Uthong
gigatos | March 28, 2022
Summary
King Ramathibodi I (in Thai: สมเด็จพระรามาธิบดีที่ ๑? pronunciation), also called Uthong or U Thong (in Thai: สมเด็จพระเจ้าอู่ทอง? ) (Chiang Saen, March 10, 1315 – Ayutthaya, 1369) was a Siamese ruler.In 1350 he founded the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, which would dominate the territory of modern Thailand until 1767, when it was destroyed by the Burmese. He was the founder of the Uthong dynasty, which would become extinct in 1395 to make way for the Suphannaphum dynasty. In the 18 years that he reigned, he distinguished himself for the conquests that enlarged his territories, for spreading Theravada Buddhism and for the important laws that he promulgated.
The news about his life are fragmentary and often unreliable, especially regarding the first years of his life, his name at birth is not known and also his origins are a matter of controversy. He was named Prince Uthong after he married the daughter of the king of Uthong, a city-state that had expanded considerably in those years.
He was born on March 10, 1315 today a district in Chiang Rai Province in Northern Thailand, which at that time was a principality of the Lanna Kingdom. According to some sources, he was the son of the local prince and was related to the Lanna rulers, whose capital was in Chiang Rai.
He moved to the Kingdom of U Thong, a city-state located in today”s Suphanburi area, where in 1331 he married the daughter of the local sovereign and became Prince Uthong. This city, which is identified with the capital of the Kingdom of Suphannaphum, had in those years greatly expanded its territory to the south against the declining Kingdom of Sukhothai. The father-in-law of Ramathibodi had conquered most of the Malay peninsula, annexing in 1325 the areas of Nakhon Si Thammarat, Ratchaburi, Phetchaburi, Tenasserim and Tavoy.
A few years later, Ramathibodi also married the daughter of the ruler of the Kingdom of Lavo, modern-day Lopburi, a principality that fell within the Khmer sphere of influence and controlled the southern part of the Chao Phraya River valley.
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Ascension to the throne
He succeeded the king of Uthong when the latter died in 1347. After probably a smallpox epidemic had struck the city, Ramathibodi temporarily moved the capital to Wiang Lek, a settlement of Chinese merchants a few kilometers south of Ayutthaya, which at that time still did not exist. He gave orders to build a new capital at the confluence of the Chao Phraya, Pa Sak and Lopburi rivers. The particular shape of this confluence had generated an island difficult to attack from a military point of view.
The new capital was ready in 1350 and was called Ayutthaya, whose name derives from a pre-existing Khmer Hindu settlement in the area, which had taken the name of Ayodhya, the ancient holy city of India. It was in that city that, according to legend, Rāma was born, avatar of Viṣṇu and hero of the poem Rāmāyaṇa, a crucial deity in Hindu and Buddhist tradition, from whom Ramathibodi would take its name. According to the ancient chronicles of Ayutthaya, the founding of the city corresponds to the beginning of the reign.
The king of Uthong had himself crowned sovereign of the new Kingdom of Ayutthaya on March 4, 1351, and it was then that he assumed the royal name Ramathibodi I. Under his control were the vassal kingdoms of Uthong, which he left to his brother-in-law Khun Luang Pa Ngua with the title of Borommaracha Chao, and Lavo, at whose head he placed his son Ramesuan.
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Foreign Policy
King Ramathibodi I was a great conqueror. The most significant campaign of his reign, that against the Khmer Empire, which had dominated Indochina for centuries and in recent decades had entered a phase of decline, was the first undertaken as king of Ayutthaya. The Khmer kings had lost the charisma that had characterized them in the period of maximum splendor, the last kings were usurpers and the expansionist plans had given way to bloody fratricidal wars. On the outskirts of the empire, new states had been emancipated for over a century, first and foremost the Tai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Lanna. Ayutthaya itself was formed by absorbing the Kingdom of Lavo, the last Khmer western bastion. Great changes had also occurred under the cultural profile, the state religion had become Theravada Buddhism and had been abandoned the majestic building projects that had given rise to the masterpieces of Khmer architecture of previous centuries.
Ramathibodi took advantage of this weakening and entrusted an army in 1352 to his son Ramesuan who marched on Angkor, the Khmer capital. The incompetence of the young Ramesuan was fatal to this first expedition. The vanguard, composed of 5,000 men, was defeated and the rest of the army was pushed back. Informed of what had happened, Ramathibodi sent a second army in support, led by the governor of Uthong Borommaracha Chao. The reinforcements flattened the defenses and the compact army laid siege to Angkor, which held out for a year before capitulating.
The Siamese entered the city in 1353 (according to Thai sources, the second expedition and the conquest of Angkor dates back to 1369), plundered the city of the immense treasures it held and deported most of the population into slavery. King Lampong Reachea had died during the siege and Ramathibodi entrusted the government to his son, Prince Chao Basath. He died two years later and was replaced by his brother Chao Baat, who died after three months and was in turn replaced by another son of Ramathibodi, Chao Kambang-Pisey. In this way the glorious Khmer Empire became a vassal state of Ayutthaya. The conquest of Angkor led to the annexation of several Khmer territories in today”s areas of the Korat Plateau. Among the Khmer deportees there were also bureaucrats, artisans and Brahmins who would exert influence in Siamese society.
