Reading section 12

The King of Siam has published a work on the spelling of His Majesty's own language in Latin letters which ought to be authoritative, but it came into my hands too late for me to modify the orthography here adopted.

As Pallegoix's spelling involves the use of a great many accents I have sometimes begun by using the strictly correct orthography and afterwards a simpler but intelligible form. It should be noted that in this orthography ":" is not a colon but a sign that the vowel before it is very short.]

[Footnote 189: The name is found on Champan inscriptions of 1050 A.D. and according to Gerini appears in Ptolemy's _Samarade_ = Sâmaraṭṭha. See Gerini, _Ptolemy_, p. 170. But Samarade is located near Bangkok and there can hardly have been Tais there in Ptolemy's time.]

[Footnote 190: So too in Central Asia Kustana appears to be a learned distortion of the name Khotan, made to give it a meaning in Sanskrit.]

[Footnote 191: Gerini states (_Ptolemy_, p. 107) that there are Pali manuscript chronicles of Lamphun apparently going back to 924 A.D.]

[Footnote 192: Strictly Sŭkhồthăi.]

[Footnote 193: Phongsá va: dan or Vaṃsavâda. See for Siamese chronicles, _B.E.F.E.O._ 1914, No. 3, "Recension palie des annales d'Ayuthia," and _ibid._ 1916, pp. 5-7.]

[Footnote 194: _E.g._ Aymonier in _J.A._ 1903, p. 186, and Gerini in _Journal of Siam Society_, vol. II. part 1, 1905.]

[Footnote 195: See especially Fournereau and the publications of the Mission Pavie and _B.E.F.E.O._]

[Footnote 196: Gerini, _Ptolemy_, p. 176.]

[Footnote 197: See Fournereau, I. p. 225. _B.E.F.E.O._ 1916, III. pp. 8-13, and especially Bradley in _J. Siam Society_, 1909, pp. 1-68.]

[Footnote 198: This alphabet appears to be borrowed from Cambojan but some of the letters particularly in their later shapes show the influence of the Môn or Talaing script. The modern Cambojan alphabet, which is commonly used for ecclesiastical purposes in Siam, is little more than an elaborate form of Siamese.]

[Footnote 199: See _B.E.F.E.O._ 1904, p. 161.]

[Footnote 200: Bradley, _J. Siam Society_, 1913, p. 10, seems to think that Pali Buddhism may have come thence but the objection is that we know a good deal about the religion of Camboja and that there is no trace of Pali Buddhism there until it was imported from Siam. The fact that the Siamese alphabet was borrowed from Camboja does not prove that religion was borrowed in the same way. The Mongol alphabet can be traced to a Nestorian source.]

[Footnote 201: See for these inscriptions papers on the Malay Peninsula and Siam by Finot and Lajonquière in _Bull. de la Comm. Archéol. de l'Indo-Chine_, 1909, 1910 and 1912.]

[Footnote 202: Fournereau, pp. 157 ff. and Coedès in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1917, No. 2. Besides the inscription itself, which is badly defaced in parts, we have (1) a similar inscription in Thai, which is not however a translation, (2) a modern Siamese translation, used by Schmitt but severely criticized by Coedès and Petithuguenin.]

[Footnote 203: This portion of the narrative is found only in Schmitt's version of the Siamese translation. The part of the stone where it would have occurred is defaced.]

[Footnote 204: See Fournereau, vol. II. inscriptions xv and xvi and the account of the Jâtakas, p. 43.]

[Footnote 205: Fournereau, I. pp. 247, 273. _B.E.F.E.O._ 1917, No. 2, p. 29.]

[Footnote 206: See the texts in _B.E.F.E.O. l.c._ The Bodhisattvas are described as Ariyametteyâdînam dasannam Bodhisattânam. The vow to become a Buddha should it seems be placed in the mouth of the King, not of the Metropolitan as in Schmitt's translation.]

[Footnote 207: See Fournereau, pp. 209 ff. Dharmâsokarâja may perhaps be the same as Mahâdharmarâja who reigned 1388-1415. But the word may also be a mere title applied to all kings of this dynasty, so that this may be another inscription of Śrî Sûryavaṃsa Râma.]

[Footnote 208: 1350 is the accepted date but M. Aymonier, _J.A._ 1903, pp. 185 ff. argues in favour of about 1460. See Fournereau, _Ancien Siam_, p. 242, inscription of 1426 A.D. and p. 186, inscription of 1510 described as Groupe de Sajjanalaya et Sukhodaya.]

[Footnote 209: Fournereau, vol. I. pp. 186 ff.]

[Footnote 210: O. Frankfürter, "King Mongkut," _Journal of Siam Society_, vol. I. 1904.]

