Uthong II
| Uthong II อู่ทองที่ 2 | |
|---|---|
| King of Ayodhya | |
| King of Xiān's Ayodhya | |
| Reign | 1205–1253 |
| Predecessor | Dhammikaraja |
| Successor | Jayasena |
| King of Xiān's Suphannaphum | |
| Reign | 1204–1253 (ruled from Ayodhya) |
| Predecessor | Uthong I |
| Successor | Vacant (title next held by Saenpom) |
| King of Chen Li Fu | |
| Reign | 1204–1205 |
| Predecessor | Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri |
| Successor | Seat transferred to Ayodhya in 1205 |
| Died | 1253 Ayutthaya |
| Consort | Phummawadi Thewi |
| Issue | Ai of Indaprasthanagara Yi of Tanintharyi Sam of Phrip Phri Rajadevi Saen Pom of Suphannaphum? |
| House | Phetchaburi–Viang Chaiprakarn |
| Father | Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri |
| Mother | Chandradevi |
Uthong II (Thai: อู่ทองที่ 2) was a ruler of Xiān's Ayodhya from 1205 to 1253 in the reconstruction of early Siamese history drawn from Thai chronicle tradition. He is described as of mixed Siamese, Mon, Chinese and Cham descent, the son of Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri, ruler of Phrip Phri.[1]
He came to the throne of Ayodhya on the death of his father-in-law Dhammikaraja, who left only a daughter, Phummawadi Thewi, whom Uthong II had married.[1] He was succeeded on his death by Jayasena, his son-in-law and a younger prince of Phichai Chiang Mai.[1]
He has been identified with Mahīdhāravarman, the Se-li-Mo-hsi-t'o-pa-lo-hung of Chinese records who acceded at Chen Li Fu in 1204 and sent that polity's last recorded embassy to the Song court in 1205,[2]: 16 after which Chen Li Fu disappears from the Chinese record.[3]: 20
Name and titles
[edit]The name Uthong (อู่ทอง) is borne by three distinct figures in the tradition — Uthong I, the present ruler, and Uthong V (Ramathibodi I) — and the chronicles frequently conflate them.[4]: 64–5 Chit Phumisak argued that the repetition is a family practice rather than a confusion of the record: Uthong is a personal name meaning golden cradle, from u, an old Thai and Lao word for a cradle, and one line may therefore have carried a grandfather, a grandson and even a great-grandson of the same name. On his reading the surviving traditions preserve several distinct Uthongs and need not be reduced to one.[5]: 113–15, 206
He also appears as Sri Mahidharavarman of Indaprastha–Ayodhya, from the Chinese transcription Se-li-Mo-hsi-t'o-pa-lo-hung.[2]: 16
Family
[edit]Parentage
[edit]The sources disagree about his mother. The Ayutthaya Testimonies make him the son of the queen consort Mani Mala (มณีมาลา).[6]: 46 The Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle instead states that Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri, king of Phrip Phri, who prospered through maritime trade with China, married Chandradevi (จันทรเทวีศรีบาทราชบุตรีศรีทองสมุทร), a daughter of the Chinese emperor by the Cham princess Chandramouli, and that their son Uthong subsequently took the throne of Ayodhya.[7]: 14–15 Both women are recorded as consorts of Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri, and the question is unresolved.
