History of Northern Thailand.

Lan Na is the name of a conglomerate of Thai city-states that covered roughly the area of modern north Thailand between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Lan Na's influence reached far into the neighbouring regions, most under the leadership of the city-state of Chiang Mai. Beginning with the popular legends, this wide-ranging narrative takes us through prehistoric and protohistoric periods, through history, up to the present day. While the writing of Lan Na history is still in its infancy, this brief and highly readable volume is a welcome step towards developing a fuller history of Northern Thailand.

For centuries, wherever Thai Buddhists have made their homes, statues of the Buddha have provided striking testament to the role of Buddhism in the lives of the people. The Buddha in Lanna offers the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of Buddha statues. Drawing on palm-leaf manuscripts and inscriptions, many never previously translated into English, the book reveals the key roles that Thai Buddha images have played in the social and economic worlds of their makers and devotees from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries. Author Angela Chiu introduces stories from chronicles, histories, and legends written by monks in Lanna, a region centered in today’s northern Thailand. By examining the stories’ themes, structures, and motifs, she illuminates the complex conceptual and material aspects of Buddha images that influenced their functions in Lanna society. Buddha images were depicted as social agents and mediators, the focal points of pan-regional political-religious lineages and rivalries, indeed, as the very generators of history itself. In the chronicles, Buddha images also unified the Buddha with the northern Thai landscape, thereby integrating Buddhist and local conceptions of place. By comparing Thai Buddha statues with other representations of the Buddha, the author underscores the contribution of the Thai evidence to a broader understanding of how different types of Buddha representations were understood to mediate the “presence” of the Buddha. The Buddha in Lanna focuses on the Thai Buddha image as a part of the wider society and history of its creators and worshippers beyond monastery walls, shedding much needed light on the Buddha image in history. With its impressive range of primary sources, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Buddhism and Buddhist art history, Thai studies, and Southeast Asian religious studies.

The country now known as Thailand achieved its present form in the nineteenth century. Before then for over five hundred years there flourished the independent kingdom of Lanna (one million rice fields). Over the centuries the kingdom developed fascinating and distinctive art, architecture, language and culture. This book explores these elements.

Presently part of northern Thailand.

The Khmer civilisation centred on Angkor was one of the most remarkable to flourish in Southeast Asia.

Woman between Two Kingdoms explores the story of Dara Rasami, one of 153 wives of King Chulalongkorn of Siam during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in a kingdom near Siam called Lan Na, Dara served as both hostage and diplomat for her family and nation. Thought of as a harem by the West, Siam's Inner Palace actually formed a nexus between the domestic and the political. Dara's role as an ethnic Other among the royal concubines assisted the Siamese in both consolidating the kingdom's territory and building a local version of Europe's hierarchy of civilizations. Dara Rasami's story provides a fresh perspective on both the sociopolitical roles played by Siamese palace women, and Siam's response to the intense imperialist pressures it faced in the late nineteenth century. Thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through The Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

A translation from Dai Yuen of one of the major versions of the Chronicle of Chiang Mai, a major city in northern Thailand, which was the capital of Lanna Thai, a former kingdom in northern Thailand.

The first full history of a great commercial and political center that rose in Asia over almost five centuries.

Written after a battle fought in approximately 1475, this poem may be the oldest work of literature from Siam. It features the earliest and most detailed description of a Siamese army, the most elaborate eulogy of an early Thai monarch, and a fascinating discussion of the concept of loyalty. Scenes of personal treachery, heroism, combat, and looting after victory give an absorbing image of early Siam. This translation shares the poem--esteemed in Thailand for its historical and literary importance--with a wider audience. Blank verse conveys the rhythm and atmosphere of the original, and annotations explain obscure words and concepts. An afterword analyzes form, content, and the poem's literary and historical significance.