objects made and preserved under Southeast Asian conditions. It is therefore of interest of interest to note that a good many new C-14 dates have recently been made available. These, along with the ones published previously, are listed in Table 1. TABLE 1. RADIOCARBON DATES EARLIER THAN 500 BC FOR IRON IN THAILAND Site

Province

BAN CHIANG NON NONG CHIK BAN CHIANG BAN CHIANG BANPUANPHU BAN TONG NONNOKTHA BAN CHIANG BANTAMYAE NONNOKTHA BANILOET BANPUANPHU DON KLANG BAN CHIANG BANTAMYAE

• = •• =

• Udon Thani • Khon Kaen • Udon Thani Udon Thani Loei Udon Thani Khon Kaen Udon Thani Khorat •• Khon Kaen Loei Loei Khon Kaen Udon Thani Khorat

DateBP 3610 + 230 2900 + 120 2830 2780 2680 2670

2S60 2520 2S20 2480 2460 2440 2440 2410 2390

+ so + so + 210 + 170 + 100 + 50 + I30 + 80 + 200 + so + so + 210 + 60

Date BC (cal.)

Lab. No.

Ref

-231S- 1710 BC

p- 2247

1320 - 1010 BC IllS- 87S BC 930- 825 BC llOS- 74S BC

R- 2809/9 p- 24S5 p- 2634 p- 2939 p- 2723

2

OaK- 102~ p- 266S beta- 27S7 OaK- 1027 p- 2941 p- 2938 p- 2674 p- 2450 beta- 2756

3

9IS82079582079081S63063080060S-

BC BC BC BC BC BC BC BC BC 40S BC 76S S8S 58S 41S 41S 390 41S 41S 375

I

I

4 3

I 4

Date rejected by excavator (s) as implausibly early Probably erroneous -- date refers to Historic Period context

References: (I) U. of Pennsylvania Museum, pers. comm.; for data on sites see Schauffler 1976, Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976, Penny 1982 and White 1982; (2) Bayard 1979: 26; (3) Bayard I97I: 26-3I; (4) D. Welsh, pers. comm.

207

Notes

The fourth column of Table 1lists the dates in "calibrated" form--that is, as corrected for known long-term variations in the proportion of atmospheric carbon-14. The calibration used here represents the current best estimate of the true age of the samples in question. It will be seen that there are now fifteen dates, all on samples associated directly with iron or with types of artifacts found elsewhere in association with iron,. which fall into the first half of the first millennium BC. These are supported by no fewer than twenty-seven more iron-associated dates between 100 and 500 BC which have not been listed here, from the above sites and from Non Chai in Khon Kaen, Ban Chiang Hian in Maha Sarakham, Non Khaw Wong in Chaiyaphum, Tham Ongbah in Kanchanaburi, Tha Muang in Suphanburi, and Chansen in Nakhon Sawan (see Charoenwongsa & Bayard 1983; Higham 1983; Chantaratiyakarn 1983; Bayard 1977:89; Radiocarbon 1970:587-8; Loofs 1979:346; and Radiocarbon 1973:111). This steadily increasing number of early C-14 dates makes it easy to accept that iron in Thailand is sufficiently old to have been made and used theile well before the period of the first intensive Chinese and Indian contacts, which cannot be much earlier than the 1st century BC. But a confident estimate for the very beginnings of local ironmaking cannot yet be made. The date one ultimately selects will depend on one's evaluation of the archaeological context of each dated carbon sample and, perhaps even more importantly, on one's feelings as to whether a given date for Southeast Asian iron is plausible in view of the history of iron elsewhere in the world. The most serious critique of the contexts of many Thai C-14 dates has co~e from Higham (1983), who suggests that all such determinations should be discarded if the sample in question has not come from an ancient hearth or the equivalent so that the excavator can be absolutely certain that the carbon in the sample was ilot redeposited from earlier levels. Many of Higham's fellow archaeologists, however, feel that his criteria for a valid date are unnecessarily strict. While one or two dates on charcoal or other carbon-containing materials found outside hearths should naturally be received with caution, it seems improbable that substantial redeposition should be a general rule: that most carbon samples from most sites should at some point in their history have been dug up and then buried in the soil again. Unless evidence to the contrary exists, we should be safe in concluding that the majority of radiocarbon dateS derive from samples which reached their final resting place in the soil no more than a few decades after the death of the plant or animal from which the sample came. The other principal objection to an early dating for iron in Thailand stems

208

Bennet Bronson

from the feeling that metallurgical and other cultural developments there are unlikely to be earlier than similar developments in other places. Such objections are often advanced with regard to dates for Southeast Asian bronze. However, this does not appear to be a problem in the present case. Iron smelting in several parts of the Old World goes back well beyond 500 BC. In the Middle East and Egypt it was certainly known before 1000 BC; as Snodgrass (1980) and Pleiner (1980) show, iron had reached a position of real economic importance by 800-600 BC over much of the Middle East and southeastern Europe. In South Asia, in spite of a continuing scarcity of extensive series of dates from individual sites, there are a number of indications that iron appears at 700-800 BC and perhaps even earlier (Chakrabarti 1976, · i977). SubSaharan Africa as well has begun to produce moderately early iron dates. Short radiocarbon series from sites in Uganda in East Africa and from Nigeria in West Africa point to dates in the4th or 5th centuries BC (Merwe 1980). Iron in China is also relatively old. The art of smelting was discovered in that . country in the 8th or 7th cen\ury (Li 1975), and its use seems to have developed from that point with extraordinary rapidity. By 500 BC, China possessed an Iron metallurgy which was easily the most advanced in the world in terms of techniques and the scale of processing. By the beginning of the Han Dynasty in 212 BC, Chinese iron is thought to have been cheaper and more abundant than in any other economy of the period, while the technical sophistication of Chinese blast furnaces, foundries and fineries would not be matched even in western Europe for another 1600 years. In fact, one of the few parts of the Old World where early iron has not been found and has rarely been claimed is insular Southeast Asia, There, metallurgy in general and ferrous metallurgy in particular still do not look much earlier than they did to prehistorians of Stein Callenfels' ·and Heine-Geldern's generation; no ironassociated materials with credible dates earlier than 100 BC have been found anywhere in Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines. These late dates do not apply to the Southeast Asian mainland, however. Only two countries there have as yet seen substantial numbers of prehistoric excavations and radiocarbon dates: Thailand and Vietnam. In both, the art of smelting iron seems to appear at a moderately early date. Table 2 lists nine published radiocarbon determinations from Vietnam that point to the presence of iron before 100 BC. Although less· information exists about their exact contexts than is the case · for iron-associated dates from Thailand, most are accepted by outside specialists (e.g., by Higham 1983).

209

Notes

These Vietnamese data help to make it seem more plausible that the ancient inhabitants of Thailand began to smelt iron during the first half of the first millennium BC. The plausibility is increased by the abovementioned data from other regions. Although a few parts of the Old World--much of subSaharan Africa, northern Europe and insular Southeast Asia--appear to have had no knowledge of iron at the time, others certainly did, including central and southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern Asia and much of East and South Asia as well. The accumulating evidence for a relatively early beginning of the Iron Age in Thailand need not astound us nor aff(.ont our sense of historical probabilities. If it should tum out that iron was in ·common use in Thailand by 500 or 600 BC, that still would show only a relative precocity. Other regions were much earlier in discovering iron and somewhat earlier in taking the more important step of using it in substantial quantities~

2. THE DIRECT AND INDIRECT PROCESSES I do not propose to go into the question of whether the technology of smelting and working iron was independently invented in Southeast Asia or whether it was borrowed from outside. Hard evidence on the subject is still much too scarce for any worthwhile conclusions to be reached. However, one point relative to the origins of Thai ironmaking can be made with some certainty: wherever it came from, it was not borrowed from northern China. The reasons why are somewhat complex but are worth discussion, for this will clarify several technical issues and will thus set the stage for understanding the differences between the way iron was made in Thailand during the archaeologil,:al period and the methods of later times. The first such issue to be discussed relates to the fact that until the mid-19th century most of the iron used in the world was of the low-carbon variety known as "bloom" or "wrought" iron. This is characterized by a high melting temperature, which makes it impossible to shape by casting; by relative softness and ductility at red or white heat, making it easy to shape by forging; and by relative toughness and low strength. A pure wrought iron contains almost no carbon and is in fact less strong and hard than many bronzes. However, it has two advantages over any bronze or other copper alloy: (1) because iron ores are very abundant, it is much cheaper, and (2) through adding some but not too much carbon by one of several methods it can be converted to steel, which in terms of combined toughness, strength and hardness is superior not only to bronze but to most other ancient or modem materials. Low-carbon wrought iron and its derivative, steel, were the only types of iron

210

Bennet Bronson

used in most places for most of history. East Asia, however, began at an early date to employ a third type: the very hard, brittle and moldable high-carbon metal known as "cast" iron which, though a good material for making objects like kettles and stoves, is unsuitable for functions requiring shock resistance, as in axes or swords, and which cannot be shaped by forging. The methods of handling cast iron seem to have been unknown to the other technologically advanced nations of antiquity, giving China a world monopoly of making it for perhaps a thousand years. The technology of cast iron was picked up by the Koreans and Japanese sometime in the early first millennium AD and by Central Asians several centuries after that; it was not learned by Europeans until about AD 1300. And yet even in China the market for a brittle, castable iron was limited. As in other countries a great deal of the iron used by the Chinese was of the forgeable wrought variety. The second issue concerns the way in which forgeable iron is made, for it can be obtained through either of two processes. One is the socalled "direct" process that was preferred by early Europeans, Africans, and most Asians. A mixture of iron ore and fuel (generally wood charcoal) was heated at a relatively low temperature until a solid lump or "bloom" of iron formed at the bottom of the furnace. When this bloom was extracted and hammered while still hot until most of the slag was squeezed out, the result was a piece of low-carbon metal ready for immediate use by a blacksmith. The other method for making a low-carbon wrought iron, the "indirect" process, appears to have been used. in early times only in China and, later, in Korea and Japan. As its name implies, the process involves more than one stage. The ore and fuel (either charcoal or mineral coal) are first heated, generally in a larger and taller furnace than that used in the direct process, to a temperature high enough actually to liquify the iron, causing it to run out of the furnace or to collect at its bottom as a molten pool that solidifies as a piece of brittle cast iron with a very high carbon content. It is of course possible to remelt this type of iron and to pour it into molds then and there-the techniques and temperatures needed for molding cast iron do not differ greatly from those needed in casting bronze. However, assuming that a softer and more malleable metal is wanted, it is necessary to put this high-carbon cast iron through a second processing step in a second furnace. This "fining" step involves reheating the iron until it again becomes a liquid and then exposing it to oxygen for long enough to burn most of the carbon out, yielding a solid mass of low- carbon wrought iron which is almost indistinguishable from iron made by the single-stage direct process and which is capable of being used in the same ways.

211

Notes

Why the complex and seemi~gly wasteful two-stage method should have been preferred in ancient East Asia lies outside the scope of this paper. It is enough for now to say that the indirect process was more efficient in some ways, that the large blast furnaces involved were capable of turning out much more metal in a given period of time than the smaller bloomery furnaces used in the direct process, and that at the present day almost all ironmakers use twD-stage processes not greatly different in principle from that invented by the early Chinese. The third technical issue to be raises related to the fact that the Chinese not only were the first to succeed in handling cast iron and in converting this to wrought iron but that they may never have known any other method. They were certainly using the indirect process by 500 BC, and many specialists in Chinese archaeometallurgy are of the opinion that this goes back to the very beginning of iron metallurgy there in the 7th or 8th century BC. The current conseqsus is that the earliest iron to be smelted in China was probably of the cast variety and that the art of removing the carbon from this must have followed shortly thereafter. Some specialists are not convinced this is true. However, until now no secure archaeological evidence has come to light showing that an ordinary type of direct-process ironmaking ever existed in those parts of China anciently inhabited by Chinese. One reason why this conclusion is important is that it excludes northern and central China from consideration as a major influence on early ironmaking in Southeast Asia. As will presently be shown, Thailand and its neighbors made no use of the indirect process until two thousand years after they learned the art of smelting iron. The bloomery furnaces used by early Southeast Asians must have been quite similar to those used in many other parts of Eurasia and Africa. From a purely technological standpoint, such furnaces could have been introduced from any of those areas or, alternatively, could have been independently invented. But we may be fairly certain that the bloomery did not come to Southeast Asia from the North. The archaeological evidence for the bloomery and the direct process in early Southeast Asia is presented in the next section. The sections after that return to the problem raised in the introduction, that of the eventual replacement in Thailand of the direct by the indirect process during the late historic period.

3. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE DIRECT PROCESS That the direct process was the only method of ironmaking known in ancient

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Southeast Asia cannot be proved absolutely. This is strongly suggested, however, by the fact that no examples of cast iron or of the kinds of slags typical of blast furnace smelting have been found at any early site in the region. Analyses of iron objects dating from late prehistoric, protohistoric and early historic phases at various Southeast Asian sites have been published by Suchitta (1983), Bennett (1983), Maddin et al. (1977), and Sieveking (1962:96). All of the objects in question appear to be made · of typical bloom/wrought iron or heterogeneous mild steel. Although Sieveking (ibid.) states that the sockets on certain West Malaysian tools were formed by casting, the analysis he cites for one of these tools shows that the metal involved is a low-carbon iron which could not have been melted or shaped in a mold. These analytic conclusions are backed up by a much larger number of visual inspections carried out by many archaeologists, including the present writer. One indeed cannot always tell by looking at a given piece of rusted iron whether it has been cast or forged. And yet in many cases one can, either because a shape is too complex to be formed by forging or because the object is of a type--for instance, a sword or knife--that could not function if made of brittle cast iron. I have not myself seen or talked to others who have seen a single object that was clearly of cast iron from any ancient site in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines. The apparent fact that cast iron is rare or absent falls short of proof that the indirect process was unknown, for it is nearly impossible even with exhaustive laboratory tests to distinguish low-carbon iron made in a single-stage bloomery from that made in a two-stage blast furnace and finery. Although it seems somewhat improbable, one can still imagine an early technology in which all cast iron produced was promptly converted to wrought iron, leaving no cast ingots or other products behind to be found by archaeologists. It is therefore desirable to seek a less ambiguous kind of evidence. The best evidence of this sort has to come from analyses of slags, the often glassy residues of smelting which represent various non-volatile components of the original ores, furnace linings, fluxes and fuels. Fortunately, slags from bloomeries and from blast furnaces can be easily distinguished. While the former contain a great deal of iron (generally in the 30-500Jo range) in the form of ferrous oxide, the latter under ordinary conditions contain almost no iron at all. Very few analyses of early iron smelting slags from Southeast Asia yet exist. Harrisson and O'Connor (1969, 1:190-5) report the compositions of single samples found by them and by Hutterer at several

213

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sites of the late first and early second millennia AD in Sarawak and in Luzon. Suchitta (1983) lists more detailed analyses of fifteen samples from eleven sites in Thailand, most with estimated dates earlier than 1000 AD. All samples in both groups show iron contents in the 30-SOO!o range and are thus almost certainly not from the type of smelting furnace associated with the indirect process. True, the fineries used in converting cast to wrought iron can also produce high-iron slags, and so can furnaces for smelting copper when, as was often the case in early times, iron ores are mixed with copper ores to serve as fluxes. However, the authors of both of the above studies feel that most of the slag they have studied comes from furnaces employed in the smelting of iron. There is no reason to question this. While a great many more analyses of iron objects and slage would be needed to establish beyond doubt that the indirect process was completely unknown in ancient Southeast Asia, it at least seems safe to conclude that direct ironmaking methods were much more common. One part of Southeast Asia may prove to contradict this conclusion. Northern Vietnam, which was economically integrated with China for the whole of the first millennium AD, could obviously have shifted over to Chinese methods of ironmaking at a relatively early date. I do not know whether documentary or physical evidence exists for this. Considering that the one-stage direct process is not known to have ever been used by ethnic Chinese in China, it seems likely enough that early Chinese migrants to northern Vietnam would have brought their two-stage ironmaking methods with them. Moreover, it is possible that the indirect process was known in Vietnam before the Han Dynasty conquest of the late 2nd century BC. This is suggested by a statement of Tan (1980:131), who says that finds made at the Dong Son period site of Go Chien Vay included not only bronzes but objects made of "foote", the technical French term for cast iron. It this proves not to be just a slip of terminology and if the objects in question are not Chinese imports, the Go Chien Vay finds would have substantial importance in the history of Southeast Asian metalh,J.rgy. 4. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE INDIRECT PROCESS

The only other data we possess on premodern Thai ironmaking comes from a much more recent period, that of European contact. By then a major change appears to have taken place. Where previously iron had been smelted in small bloomery hearths, it was now made in blast furnaces operated by locally resident Chinese and presumably of traditional Chinese type. Pallegoix (Dasse 1976:142,161) and Bowring

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(1977, I:235-8), writing in the mid-19th century, say that substantial quantities of cast iron were produced. Twenty years earlier Crawfurd (1967:408-9, 418-9) noted that a picul of local cast iron cost only half as much as as a picul of wrought iron in Bangkok markets, a fairly clear indication that an indirect process was employed to make the latter from the former. Sewell (1922:13) quotes Prince Damrong as saying that Rama III began the casting of iron cannon in Thailand after observing that local Chinese artisans regularly cast large iron cauldrons. Pallegoix (Dasse 1976:141-2) includes both "iron" (presumably wrought bars) and "cast iron jauches" (cooking vessels) on his list of Siamese exports of the 1850s. Crawfurd (1967:409, 414, 540, 543) makes it clear that this cast iron found a substantial foreign market. In his day, in 1820, pans and other vessels of iron were regularly exported from Thailand to Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore, whence Bugis traders reexported them to much of eastern Indonesia. This success in the export business during the early and middle 19th century is somewhat surprising, considering that this was the period when cheap European-made cast iron goods had become dominant in most world markets. Moreover, the kinds of cast iron objects Thailand was exporting had long been a specialty of the efficient and competitive traditional iron industry of China. As late as the 1760s the government of King Taksin is known to have ordered several hundred large cast iron pans from China, and in earlier centuries these Chinese-manufactured pans were a staple of Southeast Asian trade. An anonymous author believed by Anderson (1981:424) to be George White, the brother of the famous Samuel, observed that in the 1680s iron pans were imported to Ayutthaya from Canton and Macao. The published 17th century Daghregisters of the Dutch East India Company (see, e.g. Chijs 1893:41, 50; FruinMees 1928:678, 810, 927) contain numerous mentions of iron pans as part of the cargo of junks sailing from Chinese ports. Tome Pires (Cortesao 1944, 1:125) notes that quantities of iron kettles, bowls and basins went from China to Malacca in the 16th cen~ry. Fei Hsin (Mills 1970:120) refers to Chinese iron exports in the 15th century. Chou Ta-Kuan (Pelliot 1967:64) in the 14th century and Chau Ju-Kua (Hirth and Rockhill 1911:84, 160) in the 13th century include iron vessels-- almost certainly of cast iron -- in their lists of Chinese goods sold in Southeast Asia. Withstanding the new European competition on the one hand and breaking the ancient Chinese monopoly on the other was therefore no mean achievement for the fledgling Siamese iron industry. That Thailand could sell cast iron pans even in places like Vietnam, right on the border of China, indicates clearly that its smelting and

215

Notes

manufacturing methods had reached a very high level of efficiency. Yet it is also quite clear that this success in producing high-technology exports had been attained only recently. Suchitta suggests that King Taksin's need to import cast iron pans in the 1760s arose from the dislocations to local industry caused by the Burmese wars, implying that ironworkers in Thailand were normally capable of making such things themselves. This may well have been the case: it is difficult to believe that the cast iron technology of the early 19th century could have been born and reached maturity within only a few decades. A beginning as early as 1700 is therefore quite plausible. On the other hand, White's testimony about the importation of Chinese pans in the 1680s comes from a period when Thailand was prosperous and relatively peaceful. We may perhaps conclude that if a locally-based cast iron industry existed during the late 17th century, it was not yet capable of fully supplying local needs. The question is whether such an industry did exist at that date. A good many Western sources of the 1500s and 1600s note that Thailand produced iron and steel. Notices of this kind are usually perfunctory, taking the form of comments that Siam has mines of tin, lead, iron, steel and other minerals (e.g., Mendes Pinto 1653:177; Purchas 1968:569; and Valentyn 1726, 6: 1). These authors do not imply that the Siamese iron industry was especially important. Only a handful of these earlier sources give more substantial information. White (Anderson 1981 :424) states that iron, presumably of the forgeable rather than cast variety, figured among the exports of Thailand to the Philippines in the 1680s. On the other hand two writers earlier in the same century, Baldaeus (Anderson 1981:41) and Floris (Moreland 1934:78) imply that in their day iron for forging was regularly imported to Tenasserim and Ayutthaya from southern India. Floris actually participated in this trade, in 1613 carrying 300 candy (about 80 tons) of iron to Ayutthaya from Masulipatam, the chief seaport for the famous iron and steelproducing areas of Golconda. Thus, Thailand appears to have been importing iron in the early 17th century and to have been exporting it only a few decades later. The situation becomes even more puzzling when the testimony of two other sources is considered, that of the reliable, well-informed La Loubere and that of Salmon and his Dutch translator, van Goch. La Loubere (1693: 15, 70) says that in the 1680s iron was mined in several parts of Siam. However, he says this metal was not wrought iron, maintaining that the

216

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Siamese only "make use. of iron as it is cast, by reason that they are bad forge-men." He repeats this criticism on a later page. Van Goch adds a similar comment to Salmon's (1730:471) description of Siamese products, saying "They have iron mines, which iron they know how to cast. . . . Whatever is made by them, they are poor smiths, having neither nails nor pins, spikes or cutting biades; however they make spikes of bamboo:' These statements clearly require explanation. On a priori grounds it is difficult to accept that all Siamese forgemen of the 17th century were bad at their job. Competence in forging iron is so widespread among traditional metal workers in southern and eastern Asia that on,. '"t)uld question La Loubere's and van Goch's opinion even if Thai museums did not contain numerous well forged objects of iron and steel dating to the 19th century and earlier. And yet La Loubere in particular is not a source to be disregarded without good cause. If we accept that his opinion was based on experience and that many forged iron objects in his day were indeed unsatisfactory, we must try to find another explanation. The only one that makes sense is that it was not the forgers but the iron itself that was at fault. The idea that 17th century Siamese wrought iron was often of poor quality would explain the fact that Floris could make a profit by importing wrought iron (of notably high quality) from southern India to Siam, and might not contradict reports that Siamese iron during the 17th century was sometimes sold to the Spanish in the Philippines, who were perennially short of iron (cf. Blair and Robertson 1905, 42:302-3; 50:107; 51:143, 191; etc.) and may have had to take what they could get. However, it is not yet clear why this should have been so. Can Siamese wrought iron really have been worse than that of other countries if Siamese ironmakers were already skillful enough to make cast iron? The answer is that this is credible from a technical standpoint if we assume that in La Loubere's day the iron industry of Thailand had already started to change over to the indirect process. Iron made by the direct method, like that of Masulipatam in South India, tends to have good forging qualities. The low temperature at which smelting is carried out in bloomery furnaces means that few impurities are likely to enter the finished metal. By contrast, blacksmith's iron made by the indirect process is often not so satisfactory. The high temperatures necessary to liquify the metal during the first stage of the process cause it to pick up impurities such as phosphorus that may be present in the ore and fuel. A metal of this kind may have good casting characteristics and thus be a desirable material from the standpoint of the foundryman. If

217

Notes

converted to wrought iron, however, this same metal will often be brittle and difficult to handle in the blacksmith's forge. 17th and 18th century England offers a good example of this. England was a major producer of wrought iron by then. Its ironmakers already had two hundred years' experience with blast furnaces and fineries. And yet their product was widely considered to be of such inferior quality that large amounts of forgeable iron had to be imported from other countries. The British Admiralty, for instance, continued until almost 1800 to specify that the iron used in anchors, where phosphorus-induced brittleness was an especially serious flaw, should be either direct-process iron from Spain or indirect-process iron from Sweden (Wertime 1961:122, Schubert 1957:313). Thus, La Loubere's criticisms of Siamese smiths may simply reflect the fact that the local iron industry was going through a technological transition. Although it may have begun to utilize blast furnaces by the 17th century, there is no reason to think that it would quickly have mastered the difficult art of converting this to wrought iron. A possibly similar situation appears to have existed in the Philippines in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Spanish entrepreneurs on several occasions tried setting up ironworks using Chinese laborers and techniques. As the Jesuit authors of the Colleccion de Datos (Anon. 1900, 2:299-300) comment, these produced excellently cast plough shares, kitchen utensils and cannon but, due to a lack of capital and "facultative knowledge,"' no wrought iron at all. One of the last remnants of this effort is described by McCasky (1903): a small tilting blast furnace of Chinese type in Bulacan, Luzon. At the beginning of the 20th century this was still making nothing but cast iron. The only other suggestion we have that Thai iron made by the indirect process may often have been of indifferent quality is the surprising success of the tribal iron industry of the Kui, in northern central Cambodia. The equipment used by the Kui, which included large foot-operated drum bellows of an Indian type and small direct-process smelting hearths, seems primitive. Yet as late as the 1880s, as both Moura (1883:43-6) and Fuchs and Saladin (Beck 1891:1009-11) affirm, Kui iron was famous over a wide region, being exported as far as Laos, Thailand and Annam. The case seems to be parallel to that of the above-mentioned shipments of Spanish iron to England in the 18th century: a forgeable iron made by the direct process remained competitive for many years with an undoubtedly cheaper indirect-process iron, presumably because the old-fashioned and inefficient bloomeries made a better product.

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.·

S.

;.

CQNCLUS~pN

What can b~ •known of the hjstory of iron in Thailand does not need much space to summarize. -Tbe art.of $melting it was probably discovered at some time in the first)lalf of th~ first mille,nnium BC. As. was not always the Ca$e in other areas, in Thailand. the new. meta,l was acc~pted with alacrity. It had displaced bronze as a raw material for weapons a,nd tools used in agriculture and forestry well before the end of the prehistoric Iron Age in 100 BC-100 AD. By then it appears to have been employed widely and in substanti~ amounts. Although alloys of copper and tin had been comparatively abundant in the Bronze Age and were presumably not scarce or expensive in later periods, iron proved popular nonetheless. It continued to be used in large quantities during the protohistoric and historic periods by most or all of the ethnic groups of Thailand. All iron in· those early days was smelted by the direct process in bloomery furnaces that were probably quite small. Whereas a few examples are known in India of direct-process furnaces with daily outputs in the 100 kg range, and in 17th-19th centur'y Europe with outputs as high as 500 kg, the vast majority of ethnographically ·and archaeologiCally recorded bloomeries (including all of those in mainland and ·insular Southeast Asia) are much ·smaller, producing perhaps 10 kg of iron per day and measuring less than two meters in height. We may assume that most or all early ·smelting furnaces in Thailand were of this kind. Individual ironmaking enterprises 'were undoubtedly also· smalL Judging by what is known of historic bloomery operations elsewhere in Southeast Asia and India; no more than five or six persons would have worked at one furnace. These may or may not have been organizationally associated with the ten-odd persons needed for obtaining fuel and ore and the five-odd persons who would have forged the iron produced into saleable knives, spears, axes · and so forth. We ha~e rto indication 'as of noW that any great changes in teehnology occurred during the first two thousand years'of Siamese ironmaking. While it is plausible that production became mor~ organized during times of political success and economic . expansion,'it is curtentlynbi'possible tb establish that smelting furnaces became larger arid more efficient, .that animal - or water-'powered machinery was employed at ironworks; or 'that ·~ignific~nt hul.ovations occurred in secondary processing. No ·evidence exists for the prodriction·of crucible steels like the wootz of India or for' the 'bewildering variety of indireCt iron:- and steelrn:aking methods known'from traditional China.'

219

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No technology can remain completely static for two milh!nnia, Yet it should be remembered that bloomery iron made and processed by essentially prehistoric methods was a satisfactory and even superior product. As long as supplies of charcoal and ore remained abundant, it is possible that neither. political decisi9n~makers nor producers had any motivation to seek a change. They might indeed sometimes have found a need for specialty weapons steels or cast iron vessels, but these could have be.en imported easily enough. The foreign trade partners of Thailand inclufied at least two outstanding producers of special-purpose irons. The "wootz" steel of India had already come to dominate a large foreign market by the 7th or 8th centuries AD, and the cast iron vessels of China were exported on a massive scale by the 12th or 13th centuries. There may have seemed to be little point in trying to compete. with producers like these. And in any case, a revolutionary change did eventually occur: the introduction of the arts of smelting and founding cast iron and of fining this to wrought iron. It is not clear when the changeover from the old direct process began. On the basis ofvery slender documentary evidence, the preceding section suggests thai the movement .to the indirect process was under way by the late 17th century but that local ironmakers may not yet have mastered the last stage of that process, the conversion of cast to wrought iron. On somewhat better evidence it might also be suggested that for a century or two the new technology was oriented toward import substitution rather than toward exports. Only in the early 19th century does evidence appear for the shipment of substantial quantities of iron to foreign markets. That this is a remarkable fact has already been emphasized. In most parts of the world during the 1820s and 1830s traditional irorunaking industries were in sharp decline under competitive pressure from the explosively expanding technology of the West. Yet in Thailand local ironmakers using methods which, if not precisely traditional were certainly non-Western, managed not only to hold their domestic markets but to expand into foreign ones in the face of both European· and Chinese competition. .