Two further accounts describe his accession without naming his mother. The British Museum version of the Royal Chronicle of the Kingdom of Siam records that the king of Kampoch (Ayodhya) — probably Dhammikaraja — died without a male heir, after which the throne was offered to a wealthy noble named Uthong, who moved the capital southward in response to epidemic outbreaks. The Northern Chronicle, which mixes the traditions of the three Uthongs, similarly has a wealthy merchant's son named Uthong become ruler of Ayodhya.[4]: 64–5
The chronicle traditions agree that an epidemic in the old capital prompted the move southward to Ayodhya, where in 1205 he and the population are said to have founded a new settlement on the island of present-day Ayutthaya.[6]: 48–49, 52–58
Consort and children
[edit]According to the Northern Chronicle he had three sons and a daughter. The eldest, Ai (อ้าย), was made governor of Mueang Nakhon (เมืองนคร, "the nagara city" or "the old capital"), which some scholars identify with Nakhon Si Thammarat in Tambralinga; since Nakhon Si Thammarat was at that time demonstrably held by descendants of Sri Dharmasokaraja II, the chronicle more probably means the former capital at Indaprasthanagara. The second son, Yi (ยี่), was sent to Tanintharyi in the far west, and the youngest, Sam (สาม), succeeded his uncle Thonglanraj (ท้องลันราช) at Phrip Phri.[1]
His daughter Rajadevi is said to have entered a clandestine relationship with Jayadatta (ชัยทัต), eldest son of the king of Phichai Chiang Mai, and to have borne a son, Suvarnaraja,[4]: 66–68 who reigned at Ayodhya from 1289 to 1301.[4]: 69
Reign
[edit]Territorial extent
[edit]Ayodhya's authority is said to have reached west to Tanintharyi in present-day southern Myanmar.[1] To the north, the Phraek Si Racha region — the seat of Chen Li Fu, held by his father from 1180 to 1204 — was left without a ruler between 1249 and 1299.[6]: 29 To the east lay Lavapura in Lavo, administered by Nripendravarman, a prince serving under the Angkorian monarch Jayavarman VII and later enthroned as Indravarman II.[8]
That his accession at Ayodhya in 1205 is recorded without any accompanying conflict,[1] in territory previously under Chen Li Fu, has been read as evidence of continuity rather than conquest, and as part of a wider pattern of dynastic accommodation between the Siamese houses and the Angkorian sphere.
Relations with Đại Việt
[edit]Commercial relations with Đại Việt, established in 1149,[9]: line 61 continued into his reign. The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records that in 1241 a merchant mission from Xiān arrived at Yún tún (雲屯, modern Vân Đồn) to seek authorisation to trade and to procure goods.[9]: line 29
The Phra Aiyakan Betset
[edit]Early legal manuscripts suggest that Siamese legal tradition predates the formal foundation of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1351. Among the earliest is the Phra Aiyakan Betset (พระอัยการเบ็ดเสร็จ or อายการเบดเสรจ, lit. 'miscellaneous law'), which carries an internal date of Shaka era 1146 (1224 CE).[5]: 45–7 Its language and phrasing are markedly archaic beside other surviving pre-Ayutthayan legal texts, with features recalling the Sukhothai Ram Khamhaeng Inscription.[5]: 46
The regnal name in the manuscript is that of Dhammikaraja, not of Uthong II,[10] which has been taken to indicate that his father-in-law continued to exercise juridical authority into the 1220s, overlapping with Uthong II's reign.[1]
The sophistication of the legal texts associated with the reign of Ramathibodi I (r. 1351–1369) points the same way: framed as the foundation of a new kingdom in 1351, they display a development that implies a longer prior history. Comparative analyses, including those following Chit Phumisak and Robert Lingat, hold that this legal consciousness must have evolved within earlier societies of the Chao Phraya basin before Ayutthaya emerged as a centralised polity.[5]: 50–9
The manuscript has been transcribed into modern Thai script as follows.
ศุภมัสดุ ๑๑๔๖ ศกมแมนักสัตวเจตมาศปัญจมีดิถีรวิวาร พระบาทสมเดจ์พระรามาธิบดีศรีสิทธิวิสุทธิบุรโสดมบรมจักรพรรดิธรรมิกกราช เดโชไชยาเทพาดิเทพตรีภูวนาธิเบศบรมบพิตร พระพุทธิเจ้าอยู่หัว เสด็จ ณ พระที่นั่งมังคลาพิเศกโดยบุรรพาภิมุขเบื้องไพชมะหาปราสาท มีพระราชโองการมานพระบันทูลสุรสิงหนาทพระราชประยัษคำนับไว้แก่ผู้รั้ง กรมการ ผู้พิจารณาความฉมบ จะกละ กระสือกระหาง ถ้าเป็นสัจแล้วอย่าให้เจ้าเมือง กรมการ เอา ฉะมบ จะกละ กระสือ กระหางไปฆ่าเสีย ให้บอกส่งเข้าไปยังกรุง ให้ไว้แต่นอกขนอน จะให้พิจารณาก่อนถ้าเจ้าเมือง กรมการ มิบอกส่งเข้าไปแลฆ่าเสียแล้ว จึ่งบอกเข้าไปยังกรุงต่อพายหลังให้มีโทษสิ้นชีวิตร
The decree is dated to the fifth day of the waxing moon, a Sunday, in the fourth lunar month of Shaka 1146, a year of the goat, and is issued from the Mangala Phisek hall of the great palace, the king seated facing east. It is addressed to provincial governors, officials and those adjudicating accusations of chamob, jakala, krasue and krahang (categories of malevolent spirit or witch in Thai belief). It directs that even where such an accusation is found to be true, local governors and officials must not put the accused to death themselves, but are to report the case and send the person to the capital, holding them outside the customs post for examination. A governor or official who executes an accused person and reports the matter only afterwards is himself liable to the death penalty.
