Thai Buddhism Rock the Globe: July 2008

Lots of devotees went to temple to pay respect to the Buddha but to them, some of the ancient Buddha statues images look similar. But what is the history behind them, a lot of people don't know and yet they still prayed to hope for good fortune and success.

Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhothai_Kingdom;

Sukhothai Period

The Sukhothai kingdom was an early kingdom in the area around the city Sukhothai, in north central Thailand. It existed from 1238 till 1438. The old capital, now 12 km outside of New Sukhothai in Tambon Mueang Kao, is in ruins and is a historical park.

Chiang Saen was established in the early 700s and Mueang Sua (Luang Prabang) around AD 728 making them the first kingdoms established by the Tai-speaking people in southeast Asia, prior to the migration and expansion of the Tai-speaking people into northern Thailand, Laos, and eventually into central Thailand and central Laos.

The city of Sukhotai was part of the Khmer empire until 1238, when two Thai chieftains, Pho Khun Pha Muang and Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao, declared their independence and established a Thai-ruled kingdom. Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao later became the first king of Sukhotai, calling himself Pho Khun Si Indrathit (or Intradit). This event traditionally marks the founding of the modern Thai nation, although other less well-known Thai kingdoms, such as Lanna, Phayao and Chiang Saen, were established around the same time.

Sukhotai expanded by forming alliances with the other Thai kingdoms, adopting Theravada Buddhism as the state religion with the help of Ceylonese monks. Intradit was succeeded by his son Pho Khun Ban Muang, who was followed in 1278 by his brother, Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng. Under King Ramkhamhaeng the Great, as he is now known, Suriyothai enjoyed a golden age of prosperity. Ramkhamhaeng is credited with designing the Thai alphabet (traditionally dated from 1283, on the evidence of the controversial Ramkhamhaeng stele, an inscribed stone allegedly bearing the earliest known Thai writing). At its peak, supposedly stretching from Martaban (now in Burma) to Luang Prabang (now in Laos) and down the Malay Peninsula as far south as Nakhon Sri Thammarat, the kingdom's sphere of influence was larger than that of modern Thailand, although the degree of control exercised over outlying areas was variable.

After Ramkhamhaeng's death, he was succeeded by his son Loethai. The vassal kingdoms, first Uttaradit in the north, then soon after the Laotian kingdoms of Luang Prabang and Vientiane (Wiangchan), liberated themselves from their overlord. In 1319 the Mon state to the west broke away, and in 1321 Lanna placed Tak, one of the oldest towns under the control of Suriyothai, under its control. To the south the powerful city of Suphanburi also broke free early in the reign of Loethai. Thus the kingdom was quickly reduced to its former local importance only. Meanwhile, Ayutthaya rose in strength, and finally in 1378 King Thammaracha II had to submit to this new power.

Sukhotai became a tributary state of Ayutthaya between 1365 and 1378. In 1412 Ayutthaya installed a chief resident, and King Thammaracha IV was installed on the throne by Ayutthaya. Around 1430 Thammaracha moved his capital to Phitsanulok, and after his death in 1438 the kingdom was reduced in status to a mere province of Ayutthaya.

Ayutthaya Period

Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayutthaya_Kingdom;

The kingdom of Ayutthaya was a Thai kingdom that existed from 1351 to 1767. King Ramathibodi I (U Thong) founded Ayutthaya as the capital of his kingdom in 1351 and absorbed poor Sukhothai, 640 km to the north, in 1376. Over the next four centuries the kingdom expanded to become the nation of Siam,whose borders were roughly those of modern Thailand, except for the north, the Kingdom of Lannathai. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese (Annam), Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the city walls. The court of King Narai (1656-1688) had strong links with that of King Louis XIV of France, whose ambassadors compared the city in size and wealth to Paris. When Ayutthaya fell to Burmese attack in 1767, its territory included the Northern Shan states of Burma, Lanna (Chiang Mai), Yunnan & Shan Sri (China), Lan Xiang (Laos), Cambodia, South Vietnam and some of Malaya.

Origins

The Siamese state based at Ayutthaya in the valley of the Chao Phraya River grew from the earlier kingdom of Lavo, which it absorbed, and its rise continued the steady shift southwards of the centre of gravity of the Tai-speaking peoples as other kingdoms in this area such as the kingdom of Supannaphum (Dvaravati) or, the kingdom of Sukhothai. In 1351, to escape the threat of an epidemic, King U Thong moved his court south into the rich floodplain of the Chao

Phraya. On an island in the river which is the seaport city of Ayothaya was settled before, and he founded a new capital, which he called Ayutthaya, after the Hindu holy city Ayodhya in northern India, the birth city of the Hindu god Rama who is the hero in the Hindu epic Ramayana. U Thong assumed the royal name of Ramathibodi in 1351.
Ramathibodi tried to unify his kingdom. In 1360 he declared Theravada Buddhism the official religion of Ayutthaya and brought members of a sangha, a Buddhist monastic community, from Ceylon to establish new religious orders and spread the faith among his subjects. He also compiled a legal code, based on the Indian Dharmashastra (a Hindu legal text) and Thai custom, which became the basis of royal legislation. Composed in Pali -- an Indo-Aryan language closely related to Sanskrit and the language of the Theravada Buddhist scriptures -- it had the force of divine injunction. Supplemented by royal decrees, Ramathibodi's legal code remained generally in force until the late nineteenth century.

