Ayutthaya Kingdom

The kingdom of Ayutthaya ruled Thailand between 1351 and 1767. King Ramathibodi I (U Thong) founded the capital Ayutthaya (อยุธยา) in 1350 and absorbed Sukhothai, 640 kilometers to the north, in 1376.. Over the next four centuries, the kingdom expanded to become the nation of Siam, with its borders roughly following the borders of modern Thailand, except in the north, by the Kingdom of Lannathai. Ayutthaya was friendly to foreign trade, be it Chinese, Indian, Japanese or Persian, and later Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British and French, allowing them to establish populations outside the city walls. The court of King Narai (1656-1688) had strong contacts with the court of King Louis XIV of France, whose ambassadors compared the city in size and wealth to Paris.

Historical summary

The state of Siam, established at Ayutthaya in the Chao Phraya River valley, was formed around the kingdom of Lopburi, which was absorbed. Its growth continued in the southern area of the center of gravity of the Thai-speaking peoples. Uthong was an adventurer supposedly descended from a wealthy Chinese merchant family who married into royalty. In 1350, to escape the threat of an epidemic, he moved his court south to the rich fields of the Chao Phraya basin. On an island in the river, he founded the new capital, to which he named Ayutthaya, named in reference to Ayodhya in northern India, the city of the hero Rāma in the Hindu epic Ramayana. /i>. U Thong took the name of Ramathibodi (1350-60).

Ramathibodi tried to unify his kingdom. In 1360 he declared Theravada Buddhism the official religion of Ayutthaya and had members of a sangha, a Buddhist monastic community, brought from Ceylon to establish new religious orders and propagate the faith among his subjects. He also compiled a legal code, based on the Indian Dharmashastra (a Hindu legal text) and Thai customs which was the basis of royal legislation. Written in Pali, an Indo-Aryan language close to Sanskrit and which was the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism, this code had the force of a divine interdict. The royal code of Ramathibodi, supplemented by royal decrees, was in force until the late nineteenth century.

At the end of the 14th century Ayutthaya was considered the main power in Southeast Asia, but without enough people to dominate the region. In the last year of his reign, Ramathibodi took Angkor, in the first of many victorious assaults on the Khmer capital. These offensives were intended to secure the eastern border of Ayutthaya, forestalling Vietnamese expansion into Khmer territory. The Khmer kingdom, due to its weakness, was periodically subjected to the lordship of Ayutthaya, but attempts to maintain control over Angkor were repeatedly frustrated. Thai troops were often assigned to quell rebellions in Sukhothai or to camp against Chiang Mai, which tenaciously resisted Ayutthaya's expansion. Finally Ayutthaya conquered the territory that had belonged to Sukhothai and the year after Ramathibodi's death, his kingdom was recognized as the legitimate successor of Sukhothai by the newly established Ming dynasty.

The Thai Kingdom was not a single unified state, but a web of self-governing principalities and provinces that paid tribute and were loyal to the king of Ayutthaya under the mandala system. These states were ruled by members of the royal family of Ayutthaya who had their own armies and waged war against each other. The king had to be vigilant to prevent alliances of princes against him or alliances with the enemies of Ayutthaya. Whenever the succession was in dispute, the princely governors gathered their forces and moved to the capital to make their claims heard.

For much of the 15th century, Ayutthaya's energies were directed towards the Malay Peninsula, where the great commercial port of Malacca contested their claims to sovereignty. Malacca and other Malay states south of Tambralinga had become Muslim at the turn of the century and Islam later served as a symbol of Malay solidarity against the Thai. Although Ayutthaya failed to subdue the state of Malacca, it gained lucrative control of trade on the isthmus, which attracted Chinese merchants of specialty goods for luxury markets in China.

In 1767 Burma invaded Siam and destroyed Ayutthaya completely and this ended an era of proud Siam. This invasion of Siam by neighboring Burma, the most powerful nation in Southeast Asia at the time, was one of many throughout history.