The Khmer royal insignia was secured by Prince Soriyotei and a group of aristocrats who fled to present-day Laos, from where they organized resistance to the Siamese. The following year, the Laotian principalities vassal to the Khmers would be unified by Fa Ngum, who thus became the founder of the Lan Xang Kingdom, the first great state of the Lao people. He had been financed and equipped in the enterprise by the Khmer ruler Lampong Reachea, who thus sealed an alliance with the Lao people in an anti-Siamese function. In the course of the next three centuries, Lan Xang would have constituted a severe obstacle for the expansionist ambitions of Ayutthaya to the east. Soriyotei returned to Angkor in 1357, at the command of an army organized with the help of King Fa Ngum, he took back the throne chasing away the Siamese, whose viceroy Chao Kambang-Pisey was given up for lost.
In 1354 (according to some sources in 1347), Ramathibodi turned his attentions to the declining Kingdom of Sukhothai, an army invaded its territory and took possession of the important city of Chainat. King Lithai of Sukhothai negotiated peace, Ramathibodi accepted the proposals that were made to him and Chainat was returned. There are no records regarding the terms of this agreement. In the following years, Ramathibodi further weakened Sukhothai, taking away several territories in the Malay Peninsula, continuing the work of his father-in-law, ruler of Uthong. He subjugated several principalities, including Singora, and extended the influence of Ayutthaya to Malacca, in the extreme south of the peninsula.
King Fa Ngum of Lan Xang embarked on a military campaign that secured for him in 1357 the conquest of the Korat Plateau, with the subjugation to the north of the principality of today”s Loei Province, and the southern ones of Korat and Roi Et. He then helped Khmer prince Surya Daya drive out the Siamese and regain control of Angkor in 1359. Lan Xang”s capital was Mueang Sua, today”s Luang Prabang, which before the formation of the kingdom was the most powerful of the Laotian principalities. The old aristocracy of Mueang Sua was overshadowed by the one imposed by Fa Ngum, who was associated with Khmer allies, and a clash had been created between the two noble factions.
The growing threat of Lan Xang was averted by Ramathibodi granting in marriage his daughter Keo Lot Fa to Fa Ngum, whose first wife was the daughter of the former Khmer ruler. The arrival of the Siamese princess was welcomed with joy by the old aristocracy of Mueang Sua, who could from that moment count on the support of Ayutthaya in the conflict against the pro-Khmer faction. The internal struggle of the court caused in 1372 the forced dismissal and exile of Fa Ngum, opening the first serious crisis of Lan Xang that would last until the middle of the fifteenth century.
During Ramathibodi”s reign, the instability of the Chinese Empire became more acute, as the Yuan dynasty had been showing signs of collapse for several years and had had to loosen its control over the periphery of the state in order to face various natural disasters and harsh internal revolts. The most serious was that of the Red Turban, which began around 1352 and ended in 1368 with the collapse of the Yuan and the seizure of power by the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
At the death of Ramathibodi, the Ming emperors recognized the enormous growth of Ayutthaya, which became the main interlocutor for Southeast Asia replacing the declining Kingdom of Sukhothai.
Domestic policy
Unlike the Kingdom of Sukhothai, where the sovereign (raja) was a father figure who treated the people good-naturedly according to the teachings of Gautama Buddha (called Dhamma) and was therefore considered a Dhammaraja, Ramathibodi adopted the tradition in use in India and in the Khmer Empire, according to which the sovereign has divine prerogatives (Devaraja) and should be worshiped as such. He took the name of Rāma, warrior deity and royal prince manifested to raise the moral fortunes of men, venerated both in Hinduism and Buddhism as an incarnation of Vishnu and Buddha himself. This relationship between king and people would be maintained in the subsequent history of the country, so much so that even Rama IX, King of Thailand from 1946 to 2016, was revered by many of his subjects as a deity.
According to the traditional system of government called mandala that was in force for many centuries in Southeast Asia, Ayutthaya was not a centralized state. Ramathibodi granted a wide margin of autonomy to the conquered mueangs, at the head of which he left local rulers over whom he exercised relative control. He appointed ministers to help him administer the country, the khun klahng in charge of finance, the khun mueang for the municipalities and the khun nah for agriculture.
Ramathibodi also became famous for the set of laws he enacted, which were based on the code in force in the late Kingdom of Nanzhao (737 A.D.-902), considered one of the cradles of Tai civilization, and on the concepts of laws established in ancient India. Except for minor modifications, his system would remain in force until the end of the 19th century, when King Rama V promulgated a substantial set of new and revolutionary rules. Among the most important laws introduced by Ramathibodi were the following:
He was a deeply religious ruler, professing Theravada Buddhism and making it the state religion in 1360. This faith had become established in Sukhothai during the reign of Ramkhamhaeng (1279-1298), in the northern Lanna Kingdom with Mengrai (1292-1317) and in Lan Xang with Fa Ngum (1354-1372). The Khmer Empire itself, which had previously spread Hinduism in the region, had converted to Theravada Buddhism through King Indravarman III (1295-1308).
On the death of Ramathibodi, in 1369, a conflict for succession arose between his son Ramesuan and his brother-in-law Borommaracha Chao of Uthong. Ramesuan ascended the throne but was forced to abdicate after only one year and was replaced by his uncle, who became the third ruler of Ayutthaya with the name of Borommaracha I. Some sources report that the abdication would have happened peacefully, while others claim that it would have followed a bloody civil war.
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