Pathom Suriya

Padumasūriyavaṁśa () is a ruler of early Siamese historical tradition whose reign is conventionally dated from 757 to 800 CE. Thai chronicle sources and two 17th-century French accounts of Siam present him as the first Siamese king and as the ancestor from whom the later dynasties of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya traced their descent.

No contemporary evidence attests him, and every element of the account — his name, his seat, and the polity he is said to have ruled — is reconstructed from later texts that disagree with one another. His reign falls in the period of Dvaravati decline in the lower Chao Phraya basin.

The identification of his kingdom is the principal scholarly problem. Thai tradition places his seat at Tchai Pappe Mahanacon (), variously equated with Indaprasthanagara and, by earlier scholarship, with Angkor; the Ayutthaya Testimonies instead locate the city east of Sankhaburi in the Phraek Si Racha region of the central Menam valley. The Angkorian equation is difficult to reconcile with the date of 757, which precedes the foundation of Yaśodharapura by more than a century.

Names

The subject appears under several names, none of which can be shown to be contemporary. Thai tradition knows him as Padumasūriyavaṁśa () and as Phra Pathom Suriya Narani Saworabophit (). French sources render the latter as Pra Poat Honne Sourittep Pennaratui Sonanne Bopitra in Du Royaume de Siam and as Sommedethia Ppra Pattarma Souria Naaranissavoora Boppitra Seangae () in the Instructions Given to the Siamese Envoys Sent to Portugal in 1684. Michael Smithies and Thai scholars have equated these forms with Padumasūriyavaṁśa.

Sources

The genealogical account in Du Royaume de Siam is thought to derive from a copy of an Ayutthaya chronicle carried to France, as noted by Abbé de Choisy; the original is believed lost in the second fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. Voyage de Siam (1686) preserves related material, as do the 1684 Instructions to the envoys sent to Portugal.

On the Thai side, the Ayutthaya Testimonies supply his regnal figures and offspring, while the Chronicle of the Padumasūriyavaṃśa, composed in 1932 and reprinted in the 1938 Collection of Chronicles (), gives a fuller and substantially different narrative of his origins. The latter is a composite tradition that appears to combine several Siamese and Khmer narratives into a single story centred on Padumasūriyavaṃśa. It incorporates accounts of his origins and a reign that, according to European accounts, began around 757, while extending its narrative to events associated with the independence of the Sukhothai Kingdom in the 13th century. This chronology would make Padumasūriyavaṃśa's lifespan implausibly long, approaching six centuries.

These sources do not agree. Du Royaume de Siam counts ten kings after him; the Ayutthaya Testimonies count fifteen. They also give different accounts of his adoption.

Historical context

His reign coincides with the fragmentation of the coastal Mon–Dvaravati states of the lower Chao Phraya basin. Before his time the polity associated with Qiān Zhī Fú, identified by some scholars with a toponym mentioned in Chinese sources as Gē Luó Shě Fēn, had absorbed the western Dvaravati and Sukhothai regions, while the eastern Dvaravati polity centred on Lavapura, later known as the Lavo Kingdom, retained a degree of autonomy. Thai textual tradition nonetheless holds that both the Sukhothai and Lavo regions were eventually brought under Padumasūriyavaṁśa's authority. A comparable expansion of Si Thep's reach in this century has been proposed on art-historical rather than textual grounds. Hiram Woodward, who places Si Thep within Wen Dan, suggests that a Si Thep powerful enough to dominate the 8th century may have exercised some control not only over Lopburi but over sites further west, Nakhon Pathom, U Thong and even Khu Bua, and asks whether central Dvaravati should accordingly be understood as having pre- and post-Wen Dan phases. He presents this as a possibility rather than a finding, and offers an alternative in which Dvaravati features at Si Thep resulted from a peaceful movement of monks preceding Wen Dan's rise rather than from conquest. On Hoshino's identification of Chinese toponyms other than Wen Dan with Si Thep, which underlies the account above, Woodward reserves judgement.