Thai Kingdom

Thai rulers were absolute monarchs with a partially religious function. They derived their authority from ideal qualities they were said to have. The king was the moral model, who personified the virtue of his people and his country lived in peace and prospered because of his meritorious actions. In Sukhothai, where Ramkhamhaeng was said to hear the requests of any subject who rang the bell at the palace gate to summon him, the king was revered by his people as a father. But the paternal aspect of the reign disappeared in Ayutthaya, where under Khmer influence, the monarchy retreated behind a wall of taboos and rituals. The king was considered chakkraphat, the Sanskrit-Pali term for universal prince who, by adhering to the law, made the entire world revolve around him. Just as the Hindu god Shiva was the “lord of the universe,” the Thai king became by analogy “lord of the land,” distinct from his subjects in appearance and orientation. According to elaborate court etiquette, a special language, Phasa Ratchasap, was even used to speak with or about royalty.

The king was ultimately recognized as the earthly incarnation of Shiva, or devaraja ("divine king" in Sanskrit), and became the object of a politico-religious cult led by the body of royal brahmins who were part of the court's Buddhist retinue. In Buddhist symbols, the devaraja was a bodhisattva, that is, a person who has achieved enlightenment and who out of compassion renounces nirvana to help others. Belief in divine kingship prevailed until the eighteenth century, although at that time its religious implications were of limited importance. The Abbé de Choisy (France) who traveled to Ayutthaya in 1685 wrote that “the king has absolute power. He is truly the god of the Siamese: no one dares to say his name. Another seventeenth-century writer, the Dutch Van Vliet, said that the king of Siam was honored and adored by his subjects more than a god.

One of the many institutional innovations of King Trailok (1448-1488) was to create the office of uparaja, or heir apparent, usually the eldest of the king's sons or a full brother. This was an attempt to regularize the succession to the throne – a feat for a polygamous dynasty. In practice, there was inherent conflict between the king and uparaja and frequent disputed successions.

Social and political development

The king was at the head of a highly stratified political and social hierarchy that extended throughout society. For Ayutthaya society, the basis of organization was the community of a population, made up of extended families. Generally the elected chief carried out the common projects. Land titles were held by the chief in the name of the community, although peasants with property could use the land as long as they cultivated it.

With abundant reserves of arable land available, the viability of the state depended on the acquisition and control of sufficient human resources for farming and defense. The spectacular rise of Ayutthaya had required constant wars and the outcome of the battles generally depended on the size of the armies, since neither participant possessed a technological advantage. After each victorious campaign, Ayutthaya transferred a number of conquered people to its own territory, where they were assimilated and added to the workforce.

Each free man had to register as a serf or “phrai” with the local lord or “nai”, for military service or compulsory work in public works and on the lands of the officer to whom he was assigned. The phrai could also fulfill his obligation to work by paying a tax. If he considered forced labor for his nai to be repugnant, he could sell himself as a slave to another nai, who would then pay a sum to the government in compensation for the lost forced labor. Up to a third of the available labor force in the nineteenth century was composed of phrai.

Wealth, status and political influence were interrelated. The king assigned rice fields to governors, military commanders, and court officials in payment for their services to the crown, following the sakdi na system. The size of an officer's plot was determined by the number of people he could send to work. The amount of manpower a nai could command determined his status relative to others in the hierarchy and his wealth. At the apex of the hierarchy, the king, who had the most land in the kingdom, also commanded the largest number of phrai, who were called phrai luang (royal servant), who paid taxes, served in the royal army, and worked the crown lands. King Trailok established definitive plots and phrai for royal officials at each step in the hierarchy, thereby determining the social structure of the country until the introduction of salaries for government officials in the nineteenth century.

The Chinese and the body of Buddhist monks, called “shangha”, to which all kinds of Siamese could join, were partly outside this system. The Buddhist monasteries or “wats” became centers of Siamese education and culture, while in this period the Chinese began to settle in Siam and in a short time began to take control of the country's economy: another old social problem. The Chinese were not required to register for compulsory labor, so they were free to travel around the kingdom and engage in trade. By the sixteenth century, the Chinese controlled the internal trade of Ayutthaya and had taken important positions in the civil and military service. Most of these men took Thai women as wives, because few women left China to accompany the men.

