Ayutthaya [1351-1767](Thailand)
Ayutthaya is located in the rich rice plains of the Chao Phraya River basin, 90 km north of present-day Bangkok. During the 400 year Ayutthayan period the Thai consolidated their position as the leading power in what is now central and north-central Thailand, as well as throughout much of its southern peninsular region. Since many of Ayutthaya's neighbours called the country "Siam," the Thai of Ayutthaya came to be known as the Siamese. Ayutthaya at first was only a small city-kingdom on the northwestern edge of the powerful Khmer empire. Within less than a century, however, Thai kings succeeded in pushing back the Khmer, and in 1431 they sacked their great capital of Angkor. Wars against neighbouring powers remained endemic throughout the Ayutthayan period. In 1438 a greatly weakened Sukhothai was made a province of Ayutthaya but Chiang Mai(Lan Na)remained free of Ayutthayan control, although it was later brought under Burman influence.
After the Siamese conquered Angkor, they brought many Khmer captives back to Ayutthaya. Some of these had been officials or craftsmen at the Khmer royal court and Ayutthaya's rulers adopted many Hindu practices that had been followed by the Khmer, including the concept of the ruler as god-king. The king acquired powers of life and death over all his people. Only members of the royal family could gaze upon his face and he had to be addressed in a special language used exclusively for royalty. The power of the ruler was enhanced not only through symbolic and ideological concepts drawn from Khmer-Hindu beliefs about the god-king but also through the centralization of political power. The Thai developed a state in which the ruler stood at the centre of a series of concentric circles. The outer circles were governed by hereditary lords, while the inner circles were administered by office-holders appointed by the king.
The kings of Ayutthaya also issued formal codes of civil and criminal law based on ancient Indian jurisprudence. At the same time, a formal and highly complex hierarchical system assigned each person a varying number of units that designated one's rank within society. At the bottom of the scale, a slave was worth 5 units; freemen were ranked at 25 and above, while the heir apparent was assigned no fewer than 100,000 units.
The mass of the people in Ayutthayan times were peasant farmers, either freemen or slaves. The latter included war captives, bondsmen, and debtors. Freemen were obliged to work for six months each year for the local representatives of the king, to pay taxes, and to provide military service as required. An intricate patronage system extended throughout society, whereby clients provided their patrons with services in return for the protection of the patrons. Ayutthaya was an underpopulated society, and the constant need for manpower helped protect clients from excessive demands by patrons; if the demands of the patrons became too burdensome, the freeman could always move and take up new land as a last resort.
Despite the introduction of Brahmanism into court ritual and the admixture of animism and superstition that pervaded religious practice at all levels of society, Theravada Buddhism took deep root throughout Siam during Ayutthayan times. The Buddhist monastic establishment played an important role in society, forming a focal point for village life, providing young males with an education, and offering those who elected to remain in the monkhood a channel for upward social mobility.
At its height, Ayutthaya was one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities of its day. Although it lay inland, it was easily accessible to oceangoing vessels traveling up the Chao Phraya River, and it became a thriving international trade emporium. It was during this period that European traders and travelers first started coming to Siam. The Portuguese reached Siam as early as 1511, following their conquest of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. They were followed in the 17th century by Dutch, English, Spanish, and French traders and missionaries. Ayutthayan kings permitted settlements of Chinese, Indian, and Persian, as well as European, traders. They employed Japanese warriors and allowed Western missionaries to preach within Ayutthayan domains. In addition to engaging in extensive trade with China, Southeast Asia, and India, the rulers of Ayutthaya also sent triennial tribute missions to the Chinese imperial court, established Buddhist missions in Sri Lanka and sent emissaries abroad as far afield as Europe. King Narai (ruled 1656-88) initiated a series of diplomatic exchanges between Ayutthaya and the French court at Versailles and even appointed a Greek adventurer, Constantine Phaulkon, as his chief minister. Eventually, however, the Europeans became overly zealous in their efforts to convert Buddhist Siamese to Christianity. In 1688 the Siamese expelled the French from Ayutthaya and all but closed their doors to the West for the next 150 years.
However, the primary threat to Ayutthayan sovereignty came not from Europe but from Myanmar. In 1569 a force from the Burman state of Toungoo overran Ayutthaya and devastated the country for miles around. Led by Naresuan (ruled 1590-1605), Ayutthaya recovered its independence. Conflict with Myanmar persisted, however, and in the mid-18th century Burman armies once again captured Ayutthaya. This time the city was not to recover. Following the sacking of the city in 1767, the king and members of the royal family, along with thousands of captives, were deported to Myanmar. All Ayutthayan records were burned and its works of art destroyed.
