Ayutthaya Kingdom

Toponymy

Foreign names

In foreign accounts, Ayutthaya was called "Siam" but people of Ayutthaya called themselves Tai, and their kingdom Krung Tai (กรุงไท) meaning 'Tai country' (กรุงไท). The Fra Mauro map of the world, made in circa 1450, features Ayutthaya city under the Latin name "Scierno". This name was derived from the Persian "Shahr-I-Naw", meaning 'New City'. Early Iberian and Italian sources preserve several related variant spellings that also appear to refer to Ayutthaya, including forms such as Cernouem and Cernomé in Portuguese and Spanish compilations, and Xarnauz and Sarnau in other accounts. A handwritten nautical chart attributed to Vesconte de Maggiolo (c. 1508) labels Ayutthaya as Zerena. Some early Portuguese descriptions characterize Xarnauz as a "Christian" kingdom, a wording that may reflect European assumptions about non-Muslim states rather than local religion.

It was also referred to as Iudea (and Iudiad) in a c. 1662–1663 bird's-eye view painting of Ayutthaya attributed to Johannes Vingboons, commissioned by the Dutch East India Company. Alternative spelling is Iudia in a 1683 illustration by Alain Mallet.

Official name

The capital city of Ayutthaya is officially known as Krung Thep Dvaravati Si Ayutthaya (กรุงเทพทวารวดีศรีอยุธยา), as documented in historical sources. The Dvaravati element of that style is attested from the Ayutthaya period into the early Rattanakosin period. The preambles to three sections of the Three Seals Law, those on witnesses, on royal legislation, and on ordeal by water or fire, give the capital as Krung-deb-dvāravatī-śrī-ayudhyā-mahātilakabhaba-nabaratana-rājadhānī-purīramya (กรุงเทพทวารวดีศรีอยุธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตน์ราชาธาณีบูรีรมย์). The same pairing appears in a letter from the governor of Tenasserim to the Danish court in 1620, in the Thai text of the 1664 treaty with the Dutch East India Company, in a Pāli letter to Kandy in 1757, in the chronicle compiled by Somdet Phra Phonarat at Wat Pho, and as late as 1842 in an inscription set up in Cambodia by Chaophraya Bodindecha.

The name was not used consistently, however: other sections of the same law code use forms of Ayutthaya without Dvāravatī, as do the Ratanabimbavaṃsa (1429), the Jinakalamali (c. 1516), the Yuan Phai and the Dansai inscription of 1560, and Prince Dhani Nivat, whose 1939 study in the Journal of the Siam Society remains the standard treatment of the question, observed that most official and literary works of the Ayutthaya and Bangkok periods name the capital simply as Ayutthaya or Krung Rattanakosin. Skilling has accordingly treated it as an open question whether the surviving instances preserve a continuous memory of Dvaravati or represent a later literary and diplomatic revival of the name. Even though Baker and Pasuk regard the use of Dvāravatī in Ayutthaya's official titles as a possible invention of tradition, a Burmese inscription on a bronze gun captured at the city's fall in 1767 also identifies Siam as Dvāravatī. This provides independent evidence for the use of the name for Siam at the end of the Ayutthaya period.

History

Menam basin before Ayutthaya

In the early second millennium, the lower central plain was anchored by Lavo to the east and Suphannabhum, a former Dvaravati centre, to the west, with Chen Li Fu between them. Lavo, conventionally described as under Angkorian suzerainty, occupied the eastern basin, while Suphannabhum in the west shows Angkorian cultural influence that need not imply direct political or military control. Evidence for varying degrees of Angkorian political and cultural involvement includes Suryavarman I's campaigns in the Kra Isthmus, Khmer-influenced architecture, the place of local elites in the Khmer hierarchy, and Jayavarman VII's patronage of cities in Ratchaburi and Phetchaburi. Kanjanajuntorn and colleagues nonetheless find the strongest Bayon influence in the Mae Klong valley, at Mueang Kosi Narai, Wat Maha That Ratchaburi and Wat Kamphaeng Laeng, while Dvaravati forms persisted along the Tha Chin, including Suphanburi. The evidence is consistent with Angkorian influence in the Mae Klong valley, but suggests selective borrowing rather than imposition.

Chen Li Fu, known from Chinese records and placed by Songsiri at Phraek, occupied the central position between Lavo and Suphannabhum. Songsiri notes, however, that archaeological evidence has not established when the settlement became its seat or whether it succeeded an earlier inland centre. It administered more than sixty settlements, appears in Chinese merchant records by about 1103–1115, and sent embassies to the Song in 1200, 1202 and 1205. Its ruler used the Angkorian title kamretan-an, and Chinese officials eventually excused the polity from further tribute. Songsiri proposes that after the first half of the 13th century its network developed into Suphannabhum, incorporating settlements around the Khwae rivers and the western basin, while Sing Buri and Phrom Buri belonged to the Lavo network.

Angkorian relationships with the basin polities have increasingly been interpreted in terms of a mandala, in which titles, cultural forms, and religious gifts circulated without necessarily implying sovereignty. The Preah Khan inscription of Jayavarman VII names cities of the western basin, including Suphanburi as Suvarnapura, Phetchaburi as Srijayavajrapuri, Mueang Kosi Narai as Samphukapatthana, and Ratchaburi as Srijayarajapura, but records no authority over them. Its record of sending Jayabuddhamahanatha images to western polities, together with the absence of Angkorian hospitals and fire houses west of Prachinburi, likewise suggests cultural diplomacy rather than direct rule.

Pre-Ayutthaya period

On Kasetsiri's account, Ayutthaya emerged from the merger of four port polities of the lower basin: Lopburi, Suphanburi, Ayodhya and Phetchaburi. Each had sent missions to China in its own name, including Suphanburi to the Song in 1180 and Phetchaburi to the Yuan in 1294, with further missions to Vijayanagara between 1400 and 1500.