Ramathibodi I was responsible for the drafting of the Dharmashastra, a legal code based on Hindu sources and Thai traditions. The Dharmashastra remained part of Thai law well into the nineteenth century. A bureaucracy based on the hierarchy of officers of rank and title was introduced and society was organized in a way reminiscent of India's caste system, although not as strict.

The sixteenth century witnessed the growth of Burma, which under an aggressive dynasty, had taken Chiang Mai and Laos and waged war on the Thais. In 1569 Burmese forces along with Thai rebels, mostly members of the royal family of Siam, captured the city of Ayutthaya and took the entire royal family to Burma. Dhammaraja (1569-90), a Thai governor who had helped the Burmese, was placed as a vassal king in Ayutthaya. His son, King Naresuan (1590-1605) turned against the Burmese and around 1600 forced them to leave the country and restored independence.

Determined to prevent another betrayal like that of his father, Naresuan undertook the unification of the country's administration directly from the royal court in Ayutthaya. He ended the practice of appointing princes to govern the provinces of Ayutthaya, assigning instead court officials who were to carry out the policies dictated by the king. Subsequently the royal princes were limited to being in the capital. The power struggles continued, but at court under the watchful eye of the king.

To ensure his control over the new class of governors, Naresuan decreed that all freemen subject to the phrai had become phrai luang, directly subject to the king, who distributed the use of their services to his officers. This measure gave the king a theoretical monopoly over labor and encouraged the idea that since the king owned all the services of all the people, he also owned all the land. The ministerial offices and governorships, as well as the “sakdi na” that accompanied them, were generally hereditary positions dominated by a few families linked to the king through marriages. In fact, Thai kings often used marriage to cement alliances with each other and with powerful families, a custom that continued into the nineteenth century. As a result of this policy, the king usually had dozens of wives.

Even with Naresuan's reforms, the effectiveness of the royal government in the next 150 years should not be overestimated. Royal power outside the crown lands, although absolute in theory, was limited in practice by the looseness of civil administration. The influence of central government ministers was not extensive until late in the nineteenth century.

Economic development

Thai people never lacked a rich source of food. Peasants planted rice for their own consumption and to pay taxes. Everything that was left over was used to maintain religious institutions. However from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century an extraordinary transformation took place in Thai rice cultivation. In the highlands, where rainfall had to be supplemented by an irrigation system that controlled the water level in flooded rice paddies, the Thais grew sticky (glutinous) rice, which remains the main food in geographical regions of the north and northeast. But in the Chao Phraya Valley, farmers used a different variety of rice, so-called “floating rice,” a thin, non-sticky rice brought from Bengal that grows fast enough to keep pace with rising water levels in the rivers. lowland fields.

The new variety grew easily and abundantly, producing a surplus that could be sold cheaply abroad. Ayutthaya, located at the southern end of the valley then became a center of economic activity. Under royal patronage, canals were dug through compulsory labor through which rice was transported from the fields to the king's ships for export to China. In the process, the Chao Phraya delta, mudflats between the sea and the mainland that until then were considered uninhabitable, was recovered and cultivated.

Contacts with the West

In 1511 Ayutthaya received a diplomatic mission from the Portuguese, who that same year had conquered Malacca. These were probably the first Europeans to visit the country. Five years after this initial contact, Ayutthaya and Portugal concluded a treaty granting the Portuguese permission to trade in the kingdom. In 1592 a similar treaty gave the Dutch a privileged position in the rice trade.

Foreigners were cordially welcomed at the court of Narai (1657-1688), a monarch with a cosmopolitan vision who was nevertheless suspicious of outside influence. Important trade 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. Maintaining all these ties, the Thai court skillfully used the Dutch against the English and the French against the Dutch in order to avoid the excessive influence of a single power.

However, in 1664 the Dutch used force to demand a treaty granting them extraterritorial rights as well as freer access to trade. At the request of his foreign minister, the Greek adventurer Constantinos Phaulkon, Narai asked France for help. French engineers built fortifications for the Thais and built a new palace for Narai in Lopburi. Additionally, French missionaries dedicated themselves to education and medicine, bringing the first printing press to the country. Louis XIV himself was interested in reports from missionaries suggesting that Narai could convert to Christianity.

