The Abridged Royal Chronicle of Ayudhya of Prince Paramanuchitchinorot tr & ed by David K Wyatt - Journal of the Siam Society v 61 (1973) pp 25-50.pdf

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THE ABRIDGED ROYAL CHRONICLE OF AYUDHYA
OF PRINCE P ARAMANUCHITCHINOROT
Translated
and
Edited by
David K.
Wyatt
Of
all
the numerous
versions of the
royal chronicles
(phraratcha-
phongsawadan)
of Ayudhya, probably none is now so neglected
as
the
abridged version
prepared
for King Rama III (Nangklao, 1824-51) in
1850. Its present
neglect is a
relatively late
state
of
affairs,
however,
for it
was
once perhaps
the most widely read
of the Siamese chronicles.
It
deserves renewed
attention not for
its chronological
accuracy,
or for
unusual detail on the
events of Ayudhya's
history, for in these respects
it both shares the defects
of
the major full
versions
of the royal
Its chief
chronicles, and omits
much that is to
be
found
in the others.
interest resides
rather in its
unusual introductory matter
bearing
upon
the origins of
Ayudhya, which
is
to
be found only in
a few
other places.
Its presentation here
also
can serve to bring to
an
English-reading
audience a traditional Thai view of Siamese history otherwise difficult
of access.*
According to the original preface to
the "Abridged Royal Chronicle",
Prince
Paramanuchitchinorot
was
invited by King Rama Ill "to prepare
an
abridgement of
the Royal
Chronicle
of the Succession of the Kings
*
Abbreviations
:
LP
=
the
Luang Prasoet
version
of the Ayudhya chronicles
.
Thai
version
cited
below
in note I;
English tr
anslation
by 0.
Frankfurter, "Events
in Ayudhya
from
Chulasakaraj 686-966,"
JSS
Vl,
pt. 3 (1909), 1-21; reprinted in
S
elected
!lrticles
from T
he
S
iam
S
ociety
Journal,
vol. I (Bangkok, 19 54),
38-62.
Roy.
A
ut.
=
the
"Ro yal
Autograph" edition
of
the
Ayudbya
chronicles
,
edited by
King Mongkut
in
18
55,
and further
edited by
Prince
Damrong Rajanubhab
and
published in
191
2.
The
best
edition, and
the
first
to
appear in
a single
volume is
Phraratchaj>
hongsawadan
chabap
ph
rarli
tchahatl~kha
(Chonburi,
1968).
All
references are
to this edition
.
26
David K. Wyatt
of the
Old Capital" on
May
18, 1850.1 This
would
a
ppear to be that
king's only expressed
interest
in
Siamese
history as such, alth
ough
he is
known
frequently
to
have been
concerned
for
the fate of mu
ch
of
Si
amese
culture
in the
face of the changes rapidly engulfing th
e kingdom
in the
course of his
reign.2
Perhaps, slightly
less
than a year before his own
death, the
king
was
beginning
to
consider
his own place in history.
When invited
to
compile
the chronicle,
Prince
Parama
nuchit
was
approachicg his
sixtieth
birthday. By then
he
was the
eldest
surviving
son
of
King Rama I, having
been
born of
't:
haochqm
mandii
C
bai {later
thao
Songkandan) on December 11,
1790.
He
bad entered
the Bud dhist
monkhood as a novice in
1802, and
was ordained a monk in
1810.
Remaining at Wat Phrachetuphon
(Wat
Ph6) throughout his long
career,
he beca me abbot of that monastery as early as 181
4.
Rama III later
gave
him charge of
a
ll the monasteries
in
Bangkok
and ecclesiastical
rank
eq
uivalent to that of a deputy patriarch of the Siamese Sangha,
and under King Mongkut he
became
Supreme Patri
arch
from 1851 until
his death on
December
9,
1853.
The
stron
gest
early influence
on the prince's life
was his
preceptor
at
Wat Phrachetuphon
,
Somdet
Phra Phonnarat
(1735-ca. 1814), who
was
unquestionably
the
leading
historian
of
his day,
quite
apart
from
his ecclesiastical responsibilities.
Shortly
after
the
great Buddhist
Council
of
1788 'Nben the
Pali
canon
was
revised
under
Rama J's
sponsorship, this
monk
had written in
Pali
a
learned history
of all the
Buddhist Cou
ncils
from earliest
times,
including
in
his account
a short
I)
v
The orig
inal p
re
fa
ce
is repr
oduced
in
the
onl y
modern ed
ition of
this work, in
PhrarutchnphDngsawadcm
Kru
11
g S
i
Ayutthaya
(ch
abap
luang Siinj;rasuet lae
chabaj;
hnmph ra Paramfinuchitchinorot
)
lae
phougs{nc·ulan
niia
.
..
(2 vvols
..
Bangkok:
Kh urusapba,
1961 ), vol. 1, p
.
kh
.