Ayutthaya (/ɑːˈjuːtəjə/; Thai: อยุธยา, Thai pronunciation: [ʔajúttʰajaː]; also spelled Ayudhya) was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1351 to 1767. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese, Indians, Japanese andPersians, and later the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the capital, also called Ayutthaya.
In the sixteenth century, it was described by foreign traders as one of the biggest and wealthiest cities in the East. The court of King Narai (1656–88) had strong links with that of King Louis XIV of France, whose ambassadors compared the city in size and wealth to Paris.
By 1550, the kingdom's vassals included some city-states in the Malay Peninsula, Sukhothai, and parts of Cambodia.[1]
In foreign accounts, Ayutthaya was called Siam, but many sources say the people of Ayutthaya called themselves Tai, and their kingdom Krung Tai "The Tai country" (กรุงไท
According to the most widely accepted version of its origin, the Thai state based at Ayutthaya in the valley of the Chao Phraya River rose from the earlier, nearby Lavo Kingdom (at that time, still under the control of the Khmer Empire) and Suvarnabhumi. One source says that in the mid-fourteenth century, due to the threat of an epidemic, King Uthong moved his court south into the rich floodplain of the Chao Phraya River onto an island surrounded by rivers.[2] The name of the city indicates the influence ofHinduism in the region as it is the Thai pronunciation of the famous Indian city of Ayodhya. It is believed that this city is associated with the Thai national epic, the Ramakien, which is the Thai version of the Ramayana.
Ayutthaya began its hegemony by conquering northern kingdoms and city-states like Sukhothai,[4]:222 Kamphaeng Phet andPhitsanulok. Before the end of the fifteenth century, Ayutthaya launched attacks on Angkor, the classical great power of the region. Angkor's influence eventually faded from the Chao Phraya River Plain while Ayutthaya became a new great power.
The emerging Kingdom of Ayutthaya was also growing powerful. Relations between the Ayutthaya and Lan Na had worsened since the Ayutthayan support of Thau Choi's rebellion In 1451, Yuttitthira, a noble of the Kingdom of Sukhothai who had conflicts withBorommatrailokkanat of Ayutthaya, gave himself to Tilokaraj. Yuttitthira urged Borommatrailokkanat to invade Phitsanulok, igniting the Ayutthaya-Lan Na War over the Upper Chao Phraya valley (the Kingdom of Sukhothai). In 1460, the governor of Chaliang surrendered to Tilokaraj. Borommatrailokkanat then used a new strategy and concentrated on the wars with Lanna by moving the capital to Phitsanulok. Lan Na suffered setbacks and Tilokaraj eventually sued for peace in 1475.
However, the kingdom of Ayutthaya was not a unified state but rather a patchwork of self-governing principalities and tributary provinces owing allegiance to the king of Ayutthaya under The Circle of Power, or the mandala system, as some scholars suggested .[5] These principalities might be ruled by members of the royal family of Ayutthaya, or by local rulers who had their own independent armies, having a duty to assist the capital when war or invasion occurred. However, it was evident that from time to time local revolts, led by local princes or kings, took place. Ayutthaya had to suppress them.
Due to the lack of succession law and a strong concept of meritocracy, whenever the succession was in dispute, princely governors or powerful dignitaries claiming their merit gathered their forces and moved on the capital to press their claims, culminating in several bloody coups.[6]
Beginning in the fifteenth century, Ayutthaya showed an interest in the Malay Peninsula, but the great trading ports of the Malacca Sultanate contested its claims to sovereignty. Ayutthaya launched several abortive conquests against Malacca which was diplomatically and economically fortified by the military support of Ming China. In the early fifteenth century the Ming admiral Zheng He had established a base of operation in the port city, making it a strategic position the Chinese could not afford to lose to the Siamese. Under this protection, Malacca flourished, becoming one of Ayutthaya's great foes until the capture of Malacca by the Portuguese
Starting in the middle of the 16th century, the kingdom came under repeated attacks by the Taungoo Dynasty of Burma. The Burmese–Siamese War (1547–49) began with Burmese an invasion and a failed siege of Ayutthaya. A second siege (1563–64) led by King Bayinnaung forced King Maha Chakkraphat to surrender in 1564. The royal family was taken to Bago, Burma, with the king's second son Mahinthrathiratinstalled as the vassal king.[8][9] In 1568, Mahinthrathirat revolted when his father managed to return from Bago as a Buddhist monk. The ensuing third siege captured Ayutthaya in 1569 and Bayinnaung madeMahathammarachathirat his vassal king.[9]
After Bayinnaung's death in 1581, uparaja Naresuan proclaimed Ayutthaya's independence in 1584. The Thai fought off repeated Burmese invasions (1584–1593), capped by an elephant duel between King Naresuan and Burmese heir-apparent Mingyi Swa in 1593 during the fourth siege of Ayutthaya in which Naresuan famously slew Mingyi Swa (observed 18 January as Royal Thai Armed Forces day). TheBurmese–Siamese War (1594–1605) was a Thai attack on Burma, resulting in the capture of theTanintharyi Region as far as Mottama in 1595 and Lan Na in 1602. Naresuan even invaded mainland Burma as far as Taungoo in 1600, but was driven back.
