Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri

Phra Phanom Thale Seri () was a Siamese ruler of the second half of the 12th century and the opening years of the 13th, active across the lower and western Menam valley. He is best known as the father of Uthong II, who took the throne of Ayodhya in the early 13th century, and as a progenitor of the Phetchaburi–Viang Chaiprakarn clan, the line that later became the Uthong or Lavo dynasty of the Ayutthaya Kingdom.

No contemporary source identifies him under the name Phanom Thale Seri. Thai chronicle tradition, two 17th-century European accounts of Siam, and contemporary Chinese records of embassies from Chen Li Fu each preserve figures whose careers overlap with his. Modern scholarship has proposed that these figures were one person, based on corresponding territories and dates, although none of the sources directly identifies them as the same individual.

He was enthroned at Tasoo Nacora Louang in 1170 and reconstructed Phrip Phri in 1157/58, before taking control of the Phraek Si Racha region from Sri Dharmasokaraja II of Tambralinga in 1180. In 1188/89, he moved north from Tasoo Nacora Louang to the Sukhothai–Nakhon Thai region before returning south later that year. His younger brother Uthong I took the throne of Suphannabhum. These movements brought several polities in the lower Menam valley under the control of this line, contributing to the political developments preceding the formation of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the mid-14th century.

Names and titles

The name used here, Phra Phanom Thale Seri, is the Thai form. The Ayutthaya Testimonies instead call him Indrarāja or Intharacha (). The French Du Royaume de Siam records him as the 23rd monarch of Siam and the 12th king of Tasoo Nacora Louang (). The Instructions Given to the Siamese Envoys Sent to Portugal (1684) give his seat as Yassouttora Nacoora Louang and his full style as Sommedethia Pprappanom Tteleiseri Maahesa Vorauaarintti Raacha Boppitra. The Sanskritic form Mahesvastidrādhirājakṣatriya also appears in the modern literature.

Chinese records of the Song court name the ruler of Chen Li Fu as Mo-lo-pa-kan-wu-ting-ên-ssŭ-li-fang-hui-chih, entered on the embassy's arrival at Ningbo and read as Mo-lo-pa followed by Kamrateng An Sri Fang-hui-chih, usually shortened to Fang-hui-chih. The equation of this figure with Phra Phanom Thale Seri is an inference of modern scholarship.

Timeline summary

The following table presents the timeline of events associated with Phra Phanom Thale Seri according to various sources.

Life

Origins and parentage

According to the Ayutthaya Testimonies, he was born to Queen Indrasujādevī (), principal consort of King Anuraja of Phraek Si Racha, whose seat lay at Sing Buri (or Mueang Sing). Anuraja is presented in the same text as belonging to the line of Visnuraja, described there as a descendant of the Padumasuriyavaṃśa of Indaprasthanagara, and was the last ruler of the Phraek Si Racha line, losing the region to Sri Dharmasokaraja II of Tambralinga around 1167.

Early reign and the move north

The Ayutthaya Testimonies records that he succeeded his relative Jatiraja () at Mueang Sing, and that seven successive monarchs had ruled at Mueang Sing before Jatiraja. Although the text does not provide the year of his enthronement, it states that his reign began when he was 20 years old and lasted for 35 years. He has been proposed to be identified with Fang-hui-chih in the Chinese text Song Huiyao, which states that, in 1200, he sent a tributary mission to China and had ruled Chen Li Fu for 20 years, placing his enthronement at Chen Li Fu around 1180. In 1205, another tributary mission was sent by his son Mahīdhāravarman or Uthong II. This has led scholars to interpret the latter's reign as having possibly begun around 1204/05, which may also mark the end of Phanom Thale Seri's reign. These dates place his first enthronement around 1130 and his birth around 1170.

In 1157/58, he reconstructed a maritime port city at Pochebouri, according to the 1684 Instructions Given to the Siamese Envoys Sent to Portugal.

According to an interpretation of the Dong Mae Nang Mueang inscription (K. 766), dated to 1167, the Tambralinga monarch Sri Dharmasokaraja II extended his realm northward as far as present-day Nakhon Sawan province, encompassing Lavo and Phraek Si Racha. His expansion northward may have followed the beginning of his reign at Lavo, which has been suggested to date to around 1157/58. This raises the possibility that the end of the reign of Anuraja, Phanom Thale Seri's father, occurred at around the same time.

Following that incursion from the south, the Du Royaume de Siam has him moving north from Tasoo Nacora Louang to Locintai in 1188/89. The 1684 Instructions Given to the Siamese Envoys Sent to Portugal give the move as from Yassouttora Nacoora Louang to Soucouttae, undated. This raises the possibility of identifying Mueang Sing with Yassouttora Nacoora Louang/Tasoo Nacora Louang. However, by 1180, he had already acquired Chen Li Fu at Phraek Si Racha before moving northward. Meanwhile, Lavo had returned to Angkorian authority under Nripendravarman.