The date
is
printed here
as
Ch
.S.
1202,
Year
of the
Dog,
second of th
e
decade,
Saturday the
seventh
day
of
the waxing mo
on
of the
se venth
month
;
but
120
2 was
a Year of
the
Ra t, not the Dog ;
a
nd
"Satur-
day the seventh etc." did not occur in
1202.
It
did,
howeve
r,
occur
in
12
12,
which
was
a Yea
r
of
the Dog, second of the decade.
2) See
H.
H. Prince Dhani Nivat,
"The
Inscr ip
tions
of Wa t Phra Jetubon
,"
.ISS
xxv
r,
pt.
2
o
933)
,
14
3-
70.
3) Biographical
details
are taken fr
o
m
R"atchasakula
zuong
(8th
ed
itio n
, Bangkok,
1969
),
pp.
12-13;
Prince
So
mmo t Amoraphan
and
Prince Damrong
Rajanubha
b,
Riiang
tang
phrarar.haM
ana
ph
uyai
nai
krung
rattanakosin
(Bangkok,
19 2 3),
pp.
96-102. An extensive biography is
provided
in Nattha wut Sut thisongkh
ra
m,
Phraprawat
lae
phraniphon
kh
~ng
somd
et p
hramahiisamanaUwo kromphra
Pm·a-
manuchitchinorot
(Bangkok, 1962)
.
+
HE
ABRIDGED
ROYA
L
CHRONICLE
OF
AYUDHYX
27
-
history of Siam.
4
At some time during
the
same period he wrote
a
Pali
chronicle
of
the
Mons,
the
Mahayuddhakarava'!lsa
(apparently
never
published) and
a
Pali chronicle
of
Ayudbya and
its
antecedents, the
Ctdayuddhakara
va
f!1sa.
5
It
was
undoubtedly th
is
proven
historiographical
skill that com mended him to King Rama I, who in 1807 entrusted
the
revision of the Ayudhya chronicles to Somdet Phra Phonnara
t and
the
prince-novice Paramanuchit, then only seventeen years of age.6
As the successor of Somdet Phra Phonnarat at Wat Phrachetuphon,
Prince Paramanuchit must have fallen heir to that monk's papers, and
he certainly maintained his early interest in Thai chronicles. The
version
of
the chronicles they prepared in 18077 became, in a
sense,
definitive, and served as
the
basis for all subsequent versions.
It
was
this version which Prince Paramanuchit provided the American mis-
sionary
Dan Beach Bradley for printing in the 1850s or 1860s,
together
with two
abridged versions,
the longer of
which
is presented heres.
Prince Para manuchit's "Abridged Royal Chronicle"9 is an original
piece
of
work,
different
in
some respects
both from the 1807
"British
Museum
Version" and from
the
"Two-volume
Printed Version"
with
which
it
was first published. Like the 1807
version,
and unlike Bradley's,
it includes
a lengthy
section
dealing
with Siamese history prior
to the
fo
unding
of
Ayudhya
in 1350.
The
tales
related here,
however,
are
not
the
same as
those
related
in
the
1807
version,
but rather more like
those
related
by Somdet Phra Phonnarat
in
his
Culayuddhakarava'!lsa.IO
Similarly,
the "Abridged
Royal
Ch
ronicle"
has
several
points
of
d
ifference
in
chronology
with
both other versions.
4)
Sai,
gitl.ym·at;lsa
(Bangkok, 19
2
3)
.
5)
Only
two
por tions of
which
have survived,
one published under the
orig
inal
t
itle
(Bangkok,
1920),
and ano
ther in
P,·aclwm
phcngsawadan,
pt. 66
(Bangkok,
196C),
pp.
4
1-83.
6)
Tri Amatyakul,
"
Phlitaeng
nangsti
phraratchaphongsawadan chabap phim
2
lem,"
Sinlap!ikon
Vi:
1 (May 1962), 33.
7)
The
"B
ritish
Museum
Version,"
Phmrlitchaplwngsawad-;ir; K•·ung
Sayam
(Bangkok ,
!964)
.
See
Busakorn Lailert,
"
Phraratchaphongsawadan
krung si
ayutthaya,"
S
inlapui<T;n
XII : 2
(J uly 1968),
89-93, on
relations betw
een
the
various
vers
ions.
8)
Bradley's
version,
usually
termed the "two-vol ume printed
edition
(clwbap
plzim
2
lem
)"
and
formeriy erroneously attributed
to Prince Paramanuchit, was
first
publi
shed
in
186
3
as
Nangsii
riiang phraratc/wphongsawadan.
9)
Ibid .,
vol.
I,
pp.
1 ff.
I
0) See above, note
5.
28
David K. Wyatt
There are not many abridged versions of Siamese history extant.