~

Another index of the success of this Siamese industrial revolution can be found in the early and almost complete disappearance of the old direct process in most parts of the country. The history of ironmaking in other regions would lead us to expect that substantial numbers of bloomery furnaces surviv.ed in remote areas un~il the 19th century. This was true in Africa, South Asia, Insular Southeast Asia, and even in southern and eastern Europe (cf. Cline 1937, Krishnan 1955, Marschall}968,

220

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and Beck 1893-1901), where scores or hundreds of bloomeries lasted long enough to be recorded by European observers. This was not true, however, in Thailand or neighboring countries. The ethnohistoric literature on Thailand itself contains very few mentions of direct-process smelting; the only case I know of is that of the Lawa, who continued to mine and smelt their own ore until the 1920s (Yule 1857:91, Hutchinson 1934, Suchitta 1983). Reports of bloomery furnace operations are similarly scarce for adjacent countries. The Kui appear to have been the only Kampucheans who were still smelting their own iron in the 19th century. I have found no eyewitness account of iron smelting from either Laos or West Malaysia, and only a few such accounts from Burma (LaTouche 1917: 248-51; Blanford in Percy 1864:270-3; Chhibber 1926; Scott 1900:299). The relative absence in Thailand of furnaces using the direct process by the time European observers came on the scene is almost certainly a consequence of the rise of the indirect process and of a marked shift in the scale and pattern of production. During earlier periods, ironmaking in Thailand had been carried out by numerous dispersed productive units. Judging by the number of sites that contain slag and other smelting debris, smelting furnaces in the archaeological period were as widely diffused as in traditional Africa or India. In the late historical period, however, the number of ironmaking areas and presumably of furnaces underwent a very sharp decline at about the same time that the new ironmaking methods appeared. The new ironmaking enterprises were large and presumably efficient. It seems likely that this had the effect of driving down the price of forgeable iron. Eventually prices must have fallen so low that even distant and isolated ironworks using the old direct process could no longer compete. Why the change to the new style of ironmaking happened when it did is not clear. The Chinese-style technology involved had long been in existence, and contacts between China and Thailand had been close enough since at least the 14th century for the necessary skills and technical advisors to have filtered through any barriers to technology export that Chinese governments might have imposed. One possibility is that the indirect process was indeed introduced at an earlier date; nothing in the evidence known to the present writer makes it impossible to believe that iron was being cast and fmed on at least a modest scale in the Sukhothai or even Lopburi Peri~ds. Another possibility is that the communications and markets in those earlier periods were not yet sufficiently developed. Without secure transport and large concentrations of customers, the scale economies inherent in medium-sized and large blast furnaces

221

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would not give the new process any advantage over the older bloomery methods. A third possibility is that the explanation lies partly outside the realm of economics. The appearance in eastern seas of warships armed with cheap and effective cast iron cannon, which should have happened shortly before 1600, must have caused considerable interest among the rulers of those Asian states where, as in Thailand, bronze and brass were far more expensive than iron. Although Rama III is credited with establishing the first official foundry for iron cannon in the 19th century, it seems likely enough that earlier kings and other officials saw the potential military advantage of encouraging Chinese and other immigrants to enter the cast iron smelting business. Some may also have appreciated the desirability of being able to substitute local products for imports. This might have seemed particularly desirable with respect to products which, like cast iron pans in sugar - and salt - making, had important functions in other industries. It seems pointless to speculate further. Hard data on many of these subjects undoubtedly exist, in local and foreign historical records and in the ground at archaeological sites. Quite possibly q1uch of what has been said in this paper will prove to be untrue once those data are found, and it is certain that a great deal will have to be modified. The disciplines of economic and technological history are still very young in Thailand. The work of connecting them, of understanding how the one has affected the other in past times and how these in turn relate to sociological and environmental factors, has hardly begun.

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Bibliography Anderson, John 1981 (1889) English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century. Bangkok: Chalerrnnit. Facsimile reprint. Anon. 1900 El Archipielago Filipino, Colleccion de Datos, vol. 2. Washington: Government Press. Barnard, Noel and Sato Tamatsu 1975 Metallurgical Remains of Ancient China. Tokyo: Nichiosha. Bayard, Donn T. 1971 Non Nok Tha: The 1968 Excavation, Procedure, Stratigraphy, and a Summary of the Evidence. University of Otago Studies in Prehistoric Anthropology 4. New Zealand. 1977 Phu Wiang Pottery and the Prehistory of Northeastern Thailand. Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 3: 57-102. 1979 The Chronology of Prehistoric Metallurgy in North-east Thailand: Silabhumi or Samrddhabhumi? in Smith and Watson 1979: 15-32. 1984 Some Questions on Higham's Revision of the Mainland Southeast Asian Sequence. South-East Asian Studies Newsletter 14: 5-8. Beck, Ludwig 1891-1901 Die Geschichte des Eisens in technischer und kulturgeschichtlicher Beziehung, vol s 1-5. Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg. Bennet, Anna 1982 Metallurgical Analysis of Iron Artifacts fcom Ban Don Tha Phet, Thailand. Unpublished paper (MA thesis?), Institute of Archaeology, Lrndon. Blair, Emma H. and J. A. Robertson 1905 The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. 55 vols. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clarke. Bowring, John 1977 (1857) The Kingdom and People of Siam. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford Unviersity Press. Chakrabarti, Dilip K. 1976 The Beginning of Iron in India. Antiquity 50, 198:114-128. 1977 Distribution of Iron Ores and the Archaeological Evidence of Early Iron in India, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 20, 2: 166-184. Chantaratiyakarn, Payom 1983 Excavations at Ban Chiang Hian, N. E. Thailand 1981. Paper presented at the XV Pacific Science Congress, Dunedin, New Zealand. · Charoenwongsa, Pisit and Donn T. Bayard 1983 Non Chai: New Dates on Metalworking and Trade from Northeast Thailand. Current Anthropology 24, 4: 521-3. Chhibber, Harbans Lall 1926 The Extinct Iron Industry of the Neighborhood of Mount Popa, Upper Burma, with Notes on the Microscopic Study of the Slags. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal n.s. 22:219-232. Chijs, J. A. van der, ed. 1893 Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia, Anno 1664. Landsdrukkerij, Batavia & M. Nijhoff, The Hague. Cline, Walter 1937 Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa. General Series in Anthropology, No. 5. George Banta, Menasha, Wisconsin. 155 pp. Cortesao, Armando, trans. and ed. 1944 The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires. 2 vols. London: Hakluyt Society Crawfurd, John 1967 (1828) Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Dasse, M. ed. 1976 Mgr. Pallegoix Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam. Bangkok: O.K. Book House. Fruin-Mees, W., ed. 1928 Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia Anno 1682. G. Kolff, Batavia. Gorman, Chester and Pisit Charoenwongsa 1976 Ban Chiang: A Mosaic of Impressions from the First Two Years. Expedition 18, 4: 14-26. Harrisson, Tom and S. J. O'Connor 1969 Excavations of the Prehistoric Iron Industry in West Borneo. 2 vols. Data Paper 72, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University.

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Notes Hegde, K. T. M. 1973 Early Stages of Metallurgy in India. in D.P. Agrawal&A. Ghosh, eds., Radiocarbon and Indian Archaeology, 401-405. Bombay: Tata Institute. Higham, Charles F. W. 1983 The Ban Chiang Culture in Archaeological Perspective. Mortimer Wheeler Archaeological Lecture, 1983. Higham, Charles F. W. and Amphan Kijngam 1982b Ban Nadi, N.E. Thailand: Further Radiocarbon Dates. South-East Asian Studies Newsletter 7: 1-3. Singapore. Hirth, Friedrich and W. W. Rockhill 1910 Chu-Fan-Chi, "A Description of Barbarous Peoples." St. · Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Science. Hutchinson, E. W. 1934 The Lawa in Northern Siam. Journal of the Siam Society 27: 153-182. Kijngam, Amphan 1983 Excavations at Ban Nadi, N. E. Thailand. Paper presented at the XV Pacific Science Congress, Dunedin, New Zealand. Krishnan, M. S. 1954 Iron-Ore, Iron and Steel. Bulletins of the Geological Survey of India, Series A: Economic Geology, No.9. Delhi. La Loubere, M. de

169~

A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam. London: Thomas Horne etc.

LaTouche, T. H. D. 1917 A Bibliography of Indian. Geology and Physical Geography. 2 vols. Calcutta: Geological Survey of India.

Li Chung 1975 The Development of Iron and Steel Technology in Ancient China. Kaogu Xuebao 1975, 2: 1-22. • Loofs, Helmut H. E. 1979 Problems of Continuity between the pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Periods in Central Thailand. in Smith and Watson 1979: 342-351. Maddin, Robert, J. D. Muhly and T. S. Wheeler 1977 How the Iron Age Began. Scientific American 237, 4: 122-31. Marschall, Wolfgang 1968 Metallurgie and Fruhe Beseidlungsgeschichte Indonesiens. Ethnologica, n.s. 4: 29-263. McCaskey, H. D. 1903 Iron Metallurgy in the Philippines. The Engineering and Mining Journa/76: 780. Merwe, Nikolaas J. van der 1980 The Advent of Iron in Africa. in Wertime and Muhly 1980: 463-506. Mills, J. V. G. 1970 Ma Huan, Ying-yai Sheng-lan, "The overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores. London: Hakluyt Society, Extra Series No. 42. Moreland, W. H., ed. 1934 Peter Floris, His Voyage to the East Indies in the Globe 16ll-1615. London: Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., vol. 74. Moura, J. 1883 Leroyaumedu Cambodge, vol. 1. Paris: Ernest Leroux. Pelliot, Paul 1967 (1951) Notes on the Customs of Cambodia by Chou Ta-Kuan. English trans. by J. G. D' A. Paul. Bangkok: Social Science Association Press. Penny, James S. 1982 Petchabun Piedmont Survey: An Initial Archaeological Investigation of the Western Margins of the Khorat Plateau. Expedition 27, 4:65-72. Philadelphia: University Museum. Percy, John 1864 Metallurgy: Iron and Steel. London: John Murray. Pinto, Fernand Mendes 165: The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendes Pinto. London: Henry Cripps and Lodowick Lloyd. Trans. by H. C. Gent. Pleiner, Radomir 1980 Early Iron Metallurgy in Europe. in Wertime and Muhly 1980: 375-416. Purchas, Samuel 1968 (1617) Purchas his Pilgrims, or Relations of the World... , Pt. 1. Bangkok: Chalermnit. Facsimile reprint. Salmon, Thomas 1730 Hedendaagsche Historie; of Tegenwoordige Staat van Aile Volkeren, 2. Trans. (and supplemented) by M. van Goch. Amsterdam: Isaac Tirion.

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Bennet Bronson Schauffler, William 1976 Archaeological Survey and Excavation of Ban Chiang Culture Sites in Northeast Thailand. Expedition 18, 4: 27-37. Philadelphia: University Museum. Schubert, H. R. 19S7 History of the British Iron and Steel Industry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Scott, J. George 1900 Gazetteer of Upper Burmo and the Shan States, pt I, vol. 2. Rangoon: Superintendant, Government Printing. Sewell, C. A. Seymour 1922 Notes on Some Old Siamese Guns. Journal of the Siam Society IS: 1-43. Sieveking, G. de G. 1962 The Iron Age Collections of Malaya. Journal of the Malayan Branch, Royal AsiaticSociety29, 2:79-138. Snodgrass, Anthony M. 1980 Iron and Early Metallurgy in the Mediterranean. in Wertime and Muhly 1980: 33S-374. Suchitta, Pomchai 1983 The History and Development of Iron Smelting Technology in Thailand. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Tan, Ha Van 1980 Nouvelles Recherches Prehistoriques et Protohistoriques au Vietnam. Bulletin de I'EcoleFrancaised'Extreme-Orient68: llS-143. Valentyn, Francois 1726 Beschryvinge van Siam en onsen Handel aldaar, Oud-en Nieuw-Oost-Indien, Book 6, 1. Amsterdam. Wertime, Theodore A. 1961 TheComingoftheAgeofSteel. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Wertime, Theodore A. and J.D. Muhly eds. 1980 The Coming oftheAgeof/ron. New haven: Yale University Press. Wheatley, Paul 1961 Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade. JMBRAS 32, 2: 1-140.

White, Joyce C. 1982 Bon Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age. Philadelphia: University of pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution. Yule, Henry 18S7 On the Geography of Burma and its Tributary States. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 27: S4-108.

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TABLE 2. VIETNAMESE C-14 DATES FOR IRON BEFORE 100 BC Site

Province

DateBP

Date BC (cal.)

Lab. No.

CONCONNGUA PHUHOA PHUHOA GOCHIENVAY HANGGON CHAUCAN CHAUSON LANGCA HANGGON LANGVAC

Thanh Hoa LongKhanh LongKhanh HaSon Binh Long Khanh HaSon Binh HaNam Ninh Vinh Phu Long Khanh NgheAn

2666 + 80 2590 + 290 2400 + 140 2350 + 100 2300 +ISO 2325 + 60 2285 + 45 2235 + 40 2190 + 150 1990 + 85

840- 750 BC 1105-400 BC 780- 385 BC 600-385 BC 600- 175 BC 430-390 BC 415-380 BC 405- 185 BC 415- 20 BC 165 BC- 60 AD

ZK- 375 Gif- 1999 Gif- 1996 Bin- 893 MC- 62 Bin- 1438 Bin- 1974 Bin- 1733 MC- 61 ZK - 310

Ref

s 6 6 7 8 5

5 5

8 5

References: (5) Khao Co Hoc 1977, 2: 87; (6) Radiocarbon 1974: 56; (7) Radiocarbon 1978: 392-5; (8) Radiocarbon 1966: 290

205

Notes on The History of Iron in Thailand Bennet Bronson * INTRODUCTION ·When a general history of the use of metals in Thailand is written, the chapters on iron are likely to focus on two topics. One of these has already aroused lively interest among archaeologists and historians of technology: the question of the date when iron in Southeast Asia first came into use. The other, though, scarcely yet recognized as a problem for research, is equally puzzling and interesting: the question of the date when and the reasons why the original one-stage or "direct" process of ironmaking was replaced by the two-stage "indirect" process. The latter appears to have been unknown in Thailand during the periods usually studied by archaeologists. Yet it was dominant there by the time that historical sources first took notice of such things. In the 17th-18th centuries, the complex but efficient indirect ironmaking process was still unknown in most parts of the world. There were only three exceptions: Western Europe, Eastern Asia, and Thailand. This paper essays a preliminary treatment of both topics. The first section discusses the earliest iron in Thailand and neighboring regions. The second outlines the distribution of ·and the technical differences between the direct and indirect processes, suggesting that in its preference for the former, early Thailand is more like South As.ia and the Middle East than like China. The third presents archaeological evidence indicating that the direct process was the only one known in Southeast Asia in ancient times. The fourth presents historical evidence showing that a change had occurred by the 17th or 18th century, that ironmakers in Thailand (but not in the rest of Southeast Asia) had shifted to the indirect process. The fifth and last section summarizes the preceding sections and considers a few possible explanations for this minor but significant industrial revolution.

1. THE EARLIEST IRON Most researchers are now agreed that iron came into use in mainland • Associate Curator, Asian Archaeology and Ethnology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.

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Southeast Asia a thousand years or more after the appearance there of locally made copper and bronze. Most also agree that iron antedates the advent in the region of substantial Indian or Chinese influence, which does not become evident before 100 BC-AD 100. Higham (1983:7) accepts a 400 BC date for the earliest iron in Northeast Thailand on the basis of radiocarbon dates from the site of Ban Chiang Hian. Kijngam (1983:10) uses the same evidence to suggest a date .of 600 BC. Bayard (1984:6) notes that several radiocarbon dates and no fewer than ten thermoluminescence (TL) dates on objects from Northeast and Central Thailand place the beginnings of the use of iron in the first half of the first millennium BC. A number of researchers, however, are skeptical about the validity of the TL method as applied to objects made and preserved under Southeast Asian conditions. It is therefore of interest of interest to note that a good many new C-14 dates have recently been made available. These, along with the ones published previously, are listed in Table 1. TABLE 1. RADIOCARBON DATES EARLIER THAN 500 BC FOR IRON IN THAILAND Site

Province

BAN CHIANG NON NONG CHIK BAN CHIANG BAN CHIANG BANPUANPHU BAN TONG NONNOKTHA BAN CHIANG BANTAMYAE NONNOKTHA BANILOET BANPUANPHU DON KLANG BAN CHIANG BANTAMYAE

• = •• =

• Udon Thani • Khon Kaen • Udon Thani Udon Thani Loei Udon Thani Khon Kaen Udon Thani Khorat •• Khon Kaen Loei Loei Khon Kaen Udon Thani Khorat

DateBP 3610 + 230 2900 + 120 2830 2780 2680 2670

2S60 2520 2S20 2480 2460 2440 2440 2410 2390

+ so + so + 210 + 170 + 100 + 50 + I30 + 80 + 200 + so + so + 210 + 60

Date BC (cal.)

Lab. No.

Ref

-231S- 1710 BC

p- 2247

1320 - 1010 BC IllS- 87S BC 930- 825 BC llOS- 74S BC

R- 2809/9 p- 24S5 p- 2634 p- 2939 p- 2723

2

OaK- 102~ p- 266S beta- 27S7 OaK- 1027 p- 2941 p- 2938 p- 2674 p- 2450 beta- 2756

3

9IS82079582079081S63063080060S-

BC BC BC BC BC BC BC BC BC 40S BC 76S S8S 58S 41S 41S 390 41S 41S 375

I

I

4 3

I 4

Date rejected by excavator (s) as implausibly early Probably erroneous -- date refers to Historic Period context

References: (I) U. of Pennsylvania Museum, pers. comm.; for data on sites see Schauffler 1976, Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976, Penny 1982 and White 1982; (2) Bayard 1979: 26; (3) Bayard I97I: 26-3I; (4) D. Welsh, pers. comm.

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Notes

The fourth column of Table 1lists the dates in "calibrated" form--that is, as corrected for known long-term variations in the proportion of atmospheric carbon-14. The calibration used here represents the current best estimate of the true age of the samples in question. It will be seen that there are now fifteen dates, all on samples associated directly with iron or with types of artifacts found elsewhere in association with iron,. which fall into the first half of the first millennium BC. These are supported by no fewer than twenty-seven more iron-associated dates between 100 and 500 BC which have not been listed here, from the above sites and from Non Chai in Khon Kaen, Ban Chiang Hian in Maha Sarakham, Non Khaw Wong in Chaiyaphum, Tham Ongbah in Kanchanaburi, Tha Muang in Suphanburi, and Chansen in Nakhon Sawan (see Charoenwongsa & Bayard 1983; Higham 1983; Chantaratiyakarn 1983; Bayard 1977:89; Radiocarbon 1970:587-8; Loofs 1979:346; and Radiocarbon 1973:111). This steadily increasing number of early C-14 dates makes it easy to accept that iron in Thailand is sufficiently old to have been made and used theile well before the period of the first intensive Chinese and Indian contacts, which cannot be much earlier than the 1st century BC. But a confident estimate for the very beginnings of local ironmaking cannot yet be made. The date one ultimately selects will depend on one's evaluation of the archaeological context of each dated carbon sample and, perhaps even more importantly, on one's feelings as to whether a given date for Southeast Asian iron is plausible in view of the history of iron elsewhere in the world. The most serious critique of the contexts of many Thai C-14 dates has co~e from Higham (1983), who suggests that all such determinations should be discarded if the sample in question has not come from an ancient hearth or the equivalent so that the excavator can be absolutely certain that the carbon in the sample was ilot redeposited from earlier levels. Many of Higham's fellow archaeologists, however, feel that his criteria for a valid date are unnecessarily strict. While one or two dates on charcoal or other carbon-containing materials found outside hearths should naturally be received with caution, it seems improbable that substantial redeposition should be a general rule: that most carbon samples from most sites should at some point in their history have been dug up and then buried in the soil again. Unless evidence to the contrary exists, we should be safe in concluding that the majority of radiocarbon dateS derive from samples which reached their final resting place in the soil no more than a few decades after the death of the plant or animal from which the sample came. The other principal objection to an early dating for iron in Thailand stems

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from the feeling that metallurgical and other cultural developments there are unlikely to be earlier than similar developments in other places. Such objections are often advanced with regard to dates for Southeast Asian bronze. However, this does not appear to be a problem in the present case. Iron smelting in several parts of the Old World goes back well beyond 500 BC. In the Middle East and Egypt it was certainly known before 1000 BC; as Snodgrass (1980) and Pleiner (1980) show, iron had reached a position of real economic importance by 800-600 BC over much of the Middle East and southeastern Europe. In South Asia, in spite of a continuing scarcity of extensive series of dates from individual sites, there are a number of indications that iron appears at 700-800 BC and perhaps even earlier (Chakrabarti 1976, · i977). SubSaharan Africa as well has begun to produce moderately early iron dates. Short radiocarbon series from sites in Uganda in East Africa and from Nigeria in West Africa point to dates in the4th or 5th centuries BC (Merwe 1980). Iron in China is also relatively old. The art of smelting was discovered in that . country in the 8th or 7th cen\ury (Li 1975), and its use seems to have developed from that point with extraordinary rapidity. By 500 BC, China possessed an Iron metallurgy which was easily the most advanced in the world in terms of techniques and the scale of processing. By the beginning of the Han Dynasty in 212 BC, Chinese iron is thought to have been cheaper and more abundant than in any other economy of the period, while the technical sophistication of Chinese blast furnaces, foundries and fineries would not be matched even in western Europe for another 1600 years. In fact, one of the few parts of the Old World where early iron has not been found and has rarely been claimed is insular Southeast Asia, There, metallurgy in general and ferrous metallurgy in particular still do not look much earlier than they did to prehistorians of Stein Callenfels' ·and Heine-Geldern's generation; no ironassociated materials with credible dates earlier than 100 BC have been found anywhere in Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines. These late dates do not apply to the Southeast Asian mainland, however. Only two countries there have as yet seen substantial numbers of prehistoric excavations and radiocarbon dates: Thailand and Vietnam. In both, the art of smelting iron seems to appear at a moderately early date. Table 2 lists nine published radiocarbon determinations from Vietnam that point to the presence of iron before 100 BC. Although less· information exists about their exact contexts than is the case · for iron-associated dates from Thailand, most are accepted by outside specialists (e.g., by Higham 1983).

209

Notes

These Vietnamese data help to make it seem more plausible that the ancient inhabitants of Thailand began to smelt iron during the first half of the first millennium BC. The plausibility is increased by the abovementioned data from other regions. Although a few parts of the Old World--much of subSaharan Africa, northern Europe and insular Southeast Asia--appear to have had no knowledge of iron at the time, others certainly did, including central and southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern Asia and much of East and South Asia as well. The accumulating evidence for a relatively early beginning of the Iron Age in Thailand need not astound us nor aff(.ont our sense of historical probabilities. If it should tum out that iron was in ·common use in Thailand by 500 or 600 BC, that still would show only a relative precocity. Other regions were much earlier in discovering iron and somewhat earlier in taking the more important step of using it in substantial quantities~

2. THE DIRECT AND INDIRECT PROCESSES I do not propose to go into the question of whether the technology of smelting and working iron was independently invented in Southeast Asia or whether it was borrowed from outside. Hard evidence on the subject is still much too scarce for any worthwhile conclusions to be reached. However, one point relative to the origins of Thai ironmaking can be made with some certainty: wherever it came from, it was not borrowed from northern China. The reasons why are somewhat complex but are worth discussion, for this will clarify several technical issues and will thus set the stage for understanding the differences between the way iron was made in Thailand during the archaeologil,:al period and the methods of later times. The first such issue to be discussed relates to the fact that until the mid-19th century most of the iron used in the world was of the low-carbon variety known as "bloom" or "wrought" iron. This is characterized by a high melting temperature, which makes it impossible to shape by casting; by relative softness and ductility at red or white heat, making it easy to shape by forging; and by relative toughness and low strength. A pure wrought iron contains almost no carbon and is in fact less strong and hard than many bronzes. However, it has two advantages over any bronze or other copper alloy: (1) because iron ores are very abundant, it is much cheaper, and (2) through adding some but not too much carbon by one of several methods it can be converted to steel, which in terms of combined toughness, strength and hardness is superior not only to bronze but to most other ancient or modem materials. Low-carbon wrought iron and its derivative, steel, were the only types of iron

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used in most places for most of history. East Asia, however, began at an early date to employ a third type: the very hard, brittle and moldable high-carbon metal known as "cast" iron which, though a good material for making objects like kettles and stoves, is unsuitable for functions requiring shock resistance, as in axes or swords, and which cannot be shaped by forging. The methods of handling cast iron seem to have been unknown to the other technologically advanced nations of antiquity, giving China a world monopoly of making it for perhaps a thousand years. The technology of cast iron was picked up by the Koreans and Japanese sometime in the early first millennium AD and by Central Asians several centuries after that; it was not learned by Europeans until about AD 1300. And yet even in China the market for a brittle, castable iron was limited. As in other countries a great deal of the iron used by the Chinese was of the forgeable wrought variety. The second issue concerns the way in which forgeable iron is made, for it can be obtained through either of two processes. One is the socalled "direct" process that was preferred by early Europeans, Africans, and most Asians. A mixture of iron ore and fuel (generally wood charcoal) was heated at a relatively low temperature until a solid lump or "bloom" of iron formed at the bottom of the furnace. When this bloom was extracted and hammered while still hot until most of the slag was squeezed out, the result was a piece of low-carbon metal ready for immediate use by a blacksmith. The other method for making a low-carbon wrought iron, the "indirect" process, appears to have been used. in early times only in China and, later, in Korea and Japan. As its name implies, the process involves more than one stage. The ore and fuel (either charcoal or mineral coal) are first heated, generally in a larger and taller furnace than that used in the direct process, to a temperature high enough actually to liquify the iron, causing it to run out of the furnace or to collect at its bottom as a molten pool that solidifies as a piece of brittle cast iron with a very high carbon content. It is of course possible to remelt this type of iron and to pour it into molds then and there-the techniques and temperatures needed for molding cast iron do not differ greatly from those needed in casting bronze. However, assuming that a softer and more malleable metal is wanted, it is necessary to put this high-carbon cast iron through a second processing step in a second furnace. This "fining" step involves reheating the iron until it again becomes a liquid and then exposing it to oxygen for long enough to burn most of the carbon out, yielding a solid mass of low- carbon wrought iron which is almost indistinguishable from iron made by the single-stage direct process and which is capable of being used in the same ways.

211

Notes

Why the complex and seemi~gly wasteful two-stage method should have been preferred in ancient East Asia lies outside the scope of this paper. It is enough for now to say that the indirect process was more efficient in some ways, that the large blast furnaces involved were capable of turning out much more metal in a given period of time than the smaller bloomery furnaces used in the direct process, and that at the present day almost all ironmakers use twD-stage processes not greatly different in principle from that invented by the early Chinese. The third technical issue to be raises related to the fact that the Chinese not only were the first to succeed in handling cast iron and in converting this to wrought iron but that they may never have known any other method. They were certainly using the indirect process by 500 BC, and many specialists in Chinese archaeometallurgy are of the opinion that this goes back to the very beginning of iron metallurgy there in the 7th or 8th century BC. The current conseqsus is that the earliest iron to be smelted in China was probably of the cast variety and that the art of removing the carbon from this must have followed shortly thereafter. Some specialists are not convinced this is true. However, until now no secure archaeological evidence has come to light showing that an ordinary type of direct-process ironmaking ever existed in those parts of China anciently inhabited by Chinese. One reason why this conclusion is important is that it excludes northern and central China from consideration as a major influence on early ironmaking in Southeast Asia. As will presently be shown, Thailand and its neighbors made no use of the indirect process until two thousand years after they learned the art of smelting iron. The bloomery furnaces used by early Southeast Asians must have been quite similar to those used in many other parts of Eurasia and Africa. From a purely technological standpoint, such furnaces could have been introduced from any of those areas or, alternatively, could have been independently invented. But we may be fairly certain that the bloomery did not come to Southeast Asia from the North. The archaeological evidence for the bloomery and the direct process in early Southeast Asia is presented in the next section. The sections after that return to the problem raised in the introduction, that of the eventual replacement in Thailand of the direct by the indirect process during the late historic period.

3. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE DIRECT PROCESS That the direct process was the only method of ironmaking known in ancient

212

Bennet Bronson

Southeast Asia cannot be proved absolutely. This is strongly suggested, however, by the fact that no examples of cast iron or of the kinds of slags typical of blast furnace smelting have been found at any early site in the region. Analyses of iron objects dating from late prehistoric, protohistoric and early historic phases at various Southeast Asian sites have been published by Suchitta (1983), Bennett (1983), Maddin et al. (1977), and Sieveking (1962:96). All of the objects in question appear to be made · of typical bloom/wrought iron or heterogeneous mild steel. Although Sieveking (ibid.) states that the sockets on certain West Malaysian tools were formed by casting, the analysis he cites for one of these tools shows that the metal involved is a low-carbon iron which could not have been melted or shaped in a mold. These analytic conclusions are backed up by a much larger number of visual inspections carried out by many archaeologists, including the present writer. One indeed cannot always tell by looking at a given piece of rusted iron whether it has been cast or forged. And yet in many cases one can, either because a shape is too complex to be formed by forging or because the object is of a type--for instance, a sword or knife--that could not function if made of brittle cast iron. I have not myself seen or talked to others who have seen a single object that was clearly of cast iron from any ancient site in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines. The apparent fact that cast iron is rare or absent falls short of proof that the indirect process was unknown, for it is nearly impossible even with exhaustive laboratory tests to distinguish low-carbon iron made in a single-stage bloomery from that made in a two-stage blast furnace and finery. Although it seems somewhat improbable, one can still imagine an early technology in which all cast iron produced was promptly converted to wrought iron, leaving no cast ingots or other products behind to be found by archaeologists. It is therefore desirable to seek a less ambiguous kind of evidence. The best evidence of this sort has to come from analyses of slags, the often glassy residues of smelting which represent various non-volatile components of the original ores, furnace linings, fluxes and fuels. Fortunately, slags from bloomeries and from blast furnaces can be easily distinguished. While the former contain a great deal of iron (generally in the 30-500Jo range) in the form of ferrous oxide, the latter under ordinary conditions contain almost no iron at all. Very few analyses of early iron smelting slags from Southeast Asia yet exist. Harrisson and O'Connor (1969, 1:190-5) report the compositions of single samples found by them and by Hutterer at several

213

Notes

sites of the late first and early second millennia AD in Sarawak and in Luzon. Suchitta (1983) lists more detailed analyses of fifteen samples from eleven sites in Thailand, most with estimated dates earlier than 1000 AD. All samples in both groups show iron contents in the 30-SOO!o range and are thus almost certainly not from the type of smelting furnace associated with the indirect process. True, the fineries used in converting cast to wrought iron can also produce high-iron slags, and so can furnaces for smelting copper when, as was often the case in early times, iron ores are mixed with copper ores to serve as fluxes. However, the authors of both of the above studies feel that most of the slag they have studied comes from furnaces employed in the smelting of iron. There is no reason to question this. While a great many more analyses of iron objects and slage would be needed to establish beyond doubt that the indirect process was completely unknown in ancient Southeast Asia, it at least seems safe to conclude that direct ironmaking methods were much more common. One part of Southeast Asia may prove to contradict this conclusion. Northern Vietnam, which was economically integrated with China for the whole of the first millennium AD, could obviously have shifted over to Chinese methods of ironmaking at a relatively early date. I do not know whether documentary or physical evidence exists for this. Considering that the one-stage direct process is not known to have ever been used by ethnic Chinese in China, it seems likely enough that early Chinese migrants to northern Vietnam would have brought their two-stage ironmaking methods with them. Moreover, it is possible that the indirect process was known in Vietnam before the Han Dynasty conquest of the late 2nd century BC. This is suggested by a statement of Tan (1980:131), who says that finds made at the Dong Son period site of Go Chien Vay included not only bronzes but objects made of "foote", the technical French term for cast iron. It this proves not to be just a slip of terminology and if the objects in question are not Chinese imports, the Go Chien Vay finds would have substantial importance in the history of Southeast Asian metalh,J.rgy. 4. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE INDIRECT PROCESS

The only other data we possess on premodern Thai ironmaking comes from a much more recent period, that of European contact. By then a major change appears to have taken place. Where previously iron had been smelted in small bloomery hearths, it was now made in blast furnaces operated by locally resident Chinese and presumably of traditional Chinese type. Pallegoix (Dasse 1976:142,161) and Bowring

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Bennet Bronson

(1977, I:235-8), writing in the mid-19th century, say that substantial quantities of cast iron were produced. Twenty years earlier Crawfurd (1967:408-9, 418-9) noted that a picul of local cast iron cost only half as much as as a picul of wrought iron in Bangkok markets, a fairly clear indication that an indirect process was employed to make the latter from the former. Sewell (1922:13) quotes Prince Damrong as saying that Rama III began the casting of iron cannon in Thailand after observing that local Chinese artisans regularly cast large iron cauldrons. Pallegoix (Dasse 1976:141-2) includes both "iron" (presumably wrought bars) and "cast iron jauches" (cooking vessels) on his list of Siamese exports of the 1850s. Crawfurd (1967:409, 414, 540, 543) makes it clear that this cast iron found a substantial foreign market. In his day, in 1820, pans and other vessels of iron were regularly exported from Thailand to Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore, whence Bugis traders reexported them to much of eastern Indonesia. This success in the export business during the early and middle 19th century is somewhat surprising, considering that this was the period when cheap European-made cast iron goods had become dominant in most world markets. Moreover, the kinds of cast iron objects Thailand was exporting had long been a specialty of the efficient and competitive traditional iron industry of China. As late as the 1760s the government of King Taksin is known to have ordered several hundred large cast iron pans from China, and in earlier centuries these Chinese-manufactured pans were a staple of Southeast Asian trade. An anonymous author believed by Anderson (1981:424) to be George White, the brother of the famous Samuel, observed that in the 1680s iron pans were imported to Ayutthaya from Canton and Macao. The published 17th century Daghregisters of the Dutch East India Company (see, e.g. Chijs 1893:41, 50; FruinMees 1928:678, 810, 927) contain numerous mentions of iron pans as part of the cargo of junks sailing from Chinese ports. Tome Pires (Cortesao 1944, 1:125) notes that quantities of iron kettles, bowls and basins went from China to Malacca in the 16th cen~ry. Fei Hsin (Mills 1970:120) refers to Chinese iron exports in the 15th century. Chou Ta-Kuan (Pelliot 1967:64) in the 14th century and Chau Ju-Kua (Hirth and Rockhill 1911:84, 160) in the 13th century include iron vessels-- almost certainly of cast iron -- in their lists of Chinese goods sold in Southeast Asia. Withstanding the new European competition on the one hand and breaking the ancient Chinese monopoly on the other was therefore no mean achievement for the fledgling Siamese iron industry. That Thailand could sell cast iron pans even in places like Vietnam, right on the border of China, indicates clearly that its smelting and

215

Notes

manufacturing methods had reached a very high level of efficiency. Yet it is also quite clear that this success in producing high-technology exports had been attained only recently. Suchitta suggests that King Taksin's need to import cast iron pans in the 1760s arose from the dislocations to local industry caused by the Burmese wars, implying that ironworkers in Thailand were normally capable of making such things themselves. This may well have been the case: it is difficult to believe that the cast iron technology of the early 19th century could have been born and reached maturity within only a few decades. A beginning as early as 1700 is therefore quite plausible. On the other hand, White's testimony about the importation of Chinese pans in the 1680s comes from a period when Thailand was prosperous and relatively peaceful. We may perhaps conclude that if a locally-based cast iron industry existed during the late 17th century, it was not yet capable of fully supplying local needs. The question is whether such an industry did exist at that date. A good many Western sources of the 1500s and 1600s note that Thailand produced iron and steel. Notices of this kind are usually perfunctory, taking the form of comments that Siam has mines of tin, lead, iron, steel and other minerals (e.g., Mendes Pinto 1653:177; Purchas 1968:569; and Valentyn 1726, 6: 1). These authors do not imply that the Siamese iron industry was especially important. Only a handful of these earlier sources give more substantial information. White (Anderson 1981 :424) states that iron, presumably of the forgeable rather than cast variety, figured among the exports of Thailand to the Philippines in the 1680s. On the other hand two writers earlier in the same century, Baldaeus (Anderson 1981:41) and Floris (Moreland 1934:78) imply that in their day iron for forging was regularly imported to Tenasserim and Ayutthaya from southern India. Floris actually participated in this trade, in 1613 carrying 300 candy (about 80 tons) of iron to Ayutthaya from Masulipatam, the chief seaport for the famous iron and steelproducing areas of Golconda. Thus, Thailand appears to have been importing iron in the early 17th century and to have been exporting it only a few decades later. The situation becomes even more puzzling when the testimony of two other sources is considered, that of the reliable, well-informed La Loubere and that of Salmon and his Dutch translator, van Goch. La Loubere (1693: 15, 70) says that in the 1680s iron was mined in several parts of Siam. However, he says this metal was not wrought iron, maintaining that the

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Bennet Bronson

Siamese only "make use. of iron as it is cast, by reason that they are bad forge-men." He repeats this criticism on a later page. Van Goch adds a similar comment to Salmon's (1730:471) description of Siamese products, saying "They have iron mines, which iron they know how to cast. . . . Whatever is made by them, they are poor smiths, having neither nails nor pins, spikes or cutting biades; however they make spikes of bamboo:' These statements clearly require explanation. On a priori grounds it is difficult to accept that all Siamese forgemen of the 17th century were bad at their job. Competence in forging iron is so widespread among traditional metal workers in southern and eastern Asia that on,. '"t)uld question La Loubere's and van Goch's opinion even if Thai museums did not contain numerous well forged objects of iron and steel dating to the 19th century and earlier. And yet La Loubere in particular is not a source to be disregarded without good cause. If we accept that his opinion was based on experience and that many forged iron objects in his day were indeed unsatisfactory, we must try to find another explanation. The only one that makes sense is that it was not the forgers but the iron itself that was at fault. The idea that 17th century Siamese wrought iron was often of poor quality would explain the fact that Floris could make a profit by importing wrought iron (of notably high quality) from southern India to Siam, and might not contradict reports that Siamese iron during the 17th century was sometimes sold to the Spanish in the Philippines, who were perennially short of iron (cf. Blair and Robertson 1905, 42:302-3; 50:107; 51:143, 191; etc.) and may have had to take what they could get. However, it is not yet clear why this should have been so. Can Siamese wrought iron really have been worse than that of other countries if Siamese ironmakers were already skillful enough to make cast iron? The answer is that this is credible from a technical standpoint if we assume that in La Loubere's day the iron industry of Thailand had already started to change over to the indirect process. Iron made by the direct method, like that of Masulipatam in South India, tends to have good forging qualities. The low temperature at which smelting is carried out in bloomery furnaces means that few impurities are likely to enter the finished metal. By contrast, blacksmith's iron made by the indirect process is often not so satisfactory. The high temperatures necessary to liquify the metal during the first stage of the process cause it to pick up impurities such as phosphorus that may be present in the ore and fuel. A metal of this kind may have good casting characteristics and thus be a desirable material from the standpoint of the foundryman. If

217

Notes

converted to wrought iron, however, this same metal will often be brittle and difficult to handle in the blacksmith's forge. 17th and 18th century England offers a good example of this. England was a major producer of wrought iron by then. Its ironmakers already had two hundred years' experience with blast furnaces and fineries. And yet their product was widely considered to be of such inferior quality that large amounts of forgeable iron had to be imported from other countries. The British Admiralty, for instance, continued until almost 1800 to specify that the iron used in anchors, where phosphorus-induced brittleness was an especially serious flaw, should be either direct-process iron from Spain or indirect-process iron from Sweden (Wertime 1961:122, Schubert 1957:313). Thus, La Loubere's criticisms of Siamese smiths may simply reflect the fact that the local iron industry was going through a technological transition. Although it may have begun to utilize blast furnaces by the 17th century, there is no reason to think that it would quickly have mastered the difficult art of converting this to wrought iron. A possibly similar situation appears to have existed in the Philippines in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Spanish entrepreneurs on several occasions tried setting up ironworks using Chinese laborers and techniques. As the Jesuit authors of the Colleccion de Datos (Anon. 1900, 2:299-300) comment, these produced excellently cast plough shares, kitchen utensils and cannon but, due to a lack of capital and "facultative knowledge,"' no wrought iron at all. One of the last remnants of this effort is described by McCasky (1903): a small tilting blast furnace of Chinese type in Bulacan, Luzon. At the beginning of the 20th century this was still making nothing but cast iron. The only other suggestion we have that Thai iron made by the indirect process may often have been of indifferent quality is the surprising success of the tribal iron industry of the Kui, in northern central Cambodia. The equipment used by the Kui, which included large foot-operated drum bellows of an Indian type and small direct-process smelting hearths, seems primitive. Yet as late as the 1880s, as both Moura (1883:43-6) and Fuchs and Saladin (Beck 1891:1009-11) affirm, Kui iron was famous over a wide region, being exported as far as Laos, Thailand and Annam. The case seems to be parallel to that of the above-mentioned shipments of Spanish iron to England in the 18th century: a forgeable iron made by the direct process remained competitive for many years with an undoubtedly cheaper indirect-process iron, presumably because the old-fashioned and inefficient bloomeries made a better product.

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.·

S.

;.

CQNCLUS~pN

What can b~ •known of the hjstory of iron in Thailand does not need much space to summarize. -Tbe art.of $melting it was probably discovered at some time in the first)lalf of th~ first mille,nnium BC. As. was not always the Ca$e in other areas, in Thailand. the new. meta,l was acc~pted with alacrity. It had displaced bronze as a raw material for weapons a,nd tools used in agriculture and forestry well before the end of the prehistoric Iron Age in 100 BC-100 AD. By then it appears to have been employed widely and in substanti~ amounts. Although alloys of copper and tin had been comparatively abundant in the Bronze Age and were presumably not scarce or expensive in later periods, iron proved popular nonetheless. It continued to be used in large quantities during the protohistoric and historic periods by most or all of the ethnic groups of Thailand. All iron in· those early days was smelted by the direct process in bloomery furnaces that were probably quite small. Whereas a few examples are known in India of direct-process furnaces with daily outputs in the 100 kg range, and in 17th-19th centur'y Europe with outputs as high as 500 kg, the vast majority of ethnographically ·and archaeologiCally recorded bloomeries (including all of those in mainland and ·insular Southeast Asia) are much ·smaller, producing perhaps 10 kg of iron per day and measuring less than two meters in height. We may assume that most or all early ·smelting furnaces in Thailand were of this kind. Individual ironmaking enterprises 'were undoubtedly also· smalL Judging by what is known of historic bloomery operations elsewhere in Southeast Asia and India; no more than five or six persons would have worked at one furnace. These may or may not have been organizationally associated with the ten-odd persons needed for obtaining fuel and ore and the five-odd persons who would have forged the iron produced into saleable knives, spears, axes · and so forth. We ha~e rto indication 'as of noW that any great changes in teehnology occurred during the first two thousand years'of Siamese ironmaking. While it is plausible that production became mor~ organized during times of political success and economic . expansion,'it is curtentlynbi'possible tb establish that smelting furnaces became larger arid more efficient, .that animal - or water-'powered machinery was employed at ironworks; or 'that ·~ignific~nt hul.ovations occurred in secondary processing. No ·evidence exists for the prodriction·of crucible steels like the wootz of India or for' the 'bewildering variety of indireCt iron:- and steelrn:aking methods known'from traditional China.'

219

Notes

No technology can remain completely static for two milh!nnia, Yet it should be remembered that bloomery iron made and processed by essentially prehistoric methods was a satisfactory and even superior product. As long as supplies of charcoal and ore remained abundant, it is possible that neither. political decisi9n~makers nor producers had any motivation to seek a change. They might indeed sometimes have found a need for specialty weapons steels or cast iron vessels, but these could have be.en imported easily enough. The foreign trade partners of Thailand inclufied at least two outstanding producers of special-purpose irons. The "wootz" steel of India had already come to dominate a large foreign market by the 7th or 8th centuries AD, and the cast iron vessels of China were exported on a massive scale by the 12th or 13th centuries. There may have seemed to be little point in trying to compete. with producers like these. And in any case, a revolutionary change did eventually occur: the introduction of the arts of smelting and founding cast iron and of fining this to wrought iron. It is not clear when the changeover from the old direct process began. On the basis ofvery slender documentary evidence, the preceding section suggests thai the movement .to the indirect process was under way by the late 17th century but that local ironmakers may not yet have mastered the last stage of that process, the conversion of cast to wrought iron. On somewhat better evidence it might also be suggested that for a century or two the new technology was oriented toward import substitution rather than toward exports. Only in the early 19th century does evidence appear for the shipment of substantial quantities of iron to foreign markets. That this is a remarkable fact has already been emphasized. In most parts of the world during the 1820s and 1830s traditional irorunaking industries were in sharp decline under competitive pressure from the explosively expanding technology of the West. Yet in Thailand local ironmakers using methods which, if not precisely traditional were certainly non-Western, managed not only to hold their domestic markets but to expand into foreign ones in the face of both European· and Chinese competition. .

~

Another index of the success of this Siamese industrial revolution can be found in the early and almost complete disappearance of the old direct process in most parts of the country. The history of ironmaking in other regions would lead us to expect that substantial numbers of bloomery furnaces surviv.ed in remote areas un~il the 19th century. This was true in Africa, South Asia, Insular Southeast Asia, and even in southern and eastern Europe (cf. Cline 1937, Krishnan 1955, Marschall}968,

220

Bennet Bronson

and Beck 1893-1901), where scores or hundreds of bloomeries lasted long enough to be recorded by European observers. This was not true, however, in Thailand or neighboring countries. The ethnohistoric literature on Thailand itself contains very few mentions of direct-process smelting; the only case I know of is that of the Lawa, who continued to mine and smelt their own ore until the 1920s (Yule 1857:91, Hutchinson 1934, Suchitta 1983). Reports of bloomery furnace operations are similarly scarce for adjacent countries. The Kui appear to have been the only Kampucheans who were still smelting their own iron in the 19th century. I have found no eyewitness account of iron smelting from either Laos or West Malaysia, and only a few such accounts from Burma (LaTouche 1917: 248-51; Blanford in Percy 1864:270-3; Chhibber 1926; Scott 1900:299). The relative absence in Thailand of furnaces using the direct process by the time European observers came on the scene is almost certainly a consequence of the rise of the indirect process and of a marked shift in the scale and pattern of production. During earlier periods, ironmaking in Thailand had been carried out by numerous dispersed productive units. Judging by the number of sites that contain slag and other smelting debris, smelting furnaces in the archaeological period were as widely diffused as in traditional Africa or India. In the late historical period, however, the number of ironmaking areas and presumably of furnaces underwent a very sharp decline at about the same time that the new ironmaking methods appeared. The new ironmaking enterprises were large and presumably efficient. It seems likely that this had the effect of driving down the price of forgeable iron. Eventually prices must have fallen so low that even distant and isolated ironworks using the old direct process could no longer compete. Why the change to the new style of ironmaking happened when it did is not clear. The Chinese-style technology involved had long been in existence, and contacts between China and Thailand had been close enough since at least the 14th century for the necessary skills and technical advisors to have filtered through any barriers to technology export that Chinese governments might have imposed. One possibility is that the indirect process was indeed introduced at an earlier date; nothing in the evidence known to the present writer makes it impossible to believe that iron was being cast and fmed on at least a modest scale in the Sukhothai or even Lopburi Peri~ds. Another possibility is that the communications and markets in those earlier periods were not yet sufficiently developed. Without secure transport and large concentrations of customers, the scale economies inherent in medium-sized and large blast furnaces

221

Notes

would not give the new process any advantage over the older bloomery methods. A third possibility is that the explanation lies partly outside the realm of economics. The appearance in eastern seas of warships armed with cheap and effective cast iron cannon, which should have happened shortly before 1600, must have caused considerable interest among the rulers of those Asian states where, as in Thailand, bronze and brass were far more expensive than iron. Although Rama III is credited with establishing the first official foundry for iron cannon in the 19th century, it seems likely enough that earlier kings and other officials saw the potential military advantage of encouraging Chinese and other immigrants to enter the cast iron smelting business. Some may also have appreciated the desirability of being able to substitute local products for imports. This might have seemed particularly desirable with respect to products which, like cast iron pans in sugar - and salt - making, had important functions in other industries. It seems pointless to speculate further. Hard data on many of these subjects undoubtedly exist, in local and foreign historical records and in the ground at archaeological sites. Quite possibly q1uch of what has been said in this paper will prove to be untrue once those data are found, and it is certain that a great deal will have to be modified. The disciplines of economic and technological history are still very young in Thailand. The work of connecting them, of understanding how the one has affected the other in past times and how these in turn relate to sociological and environmental factors, has hardly begun.

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Bennet Bronson

Bibliography Anderson, John 1981 (1889) English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century. Bangkok: Chalerrnnit. Facsimile reprint. Anon. 1900 El Archipielago Filipino, Colleccion de Datos, vol. 2. Washington: Government Press. Barnard, Noel and Sato Tamatsu 1975 Metallurgical Remains of Ancient China. Tokyo: Nichiosha. Bayard, Donn T. 1971 Non Nok Tha: The 1968 Excavation, Procedure, Stratigraphy, and a Summary of the Evidence. University of Otago Studies in Prehistoric Anthropology 4. New Zealand. 1977 Phu Wiang Pottery and the Prehistory of Northeastern Thailand. Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 3: 57-102. 1979 The Chronology of Prehistoric Metallurgy in North-east Thailand: Silabhumi or Samrddhabhumi? in Smith and Watson 1979: 15-32. 1984 Some Questions on Higham's Revision of the Mainland Southeast Asian Sequence. South-East Asian Studies Newsletter 14: 5-8. Beck, Ludwig 1891-1901 Die Geschichte des Eisens in technischer und kulturgeschichtlicher Beziehung, vol s 1-5. Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg. Bennet, Anna 1982 Metallurgical Analysis of Iron Artifacts fcom Ban Don Tha Phet, Thailand. Unpublished paper (MA thesis?), Institute of Archaeology, Lrndon. Blair, Emma H. and J. A. Robertson 1905 The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. 55 vols. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clarke. Bowring, John 1977 (1857) The Kingdom and People of Siam. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford Unviersity Press. Chakrabarti, Dilip K. 1976 The Beginning of Iron in India. Antiquity 50, 198:114-128. 1977 Distribution of Iron Ores and the Archaeological Evidence of Early Iron in India, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 20, 2: 166-184. Chantaratiyakarn, Payom 1983 Excavations at Ban Chiang Hian, N. E. Thailand 1981. Paper presented at the XV Pacific Science Congress, Dunedin, New Zealand. · Charoenwongsa, Pisit and Donn T. Bayard 1983 Non Chai: New Dates on Metalworking and Trade from Northeast Thailand. Current Anthropology 24, 4: 521-3. Chhibber, Harbans Lall 1926 The Extinct Iron Industry of the Neighborhood of Mount Popa, Upper Burma, with Notes on the Microscopic Study of the Slags. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal n.s. 22:219-232. Chijs, J. A. van der, ed. 1893 Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia, Anno 1664. Landsdrukkerij, Batavia & M. Nijhoff, The Hague. Cline, Walter 1937 Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa. General Series in Anthropology, No. 5. George Banta, Menasha, Wisconsin. 155 pp. Cortesao, Armando, trans. and ed. 1944 The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires. 2 vols. London: Hakluyt Society Crawfurd, John 1967 (1828) Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Dasse, M. ed. 1976 Mgr. Pallegoix Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam. Bangkok: O.K. Book House. Fruin-Mees, W., ed. 1928 Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia Anno 1682. G. Kolff, Batavia. Gorman, Chester and Pisit Charoenwongsa 1976 Ban Chiang: A Mosaic of Impressions from the First Two Years. Expedition 18, 4: 14-26. Harrisson, Tom and S. J. O'Connor 1969 Excavations of the Prehistoric Iron Industry in West Borneo. 2 vols. Data Paper 72, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University.

223

Notes Hegde, K. T. M. 1973 Early Stages of Metallurgy in India. in D.P. Agrawal&A. Ghosh, eds., Radiocarbon and Indian Archaeology, 401-405. Bombay: Tata Institute. Higham, Charles F. W. 1983 The Ban Chiang Culture in Archaeological Perspective. Mortimer Wheeler Archaeological Lecture, 1983. Higham, Charles F. W. and Amphan Kijngam 1982b Ban Nadi, N.E. Thailand: Further Radiocarbon Dates. South-East Asian Studies Newsletter 7: 1-3. Singapore. Hirth, Friedrich and W. W. Rockhill 1910 Chu-Fan-Chi, "A Description of Barbarous Peoples." St. · Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Science. Hutchinson, E. W. 1934 The Lawa in Northern Siam. Journal of the Siam Society 27: 153-182. Kijngam, Amphan 1983 Excavations at Ban Nadi, N. E. Thailand. Paper presented at the XV Pacific Science Congress, Dunedin, New Zealand. Krishnan, M. S. 1954 Iron-Ore, Iron and Steel. Bulletins of the Geological Survey of India, Series A: Economic Geology, No.9. Delhi. La Loubere, M. de

169~

A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam. London: Thomas Horne etc.

LaTouche, T. H. D. 1917 A Bibliography of Indian. Geology and Physical Geography. 2 vols. Calcutta: Geological Survey of India.

Li Chung 1975 The Development of Iron and Steel Technology in Ancient China. Kaogu Xuebao 1975, 2: 1-22. • Loofs, Helmut H. E. 1979 Problems of Continuity between the pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Periods in Central Thailand. in Smith and Watson 1979: 342-351. Maddin, Robert, J. D. Muhly and T. S. Wheeler 1977 How the Iron Age Began. Scientific American 237, 4: 122-31. Marschall, Wolfgang 1968 Metallurgie and Fruhe Beseidlungsgeschichte Indonesiens. Ethnologica, n.s. 4: 29-263. McCaskey, H. D. 1903 Iron Metallurgy in the Philippines. The Engineering and Mining Journa/76: 780. Merwe, Nikolaas J. van der 1980 The Advent of Iron in Africa. in Wertime and Muhly 1980: 463-506. Mills, J. V. G. 1970 Ma Huan, Ying-yai Sheng-lan, "The overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores. London: Hakluyt Society, Extra Series No. 42. Moreland, W. H., ed. 1934 Peter Floris, His Voyage to the East Indies in the Globe 16ll-1615. London: Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., vol. 74. Moura, J. 1883 Leroyaumedu Cambodge, vol. 1. Paris: Ernest Leroux. Pelliot, Paul 1967 (1951) Notes on the Customs of Cambodia by Chou Ta-Kuan. English trans. by J. G. D' A. Paul. Bangkok: Social Science Association Press. Penny, James S. 1982 Petchabun Piedmont Survey: An Initial Archaeological Investigation of the Western Margins of the Khorat Plateau. Expedition 27, 4:65-72. Philadelphia: University Museum. Percy, John 1864 Metallurgy: Iron and Steel. London: John Murray. Pinto, Fernand Mendes 165: The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendes Pinto. London: Henry Cripps and Lodowick Lloyd. Trans. by H. C. Gent. Pleiner, Radomir 1980 Early Iron Metallurgy in Europe. in Wertime and Muhly 1980: 375-416. Purchas, Samuel 1968 (1617) Purchas his Pilgrims, or Relations of the World... , Pt. 1. Bangkok: Chalermnit. Facsimile reprint. Salmon, Thomas 1730 Hedendaagsche Historie; of Tegenwoordige Staat van Aile Volkeren, 2. Trans. (and supplemented) by M. van Goch. Amsterdam: Isaac Tirion.

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Bennet Bronson Schauffler, William 1976 Archaeological Survey and Excavation of Ban Chiang Culture Sites in Northeast Thailand. Expedition 18, 4: 27-37. Philadelphia: University Museum. Schubert, H. R. 19S7 History of the British Iron and Steel Industry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Scott, J. George 1900 Gazetteer of Upper Burmo and the Shan States, pt I, vol. 2. Rangoon: Superintendant, Government Printing. Sewell, C. A. Seymour 1922 Notes on Some Old Siamese Guns. Journal of the Siam Society IS: 1-43. Sieveking, G. de G. 1962 The Iron Age Collections of Malaya. Journal of the Malayan Branch, Royal AsiaticSociety29, 2:79-138. Snodgrass, Anthony M. 1980 Iron and Early Metallurgy in the Mediterranean. in Wertime and Muhly 1980: 33S-374. Suchitta, Pomchai 1983 The History and Development of Iron Smelting Technology in Thailand. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Tan, Ha Van 1980 Nouvelles Recherches Prehistoriques et Protohistoriques au Vietnam. Bulletin de I'EcoleFrancaised'Extreme-Orient68: llS-143. Valentyn, Francois 1726 Beschryvinge van Siam en onsen Handel aldaar, Oud-en Nieuw-Oost-Indien, Book 6, 1. Amsterdam. Wertime, Theodore A. 1961 TheComingoftheAgeofSteel. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Wertime, Theodore A. and J.D. Muhly eds. 1980 The Coming oftheAgeof/ron. New haven: Yale University Press. Wheatley, Paul 1961 Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade. JMBRAS 32, 2: 1-140.

White, Joyce C. 1982 Bon Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age. Philadelphia: University of pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution. Yule, Henry 18S7 On the Geography of Burma and its Tributary States. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 27: S4-108.

225

Notes

TABLE 2. VIETNAMESE C-14 DATES FOR IRON BEFORE 100 BC Site

Province

DateBP

Date BC (cal.)

Lab. No.

