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Xian Kingdoms 暹國 (Chinese) Xiān Guó
c.11th century–1438
Capital	Phetchaburi (1278–?) U Thong? Suphan Buri?
Common languages	Old Thai
Religion	Theravada Buddhism
Government	Mandala kingdom City-state confederation (11th century–1351) Mandala federation (1351–1438)
Monarch
Historical era	Post-classical era
• Decline of Dvaravati	11th century
• First mentioned in medieval Chinese sources	1278
• Siam dominant of Ligor	Late 13th century
• Joined confederative with Lavo	1351
• Annexed of Suphan Buri into Ayutthaya	1438
• Demoted of Ligor to Rattanakosin's province	1782
Preceded by Succeeded by Dvaravati Siam city-states Ayutthaya Kingdom
Today part of	Thailand Malaysia Myanmar

Xian (Chinese: 暹) or Siam (Thai: สยาม); later Suphan Buri (สุพรรณบุรี) was a confederation of maritime-oriented port polities along the present Bay of Bangkok, including Ayodhya, Suphannabhum, and Phip Phli, as well as Nakhon Si Thammarat (Ligor), which was included in the late 13th century. It was formed from city-states on the east Chao Phraya plain after the decline of Dvaravati in the 11th century.

Xian or Siam, which was also recorded as Suphan Buri and Nakhon Si Thammarat in the late 13th century, joined the federative with Lavo in 1351; this led to the formation of the Ayutthaya Kingdom with the federal seat at Ayutthaya. Suphan Buri was completely annexed into the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1438, whereas Nakhon Si Thammarat maintained its vassal status throughout the Ayutthaya and Thonburi eras with short periods of independence and was demoted to Rattanakosin's province in 1782.

History

Early perception

Prince Damrong, who constructed a unilinear system of Thai history that was previously generally acknowledged in school textbooks, proposed in 1914 that the history of Thais in Siam proper began with establishing the Sukhothai Kingdom in 1238. This first Siamese kingdom was succeeded by Ayutthaya, Thonburi, and Rattanakosin. His works were eventually translated and edited in 1924 by Cœdès, who made this theory proliferated through his influential writings, such as The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. However, the equation that Xian was long-believed Sukhothai was contested in 1989 by Tatsuro Yamamoto, who proposes that the term "Xian 暹" found in Dade Nanhai-zhi during the era of the Yuan Dynasty (1297–1307) was probably another polity politically superior to Sukhothai. Several modern studies also declined the theory that Sukhothai was the first independent Siam polities.

Chinese records

As Xiān: 13th–14th century

Xiān was first mentioned in Chinese record Yuán Shǐ 元史 in 1278 when Yuan dynasty sent He Zi-zhi 何子志, a commander with 10,000 households, as an emmissary to Xian but they were detained by Champa. Ten years later, the first tribute sent to China by Xian was mentioned in 1292. The Chinese court dispatched emissaries to persuade Xian to submit the following year, but Xian refused. It is recorded that an imperial order was issued again to summon and persuade the king of Xian in 1294.

Due to such a persistent persuasion, the king of Xian named Gan-mu-ding (Kamrateng, กมรเต็ง) from Phip Phli (present Phetchaburi) personally appeared at the Chinese court to present the tribute with a golden plate in 1295. The tribute was sent from Xian again the following year. In 1297, emissaries from Xian, Luó hú (羅斛, Lavo), and Jambi (Srivijaya) were recorded. In 1299, both Xian and Sù gǔ chí (速古漦, Sukhothai) sent tribute to China. These last two records indicate that Xian is not Sukhothai and the polities in the Chao Phraya River basin at that time consisted of at least 3 polities, including Lavo, Sukhothai, and Xian.

In 1304, the record mentions that Sù gū dǐ (速孤底, Sukhothai) rely on Xian "Xian guo guan Shang-shui-su-gu-di"; this makes Tatsuro assume that Sukhothai was controlled by Xian. However, a Thai academic, Keatkhamjorn Meekanon, proposes that Sukhothai may have had to use Xian to export. Xian additionally sent tribute to China in April and July 1314, 1319, and the last one in 1323. As described in Daoyi Zhilüe (1351), the export items of Xian included sappanwood, tin, chaulmoorgra, ivory, and kingfisher feathers.

Another Xian appearing in Chinese dynastic history is found in the biography of Chen-yi-zhong in the Sung-shi. It reads, “In the 19th year of the Zhi-yuan 至元 era (1282–83) the Great Army attacked Champa and [Chen] Yi-zhong fled to Xian, where he died eventually.” Chen-yi-zhong was a defeated minister of the Southern Sung Dynasty who tried unsuccessfully to find a haven in Champa, which was eventually invaded by the Yuan army. Chen’s subsequent flight to Xian might suggest that Xian was a commercially flourishing port in the post-Srivijayan Southeast Asian trade order, where the Southern Sung Dynasty minister could find a settlement of compatriots.