The city that became Ayutthaya is known in the Thai chronicle tradition as Ayodhya (อโยธยา). The Northern Chronicle places its earliest settlement in the in the 930s–940s in the area around the Nong-sano Lake (หนองโสน), founded by Phuttha Sakhon (พระมหาพุทธสาคร), whose lineage was associated with Bang Pan in present-day Kamphaeng Phet. The settlement was then called Mueang Nong-sano (เมืองหนองโสน), and his son succeeded him in 974.

The son was subsequently deposed by Sindhob Amarin, also known as Phraya Kreak (พญาแกรก), ruler of Phraek or Indaprasthanagara, who brought Mueang Nong-sano under his authority; Lavo is likewise said to have come under his rule.

According to a later chronicle tradition, the Lavo court moved to the site in the 1080s. Narai I, son of Chandrachota of Lavo, was enthroned at Lavapura in 1082 and subsequently transferred his seat to Mueang Nong-sano, renaming it Ayodhya; the older capital thereafter became known as Lopburi. Proposed explanations for the move include changes in the course of the Lopburi River, political or religious divisions within the Lavo elite, and the recovery of Lavo from Angkorian influence by forces associated with Suphannabhum and Haripuñjaya.

Narai I died in 1087 without an heir, and nine amatya clans contested the throne until Phra Chao Luang prevailed in 1089. He married his only daughter to Sai Nam Peung, whose descendants are said to have ruled Ayodhya until 1351. A second line entered in 1205, when Uthong II, son of Phanom Thale Sri of Phetchaburi, took the throne through marriage to the daughter of Dhammikaraja. His descendants subsequently ruled Ayodhya for more than a century.

The three remaining polities of Kasetsiri's account had ruling lines of their own. At Suphannabhum, Pansa, a son of Balaraj of Dvaravati Nakhon Pathom, is said to have ruled at Phanthumburi (พันธุมบุรี) on the left bank of the Tha Chin before moving his seat to Uthong, dying in 1006, and was followed by Ramapandita (1006 – c. 1046) and Anga Indra (c. 1046–1081). The throne then passed to Kar Tayy, a Pagan noble, who ruled until about 1121 and moved the principal centre back to Phanthumburi, thereafter called Songphanuri. Mueang Uthong was abandoned during the 12th century, and Songphanuri stood vacant until Uthong I took it in 1163, conventionally the start of the Xiān period at Suphanburi. Baker and Pasuk attribute the abandonment of Mueang Uthong to a shift in the river that cut the town off from easy access to the gulf, and suggest that its people moved some 30 kilometres north-east to Suphan Buri, whose strictly rectangular moat of 1.9 by 0.7 kilometres and central relic stupa in Angkorian style may both date to the 12th century.

The founding of 1351

Uthong V, son of Baramaraja, held Phetchaburi and Ayodhya by direct descent and acquired Suphannabhum and Lavo through marriage, bringing four major centres under one ruler. 4 March 1351 is conventionally given as the foundation of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. Persian merchants knew the new centre as shahr-i naw (شهر نو), "new city", a name recorded on the Venetian Fra Mauro map of 1459. The settlement may have predated 1351: an analysis of the principal stupa of Wat Mahathat, based on photographs taken before its collapse, suggests a 12th- or 13th-century date, although the dating remains uncertain.

The union did not immediately produce a stable dynasty. In the Lavo account, Uthong V co-founded the city with the ruler of Suphannabhum, later Borommarachathirat I, and the two lines contested the throne for much of the following half-century. Ramesuan lost Ayutthaya to Borommarachathirat in 1370 but recovered it from Thong Lan in 1388, bringing Ayutthaya and Lavo under one ruler. The Suphannabhum line regained the throne under Intharacha in 1408, after which the Lavo Uthong line was reduced to a noble clan.

Uthong's origins are difficult to reconstruct, partly because the chronicles conflate different figures named Uthong from different periods. Baker and Pasuk record several traditions concerning his identity, including a northern Thai prince, a Chinese prince or merchant, a Indaprastha noble, a ruler from one of the Gulf cities, and a Chola. These traditions may not all concern the founder of Ayutthaya: Uthong I, Uthong II and Uthong V are distinct figures whom later chronicles frequently conflate, carrying episodes from one period into another. The resulting traditions have made the historical identity and origins of Uthong V difficult to establish. Other scholars argue that Ayodhya was already an important commercial centre several centuries before 1351.

Before the union, the lower valley had developed several competing mandalas. Archaeological evidence from the 12th and 13th centuries indicates migration from neighbouring regions, including Khmer from the east, Mon from the west and Tai–Mon from the north, while centres such as Suphannabhum, Phetchaburi, Sukhothai and Ayodhya developed their own spheres of influence.

Early maritime dominance

In the 1290s through to the 1490s, Ayutthaya sent forces down to the peninsula and demanded tribute from the Malay principalities down to Temasek (Singapura; modern Singapore) and Sumatra. The early Ayutthaya polity was a maritime-oriented confederation, more in line with the Malay polities of Maritime Southeast Asia than with states inland like Sukhothai and the Northern Cities. Muslim and European maps labeled the Malay Peninsula to the Tenasserim as part of Ayutthaya in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Baker and Pasuk set the polity of these years beside the other trading centres that rose after Srivijaya, whose rulers were merchants rather than warriors, who held only the land they needed to feed themselves, and who left little or nothing as inscriptions. Early Ayutthaya did not keep records and their early dynastic chronology is likely fabricated by later Ayutthaya elites writing their histories: the early chronology in the palace chronicles does not correlate with the Ayutthaya temple chronicles nor the Chinese court chronicles.

The integrity of the patchwork of cities of the early Ayutthaya Kingdom was maintained largely through familial connections under the mandala system. King Uthong had his son, Prince Ramesuan, the ruler of Lopburi, his brother, the ruler of Praek Sriracha (in modern Chainat), styled Somdet Phra Si Rachathirat (สมเด็จพระศรีราชาธิราช); and Khun Luang Pa-ngua, the ruler of Suphanburi, who became his brother-in-law through his own marriage into the Suphannabhum house. The king would appoint a prince or a relative to be the ruler of a city, and a city that was ruled by a prince was called Muang Look Luang (เมืองลูกหลวง). Each city ruler swore allegiance and loyalty to the King of Ayutthaya, but also retained certain privileges.

