Ram Khamhaeng Inscription

Ram Khamhaeng Inscription
The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, on display at the Bangkok National Museum
General Information
Dynasty	Phra Ruang
Inscription type	stele
Script	Lai Sue Thai
Language	Thai
Condition	Conserved
Discovery
Place found	Noen Prasat (nowadays in Sukhothai Historical Park)
Date discovered	1833
Current location	Bangkok National Museum
Contents of the Inscription
Author	Ram Khamhaeng
Location and Status

The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, formally known as Sukhothai Inscription No. 1, is a stone stele bearing inscriptions which have traditionally been regarded as the earliest example of the Thai script. Discovered in 1833 by the future King Mongkut (Rama IV), it was eventually deciphered and dated to 1292. The text gives, among other things, a description of the Sukhothai Kingdom during the time of King Ram Khamhaeng, to whom it is usually attributed. Scholars have also read its account of the kingdom's reach as a network of relationships rather than direct rule, and its picture of the king against Buddhist models of kingship. From the early 20th century the inscription had an immense influence on Thai historiography, which came to regard Sukhothai as the first Thai kingdom.

From the late 1980s to the 1990s, assertions that the stele was a forgery from a later date led to intense scholarly debate, which has not been definitively settled. Subsequent electron microscopy has suggested that the stele is likely to be as old as originally claimed, and most academics in the field today regard it as at least partly authentic. The inscription is widely regarded as the single most important document in Thai history, and was inscribed by UNESCO on its Memory of the World International Register in 2003.

Description and discovery

The inscription was discovered near Noen Prasat (pictured), then believed to be the site of the old palace, now in Sukhothai Historical Park.

The stele is in the shape of a four-sided pillar, mostly square and 35.50 centimetres (13.98 in) wide on each side, with a rounded pyramidal top. It is made of siltstone; the upper section which bears the inscriptions is polished, while the lower part, which probably fitted into a base, remains rough. It is 114.50 centimetres (45.08 in) in total height.

The stele was discovered in 1833 by Prince Mongkut, then a monk, who became king in 1851. Mongkut had made a pilgrimage to the ancient town of Sukhothai. Among the ruins of Noen Prasat, then believed to be the site of the old palace, he discovered the stele and a carved stone slab believed to be the throne of the Sukhothai ruler. He had his retinue bring the objects back to Bangkok, and they were placed in Wat Samo Rai (now named Wat Rachathiwat) where he was residing. The inscription followed Mongkut to Wat Bowonniwet in 1836, and was later moved to the Grand Palace's Dusit Maha Prasat Throne Hall in 1911. It was again moved to the Vajirañāṇa Library in 1924, and was finally acquired by the Bangkok National Museum in 1968, where it is currently on permanent exhibition.

Deciphering

The first face of the inscription

Mongkut made initial studies of the inscription, and in 1836 established a commission, headed by monk-Prince Roek (who would later become Supreme Patriarch Pavares Variyalongkorn), to handle its deciphering. In 1855, Mongkut (now king) presented a lithographic copy of the inscription, with annotations giving partial translations and a letter explaining its significance, to the British envoy John Bowring. Another copy was presented to the French envoy Charles de Montigny in 1856.

The first attempted translation of the text into a Western language was published by the German polymath Adolf Bastian in 1864. French missionary Père Schmitt published his translation in 1884 and 1885, with further revisions in 1895 and 1898. Also in 1898, the first Thai-language work on the inscription was published in the Vajirañāṇa Magazine. A transliteration of the entire inscription into the modern Thai script was printed as a pamphlet for Crown Prince Vajiravudh's tour of the old Sukhothai Kingdom in 1908.

In 1909, Cornelius Beach Bradley, Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California and an expert on the Siamese language, published an English-language translation of the inscription. It was later described as "the first reasonably satisfactory translation" of the inscription into a Western language. An authoritative transcription and translation (into French) was later made by George Cœdès, and published in 1924. Revisions published by A.B. Griswold and Prasert na Nagara in 1971 and the National Library in 1977 improved upon Cœdès's version, and Winai Pongsripian published the most recent Thai transliteration in 2009.

