Ram Khamhaeng

90
Ram Khamhaeng bigraphy, stories - 3rd king of the Phra Ruang dynasty, ruling the Sukhothai Kingdom in Thailand

Ram Khamhaeng : biography

– 1298

Pho Khun Ram Khamhaeng ( ca. 1237/1247 – 1298) was the third king of the Phra Ruang dynasty, ruling the Sukhothai Kingdom (a forerunner of the modern kingdom of Thailand) from 1278–1298, during its most prosperous era. He is credited with the creation of the Thai alphabet and the firm establishment of Theravada Buddhism as the state religion of the kingdom. Recent scholarship has cast doubt on his role, however, noting that much of the information relating to his rule may have been fabricated in the 19th century in order to legitimize the Siamese state in the face of colonial threats.Intellectual Might and National Myth: A Forensic Investigation of the Ram Khamhaeng Controversy in Thai Society, by Mukhom Wongthes. Matichon Publishing, Ltd. 2003.

Life and rule

Birth

He was a son of Prince Bang Klang Hao, who ruled as King Sri Indraditya, and Queen Sueang,Prasert Na Nagara and Alexander B. Griswold (1992). "The Inscription of King Rāma Gāṃhèṅ of Sukhodaya (1292 A.D.)", p. 265, in Epigraphic and Historical Studies. Journal of the Siam Society. The Historical Society Under the Royal Patronage of H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn: Bangkok. ISBN 974-88735-5-2. though legend claims his real parents as an ogress named Kangli and a fisherman. He had two brothers and two sisters. His eldest brother died while young. The second, Ban Muang, became king following their father’s death, and was succeeded by Ram Khamhaeng following his own death.Prasert and Griswold (1992), p. 265-267

Name

At age 19, he participated in his father’s successful invasion of the city of Sukhothai, formerly a vassal of the Khmer, establishing the independent Sukhothai kingdom. Because of his conduct in the war, he allegedly was given the title "Phra Ram Khamhaeng" (Rama the Bold), though he is recorded in the Ayyutthaya Chronicles as King "Ramaraj". After his father’s death, his brother Ban Muang ruled the kingdom and gave Prince Ramkhamhaeng control of the city of Si Sat Chanalai.

The Royal Institute of Thailand speculates that Prince Ram Khamhaeng’s birth name was "Ram" (derived from the name of the Hindu epic Ramayana’s hero Rama), for the name of him following his coronation was "Pho Khun Ramarat" (). Furthermore, at the time it was a tradition to give the name of a grandfather to a grandson; according to the 11th Stone Inscription and Luang Prasoet Aksoranit’s Ayutthaya Chronicles, Ram Khamhaeng had a grandson named "Phraya Ram", and two grandsons of Phraya Ram were named "Phraya Ban Mueang" and "Phraya Ram".

Accession to the Throne

Historian Tri Amattayakun () suggests that Ram Khamhaeng should have acceded to the throne in 1279, the year he grew a sugar palm tree in Sukhothai City. Prasoet Na Nakhon of the Royal Institute speculates that this was in a tradition of Thai-Ahom’s monarchs of planting banyan or sugar palm tree on their coronation day in the hopes their reign would achieve the same stature as the tree. The most significant event at the beginning of his reign, however, was the elopement of one of his daughters with the Captain of the Palace Guards, a commoner who founded the Ramanya Kingdom and commissioned compilation of the Code of Wareru, which provided a basis for the Law of Thailand in Siam until 1908, and in Burma until the present.

Rule

Ramkhamhaeng formed an alliance with the Yuan Dynasty of Mongol Empire, from whom he imported the techniques for making ceramics now known as Sangkhalok ware. Additionally, he had close relationships with the neighboring rulers of nearby city-states, namely Ngam Muang, the ruler of neighboring Phayao (whose wife he, according to legend, seduced) and King Mangrai of Chiang Mai. According to Thai national history, Ramkhamhaeng expanded his kingdom as far as Lampang, Phrae and Nan in the north, and Phitsanulok and Vientiane in the east, the Mon states of Burma in the west, as far as the Gulf of Bengal in the northwest and Nakhon Si Thammarat in the south. Yet, in the Mandala Southeast Asian political model, as historian Thongchai Winichakul notes, kingdoms such as Sukhothai lacked distinct borders, instead being centered on the strength of the capital itself.Siam Mapped: A history of the geo-body of a nation, by Thongchai Winichakul, University of Hawaii Press. 1994. p 163. Claims of Ramkhamhaeng’s large kingdom were, according to Thongchai, intended to assert Siamese/Thai dominance over mainland Southeast Asia.