Early Ayutthayan politics was marked by rivalry between the two dynasties; the Uthong dynasty based on Lopburi and the Suphannabhum dynasty based on Suphanburi. Traditional narratives argued that Ayutthaya conquered Sukhothai, Angkor, etc., but more modern narratives argue that territorial conquest was a European thing and not a Southeast Asian thing. Rather, Ayutthaya emerged through the political merger and consolidation of cities at the head of the peninsula, gradually extending northward along the Chao Phraya River basin to the Northern Cities.

Within a few years of its founding, the young kingdom went to war with Angkor. Ramathibodi I first sent Prince Ramesuan, ruler of Lopburi, against the Khmer capital, but the force was routed by a counter-attack led by the Cambodian uparaja, and another royal son, Phra Si Sawat, was killed. Ramathibodi then called on his brother-in-law, Khun Luang Pa-ngua of Suphanburi, for reinforcement. The combined army captured Nakhon Thom (Yasodharapura), taking captives and goods rather than annexing the city; Cambodian tradition records that King Lampong Racha died in the battle. The chronicles give the cause only as the moment "the Khom turned traitor" (ขอมแปรพักตร์).

Age of warfare

The 1430s–1600 marked a period of rising warfare throughout Mainland Southeast Asia. In 1500, the Portuguese noted that Ayutthaya had 100 elephants; 50 years later, it reportedly had 50,000. Ayutthaya began launching military expeditions far to the west and east. In the west, it fought to acquire Tavoy, Mergui, Tenasserim, and Martaban in the late 15th century. Song China's growing interest in maritime commerce at the turn of the second millennium made trade between China and the Indian Ocean increasingly lucrative. In the 1430s, Ayutthaya attacked Angkor but did not sack the city, although it installed a short-lived puppet ruler.

Palace Law Codes under Borommatrailokkanat reflected a growing emphasis on warfare, specifying rewards based on the number of enemies beheaded. The introduction of elephants, guns, and mercenaries made warfare in Southeast Asia more frequent and deadly. By the late 16th century, Pegu (Bago) suffered a severe conscript revolt, while Ayutthaya's phrai fled into the forests or bribed conscription officers. The construction of stronger city walls also neutralized the offensive advantages of massive armies, transforming field battles into protracted sieges.

The Ayutthaya Kingdom shifted from a maritime to a more hinterland-oriented state during the 15th and 16th centuries. Its absorption of the Northern Cities and the shift of trade toward inland routes with China facilitated this change. The reign of King Borommatrailokkanat marked the peak of this merger between the basin and the Northern Cities, following generations of intermarriage between their ruling families.

Although Borommatrailokkanat symbolized the merger of North and South, Lan Na, north of Ayutthaya in modern Northern Thailand, contested Ayutthaya's growing influence over the Northern Cities. The Ayutthaya-Lan Na War was fought over the Upper Chao Phraya valley for control of the Northern Cities. Whether because he favoured the Northern Cities or needed a capital closer to the war, Borommatrailokkanat moved his capital to Phitsanulok. Lan Na suffered setbacks, and Borommatrailokkanat eventually sued for peace in 1475.

Ayutthaya's sphere of influence down the peninsula was contested by the Malacca Sultanate. Ayutthaya launched several unsuccessful conquests against Malacca, which was strengthened diplomatically and economically by military support from Ming China. In the early 15th century, the Ming admiral Zheng He established a base in the port city, making it a strategic position China could not afford to lose to the Siamese. Under this protection, Malacca flourished, becoming one of Ayutthaya's chief foes until the Portuguese capture of Malacca. Ayutthaya's focus on portage routes across the upper peninsula meant it sent no military expedition to the lower peninsula or Malay states throughout the 16th century.

Peace and commerce

The cessation of warfare around 1600 gave way to a prolonged period of peace and commerce under Ekathotsorot. The Portuguese and Dutch conquest of Malacca encouraged Asian traders to bypass it via the mid-peninsula portage routes controlled by Ayutthaya. This was an era of great Asian empires: the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Empire, Mughal Empire, Ming and Qing China, and Tokugawa Japan. Ayutthaya became a lucrative intermediary between the global empires of the Early Modern World. With warfare subsiding, kings and nobles turned to hunting, trade, and competition for the throne.

The period also saw the emergence of mercantile absolutism. A virtual monopoly over the kingdom's income allowed the king to build temples and palaces, sponsor ceremonies, and surround the monarchy with ritual mysticism. The king could appoint city governors and ministers, making the throne more lucrative than before. Successfully placing a candidate on the throne could greatly reward those who facilitated his accession. The ability to appoint a Front Palace was effective in wartime but became a double-edged sword during peace. Foreigners, lacking connections within the kingdom, often rose to prominent positions at the Ayutthaya court.

In 1605, Naresuan died of illness while on campaign against a Burmese spillover conflict in the Shan region, leaving a greatly expanded Siamese kingdom to be ruled by his younger brother, Ekathotsarot (Sanphet III). Ekathotsarot's reign was marked with stability for Siam and its sphere of influence, as well as increased foreign interactions, especially with the Dutch Republic, Portuguese Empire, and Tokugawa Shogunate (by way of the Red Seal Ships), among others. Indeed, representatives from many foreign lands began to fill Siam's civil and military administration – Japanese traders and mercenaries led by Yamada Nagamasa, for example, had considerable influence with the king.

Ekathotsarot's era ended with his death in 1610/11. The question of his succession was complicated by the alleged suicide of his eldest legitimate son, Suthat, while his second legitimate son, Si Saowaphak, was never legally designated as an heir by Ekathotsarot himself. Nonetheless, Si Saowaphak succeeded to the throne against his late father's wishes, and led a short and ineffective reign in which he was kidnapped and held hostage by Japanese merchants, and later murdered. After this episode, the kingdom was handed to Songtham, a lesser son born of Ekathotsarot and a first-class concubine.

