Sukhothai, ‘the dawn of happiness’: kings, rivals and the birth of a Tai kingdom

In the 13th century, Tai chiefs broke away from Khmer authority and established at Sukhothai a power that rose to prominence, then, in little more than a century and a half, merged into the kingdom of Ayutthaya. This article follows the figures of that story: Pha Mueang and Si Inthrathit, Ram Khamhaeng the conqueror, Li Thai the author of the *Traiphum*, and finally the last rulers, bound by marriage to the rival court. It shows how the rise of Sukhothai reshaped its relations with its neighbours. It also reminds us that our picture of this ‘golden age’ rests on rare and disputed sources, among them a famous stele whose authenticity is still debated.

A city of which only the sanctuaries remain

The visitor who walks through old Sukhothai today moves through a city stripped of almost all its everyday life. The wooden houses have vanished, and so have the royal palaces. Only the religious buildings survive: monasteries (wat), sanctuaries and stupas. This uneven survival shapes the way we see the place. Sukhothai looks like a city of monks, whereas it was also a political capital, a place of exchange and a living city. The Encyclopædia Britannica reports that it may have had some 80,000 inhabitants. The encyclopedia itself hedges the figure: it is no more than an order of magnitude.

Since 1991 the site has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as the ‘Historic Town of Sukhothai and Associated Historic Towns’. This serial property brings together Sukhothai, Si Satchanalai and Kamphaeng Phet, over some 11,700 hectares. The grouping makes sense. Sukhothai was not an isolated capital but the centre of a network of cities, or mueang. The word denotes both a town and the territory that depends on it.

The name is commonly translated as ‘the dawn of happiness’, a phrase taken up by National Geographic among others. It captures the symbolic weight of the place well: in Thai history, Sukhothai stands as a beginning. Yet that status deserves scrutiny. The image of a founding kingdom, prosperous and just, owes a great deal to a single source, the so-called Ram Khamhaeng stele, discovered in 1833. It also owes much to the reading that scholars and the Siamese court made of it in the 19th and 20th centuries. To speak of Sukhothai is therefore to speak both of a 13th-century power and of a narrative constructed much later. It also means avoiding an anachronism. The founders of this kingdom did not think of themselves as the ancestors of present-day Thailand, a state whose name and borders did not then exist.

Leaving the Khmer orbit: the founders

A first seizure of power, poorly dated

Before it became a Tai centre, Sukhothai answered to an outside authority. The classic interpretation, formulated by George Cœdès and taken up by Britannica, sees it as a dependency of the Khmer Empire. The inscriptions refer to its masters by the term Khom, traditionally understood to mean the Khmers. Sukhothai’s emancipation thus came at the expense of Angkor’s authority in the region. It is the first example of how the rise of this power reshaped its relations with its neighbours.

The origin story begins with Sri Naw Nam Thum, father of Pha Mueang. He is said to have seized Sukhothai from a ruler whom some accounts present as Mon. This mention of a Mon overlord remains isolated and allows no firm conclusion. The date varies too: 1219 according to some, the late 1170s according to others. The Thai writer Chit Phumisak reads the passage differently. In his view, the campaign failed, hence the need for a second. These discrepancies matter. They remind us that this period is reconstructed from fragments of often incomplete inscriptions, whose reading determines the whole narrative.

Pha Mueang and Bang Klang Hao: a conquest for two

The next phase is better known thanks to Inscription No. 2, known as the Wat Si Chum inscription. It features two allied chiefs. Bang Klang Hao takes in turn Mueang Rat, Bang Yang and then Si Satchanalai. Pha Mueang seizes Mueang Bang Khlang, lying between Si Satchanalai and Sukhothai, which serves as their base. Together they defeat Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong, then master of Sukhothai. Pha Mueang then hands the city over to his companion, who reigns under the name Si Inthrathit.

This account describes less the birth of a unified state than a realignment among neighbouring principalities. Tai chiefs, each at the head of his own mueang, join forces, share the spoils and recognise one of their number as sovereign. Britannica presents the episode in its own way. Around 1245, Bang Klang Hao, who ruled a small Tai principality near Sukhothai, is said to have rebelled with Pha Muang against the governor representing Khmer power. He would thus have founded what the encyclopedia calls ‘the first independent Tai state’. The phrase is common, but it follows a national narrative of much later date and should be handled with caution.

The dates diverge as well. Tradition places Si Inthrathit’s accession in 1238. Britannica dates the revolt to around 1245 while attributing to him a reign from 1238 to 1275, and other syntheses end that reign around 1270. The gap seems small, but it rules out any precise chronology.

The full regnal name, Kamrateng An Sri Inthrabodinthrathit, is revealing. The title Kamrateng An has been linked to Khmer honorific vocabulary. If this reading is confirmed, the first Tai power at Sukhothai kept the trappings of prestige of the empire from which it was freeing itself. Breaking with Angkor did not mean renouncing its model. His son Ban Mueang succeeded him, for a reign placed approximately between 1270 and 1279.