CONCONNGUA PHUHOA PHUHOA GOCHIENVAY HANGGON CHAUCAN CHAUSON LANGCA HANGGON LANGVAC

Thanh Hoa LongKhanh LongKhanh HaSon Binh Long Khanh HaSon Binh HaNam Ninh Vinh Phu Long Khanh NgheAn

2666 + 80 2590 + 290 2400 + 140 2350 + 100 2300 +ISO 2325 + 60 2285 + 45 2235 + 40 2190 + 150 1990 + 85

840- 750 BC 1105-400 BC 780- 385 BC 600-385 BC 600- 175 BC 430-390 BC 415-380 BC 405- 185 BC 415- 20 BC 165 BC- 60 AD

ZK- 375 Gif- 1999 Gif- 1996 Bin- 893 MC- 62 Bin- 1438 Bin- 1974 Bin- 1733 MC- 61 ZK - 310

Ref

s 6 6 7 8 5

5 5

8 5

References: (5) Khao Co Hoc 1977, 2: 87; (6) Radiocarbon 1974: 56; (7) Radiocarbon 1978: 392-5; (8) Radiocarbon 1966: 290

226

Note on Betty Gosling's Article: Why Were the Jatakas "Hidden Away" at Wat Si Churn? (JSS vol. 72) by Michael Wright

There is sometimes a tendency for the speculations of early scholars to fossilize like resin into amber fact, and on these supposed facts are later built theories that in themselves may .be excellent, but which turn out to be of doubtful validity because the early scholar's speculation is now in doubt. Such is very much the case with the history of Sukhothai. The early scholars like Prince Damrong and Coedes were pioneers, working with a vast volume of previously unexamined information. Since then more infonnation has come to light and we have had the time to reexamine it all in the light of related disciplines that have recently made great progress. Thus many of the proposals of the savants have become obsolete. It is these proposals that are today being utilized as the foundation for new thought, some of which I would like to subject to examination for soundness. In the normal course of things I would prefer not to challenge Betty Gosling, as she is a refreshing and competent contributer to the thinking on Sukhothai history. But the basing of ideas upon supposed fact has become so widespread (see Piriya Krairiksh in ICTS 1984 vol. 6 for a case in point) that I cannot resist taking on Betty who seems to provide an ideally clear-cut instance of what I am talking about, in her article in JSS vol. 72. To begin with she provides an original contribution of her own that later students may use as fact (whether they attribute it to her or not) when she appears to propose (p.l8) that the Jatakas at Wat Si Churn may have been hidden away because they were in some way offensive to the new orthodoxy then being popularized at Sukhothai. I contend, however, that though the Sangha might fight like fishwives over minor points of Vinaya (see the Mulasasana of Wat Pa Daeng, JSS vol. 65 part 2 for an example), the Jatakas were never a bone of contention and we have no evidence of even one being suppressed.

227

Note on Betty Goaling's

My explanation for the 'hiding' of the Jatakas depends upon the Siamese attitude to sacred objects, be they Buddha images or Jataka slabs. The sacred image is viewed as a sacred living presence. When that image is damaged beyond repair -I would like to say "mortally wounded"- it becomes ambiguous, for while remaining sacred and worthy of respect, it is inauspicious, an embarrassment, a reproach to the owner and not fit for the eyes of the faithful to behold. It should thus disposed of or hidden away where it will not offend the pious eye, like the ruined Si Samphet image from Ayuthya entombed in the Stupa at Wat Phra Chetuphon in Bangkok. In addition to this the Jataka slabs that Sri Sraddha found formed an ideal building material for the roof of the tunnel. Indeed I wonder whether the tunnel could have been built without them. This may seem a minor point, but if it is not publicly challenged today another generation may take it up as the basis of a theory of "J atakas as a source dissention in the Sangha". Betty's misuse (as I perceive it) of earlier speculation occurs on p. 15 where she writes "Coedes suggested that the Jatakas were those which Inscription 2 states surrounded a large, tall Chedi, now identified as the Mahathat, Sukhothai's most important religious monument, located at the centre of the city." I quite agree that the Jataka slabs are those mentioned in Inscription 2, both because of Betty's reasons and because the J atakas and the Inscription were both found together at Wat Si Chum. But has the "large, tall Chedi" of Inscription 2 now been identified as the Mahathat? In JSS vol. 69 parts 1 and 2 Betty presents an interesting case for these J ataka slabs once having been arrayed around the central monument of Wat Mahathat, Sukhothai. The case she makes is quite fascinating, and it may indeed be true, but it appears to be based, at least in part, upon a reading of Inscription 2 (Wat Si Chum) that I cannot accept. It all started with Prince Damrong proposing that Inscription 2 might have been moved from the Mahathat, his chief reason apparently being that the stone - which had then hardly been read - was full of references to "Phrct Mahathat", and Wat Mahathat was considered to be of great importance as

228

Michael Wright Sukhothai's central monument, though it is strange that even Inscription I, found right in front of Wat Mahathat, has not a word to 8ay about that monument. What we know is that the Jatakas and Inscription 2 were found at Wat SiChum. We do not know, though it is possible as several scholars have proposed, that both or either were moved from the Mahathat. The process of the proposal becoming a "fact" can be observed in "Epigraphic and Historical Studies, No. 10" (JSS 60.1, 1972) by Prasert and Griswold (hereafter referred to asP & G) without whom I would have had no entry futo the epigraphy of Sukhothai. These honest and expert ·epigraphists failed us somewhat in their treatment of Inscription 2 and it is important that the record be put straight lest others be led astray. At this point it should be noted that some time ago Dr. Prasert Na Nakhon expressed doubts similar to my own as to the provenance of the J atakas and the Inscription (see Saratthakadi Prasert ·Na Nakhon - Phikhanet Press, Bangkok 2527). But as these arguments of Dr. Prasert have not yet been made available to the Englishspeaking public, I present my counter-argument as though Dr. Prasert had not yet come forward with his new interpretation of the Inscription. Here follows my interpretation of Inscription 2. This stone was found at Wat Si Chum in c01uunction with the Jataka slabs to which the inscription seems to refer. This is a fact. Both the inscription and the Jatakas may have been moved there from elsewhere, but this is supposition. The stone is a huge one, the writing tiny, and badly worn in many parts. Furthennore it does not 'read' like the usual run of inscriptions. P & G treated it as a typical inscription and thus ran into trouble, but long ago I became convinced that it was a verbatim transcription of living speech. The changing rhythms, the brilliance followed by banality, the repetitions, and the use of "here" and "there", all point to speech. In some clearly read passages a sentence begins clearly and precisely only to run off into another subject without grammatical underpinnings. I thus. suppose - unlike P & G who

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Note on Betty Goaling's

thought Sri Sraddha was composing a written document incompetently - that he was talking at large, that his words were taken down by scribes verbatim, and that somehow they ended up in the form of an inscription on stone. This is quite unlike the run of inscriptions, and even unlike Inscription 1 which, though it sounds "folksy" to modern ears, bears the marks of a polished literary composition. There are no unfinished sentences in Inscription 1. If one admits that the stone records the spoken word, one may perceive that it contains two sermons, in one of which (side 1 line 1 to side 2line 42) the author consistently refers to himself (with variations) as the Lord Sri Sraddha Rajaculamuni Sri Ratanalankadvipa Maha Sami. In the other(side 2 line 42 to the end) he consistently uses the pronoun Ku.

The connection between these two sermons will become apparent later. Let us first dispose of the second sermon which begins on side 2 line 42. It begins in standard sermonic fashion with where the Buddha was and what he did: (Side 2 lines 42-45) "At one spot .......... near the bank of the Mahavalukaganga where the Buddha, our Lord, spread his leathern mat, are enshrined the Hair Relic, the (Neck) Relic and Paribhoga Relic. This great Stupa is called Mahiyangana Maha Caitya. There the Lord performed stupendous miracles. The "throne" of the Stupa had crumbled down on the east to a length of thirteen fathoms, so with great faith 1.. .... This incident is taken from the Mahavamsa, which says that the Buddha, foreseeing that the Sasana would later bloom in Lanka, flew to where the Mahiyangana was to be built, spread his leathern mat, and performed stupendous miracles, driving out the Yaksas, thus making Lanka a Manusyavisaya, or an abode fit for human habitation. Thereafter occurs an account, perfectly consistent internally, of how Sri Sraddha found the Mahiyangana in ruins, how he helped to restore it and how the Relics performed miracles in response. P & G would like to place some of this passage in Sukhothai, even supposing that around Sukhothai there were "five village of Sinhalas". But Sri Sraddha's term ~1u1u is simply a Thai

230

Michael Wright

translation of the Sinhalese "Pas Nuwara" or "Five Cities" into which the Lankan Highlands were divided at the time. Any attempt to read Sukhothai into this part of the inscription is very hard to sustain. Now let us tum to Sermon 1, which occupies face 1 and face 2 up to line 42. This is a much more difficult prospect. But it also begins in typical sermonic format with the Lord Tathagatha doing something at Mahiyangana on the bank of the Mahavaluka Ganga (1980 reading). The reader should keep in mind that at Mahiyangana the Lord drove out the Yaksas. After the typical sermonic introduction the author tells of his ancestors and of the distant past of Sukhothai. He than comes to a punch-line:- When his grandfather, Pha Muang, was preparing to join battle with Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong (line 26) "He gathered his forces here". That word "here" is of immense significance, for if Pha Muang were preparing to attack Sukhothai, "here" cannot refer to the Mahathat which was in the centre of the city; it must refer to something outside, for instance the vicinity of Wat Si Chum which is outside the city walls, but within shouting distance. If Pha Muang gathered his forces outside Sukhothai (as he must have

done), and if Sri Sraddha called the spot "here" then he must have been delivering his sermon at a site outside the walls, for instance at Wat Si Chum where the inscription was found. Is this proposal of mine unscientific? Does it do more violence or less to the available evidence than the proposals of those with whom I disagree? I shall not attempt to say who Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong was, out of respect for the evidence (or lack of it). Others have decided firmly that he was the legitimate Cambodian viceroy of Sukhothai, despite the fact that Inscription 2 tells us clearly that it was Pha Muang who had received the Sword of Office, not to mention the hand of a daughter, from the King of Angkor. Sri Sraddha continues with the tale of his feats of derring-do as a youth. These are not out of place in a Buddhist sermon, witness the Mahavamsa, each bloody chapter of which Siamese tradition accepts as a sermon, as it says at the end of each chapter " ...... written for the edification and horrification of the faithful". Then comes his conversion and his works of merit, the treatment of which is as tedious to the reader as it must have been to those listening to Sri Sraddha's sermon, one hot morning some 600 years ago. One item in his list of

231

Note onBetty Goaling's meritorious deeds deserves particular attention as it shows how far afield Sri Sraddha's activities extended and how he used the tenn "Mahathat" to refer to almost any relic, or monument that was supposed to contain relics, not necessarily the Mahathat of Sukhothai. On side 2 lines 18 to 3 5 Sri Sraddha tells us of how he found a great Phra Mahathat where all the relics gathered (or a place where there were many great Stupas) in utter ruin and desolation, how he cleared the jungle growth from it, added something on top to restore its original height and how he restored "great stone images of the Lord". P & G give the passage close attention, examining the possibility that it might refer to Sukhothai, or Pagan, finally proposing the Maha Thupa at Anuradhapura. But Sri Sraddha tells us that this monument was in "Krisna's city" (Nakhon Phra Kris) and P & G failed to note the significance of Sri Sraddha s statement that he could find no lime to whiten his restored monument. Until quite recent times lime was a vital adjunct to civilisation in South and Southeast Asia, as it was a necessary ingredient for a quid of betel. Thus to say "there was no lime" implies total ruin, remoteness from other civilized places, and a lack of basic civilized amenities. We have no evidence that Sukhothai was ever reduced to such straits in Sri Sraddha's time, nor Pagan, nor Anuradhapura, both of which, though long ruined, maintained their status as sacred cities through the centuries. I therefore proposed Nakhort Pathom which is connected by folktale to Krisna to this day, where the chief Stupa has had something added on top, where great stone images have been found broken, mended, and broken again, and which may well have been deep in the jungle and uninhabited in Sri Sraddha s time. Furthennore the name of the monument (Sri Sraddha says the "Khom" called it "Phra Dham") corresponds well with "Phra Dam" found in Ayuthayan and early 19th. century references to the Phra Pathom Stupa, which only acquired its modern spelling (Pathama) much more recently. Dr. Prasert Na Nakhon has tentatively accepted this interpretation (oral communicatin), his reasoning being based on a re-reading of Inscription 11, also by Sri Sraddha, that says that on his return from Lanka he crossed from "Tennasserim to Phetchaburi, Ratchaburi, Nakhon ..... ris, Ayothaya" etc. Dr. Prasert notes that "Nakhon ... ris" of Inscription II, lying like Nakhon Pathom between Ratchaburi and Ayuthaya, may be the Nakhon Phra Kris (Krishna's City) of Inscription 2. But, like Sri Sraddha in his sennon, I have strayed away from the real

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purpose of this discussion. Like Sri Sraddha I must cut short my digressions and return to the matter at hand. Sri Sraddha's digressions took him far from his purpose, namely the restoration and rededication of the old temple that had been built on his grandfather's Jayabhumi, the auspicious spot where he gathered his forces before battle with Khom Sabat. Sri Sraddha's time is up; he therefore comes to the point with a swiftness that seems enigmatic to us today, but must have been quite clear to those who were gathered to hear his sermon:(side 2 lines 39 to 42) "Around that great tall Caitya were carved the five hundred Jatakas, excellent and exceedingly beautiful. The Truk smashed them to strip them of their gold. When the Somdet Phra Maha Sami (Sri Sraddha) had returned from Lanka he gathered a group of ....... to carry up the bricks from below and restore the old Buddha image, being full of faith, and he had brought back two Glorious Gem Relics from Sihala to enshrine there. There is no telling the whole tale of it." If this is speech, as I have proposed, then "that" and "there" should refer to something in the presence of the speaker, rather than to "the aforementioned" as might be the case in writing. Sri Sraddha, preaching at Wat Si Chum, seems to be referring to an earlier monument, then in ruins, on the site where he would build the Mondop. The ruin, he tells us, had once been surrounded by the Jataka slabs, which the Truk (whoever they were) had stripped of their gold. When he had returned from Sihala or Lanka (the tense is quite clear in Thai), he inspired the faithful to restore "the old Buddha image" m::Lmrhu (for m::LnTri-m) in the 1980 reading, as opposed to m::LThriru (for-m::Lf'hriru)· - "the nine holy things" of the earlier reading. We may suppose that this image had existed there since the time of Ram Khamhaeng as it seems to be referred to (Phra Acana) in Inscription 1, and when this image was examined before its modem restoration it was found to contain several smaller images of increasing magnitude, each executed in brick and mortar, one added to the other, witness to several restorations and enlargements.

Finally Sri Sraddha enshrined "there" (in the image or the Mondop?) two remarkably holy relics that he had brought back with him from Lanka. P & G believe

tha~

these two relics were portions or replicas of the Hair Relic and the

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Note on Betty Goaling's Neck Bone Relic from the Mahiyangana in Lanka, and I agree with P & G for if Sri Sraddha had acquired the relics elsewhere he would have told us. This provides us with the first link between the two sermons, for the second sermon (side 2 line 42 to the end) tells us of the significance of the relics and how they were acquired from Mahiyangana, while the first (side 1 line 1 to side 2 line 42) end up with how the relics were deposited at Wat Si Chum, Sukhothai. It would not surprise me if Sri Sraddha named the temple "Maheyong" (Mahiyangana) like similar replicas of the Mahiyangana Caitya at Nakhon Si Thammarat, Ayuthaya and Chainat, but of this we have no evidence. However, there is a deeper link between the two sermons, and between the Mahiyangana and Wat Si Chum, namely that as the Buddha had driven out the Yaksas, making Lanka a Manusyavisaya, at the site of the Mahiyangana, so Pha Muang drove Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong out of Sukhothai, his camp being the site outside the walls of the city, which he would subsequently have dedicated as a temple (like Wats "Prachumphon" - Cambodian "Siri Jum" or "Si Chum" - elsewhere in Siam), and which his pious grandson Sri Sraddha later restored. Thus in his sermon Sri Sraddha draws a parallel:- Pha Muang, like the Buddha, was a liberator. However, the enemy from whom he liberated . Sukhothai remains an enigma. Summary This presentation of mine is at variance with the ideas of several respected scholars. However, I believe that I have shown the inner consistancy of Inscription 2 and its consistency with Lankan and Siamese traditions (in particular Siamese ancestor worship). The Inscription is not a collection of random items; through its many digressions runs a thread that I have attempted to identify. My interpretation is also consistent with the simple fact that the Jataka slabs and Incription 2 were both discovered in the tunnel at Wat Si Chum. No act of faith or stretch of imagination is required of the reader. My central point is that Inscription 2 cannot be used as evidence that either the inscription or the J atakas ever had anything to do with Wat Mahathat, Sukhothai. All the evidence in the inscription is to the contrary; and Wat Mahathat itself should be acknowledged as a mystery. It is mentioned neither in Inscription 1 nor 2, and we know nothing so far about its date or original

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fonn. As for those J ataka slabs, each inscribed with a description in very primitive Siamese, I would dearly like to believe that they date from Pha Muang's original foundation, and that they show Siamese as it was written before Inscription 1. But, alas, I have no evidence. Before any more Sukhothai "history" is written, we must define what we know and what we do not know. Sukhothai has become so well "known"' that the whole city and period have become a semi-myth, a sort of Camelot, remains that should make Sukhothai more a part despite the plentiful ph; of history than ofhagiograpny. Betty Gosling's articles on Sukhothai remain extremely important;-fQr the Jataka slabs found hidden at Wat Si Chum may indeed have been moved from Wat Mahathat. What we need is solid evidence that this was so. I cannot perceive such evidence in Inscription 2. P & G's investigations of the epigraphy of Sukhothai are hugely competent and provide perhaps the only entry into this obstruse subject for most westerners - including myself. Only in the .case of Inscription 2 have they let us down, due to no fault of their own. If they could find the energy to cooperate yet again in a re-examination of Inscription 2, many people would be yet more. indebted to them.

Sources: Gosling, Betty- Why Were the Jatakas "Hidden Away" at Wat Si Chum,JSS vol. 72. Once More, Inscription i i - an art Historian's View, JSS vol. 69 parts 1 and 2. Piriya Krairiksh- Tha Earliest Datable Buddha Images of LanNa Thai, ICTS 1984. Rrasert ahd Griswold- Epigraphic and Historical Studies, No. 10, JSS 60. 1 1972 S. Premchit & D. Swearer- Mulasasana Wat Pa Daeng, JSS vol. 65 part 2 Michael Wright fhmn7n'l'lin~ 2 -1fiint.l'l'lll (Thai Khadi Research Institute, Tharnmasat University, 1983) National Library, Bangkok

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Note on Betty Gosling's Article: Why Were the Jatakas "Hidden Away" at Wat Si Churn? (JSS vol. 72) by Michael Wright

There is sometimes a tendency for the speculations of early scholars to fossilize like resin into amber fact, and on these supposed facts are later built theories that in themselves may .be excellent, but which turn out to be of doubtful validity because the early scholar's speculation is now in doubt. Such is very much the case with the history of Sukhothai. The early scholars like Prince Damrong and Coedes were pioneers, working with a vast volume of previously unexamined information. Since then more infonnation has come to light and we have had the time to reexamine it all in the light of related disciplines that have recently made great progress. Thus many of the proposals of the savants have become obsolete. It is these proposals that are today being utilized as the foundation for new thought, some of which I would like to subject to examination for soundness. In the normal course of things I would prefer not to challenge Betty Gosling, as she is a refreshing and competent contributer to the thinking on Sukhothai history. But the basing of ideas upon supposed fact has become so widespread (see Piriya Krairiksh in ICTS 1984 vol. 6 for a case in point) that I cannot resist taking on Betty who seems to provide an ideally clear-cut instance of what I am talking about, in her article in JSS vol. 72. To begin with she provides an original contribution of her own that later students may use as fact (whether they attribute it to her or not) when she appears to propose (p.l8) that the Jatakas at Wat Si Churn may have been hidden away because they were in some way offensive to the new orthodoxy then being popularized at Sukhothai. I contend, however, that though the Sangha might fight like fishwives over minor points of Vinaya (see the Mulasasana of Wat Pa Daeng, JSS vol. 65 part 2 for an example), the Jatakas were never a bone of contention and we have no evidence of even one being suppressed.

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My explanation for the 'hiding' of the Jatakas depends upon the Siamese attitude to sacred objects, be they Buddha images or Jataka slabs. The sacred image is viewed as a sacred living presence. When that image is damaged beyond repair -I would like to say "mortally wounded"- it becomes ambiguous, for while remaining sacred and worthy of respect, it is inauspicious, an embarrassment, a reproach to the owner and not fit for the eyes of the faithful to behold. It should thus disposed of or hidden away where it will not offend the pious eye, like the ruined Si Samphet image from Ayuthya entombed in the Stupa at Wat Phra Chetuphon in Bangkok. In addition to this the Jataka slabs that Sri Sraddha found formed an ideal building material for the roof of the tunnel. Indeed I wonder whether the tunnel could have been built without them. This may seem a minor point, but if it is not publicly challenged today another generation may take it up as the basis of a theory of "J atakas as a source dissention in the Sangha". Betty's misuse (as I perceive it) of earlier speculation occurs on p. 15 where she writes "Coedes suggested that the Jatakas were those which Inscription 2 states surrounded a large, tall Chedi, now identified as the Mahathat, Sukhothai's most important religious monument, located at the centre of the city." I quite agree that the Jataka slabs are those mentioned in Inscription 2, both because of Betty's reasons and because the J atakas and the Inscription were both found together at Wat Si Chum. But has the "large, tall Chedi" of Inscription 2 now been identified as the Mahathat? In JSS vol. 69 parts 1 and 2 Betty presents an interesting case for these J ataka slabs once having been arrayed around the central monument of Wat Mahathat, Sukhothai. The case she makes is quite fascinating, and it may indeed be true, but it appears to be based, at least in part, upon a reading of Inscription 2 (Wat Si Chum) that I cannot accept. It all started with Prince Damrong proposing that Inscription 2 might have been moved from the Mahathat, his chief reason apparently being that the stone - which had then hardly been read - was full of references to "Phrct Mahathat", and Wat Mahathat was considered to be of great importance as

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thought Sri Sraddha was composing a written document incompetently - that he was talking at large, that his words were taken down by scribes verbatim, and that somehow they ended up in the form of an inscription on stone. This is quite unlike the run of inscriptions, and even unlike Inscription 1 which, though it sounds "folksy" to modern ears, bears the marks of a polished literary composition. There are no unfinished sentences in Inscription 1. If one admits that the stone records the spoken word, one may perceive that it contains two sermons, in one of which (side 1 line 1 to side 2line 42) the author consistently refers to himself (with variations) as the Lord Sri Sraddha Rajaculamuni Sri Ratanalankadvipa Maha Sami. In the other(side 2 line 42 to the end) he consistently uses the pronoun Ku.

The connection between these two sermons will become apparent later. Let us first dispose of the second sermon which begins on side 2 line 42. It begins in standard sermonic fashion with where the Buddha was and what he did: (Side 2 lines 42-45) "At one spot .......... near the bank of the Mahavalukaganga where the Buddha, our Lord, spread his leathern mat, are enshrined the Hair Relic, the (Neck) Relic and Paribhoga Relic. This great Stupa is called Mahiyangana Maha Caitya. There the Lord performed stupendous miracles. The "throne" of the Stupa had crumbled down on the east to a length of thirteen fathoms, so with great faith 1.. .... This incident is taken from the Mahavamsa, which says that the Buddha, foreseeing that the Sasana would later bloom in Lanka, flew to where the Mahiyangana was to be built, spread his leathern mat, and performed stupendous miracles, driving out the Yaksas, thus making Lanka a Manusyavisaya, or an abode fit for human habitation. Thereafter occurs an account, perfectly consistent internally, of how Sri Sraddha found the Mahiyangana in ruins, how he helped to restore it and how the Relics performed miracles in response. P & G would like to place some of this passage in Sukhothai, even supposing that around Sukhothai there were "five village of Sinhalas". But Sri Sraddha's term ~1u1u is simply a Thai

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translation of the Sinhalese "Pas Nuwara" or "Five Cities" into which the Lankan Highlands were divided at the time. Any attempt to read Sukhothai into this part of the inscription is very hard to sustain. Now let us tum to Sermon 1, which occupies face 1 and face 2 up to line 42. This is a much more difficult prospect. But it also begins in typical sermonic format with the Lord Tathagatha doing something at Mahiyangana on the bank of the Mahavaluka Ganga (1980 reading). The reader should keep in mind that at Mahiyangana the Lord drove out the Yaksas. After the typical sermonic introduction the author tells of his ancestors and of the distant past of Sukhothai. He than comes to a punch-line:- When his grandfather, Pha Muang, was preparing to join battle with Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong (line 26) "He gathered his forces here". That word "here" is of immense significance, for if Pha Muang were preparing to attack Sukhothai, "here" cannot refer to the Mahathat which was in the centre of the city; it must refer to something outside, for instance the vicinity of Wat Si Chum which is outside the city walls, but within shouting distance. If Pha Muang gathered his forces outside Sukhothai (as he must have

done), and if Sri Sraddha called the spot "here" then he must have been delivering his sermon at a site outside the walls, for instance at Wat Si Chum where the inscription was found. Is this proposal of mine unscientific? Does it do more violence or less to the available evidence than the proposals of those with whom I disagree? I shall not attempt to say who Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong was, out of respect for the evidence (or lack of it). Others have decided firmly that he was the legitimate Cambodian viceroy of Sukhothai, despite the fact that Inscription 2 tells us clearly that it was Pha Muang who had received the Sword of Office, not to mention the hand of a daughter, from the King of Angkor. Sri Sraddha continues with the tale of his feats of derring-do as a youth. These are not out of place in a Buddhist sermon, witness the Mahavamsa, each bloody chapter of which Siamese tradition accepts as a sermon, as it says at the end of each chapter " ...... written for the edification and horrification of the faithful". Then comes his conversion and his works of merit, the treatment of which is as tedious to the reader as it must have been to those listening to Sri Sraddha's sermon, one hot morning some 600 years ago. One item in his list of

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Note onBetty Goaling's meritorious deeds deserves particular attention as it shows how far afield Sri Sraddha's activities extended and how he used the tenn "Mahathat" to refer to almost any relic, or monument that was supposed to contain relics, not necessarily the Mahathat of Sukhothai. On side 2 lines 18 to 3 5 Sri Sraddha tells us of how he found a great Phra Mahathat where all the relics gathered (or a place where there were many great Stupas) in utter ruin and desolation, how he cleared the jungle growth from it, added something on top to restore its original height and how he restored "great stone images of the Lord". P & G give the passage close attention, examining the possibility that it might refer to Sukhothai, or Pagan, finally proposing the Maha Thupa at Anuradhapura. But Sri Sraddha tells us that this monument was in "Krisna's city" (Nakhon Phra Kris) and P & G failed to note the significance of Sri Sraddha s statement that he could find no lime to whiten his restored monument. Until quite recent times lime was a vital adjunct to civilisation in South and Southeast Asia, as it was a necessary ingredient for a quid of betel. Thus to say "there was no lime" implies total ruin, remoteness from other civilized places, and a lack of basic civilized amenities. We have no evidence that Sukhothai was ever reduced to such straits in Sri Sraddha's time, nor Pagan, nor Anuradhapura, both of which, though long ruined, maintained their status as sacred cities through the centuries. I therefore proposed Nakhort Pathom which is connected by folktale to Krisna to this day, where the chief Stupa has had something added on top, where great stone images have been found broken, mended, and broken again, and which may well have been deep in the jungle and uninhabited in Sri Sraddha s time. Furthennore the name of the monument (Sri Sraddha says the "Khom" called it "Phra Dham") corresponds well with "Phra Dam" found in Ayuthayan and early 19th. century references to the Phra Pathom Stupa, which only acquired its modern spelling (Pathama) much more recently. Dr. Prasert Na Nakhon has tentatively accepted this interpretation (oral communicatin), his reasoning being based on a re-reading of Inscription 11, also by Sri Sraddha, that says that on his return from Lanka he crossed from "Tennasserim to Phetchaburi, Ratchaburi, Nakhon ..... ris, Ayothaya" etc. Dr. Prasert notes that "Nakhon ... ris" of Inscription II, lying like Nakhon Pathom between Ratchaburi and Ayuthaya, may be the Nakhon Phra Kris (Krishna's City) of Inscription 2. But, like Sri Sraddha in his sennon, I have strayed away from the real

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purpose of this discussion. Like Sri Sraddha I must cut short my digressions and return to the matter at hand. Sri Sraddha's digressions took him far from his purpose, namely the restoration and rededication of the old temple that had been built on his grandfather's Jayabhumi, the auspicious spot where he gathered his forces before battle with Khom Sabat. Sri Sraddha's time is up; he therefore comes to the point with a swiftness that seems enigmatic to us today, but must have been quite clear to those who were gathered to hear his sermon:(side 2 lines 39 to 42) "Around that great tall Caitya were carved the five hundred Jatakas, excellent and exceedingly beautiful. The Truk smashed them to strip them of their gold. When the Somdet Phra Maha Sami (Sri Sraddha) had returned from Lanka he gathered a group of ....... to carry up the bricks from below and restore the old Buddha image, being full of faith, and he had brought back two Glorious Gem Relics from Sihala to enshrine there. There is no telling the whole tale of it." If this is speech, as I have proposed, then "that" and "there" should refer to something in the presence of the speaker, rather than to "the aforementioned" as might be the case in writing. Sri Sraddha, preaching at Wat Si Chum, seems to be referring to an earlier monument, then in ruins, on the site where he would build the Mondop. The ruin, he tells us, had once been surrounded by the Jataka slabs, which the Truk (whoever they were) had stripped of their gold. When he had returned from Sihala or Lanka (the tense is quite clear in Thai), he inspired the faithful to restore "the old Buddha image" m::Lmrhu (for m::LnTri-m) in the 1980 reading, as opposed to m::LThriru (for-m::Lf'hriru)· - "the nine holy things" of the earlier reading. We may suppose that this image had existed there since the time of Ram Khamhaeng as it seems to be referred to (Phra Acana) in Inscription 1, and when this image was examined before its modem restoration it was found to contain several smaller images of increasing magnitude, each executed in brick and mortar, one added to the other, witness to several restorations and enlargements.