Late Ayutthaya period

Despite the departure of most Europeans from Ayutthaya, their economic presence was negligible compared with the city's China–Indian Ocean trade. Lieberman, later reinforced by Baker and Phongpaichit, rejected the view that Siam's supposed isolation from global trade after the French and English departure in 1688 led to Ayutthaya's gradual decline before its destruction by the Burmese in 1767, stating: Clearly, however, the late 1600s and especially the early 1700s inaugurated a period not of sustained decline, but of Chinese-assisted economic vitality that would continue into the 19th century.

Instead, the 18th century was arguably the Ayutthaya Kingdom's most prosperous, particularly through trade with Qing China. China's population growth in the late 17th and 18th centuries, combined with rice shortages and famines in southern China, increased demand for rice imports from Ayutthaya and elsewhere. During the Late Ayutthaya Period (1688–1767), the Chinese population in Ayutthaya possibly tripled from 1680 to 1767, reaching 30,000. Chinese merchants drove the Ayutthaya economy during its final century and contributed to Siam's rapid recovery after the Burmese invasions of the 1760s. Both post-Ayutthaya monarchs, Taksin and Rama I, were connected by blood and political ties to the Sino-Siamese community.

Between 1600 and 1767, all but two royal successions were contested by mini civil wars in the capital. The throne became such a powerful and lucrative source of wealth during 150 years of prosperity that many royals sought to seize it. An 18th-century Ayutthaya noble lamented that many court officials and able generals had been killed in succession struggles over the previous 90 years. The last monarch, Ekkathat, and his brother Uthumphon undermined Prince Thammathibet, the Front Palace Uparaj and designated heir to their father, King Borommakot, by instigating or exposing his affair with two of his father's consorts. Prince Thammathibet was executed for his alleged crimes.

Corruption was rampant amid economic prosperity, with position buying and bribery for political offices becoming commonplace.

The mass arrival of Chinese farming settlers in 18th-century Siam contributed to the emergence of capitalist practices. The preceding 150 years of economic growth encouraged phrai to escape government control and become peasant farmers in the countryside, while others entered the monkhood or fled into the wilderness.

Fall of Ayutthaya

The weakened Burmese Toungoo dynasty was overthrown by the Mons of Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1752. Aung Zeiya, a local Burmese leader, rebelled against the Mons, reconquered Upper Burma, proclaimed himself King Alaungpaya, and established the militaristic Konbaung dynasty. He conquered the Mons of Lower Burma in 1757, unifying Burma under his rule. In 1758, the Mons rebelled in Lower Burma against Alaungpaya but were defeated and took refuge in Siamese-held Tenasserim Coast. Alaungpaya demanded their repatriation, but Ayutthaya refused. Convinced that Siam supported the rebels, Alaungpaya also sought to expand his power and prestige in accordance with the Chakravartin ideology of universal rule.

In mid-1759, Alaungpaya marched his battle-hardened armies against Ayutthaya, conquering Tenasserim through the Singkhon Pass and reaching the northwestern outskirts of Ayutthaya city in early 1760. Ayutthaya was unprepared for war. Prolonged peace and economic prosperity had weakened the traditional conscription system, causing a shortage of manpower that undermined Siamese defenses. Panicked Ayutthayans urged the more capable temple king Uthumphon to leave the monkhood and lead the defense. Fortunately, the rainy season forced the Burmese to retreat. Alaungpaya himself was either ill or injured by a cannon explosion and died on his return to Burma in 1760. Ayutthaya was thus spared Burmese conquest for the last time.

After the Burmese retreat, Siam did little to reform its military against further invasions. Ekkathat pressured Uthumphon to return permanently to the monkhood in mid-1760 and resumed power. Prince Thepphiphit, exiled to Ceylon in 1758, became involved in a local rebellion and was repatriated to Siam in 1762, angering Ekkathat. The new Burmese king Hsinbyushin, who had participated in the 1759–1760 invasion, sought to complete his father Alaungpaya's unfinished conquest of Ayutthaya. Burma's conquest of Lanna (modern Northern Thailand) in 1763 and Laos in 1765 gave it access to substantial manpower. Hsinbyushin ordered a two-pronged invasion through the Tavoy-Tenasserim route, with 20,000 Burmese-Mon troops under Maha Nawrahta, and the Lanna route, with 20,000 Burmese-Lanna troops under Nemyo Thihapate. The armies were to converge on Ayutthaya. In early 1765, the Tavoy army conquered Western Siam, while Nemyo Thihapate invaded Northern Siam later that year. Internal rebellions and the suppression of peripheral governors left little support for the frontier defenses, and Siamese cities fell one by one. Maha Nawrahta then marched from Tavoy toward Ayutthaya in November 1765. William Powney, a British merchant trading in Ayutthaya, led British-Siamese forces against the Burmese at the Battle of Nonthaburi in December 1765 but was defeated.

Government

Kings

In its early maritime phase, Ayutthaya's rulers were primarily leaders of a port city. Ma Huan described the 15th-century ruler of Ayutthaya as wearing gold-trimmed pants and riding an elephant through the city with one attendant, while living in a modest residence. Ayutthaya's relationship with other cities was initially one of first among equals, requiring its rulers to balance their interests with those of their city vassals. As Ayutthaya incorporated the Northern Cities and adapted their governmental functions during the 15th and 16th centuries, its rulers became more regal and asserted greater authority over their vassals. By the 17th century, increasing wealth from trade enabled the kings to display their power through Angkorian and Brahmic rituals and symbolism.

From the 17th century onwards, Ayutthaya's kings were absolute monarchs with a semi-religious status. Their authority drew on both Hindu and Buddhist ideologies and the concept of natural kingship. At Sukhothai, Inscription 1 portrayed King Ramkhamhaeng as a paternal ruler who heard petitions from subjects who rang a bell at the palace gate.