Traditional records

Birth and adoption

Two incompatible accounts survive. The Ayutthaya Testimonies state that he was adopted by a monk named Subhattā (), then residing at Sankhaburi, who afterwards secured his accession to the vacant throne of Indaprasthanagara. In contrast, the Chronicle of the Padumasūriyavaṃśa makes him the adopted son of Ketumāla; however, Ketumāla is a figure mentioned in Khmer oral legends, whose son was Brahmakumāra. In that account Ketumāla's mother Devavadī had been a queen consort of Gomerāja of Pranagara Khemarājadhānī (); a prophecy of calamity for her newborn son forced mother and child from the court, and they took refuge on the mound of Khok Thalok () near Phra Bat Chan Chum (), where they founded a settlement when Ketumāla was three. Ketumāla, having no biological heir, adopted Padumasūriyavaṁśa and made him crown prince.

Accession and reign

Padumasūriyavaṁśa married Nāṅ Nak () and founded the city later identified as Indaprasthanagara. On Ketumāla's death he succeeded to the throne but governed from Indaprasthanagara rather than Khok Thalok.

The Ayutthaya Testimonies give his reign as forty-three years, ending about 800, and record his accession at the age of fifteen, implying a birth about 742. The date of 757 for the accession comes from Du Royaume de Siam and the Instructions Given to the Siamese Envoys Sent to Portugal in 1684.

Extent of authority

His reign is characterised by the establishment of diplomatic and dynastic relations with China and by territorial expansion, in the course of which Sukhothai, Lavo and Talung ( or , corresponding to modern Prakhon Chai district) are said to have been brought under his suzerainty.

The same region has been discussed in the modern literature as lying within a sphere of influence running in the opposite direction. Hiram Woodward treats the hoard of Buddhist bronzes from the temple site on Plai Bat hill (), which straddles Prakhon Chai and Lahan Sai districts in Buriram province, as plausibly Wen Dan in origin. Observing that an early bronze of that type in the Norton Simon Museum retains the short garment with incised lines found on a bronze Avalokiteśvara from Prasat Ak Yom in the Angkor region, he argues that the tradition derives in part from the Ak Yom sculptors and that craftsmen were moved north as Wen Dan expanded, which he holds the evidence from Si Thep also shows. On his reading Si Thep itself lay within Wen Dan, and a Si Thep powerful enough to dominate the 8th century may in turn have exercised some control over Lopburi, Nakhon Pathom, U Thong and even Khu Bua in the western Chao Phraya basin.

The two accounts therefore describe authority over much the same ground moving in opposite directions: the chronicle has a ruler seated in the central Menam valley extending his suzerainty eastward across the Dong Phaya Yen range to Talung, while Woodward's reconstruction has a polity of the Chi basin reaching westward through Si Thep into the Chao Phraya plain. Their chronologies do not coincide either. Woodward places the Wen Dan expansion in the first half of the 8th century and the polity's last recorded embassy to China in 798, whereas the regnal dates given for Padumasūriyavaṁśa by the traditions, 757 to about 800, fall in the second half of that century. Neither set of dates is independently attested: the regnal figures are supplied by the traditions themselves, and Woodward presents his reconstruction as a hypothesis rather than as an established sequence.

Succession

He was succeeded by his son Padum Kumara, who ruled the polity designated Pāla (). The chronicle relates that this ruler was born with normal skin that later became rough and pitted through illness before being cured by a r̥ṣi, and that he was victorious in wars against a Nāga king who was his maternal grandfather, a description closely paralleling that of in the Isan legend of that name.

A separate tradition records that after his reign a Tai Yuan monarch named Vasudeva (), with three younger brothers, migrated to Lavapura and established authority there in 861.

The following table presents a reconstructed line of succession of Pathom Suriya. Du Royaume de Siam counts ten kings in the succession up to the relocation to Tasoo Nacora Louang, while the Ayutthaya Testimonies count fifteen and do not mention any relocation.

Descendants and dynastic claims

The Ayutthaya Testimonies credit him with four sons and three daughters, whose descendants are said to have founded Oghapurī (, modern Phichit), Vijaya (, modern Thung Yang), Vicitraprakāra ( or , modern Kamphaeng Phet) and Dhamanpāya (, possibly Dhanyapura at Dong Mae Nang Mueang). The wider network attributed to the line also takes in Phrip Phri, Chai Nat, Sing Buri and Phraek Si Racha — all within the Menam valley.