Finally Sri Sraddha enshrined "there" (in the image or the Mondop?) two remarkably holy relics that he had brought back with him from Lanka. P & G believe

tha~

these two relics were portions or replicas of the Hair Relic and the

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Note on Betty Goaling's Neck Bone Relic from the Mahiyangana in Lanka, and I agree with P & G for if Sri Sraddha had acquired the relics elsewhere he would have told us. This provides us with the first link between the two sermons, for the second sermon (side 2 line 42 to the end) tells us of the significance of the relics and how they were acquired from Mahiyangana, while the first (side 1 line 1 to side 2 line 42) end up with how the relics were deposited at Wat Si Chum, Sukhothai. It would not surprise me if Sri Sraddha named the temple "Maheyong" (Mahiyangana) like similar replicas of the Mahiyangana Caitya at Nakhon Si Thammarat, Ayuthaya and Chainat, but of this we have no evidence. However, there is a deeper link between the two sermons, and between the Mahiyangana and Wat Si Chum, namely that as the Buddha had driven out the Yaksas, making Lanka a Manusyavisaya, at the site of the Mahiyangana, so Pha Muang drove Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong out of Sukhothai, his camp being the site outside the walls of the city, which he would subsequently have dedicated as a temple (like Wats "Prachumphon" - Cambodian "Siri Jum" or "Si Chum" - elsewhere in Siam), and which his pious grandson Sri Sraddha later restored. Thus in his sermon Sri Sraddha draws a parallel:- Pha Muang, like the Buddha, was a liberator. However, the enemy from whom he liberated . Sukhothai remains an enigma. Summary This presentation of mine is at variance with the ideas of several respected scholars. However, I believe that I have shown the inner consistancy of Inscription 2 and its consistency with Lankan and Siamese traditions (in particular Siamese ancestor worship). The Inscription is not a collection of random items; through its many digressions runs a thread that I have attempted to identify. My interpretation is also consistent with the simple fact that the Jataka slabs and Incription 2 were both discovered in the tunnel at Wat Si Chum. No act of faith or stretch of imagination is required of the reader. My central point is that Inscription 2 cannot be used as evidence that either the inscription or the J atakas ever had anything to do with Wat Mahathat, Sukhothai. All the evidence in the inscription is to the contrary; and Wat Mahathat itself should be acknowledged as a mystery. It is mentioned neither in Inscription 1 nor 2, and we know nothing so far about its date or original

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fonn. As for those J ataka slabs, each inscribed with a description in very primitive Siamese, I would dearly like to believe that they date from Pha Muang's original foundation, and that they show Siamese as it was written before Inscription 1. But, alas, I have no evidence. Before any more Sukhothai "history" is written, we must define what we know and what we do not know. Sukhothai has become so well "known"' that the whole city and period have become a semi-myth, a sort of Camelot, remains that should make Sukhothai more a part despite the plentiful ph; of history than ofhagiograpny. Betty Gosling's articles on Sukhothai remain extremely important;-fQr the Jataka slabs found hidden at Wat Si Chum may indeed have been moved from Wat Mahathat. What we need is solid evidence that this was so. I cannot perceive such evidence in Inscription 2. P & G's investigations of the epigraphy of Sukhothai are hugely competent and provide perhaps the only entry into this obstruse subject for most westerners - including myself. Only in the .case of Inscription 2 have they let us down, due to no fault of their own. If they could find the energy to cooperate yet again in a re-examination of Inscription 2, many people would be yet more. indebted to them.

Sources: Gosling, Betty- Why Were the Jatakas "Hidden Away" at Wat Si Chum,JSS vol. 72. Once More, Inscription i i - an art Historian's View, JSS vol. 69 parts 1 and 2. Piriya Krairiksh- Tha Earliest Datable Buddha Images of LanNa Thai, ICTS 1984. Rrasert ahd Griswold- Epigraphic and Historical Studies, No. 10, JSS 60. 1 1972 S. Premchit & D. Swearer- Mulasasana Wat Pa Daeng, JSS vol. 65 part 2 Michael Wright fhmn7n'l'lin~ 2 -1fiint.l'l'lll (Thai Khadi Research Institute, Tharnmasat University, 1983) National Library, Bangkok

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Burmese Sources for Lan N a Thai History Aye Kyaw * Thailand, in Burma, is known as Yodaya which certainly comes from the name of Ayutthaya. Chiang Mai which means "new city" is known in Burma as Zimmay. In fact the name of Chiang Mai is associated with other similar names such as Chiang Rung or Chiang Hung (in Burmese Kyain~ongyi), Chiang Tung (Kengtung), Chiang Rai and Chiang Saen, which is mentioned in the SOsana/ankara Catan (History of Buddhism) 1 as deriving from the term, cicmay which was so given to that place in the Shan-Yuan language as a son, seven years old, of a Lawa who lived on the bank of the Mae Ping, attained arahat ship at the time when the Buddha made the aerial journey to the region. Hari:.. phunchai, the centre of early Buddhism in Lan Na Thai, that rose to prosperity from about seventh century to the twelveth century, is called in Burmese Haribunjatuin - a combination of two Pali words and one Burmese word - hari = chebula The name~ fruit (Tenninalia chedula), bunja = eat and tuin = kingdom or state. Haribunja was given to that place when the Buddha ate the chebula fruit dedicated by a hunter and the seed of which, when thrown away, stayed in the air without falling down onto the ground. In this context, the history of Lan Na Thai is incomplete without the use of Burmese sources. With the same raison d'etre, the history of Burma is incomplete without utilizing Thai sources. In Burma, Thai sources have not yet been much used although Chinese historical documents have been exploited to some extent. In Thailand also, it seems Burmese sources have not yet been employed in reconstructing her history. Therefore, this short article was written to shed some light on Burmese sources for Lan Na Thai history in particular and • Department of Modem Languages and Linguistics, CorneD University. The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. Ronald D. Renard and Achan Ratanapom Sethakul of Payap University for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article. The author also owes a special thanks to the Southeast Asian Studies Program, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore which sponsored him to teach and undertake research at Payap University, Chiang Mai. 1. Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, 1956

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Thailand in general and will hopefully evoke interest from among both Burmese and Thai scholars. As a matter of fact the Lao Na Thai states were related to the Shan States and Sip Song Panna in the north, the states of Lao in the east, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya and Bangkok in the south and Burma in the west. In the course of their history, therefore, the Lao Na Thai states were a nerve centre, important both politically and culturally. The structure and dynamics of Lao Na Thai social and political life must be understood in terms of the traditional society which had been passed and by-passed through by different traits of political swings as well as by the diverse characteristics of cultural blends, out of which. modern Lao Na Thai or Northern Thailand emerged and the particular manner in which the transition to modernity developed. In studying Burmese and Thai documents, one is often confused by the To mention a few for spellings of certain terms or the names of certain places. instance, in the Burmese chronicles, Sukhothai is spelled as Thaukkate, Kamphaeng Phet as Kamapeik and Phisanulok as Pitthalauk. In the same way, Thai spellings for Atwinwun (Secretary of the Burmese Hluttaw) and for Athiwun (Chief of a group of people called athi) are not clear. This difficulty can be overcome only when we are able to check both Burmese and Thai chronicles. As regards the region of Sip Song Panna, there is only one M.A: thesis in English written by a Shan scholar in Burma - U Sai Sam Tip from Kengtung. His thesis - "The Lu in Sip Song Panna From the Earliest Times Down to A.D. 1644"2 which exploits both Burmese and Chinese documents besides local chronicle of the Lu, is one of the best amongst the M.A. theses in Burma. His knowledge of Chinese and the invaluable assistance rendered by U Yi Sein, the Chinese expert at the Burma Historical Commission make his thesis a unique contribution to. the history of Burma as well as to the history of the Lao Na Thai states. In fact the region of Sip Song Panna, variously known in Burmese sources as Lu say nhac panna, Lu say nhac mre or Lu say nhac panna mre. It seems, however, that the Burmese names, the connotations of which are equated with the Thai name, Sip Song Panria the twelve districts or regions - centering at Chiang Rung or Keng Hung as its chief town, first appear in the Jambudipa u sonkyam (Leading Treatise on the Zambudipa). 3 2. M.A. Thesis, Department of History, Arts and Science University, Rangoon, 1976. 3. J.S. Furnivall, ed., Rangoon, Burma Research Society, 1960.

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The twelve Pannas or the Sip Song Panna, as mentioned in the local history of the Lu comprise : (1) The region of Chiang Rung (Keng Hung) and Mong Ham; (2) The region of Mong Se, Chiang Lu and Mong Ong; (3) The region of Mong Long; (4) The region of Mong Hun and Mong Pan; (5) The region of Chiang-cheng, Mong Hai and Mong Ngat; (6) The region of Chianglaw (Keng-law) Mong Mang, Mong Ngam, Mong Hkang and Lang Nhe; (7) The region of Mong La and Mong Bang; (8) The region of Mong Hing (p'u-t' eng) and Mong Pang; (9) The region of Mong La (Ssu-mao) and Mong Wang; (10) The region of Mong :Hpaung, Mong Mang and Mong Yun; (11) The region of Mong Hu No and Mong Hu Haii- and (12) The region of Kengtung, Po-La and I-wu. 4 The importance of these regions especially the township of Chiang Rung was testified to by the visits of two foreign missions in the early colonial period to Chiang Rung - one led by Lt. MacLeod in 1837 and the other by a French Commission in 1868. 5 Coming down from the township of Chiang Rung to the south, we find the • Shan States, known under British rule after 1922 as the Federated Shan States. The conception of the Shan States, of course, with the demarcated boundaries as it is now, perhaps emerged after the annexation of Burma by the British in 1886. Before that time, the Shan States was a conglomerate of different states with classical names. And in Burmese tradition there were nine Cis-SalweenShan States and nine TransSalween Yuan States. In 1791 King Bodawpaya (1782-1819) sent Buddhist missions, each with one set of the Tripitaka to forty-two towns. In his royal order, this region is simply mentioned as Shan Pye (Pye = state), Yuan Pye, Lyan Pye and Linzin Pye. 6 As a matter of fact the Shan States is dominated by various ethnic groups. 4. Sai Sam Tip, pp. xxv-vi; according to Lt. H. Daly the twelve Pannas are :- Seven west of the Mekong- (1) Mong Long, (2) Mong Se, (3) Mong Hun and Mong Pan, (4) Keng Law, Mong Mang, Mong Lang Neu, Mong Khang, (5) Keng Seung, Mong Hai, Mong Ngat, Mong Yang, Mong Khawm and Mong Wi, (6) Mong Hpong, Mong Yan, Mong Man, (7) Chieng Hung, Mong Ham, Mong Nun; five east of the Mekong - (1) Mong La and Mong Wang, (2) Mong Heng and Mong Pang, (3) Mong Keng Tawng and Mong Nawng Teu, (4) . Mong Ou Neu and Mong Ou Teau, (5) Mong La and Mong Num Man. Major R. Fulton, Report and Notes on the Country Traversed by the Kyaington-Chieng Mai Mission in 1890-91, Simla, The Govt. Central Printing Office, 1893, p. 78. 5. Major R. Fulton, p. 78.

6. Moung Htaung (Thathanabaing), Ametoau Aphre (Answers to the Royal Questions), Mandalay, Padetha Pitaka Press, 1961, pp. 457-59.

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They are politically less sensitive, culturally diverse, ethnically numerous and linguisti-

cally affiliated or different, national groups in the Shan States. Many Shans believe the origin of the name Shan to be derived from Asama (unrivalled), a name given to the Thai invaders by the natives of Old Assam.7 Besides the Shans living the length and width of the Shan States, there are other groups in the northern part, inter alia, Palaung, Kachin, Mingtha, Lisu, Myaungzu, Wa and Lahu; in the central part, Pa-o, Taung-yoe and Danu and in the southern part Intha, Danu, Taung-yoe, Pa-o, Padaung, Mussay, Yin-net, Yin-kya and Burmans. For the study of these ethnic groups, U Min Naing,.s Tui Tuin Ran Bwa: Pranthoncusa: (Our Indigenous Peoples of the Union)8 and Bulma Socialist Program Party's Pranthoncu Mranma Nuinnam Tuinransa: Yankyemhu Rora Dhale Thumcammya: (Shan) (Traditional Customs and Cultures of the Peoples of the Union of Burma, The Shan)9 are important. In the colonial period, the Shan Stateswas not only divided itself into different states but also separated from Burma Proper. The eventual reign of peace arid order after the annexation of the Shan States by the British stabilized the foundation of the Sawbwas whose families, relatives and officials enjoyed a greater share of profits derived from the British rule. "Certainly the star of feudalism shone brighter during the colonial rule," ·said a Shan scholar. 10 But the common peoples- poor peasants, cultivators, traders and artisans nevertheless were generally poor, although a few from among them, who knew how to butter their bread better, became better off. In this context, Daw Saw Khin Gyi portrays in her thesis- "History of the CisSalween Shan States (1886-1900)" 11 -how the British maintained the upper echelon of the natives - the Sawbwas, while the common peoples thus were subject to changeless change. Contrarily, Sao Saimong Mangrai depicts in his book- The Shan States and the British Annexation12 -how the British made the ruling class happier than ever before. These two works by Shan scholars are re-enforced by another Shan scholar's thesis - U Ba Thann Win : Administration of Shan States from the Panglong Conference to the Cessation of the Powers of the Saophas, 1949-1959," 13 7. Sai Sam Tip, p. xxiv. 8. Burma, Ministry of Union Culture, 1959. 9. Burma Socialist Program Party, 1968. 10. Saw Khin Gyi, "History of the Cis-Salween Shan States (1886-1900)", M.A. Thesis, Arts and Science University, Mandalay, 1973, p. 68. 11.

ibid.,

12. Data Paper 52, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, August 1965. 13. M.A. Thesis, Arts and Science University, Rangoon, n.d.

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

providing a better understanding of the post-independence period of the Shan States. In fact Kengt\ing was the largest and Kyong the smallest of the Shan States. Kengtung situated on the Kengtung plains in between two great rivers - the Salween and the Mekong as well as being halfway between Chiang Rung and Chiang Mai was regarded in Burmese tradition as alan u kin (flag and watchpost) and is inhabited mostly by two Thai sub-groups - the Khun and the Lu - both closely related to the northern Thai. Kengtung, therefore, was important strategically to both Burma and China as Chiang Mai was to both Burma and Thailand. Economically Kengtung was a link of no less importance in a network of overland trade routes. These spread from the mouth of the Salween where Martaban was one of the most important seaports in the Mon Kingdom of Lower Burma, to the full length of the middle reaches of the Mekong into Yunnan. Important as it was, the history of Kengtung was inseparable from Burma and Lan Na Thai and, in this regard, Professor Dr Than Tun's Nay Lhai Rajawan (Travelogue) Vol. 114 and Sao Saimong Mangrai's The Padaeng Chronicle and the Jengtung State Chronicle Translatetl 5 are equally important. Regarding Buddhism in the Lan Na Thai states, there are two important works- Maha Dhamma Thingyan's Sasanalankara Catan and Mede Sayadaw's Vamsadipani (History of Theravada Lineages). 16 The author of the former was a Buddhist patriarch in Burma as well as an official after he was forced to leave monkhood during the reign of King Bodawpaya. The S'asanalankara Catan is one of his more than fifty works. His fame as the most learned patriarch and his life as a lay official together make the Sasanalankara Catan an authoritive history of Buddhism in Burma then. And as has been briefly indicated, the aerial journey made by the Buddha to the region of Yonaka, according to the Sasanalankara Catan, was the first and also the earliest phase in the spread of Buddhism to Lan Na Thai. Buddhist missionaries were sent at the conclusion of the Third Buddhist Council in the 17th year of King Asoka's reign (246 B.C.). According to the Sasanalankara Catan, Maharakkhitathera together with five senior monks was sent to the country of Yonaka, which has been identified by some as the Lan Na Thai states. The author, drawing heavily from the canonical evidence, argues that the country of Yonaka included not only Haribunja tuin but the Shan States as well, as it is 14. Rangoon, Natha Taik, 1968. 1S. Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, The University of Michigan, Number 19, 1981.

16, Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, 1966.

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mentioned in the Parajikam Athakatha not as " Maharakkhitatheram yonakaratham," but as "Maharakkhitatheram yonakalokam." Although there are different opinions concerning the location of this country, the works, to mention a few for instance, such as the Sankhya Pakasaka Original by Zimmay(Chiang Mai) Shin Nyanawilasa, the Sankhya Pakasakadika by Siri Mingala Saya and the Visuddhi Magga Dipani by Zimmay Than Nyunt Kyaung Shin Ottamaradha are worth noting. The Vamsadipani is more interesting, and by its own raison d'etre it is a sine qua non for the study of Buddhist sects in Burma and to some extent for those ih Thailand. The vast territories taken by Tabinshwehti (1531- 50) and Bayinnaung (1551-81) (Burengnong in Thai) were, among others, the main causes for the proliferation of sects in both Burma and Thailand. During this period there was a close relationship between Burma and Thailand and travel on the overland routes encountered less difficulty. Those who traded between the two countries or those who wanted to study either in Burma or in Thailand did not insulate themselves from the dissemination of knowledge or of new ideas within Burmese and Thai societies. Many Thai monks studied Buddhist scriptures at the capital of Burma - Hanthawaddy - as it was the centre of learning then. According to the Vamsadipani, a sect - Rancanguim - originally founded in Thailand spread into Burma. As a matter of fact Buddhism originated in India, spread out dove- taillike to Ceylon and Southeast Asia. Native elites demonstrate in their Pali- oriented or vernacular works that the native kingdom , whether it be Pagan, Chiang Mai or Ayutthaya, was linked with the original home of Buddhist tradition and an established continuity, thereby, of the growth and spread of Buddhism in their respective kingdom was advocated. With such a raison d'etre both the Burmese and the Thai were not hesitant to see themselves as part of the larger world of Buddhism. In this context, the primary concern that the Buddha made aerial sojourns to some places in Burma Proper, Kengtung, Hariphunchai and Ayutthaya, was a source of pride and prestige, conformable with the notion that "native" Buddhism introduced by the Buddha Himself when He was alive was " pure" par excellence in content and greater in character. Buddhism, thus, was bound to take root in the kingdoms in Burma and Thailand. With such indigenous justification of how the seeds of "pure" Buddhism were sown in the native kingdoms, the Sasanalankiira Catan and the Vamsadipani

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

17

are comparable with LanNa Thai local works such as the Jinakalamalipakaranam (Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of the Conqueror) 18 by Phra Ratanapanna of Chiang Mai, the Tamnan Mun/asatsana (History of the Origin of the Religion) 19 by Phra Phutthaphunkam and Phra P hutthayan and the Camadevivamsa (History 20 of Camadevi) by Phra Bodhiransi of Chiang Mai. The non-local works such as the Phongsawadan Nua (Chronicle of the North) 21 by Phra Wichianpricha (Noi) and the Phongsawadan Yonok (History of the North) 22 by Phraya Prachakit Korachak (Chaem Bunnag) re-enforced the former works in reconstructing the history of early Buddhism in the Lan Na Thai states. As regards Burma's relations with Thailand, there are two important theses : U San Nyein's "Yodaya Mranma Saksamre Samuin, 1500-1700 (History of Thai23 Burmese Relations, 1500-1700) covering 200 years of Thai- Burmese relations and U Kyaw Win's "Tonnu Khat Mranma Nuinnam Samuin, 1500-1600 (History of 24 the Toungoo Dynasty 1500-1600). In addition to these works, U Aung Thein (His Thai name is Luang Phraison Salarak) who lived in Thailand for many years, translated Prince l)amrong's Thai Rop Phama (Thai-Burmese Wars) 25 into English. His works were published in the Journal of the Burma Research Society and the

17.

For an analysis of early LanNa Tha i Historiography, see Anan Ganjanapan, "Early LanNa Thai Historiography: An Analysis of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Chronicles," M.A . Thesis, Cornell Un iversity, January 1976.

18.

Written in 1516-17 in Pali. The first translation into the Thai language was made in 1794 by the order of Ki ng Rama I. It was first published in 1908 and later was translated into French by George Coedes, who published it in the Bulletin de /'Eco le Francaise d'Extreme Orient, tome xxv (1925). A new Thai version by Saeng Monwithun was first published in 1958. In 1960 a romanized ed ition was published by the Pali Text Society in London. Finall y, in 1968 the Engli sh translation by N.A. Jayawickrama was published under the title of The Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of the Conqueror: being a translation of Jinakalamalipakaranam of Ratanaphanna Thera.

19.

Written in the 1420s in the Thai Yuan Language. published in 1939.

20.

Written in c. 1570 in Pali. It was first translated into modern Thai and published in Bangkok in 1920.

21.

Written in 1807. Krom Sinlapakon, Prachum phongsawadan phak !hi I (Collected C hronicles, Part I), Bangkok, 1956. A French translation by C. Notton is published as Legendes sur le Siam erie Cambodge, Bangkok, 1939.

22.

Written in 1906 in a very scholarly way. Bangkok, 1955.

23.

M.A. Thesis, Arts and Science University, Mandalay, 1968.

24.

M.A . Thesis, Arts and Science University, Rangoon, 1970.

25.

Bangkok, Klang Withaya, 1962.

It was translated into central Thai and first

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relevant portions from the Mhannan Rajawantoaukri (The Glass Palace Chronicle) under the title of " Intercourse between Burma and Siam, as recorded in Hmannan Yazawindawgyi" were published in the Journal of the Siam Society. The last part of the Thai Rop Phama however still remains untranslated into English. The relationships between Burma and Thailand became very important with the rise of the Toungoo dynasty. After the fall of Pagan in 1287, Burma was characterised by internal wars between different petty states. It was only with the rise of the Toungoo dynasty that all the petty states were integrated into a· vast kingdom which not only touched Arakan in the west but comprised the Lan Na Thai states, some of the Lao states in the east and for a while, Ayutthaya as well. The location of Toungoo, though the same latitude as Prome, enjoyed· a happier position than Prome. Toungoo, away and free from the war-torn routes, had good time to gather strength for its future development as the most important city in the valley of the Sittang. In addition, Toungoo is almost halfway between the Irrawaddy Delta and Upper Burma and close as well to the Kyaukse irrigation area. Favoured by these conditions and unlike any other towns on the direct route between Ava and the Delta which were generally either to be conquerors or to be conquered, Toungoo eventually became a haven of refuge for those who ran away from the war-frequented towns. In the olden days, the crucial twin factors of control of land and manpower were the sine qua non for any one, either from among blood royal or from among commoners, to grip political power. In this context, the growing population at and in the neighbourhood of Toungoo, the charismatic ruler, Minkyinyo (1486-1531), and Toungoo's acquisition of land such as the Kyaukse region were the main causes for Toungoo's rise to power. The real turning point, of course, in the history of Toungoo took place when Minkyinyo founded the Toungoo dynasty in 1510. In this regard, there are two useful works- Professor U Chan Mya's Tonnu Rajawan Akyinkhup nhan Rhwe Samtoau Bhura:samuin (A Concise History of Toungoo and History of the Shwe San Daw Pagoda)26 and Lecturer U Sein Lwin Lay's Montara: Rhwethi nhan Bhurannon Ketumati Tonnu Rajawan Aca Acum (A Complete History of Toungoo )27 The latter is more comprehensive than the former. Toungoo was so great and so vast that the Thai expression - Nung thi 26.

Toungoo, Zeya Press, 1%1.

27. Rangoon, Sepanthaya Press, 1968.

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Toungoo (The one at Toungoo)- is quite fitting when referred to a person who was the greatest genius. This idiomatic expression, though is hardly known in Burma. Ya Khop's eight volume work- Phu Chana Sip Thit (Conqueror of the Ten Directions)28 - is one of the longest historical novels in Southeast Asia and deals with Bayinnaung. This novel, because of its fine plot and its high literary standard, is well known in Thailand but is less known in Burma. Its popularity was reenforced by a film and some popular songs about Bayinnaung. There is no comparable Burmese novel in Burma but U Thein Maung's Bhurannon Atthuppatti (Biography of Bayinnaung)29 is useful for research on Bayinnaung. And Ledi Pandita U Maung Gyi's four volume historical novel- Tapinrhwethi (On Tabinshwehti) 30 which has no Thai counterpart; is of importance to the study of the Toungoo dynasty. It will be of interest here to give a short account on Bayinnaung whose life was indeed, as Harvey puts it, "the greatest explosion of human energy ever seen in Burma. " 31 Bayinnaung was the son of a toddy-climber at Ngathayuak, a village in the Pagan township. He was named Maung Cha Tat because, during the early days of his birth, a number of white ants swarmed around him. His parents migrated south to Taungdwingyi. One day while his father was climbing a toddy tree in order to tap its juice, the mother laid the infant on the ground and went elsewhere. In her absence, a big serpent coiled itself around the child without doing any harm to him. On the return of his mother to the child, the reptile gently glided away. His parents consulted with a learned monk regarding the unusual omen. He asked them to go to Toungoo where the child would possess greatness and prosperity. As instructed by the monk, they went to Toungoo where they stayed at a monastery the abbot of which happened to be preceptor of King Minkyinyo. It was through the influence of the monk that Maung Cha Tat's mother got a job at the palace and, accordingly, Maung Cha Tat grew up at the palace with the son and daughter of the reigning king. He got married to the princess and eventually became one of the greatest figures in Burmese history even though he had not a drop of royal blood in his veins. In his vast kingdom, Bayinnaung introduced a standardized monetary system, standardized weights and measurements and standardized taxation. Notably also, he forbade all animal sacrifices yearly performed in honour of the Mahagiri Nat at 28. 29. 30. 31.

Bangkok, Amonkanphim,

1971.

Rangoon, Burma Yokshin Press,

1933.

1971. Cited in D.G.E. Hall, Burma, London, Hutchinson's University Library, 1956, p. 42. Rangoon, Kayathukha Press, n.d.; second edition, Rangoon, Sittamon Sape,

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Mount Popa by those who lived at Pagan, Ywatha, Pakhan Nge, Nga Thayuak, Tuywin Taing and Kyaukpadaung. After the yearly animal sacrifices, the heads of the sacrificed buffaloes, cows, pigs and chickens were tied up with ropes and hung up at the front posts of the houses. In addition to this, he also forbade Shan funeral sacrifices in which, if a Shan Sawbwa passed away, his elephants and horses and his nearest and dearest including his slaves were forced to be burnt or buried together with their Sawbwa. During this period, the art of horsemanship was popular with members of the royal family. There was a game known in Burmese as kulikaca:ne play among men riding horses. Among the women dice play was a popular indoor game. Tattooing among the men was important as they regarded it as essential to have a manly appearance and courage. One Burmese source mentions that a girl asked her lover to have his thighs "blackened" before they got married. And an oral tradition has it that tattooing was usually undertaken at the monastery. One's horoscopic destiny was calculated to be harmonious with the astronomical time and space and after having been tattooed the person thus tattooed had to lie down on banana leaves for about five days. In addition to tattooing, occultism and magic were very popular among the people. Also in literature the Sukhothai, Lan Na Thai and Shan scripts were actively encouraged to develop. It was during this period that a young Thai prince by the name of Naresuan was forced to live at the Burmese Court for more than fifteen years. He learnt Burmese and perhaps Mon too and became well versed in the art of Burmese warfare. Apart from this, did he fall in love with "a beautiful skinned, Indian-eyed Burmese princess with long smooth hair," after living there for such a long period ? The answer is unclear. However, a young Burmese prince known .as Nat Shin Naung, son of the founder of Toungoo, fell in love with the younger sister of the king of Chiang Mai. The princess, called Dhatukalaya, was so beautiful that, according to his poems, she was the only one who owned all fine characteristics of beauty. Perhaps there would be some oral traditions about her either in the Lan Na Thai states or at the capital of Burma. A student of Burmese literature cannot ignore the excellence, beauty and importance of Nat Shin Naung's poems. For the study of the biographies of poets and men of letters who were involved in wars and administration of such a vast kingdom, there are two important works- U Pe Maung Tin's Mranma Cape Samuin (History of Burmese Literature) 32 and Captain Ba Thoung's Casotoaumya: 32. Rangoon, Aungse Sape Taik, 1971.