The well-known Luang Prasoet
version
might be considered one. Besides
Prince Paramanuchit's, there is only one other known to this author,
a king-list in verse dating from some time
in the
nineteenth century,
composed by
an officer of
the Front Palace,
perhaps
in King Mongkut's
reign." As
Luang
Prasoet's
version was
not discovered until 1907, it
was natural that Prince Paramanuchit's abridged
version should
have
been selected for use
as a textbook in
the
first public schools
in Siam,
where it seems to have continued to be
employed well
into
the
twentieth
century.
*
*
*
In preparing the
following translation, a
few
general principles
have been followed.
The
translator
has attempted to
render
the
text in
readable English,
and thus
has not always
translated word-for-word.
This is especially the case
with
royal verbs,
where
English equivalencies
a few words in length
sometimes
have been used for
much
longer Thai
phrases. Transcription
was
found to be
a particularly
thorny problem,
and two systems have had to be employed:
a
phonetic
system virtually
identical to the Royal
Academy's
"General System"
for Thai words and
names, including toponyms;
and
the
"Graphic
System" for Sanskrit and
Pali names and titles.
An attempt has been
made
to keep
annotations to a minimum,
and
no systematic
effort
has been made to correlate
sections of
this text with
other
versions of
the
Ayudbya chronicles. As
its
chronology
is so much
at variance with the
Luang Prasoet
Version,
however, the "Accepted
Chronology" has been
added
to
the heading for each
reign and
individual
dates compared to
other
dates for the
same events.
The text upon
which
this
translation
is based is that published in
1961 by the
Teachers'
Institute
Press.l2
11)
L
amdaf'
lwsat K
n
mg
K.ao
kham
chan
(Bangkok
,
19
70), first published
in the
magazine
IV
achira:y(m
,
no. 85
(Oct. 1901)
.
12) See
above,
note 1.
·i'HE
ABRlD
GF.D
ROYAL
CHRON
ICL
E
OF AYUDHYA
29
THE ABRIDGED ROYAL
CHRONICLE OF
AYUDHYA
We begin the Royal Chronicle from the time of the consecutive
rule of the ancient
maharajas
in this country
of
Siam, as follows.
Originally,
a
king was ruling in Chiangrai in the Yonakapradesa, which
was his capital. There
was
a king, a
maharG.ja,
who ruled
miiang
Sat<;5m,' whose troops
attacked
Chiangrai;
and after
a battle the king of
Chiangrai was defeated and lost
his
principality to the ruler of Sat9m.
So
he evacuated the population
of Chiangrai,
fleeing
the
enemy, and
came to the region of this country of Siam, and crossed the Ph5 River2
to a deserted principality,
miiang
Paep, directly
across
the river from
miiang
Kamphaengphet.
3
The
marvellous virtue of that king was so
bright
as
to reach the
Lord
Indra,
who, appearing
in the bodily form of
an ascetic, descended [to
earth] and showed
himself before the royal
elephant [of the king]
.
Then he said,
"Build your
capital here, in this
auspicious
location, safe from
danger
and
enemies."
Then he vanished
from before [the king's]
ey
es. Rejoicing,
the king of
Chiangrai said,
"That holy
ascetic surely
must have been
Indra, assuming
bodily form
to come and
speak
to us."
Thereupon
he
established
dwellings, quarters,
and forces in that place.
Then he had
his
capital built, with its earth-
works, fortresses, moat,
gates,
and
fighting
towers
all
complete. Then
he had his
royal
palace built
and homes for all his officers,
counsellors,
and people,
so
that all dwelt
within
[the
walls
of] his
miiang.
The
miiang
was given the name
"Traiyatrtin~a
[Thirty-three
(heavens)]" as
(lndra) had pointed it out to him. He reigned in that
city
until his
death; and his royal
sons and
grandsons ruled
and
carried
on
the family
for four
generations. At that
[later] time, there was
an unfortunate
man whose body
was
covered
with
fleshy knobs [carbuncles?], so that
everyone called him
nai
Saen
PCJm
[M
r.
100,000 Carbuncles].
Nai
Saen
I) In Bradley's
edition, Sat(?ng.
Possibly That6n
in
Burma
?
2) Traditionall
y,
the
stretch of
the Ping River between T
ak an
d Paknampbo, from
which the
latter
takes
its
name
.
3) Dhanit
Yupho
(Ri.iang
miiang Traitriing
U
Th~ng
lae Ayiit!wya,
4th ed., Cha-
choengsa.o ,
1969,
pp. 9-12) locates this place
at some
deserted ru
ins
400-500
sen
{16
-2
0
km.) south of
Kampbaengphet
on
the west
bank of
the
Ping River.
In this same volume be
analyses
this origin tale
of Ayudhya
in some detail.
See
also
Phya Anuman
Rajadbon, "A
Study on Thai
Folk Tale,"
JSS
Llll, pt. 2
(July
1965},
133-38.

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