— Phra Aiyakan Betset (1224)
In local tradition
[edit]His name appears in the Chonburi legend Tamnan Chao Mae Laem Tian (ตำนานเจ้าแม่แหลมเทียน), which makes him a son of Phraya Kreak, also called Phraya Phraek — not to be confused with Sindhob Amarin (r. 937–996), who bore the same title[11]: 123 — a style traditionally held by the ruler of Phraek Si Racha and retained into the late Ayutthaya period.[12]: ๓๕–๘
The name U Thong also survives in place names across eastern Thailand, including Wat U Thong (วัดอู่ทอง) in Ban Na–Krasae Bon subdistrict, Klaeng District, Rayong Province, and Wat Thao U Thong (วัดท้าวอู่ทอง) in Khok Mai Lai subdistrict, Prachin Buri Province.[11]: 123–124
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sujit Wongthes (21 April 2023). "พงศาวดารอโยธยาศรีรามเทพนคร ฉบับ มานิต วัลลิโภดม" [The Chronicle of Ayodhya Sri Ramathep Nakhon, Manit Vallipodom edition]. silpa-mag.com (in Thai). Retrieved 25 December 2023.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - 1 2 O. W. Wolters (1960). "Chên Li Fu: A State on the Gulf of Siam at the Beginning of the 14th Century". Journal of the Siam Society. 48.
- ↑ David K. Wyatt (2001). "Relics, Oaths and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Siam". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 32 (1): 3–65. JSTOR 20072298. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
- 1 2 3 4 Northern Chronicle (in Thai).
- 1 2 3 4 Phumisak, Chit (1983). Vichai Naparassamee (ed.). สังคมไทยลุ่มแม่น้ำเจ้าพระยาก่อนสมัยศรีอยุธยา [Thai society in the Chao Phraya basin before the Ayutthaya period] (PDF) (in Thai). Mai Ngam.
- 1 2 3 Fine Arts Department, ed. (1968) [First published in Thai in 1912]. Khamhaikan Chao Krung Kao Khamhaikan Khun Luang Ha Wat Lae Phra Ratcha Pongsawadarn Krung Kao Chabab Luang Luang Prasoet Aksorn คำให้การชาวกรุงเก่า คำให้การขุนหลวงหาวัด และ พระราชพงศาวดารกรุงเก่าฉบับหลวงประเสริฐอักษรนิติ์ [Testimony of the King Who Entered a Wat, Testimony of the Inhabitants of the Old Capital, and Royal Chronicle of the Old Capital: Luang Prasoet Aksorn Version] (PDF) (in Thai). Bangkok: Rung Rueang Tham. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2024.
- ↑ Legend of Nakhon Si Thammarat (in Thai).
- ↑ Santi Phakdeekham. "จาก 'ลวะปุระ' สู่ 'เมืองละโว้' ลูกหลวงแห่งเมืองพระนคร" [From 'Lavapura' to 'Mueang Lavo', a frontier city of the capital] (in Thai). Retrieved 6 November 2023.
- 1 2 "大越史記全書 《卷之四》" [Complete Annals of Đại Việt, volume 4]. Chinese Text Project (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 5 July 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
- ↑ The Fine Arts Department of Thailand (1978). Rūang Kotmāi trā 3 dūang [Three Seals Law] เรื่องกฎหมายตราสามดวง (in Thai). Bangkok: The Fine Arts Department of Thailand. p. 414. OCLC 934462978
- 1 2 Boonderm Panrob. "ตำนานท้องถิ่นภาคตะวันออก: ความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างอดีตและปัจจุบัน" [Local legends of eastern Thailand: the relation between past and present] (PDF). Burapha Arts Journal (in Thai). Retrieved 26 July 2026.
- ↑ คำให้การขุนหลวงวัดประดู่ทรงธรรม [Testimony of Khun Luang Wat Pradu Songtham] (in Thai). Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University. 2012. ISBN 978-616-505-785-1.