However, the French presence encouraged by Phaulkon aroused resentment and suspicion among Thai nobles and Buddhist clergy. When it became known that Narai was dying, a general, Phetracha, killed the designated heir, a Christian, and had Phaulkon and some missionaries killed. The arrival of English ships precipitated the slaughter of more Europeans. Phetrachaque reigned 1688-93, seized the throne, expelled the remaining foreigners, and began a period of one hundred and fifty years during which the Thais consciously isolated themselves from contact with the West.

In the early twentieth century, Thailand, having learned the lesson of Burma, a militarily stronger neighboring country that failed to protect itself from the British Empire in 1885, used a flexible and compromising approach in its foreign relations with numerous Western countries and Japan.

The final phase

After a bloody period of dynastic struggle, Ayutthaya entered its golden age, a relatively peaceful period in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, in which art, literature and learning flourished. Ayutthaya continued to compete with Vietnam for control of Cambodia, but a greater threat came from Burma, where the new Alaunghphaya dynasty had subjugated the Shan states.

In 1765 Thai territory was invaded by three Burmese armies that converged on Ayutthaya. After a long siege, the city surrendered and was burned in 1767. Ayutthaya's artistic treasures, the libraries with its literature and the archives that kept its historical records were almost completely destroyed and the city was left in ruins.

The country was left in chaos. Some provinces proclaimed themselves independent states under the command of military leaders, opportunistic monks and cadet members of the royal family. However, the Thais escaped Burmese domination through a timely Chinese invasion of Burma and the leadership of a Thai military commander, Phraya Taksin.

All that remains of the ancient city are some impressive ruins of the royal palace. King Taksin established the capital at Thonburi, on the banks of the Chao Phraya River and opposite the current capital Bangkok. The ruins of the historic city of Ayutthaya and “associated historic villages” in Ayutthaya Historical Park have been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The city of Ayutthaya was refounded near the ancient city and is today the capital of the Ayutthaya province.

List of rulers of the Ayutthaya dynasty

• Ramathibodi I (formerly Prince Uthong) 1350-1369
• Ramesuan 1369-1370 (abdicated)
• King Boromma Ratchathirat I (Pangua) 1370-1388
• Prince Thong Lun 1388
• King Ramesuan 1388-1395 (second reign)
• Rama Ratchathirat 1395-1409
• King Nakarinthara Thirat (Inthararatcha I) 1409-1424
• King Boromma Ratchathirat II (Samphraya) 1424-1448
• Boromtrailokanat 1448-1488
• Boromma Ratchathirat III (Inthararatcha II) 1488-1491
• Ramathibodi II (1491-1529)
• Boromma Ratchathirat IV 1529-1533
• Prince Ratsadatiratkumar 1533; child king
• King Chaiya Ratchathirat 1534-1546
• Prince Kaeofa (Or Yotfa) (regent attached 1546-1548); child King & Queen Si Sudachan
• King Worawong 1548
• King Chakrapat (reinated 1548-1568) " Queen Suriyothai " (d.1548)
• Mahintharathirat 1568-1569
• Sanpet I (Prince Maha Tammaratchathirat) 1569-1590
• Naresuan El Grande (Sanpet II) 1590-1605
• Sanpet III (Ekkatotsarot)1605-1610
• Sanpet IV (Prince Si Saowapak) 1610-1611
• King Boromma Ratcha I (Songtham) 1611-1628
• Boromma Ratcha II (Prince Chetthathirat) 1628-1629
• King Atitthayawong 1629; child but with the title Somdet Phra
• King Sanpet V (Prasat Thong) 1630-1655
• King Sanpet VI (Chai(Chao Fa Yai)) 1655
• King Sanpet IV (If Suthammarat) 1655
• Narai the Great 1656-1688
• King Petratcha 1688-1703
• King Sanpet VIII (Suriyentharathibodi, Luang Sorasak or Phrachao Sua ('The King Tigre') 1703-1709
• King Sanpet IX (Phuminthararatcha or Tai-sra) 1709-1733
• King Boromarachathirat III (Boromma Kot) 1733-1758
• Boromaratchathirat IV (Utompon) 1758
• King Boromaratcha V (Suriamarin or Ekkathat) 1758-1767