Ram Khamhaeng: a reign and its legend

A warrior’s name

With Ram Khamhaeng, who reigned from 1279 to 1298, Sukhothai changed scale. Two accounts explain his name. According to Cœdès, the young prince received the title ‘Phra Ram Khamhaeng’, ‘Rama the Bold’, at the age of nineteen, for his bravery during his father’s campaign against Sukhothai. Inscription No. 1 tells a different story: at nineteen, he is said to have faced Khun Sam Chon, lord of Mueang Chot, who had attacked Tak. The two versions agree on the essential point: royal legitimacy rests first and foremost on martial prestige.

A hegemony, not a territory

Britannica writes that Ram Khamhaeng extended Sukhothai’s hegemony north into present-day Laos, west to the Andaman Sea and south down the Malay Peninsula. ‘Hegemony’ is the right word. It does not denote an administered, bounded territory, as some modern maps suggest, but a network of vassal ties. Local lords acknowledged Sukhothai’s pre-eminence without the court governing their lands directly. These ties were made and unmade according to the balance of power. What followed shows as much: several dependencies seem to have broken away after the king’s death.

It was also during this reign, according to Britannica, that the city’s architectural development began. The same encyclopedia credits the king with standardising the script around 1283. The Sukhothai script now lies at the heart of the identity the city claims for itself.

The portrait of an ideal king

The image of Ram Khamhaeng is dominated by Inscription No. 1. UNESCO describes it as a eulogy that portrays Sukhothai as an ideal state: good governance, the rule of law, economic freedom, Buddhist morality. That is precisely why caution is needed. A eulogy is not a report: it says what those in power wished to be remembered for. The text tells us about the royal ideal being proclaimed at least as much as about the reality of the reign.

Stele No. 1: cornerstone and stumbling block

A well-described object

The nomination file submitted to UNESCO by the Thai national committee describes the object precisely. It is a pillar of siltstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock, 114.50 cm high. Each of its four faces is 35.50 cm wide, and the top is cut into a pyramid. The faces carry 35, 35, 27 and 27 lines respectively, in the Thai language and the Sukhothai script. The text is dated 1292. The stele was discovered in the old city in 1833 by Prince Mongkut, then a monk and later King Rama IV. It lay in the ruins of Noen Prasat, then taken to be the old palace, near a carved slab regarded as a throne. It is kept at the National Museum in Bangkok, which received it from the National Library in November 1968.

The controversy opened by Michael Vickery

In July 1987, at an international conference on Thai studies held at the Australian National University, the historian Michael Vickery presented a paper with a provocative title: ‘The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription: A Piltdown Skull of Southeast Asian History?’. The Piltdown skull is one of the most famous forgeries in palaeontology. In 1995, in the Journal of the Siam Society, Vickery pursued the discussion. There he recalled that he and the art historian Piriya Krairiksh had disputed whether certain terms in the text truly belong to the language and usage of Sukhothai.

The debate concerns the date of the text, not its value. Vickery stresses that one idea commands consensus, even among sceptics: if the stele was not composed under Ram Khamhaeng, it still retains great historical and linguistic value. Piriya Krairiksh has also insisted on this point. The debate further reminds us that official interpretations have shifted. According to Vickery, as reported in some syntheses, Prince Damrong and King Vajiravudh considered Sukhothai’s triple ramparts datable to the 16th century. The official position is said to have changed only after 1923, with the work of Cœdès.

Where do things stand?

The question has not been definitively settled. According to the available syntheses, electron-microscope analyses suggest that the stone is as old as was thought. Most specialists are said to regard the text as at least partly authentic. The official Thai position is nuanced. The file submitted to UNESCO acknowledges ‘gaps’ that prevent authentication ‘with scientific precision’. It bases authenticity on two elements: the circumstances of Mongkut’s discovery and the wealth of studies devoted to the stele. Its inscription on the Memory of the World Register in 2003 has itself been criticised. A study published online argues that it wrongly serves as a guarantee of authenticity for a document that remains controversial.

For the historian, what is at stake is clear. A large part of the portrait of Ram Khamhaeng, and of the image of a harmonious Sukhothai, depends on this single text. Reading it as a discourse rather than a photograph takes nothing away from its importance. On the contrary, it allows us to understand how a political ideal was formulated, then reappropriated.

Li Thai, king of the Three Worlds

After Ram Khamhaeng, the succession is poorly known. Loe Thai reigned next, but what followed is debated. According to the Thai encyclopedia Sārānukrom Thai, cited by the Library of Congress, Li Thai ascended the throne on Loe Thai’s death. Yet the so-called Pu Khun Chit Khun Chot inscription places another king between them, Ngua Nam Thum, who is said to have reigned from 1323 or 1324 to 1347 or 1348. The two versions cannot both be true; none of the sources consulted makes it possible to decide.

Li Thai, grandson of Ram Khamhaeng, reigned from 1347 under the name Mahathammaracha I. He died between 1368 and 1374. He is best known as the author of the Traiphum Phra Ruang, ‘The Three Worlds according to Phra Ruang’. This Buddhist cosmology describes the organisation of the universe and the place beings occupy within it according to their deeds. Britannica dates it to 1345, two years before its author’s accession if these dates are followed. It also credits him with modifying the script standardised by his grandfather. The king thus appears as a learned sovereign who based his authority on religious knowledge more than on conquest alone. It is a different model of kingship from that of Ram Khamhaeng.