Conquests

By the end of the fourteenth century, Ayutthaya was regarded as the strongest power in Indochina, but it lacked the manpower to dominate the region. In the last year of his reign, Ramathibodi had seized Angkor during what was to be the first of many successful Thai assaults on the Khmer capital. The policy was aimed at securing Ayutthaya's eastern frontier by preempting Vietnamese designs on Khmer territory. The weakened Khmer periodically

submitted to Ayutthaya's suzerainty, but efforts to maintain control over Angkor were repeatedly frustrated. Thai troops were frequently diverted to suppress rebellions in Sukhothai or to campaign against Chiang Mai, where Ayutthaya's expansion was tenaciously resisted. Eventually Ayutthaya subdued the territory that had belonged to Sukhothai, and the year after Ramathibodi died, his kingdom was recognized by the emperor of China's newly established Ming Dynasty as Sukhothai's rightful successor.
The Thai kingdom was not a single, unified state but rather a patchwork of self-governing principalities and tributary provinces owing allegiance to the king of Ayutthaya under the mandala system. These countries were ruled by members of the royal family of Ayutthaya who had their own armies and warred among themselves, as well as self governing but subservient Malay states in the south. The king had to be vigilant to prevent royal princes from combining against him or allying with Ayutthaya's enemies. Whenever the succession was in dispute, princely governors gathered their forces and moved on the capital to press their claims.

During much of the fifteenth century Ayutthaya's energies were directed toward the Malay Peninsula, where the great trading port of Malacca contested its claims to sovereignty. Ayutthaya's conquests were unsuccessful, however, due to the military support of Ming China, who backed the Sultanate diplomatically and economically. The Ming Admiral Zheng He had established one of his bases of operation in the port city, so the Chinese could not afford to loose such a strategic position to the Siamese. Under this umbrella of protection, Malacca flourished into one of Ayutthaya's great rivals, until its conquest in 1511 by the Portuguese.

Malacca and other Malay states south of Tambralinga had become Muslim early in the century, and thereafter Islam served as a symbol of Malay solidarity against the Thais. As it failed to make a vassal state of Malacca, Ayutthayan control of the strait was gradually displaced by Malay and Chinese.

Fall

In 1767 Burma invaded Ayutthaya, while totally destroying Ayutthaya. This forced the government to relocate to Thon Buri, near present day Bangkok. It was the last of many Burmese invasions of Ayutthaya.

Till next time.....Ciao!

Buddhism originated from Indian and spread by it followers to rest of the world.

Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Buddhism;

Historical background

Thai Buddhism was based on the religious movement founded in the sixth century B.C. by Siddhartha , later known as the Buddha, who urged the world to relinquish the extremes of sensuality and self-mortification and follow the enlightened Middle Way...... The focus of this religion is on man, not gods; the assumption is that life is pain or suffering, which is a consequence of craving, and that suffering can end only if desire ceases. The end of suffering is the achievement of nirvana (in Theravada Buddhist scriptures, nibbana), often defined as the absence of craving and therefore of suffering, sometimes as enlightenment or bliss

By the third century B.C., Buddhism had spread widely in Asia, and divergent interpretations of the Buddha's teachings had led to the establishment of several sects. The teachings that reached Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) were given in a final written form in Pali (an Indo-Aryan language closely related to Sanskrit) to religious centers there in the first century A.D. and provided the Tipitaka (the scriptures or "three baskets"; in Sanskrit, Tripitaka) of Theravada Buddhism. This form of Buddhism reached what is now Thailand around the sixth century A.D. Theravada Buddhism was made the state religion only with the establishment of the Thai kingdom of Sukhothai in the thirteenth century A.D.

Three major forces have influenced the development of Buddhism in Thailand. They are the Theravada school of Buddhism, imported from Sri Lanka. Secondly, Hindu beliefs received from Cambodia and lastly, Folk religion—attempts to propitiate and attract the favor of local spirits known as phi—forms the third major influence on Thai Buddhism.

Buddhism in Thailand is largely of the Theravada school. Nearly 95% of Thailand's population is Buddhist of the Theravada school, though Buddhism in this country has become integrated with folk beliefs such as ancestor worship as well as Chinese religions from the large Thai-Chinese population. Buddhist temples in Thailand are characterized by tall golden stupas, and the Buddhist architecture of Thailand is similar to that in other Southeast Asian countries, particularly Cambodia and Laos, with which Thailand shares cultural and historical heritage.
For more information, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Buddhism.

I believe many people heard before the mighty warring history of the Alexander the Great, China's Spring and Autumn war and Thailand, same, came from a long way back from wars that change kingdom from long warring period till the present days. Each individual kingdom period portrait out different Buddha culture and images.

Dvaravati Period

The Dvaravati kingdom of the early Thai kingdom existed from the 6th to the 11th centuries. The Kingdom was then absorbed by the growing Lavo and Subharnaburi Kingdoms. People used ancient Mon language but unable to exactly identify the race of the population. There is evidence that this kingdom may have had more than one race, including Malays and Khmer.
Some of the ancient Buddhists statue are displayed below;

Loburi Period

Known as Lavo during most of its history, Lopburi province is one of the most important cities in Thai history. The city has a long history, dating back into the prehistory period since the bronze age of more than 3,500 years ago.Later, it was influenced by the art and culture of India in the 11th century when it entered the historical era. This first period under the influence of Indian culture was called the Dvaravati Period. Since that time, Lavo has been ruled by the Khmer, coming under the influence of their art and culture, in the 15th century, a time commonly called the Lopburi Period in Thai art history. Buddhist Statue are shown below;