At Ayutthaya, however, this paternal conception of kingship gave way to the ideal of the chakkraphat (Sanskrit chakravartin), a universal ruler whose adherence to the law caused the world to revolve around him. In Hindu tradition, the king was regarded as an avatar of Vishnu, the destroyer of demons and defender of the people. In Buddhist thought, he was a righteous ruler (dharmaraja) who followed the teachings of Gautama Buddha and sought the well-being of his people.

The kings' official names reflected both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. They were regarded as incarnations of Hindu deities such as Indra, Shiva, and Vishnu (Rama). The coronation ceremony was directed by brahmins, with Shiva regarded as the Hindu god and "lord of the universe". According to the codes, however, the king's ultimate duty was to protect the people and destroy evil.

In Buddhism, the king was also regarded as a bodhisattva, with temple and Buddha-image construction among his important duties as symbols of prosperity and peace. For local subjects, kingship also carried the conception of the "Lord of the Land" or "He who Rules the Earth" (Phra Chao Phaendin). Court etiquette required the use of Rachasap (Rājāśabda, "royal language") when communicating with or about royalty. Under the sakna or sakdina system, codified by King Borommatrailokkanat (1448–1488), the king was said to grant control over land to subjects ranging from nobles to commoners. The system was similar to, but distinct from, feudalism, under which the monarch did not own the land.

Mandala system

Ayutthaya followed the mandala system, commonly used by Southeast Asian kingdoms before the 19th century. In the 17th century, its monarchs frequently appointed non-natives as governors of controlled towns and cities to limit competition from the nobility. By the late Ayutthaya period, the capital exerted strong influence over polities in the lower Chao Phraya plain, but its control weakened with distance from Ayutthaya. Thai historian Sunait Chutintaranond notes that "the view that Ayudhya was a strong centralized state" did not hold and that "in Ayudhya the hegemony of provincial governors was never successfully eliminated."

Political development

Social classes

The reforms of King Borommatrailokkanat (r. 1448–1488) placed the king of Ayutthaya at the centre of a highly stratified social and political hierarchy extending throughout the realm. Although evidence is limited, the basic unit of social organization is thought to have been the village community, composed of extended family households. Title to land resided with the headman, who held it on behalf of the community, while peasant proprietors retained its use as long as they cultivated it. Local lords gradually became courtiers (อำมาตย์) or tributary rulers of minor cities. The king came to be regarded as the earthly incarnation of Shiva or Vishnu and as the sacred focus of politico-religious cult practices conducted by royal court Brahmans within the Buddhist court establishment. In the Buddhist context, the devaraja (divine king) was regarded as a bodhisattva. Belief in divine kingship persisted into the 18th century, although its religious significance had by then diminished.

Ranking of social classes

With ample land available for cultivation, the realm depended on securing sufficient manpower for agriculture and defense. Ayutthaya's expansion involved constant warfare, and because no regional power possessed a decisive technological advantage, battles were usually determined by army size. Victorious campaigns brought conquered people into Ayutthaya, where they were assimilated into the labour force. Ramathibodi II (r. 1491–1529) established a corvée system requiring every freeman to register as a phrai (servant) under a local lord, chao nai (เจ้านาย). In wartime, male phrai could be conscripted. Above the phrai was a nai (นาย), who was responsible for military service and corvée labour on public works and the land of his assigned official. Phrai Suay (ไพร่ส่วย) instead fulfilled their obligations through taxation. A phrai could also sell himself as a that (ทาส, "slave") to another lord, who compensated the former nai for the loss of corvée labour. Phrai constituted as much as one-third of the manpower supply into the 19th century.

Wealth, status, and political influence were closely interrelated. Under the sakdina system, the king allotted rice fields to court officials, provincial governors, and military commanders in return for their services. Thai social scientists such as Jit Phumisak and Kukrit Pramoj have extensively examined the system. An official's allotment was determined by the number of commoners or phrai he could command, which in turn determined his status and wealth within the hierarchy. At its apex stood the king, symbolically the realm's largest landholder and, in theory, commander of the most phrai. These phrai luang ("royal servants") paid taxes, served in the royal army, and worked crown lands.

Military recruitment, however, depended on nai or mun nai, literally "lord", officials who commanded their own phrai som ("subjects"). These officials were required to answer the king's call in wartime, making them key figures in kingdom politics. At least two officials staged coups and seized the throne, while conflicts between kings and officials, followed by purges of court officials, were recurrent.

In the early 16th century, King Borommatrailokkanat established fixed allotments of land and phrai for royal officials at each level of the hierarchy, formalising a social structure that remained in place until government officials began receiving salaries in the 19th century.

Military

Ayutthaya's military was the origin of the Royal Thai Army. The army was organized into a small standing army of a few thousand, which defended the capital and the palace, and a much larger conscript-based wartime army. Conscription was based on the phrai system (including phrai luang and phrai som), which required local chiefs to supply their predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population in times of war. This basic system of military organization was largely unchanged down to the early Rattanakosin period.

The main weaponry of the infantry largely consisted of swords, spears and bow and arrows. The infantry units were supported by cavalry and elephantry corps.

Territory

According to a French source, Ayutthaya in the 18th century included these principal cities: Martaban, Ligor or Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Tenasserim, Junk Ceylon or Phuket Island, Singora or Songkhla. Her tributaries were Patani, Pahang, Perak, Kedah and Malacca.

Particularly in the South, Ayutthaya's claims were often discredited or underplayed by the Malay sultanates, resulting in a number of military expeditions starting in the 17th and 18th centuries to subjugate querulous sultanates. These included King Narai's military expedition to the Sultanate of Singora in 1680.

Culture and society

Population

Throughout its existence the kingdom was run by a service nobility of a few thousand, with the rest of the population serfs (phrai), a structure comparable to the contemporary Ancien Regime in France or Feudalism elsewhere in Europe. The social ladder existed during times of war and, particularly during the late Ayutthaya period, of rich commoners challenging the societal status quo of the Ayutthaya Kingdom as a result of commercial prosperity during the kingdom's last 150 years of peaceful existence.

According to the historian Baker, the Ayutthaya peasantry practiced commuter agriculturalism and largely lived in dense areas along the canals leading up to the city of Ayutthaya and other cities within the kingdom, producing homemade goods and textiles for the international market.