The dynasty’s name dates from this period. According to Prince Damrong, all the kings of Sukhothai also bore the name ‘Phra Ruang’, hence the term Phra Ruang dynasty. Politically, secondary sources claim that under Li Thai Sukhothai regained several dependencies lost since the death of Ram Khamhaeng. The claim has yet to be corroborated, but it confirms the shifting nature of this hegemony.

One detail foreshadows what was to come. A sister of Li Thai married Borommarachathirat I, also known as Khun Luang Pha Ngua, king of Ayutthaya, a power then asserting itself further south. The marriage tie would not prevent war; it would pave the way for fusion.

From Ayutthaya the rival to Ayutthaya the heir

War

If Sukhothai took shape by breaking away from Khmer authority, it faded away before a Tai neighbour. From 1371, Borommaracha I launched a series of campaigns against Sukhothai. According to a specialist website run by an enthusiast, he first took cities in the north, then Nakhon Phangkha and Saengcharao. In 1373, Chakangrao, Sukhothai’s western outpost, held out despite the death of its governor. A fresh invasion followed in 1375. Ayutthaya is said to have needed ‘six invasions in eight years’ to prevail. The details of these campaigns have yet to be corroborated. The overall trend, however, is not in dispute: Sukhothai went from rival to subordinate power.

Marriages

The absorption was not achieved by arms alone. Borommarachathirat II, king of Ayutthaya from 1424 to 1448 and also known as Chao Sam Phraya, had as his mother a sister of Mahathammaracha II and as his wife a sister of Mahathammaracha III. Generation after generation, the two royal houses intermingled. Ayutthaya could thus claim Sukhothai’s heritage by blood as much as by conquest.

An end without a single date

The sources disagree on the end of the kingdom. Britannica dates the conquest of Sukhothai and its incorporation into Ayutthaya to 1438. Another synthesis states that the ‘last king of Sukhothai’ died in 1446. His grandson Trailokanat then inherited the kingdom, before reigning over Ayutthaya from 1448 to 1488. These dates are not necessarily mutually exclusive: they probably measure different stages of a gradual absorption, from the loss of political autonomy to the extinction of a line.

The fate of Sukhothai thus sheds light on the evolution of its neighbours. Khmer authority receded in the region as the Tai chiefs asserted themselves. Ayutthaya, first an ally by marriage, became adversary, overlord and finally heir. Other neighbours, to the north as to the west, had relations with Sukhothai that call for separate examination, on the basis of specific sources.

What Sukhothai handed down

The kingdom disappeared in the 15th century, but its name endures. Two UNESCO recognitions, not to be confused, bear witness to this. In 1991, the site’s inscription on the World Heritage List already rested partly on the stele. In 2003, the stele itself entered the Memory of the World Register. In 2022, Sukhothai joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities, highlighting its script and its inscription. Sukhothai’s heritage is therefore not made solely of brick and stucco. It is also a written language, texts and a way of thinking about power.

It remains to understand exactly what is being inherited. Documented history shows a coalition of Tai chiefs freeing itself from Khmer authority, expanding through war and vassal ties, then merging into a more powerful neighbour. The story of a golden age is something else: it was largely constructed after 1833, around a stele whose date remains disputed. Holding the two together, without confusing one with the other, is perhaps the fairest way of looking at Sukhothai.

Sources and further reading

1. UNESCO, The King Ram Khamhaeng Inscription – Memory of the World, UNESCO, 2003.
2. Thai National Committee on Memory of the World Programme of UNESCO, Memory of the World Register Nomination Form – Thailand – The King Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, UNESCO, 2002.
3. Michael Vickery, Piltdown 3: Further Discussion of the Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, Journal of the Siam Society, vol. 83, 1995.
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sukhothai, Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d..
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sri Indraditya, Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d..
6. National Geographic, A guide to the ruins of Sukhothai, Thailand, National Geographic, n.d..
7. Library of Congress, Lithai, King of Sukhothai, -approximately 1374 (notice d'autorité), Library of Congress Linked Data Service, n.d..
8. non identifié, History of Ayutthaya – Dynasties – King Borommaracha I, ayutthaya-history.com, n.d..
9. Contributeurs Wikipedia, Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, Wikipedia, n.d..
10. Contributeurs Wikipedia, Si Inthrathit ; Mueang Bang Khlang ; Sri Naw Nam Thum ; Ramkhamhaeng ; Ngua Nam Thum, Wikipedia, n.d..
11. Contributeurs Wikipedia, Borommarachathirat I ; Borommarachathirat II, Wikipedia, n.d..
12. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Sukhothai – UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities, UNESCO, 2022.
13. non identifié, International Recognition and Issues of Authenticity in Documentary Heritage: Case Study on The Ram Khamhaeng Inscription of Thailand, ResearchGate, n.d..