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Atthupatti (Biographies of Poets). 33 To understand the system of Burmese administration, a student of Burmese history cannot avoid U Tin's five volume work- Mranma Man Aupkhuppum Catam (Treatise on Administration of Burmese King) 34 - which is as much important to the research of Burmese administration as Prince Damrong's works- Laksana Kanpokkhrong Prathet Sayam tae Boran (Ancient Administration of Siam)35 and Thesaphiban (On Provincial Government)36 to that of Thai administration. U Tin's work is reliable and there is no comparable work in Burma. It contains many primary sources such as royal orders, although it is influenced by imperial ideas predominant in British policy towards Burma in the 1920s. U Tin was appointed government compiler in January 1921 and his assigned duty was to sort out the Burmese records and write the Mranma Man Aupkhuppum Catam. By virtue of his position and due to his knowledge of the Burmese government, he had access to some twenty thousand purapuik (folded books). His first volume deals with the concepts and foundation of Burmese kingship; the second is a continuation of the first in terms of discussing kingship and mentioning the social divisions of Burmese society and the demarcation of the provinces during the Pagan and Konbaung dynasties; the third one describes the social organization, particularly the amhutham (servicemen) and the institution of central statecraft; the fourth one narrates the duties and functions of the H/utyon Ngayat (Five Central Courts), the relationship among them, the provincial administration, the method of appointing the officials, the departments of religious affairs, army, judiciary and finance; the fifth one deals with the kinds of land, the salaries of officials, the department of public works and is appended by Bodawpaya's Rajasatkri Amintoau (Bodawpaya's Proclamation). In them also can be found some information regarding Lan Na Thai history and administration. One Burmese dictionary- U Maung Maung Tin's Rhwenansum Wohara Abhidhan (A Dictionary of Royal Usages) 37 is also an important source. It deals with words and phrases in use at the palace and also defines various posts in the royal service in 420 sections. In fact most of the sections are compilations of appoint33. Rangoon, Shumawa Press, 1955. 34. Rangoon, Central Press, Vol. I, 1963, Vol. II, 1965; Vol, III, 1970, Vols. IV and V, 1933. 35. Bangkok, Rongphim Thanakhanomsin, 1959. 36. Bangkok, Rong Ruang Tham, 1967. 37. Rangoon, Buddha Sasana Council Press, 1975.

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ment orders of officials; but some nevertheless provide information about the Thai musical groups at the Burmese Courts and the Chiang Mai cavalry. Thai songs (Yodaya: Sikhyan) and Thai dance (Yodaya: Aka) are well known in Burma and are interwoven with Burmese culture. 38 We have mentioned much about Burmese influence on Thai society but Thai influence upon Burmese society is also profound. There are many unpolished royal decrees housed in different libraries in Burma which have information on LanNa Thai history. Among the published royal orders, three works- Daw Khin Khin Sein's Alonmantara: Amintoau Mya: (Royal Decrees of Alaungpaya), 39 Thathanabaing Moung Htaung Sayadaw's Ametoau Aphre (Answers to the Royal Questions) and Taw Sein Ko's Hluttaw Mhattam (Records of the Hluttaw)40 - are important. Daw Khin Khin Sein's work mainly deals with the royal orders, but Moung Htaung Sayadaw's work is a veritable encyclopedia of religion, astronomy, politics and court etiquette. Bodawpaya asked the Thathanabaing many varied and delicate questions and the Thathanabaing answered all of them with great erudition. The Hluttaw Mhattam (contains royal edicts, laws and regulations, instructions to Myothugyi (Town headman : Chao Muang in Thai) and Ywathugyi (Village headman: Phuyaiban in Thai), instructions to provincial governors, rules for levying tax, civil proceedings, judgements in civil suits, criminal proceedings, letters between the Hluttaw and the provincial governors, papers relating to the Shan . States, correspondence between the Burmese government and the Thathanabaing and memoranda. Some information concerning the Shan States, the Lan Na Thai states and Thailand in general can be found in these works. And the rajawan, identical with the phongsawadan, comes from two Pali words - raja and vamsa; the Thai term, also derived from two Pali words - bansa and avatara, conveys the same connotation as of the rajawan which means annals of members of a line, dynasty or kingdom. Therefore, the rajawan or the phongsawadan are generally dynastic chronicles. The oldest chronicle extant in Burma is the Rajawan Kyoau (The Celebrated Chronicle)41 by Shin Thilawuntha, the great monk poet who lived in the fifteenth century. Perhaps the oldest phongsawadan in Thailand is the 38.

Burmese classical dance style is far closer to that of Siam than to that of India and a principal type Burmese classical song, the yodaya: takes its name from Ayutthaya. See U Khin Zaw, "Burmese Music, A Partnership in Melodic Patterns," Perspective of Burma, An Atlantic Monthly Supplement, 1958, pp. 67-71.

39. Rangoon, Burma Historical Commission, 1964. 40.

Rangoon, Govt. Press, 1960.

41.

Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, 1965.

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Phraratchaphongsawadan Krung Si Ayudhya chabap Luang Prasoet (The Luang Prasoet Chronicle of Ayudhaya)42 of the seventeenth century. Comparatively speaking, the gro.wth of this new type of history in Thailand occurred about two centuries later. As such, whether the new tradition in Thai historiography happened because of Burmese influence, which was high during the Toungoo dynasty, or due to the impact of Europeans who were present in Ayutthaya by then, is a matter for further research. In the Burmese case the presence of foreigners at Hanthawaddy had no effect on the concept and tradition of Burmese historiography.

Last but not least are the Burmese chronicles. In Burmese there are four terms, important and related to history- thamaing (samuin), rajawan, mhattam and aretoaupum. In Thai too, there are four important terms - tamnan, phongsawadan, chotmaihet and prawatsat. The term, thamaing perhaps deriving from Pali, thamuti (samuti) is associated with the Buddha; hence with the Dhamma as well. It has two shades of meaning - one which can be equated with the Thai term tamnan and the other with the term - prawatsat. The literature of the thamaing in Burma as with that of the tamnan in Thailand, forms a mine of curious information, legendary or authentic, on history. And as with the tamnan, the thamaing, generally governed by the religious nature of their contents, were mainly devoted to particular Buddhist monuments and incidentally include something about the doings of a king or kings. The use of thamaing as synonymous with prawatsat - a new modern term for history coined during the reign of King Rama VI (1910-25), was first used in Burma just before the second world war. The Burmese simply use an old term with new connotations whereas the Thai invented a new term to convey the same meaning. Besides the rajawan, the Burmese terms, mhattam43 and aretoaupum44 are synonymous with the Thai terms, chotmaihet or kotmaihet and they deal with account or report on particular events. In particular, the aretoaupum are concerned with the short histories of particular wars or uprisings. Be that as it may, as with the phongsawadan in Thailand, the rajawan are by far the most important in Burma. From among the rajawan, the Mhannan Rajawan is by no means unimportant. Professor 42. Prachum phongsawadon phak thi I (Collec.ted Chronicles, part 1), Bangkok, 1956. 43. See for example, U Chein, Putake Capain Ita/yam Swa Mhattam, (Diary of the Mission to Portugal, Spain and Italy), Mandalay, Ludu Press, 1959; Pe Maung Tin, ed., Kinwun Mingyi London Swa Mhattam, (Kinwun Mingyi's London Diary), Rangoon, Govt. Printing and Stationary, 1953. 44. See for example, Nai Pan Hla, ed., Rajadirit Aretoaupumkyam, (Account on Rajadirit War), Rangoon, Thein Than Oo Press, 1977.

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G.H. Luce and Pe Maung Tin have translated parts, Ill, IV and V of the Mhannan Rajawan; this work - the Glass Palace Chronicle of the Burmese Kings, is generally known as the Glass Palace Chronicle. 4s As a matter of fact, the compilation of the official history of Burma from the earliest time to 1821 was ordered by Bagyidaw (1819-37) a coniemporary of Rama II (1809-24). A commission46 was appointed for this purpose and it took three years to finish the work. This chronicle, known as the Mhannan Rajawan is of great importance but also of course an improvement on U Kala's Maharajawan (The Great Chronicle). 47 To bring the official history up to date, King Mindon (1853-78), a contemporary of King Mongkut (1851-68) appointed a commission48 in 1867. This commission compiled the Dutiya Mhannan (The Second Glass Palace Chronicle)49 which goes down to the beginning of Mindon's reign, 1853. These two Mhannan Rajawan are reliable and thorough, for the commissions sifted through all the available Records then compiled the chronicles. The sponsors agreed on the guideline that "a chronicle of kings should be the standard, a balance, so to speak, for all duties of kings, for all affairs of state, for all matters of religion and not a thing of conflicting and false statements. ,so U Maung Maung Tin continued the Dutiya Mhannan until 1885 through the reigns of King Mindon and King Thibaw (1878-85). Then, combining the Mhannan Rajawan from the rise of Alaungpaya in 1752 to the end of Pagan's reign in 1853 with his own work from 1853 to 1885, he published a chronicle named the Kunbhon Rajawantoaukri (The Konbaung Chronicle)s 1 which is also known as Kunbhonsat

4S. First published in 1923 by Oxford University Press and reprinted in 1960 by the Burma Research Society.

46. This commission comprised: (1) Monrwe Sayadaw Shin Adiccavamsa Adiccaransi, (2) Thawkapin Sayadaw, (3) Mahadhammasankran (ex-Moung Htaung Thathanabaing), (4) Myinsuwungyi U Rauk, (S) Thandawsint U Chein, (6) Sayedawgyi U Phyaw, (7) Bisikpunna Jeyadeva, (8) Bisikpunna Kumudra, (9) Byedaik Thansint U Rwe, (10) Saye U Lu Gyi, (11) Saye U Aung Tha, (12) Atwinwun Sawmyosa Mingyi Sirimahanandasankran and (13) Singumyosa Atwinwun Athiwun 47.

Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, Vols. I and II, 1960, Vol. III, 1961.

48. This commission consisted of: (1) Kani Atwinwun Mingyi Mahamankhonsankhaya, (2) Khanmamanwun Muinkhuin Myosa Pitakataup Mahasirijeyasu, (3) Aimrhe Atwinwun Mahamanlhasankhaya, (4) Sayegyi Marilhajeyasu and (S) Sayetoaukhon Nemyocansuraja 49.

Mandalay, Mandalay Times Press, 1919.

SO. The Glass Palace Ohronicle, ·p. ix

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Maharajawantoaukri. As this chronicle covers the whole period of the Konbaung dynasty (1752-1885), it is of great importance to the study of both Thai and Burmes_e history. Comparatively speaking, the Kunbhonsat Maharajawantoaukri is as important to the study of the Konbaung dynasty as Thiphakorawong's Phraratchaphongsawadan Krung Rattanakosin (Royal Chronicle of the Bangkok Era)52 and Prince Damrong's Phrarachaphongsawadan Krung Rattanakosin Ratchakan Thi 2 (Royal Chronicle of the Second Reign of the Bangkok Era) 53 to that of the Chakri dynasty. If we can use all mentioned Burmese documents for research on Lan Na Thai history, the result of that research, undertaken in the light of both Thai and Burmese sources, will be a unique contribution to the wealth of Thai studies.

51. Mandalay, Mandalay Times Press, 1905; Reprinted in 1968 by Lede Mandaing Press, Rangoon. 52. 5 Vols. Bangkok, Khrusapha, 1961. 53. 2 Vols. Bangkok, Sigsaphannid, 1962.

235

Burmese Sources for Lan N a Thai History Aye Kyaw * Thailand, in Burma, is known as Yodaya which certainly comes from the name of Ayutthaya. Chiang Mai which means "new city" is known in Burma as Zimmay. In fact the name of Chiang Mai is associated with other similar names such as Chiang Rung or Chiang Hung (in Burmese Kyain~ongyi), Chiang Tung (Kengtung), Chiang Rai and Chiang Saen, which is mentioned in the SOsana/ankara Catan (History of Buddhism) 1 as deriving from the term, cicmay which was so given to that place in the Shan-Yuan language as a son, seven years old, of a Lawa who lived on the bank of the Mae Ping, attained arahat ship at the time when the Buddha made the aerial journey to the region. Hari:.. phunchai, the centre of early Buddhism in Lan Na Thai, that rose to prosperity from about seventh century to the twelveth century, is called in Burmese Haribunjatuin - a combination of two Pali words and one Burmese word - hari = chebula The name~ fruit (Tenninalia chedula), bunja = eat and tuin = kingdom or state. Haribunja was given to that place when the Buddha ate the chebula fruit dedicated by a hunter and the seed of which, when thrown away, stayed in the air without falling down onto the ground. In this context, the history of Lan Na Thai is incomplete without the use of Burmese sources. With the same raison d'etre, the history of Burma is incomplete without utilizing Thai sources. In Burma, Thai sources have not yet been much used although Chinese historical documents have been exploited to some extent. In Thailand also, it seems Burmese sources have not yet been employed in reconstructing her history. Therefore, this short article was written to shed some light on Burmese sources for Lan Na Thai history in particular and • Department of Modem Languages and Linguistics, CorneD University. The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. Ronald D. Renard and Achan Ratanapom Sethakul of Payap University for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article. The author also owes a special thanks to the Southeast Asian Studies Program, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore which sponsored him to teach and undertake research at Payap University, Chiang Mai. 1. Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, 1956

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Aye Kyaw

Thailand in general and will hopefully evoke interest from among both Burmese and Thai scholars. As a matter of fact the Lao Na Thai states were related to the Shan States and Sip Song Panna in the north, the states of Lao in the east, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya and Bangkok in the south and Burma in the west. In the course of their history, therefore, the Lao Na Thai states were a nerve centre, important both politically and culturally. The structure and dynamics of Lao Na Thai social and political life must be understood in terms of the traditional society which had been passed and by-passed through by different traits of political swings as well as by the diverse characteristics of cultural blends, out of which. modern Lao Na Thai or Northern Thailand emerged and the particular manner in which the transition to modernity developed. In studying Burmese and Thai documents, one is often confused by the To mention a few for spellings of certain terms or the names of certain places. instance, in the Burmese chronicles, Sukhothai is spelled as Thaukkate, Kamphaeng Phet as Kamapeik and Phisanulok as Pitthalauk. In the same way, Thai spellings for Atwinwun (Secretary of the Burmese Hluttaw) and for Athiwun (Chief of a group of people called athi) are not clear. This difficulty can be overcome only when we are able to check both Burmese and Thai chronicles. As regards the region of Sip Song Panna, there is only one M.A: thesis in English written by a Shan scholar in Burma - U Sai Sam Tip from Kengtung. His thesis - "The Lu in Sip Song Panna From the Earliest Times Down to A.D. 1644"2 which exploits both Burmese and Chinese documents besides local chronicle of the Lu, is one of the best amongst the M.A. theses in Burma. His knowledge of Chinese and the invaluable assistance rendered by U Yi Sein, the Chinese expert at the Burma Historical Commission make his thesis a unique contribution to. the history of Burma as well as to the history of the Lao Na Thai states. In fact the region of Sip Song Panna, variously known in Burmese sources as Lu say nhac panna, Lu say nhac mre or Lu say nhac panna mre. It seems, however, that the Burmese names, the connotations of which are equated with the Thai name, Sip Song Panria the twelve districts or regions - centering at Chiang Rung or Keng Hung as its chief town, first appear in the Jambudipa u sonkyam (Leading Treatise on the Zambudipa). 3 2. M.A. Thesis, Department of History, Arts and Science University, Rangoon, 1976. 3. J.S. Furnivall, ed., Rangoon, Burma Research Society, 1960.

237

Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

The twelve Pannas or the Sip Song Panna, as mentioned in the local history of the Lu comprise : (1) The region of Chiang Rung (Keng Hung) and Mong Ham; (2) The region of Mong Se, Chiang Lu and Mong Ong; (3) The region of Mong Long; (4) The region of Mong Hun and Mong Pan; (5) The region of Chiang-cheng, Mong Hai and Mong Ngat; (6) The region of Chianglaw (Keng-law) Mong Mang, Mong Ngam, Mong Hkang and Lang Nhe; (7) The region of Mong La and Mong Bang; (8) The region of Mong Hing (p'u-t' eng) and Mong Pang; (9) The region of Mong La (Ssu-mao) and Mong Wang; (10) The region of Mong :Hpaung, Mong Mang and Mong Yun; (11) The region of Mong Hu No and Mong Hu Haii- and (12) The region of Kengtung, Po-La and I-wu. 4 The importance of these regions especially the township of Chiang Rung was testified to by the visits of two foreign missions in the early colonial period to Chiang Rung - one led by Lt. MacLeod in 1837 and the other by a French Commission in 1868. 5 Coming down from the township of Chiang Rung to the south, we find the • Shan States, known under British rule after 1922 as the Federated Shan States. The conception of the Shan States, of course, with the demarcated boundaries as it is now, perhaps emerged after the annexation of Burma by the British in 1886. Before that time, the Shan States was a conglomerate of different states with classical names. And in Burmese tradition there were nine Cis-SalweenShan States and nine TransSalween Yuan States. In 1791 King Bodawpaya (1782-1819) sent Buddhist missions, each with one set of the Tripitaka to forty-two towns. In his royal order, this region is simply mentioned as Shan Pye (Pye = state), Yuan Pye, Lyan Pye and Linzin Pye. 6 As a matter of fact the Shan States is dominated by various ethnic groups. 4. Sai Sam Tip, pp. xxv-vi; according to Lt. H. Daly the twelve Pannas are :- Seven west of the Mekong- (1) Mong Long, (2) Mong Se, (3) Mong Hun and Mong Pan, (4) Keng Law, Mong Mang, Mong Lang Neu, Mong Khang, (5) Keng Seung, Mong Hai, Mong Ngat, Mong Yang, Mong Khawm and Mong Wi, (6) Mong Hpong, Mong Yan, Mong Man, (7) Chieng Hung, Mong Ham, Mong Nun; five east of the Mekong - (1) Mong La and Mong Wang, (2) Mong Heng and Mong Pang, (3) Mong Keng Tawng and Mong Nawng Teu, (4) . Mong Ou Neu and Mong Ou Teau, (5) Mong La and Mong Num Man. Major R. Fulton, Report and Notes on the Country Traversed by the Kyaington-Chieng Mai Mission in 1890-91, Simla, The Govt. Central Printing Office, 1893, p. 78. 5. Major R. Fulton, p. 78.

6. Moung Htaung (Thathanabaing), Ametoau Aphre (Answers to the Royal Questions), Mandalay, Padetha Pitaka Press, 1961, pp. 457-59.

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AyeKyaw

They are politically less sensitive, culturally diverse, ethnically numerous and linguisti-

cally affiliated or different, national groups in the Shan States. Many Shans believe the origin of the name Shan to be derived from Asama (unrivalled), a name given to the Thai invaders by the natives of Old Assam.7 Besides the Shans living the length and width of the Shan States, there are other groups in the northern part, inter alia, Palaung, Kachin, Mingtha, Lisu, Myaungzu, Wa and Lahu; in the central part, Pa-o, Taung-yoe and Danu and in the southern part Intha, Danu, Taung-yoe, Pa-o, Padaung, Mussay, Yin-net, Yin-kya and Burmans. For the study of these ethnic groups, U Min Naing,.s Tui Tuin Ran Bwa: Pranthoncusa: (Our Indigenous Peoples of the Union)8 and Bulma Socialist Program Party's Pranthoncu Mranma Nuinnam Tuinransa: Yankyemhu Rora Dhale Thumcammya: (Shan) (Traditional Customs and Cultures of the Peoples of the Union of Burma, The Shan)9 are important. In the colonial period, the Shan Stateswas not only divided itself into different states but also separated from Burma Proper. The eventual reign of peace arid order after the annexation of the Shan States by the British stabilized the foundation of the Sawbwas whose families, relatives and officials enjoyed a greater share of profits derived from the British rule. "Certainly the star of feudalism shone brighter during the colonial rule," ·said a Shan scholar. 10 But the common peoples- poor peasants, cultivators, traders and artisans nevertheless were generally poor, although a few from among them, who knew how to butter their bread better, became better off. In this context, Daw Saw Khin Gyi portrays in her thesis- "History of the CisSalween Shan States (1886-1900)" 11 -how the British maintained the upper echelon of the natives - the Sawbwas, while the common peoples thus were subject to changeless change. Contrarily, Sao Saimong Mangrai depicts in his book- The Shan States and the British Annexation12 -how the British made the ruling class happier than ever before. These two works by Shan scholars are re-enforced by another Shan scholar's thesis - U Ba Thann Win : Administration of Shan States from the Panglong Conference to the Cessation of the Powers of the Saophas, 1949-1959," 13 7. Sai Sam Tip, p. xxiv. 8. Burma, Ministry of Union Culture, 1959. 9. Burma Socialist Program Party, 1968. 10. Saw Khin Gyi, "History of the Cis-Salween Shan States (1886-1900)", M.A. Thesis, Arts and Science University, Mandalay, 1973, p. 68. 11.

ibid.,

12. Data Paper 52, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, August 1965. 13. M.A. Thesis, Arts and Science University, Rangoon, n.d.

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

providing a better understanding of the post-independence period of the Shan States. In fact Kengt\ing was the largest and Kyong the smallest of the Shan States. Kengtung situated on the Kengtung plains in between two great rivers - the Salween and the Mekong as well as being halfway between Chiang Rung and Chiang Mai was regarded in Burmese tradition as alan u kin (flag and watchpost) and is inhabited mostly by two Thai sub-groups - the Khun and the Lu - both closely related to the northern Thai. Kengtung, therefore, was important strategically to both Burma and China as Chiang Mai was to both Burma and Thailand. Economically Kengtung was a link of no less importance in a network of overland trade routes. These spread from the mouth of the Salween where Martaban was one of the most important seaports in the Mon Kingdom of Lower Burma, to the full length of the middle reaches of the Mekong into Yunnan. Important as it was, the history of Kengtung was inseparable from Burma and Lan Na Thai and, in this regard, Professor Dr Than Tun's Nay Lhai Rajawan (Travelogue) Vol. 114 and Sao Saimong Mangrai's The Padaeng Chronicle and the Jengtung State Chronicle Translatetl 5 are equally important. Regarding Buddhism in the Lan Na Thai states, there are two important works- Maha Dhamma Thingyan's Sasanalankara Catan and Mede Sayadaw's Vamsadipani (History of Theravada Lineages). 16 The author of the former was a Buddhist patriarch in Burma as well as an official after he was forced to leave monkhood during the reign of King Bodawpaya. The S'asanalankara Catan is one of his more than fifty works. His fame as the most learned patriarch and his life as a lay official together make the Sasanalankara Catan an authoritive history of Buddhism in Burma then. And as has been briefly indicated, the aerial journey made by the Buddha to the region of Yonaka, according to the Sasanalankara Catan, was the first and also the earliest phase in the spread of Buddhism to Lan Na Thai. Buddhist missionaries were sent at the conclusion of the Third Buddhist Council in the 17th year of King Asoka's reign (246 B.C.). According to the Sasanalankara Catan, Maharakkhitathera together with five senior monks was sent to the country of Yonaka, which has been identified by some as the Lan Na Thai states. The author, drawing heavily from the canonical evidence, argues that the country of Yonaka included not only Haribunja tuin but the Shan States as well, as it is 14. Rangoon, Natha Taik, 1968. 1S. Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, The University of Michigan, Number 19, 1981.

16, Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, 1966.

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Aye Kyaw

mentioned in the Parajikam Athakatha not as " Maharakkhitatheram yonakaratham," but as "Maharakkhitatheram yonakalokam." Although there are different opinions concerning the location of this country, the works, to mention a few for instance, such as the Sankhya Pakasaka Original by Zimmay(Chiang Mai) Shin Nyanawilasa, the Sankhya Pakasakadika by Siri Mingala Saya and the Visuddhi Magga Dipani by Zimmay Than Nyunt Kyaung Shin Ottamaradha are worth noting. The Vamsadipani is more interesting, and by its own raison d'etre it is a sine qua non for the study of Buddhist sects in Burma and to some extent for those ih Thailand. The vast territories taken by Tabinshwehti (1531- 50) and Bayinnaung (1551-81) (Burengnong in Thai) were, among others, the main causes for the proliferation of sects in both Burma and Thailand. During this period there was a close relationship between Burma and Thailand and travel on the overland routes encountered less difficulty. Those who traded between the two countries or those who wanted to study either in Burma or in Thailand did not insulate themselves from the dissemination of knowledge or of new ideas within Burmese and Thai societies. Many Thai monks studied Buddhist scriptures at the capital of Burma - Hanthawaddy - as it was the centre of learning then. According to the Vamsadipani, a sect - Rancanguim - originally founded in Thailand spread into Burma. As a matter of fact Buddhism originated in India, spread out dove- taillike to Ceylon and Southeast Asia. Native elites demonstrate in their Pali- oriented or vernacular works that the native kingdom , whether it be Pagan, Chiang Mai or Ayutthaya, was linked with the original home of Buddhist tradition and an established continuity, thereby, of the growth and spread of Buddhism in their respective kingdom was advocated. With such a raison d'etre both the Burmese and the Thai were not hesitant to see themselves as part of the larger world of Buddhism. In this context, the primary concern that the Buddha made aerial sojourns to some places in Burma Proper, Kengtung, Hariphunchai and Ayutthaya, was a source of pride and prestige, conformable with the notion that "native" Buddhism introduced by the Buddha Himself when He was alive was " pure" par excellence in content and greater in character. Buddhism, thus, was bound to take root in the kingdoms in Burma and Thailand. With such indigenous justification of how the seeds of "pure" Buddhism were sown in the native kingdoms, the Sasanalankiira Catan and the Vamsadipani

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

17

are comparable with LanNa Thai local works such as the Jinakalamalipakaranam (Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of the Conqueror) 18 by Phra Ratanapanna of Chiang Mai, the Tamnan Mun/asatsana (History of the Origin of the Religion) 19 by Phra Phutthaphunkam and Phra P hutthayan and the Camadevivamsa (History 20 of Camadevi) by Phra Bodhiransi of Chiang Mai. The non-local works such as the Phongsawadan Nua (Chronicle of the North) 21 by Phra Wichianpricha (Noi) and the Phongsawadan Yonok (History of the North) 22 by Phraya Prachakit Korachak (Chaem Bunnag) re-enforced the former works in reconstructing the history of early Buddhism in the Lan Na Thai states. As regards Burma's relations with Thailand, there are two important theses : U San Nyein's "Yodaya Mranma Saksamre Samuin, 1500-1700 (History of Thai23 Burmese Relations, 1500-1700) covering 200 years of Thai- Burmese relations and U Kyaw Win's "Tonnu Khat Mranma Nuinnam Samuin, 1500-1600 (History of 24 the Toungoo Dynasty 1500-1600). In addition to these works, U Aung Thein (His Thai name is Luang Phraison Salarak) who lived in Thailand for many years, translated Prince l)amrong's Thai Rop Phama (Thai-Burmese Wars) 25 into English. His works were published in the Journal of the Burma Research Society and the

17.

For an analysis of early LanNa Tha i Historiography, see Anan Ganjanapan, "Early LanNa Thai Historiography: An Analysis of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Chronicles," M.A . Thesis, Cornell Un iversity, January 1976.

18.

Written in 1516-17 in Pali. The first translation into the Thai language was made in 1794 by the order of Ki ng Rama I. It was first published in 1908 and later was translated into French by George Coedes, who published it in the Bulletin de /'Eco le Francaise d'Extreme Orient, tome xxv (1925). A new Thai version by Saeng Monwithun was first published in 1958. In 1960 a romanized ed ition was published by the Pali Text Society in London. Finall y, in 1968 the Engli sh translation by N.A. Jayawickrama was published under the title of The Sheaf of Garlands of the Epochs of the Conqueror: being a translation of Jinakalamalipakaranam of Ratanaphanna Thera.

19.

Written in the 1420s in the Thai Yuan Language. published in 1939.

20.

Written in c. 1570 in Pali. It was first translated into modern Thai and published in Bangkok in 1920.

21.

Written in 1807. Krom Sinlapakon, Prachum phongsawadan phak !hi I (Collected C hronicles, Part I), Bangkok, 1956. A French translation by C. Notton is published as Legendes sur le Siam erie Cambodge, Bangkok, 1939.

22.

Written in 1906 in a very scholarly way. Bangkok, 1955.

23.

M.A. Thesis, Arts and Science University, Mandalay, 1968.

24.

M.A . Thesis, Arts and Science University, Rangoon, 1970.

25.

Bangkok, Klang Withaya, 1962.

