Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri

Origins and parentage

According to the Ayutthaya Testimonies, he was born to Queen Indrasujādevī (อินทสุชาเทวี), principal consort of King Anuraja of Phraek Si Racha,^[3]: 44 whose seat lay at Sing Buri (or Mueang Sing).^[3]: 43 Anuraja is presented in the same text as belonging to the line of Visnuraja, described there as a descendant of the Padumasuriyavaṃśa of Indaprasthanagara.^[3]: 38 He was the last ruler of the Phraek Si Racha line, losing the region to Sri Dharmasokaraja II of Tambralinga around 1167.^[8]: 38

Move to Sukhothai–Nakhon Thai

Du Royaume de Siam and the Instructions of 1684 record that he moved the political centre from Tasoo Nacora Louang to Soucouttae (Sukhothai) and Locontàï (Nakhon Thai) in about the 1150s.^{[1][4]: 127} The move coincides with the reconsolidation of the lower Menam basin under Sri Dharmasokaraja II from 1157. His authority there appears to have lasted until about 1180, when Angkorian expansion carried military and political influence into the area.^{[8]: 39–41}

A parallel movement is recorded for his kinsman Suryaraja, grandfather of Si Inthrathit, who established himself at Vicitraprakāra (วิเชียรปราการ, modern Kamphaeng Phet) in the same years.^[3]: 11 The two lines diverged thereafter. That of Suryaraja expanded northward and forged alliances with Tai chiefdoms, laying the foundation of what became the Sukhothai Kingdom and its Phra Ruang dynasty,^{[3]: 11–29} while the lower line of Phra Phanom Thale Seri became the Lavo dynasty of Ayutthaya.^{[9]: 1, 10}

The move south

The two brothers left the Sukhothai–Nakhon Thai region together in about 1157–58, moving into the western Menam valleys with a reported 50,000 followers.^{[1][4]: 127} Each then came to power separately, the younger first. The Northern Chronicle records that Uthong I, also known as Soi La (สร้อยหล้า), took the vacant throne of Suphannabhum in 1163.^[5]: 61 Phra Phanom Thale Seri succeeded his relative Jatiraja (ชาติราชา) at Jayasimhapuri in about 1169,^{[3]: 45–6} and moved further south to re-establish Phrip Phri in 1188.^{[3]: 46 [4]: 127}

Du Royaume de Siam dates the foundation of Phrip Phri to 1155,^[1] which appears to conflate the brothers' arrival in the region with the later re-establishment of the town. Read as a sequence the dates are internally consistent, the joint move in 1157–58, Uthong I at Suphannabhum in 1163, Jayasimhapuri in 1169 and Phrip Phri in 1188. They accord with his having ruled at Sing Buri or Jayasimhapuri before moving to Phrip Phri.^[3]: 46 While at Phrip Phri he appointed his royal preceptor to govern Phraek Si Racha.^[10]: 120

Phraek Si Racha and Chen Li Fu

In 1180 he recovered the Phraek Si Racha region in the central Menam basin from Sri Dharmasokaraja II, and the polity was reorganised under the name recorded in Chinese sources as Chen Li Fu.^[7]: 1 Walailak Songsiri puts the polity outside Angkorian political authority, and reads the Khmer titles and Indic royal names borne in the western basin as court usage adopted for dealings with the Chinese court rather than as marks of subordination.^{[6]: 7–8, 12} She qualifies the Phraek Si Racha localization herself. Of the small towns of that group, Phraek Si Racha is the one that does not continue from the Dvaravati period, and excavation has not settled whether its occupation begins under the Southern Song or under the Yuan, so she proposes that the seat moved there from the smaller inland waterways.^[6]: 16

Chinese records describe the polity as commanding more than sixty settlements and as the only trading centre on the northern gulf then visited by Chinese ships, its inland capital linked to the sea by river.^{[7]: 1, 9, 11} On 23 September 1200 its king sent senior palace officials to the Song court with a memorial, a gold-engraved scroll in his own hand, two elephants and local products; the embassy reported that he had by then reigned twenty years, placing his accession at about 1180.^[7]: 3 The court, citing distance, instructed the polity to send no further tribute,^[7]: 6 yet further embassies followed in 1202^[5]: 20 and, under his successor, in 1205.^[7]: 16

That the Song court received the 1200 mission at all, during a period when it was discouraging embassies and trade from Southeast Asian kingdoms, has been explained by reference to the tradition in the Legend of Nakhon Si Thammarat that Fang-hui-chih had married a daughter of the Chinese emperor by a Cham princess.^{[11]: 15–16}

Conflict and alliance with Tambralinga

His territorial expansion brought him into conflict with the southern polity of Tambralinga in 1196.^[e] According to the Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle the hostilities ended in negotiation and an alliance between the two dynasties.^[8]: 41