Text

My father's name was Si Inthărathĭt. My mother's name was Lady Süăng. My elder brother's name was Ban Müăng. We, elder and younger born from the same womb were five; brothers three, sisters two.

— Opening lines of the inscription, as translated by Cornelius Beach Bradley

A modern relief accompanying a section of the inscription stating "I engaged Khŭn Sam Chŏn in elephant-duel. I myself thrust Khŭn Sam Chŏn's elephant"

The inscription contains 35 lines of text on its first and second sides, and 27 on the third and fourth. The script used, now known as the Sukhothai script, is an early form of the Thai script (also known as Siamese). It differs vastly from modern Thai and bears some resemblance to ancient Khmer, from which it is considered to have been adapted. Most significantly, it writes all its vowels on the line, whereas later Sukhothai inscriptions, modern Thai and earlier Indic scripts place some above or below it.

The text consists of three sections written continuously without distinct breaks. The first (lines 1–18 of the first side), which is written in the first person, tells the personal history of Ram Khamhaeng's early life up until his becoming ruler. The second (line 18 of the first side to line 11 of the fourth side) describes various aspects of the city of Sukhothai and its customs. These include its abundance, people's freedoms, the ruler's justice, religious practices, and physical and geographical features. The section ends by telling of Ram Khamhaeng's installation of a stone throne in the year 1214 of the Saka era (MS; 1292 CE). It also records the enshrinement of relics at Si Satchanalai in MS 1207 (1285 CE) and his invention of the script in MS 1205 (1283 CE). It refers to Ram Khamhaeng by name throughout. The third section (lines 11–27 of the fourth side) contains praise of the king and describes the reach of his kingdom.

One word in the description of the town, tribur, used of what enclosed it, has long puzzled readers of the inscription. Wilaiwan Khanittanan proposes as a parallel the three encircling walls of Co Loa, the first capital of northern Vietnam. Michael Vickery notes that Vajiravudh and Damrong had both judged Sukhothai's triple walls, from their construction, to be 16th-century works. The official view changed only after 1923, when Cœdès showed that tribur meant "triple wall", so that the walls had to date from the 13th century. Vickery also reports William J. Gedney's suggestion that the word could mean "three" and still designate city walls in general, even a single wall.

Interpretation

According to Cœdès, the inscription was probably made to commemorate Ram Khamhaeng's installation of the stone throne in 1292, and this is the year to which it is generally dated. The final epilogue on the fourth side, which may have served as a eulogy, is written in a different hand, with some differences in spelling, indicating that it was most likely a later addition. In 1983, before the authenticity debate, Sujit Wongthes sided with the view that the inscription was made under Li Thai to glorify his grandfather. He read it as a ritual text addressed to the spirits rather than to readers, since few in the realm could read and its spelling was not taken up afterwards.

Phiset Jiajanphong reads the kingdom's reach, as the inscription gives it, as a record of relationships rather than of rule. On his reading the inscription describes a network binding Sukhothai to the polities around it, extending south to Suphannaphum and Nakhon Si Thammarat. He holds that Ram Khamhaeng's standing as a warrior king has led to readings of Sukhothai's administrative extent far wider than the conditions of the time allow. Saipan Puriwanchana reads the inscription's picture of the king and his town against the Pali canon. She sets nine of its passages beside the Cakkavatti Sutta, the Mahasudassana Sutta and the Puññavipaka Sutta. The pairs include a realm bounded by water, rule by dhamma without rod or weapon, and the keeping of the uposatha on the full and dark days. They also include a palmyra grove with a stone throne and halls, giving to each according to what he lacks, and a city ringed by heavy walls. On her account the image was composed to the cakkavatti and dhammaraja pattern, which served to legitimate rule where the framework was Lankavamsa Theravada.

Barend Jan Terwiel reads the twenty cities the inscription names as allegiance given to Ram Khamhaeng in person rather than as territory held. Nidhi Eoseewong holds that the adherence did not pass to his successors. Dhida Saraya draws four long-distance trade routes from the places the inscription associates with Sukhothai. They run east to the Mekong valley, north to Luang Prabang, west through Chot to Martaban and Pegu, and south to the Gulf. Siroch Sittisombut reads the passage in which the ruler levies no toll, and subjects trade freely in cattle, horses, elephants, silver and gold, as evidence that commerce rather than rice was the kingdom's main revenue.

The inscription, which paints a picture of a plentiful kingdom ruled paternally by a benevolent king, was extremely influential in the development of Thai historiography. Based on works by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab during the 1910s–1920s, Sukhothai came to be regarded as the first Thai capital, a golden age during which Thai values flourished (as opposed to later Khmer-influenced Ayutthaya). This official view is taught in schools and formed the core of mainstream Thai history-writing throughout the 20th century.

Controversy about authenticity

A relief at King Ramkhamhaeng the Great Monument in Sukhothai Historical Park, depicting Ramkhamhaeng overseeing of the creation of the inscription

In July 1987, Vickery presented a paper titled "The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription: A Piltdown Skull of Southeast Asian History?" at the International Conference on Thai Studies at the Australian National University. In it he drew together the arguments made by himself and others casting doubt on the authenticity of the inscription. These included the script used in the inscription, its vocabulary, and its content.

The vocabulary objections include the pronoun phoa, which Griswold and Prasert had translated as a singular. In 1981 Robert Bickner, a student of Gedney, found it to be a first-person dual. Vickery held that the dual does not fit the inscription's own context, which lists three brothers and two sisters and so leaves four siblings after the eldest brother's death. On the content, Vickery pointed to passages in Inscription No. 1 that closely resemble ones in Nos. 3, 4 and 5, set up under Ram Khamhaeng's grandson Li Thai. These had traditionally been read as echoes of No. 1 in the work of later writers, but he argued that the writers of No. 1 had drawn on the Li Thai inscriptions instead. He also read the two sets as describing different institutions, No. 1 implying entailed primogeniture where Nos. 3 and 5 pass property through siblings of one generation before the next. He noted a counter-instance in Inscription No. 10, dated 1404, which carries a formula of descent from father to child and grandchild, though its damaged state leaves the force of the phrase unclear.

The art historian Piriya Krairiksh gave him the most prominent support, publishing further arguments in Thai in August 1988 that the stele was a forgery by Mongkut himself. The claims, which implied that most of Thai history would have to be rewritten, led to intense, often heated, scholarly debate, joined by dozens of academics on both sides. Numerous seminars were held. The debate continued through several publications, including a special volume (in Thai) published by Art & Culture (Silpa Wattanatham) magazine in 1988 and a compilation of English-language articles published in 1991 by the Siam Society.

Counter-arguments were made to address the claims, and a 1990 analysis using scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy found the Ram Khamhaeng stele to be the same age (700–500 years) as four other Sukhothai inscriptions. Several proponents nonetheless remain convinced of the forgery theory, and the debate has not been definitively settled. In 2003 the inscription was inscribed on the international register of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme.

In a 1995 paper, Vickery restated that his purpose had not been to show that the inscription was written at a particular time by a particular person, only that it is not a genuine source for 13th-century Thailand. He had offered to stop speaking of fakery if other historians would reject it as a source for early Thai history, though he doubted they would before a later date of composition was demonstrated. His own estimate placed the writing most probably in the late 18th or early 19th century, by writers who believed they were recording true history in imitation of an ancient document.

The intense scrutiny and analysis also led to a much richer body of scholarship on the inscription, and several new theories have been proposed regarding its purpose and the exact circumstances of its creation. Vickery claimed the criticism of the inscription as the condition for this, and recorded that several historians had taken up his view of its value as a source without conceding forgery. He cited Elizabeth Gosling, who read late 13th-century Sukhothai as a chiefdom rather than a developed Buddhist kingdom. He also cited Srisakra Vallibhotama, for whom the stone's authenticity mattered less than its historical and linguistic value, and David K. Wyatt, who urged that Sukhothai was not the greatest kingdom of its region. The historian Barend Jan Terwiel observed that "the Thai academic world showed a refreshing open-mindedness" in its response to the claims, but the public has sometimes responded with hostility. A 2004 publication in a Thai newspaper by Piriya and British expatriate author Michael Wright (also a proponent of the forgery theory) led to angry protests in Sukhothai. A politician threatened to have them prosecuted for defaming the kings and harming national security.

See also

• History of Thailand
• Piltdown Man, the hoax alluded to in Vickery's paper title