After Naresuan's death in 1605, northern Tanintharyi and Lan Na returned to Burmese control in 1614.[10]
The Ayutthaya Kingdom's attempt to take over Lan Na and northern Tanintharyi in 1662–1664 failed.[11]
Foreign trade brought Ayutthaya not only luxury items but also new arms and weapons. In the mid-seventeenth century, during King Narai's reign, Ayutthaya became very prosperous.[12] In the eighteenth century, Ayutthaya gradually lost control over its provinces. Provincial governors exerted their power independently, and rebellions against the capital began.
Second Burmese wars[edit]
In the mid-eighteenth century, Ayutthaya again became ensnared in wars with the Burmese. TheBurmese–Siamese War (1759–60) begun by the Konbaung Dynasty of Burma failed. The Burmese–Siamese War (1765–67) resulted in the sack of the city of Ayutthaya and the end of the kingdom bydebellatio in April 1767.
The kings of Ayutthaya were absolute monarchs with semi-religious status. Their authority derived from the ideologies of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as from natural leadership. The king of Sukhothai was the inspiration of Inscription 1 found in Sukhothai, which stated that King Ramkhamhaeng would hear the petition of any subject who rang the bell at the palace gate. The king was thus considered as a father by his people.
At Ayutthaya, however, the paternal aspects of kingship disappeared. The king was considered thechakkraphat (Sanskrit chakravartin) who through his adherence to the law made all the world revolve around him.[13] According to Hindu tradition, the king is the avatar of Vishnu, destroyer of demons, who was born to be the defender of the people. The Buddhist belief in the king is as righteous ruler (Sanskrit: dharmaraja), aiming at the well-being of the people and who strictly follows the teaching of Gautama Buddha.
The kings' official names were reflections of those religions: Hinduism and Buddhism. They were considered as the incarnation of various Hindu gods: Indra, Shiva or Vishnu (Rama). The coronation ceremony was directed by brahmins as the Hindu god Shiva was "lord of the universe". However, according to the codes, the king had the ultimate duty as protector of the people and the annihilator of evil.
According to Buddhism, the king was also believed to be a bodhisattva. One of the most important duties of the king was to build a temple or a Buddha statue as a symbol of prosperity and peace.[13]
For locals, another aspect of the kingship was also the analogy of "The Lord of the Land" or "He who Rules the Earth" (Phra Chao Phaendin). According to the court etiquette, a special language, Rachasap (Sanskrit: Rājāśabda, "Royal Language"), was used to communicate with or about royalty.[14][15] In Ayutthaya, the king was said to grant control over land to his subjects, from nobles to commoners, according to the Sakna or Sakdina system[16] codified by King Borommatrailokkanat (1448–88). The Sakdinasystem was similar to, but not the same as feudalism, under which the monarch does not own the land.[17] While there is no concrete evidence that this land management system constituted a formal palace economy, the French François-Timoléon de Choisy, who came to Ayutthaya in 1685, wrote, "the king has absolute power. He is truly the god of the Siamese: no-one dares to utter his name." Another 17th-century writer, the Dutchman Jan van Vliet, remarked that the King of Siam was "honoured and worshipped by his subjects second to god." Laws and orders were issued by the king. For sometimes the king himself was also the highest judge who judged and punished important criminals such as traitors or rebels.[18]
In addition to the Sakdina system, another of the numerous institutional innovations of Borommatrailokkanat was to adopt the position of uparaja, translated as "viceroy" or "prince", usually held by the king's senior son or full brother, in an attempt to regularise the succession to the throne—a particularly difficult feat for a polygamous dynasty. In practice, there was inherent conflict between king and uparaja and frequent disputed successions.[19] However, it is evident that the power of the Throne of Ayutthaya had its limit. The hegemony of the Ayutthaya king was always based on his charisma in terms of his age and supporters. Without supporters, bloody coups took place from time to time. The most powerful figures of the capital were always generals, or the Minister of Military Department, Kalahom. During the last century of Ayutthaya, the bloody fighting among princes and generals, aiming at the throne, plagued the court.
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