It was translated into central Thai and first

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AyeKyaw

relevant portions from the Mhannan Rajawantoaukri (The Glass Palace Chronicle) under the title of " Intercourse between Burma and Siam, as recorded in Hmannan Yazawindawgyi" were published in the Journal of the Siam Society. The last part of the Thai Rop Phama however still remains untranslated into English. The relationships between Burma and Thailand became very important with the rise of the Toungoo dynasty. After the fall of Pagan in 1287, Burma was characterised by internal wars between different petty states. It was only with the rise of the Toungoo dynasty that all the petty states were integrated into a· vast kingdom which not only touched Arakan in the west but comprised the Lan Na Thai states, some of the Lao states in the east and for a while, Ayutthaya as well. The location of Toungoo, though the same latitude as Prome, enjoyed· a happier position than Prome. Toungoo, away and free from the war-torn routes, had good time to gather strength for its future development as the most important city in the valley of the Sittang. In addition, Toungoo is almost halfway between the Irrawaddy Delta and Upper Burma and close as well to the Kyaukse irrigation area. Favoured by these conditions and unlike any other towns on the direct route between Ava and the Delta which were generally either to be conquerors or to be conquered, Toungoo eventually became a haven of refuge for those who ran away from the war-frequented towns. In the olden days, the crucial twin factors of control of land and manpower were the sine qua non for any one, either from among blood royal or from among commoners, to grip political power. In this context, the growing population at and in the neighbourhood of Toungoo, the charismatic ruler, Minkyinyo (1486-1531), and Toungoo's acquisition of land such as the Kyaukse region were the main causes for Toungoo's rise to power. The real turning point, of course, in the history of Toungoo took place when Minkyinyo founded the Toungoo dynasty in 1510. In this regard, there are two useful works- Professor U Chan Mya's Tonnu Rajawan Akyinkhup nhan Rhwe Samtoau Bhura:samuin (A Concise History of Toungoo and History of the Shwe San Daw Pagoda)26 and Lecturer U Sein Lwin Lay's Montara: Rhwethi nhan Bhurannon Ketumati Tonnu Rajawan Aca Acum (A Complete History of Toungoo )27 The latter is more comprehensive than the former. Toungoo was so great and so vast that the Thai expression - Nung thi 26.

Toungoo, Zeya Press, 1%1.

27. Rangoon, Sepanthaya Press, 1968.

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Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Toungoo (The one at Toungoo)- is quite fitting when referred to a person who was the greatest genius. This idiomatic expression, though is hardly known in Burma. Ya Khop's eight volume work- Phu Chana Sip Thit (Conqueror of the Ten Directions)28 - is one of the longest historical novels in Southeast Asia and deals with Bayinnaung. This novel, because of its fine plot and its high literary standard, is well known in Thailand but is less known in Burma. Its popularity was reenforced by a film and some popular songs about Bayinnaung. There is no comparable Burmese novel in Burma but U Thein Maung's Bhurannon Atthuppatti (Biography of Bayinnaung)29 is useful for research on Bayinnaung. And Ledi Pandita U Maung Gyi's four volume historical novel- Tapinrhwethi (On Tabinshwehti) 30 which has no Thai counterpart; is of importance to the study of the Toungoo dynasty. It will be of interest here to give a short account on Bayinnaung whose life was indeed, as Harvey puts it, "the greatest explosion of human energy ever seen in Burma. " 31 Bayinnaung was the son of a toddy-climber at Ngathayuak, a village in the Pagan township. He was named Maung Cha Tat because, during the early days of his birth, a number of white ants swarmed around him. His parents migrated south to Taungdwingyi. One day while his father was climbing a toddy tree in order to tap its juice, the mother laid the infant on the ground and went elsewhere. In her absence, a big serpent coiled itself around the child without doing any harm to him. On the return of his mother to the child, the reptile gently glided away. His parents consulted with a learned monk regarding the unusual omen. He asked them to go to Toungoo where the child would possess greatness and prosperity. As instructed by the monk, they went to Toungoo where they stayed at a monastery the abbot of which happened to be preceptor of King Minkyinyo. It was through the influence of the monk that Maung Cha Tat's mother got a job at the palace and, accordingly, Maung Cha Tat grew up at the palace with the son and daughter of the reigning king. He got married to the princess and eventually became one of the greatest figures in Burmese history even though he had not a drop of royal blood in his veins. In his vast kingdom, Bayinnaung introduced a standardized monetary system, standardized weights and measurements and standardized taxation. Notably also, he forbade all animal sacrifices yearly performed in honour of the Mahagiri Nat at 28. 29. 30. 31.

Bangkok, Amonkanphim,

1971.

Rangoon, Burma Yokshin Press,

1933.

1971. Cited in D.G.E. Hall, Burma, London, Hutchinson's University Library, 1956, p. 42. Rangoon, Kayathukha Press, n.d.; second edition, Rangoon, Sittamon Sape,

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Aye Kyaw

Mount Popa by those who lived at Pagan, Ywatha, Pakhan Nge, Nga Thayuak, Tuywin Taing and Kyaukpadaung. After the yearly animal sacrifices, the heads of the sacrificed buffaloes, cows, pigs and chickens were tied up with ropes and hung up at the front posts of the houses. In addition to this, he also forbade Shan funeral sacrifices in which, if a Shan Sawbwa passed away, his elephants and horses and his nearest and dearest including his slaves were forced to be burnt or buried together with their Sawbwa. During this period, the art of horsemanship was popular with members of the royal family. There was a game known in Burmese as kulikaca:ne play among men riding horses. Among the women dice play was a popular indoor game. Tattooing among the men was important as they regarded it as essential to have a manly appearance and courage. One Burmese source mentions that a girl asked her lover to have his thighs "blackened" before they got married. And an oral tradition has it that tattooing was usually undertaken at the monastery. One's horoscopic destiny was calculated to be harmonious with the astronomical time and space and after having been tattooed the person thus tattooed had to lie down on banana leaves for about five days. In addition to tattooing, occultism and magic were very popular among the people. Also in literature the Sukhothai, Lan Na Thai and Shan scripts were actively encouraged to develop. It was during this period that a young Thai prince by the name of Naresuan was forced to live at the Burmese Court for more than fifteen years. He learnt Burmese and perhaps Mon too and became well versed in the art of Burmese warfare. Apart from this, did he fall in love with "a beautiful skinned, Indian-eyed Burmese princess with long smooth hair," after living there for such a long period ? The answer is unclear. However, a young Burmese prince known .as Nat Shin Naung, son of the founder of Toungoo, fell in love with the younger sister of the king of Chiang Mai. The princess, called Dhatukalaya, was so beautiful that, according to his poems, she was the only one who owned all fine characteristics of beauty. Perhaps there would be some oral traditions about her either in the Lan Na Thai states or at the capital of Burma. A student of Burmese literature cannot ignore the excellence, beauty and importance of Nat Shin Naung's poems. For the study of the biographies of poets and men of letters who were involved in wars and administration of such a vast kingdom, there are two important works- U Pe Maung Tin's Mranma Cape Samuin (History of Burmese Literature) 32 and Captain Ba Thoung's Casotoaumya: 32. Rangoon, Aungse Sape Taik, 1971.

245

Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Atthupatti (Biographies of Poets). 33 To understand the system of Burmese administration, a student of Burmese history cannot avoid U Tin's five volume work- Mranma Man Aupkhuppum Catam (Treatise on Administration of Burmese King) 34 - which is as much important to the research of Burmese administration as Prince Damrong's works- Laksana Kanpokkhrong Prathet Sayam tae Boran (Ancient Administration of Siam)35 and Thesaphiban (On Provincial Government)36 to that of Thai administration. U Tin's work is reliable and there is no comparable work in Burma. It contains many primary sources such as royal orders, although it is influenced by imperial ideas predominant in British policy towards Burma in the 1920s. U Tin was appointed government compiler in January 1921 and his assigned duty was to sort out the Burmese records and write the Mranma Man Aupkhuppum Catam. By virtue of his position and due to his knowledge of the Burmese government, he had access to some twenty thousand purapuik (folded books). His first volume deals with the concepts and foundation of Burmese kingship; the second is a continuation of the first in terms of discussing kingship and mentioning the social divisions of Burmese society and the demarcation of the provinces during the Pagan and Konbaung dynasties; the third one describes the social organization, particularly the amhutham (servicemen) and the institution of central statecraft; the fourth one narrates the duties and functions of the H/utyon Ngayat (Five Central Courts), the relationship among them, the provincial administration, the method of appointing the officials, the departments of religious affairs, army, judiciary and finance; the fifth one deals with the kinds of land, the salaries of officials, the department of public works and is appended by Bodawpaya's Rajasatkri Amintoau (Bodawpaya's Proclamation). In them also can be found some information regarding Lan Na Thai history and administration. One Burmese dictionary- U Maung Maung Tin's Rhwenansum Wohara Abhidhan (A Dictionary of Royal Usages) 37 is also an important source. It deals with words and phrases in use at the palace and also defines various posts in the royal service in 420 sections. In fact most of the sections are compilations of appoint33. Rangoon, Shumawa Press, 1955. 34. Rangoon, Central Press, Vol. I, 1963, Vol. II, 1965; Vol, III, 1970, Vols. IV and V, 1933. 35. Bangkok, Rongphim Thanakhanomsin, 1959. 36. Bangkok, Rong Ruang Tham, 1967. 37. Rangoon, Buddha Sasana Council Press, 1975.

246

AyeKyaw

ment orders of officials; but some nevertheless provide information about the Thai musical groups at the Burmese Courts and the Chiang Mai cavalry. Thai songs (Yodaya: Sikhyan) and Thai dance (Yodaya: Aka) are well known in Burma and are interwoven with Burmese culture. 38 We have mentioned much about Burmese influence on Thai society but Thai influence upon Burmese society is also profound. There are many unpolished royal decrees housed in different libraries in Burma which have information on LanNa Thai history. Among the published royal orders, three works- Daw Khin Khin Sein's Alonmantara: Amintoau Mya: (Royal Decrees of Alaungpaya), 39 Thathanabaing Moung Htaung Sayadaw's Ametoau Aphre (Answers to the Royal Questions) and Taw Sein Ko's Hluttaw Mhattam (Records of the Hluttaw)40 - are important. Daw Khin Khin Sein's work mainly deals with the royal orders, but Moung Htaung Sayadaw's work is a veritable encyclopedia of religion, astronomy, politics and court etiquette. Bodawpaya asked the Thathanabaing many varied and delicate questions and the Thathanabaing answered all of them with great erudition. The Hluttaw Mhattam (contains royal edicts, laws and regulations, instructions to Myothugyi (Town headman : Chao Muang in Thai) and Ywathugyi (Village headman: Phuyaiban in Thai), instructions to provincial governors, rules for levying tax, civil proceedings, judgements in civil suits, criminal proceedings, letters between the Hluttaw and the provincial governors, papers relating to the Shan . States, correspondence between the Burmese government and the Thathanabaing and memoranda. Some information concerning the Shan States, the Lan Na Thai states and Thailand in general can be found in these works. And the rajawan, identical with the phongsawadan, comes from two Pali words - raja and vamsa; the Thai term, also derived from two Pali words - bansa and avatara, conveys the same connotation as of the rajawan which means annals of members of a line, dynasty or kingdom. Therefore, the rajawan or the phongsawadan are generally dynastic chronicles. The oldest chronicle extant in Burma is the Rajawan Kyoau (The Celebrated Chronicle)41 by Shin Thilawuntha, the great monk poet who lived in the fifteenth century. Perhaps the oldest phongsawadan in Thailand is the 38.

Burmese classical dance style is far closer to that of Siam than to that of India and a principal type Burmese classical song, the yodaya: takes its name from Ayutthaya. See U Khin Zaw, "Burmese Music, A Partnership in Melodic Patterns," Perspective of Burma, An Atlantic Monthly Supplement, 1958, pp. 67-71.

39. Rangoon, Burma Historical Commission, 1964. 40.

Rangoon, Govt. Press, 1960.

41.

Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, 1965.

247

Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Phraratchaphongsawadan Krung Si Ayudhya chabap Luang Prasoet (The Luang Prasoet Chronicle of Ayudhaya)42 of the seventeenth century. Comparatively speaking, the gro.wth of this new type of history in Thailand occurred about two centuries later. As such, whether the new tradition in Thai historiography happened because of Burmese influence, which was high during the Toungoo dynasty, or due to the impact of Europeans who were present in Ayutthaya by then, is a matter for further research. In the Burmese case the presence of foreigners at Hanthawaddy had no effect on the concept and tradition of Burmese historiography.

Last but not least are the Burmese chronicles. In Burmese there are four terms, important and related to history- thamaing (samuin), rajawan, mhattam and aretoaupum. In Thai too, there are four important terms - tamnan, phongsawadan, chotmaihet and prawatsat. The term, thamaing perhaps deriving from Pali, thamuti (samuti) is associated with the Buddha; hence with the Dhamma as well. It has two shades of meaning - one which can be equated with the Thai term tamnan and the other with the term - prawatsat. The literature of the thamaing in Burma as with that of the tamnan in Thailand, forms a mine of curious information, legendary or authentic, on history. And as with the tamnan, the thamaing, generally governed by the religious nature of their contents, were mainly devoted to particular Buddhist monuments and incidentally include something about the doings of a king or kings. The use of thamaing as synonymous with prawatsat - a new modern term for history coined during the reign of King Rama VI (1910-25), was first used in Burma just before the second world war. The Burmese simply use an old term with new connotations whereas the Thai invented a new term to convey the same meaning. Besides the rajawan, the Burmese terms, mhattam43 and aretoaupum44 are synonymous with the Thai terms, chotmaihet or kotmaihet and they deal with account or report on particular events. In particular, the aretoaupum are concerned with the short histories of particular wars or uprisings. Be that as it may, as with the phongsawadan in Thailand, the rajawan are by far the most important in Burma. From among the rajawan, the Mhannan Rajawan is by no means unimportant. Professor 42. Prachum phongsawadon phak thi I (Collec.ted Chronicles, part 1), Bangkok, 1956. 43. See for example, U Chein, Putake Capain Ita/yam Swa Mhattam, (Diary of the Mission to Portugal, Spain and Italy), Mandalay, Ludu Press, 1959; Pe Maung Tin, ed., Kinwun Mingyi London Swa Mhattam, (Kinwun Mingyi's London Diary), Rangoon, Govt. Printing and Stationary, 1953. 44. See for example, Nai Pan Hla, ed., Rajadirit Aretoaupumkyam, (Account on Rajadirit War), Rangoon, Thein Than Oo Press, 1977.

248

AyeKyaw

G.H. Luce and Pe Maung Tin have translated parts, Ill, IV and V of the Mhannan Rajawan; this work - the Glass Palace Chronicle of the Burmese Kings, is generally known as the Glass Palace Chronicle. 4s As a matter of fact, the compilation of the official history of Burma from the earliest time to 1821 was ordered by Bagyidaw (1819-37) a coniemporary of Rama II (1809-24). A commission46 was appointed for this purpose and it took three years to finish the work. This chronicle, known as the Mhannan Rajawan is of great importance but also of course an improvement on U Kala's Maharajawan (The Great Chronicle). 47 To bring the official history up to date, King Mindon (1853-78), a contemporary of King Mongkut (1851-68) appointed a commission48 in 1867. This commission compiled the Dutiya Mhannan (The Second Glass Palace Chronicle)49 which goes down to the beginning of Mindon's reign, 1853. These two Mhannan Rajawan are reliable and thorough, for the commissions sifted through all the available Records then compiled the chronicles. The sponsors agreed on the guideline that "a chronicle of kings should be the standard, a balance, so to speak, for all duties of kings, for all affairs of state, for all matters of religion and not a thing of conflicting and false statements. ,so U Maung Maung Tin continued the Dutiya Mhannan until 1885 through the reigns of King Mindon and King Thibaw (1878-85). Then, combining the Mhannan Rajawan from the rise of Alaungpaya in 1752 to the end of Pagan's reign in 1853 with his own work from 1853 to 1885, he published a chronicle named the Kunbhon Rajawantoaukri (The Konbaung Chronicle)s 1 which is also known as Kunbhonsat

4S. First published in 1923 by Oxford University Press and reprinted in 1960 by the Burma Research Society.

46. This commission comprised: (1) Monrwe Sayadaw Shin Adiccavamsa Adiccaransi, (2) Thawkapin Sayadaw, (3) Mahadhammasankran (ex-Moung Htaung Thathanabaing), (4) Myinsuwungyi U Rauk, (S) Thandawsint U Chein, (6) Sayedawgyi U Phyaw, (7) Bisikpunna Jeyadeva, (8) Bisikpunna Kumudra, (9) Byedaik Thansint U Rwe, (10) Saye U Lu Gyi, (11) Saye U Aung Tha, (12) Atwinwun Sawmyosa Mingyi Sirimahanandasankran and (13) Singumyosa Atwinwun Athiwun 47.

Rangoon, Hanthawaddy Press, Vols. I and II, 1960, Vol. III, 1961.

48. This commission consisted of: (1) Kani Atwinwun Mingyi Mahamankhonsankhaya, (2) Khanmamanwun Muinkhuin Myosa Pitakataup Mahasirijeyasu, (3) Aimrhe Atwinwun Mahamanlhasankhaya, (4) Sayegyi Marilhajeyasu and (S) Sayetoaukhon Nemyocansuraja 49.

Mandalay, Mandalay Times Press, 1919.

SO. The Glass Palace Ohronicle, ·p. ix

249

Burmese Sources for Lan Na Thai History

Maharajawantoaukri. As this chronicle covers the whole period of the Konbaung dynasty (1752-1885), it is of great importance to the study of both Thai and Burmes_e history. Comparatively speaking, the Kunbhonsat Maharajawantoaukri is as important to the study of the Konbaung dynasty as Thiphakorawong's Phraratchaphongsawadan Krung Rattanakosin (Royal Chronicle of the Bangkok Era)52 and Prince Damrong's Phrarachaphongsawadan Krung Rattanakosin Ratchakan Thi 2 (Royal Chronicle of the Second Reign of the Bangkok Era) 53 to that of the Chakri dynasty. If we can use all mentioned Burmese documents for research on Lan Na Thai history, the result of that research, undertaken in the light of both Thai and Burmese sources, will be a unique contribution to the wealth of Thai studies.

51. Mandalay, Mandalay Times Press, 1905; Reprinted in 1968 by Lede Mandaing Press, Rangoon. 52. 5 Vols. Bangkok, Khrusapha, 1961. 53. 2 Vols. Bangkok, Sigsaphannid, 1962.

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252

CORRESPONDENCE

4 February 1985 Dear Sir, The Williams-Hunt Collection of aerial photographs is an archive of over 5000 World War II RAF prints of Angkor, Burma, Malaya, Thailand, Singapore, and miscellaneous areas of the Pacific (such as the Nicobar Islands) and French Indochina (such as Saigon in 1945). They were assembled by Peter Williams-Hunt during the war, but after his premature death in Malaya in 1953, the pictures lay in a storeroom in Oxford. As part of my doctoral work for the Institute of Archaeology, I have written a picture-by picture inventory of the collection. I have donated the· finished inventory to the The Archaeological Research Trust for Thailand (ARTn. ARTT is a non-profit educational charity formed to raise funds, coordinate research and promote a knowledge and appreciation of Thailand's archaeological heritage. ARTT is based in London, with the joint support of the Institute of Archaeology of London University and the Fine Arts Department of Thailand. ARTT hopes to finance the production of a set of negatives of the Williams-Hunt Collection from pre-paid orders for the prints. The prints will be available by country, or a set for the whole collection. Individual prints could be quoted. If you feel any of your readers might be interested in knowing more of the

Williams-Hunt Collection, they can write to the address given below. Thank you very much. Sincerely yours, Elizabeth Moore, Honorary Secretary The Archaeological Research Trust for Thailand, 45 Chelsea Square, London SW3 6LH ENGLAND

252

CORRESPONDENCE

4 February 1985 Dear Sir, The Williams-Hunt Collection of aerial photographs is an archive of over 5000 World War II RAF prints of Angkor, Burma, Malaya, Thailand, Singapore, and miscellaneous areas of the Pacific (such as the Nicobar Islands) and French Indochina (such as Saigon in 1945). They were assembled by Peter Williams-Hunt during the war, but after his premature death in Malaya in 1953, the pictures lay in a storeroom in Oxford. As part of my doctoral work for the Institute of Archaeology, I have written a picture-by picture inventory of the collection. I have donated the· finished inventory to the The Archaeological Research Trust for Thailand (ARTn. ARTT is a non-profit educational charity formed to raise funds, coordinate research and promote a knowledge and appreciation of Thailand's archaeological heritage. ARTT is based in London, with the joint support of the Institute of Archaeology of London University and the Fine Arts Department of Thailand. ARTT hopes to finance the production of a set of negatives of the Williams-Hunt Collection from pre-paid orders for the prints. The prints will be available by country, or a set for the whole collection. Individual prints could be quoted. If you feel any of your readers might be interested in knowing more of the

Williams-Hunt Collection, they can write to the address given below. Thank you very much. Sincerely yours, Elizabeth Moore, Honorary Secretary The Archaeological Research Trust for Thailand, 45 Chelsea Square, London SW3 6LH ENGLAND

253

REVIEWS Richard B. Noss (ed.),

An Overview of Language Issues in South-East

Asia 1950-1980 (Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1984), pp. 234.

Richard Noss is well known in Thai circles as the author of the Thai Reference Grammar and for being for seven years the Ford Foundation language advisor in . Bangkok. He subsequently moved to the Ford Foundation in Kuala Lumpur and then joined the professional staff of the Regional Language Centre (RELC) in Singapore for six years before retiring to the United States. He has skilfully edited and one s~spects authored parts of this volume to present a clear picture of different approaches to the various language issues in recent years in the original five countries of ASEAN (with occasional mention of other countries in the region). There are three named contributors, Andrew Gonzales, now President of the De La Salle University in Manila, Amran Halim, inter alia Director of the National Centre for Language Development in Jakarta, and Angkab Palakornkul, currently with Chulalongkorn University's Department of Linguistics. The acknowledgements section mentions four authors, so one appears to wish to be anonymous and to have covered Malaysia and Singapore. Given Dr. Noss' background one assumes, possibly incorrectly, this to be him. There is no obvious division of the work among the different authors and the book reads smoothly as a whole. There are six chapters to the volume, the first being an historical sketch covering official and unofficial language policies, a breakdown by country of educational language policies, national institutions dealing with language in the five countrie~. regional associations, and private sector and international inputs. The coverage is 'thorough and there are some deft critical touches of some of the more obviously illogical government stances. These are subtly continued in the second chapter on the present institutional framework in the five countries with neat comment being accorded to Singapore, where language policy is directed from the very top with little or no professional advice being sought, where the press discusses language issue almost _daily but "officers from government departments are almost invariably assigned to write letters to the newspapers in rebuttal of criticisms expressed by the public, and after the official's letter has appeared in print the matter is usually closed", where the newsreaders appear terrified of mispronunciation in any of the

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Michael Smithies

four languages used and "the writers of public service materials are obviously more interested in correct grammar and vocabulary than they are in communication". The third chapter is one of the meatiest. Noss deals, country by country, with foreign, national, official, provincial, minority, classical, religious, and court languages. The problem of the position of Mandarin in the region is carefully analysed and the Tagalog-Filipino-Pilipino complexities explained (though this reader remains confused as to whether there is a real difference between the three). The championing of 'purity' in language use, common in the region, it is noted, leads among other things to frozen-faced television newsreading styles and incomprehensible sentences in school texts. The question of the shift to communicative competence in language teaching while teachers and syllabi are mostly geared to linguistic competence is raised here, and mentioned in other parts of the book later. Language and Education, the next chapter, discusses language engineering (distinguished from language planning) in relation to teacher training, methodology, curriculum development, evaluation, and bilingual education. It points to the difficulty of engineering problems related to national, official, provincial and foreign languages at the same time because of the typical compartmentalization of ministries of education. Chapter five, Language and other Development Fields, covers a very broad area. The sections on standardization, development and role planning of different languages in society or the nation are particularly interesting, and the conclusion on the Singapore dilemma apt- "the Chinese majority in Singapore wants the country to cultivate aspects of Chinese culture without associating itself politically with China." Not discussed are the effects this has on the minorities. A considerable amount of applied research is listed in the penultimate section. The final chapter looks to the future, analyses research needs and applications, resources and the prospects for regional cooperation. A close look is taken at the applications of research and form (corpus) planning. The role of RELC is implicitly criticised because it is established by and responds only to the needs of official educational establishments in the participating countries. Language, as Noss has pointed out in the previous chapter, has a far wider parish than ministries of education. This interesting and thought provoking book comes with ·an extensive bibliography, a useful index, and only two misprints. It is a pity it took three years for Oxford to produce it (the acknowledgement is dated June 1981 and the book

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REVIEWS

appeared in May 1984), for there have been, inevitably, some changes in the intervening years. It is an even greater pity that the book should only be available in hardback at the outrageous sum of S$50; at that price, only libraries will buy it and the book deserves to reach and be owned by a wider public of administrators and teachers, for the issues considered affect everyone, to a greater or l~sser degree, in every country in the region.

Michael .Smithies Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok

256

s. Slvaraksa, Siamese Resurgence

(Asian Cultural Forum On Development,

Bangkok, 1985), 463 pp.

The book Siamese Resurgence came out a few months after the charge against the author, S. Sivaraksa, on lese majeste was dropped without official explanation. Apparently, the aut~or's will to proceed on publishing a collection of his lectures and articles after having been arrested and while waiting on bail for the trial against such a severe charge demonstrated his convictions which do not sway even at a critical point in life. Any English-speaking reader who would like to know this renowned writer and critic of Thai society through himself rather than through the views of others as appeared in scattered pieces of articles in newspapers should pay special attention to this latest book of his, which appeared in English. The sub-title of the book: "A Thai Buddhist on Asia and a World of Change" suggests the Buddhistic standpoint of the author in viewing contemporary issues, at global, regional as well as national level. Arranged by contents, the book is divided into 5 sections: Buddhism and Society, Buddhist Perspective and Development, Culture and Asia, Some Leading Siamese Personalities and Miscellaneous. It ends with appendices of letters, petitions and critiques on the case including a chronology of event_$ the author faced during his difficult time from October to November 1984. Most of the lectures given, while on different occasions and at various places around the world (i.e. Hawaii, Puerto Rico, West Germany, Belgium, Denmark, India, The Philippines and Thailand) reveal the author's concern and commitment on the issues of religion and culture, and their roles on societies, specifically on the world that is rapidly changing. For him, religion means "deep commitment and personal transformation ... (... to be more and more selfless ...)" and "religious values equate our spiritual depth". Religion, as he perceives, does not stop as individual or personal matters, nor can it stay as an entity separated from other aspects of life i.e. politics and economics. It is in religious values that he sees a revitalizing force to change and remedy many of contemporary social grievances. Many of the lectures therefore advocate the significance and potentiality religion i.e. Buddhism ·could affect societies especially on fundamental social development. The author's knowledge of Buddhism and his wide scholarship have rendered insightful analysis, synthesis and at times straight personal interpretation of the position and strength Buddhism has in relation to other faiths and the (material)

257

REVIEWS

world. However, a few of the concepts he proposes are not ·easily followed by beginners on Buddhism, and some may hit hard at the popular (mal) practices both in his country and the West. Nevertheless, readers are obliged to reflect for most of the sources are drawn directly from the Pali canons. Take his analysis of what we can gain from Buddha in our pluralistic world. The author proposes that in searching for the cure of suffering, Buddhism brings with it "an empha$is on exploration rather than revelation. Buddhism's stance in the pluralistic world is (therefore) different from faiths depending more on revelation" When comesthe explanation of anicca (impermanence) and anatta (non-self), the author sees that "Buddha did not assume the existence of any metaphysical substance. He reduced things, substance and souls to forces, movements, functions and process and adopted a dynamic conception of reality .. It is in the awareness of the .present and of the interrelationship of all life in the process of being and becoming that the. Buddhist finds a genuine pluralism. In this sense, the Buddhist interpretation of pluralism insists in going beyond the static dualisms between the relative and the absolute, and therefore takes a different view of the problems from that of western thought". While the above mentioned passage may sound too theoretical or philosophical, most of the addresses are concrete, drawn from or related to present-day examples. Talking about "meditation", the author criticizes the misunderstanding of western people in over-emphasizing the practice which has turned Buddhism in the west to mere escapism. For him, "Samadhi" or meditation is important as it is the "direct way, the best way to look within ... " in order to "know yourself, your potentiality, how you serve yourself and serve others who are less fortunate than you." Since the author's concept of Buddhism take a wholistic stand, he therefore expounds effectively and convincingly Buddhist perspectives in examining the assumptions and impacts of modern development. Historically, he sees Buddhist values and influences having beneficially operated in the agrarian societies of Siam and other Southeast Asian countries. But at present, on the whole, Buddhist values are eroding as they cannot cope with the complexities of modern societies which emphasize materialism regardless of natural waste and pollution. Conversely, development, in Buddhist perspective, means "personal growth as well as social growth, and every growth must have its limits and must b~ in harmonious relationship with one another''. The mission the author urges on the younger generation Buddhists who wish to find an alternative society free from western models is thus not only to point out the

258

Phan-ngam Gothamasan

problems caused by modern development but also to adapt "Dhammas" to be appropriate to urbanized and industrialized societies. If one doubts the possibility and practicability of such proposals, the achievements of sqme of the present monks in various parts of Siam can attest to the modest beginning. Placed separately, but· related to the same issue, are those personalities in Siam's past who, through the author's discerning. scholarship, have demonstrated Thai treasures and heritage bidden in history.. It is understandable, in a world where political labels are arbitrarily imposed on people, that the author's standpoint could be variously (and mildly, at least,) interpreted and stamped as "dangerous" .. One of his interviews for the Danish Radio di~ provide clarifications on such matter. It hit, directly on the questions of capitalism, western sciences and technology, democracy, communism and socialism. In his response we can grasp the author's concept of power, and freedom, in r:elation to Buddhism. In the fmal analysis, the author expresses satisfaction with a.community system along the line of Ven. Buddhadasa's "Dharmika Socialism" which is guided by "Metta" or "loving-kindness". Considering the intellectual, perception and dedication of the author in instilling Buddhist values along with justice and freedom in societies, it is not surprising that, during his difficult time, piles of letters and petitions from those of his friends abroad who unde.-stand · him flowed to the Thai government. What happened in his case as revealed ·by most of the appendices testify to the above statement as. well as the struggle, hope and reality he, the author of Siamese Resurgence. has faced. Phan-ngam Gothamfl$an

The Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani

259

Wiwat Mungkandi & William Warren (eds.)