Following the Angkorian incursion of the mid-10th century, his descendant Visnuraja is reported to have moved north to Phitsanulok in 957, his own descendants later returning the seat to the Phraek Si Racha region.

Several later Siamese houses claimed descent from him: the Phra Ruang dynasty through Suryaraja, ancestor of Si Inthrathit; the Xiān rulers of Phraek Si Racha beginning with Visnuraja; the Lavo dynasty of Ayutthaya through Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri; and King Narai of the Prasat Thong dynasty. The Siamese monarchy and population of the Ayutthaya period are understood to have been of multi-ethnic descent, combining Mon, Khmer and Tai components.

Identification and historiographical debates

Equations with Angkorian rulers

Earlier researchers sought to identify Padumasūriyavaṁśa with Angkorian kings, variously Suryavarman II, Yasovarman I, Jayavarman II or Jayavarman VII. Because these scholars took him and his polity to belong to the Angkorian sphere, they placed the traditions about him within the Khmer chronicle tradition.

All such identifications conflict with the date of 757 given in Du Royaume de Siam, which precedes the accepted foundation of Angkorian Yaśodharapura in the late 9th century.

Tchai Pappe Mahanacon and Indaprasthanagara

His seat is named Tchai Pappe Mahanacon in the French accounts and Indaprasthanagara in Thai sources. The latter is placed by the Ayutthaya Testimonies east of Sankhaburi, while the oldest available revision of the Northern Chronicle, published in 1869, places it at 15 days' travel north of Ayodhya. However, earlier Thai scholars and Smithies proposed that it corresponds to Angkor, although Smithies expressed doubt about the identification.

The identification with Angkor has been challenged by Michael Vickery, who noted that the derivation of Indapraṣṭha from the Cambodian Indrapat, combined with the royal title Indrāditya, rests on the toponym sruk indraparāś in Angkorian inscriptions, where sruk denotes a village, commune, or district rather than a royal capital.

The further identifies Indaprasthanagara as the place where Tambralingan Sri Dharmasokaraja I ruled, whose authority has been interpreted as having extended into the Menam valley, including Lavo, Phraek Si Racha, and Suphannaphum. A severe epidemic and consequent depopulation in Indaprasthanagara are said to have driven him south in 1117 to re-establish his seat at Nakhon Si Thammarat, while Lavo passed under Angkorian control. The Ayutthaya Testimonies also reference the city in connection with the formation of the Sukhothai Kingdom, when Candraraja of Sukhothai (r. 1184–1214) ceased sending tribute and defeated the retaliatory campaign that followed. The last appearance of Indaprasthanagara is in the narrative concerning Fa Ngum's campaigns to unite the Lao muang, which culminated in the formation of the Lan Xang in 1353.

The transfer of the seat

Du Royaume de Siam records that ten kings followed him, the last being Sunthorathet, who moved the political centre to Tasoo Nacora Louang (). The 1684 Instructions call the new centre Yassouttora Nacoora Louang. Sunthorathet was succeeded by 12 monarchs, the last of whom was Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri, who reconstructed Phetchaburi in 1157/58 and moved north to Soucouttae/Locontàï around 1188/89. He subsequently returned to Phetchaburi. Meanwhile, the Ayutthaya Testimonies refer to Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri as Intharacha () and state that he succeeded his relative Jatiraja () at Mueang Sing around 1150. This raises the possibility that Yassouttora Nacoora Louang was Mueang Sing, which contains a major Bayon-style temple contemporary with these accounts.

Smithies proposed identifying Yassouttora Nacoora Louang with Yaśodharapura on phonetic grounds, considering it “definitely” Angkor. This creates a problem if Tchai Pappe Mahanacon or Indaprasthanagara is also identified with Angkor, as proposed by Smithies but with some doubt. The account would then describe a transfer between two places identified as the same city.

Chronological and contextual objections

Beyond the date of 757, the political geography of the 8th century tells against an Angkorian location. Vickery characterised the Tonlé Sap basin of that period as politically fragmented, which stands in marked contrast to the Thai narratives depicting Padumasūriyavaṁśa's reign as an era of consolidation in which Sukhothai, Lavo and Talung were brought under a single authority.

See also

• Indaprasthanagara
• Ketumāla
• Phraek Si Racha
• Xiān