The alliance mattered in the mid-13th century, when Tambralinga was destabilised by the Javanese Singhasari invasion and a concurrent outbreak of plague between roughly the 1260s and 1270s.^{[8]: 42–3} Phanomwang (พระพนมวัง), a prince of the Phetchaburi–Ayodhya line, was appointed by the king of Phetchaburi to restore Nakhon Si Thammarat, the former Tambralinga capital, together with his wife Sadieng Thong (สะเดียงทอง) and their son Sri Racha (เจ้าศรีราชา).^[12]: 81 This produced the Sri Thammasokaraj dynasty [th] and carried Siamese influence south across the Kra Isthmus. Succession there remained patrilineal, but confirmation of a ruler required formal appointment from Ayodhya, marking a continuing link between the northern and southern domains.^{[12]: 81–2}

Consorts, succession and death

Two queen consorts are recorded. Mani Mala (มณีมาลา) appears in the Ayutthaya Testimonies,^[3]: 46 and Chandradevi (จันทรเทวีศรีบาทราชบุตรีศรีทองสมุทร) in the Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle as the daughter of a Chinese emperor and the Cham princess Chandramouli.^{[11]: 15–16}

During his reign in the western valley a polity identified as Xiān sent a tributary mission to Đại Việt in 1182,^{[13]: line 25} probably building on the commercial relations established in 1149, during his father Anuraja's rule in the Phraek Si Racha region, when merchants from Xiān were permitted to establish a trading post at Yún tún (雲屯), modern Vân Đồn.^{[13]: line 61}

In 1205 his son Uthong II took the throne of Ayodhya.^[8]: 41 The Northern Chronicle adds that Uthong II married the daughter of a prominent Ayodhya merchant and moved the capital there.^[14]: 64

Intharacha of the Ayutthaya Testimonies

The Ayutthaya Testimonies give an account of an early Siamese monarch, Intharacha, whose career runs closely parallel to that of the ruler of Phrip Phri. Intharacha succeeded his relative Jatiraja as ruler of either Singburi (lit. 'the city of Singha') in Mueang Phraek or Jayasimhapuri (lit. 'the glorious city of Singha'), before moving south to establish himself at Phetchaburi. His reign is given as thirty-five years. His brother Uthong took Singburi after his departure, and his son, also named Uthong, later took the throne of Ayodhya in 1205.^{[3]: 45–7} On these figures his rule at Singburi would fall between 1169 and 1205, ending at Phetchaburi.

Fang-hui-chih of Chen Li Fu

Chinese sources place Chen Li Fu in the Menam valley between 1180 and 1205,^[7] the same span in which Phra Phanom Thale Seri consolidated authority in the same region.^[5]: 27 On this basis Fang-hui-chih has been identified with him.^{[5]: 19–21} The identification rests on three convergences. The territory attributed to each is the same; the twenty-year reign reported to the Song court in 1200 places the accession at 1180, the year of the recovery of Phraek Si Racha; and the accessions of Uthong II at Ayodhya and of Se-li-Mo-hsi-t'o-pa-lo-hung at Chen Li Fu both fall in 1204/1205.^{[15][7]: 16} The successor's Indic name is itself a reconstruction. Se-li-Mo-hsi-t'o-pa-lo-hung was first read as Sri Mahendravarman, and the form Sri Mahidharavarman follows Cœdès's proposal that 13th-century inscriptions use Mahīdhara more often.^[6]: 7 Wyatt keeps the two names apart. Reporting a ruler of Phetburi styled Śrī Maheśvastidṛḍhirājākṣatriya in a year he reads as 1204, who entered trade relations with China and sent troops and colonists north to Chainat and south, he notes that the name is not that of Wolters's and Cœdès's Mahīdharavarman but is close enough to be of interest.^[5]: 20

Whether the polity was subordinate to Angkor during these years is disputed. O. W. Wolters inferred from its rulers' use of the Khmer title Kamrateng that it was a Khmer dependency until 1200, breaking away as Khmer power declined,^[7]: 6–7 while Walailak Songsiri reads the same title as court usage, noting that the Chinese records give kamrateng to the rulers of Sukhothai, Phrip Phri and Chen Li Fu alike, and that the sixty and more settlements dependent on Chen Li Fu had rulers of their own who did not bear it.^[6]: 8 The titulature argument is weakened by the ruler of neighbouring Phrip Phri bearing the comparable style Gan-mu-ding in 1295,^[16]: 140 during a period of Angkorian weakness, when the region also suffered repeated attacks from Xiān.^[17]: 211

Chronological problems

The sources cannot all be right. The Ayutthaya Testimonies state that he died at fifty-five, which with a death in 1205 implies a birth about 1150. But Du Royaume de Siam and the Instructions of 1684 have him already ruling at Tasoo Nacora Louang before moving north in the 1150s. One reconciliation is that he left Tasoo Nacora Louang at a young age, which would compress but not remove the difficulty. Such a departure would correspond to the period in which epigraphic evidence, particularly the Dong Mae Nang Mueang inscription (K. 766) of 1167, indicates that Sri Dharmasokaraja II of a different dynastic line had reasserted authority over the region,^{[18][8]: 38} which may have compelled a realignment or relocation.