A Century and a half of Thai-

American Relations (Bangkok, Chulalongkorn University Press, 1982), 205 pp, illustrated.

When writing about a fong relationship, it is more common than not to sweep any less pleasant memories under the carpet. This is also the case with ''A Century and a Half of Thai-American Relations". Reviewing the decades after the Second World War several important features of the relationship is very briefly dealt with, in a few cases not even mentioned. They were contemporary events to presumably the bulk of the people who are going to read this book, and some may wonder why so little attention is paid to them. Thus, while Wiwat Mungkandi is definitely right in taking the "security syndrome" as the central issue of his discussion of the 1941-1975 period, this is almost entirely interpreted as international security, while internal security is hardly mentioned.. For this reason the major part of the chapter becomes the story of the Indochina War as seen from Thailand. I am not arguing against the fact that the possibility of a Communist take-over in the neighbouring countries caused the greatest concern in both Washington and Bangkok, but nor were those governments blind to the threat from a Thai Communist guerrilla movement - although during most of the period it remained localized and with limited military-political potential. Professor Wiwat writes that the Thai government bowed to the wishes of the US and "gave external priority to regional security over internal politics and economic development" (p. 113). That depends, however, much upon the way you interpret the facts. If "internal politics" equals to keep the military-bureaucratic patronage system of those days running, the submission to the goals of US foreign policy was at least one way of solving the internal political confrontations. Besides considerable American economic aid went into rural development programmes, which were often tailored to fit into the counter-insurgency policy. Thus, Thailand was able to pursue one line of policy without giving up the other. In his chapter on economic and trade relations, Chuchart Kangwan briefly mentions this American aid which was used "for a wide range of purposes, the most important of which were highways, health, education, and police administration" (p. 187). At least in the first and the last case the security aspects are generally acknowledged. To round-off this point, William Warren's chapter on "American Cultural Influence" deals among other subjects with academic exchange between

260

Anders Tandrup

the two countries, but there is not a word about the extensive US sponsored research in the 1960s on Northern hill tribes or Northeastern .villages. This was part of the CI package proposed by the Americans - but as nothing is all black or all white the programs may also have contributed to a greater understanding of the rural problems. Some touchy cases are, however, brought forward. Professor Wiwat mentions the Thai "Special Guerrilla Units, in Laos and the Thai Volunteers of Cambodian origin fighting for the Lon Nol regime (p. 103). At the time of operation, they were non-existent according to official spokesmen. And both he (p. 109) and Dr. Sarasin Viraphon (p. 122) comment critically on the "Mayaguez affair, in May 1975 when the US, in Sarasin's words, to rescue the crew of an American freighter took"the high-handed approach to launch retaliatory attacks against the Khmer Rouge from Thai territory without prior approval from the Thai government,. A final point of critique is that the book might have benefited from a iittle more statistics. It is clearly an introduction and, already loaded with facts, this might have been too much. However, I miss a comparison of the amount of American aid, trade, and investment to that of other partners such as Japan or the EEC. More data on the security cooperation would also have provided a better understanding of the extent of the relationship. In general, however, I find the book a refreshing and factual introduction to Thai-American relations. Having basically worked on contemporary issues, professor Pensri Duke's diplomatic-historical account and parts of the chapters by Warren and Chuchart offered me mucli information. With the reservations stated above, the book is recommended as an introduction. Anders Tandrup

Copenhagen

261

flU~i~ f'(fl1l~fli:t,

011liYilftU1lJ'\JiH1TilJ

(11'M11'Yifl1rl'll1i111Jf'ITl'l'~i)

Charivat Santaputra, Thai Foreign Policy 1932-1946

27 iifi'Ulli'U 2527

•

(Thai Khadi Research

Institute, Thammasat University, 1985), pp. 465.

The two books under review cover more or less the same subject, and almost the same period, with slight differences. The former, in Thai, was written by a well known diplomat, now retired, from his own experiences. Yet he said he had consulted various archives to get facts right. But no citation of those sources is available in the book. However, he wrote it as his memoirs, passing his personal judgements on events and personalities, although he tried to be as fair and impartial as possible. The latter, in English, was a PhD dissertation by a budding diplomat. Apart from its academic theories at the beginning and at the end, the book is well written, giving facts and figures convincingly. Although the author is harsh on certain leading figures in shaping Thai foreign policy, he is fully substantiated by enough evidence to pass such judgements. Yet he always give benefit of the doubt to each individual if there were not enough facts to draw any definite conclusion. Both books owes much to Dr. Pridi Banomyong, Founder of the University of Moral and Political Sciences, which published them, because he inspired both aut~ors to write or to complete the books which throw much new light for us. Although Pridi was an important, if not the most important, figure, during the period prescribed in the books, he is treated fairly - not as an ideal figure. In fact the Thai book even tips the scale more in favour of Pibul, his political rival, whereas the English book regards Pibul and his cliques of chauvinistic irridentists as having much negative and evil influences on Thai foreign policy up to and during the Second World War. Both books agree that it was Pridi and the Free Thai Movement which really saved Siam from being defeated in the war. Hence 16th August of forty years ago, being the day Pridi as the sole Regent of Siam, declared ·the-war void, was so significant, that peace automatically reigned in the country again, despite some technical difficulties with the British and the French to be solved later on. However, all these hindrances were skilfully handled by diplomats, with some help from the Americans. The Thai cabinet then named the Government House- 16th August Building - in honour of the Free Thai Movement which helped to restore peace to Siam on that important date, as King Rama VI had named a square 22nd July to mark the date of Siamese declaration of war against the Central Powers in

262

S. Sivaraksa

WWI. Both events in the two wars brought much benefit to Siam. Yet only 22nd July Square still remains in Bangkok, whereas the 16th August Building was renamed when Pibul came back to power in 1947 and pushed Pridi out of the Thai political arena for ever. The title of the Thai book by Dr. Konthi Suphamonkol could be rendered roughly in English as Thai Foreign Policy in general. Although he had intended to write mainly on WWII and the Free Thai Movement, he started his first chapter with WWI, then skipped immediately to WWII, where he traced the cause to the Thai claim to get the lost territories in Laos and Cambodia back from the French. He concentrated much of his own personal experiences in working under Direk Jayanama, as Minister. of Foreign Affairs and later as Ambassador in Tokyo. His own involvement in:the Free Thai Movement got him in touch with Pridi.and he was sent to meet Seni Pramoj. He was also privileged to work with Prince Wan. later with Pibul and Sarit. So he was in a unique position to know different leading personalities who shaped Thai foreign policy. He himself had minor roles in it too. The English one by Charivat Santaputra is not really a book, but a reproduction of his thesis. Had it been edited. properly for the general public, it would be more valuable. As it is, it already deserves to be praised. Apart from .a few minor mistakes, the young author· really convinces us that those Thai liberals who shaped our foreign policy from 1932-46 earns our deep gratitude. They were brilliant but modest. They worked carefully and patiently to safeguard our independence. Their enemies· were not only Japan but our own nationals, who cared nothing for morality but to push ahead to be with the winning side. The author is brave to sum up salient characteristics of Pibul, Vichitr and Vanit and some in the military. Adul, however, comes out too positively. Perhaps his personality needs to l>e tested in the events of the 1947 coup, which was beyond the scope of Charivat's thesis. The lesson to learn from the two books is that Thai foreign policy since the days of·the Princes until 1946·was conducted with flexibility but with honour. Thai interest must be regarded as of prime importance. Although the Foreign Ministry was small, it had enough devoted and able civil servants who carried out the .policy steadfastly. On the whole, Foreign Ministers were capable. Dt;alings with Great Powers were sometimes very difficult but not beyond the Thai ability. to tackle them. But when interferences came from other Thai quarters. beyond the Foreign Ministry, then obstacles became almost insurmountable. Charivat argues

263

REVIEWS

very cleat:IY how Pibul and his cliques got involved with Japan without the Foreign Ministry's knowledge. This really let us down regarding our declared policy of strict neutrality. Konthi's book followed the tradition of his former boss, Direk Jayanama, whose Siam and World War II has even been translated into English, with an abridged version in German. It is a pity that Prince Wan never wrote his: memoirs or any book on Thai foreign policy. Had he done so, we would have learnt a great deal from him. In fact I persuaded him a few times to write his autobiography. Failing that I asked him to grant me a series of interviews but he pleaded that his old age and ill health prevented him from doing so. Without his writing, we must be content to read those of his contemporaries like the ones by Direk and Konthi. Now with a new generation like Charivat, writing without any previous experience in the! Foreign Ministry, I feel that:he has so much to say and he said it succinctly. It is really like drinking fresh water. Let us hope that when he and his likes are in a position to implement Thai foreign policy, they will follow those of their predecessors who worked successfully and sacrificially for the good of our nation. Indeed our foreign policy at· present needs to be questioned in the light of recent historical development.

S. Sivaraksa Asian Cultural Forum on Development, Bangkok

264

Erik Selden/aden, 1928 Guide to Bangkok (Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1984), pp. 324.

Major Seidenfaden, noted in the 1928 title page a,s "late of His Siamese Majesty's Provincial Gendarmerie", became a considerable authority on things Siamese and a notable contributor to the pages of this journal. Oxford University Press has brought out, in its Oxford in Asia paperback series, a reprint of the second edition of his guide issued by the Royal State Railways of Siam. The first edition, a copy of which this reviewer bought for considerably less than this current reprint, appeared, if memory is right (the copy is not to hand), in 1923. Old guidebooks are perhaps only for cognoscenti. Already in the 1920s it was felt that so many tourists were going to Thailand that a book for them was necessary (and presumably profitable). There were only five hotels listed (though one assumes Chinese hostelries existed but were not considered worth mentioning), three of which survive, though two. could hardly be considered now of international class. The grandest in those days, the former Phya Thai palace, has alas disappeared from the hotel scene; from the photographs and description provided, it must have been quite splendid. Bangkok then was still very much a city of canals, though to get around to what were considered then the more distant parts of the city, like the Throne Hall, it was deemed advisable to take a motor car (Bt 2 an hour) or a carriage drawn by a pair of horses (Bt 3 for 2 hours). The tramways receive honorable mention; this reviewer remembers those venerable vehicles still clanking their way around the city in the early 1960s and contributing in no small measure to the already horrible traffic jams. There were six banks, eight hospitals, no embassies and only seven full legations. Only two roads go off the map provided, one in the direction of Paknam (where the electric tramway went), the other at Ploenchit, now one of the many centres of the city which even in the 1920s was considered one "of great distances". The "cosy cottages" of Sathorn Road have disappeared along with a lot of the charm of a city which has expanded in all directions since the war and many parts of which are unrecognisable after an absence of only a few years. But the temples and monuments remain, thank goodness, and survive serene and untainted by the tawdry elements of the 1980s. It is perhaps only in the descriptions

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REVIEWS

of the main temples and the Grand Palace that things are almost totally unchanged, though the general sections on Siamese architecture, festivals, history and so on remain largely valid. Very little is said about the temples of Dhonburi, which seems to have been largely terra incognita, apart from the more obvious shrines like Wat Arun. Some of the descriptions seem curiously ill-balanced; the Throne Hall, for example, is given a detailed description but the date when it was commissioned and why are not mentioned. The 32 pages of advertisements at the beginning of the book are full of period charm, and it would seem that we are not given all of these, since the last page of the book states "For the leading business firms in Bangkok see following pages", but none follow. The photographs are also of the period, but are less charming, being inevitably fuzzy and obscure. In many of them a clochehatted European lady is to be found, perhaps in order to provide a human scale to the scene. The purpose of this reprint somewhat escapes your reviewer. Oxford has let go out of print the standard serious guide to the country produced in the 1970s, but to go back another fifty years seems somewhat wilfully anachronistic. Seidenfaden's guide is a pleasant curiosity, and a suitable coffee table book for expatriate Bangkokians, though they could, with a little effort, have acquired not so long ago the original at the almost same price. Michael Smithies

266

Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult

of Amulets (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984) pp. 414.

Dr. Tambiah in the book under review displays his renowned academic skills as he guides us through the dense and often tangled intellectual foliage of a forest inhabited by Buddhist saints, their disciples, the amulets embodying and transmitting power and charisma, which are sacrilized by them, and the lay devotees who seek both worldly and other worldly benefits from their involvement with and attachment to these saints and their energized amulets. Dr. Tambiah follows the tradition of F.S.C. Northrup in his Meeting of East and West as he explores the resultant ambiguities, dichotomies, dualities as the textual imperatives of the Buddhist canonical literature become reified in the popular Buddhism as lived and practised in the towns and villages of modern day Thailand and neighbouring Buddhist countries. We have gained a fuller appreciation of the Buddhist Sangha and its attendant institutional forms, as well as their symbiotic relationships, with both the world of state power and the world of spirits in the previous illuminating treatises of Dr. Tambiah: Buddhism and Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand and World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background. In the work under review, Dr. Tambiah opens doors of perception as the functional role of the arahant, or Buddhist saint, in relation to the society in which he wanders, meditates and preaches is clarified. Under Dr. Tambiah's able guidance, we are able to fathom the seeming inconsistency of forest ascetics achieving liberation by renouncing society and its defilements and yet returning to that very world of attachments to preach and transfer their achieved power and charisma to the laity to be used for the latter's material, as well as spiritual, benefit. Dr. Tambiah uses the disciplines and arts of the historian, the anthropologist, the political scientist, the philosopher as he probes and enlightens. He also wields the rapier pen of the scholarly fencers of the New Criticism as he plumbs the depths of Buddhist literary classics. It is unfortunate that Dr. Tambiah often resorts to convoluted and rather esoteric prose usage which requires not only patience and perseverance on the part of the reader but also perhaps similar skills in literary analysis. The book is divided into four parts. The first part describes the Buddhist doctrinal concepts of the arahant, his path of purification and his position in the Buddhist hierarchy of beings. The second part of the book focuses on biographies

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of famous Thai forest monks and the select few who have been perceived and revered as saints. Continuities in Buddhist hagiography are explored so as to decipher the patterns of relations between the meditation masters and their disciples and between these holy men and the laity whom they initially renounce (though dependent on them for their sustenance) only to return and spread compassion after their liberation and enlightenment. A detailed analysis of the hagiography of the famous meditation master and perceiyed saint, Acharn Man, is undertaken as Dr. Tambiah takes us down the largely unchartered paths of Buddhist sectarian rivalries and interplay of religion and politics. Part III of tl\e book describes the cult of amulets and the objectificatiop and transmission of charisma and power. Detailed descriptions of the origin, travels, and characteristics of famous Buddha images are given as Dr. Tambiah defines the parameters of orientation and perception of Buddhists vis-a-vis sacrilized images, relics, amulets and other sacra. Part IV of the book is devoted to reflections on conceptual and theoretical formulations on the basis of substantive accounts in the preceding sections. Dr. Tambiah suggests the provocative thesis that the esoteric, cultic, and mystical features of the forest hermitages of contemporary meditation masters may be linked to militant and violent millennial insurrections that have occurred during the past few centuries in Burma and Thailand. Dr. Tambiah explores a new typology of charisma. The cult of amulets is conceived of as within the scope of fetishism of objects and the Buddhist conception of the saint's acquisition of special powers as within the general scope of the theory of charisma. Dr. Tambiah offers the interesting proposition that the contemporary intensification in the use of amulets and resort to and support of charismatic forest masters is a result of both the desire for disinterested loving kindness in time of deprivation on the part of the general public and the desire on the part of the ruling establishment, devoid of self-confidence, for legitimacy which is conferred by identification with these holy men on the nation's periphery. Dr. Tambiah is always provocative though he sometimes gets bogged down in too much detail and theoretical flights of intricate fancy. A few minor reservations with Dr. Tambiah's exposition might be mentioned. In his emphasis on the pervasiveness of amulets, Dr. Tambiah neglects to explain the intriguing phenomenon that villagers throughout the Northeast do not revere or wear such amulets nor do they become involved in their purchase and collection. One is tempted to suggest that the peasants have a keener appreciation of the

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doctrinal parameters of the Dhamma than their more educated bretheren of the · metropolis. The villagers seek help and benefit not from sacrilized Buddhist images but from the worlds of animist spirit worship and Brahmanical ritual. Lastly, Dr. Tambiah makes constant reference to the vocations open to monks in institutionalized Buddhism i.e. vocation of books and vocation of meditation or, to phrase it another way, the concentration on learning and the concentration on practice. I would like to suggest there is another vocation, that of community service. Thus, in popular Buddhism today, tyere is, in addition to the scholar monk and the meditation master, the "development monk" who is dedicated to community service and to "the alleviation of suffering", as enjoined by the Buddha. Dr. Tambiah, somewhat perfunctorily, dismisses this segment of the Sangha referring to their being captive to the government and fulfilling government political goals and objectives. Here, Dr. Tambiah neglects an entire new movement of socially conscious monks working, independently of the government, to encourage village participation in a variety of self-help programs directed at improving villager spiritual as well as matet:ial well-being and quality of life. Certain of these worker monks have achieved the status of revered charismatic leaders. Dr. Tambjah might fruitfully analyze this movement, in his intellectually provocative fashion, as the focus of his next book. All serious scholars of Buddhism would profit greatly from cerebral harvesting in the intellectual field of merit planted so expertly by Dr. Tambiah in ..The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets". William J. Klausner

Chulalongkorn University

269

Neils Mulder, Java-Thailand, A Comparative Perspective (Gadjah Mada University Press, Yogyakarta, 1983) pp. 130.

Neils Mulder is unusually well placed to make a comparative sociological study of two very similar traditional societies, those of Thailand and Java. He has been moving between the two since 1965 and is the author of a number of publications about both, including the percipient. Mysticism and Everyday Life in Contemporary Java, a review of which appeared in JSS Vol. 67, No.2 (July 1979). He has a good working knowledge of the relevant languages, including Dutch (without which serious work on Indonesia is greatly handicapped), though not apparently Javanese, since he mentions having Javanese responses translated into Indonesian for him (p. 63). All but one of the chapters constituting the book have appeared already in various publications. The frrst three deal with Thailand and are taken from a previously published work of Mulder, Everyday Life in Thailand (1979); they are, respectively, Dynamics and Conflicting Values in the Modem Thai Order; the Achievement Motive in Thai Society; and Buddhism, National Identity and Modernity. The fourth deals with traditional Javanese religious thought and practice and the fifth, the only new material, is no more than a five page note of a field visit to a Samin Buddhist Community in central Java. Chapter six gives some truly comparative material, trying to distinguish the role of the individual and society in the two countries by analysing the works of "serious creative... authors". Mulder admits that there are few Javanese, apart from Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who clearly fall into this category, and to try and prove his point he had to consider non-Javanese like Titie Said, Iwan Simatupang and Armijo Pane. Thais chosen for study are Seenii Sawwaphong, Siibuuraphaa, Bunchook Caimwiriya, and Khamsing Srinawk, with Nimit Phuumthawon, Botan and Rom Ratiwan thrown in as of secondary importance. It does not read very convincingly that the position of the individual and society can be determined by a few works by a handful of authors. It is not made clear how Pramoedya-, for example, rightly praised for This Earth of Mankind and Child of all Nations. describes contemporary society today when he is writing historical novels set at the turn of the century. The whole of this chapter seems on rather thin ground and the arguments advanced in it are therefore shaky and unconvincing. There is also an element of subjectivity here (Mulder Only read what friends and informed persons directed him to read). This is inevitable, but it casts doubt on the scholarly viability of the argument.

270 Michael Smithies

The final chapter, Avoidance and Involvement, seeks to define ideas about "the relationship between the individual and society in Java and Thailand". After considering cosmological and religious perspectives, Mulder has some interesting comments on the ideal of the reticent individual in both societies. He concludes that both societies are hierarchical and react to status, social life is felt as a compulsion and the individual seeks personal autonomy within society. That, in such a general form, could probably be said of nearly every society one can think of, to a greater or lesser degree. The Javanese, he finds, outwardly conform more but inwardly reserve more of themselves, developing mystical self-abstenance and improvement, whereas social control appears less developed in Thai society, but prestige and face count for more, with Thais therefore more outwardly motivated. Both, he finds, tend to perceive life as hazardous and insecure and therefore cultivate indifference and avoid social responsibility. Both attitudes, he feels, may be the cause of problems in relation to development. Sweeping conclusions of this kind are all very well, and Mulder may well be right (he is probably right, for example, on the score of observation alone, that Thais prefer to adorn their environment whereas the Javanese tend to be indifferent to it) but the points need to be proven. Mulder himself implies this by suggesting that further research into the area is necessary. Certainly Mulder puts his fingers neatly on the religious motivations in the societies, but the rest is all rather tenuous. The book is certainly very readable and even provoking, but to be more than an essay, it needs more research in order to justify the generalisations. It certainly deserves to be better produced. There are spelling errors and typographical mistakes throughout the book to a degree unacceptable from an academic press (this unfortunate characteristic is not a special feature of this volume, since The Pedicab in Yogyakarta, from the same press, suffers in the same way). Worse, it seems that Mulder did not have his typescript checked by a native speaker, and there are many expressions which are unacceptable in English, notably referring to "bundles" of short stories, including wrong use of prepositions and strange structures. The heavy sociological jarJon becomes at times a little overpowering, though one has seen far worse examples. As a somewhat subjective comparative sketch covering certain aspects in the two societies, this collection of material is interesting, but the ideas need to be sustained and proven without doubt for it to carry more weight. Michael Smithies

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Dawn Rooney, Khmer Ceramics (Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1984), pp. 246.

This handsome and extremely expensive volume deals with·a little-known area of Southeast Asian ceramic arts. Unlike Sukothai or Vietnamese' wares, Khmer ceramics appear to have been made for purely domestic and ritual use, and hardly exported at all. Given that no Angkorean ceramics were produced after the fifteenth century, and production appears to have declined in quality and durability after the twelfth century, the quantity which has survived is small. Dawn Rooney says, in a text of 132 pages, all that appears possible to say about the subject. She covers in separate chapters, after a general introduction, the influences, characteristics, shapes and uses of the ceramics. She is particularly strong on the chemistry related to the clays, glazes and firing processes. It cannot be claimed that Khmer ceramics are particularly exciting or varied. Production was largely utilitarian, the thinly and unevenly applied glazes were limited to brown or green, and decoration was basically geometrical or, where figurative, rather crude. But some of the classical shapes produced, notably the urn, the covered box and the bottle, are aesthetically extremely satisfying. With very limited technological means, the best pieces are surprisingly good. Because comparatively little is known about the ancient Khmer ceramicist and his techniques, Dr Rooney is obliged to extrapolate, probably correctly, into current Cambodian and Thai practices in relation to the production and use of the pots. However, the textual padding is rather too evident in the chapter on uses, where whole paragraphs have nothing whatever to do with ceramics. The 22 pages of colour plates and the 83 pages of black-and-white photographs do justice to their subjects. The 36 figures, all but two appearing in the broad margins by the text, are helpful in detailing decoration and cross-sectional shapes. The index is selective; not all references to coil construction appear, stoneware does not make it, nor do all people and places mentioned (Jayavarman II and Lop Buri, for example, are both discussed in the text but do not figure in the index). This volume is an attractive addition to the Oxford in Asia Studies in Ceramics

series, but its specialist appeal and high price will limit its ownership to ardent and affluent collectors. Michael Smithies

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Michael Smithies

C.E."Wurtzburg,

Raffles of the Eastern Isles (first published 1954; Singapore,

Oxford University Press, 1984,), pp. 788.

This enormous biography of the founder of Singapore and the LieutenantGovernor of Java from 1812-1816 was assembled as a labour of love by the former manager of the Glen Line and published posthumously by Hodder and Stoughton, with a brief foreward by the editor Clifford Witting. In the now customary Oxford fashion, thirty years later the book has been reprinted with no further material or introduction and is presented as a classic biography of a remarkable, and remarkably unlucky, person. The book certainly is far more weighty than the slimmer, but perhaps more readable, volume of Maurice Collis which appeared in 1966. It covers in chronological order the different periods of Raffles' life, from his birth off Jamaica, to being a humble London clerk in the East India Company, to Penang in 1805 as Assistant Secretary to the recently created Fourth Presidency of the Honorable Company, to Malacca, the Javanese interregnum, the English interlude of 1816-17 and knighthood, Bencoolen, Singapore, and the two years in England again before his death in 1826 at the age of forty-five. Raffles' achievement in creating Singapore in 1819, through .a combination of acumen, good luck, chicanery vis-a-vis his opponents, the Dutch, and disobedience, is perhaps his most important legacy. He was also founder-president of the London Zoological Society (1826) and the author of the monumental History of Java (1817). But it is the period as ruler of Java and the reforms he attempted there during the brief British control of the island, one of the more curious consequences of the Napoleonic wars, and his contributions to knowledge which attract scholarly attention today. At this distance from the original publication, one is struck by incidentals rather than the main thread of the story. As far as Raffles himself is concerned, he was a person of scholarly bent though with scarcely a secondary education to his name, an administrator who was one of the first to realise the importance of learning local languages and studying local customs. Yet, as an administrator, he had his faults; he sometimes did not follow explicit instructions, he could be mean and petty, he was nepotistic, and though well aware of the company's desire to economise and consolidate, he allowed the useless Sumatran outpost of Bencoolen to continue, at vaSt expense in both financial and human terms.

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Devastating ill-luck dogged him in the last ten years of his life-- the loss of nearly all his children and many of his friends at Bencoolen, the loss of his entire collection of artefacts, books, notes, zoological specimens and treasures in the burning of the ship, the "Fame", carrying him and what remained of his family home, the constant ill-diagnosed ill-health of his last years, the loss of a large proportion of his ... investments, and the penny-pinching dunning of the Honorable Company after his resignation, all this makes sad reading. A man of such talent deserved far better. But he was a curious character, never entirely accepted by the establishment, perhaps too much the clever Dick (or Tom), too much of an upstart. In the face of great difficulties, he was invariably sociable and charming. He was at least extraordinary lucky in his two marriages, both initially loveless as far as one can tell, and he was capable of firing the staunchest of friendships as well as the most implacable of enmities. Wurtzburg sets all this against the background of poor communications with Calcutta and London, and the overall desire of the Supreme Council of the Company to make money. Raffles could well wax eloquent about the potential of Java, as the VOC did before him and many did after, including contemporary investors, but it was a will-of-the-wisp ever in the future, while the present remained a bottomless pit or in less charitable current terms a basket case. Java only seemed to produce a profit under the later Culture System, with all its attendant evils. Raffles' land and financial reforms hardly had time to be given a fair trial, so assessment of his actual achievements in this respect is difficult. In the confusion of the period it is amazing he was able to govern Java as effectively as he did, with a suspicious Dutch population and a resentful native population nearly half that of England and Wales at the time -- Java had 4.6 million inhabitants according to the British census of 1815 and England and Wales a population of 10.1 million in the 1811 census. Furthermore, Raffles had under him virtually no trained administrators, only a handful of troops and runaway inflation, a legacy of Daendels, to cope with. Wurtzburg's method as a biographer is to introduce a topic, give the background to the relevant characters, and extensive quotes from contemporary correspondence (with sources only rarely completely identified), to follow through these characters briefly and then move on to the next topic. In this sense it can be called a classic biography. The quotes, particularly from the India House archives, are very extensive. In some ways they are both too long and too short; the former because they could undoubtedly be summarized, and the latter because they are not in themselves complete. One suspects this to be in part the result of the work being post-

274 Michael Smithies

burnous; in part too it is also dated as being of the pre-photocopy period, when handwritten copies of documents had to be laboriously gathered by the researcher. The proper place for much of the material would be in complete appendices. It is curious to think that the ubiquitous photocopying machine had just in a generation changed one's presentation of history and personalities. The method in some ways is similar to Raffles' own in the assembly of the History of Java. Everything that was known about particular aspects of the question is put in the relevant chapter, with extensive quotes and copyings and comparatively little sifting. This nevertheless served at the time a real and useful purpose. A reading of this biography makes one wonder if Raffles is not to blame a little for the lack of attention his reports received from his superiors. Missives went unopened in Leadenhall Street, he learned, and the Honorable Company took years to settle quite minor matters. While it is true that it was the custom of the time to write at length on every subject (Raffles' reports to Minto from Malacca are typical), the missives might have received more attention if they had been briefer. Reading the flowery language and length of these documents today is wearisome, as it must have been to the directors in London with little idea of where Java or Malacca were and not much interest either unless they increased their profits. As contemporaries hinted, London was far more concerned as to whether there was to be a RQyal Divorce than whether remote outstations were lost or found. Raffles, who was frequently taken to task for minor breache~ of dis