As Xiānluó hú/ Xiānluó: 14th century

Main article: Ayutthaya Kingdom

According to the Daoyi Zhilüe, Luó hú (Lavo) annexed Xiān in 1349; this was consistent with the establishment of Ayutthaya, which was said to be formed by the merging of Lavo and Siam's Suphan Buri. The new polity was recorded by the Chinese as Xiānluó hú 暹羅斛 and was later shortened to Xiānluó 暹羅. This confederative performed 41 tributary missions to the Chinese court during the Hongwu era, 33 in the name of Xiānluó hú and as Xiānluó for the remaining.

People

Image in the Angkor Wat, dated to the early 12th century, shows Siamese mercenaries, who later become a major rival of the Angkor.

Chart shows the peopling of modern Thailand, in which the government policies during the late 1930s and early 1940s resulted in the successful forced assimilation of various ethnolinguistic groups into the country's dominant Central Thai (Siam).

Xian or Siam people are described as maritime-oriented groups as said in Chinese Daoyi Zhilüe:

Its people are aggressive. Whenever they see another country in a state of disorder, they immediately dispatch as many as one hundred ships full of sago to invade it. Recently more than seventy ships invaded Tanmayang (identified as far as Tumasik, or Singapore).

— Wang Dayuan, Daoyi Zhilüe p. 155 (1351)

Toward the end of the 13th century, an emerging Xian seems to have started a southward advance to the cost of the Malay peninsular. The well-known Chinese imperial admonition issued in the year 1295 well reflects such a move, reading “do not harm Maliyuer (Melayu). The maritime Xian also attacked Samudera Pasai Sultanate on Sumatra probably between 1299–1310, but failed. The troops might have been launched by the southernmost Xian of Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom with either Takua Thalang or Trang or Syburi/Kedah as the navy bases.

The term Siam, whose origin remains disputed, first occurs as syam in Old Khmer inscriptions of the 7th century (starting from 611 CE). It is probably a toponym referring to some location in the lower Chao Phraya Basin. In surviving inscriptions of this period, syam occurs four times to designate female slaves ("ku syam", Inscriptions K557 (dated 611 CE), K127 (683 CE), K154 (685 CE), and K904 (713 CE)) and once to identify a landlord-official ("pon syam"), who donates rice fields to a temple (K79 639 CE). In one case syam occurs in a list where the preceding entry has the word vrau in the same sentence position (K127). The term vrau has been considered the name of an ethnolinguistic minority group, possibly ancestors of the modem Bru or Brau people. Therefore, syam may have similarly functioned at that time, perhaps as a toponym that could also be used to refer to people of the area.

Siam later occurs in slave lists on inscriptions of the Champa and Khmer kingdoms, dated in the 11th and 12th centuries. From about the same period there is also a well-known bas relief panel of Angkor Wat showing mercenaries of the Khmer army, who are identified as syam-kuk, perhaps "of the land of Siam." One cannot be certain what ethnolinguistic group these mercenaries belonged to, but many scholars have thought them to be Siam people. At about the same time (from AD 1120 onwards) in Pagan to the west syam occurs over twenty times in Old Mon and Burmese inscriptions. One syam reference is to a high government official, but the term mainly occurs in lists of temple slaves, both male and female. Some are identified by occupation, such as dancers, weavers, or carpenters.

The people in the early Xian proper—based on inscriptions dated to the Dvaravati period, found in the area together with the existing Dvaravati evidence—were probably the Buddism Mon. The migration of the Tai-speaking people from the north to the Chao Phraya River basin happened around the 9th century. It was speculated that the trade interaction between the polities as well as the intermarriage caused a language assimilation among the people in this area.

Location

As described in the Chinese Daoyi Zhilüe, Xiān was surrounded by height mountains and deep valleys and was not located in the infertile land, which made the polities have to depend upon the neighbor Luó hú (Lavo) for the rice supply and support the people with commerce. Several studies propose that Xiān might refer to the Suphannabhum Kingdom centered in the present Suphanburi Province as some tributary missions sent to the Chinese in the Hongwu era were done under the name of King of Su-men-bang of Xiānluó hú, in which the term Su-men-bang has been identified with Suphanburi.

In the Jinakalamali, a local Pali chronicle of the northern Thai principality of Lan Na (Chiang Mai) mentions siam-desa and siam-rattha refer to the "area (desa) or state (rattha) of Siam," which one passage further identifies as the Sukhothai region.

Political entities

Phip Phli

According to the Chinese records, the early Xian or Siam probably consisted of at least two main polities, including Phip Phli, which sent emissaries to the Yuan dynasty during the late 13th century to the early 14th century, and Su-men-bang (Suphannabhum), which later joined Lavo in the Ayutthaya Kingdom formation. Ligor became Siam proper after the preceding Tambralinga fall due to the losses in the 1247–70 wars in Sri Lanka, the 1268–69 invasion of the Javanese Singhasari, and the 1270 plague. It was revived by the Siam people from Phip Phli and evolved to the Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom.

Suphannabhum

centered in U Thong, Nakhon Pathom, and Suphan Buri [1]

Phip Phli

Main article: Phip Phli Kingdom

Centered in Phetchaburi

Nakhon Si Thammarat

Main articles: Tambralinga and Nakhon Si Thammarat Kingdom

Centered in Nakhon Si Thammarat (Ligor)