A parallel movement is recorded for his kinsman Suryaraja, the grandfather of Si Inthrathit, who established himself at Vicitraprakāra (, modern Kamphaeng Phet) during the same period. The two lines subsequently diverged. Suryaraja's line expanded northward and forged alliances with Tai chiefdoms, laying the foundation for what became the Sukhothai Kingdom and its Phra Ruang dynasty, while the lower line descended from Phra Phanom Thale Seri developed into the Lavo dynasty of Ayutthaya.

The move south and interaction with Tambralinga

When he reached the north, Phanom Thale Seri returned southward to the central valleys in the same year, 1188/89, with his younger brother, Uthong of Mueang Chaliang, also known as Soi La (). The Ayutthaya Testimonies and the Northern Chronicle state that Uthong I later came to power separately by ascending the vacant throne of Suphannabhum. Phanom Thale Seri, meanwhile, moved further south to Phrip Phri and appointed his younger brother governor of Mueang Sing.

His territorial expansion brought him into conflict with the southern polity of Tambralinga in 1196. According to the Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle, the hostilities ended with negotiations and an alliance between the two dynasties.

This alliance became significant in the mid-13th century, when Tambralinga was destabilised by the Javanese Singhasari invasion and a concurrent outbreak of plague between roughly the 1260s and 1270s. Phanomwang (), a prince of the Phetchaburi–Ayodhya line, was appointed by the king of Phetchaburi to restore Nakhon Si Thammarat, the former Tambralinga capital, together with his wife Sadieng Thong () and their son Sri Racha (). This gave rise to the and extended Siamese influence southward across the Kra Isthmus. Succession there remained patrilineal, but confirmation of a ruler required formal appointment from Ayodhya, marking a continuing link between the northern and southern domains.

Phraek Si Racha and Chen Li Fu

In 1180 he took the Phraek Si Racha region in the central Menam basin from Sri Dharmasokaraja II, and the polity was reorganised under the name recorded in Chinese sources as Chen Li Fu. Walailak Songsiri puts the polity outside Angkorian political authority, and reads the Khmer titles and Indic royal names borne in the western basin as court usage adopted for dealings with the Chinese court rather than as marks of subordination. She qualifies the Phraek Si Racha localization herself. Of the small towns of that group, Phraek Si Racha is the one that does not continue from the Dvaravati period, and excavation has not settled whether its occupation begins under the Southern Song or under the Yuan. She therefore proposes that the seat moved there from the smaller inland waterways.

Chinese records describe the polity as commanding more than sixty settlements and as the only trading centre on the northern gulf then visited by Chinese ships, its inland capital linked to the sea by river. On 23 September 1200 its king sent senior palace officials to the Song court with a memorial, a gold-engraved scroll in his own hand, two elephants and local products; the embassy reported that he had by then reigned twenty years, placing his accession at about 1180. The court, citing distance, instructed the polity to send no further tribute, yet further embassies followed in 1202 and, under his successor, in 1205.

The Song court received the 1200 mission during a period when it was discouraging embassies and trade from Southeast Asian kingdoms. That has been explained by reference to the tradition in the Legend of Nakhon Si Thammarat that Fang-hui-chih had married a daughter of the Chinese emperor by a Cham princess.

Consorts, succession and death

Two queen consorts are recorded. Mani Mala () appears in the Ayutthaya Testimonies, and Chandradevi () in the Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle as the daughter of a Chinese emperor and the Cham princess Chandramouli.

During his reign in the western valley a polity identified as Xiān sent a tributary mission to Đại Việt in 1182. The mission probably built on commercial relations established in 1149, during his father Anuraja's rule in the Phraek Si Racha region, when merchants from Xiān were permitted to establish a trading post at Yún tún (), modern Vân Đồn.

His son Uthong II later took the throne of Ayodhya. The Northern Chronicle adds that Uthong II married the daughter of a prominent Ayodhya merchant and moved the capital there.

Identification

Intharacha of the Ayutthaya Testimonies

The Ayutthaya Testimonies give an account of an early Siamese monarch, Intharacha, whose career runs closely parallel to that of the ruler of Phrip Phri. Intharacha succeeded his relative Jatiraja as ruler of either Singburi () in Mueang Phraek or Jayasimhapuri (), before moving south to establish himself at Phetchaburi. His reign is given as thirty-five years. His brother Uthong took Singburi after his departure, and his son, also named Uthong, later took the throne of Ayodhya in 1205. On these figures his rule at Singburi would begin in 1170 and end at Phetchaburi in 1205.

Fang-hui-chih of Chen Li Fu

Chinese sources place Chen Li Fu in the Menam valley between 1180 and 1205, the same span in which Phra Phanom Thale Seri consolidated authority in the same region. On this basis Fang-hui-chih has been identified with him. The identification rests on three convergences. The territory attributed to each is the same. The twenty-year reign reported to the Song court in 1200 places the accession at 1180, the year he took Phraek Si Racha. The accessions of Uthong II at Ayodhya and of Se-li-Mo-hsi-t'o-pa-lo-hung at Chen Li Fu both fall in 1204/1205. The successor's Indic name is itself a reconstruction. Se-li-Mo-hsi-t'o-pa-lo-hung was first read as Sri Mahendravarman, and the form Sri Mahidharavarman follows Cœdès's proposal that 13th-century inscriptions use Mahīdhara more often. Wyatt keeps the two names apart. He reports a ruler of Phetburi styled Śrī Maheśvastidṛḍhirājākṣatriya in a year he reads as 1204, who entered trade relations with China and sent troops and colonists north to Chainat and south. He notes that the name is not that of Wolters's and Cœdès's Mahīdharavarman but is close enough to be of interest.

Whether the polity was subordinate to Angkor during these years is disputed. O. W. Wolters inferred from its rulers' use of the Khmer title Kamrateng that it was a Khmer dependency until 1200, breaking away as Khmer power declined. Walailak Songsiri reads the same title as court usage. She notes that the Chinese records give kamrateng to the rulers of Sukhothai, Phrip Phri and Chen Li Fu alike, and that the sixty and more settlements dependent on Chen Li Fu had rulers of their own who did not bear it. The titulature argument is weakened by the ruler of neighbouring Phrip Phri bearing the comparable style Gan-mu-ding in 1295, during a period of Angkorian weakness, when the region also suffered repeated attacks from Xiān.

The Two Mueang Sing

The Ayutthaya Testimonies place Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri's enthronement at Mueang Sing in 1170 before his subsequent moves to other cities. However, two places in the lower Menam Valley bear the name Mueang Sing: one is the ruins of Mueang Sing in present-day Kanchanaburi province, while the other is in present-day Sing Buri province. The latter lies along the waterways between Lavo Lopburi and the Phraek Si Racha region, within an area under the control of Sri Dharmasokaraja II (r. 1157–1180) before Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri's enthronement.

Indaprasthanagara, Sukhothai and the rise of Ayutthaya

The Ayutthaya Testimonies and the Chronicle of Padumasuriyavamsa present Sukhothai as a vassal of Indaprasthanagara from the 8th century. However, during Phra Phanom Thale Seri's reign, the Ayutthaya Testimonies record that Indaprasthanagara, led by the eldest son of its king, campaigned against Sukhothai after Candraraja (Phra Phanom Thale Seri's first cousin once removed) ceased paying tribute. Sukhothai force led by the crown prince Si Inthrathit, subsequently defeated the invading forces, gaining de facto independence. Cœdès dates de jure independence to 1238, after the deposition of Khom Sabat Khlon Lamphong through the alliance of Si Inthrathit and Pha Mueang.

Thai scholarship has long equated Indaprasthanagara with Angkor, reinforcing the assumption that Sukhothai was an Angkorian vassal. Thai textual sources, however, date Indaprasthanagara to more than a century before the rise of Angkor, and the Ayutthaya Testimonies place it east of Sankhaburi in the Phraek Si Racha region. This accords with the and traditions concerning Sri Dharmasokaraja I, who is described as ruling Indaprasthanagara and the lower Menam basin. The oldest available revision of the Northern Chronicle, published in 1869, likewise places Indaprasthanagara 15 days' travel north of Ayodhya.

Both Indaprasthanagara and Chen Li Fu disappear from the record at this point, a convergence that has been interpreted as evidence for a proto-Ayutthayan polity predating the traditional foundation of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1351. Thereafter, Xiān () appears more frequently in Chinese sources, first as san-lo () in 1178 and under its own name from 1278. Xiān had maintained relations with Đại Việt and a trading post at Vân Đồn from 1149, near territory under Chinese imperial authority.

Genealogy

The Chaiyasiri hypothesis

Thai scholars once held that Uthong I and Phra Phanom Thale Seri were princes of Chaiyasiri, a monarch of Singhanavati in the north who may have migrated to Nakhon Thai during the 11th century. That hypothesis also underpinned the claim that Ramathibodi I, first sovereign of Ayutthaya and a supposed descendant of Phra Phanom Thale Seri, originated at Mueang Uthong. The Fine Arts Department's study of U Thong rejects both.

The Ayutthaya Testimonies give the alternative account followed here, that Uthong I and Phra Phanom Thale Seri were sons of Anuraja, whose line succeeded the Padumasuriyavaṃśa dynasty in the polities of Mueang Phraek, Chai Nat and Sing Buri.

Family tree

The tree below follows the Ayutthaya Testimonies, with descendants supplemented from the Northern Chronicle and the Nakhon Si Thammarat Chronicle.

See also

• Uthong II
• Chen Li Fu
• Indaprasthanagara
• Xiān