Language

What is now known as the Siamese (Thai) language was initially spoken only by the Ayutthaya elite, while everyday people throughout the Chao Phraya delta spoke a medley of Mon, Khmer, and Tai dialects. The Portuguese Tomé Pires described in the early 16th century that "The people [of Siam], and almost the language, are like those of [Mon] Pegu," which may suggest that many or most common people still did not identify with the Tai-language culture of the elites as late as 1515. By the Late Ayutthaya period (1688–1767), the Siamese language and culture had gradually grown to transcend social classes and had been adopted by many of the local people throughout the kingdom.

The Khmer language was an early prestige language of the Ayutthaya court, until it was supplanted by the Siamese language. However it was still continually spoken by the ethnic Khmer community living in Ayutthaya. Many variants of Chinese were spoken in the Ayutthaya Kingdom, with the Chinese becoming a large minority in the kingdom during the Late Ayutthaya period.

Various minor minority languages spoken in the Ayutthaya Kingdom included Malay, Persian, Japanese, Cham, Dutch, and Portuguese.

Religion

Ayutthaya's main religion was Theravada Buddhism. However, many of the elements of the political and social system were incorporated from Hindu scriptures and were conducted by Brahmin priests. Many areas of the kingdom also practiced Mahayana Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, influenced by French Missionaries who arrived through China in the 17th century. Some small areas converted to Roman Catholicism. The influence of Mahayana and Tantric practices also entered Theravada Buddhism, producing a tradition called Boran Kammatthana.

The natural world was also home to a number of spirits which are part of the Satsana Phi. Phi (ผี) are spirits of buildings or territories, natural places, or phenomena; they are also ancestral spirits that protect people, or can also include malevolent spirits. The phi which are guardian deities of places, or towns are celebrated at festivals with communal gatherings and offerings of food. The spirits run throughout Thai folklore.

Phi were believed to influence natural phenomena including human illness and thus the baci became an important part of people identity and religious health over the millennia. Spirit houses were an important folk custom which were used to ensure balance with the natural and supernatural world. Astrology was also a vital part to understanding the natural and spiritual worlds and became an important cultural means to enforce social taboos and customs.

Arts and performances

The myth and epic stories of Ramakien provide the Siamese with a rich source of dramatic materials. The royal court of Ayutthaya developed classical dramatic forms of expression called khon (โขน) and lakhon (ละคร). Ramakien played a role in shaping these dramatic arts. During the Ayutthaya period, khon, or a dramatized version of Ramakien, was classified as lakhon nai or a theatrical performance reserved only for aristocratic audience. The Siamese drama and classical dance later spread throughout mainland Southeast Asia and influenced the development of high-culture art in most countries, including Burma, and Laos.

Historical evidence shows that the Thai art of stage plays must have already been highly evolved by the 17th century. Louis XIV, the Sun King of France, had a formal diplomatic relation with Ayutthaya's King Narai. In 1687, France sent the diplomat Simon de la Loubère to record all that he saw in the Siamese Kingdom. In his famous account Du Royaume de Siam, La Loubère carefully observed the classic 17th century theatre of Siam, including an epic battle scene from a khon performance, and recorded what he saw in great detail:

The Siamese have three sorts of Stage Plays: That which they call Cone [khôn] is a figure dance, to the sound of the violin and some other instruments. The dancers are masked and armed, and represent rather a combat than a dance. And though every one runs into high motions, and extravagant postures, they cease not continually to intermix some word. Most of their masks are hideous, and represent either monstrous Beasts, or kinds of Devils. The Show which they call Lacone is a poem intermix with Epic and Dramatic, which lasts three days, from eight in the morning till seven at night. They are histories in verse, serious, and sung by several actors always present, and which do only sing reciprocally … The Rabam is a double dance of men and women, which is not martial, but gallant … they can perform it without much tying themselves, because their way of dancing is a simple march round, very slow, and without any high motion; but with a great many slow contortions of the body and arms.

Of the attire of Siamese Khôn dancers, La Loubère recorded that, "[T]hose that dance in Rabam, and Cone, have gilded paper-bonnets, high and pointed, like the Mandarins caps of ceremony, but which hang down at the sides below their ears, which are adorned with counterfeit stones, and with two pendants of gilded wood."

Literature

Ayutthaya was a kingdom rich in literary production. Even after the sack of Ayutthaya in 1767, many literary masterpieces in the Thai language survived. However, Ayutthayan literature (as well as Thai literature before the modern era) was dominated by verse composition (i.e., poetry), whereas prose works were reserved to legal matters, records of state affairs and historical chronicles. Thus, there are many works in the nature of epic poetry in the Thai language. The Thai poetical tradition was originally based on indigenous poetical forms such as rai (ร่าย), khlong (โคลง), kap (กาพย์) and klon (กลอน). Some of these poetical forms – notably khlong – have been shared between the speakers of tai languages since ancient time (before the emergence of Siam).

Through Buddhist and Hindu influence, a variety of Chanda prosodic meters were received via Ceylon. Since the Thai language is mono-syllabic, a huge number of loan words from Sanskrit and Pali are needed to compose these classical Sanskrit meters. According to B. J. Terwiel, this process occurred with an accelerated pace during the reign of King Borommatrailokkanat (1448–1488) who reformed Siam's model of governance by turning the Siamese polity into an empire under the mandala feudal system. The new system demanded a new imperial language for the noble class. This influence set Thai apart from the other tai languages. It brought in Sanskrit and Pali vocabulary in quantity, and required a writing system that preserved Sanskrit orthography for literary use. By the 15th century, the Thai language had evolved into a distinctive medium along with a nascent literary identity of a new nation. It allowed Siamese poets to compose in different poetical styles and mood, from playful and humorous rimed verses, to romantic and elegant klong and to polished and imperious chan prosodies modified from classical Sanskrit meters. Thai poets experimented with these different prosodic forms, producing innovative "hybrid" poems such as Lilit (ลิลิต, an interleave of khlong and kap or rai verses) or Kap hor Klong (กาพย์ห่อโคลง – khlong poems enveloped by kap verses). The Thai thus developed a keen mind and a keen ear for poetry. To maximize this new literary medium, however, an intensive classical education in Pali was required. This made poetry an exclusive occupation of the noble classes. However, B.J. Terwiel notes, citing a 17th-century text book Jindamanee, that scribes and common Siamese men, too, were encouraged to learn basic Pali and Sanskrit for career advancement.