A second difficulty concerns the move to Phrip Phri, dated 1155 in the European accounts^[1] but 1188 on the internal logic of the Ayutthaya Testimonies.^[3]: 46 A third is that the narratives concerning Sing Buri and Jayasimhapuri appear to have been interwoven or conflated in the transmission of the text.

Lavapura

Thai sources preserve names closely resembling Yassouttora Nacoora Louang. The Legend of Mueang Nakhon Chai Si (ตำนานเมืองนครไชยศรี) and the Legend of Phra Prathon Chedi (ตำนานพระประโทนเจดีย์), whose events are traditionally dated to 679, describe Nakhon Luang (นครหลวง) and Yassodhon (ยศโสธร) as distinct but adjacent polities,^{[20]: 4–5} and record that Balidhiraja of Sukhothai, son of Kalavarnadisharaja of Lavo, came originally from Nakhon Luang.^[20]: 4 This supports identifying Nacora Louang with Lavapura, the principal city of Lavo.

A further argument runs through the dynastic material. The Ayutthaya Testimonies describe Visnuraja as a descendant of Phatumsuriyawong, whom Thai scholars equate with Pra Poat honne Sourittep pennaratui sonanne bopitra,^[21]: 38 the earliest Siamese ruler named in Du Royaume de Siam,^[1] and whom Michael Smithies further equates with Sommedethia Ppra Pattarma Souria Naaranissavoora Boppitra Seangae of the 1684 Instructions.^{[4]: 127, 133} On this reading Indaprasthanagara, Tchai pappe Mahanacon and Chaya Ppaha Mahanokora are one polity, placed in the central Menam valley, since the Ayutthaya Testimonies locate Indaprasthanagara east of Sankhaburi in the Phraek Si Racha region.^[3]: 4–5 Phra Phanom Thale Seri, a descendant of Phatumsuriyawong through Anuraja, would then have transferred the centre from that polity to Tasoo Nacora Louang.^{[1][4]: 127}

His recorded political and religious activity is confined to the Menam basin. The network runs from Sukhothai–Nakhon Thai,^{[1][4]: 127} Phetchaburi,^[3]: 46 Sing Buri^[3]: 45 and the Phraek Si Racha region,^[5]: 21 Jayasimhapuri,^[3]: 45 Suphannaphum,^[14]: 63 and Ayodhya^[f][8]: 41 After re-establishing Phetchaburi as the Phrip Phri kingdom in 1188 he is said to have undertaken a week-long religious observance at Lavapura,^[3]: 47 then under Angkorian control.^[8]: 39 Taken with the Angkorian-influenced architecture of the region associated with him, this suggests some political or dynastic relationship with the Lavo–Angkorian sphere, and strengthens the case for Lavapura.^[g]

Tha Sao and the upper Nan

On phonetic grounds, Tasoo Nacora Louang has been identified with the village of Tha Sao (บ้านท่าเสา) near modern Uttaradit, reading Tasoo as Tha Sao and Nacoora Louang as "capital" or "royal city". Several archaeological sites lie in the vicinity, most notably the ruins at Thung Yang.^[22]: 53 Thung Yang has been equated with Mueang Rad (เมืองราด) of Sri Naw Nam Thum and his son Pha Mueang, who extended their authority toward Mueang Chaliang and Sukhothai in the early 13th century, developments traditionally regarded as leading to the formation of the Sukhothai Kingdom.^{[22]: 27, 43–51}

The same area has been proposed as the region from which the Tai ruler Chaiyasiri migrated to found Mueang Tri Trueng (เมืองไตรตรึงษ์) after the fall of Yonok Chiang Saen, a polity some scholars identify with Tchai Pappe Mahanacon (ไชยบุรีมหานคร) of the 17th-century European sources. Saen Pom, associated with Mueang Tri Trueng, is said to have moved south and established himself at Thepnakhon (เทพนคร),^{[22]: 54–9} proposed to correspond to Suphannabhum.

Yaśodharapura

A third possibility is the Angkorian capital Yaśodharapura, suggested by the resemblance of Yassouttora to Yaśodhara.^[19] This reading has not been developed in detail and sits awkwardly with the confinement of his recorded activity to the Menam basin.

The Chaiyasiri hypothesis

Thai scholars once held that Uthong I and Phra Phanom Thale Seri were princes of Chaiyasiri, a monarch of Singhanavati in the north who may have migrated to Nakhon Thai during the 11th century. That hypothesis also underpinned the claim that Ramathibodi I, first sovereign of Ayutthaya and a supposed descendant of Phra Phanom Thale Seri, originated at Mueang Uthong. Both have been refuted by later inquiry.^{[9]: 1, 10}

The Ayutthaya Testimonies give the alternative account followed here, that Uthong I and Phra Phanom Thale Seri were sons of Anuraja, whose line succeeded the Padumasuriyavaṃśa dynasty in the polities of Mueang Phraek, Chai Nat^[j] and Sing Buri.^{[3]: 37–46 [k]}

Family tree

The tree below follows the Ayutthaya Testimonies, with descendants supplemented from the Northern Chronicle and the Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle.