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Thailand Sukhothai
Situated on the banks of the Mae Nam Yom some 375 kilometers
north of present-day Bangkok, Sukhothai was the cradle of Thai
civilization, the place where its institutions and culture first
developed. Indeed, it was there in the late thirteenth century
that the people of the central plain, lately freed from Khmer
rule, took the name Thai, meaning "free," to set
themselves apart from other Tai speakers still under foreign
rule.
The first ruler of Sukhothai for whom historical records
survive was Ramkhamhaeng (Rama the Great, 1277-1317). He was a
famous warrior who claimed to be "sovereign lord of all the Tai"
and financed his court with war booty and tribute from vassal
states in Burma, Laos, and the Malay Peninsula. During his reign,
the Thai established diplomatic relations with China and
acknowledged the Chinese emperor as nominal overlord of the Thai
kingdom. Ramkhamhaeng brought Chinese artisans to Sukhothai to
develop the ceramics industry that was a mainstay of the Thai
economy for 500 years. He also devised the Thai alphabet by
adapting a Khmer script derived from the Indian Devanagari
script.
Sukhothai declined rapidly after Ramkhamhaeng's death, as
vassal states broke away from the suzerainty of his weak
successors. Despite the reputation of its later kings for wisdom
and piety, the politically weakened Sukhothai was forced to
submit in 1378 to the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya.
Data as of September 1987
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