Most countries in Southeast Asia share an Indianised culture. Traditionally, therefore, Thai literature was heavily influenced by the Indian culture and Buddhist–Hindu ideology since the time it first appeared in the 13th century. Thailand's national epic is a version of the story of Rama-Pandita, as recounted by Gotama Buddha in the Dasharatha Jataka called the Ramakien, translated from Pali and rearranged into Siamese verses. The importance of the Ramayana epic in Thailand is due to the Thai's adoption of the Hindu religio-political ideology of kingship, as embodied by Rama. The Siamese capital, Ayutthaya, was named after the holy city of Ayodhya, the city of Rama. Thai kings of the current dynasty from Rama VI forward, and retroactively, have been referred to as "Rama" to the present day (relations with the west caused the crown to seek a brief name to convey royalty to both Thais and foreigners, following European styles).

Architecture

The Ayutthaya Buddhist temple falls into one of two broad categories: the stupa-style solid temple and the prang-style (ปรางค์). The prangs can also be found in various forms in Sukhothai, Lopburi, Bangkok (Wat Arun). Sizes may vary, but usually the prangs measure between 15 and 40 meters in height, and resemble a towering corn-cob like structure.

Prangs essentially represent Mount Meru. In Thailand Buddha relics were often housed in a vault in these structures, reflecting the belief that the Buddha is a most significant being, having attained enlightenment and having shown the path to enlightenment to others.

Daily life

Three clothing styles were evident in the Ayutthaya period. Each style depended on social class.

1. Court clothing (worn by the king, queen, concubines, and senior government officials):

Men: The king wore mongkut (มงกุฎ), as headgear, round Mandarin collar with khrui and wore chong kben (โจงกระเบน), as trousers.

Court officers, (who served in the royal palace) wore lomphok, as headgear, khrui, and wore chong kben.

Women The queen wore chada (ชฎา), as headgear, sabai (สไบ), (a breast cloth that wrap over one shoulder around chest and back) and wore pha nung (ผ้านุ่ง), as a skirt.

Concubines wore long hair, sabai, and pha nung.

2. Nobles (rich citizens):

Men: wore mandarin collar shirt, a mahadthai hair style (ทรงมหาดไทย), and wore chong kben.

Women: wore the sabai and pha nung.

3. Villagers:

Men: wore a loincloth, displayed a naked chest, a mahadthai hair style, sometimes wore sarong or chong kben.

Women: wore the sabai and pha nung.

Economy

The Thais never lacked a rich food supply. Peasants planted rice for their own consumption and to pay taxes. Whatever remained was used to support religious institutions. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, however, a transformation took place in Thai rice cultivation. In the highlands, where rainfall had to be supplemented by a system of irrigation to control water levels in flooded paddies, the Thais sowed the glutinous rice that is still the staple in the geographical regions of the north and northeast. But in the floodplain of the Chao Phraya, farmers turned to a different variety of rice – the so-called floating rice, a slender, non-glutinous grain introduced from Bengal – that would grow fast enough to keep pace with the rise of the water level in the lowland fields.

The new strain grew easily and abundantly, producing a surplus that could be sold cheaply abroad. Ayutthaya, at the southern extremity of the floodplain, thus became the hub of economic activity. Under royal patronage, corvée labour dug canals on which rice was brought from the fields to the king's ships for export to China. In the process, the Chao Phraya delta – mud flats between the sea and firm land hitherto considered unsuitable for habitation – was reclaimed and cultivated. Traditionally the king had a duty to perform a religious ceremony to bless the rice planting.

Although rice was abundant in Ayutthaya, rice exports were banned from time to time when famine occurred because of natural calamity or war. Rice was usually bartered for luxury goods and armaments from Westerners, but rice cultivation was mainly for the domestic market and rice export was evidently unreliable.

Trade and currency

Ayutthaya officially used cowrie shells, prakab (baked clay coins), and pod duang as currencies. Pod duang became the standard medium of exchange from the early 13th century to the reign of King Chulalongkorn. Foreign trade was run by two departments of the crown, the Krom Tha Sai (กรมท่าซ้าย) and the Krom Tha Khwa (กรมท่าขวา). Reported duty rates differ from one observer to another rather than forming a series. Tomé Pires gives an export duty of about 6.7 per cent in the early 1500s, with Chinese importers paying about 16.7 per cent against 22.2 per cent for others; Peter Floris puts the rate at about 5 per cent each way a century later; and a late compilation gives 3 per cent for friendly states and 5 per cent for the rest, together with a tonnage duty of 6 or 10 baht per metre levied on vessels of at least 8 m in the beam.

The late 17th-century Phanna phumisathan records 61 markets inside the walls, 40 of them open daily and 21 part-time, with four floating markets and about thirty street markets outside, and some twenty thousand rafts moored along the moats and waterways as houses and shops. Carts brought hides, horn and forest produce from Khorat and from Battambang to temporary market huts. Suthipob Chantrapakajee argues that the traffic ran both ways: deer and ray hide went to Japan and armour and sword-hilts came back, ivory and horn went to China and medicines containing them returned, and patterns were sent to India for textiles and to China for bencharong ware made to Siamese design. Copper ingots have been recovered from three wrecks in the gulf, at Rang Kwian, Bang Krachai and Ko Si Chang, each with a datable ceramic cargo; he notes that no evidence shows Ayutthaya smelting copper or iron ingots from domestic ore for export, and that Dutch and Japanese lists treat both as imports.

Ayutthaya as international trading port

Trade with Europeans was lively in the 17th century. In fact European merchants traded their goods, mainly modern arms such as rifles and cannons, for local products from the inland jungle, such as sappan, woods, deerskin, and rice. Tomé Pires, a Portuguese voyager, mentioned in the 16th century that Ayutthaya, or Odia, was "rich in good merchandise". Most of the foreign merchants coming to Ayutthaya were European and Chinese, and were taxed by the authorities. The kingdom had an abundance of rice, salt, dried fish, arrack, and vegetables.

Trade with foreigners, mainly the Dutch, reached its peak in the 17th century. Ayutthaya became a main destination for merchants from China and Japan. It was apparent that foreigners began taking part in the kingdom's politics. Ayutthaya's kings employed foreign mercenaries who sometimes joined the wars with the kingdom's enemies. However, after the purge of the French in the late 17th century, the major traders with Ayutthaya were the Chinese. The Dutch from the Dutch East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC), were still active. Ayutthaya's economy declined rapidly in the 18th century, until the Burmese invasion caused the total collapse of Ayutthaya's economy in 1767.

In 1511, immediately after having conquered Malacca, the Portuguese sent a diplomatic mission headed by Duarte Fernandes to the court of King Ramathibodi II of Ayutthaya. Having established amicable relations between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Siam, they returned with a Siamese envoy who carried gifts and letters to the King of Portugal. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit the country. Portuguese mercenaries would also play a major role in the invasion of Lanna in 1539 by King Chairachathirat, and Portuguese soldiers would be considered a respected fighting force for the Kingdom across its existence. Five years after that initial contact, Ayutthaya and Portugal concluded a treaty granting the Portuguese permission to trade in the kingdom. A similar treaty in 1592 gave the Dutch a privileged position in the rice trade.

Foreigners were cordially welcomed at the court of Narai (1657–1688), a ruler with a cosmopolitan outlook who was nonetheless wary of outside influence. Important commercial ties were forged with Japan. Dutch and English trading companies were allowed to establish factories, and Thai diplomatic missions were sent to Paris and The Hague. By maintaining these ties, the Thai court skillfully played off the Dutch against the English and the French, avoiding the excessive influence of a single power.

Historiography

Contemporary accounts of Ayutthaya

The amount to which Ayutthaya texts were destroyed in the Burmese sack of 1767 varies greatly. Van Vliet's written records on Siam is the earliest written history of Siam and Ayutthaya, which date from the early to mid 17th century and likely used the religious temple chronicles as his source. The earliest surviving palace chronicle is the Luang Prasoet chronicle, which dates from 1681. The histories of Ayutthaya was not regarded as important until the age of commerce and peace in the 17th and 18th centuries. The religious chronicles are also important to understanding Ayutthaya, which date as early as the 16th century. Early Ayutthaya did not write down its history. A significant portion of written evidence must therefore come from outside accounts. Aside from Van Vliet, a number of Europeans in the 17th and early 18th century wrote surviving accounts of Siam. The Chinese palace chronicles are also instrumental in analyzing Ayutthaya's history.

The Ayutthaya Testimonies are another important account of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. Based on the testimonies of the former inhabitants of the Ayutthaya Kingdom and survived by three different documents, these accounts attests to the description of the city of Ayutthaya and the Ayutthaya Kingdom prior to and during its fall in 1767.

Post-Ayutthaya historiography

The history of the Ayutthaya Kingdom has been relatively neglected in Thai and foreign historiography, despite extensive research on particular periods of its four-century history. Baker and Pasuk's A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World, published in 2017, was the first English-language academic book to examine the entire four centuries of the kingdom's history. Southeast Asian historiography developed largely around post-colonial capitals. Because Thailand was never fully colonized, it lacked a European patron through which a national history might have been constructed until the arrival of American influence in the 1960s.

In the early Rattanakosin period, King Rama I compiled surviving Ayutthaya legal records into the Three Seals Law in 1805. Early Rattanakosin documents traced their "national" origins to the founding of Ayutthaya in 1351. In the early 20th century, however, Thai elites drew on European nationalism to construct a nationalist history that diminished Ayutthaya's role. Sukhothai was presented as the first "Thai" kingdom and a golden age of "Thai-ness", associated with Buddhism, Thai-style democracy, free trade, and the abolition of slavery; Rattanakosin represented the "rebirth"; and Ayutthaya the period of decline between them. Ayutthaya consequently remained largely neglected in Thai historiography for much of the half-century following the works of Prince Damrong in the early 20th century.

The nationalist histories of Ayutthaya pioneered by Prince Damrong focused primarily on kings, warfare, and the territorial subjugation of neighbouring states. These themes remain influential in Thailand and in popular historical narratives. From the 1970s onward, however, a new generation of scholars in Thailand and abroad challenged this historiography, beginning notably with Kasetsiri's The Rise of Ayudhya (1977). These scholars increasingly examined the commercial and economic dimensions of Ayutthaya that older accounts had neglected. Newly published sources and translations, including Chinese and Dutch materials, further broadened access to the subject over the following decades.

In 1999, Kasetsiri argued that "Ayutthaya was the first major political, cultural, and commercial center of the Thai."

The "General Crisis" hypothesis

The idea that Ayutthaya declined after the Europeans left in the late 17th century was first advanced by the Rattanakosin court to legitimise the new dynasty against the Ban Phlu Luang line, and revived in recent decades by Anthony Reid's "Age of Commerce" thesis. Victor Lieberman, followed by Baker and Phongpaichit, challenged Reid's hypothesis. Lieberman argues that Reid extrapolated from a maritime example to the mainland, and instead points to the Qing revocation of the maritime ban and the resulting growth of China–Siam trade. On this view, Ayutthaya's importance lay in its role as a regional Asian trade centre rather than in European dominance.

In popular culture

Love Destiny (TV series) (บุพเพสันนิวาส; Bupphesanniwat), 2018 Thai historical television series

The Legend of Suriyothai, 2001 Thai biographical historical drama film series about Queen Suriyothai

King Naresuan, 2007–2015 Thai biographical historical drama film series about King Naresuan