[Footnote 211: But it was his son who first decreed in 1868 that no Siamese could be born a slave. Slavery for debt, though illegal, is said not to be practically extinct.]

[Footnote 212: = Cûlâlaṇkâra.]

[Footnote 213: The word has been derived from Vâta, a grove, but may it not be the Pali Vatthu, Sanskrit Vâstu, a site or building?]

[Footnote 214: = Uposatha.]

[Footnote 215: These finials are very common on the roof ends of Siamese temples and palaces. It is strange that they also are found in conjunction with multiple roofs in Norwegian Churches of eleventh century. See de Beylié, _Architecture hindoue dans l'extrême Orient_, pp. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 216: The Buddha is generally known as Phra: Khodom ( = Gotama).]

[Footnote 217: In an old Siamese bronze from Kampeng Pet, figured in Grünwedel's _Buddhist Art in India_, p. 179, fig. 127, the Sirô rồt seems to be in process of evolution.]

[Footnote 218: P.A. Thompson, _Lotus Land_, 1906, p. 100.]

[Footnote 219: Four images facing the four quarters are considered in Burma to represent the last four Buddhas and among the Jains some of the Tirthankaras are so represented, the legend being that whenever they preached they seemed to face their hearers on every side.]

[Footnote 220: These figures only take account of twelve out of the seventeen provinces.]

[Footnote 221: Thompson, _Lotus Land_, p. 120.]

[Footnote 222: They bear the title of Só̆mdĕ̃t Phra: Chào Ràjagama and have authority respectively over (_a_) ordinary Buddhists in northern Siam, (_b_) ordinary Buddhists in the south, (_c_) hermits, (_d_) the Dhammayut sect.]

[Footnote 223: For this and many other details I am indebted to P.A. Thompson, _Lotus Land_, p. 123.]

[Footnote 224: When gifts of food are made to monks on ceremonial occasions, they usually acknowledge the receipt by reciting verses 7 and 8 of this Sutta, commonly known as _Yathâ_ from the first word.]

[Footnote 225: Kathina in Pali. See Mahâvag. cap. VII.]

[Footnote 226: Fournereau, p. 225.]

[Footnote 227: The ploughing festival is a recognized imperial ceremony in China. In India ceremonies for private landowners are prescribed in the Gṛihya Sûtras but I do not know if their performance by kings is anywhere definitely ordered. However in the Nidâna Kathâ 270 the Buddha's father celebrates an imposing ploughing ceremony.]

[Footnote 228: _I.e._ Tusita. Compare such English names descriptive of beautiful scenery as Heaven's Gate.]

[Footnote 229: See Keith, _Aitereya Aranyaka_, pp. 174-178. The ceremony there described undoubtedly originated in a very ancient popular festival.]

[Footnote 230: _I.e._ float-raft. Most authors give the word as Krathong, but Pallegoix prefers Kathong.]

[Footnote 231: _Chulakantamangalam_, Bangkok, 1893.]

[Footnote 232: P.A. Thompson, _Lotus Land_, p. 134.]

[Footnote 233: For the Brahmans of Siam see Frankfürter, _Oriental. Archiv._ 1913, pp. 196-7.]

[Footnote 234: _Chulakantamangala_, p. 56.]

[Footnote 235: They are mostly observances such as Gotama would have classed among "low arts" (tîracchânavijjâ). At present the monks of Siam deal freely in charms and exorcisms but on important occasions public opinion seems to have greater confidence in the skill and power of Brahmans.]

[Footnote 236: King Śrî Sûryavaṃsa Râma relates in an inscription of about 1365 how he set up statues of Parameśvara and Vishṇukarma (?) and appointed Brahmans to serve them.]

[Footnote 237: Maj. Nik. 47.]

[Footnote 238: _Siam Society_, vol. IV. part ii. 1907. _Some Siamese ghost-lore_ by A.J. Irwin.]

[Footnote 239: _Jour. Siam Soc._ 1909, p. 28. "In yonder mountain is a demon spirit Phră Khăphŭng that is greater than every other spirit in this realm. If any Prince ruling this realm reverences him well with proper offerings, this realm stands firm, this realm prospers. If the spirit be not reverenced well, if the offerings be not right, the spirit in the mountain does not protect, does not regard:--this realm perishes."]

[Footnote 240: The most popular life of the Buddha in Siamese is called Pa:thó̆mma Só̆mphôthĩyan, translated by Alabaster in _The Wheel of the Law_. But like the Lalita vistara and other Indian lives on which it is modelled it stops short at the enlightenment. Another well-known religious book is the Traiphûm ( = Tribhûmi), an account of the universe according to Hindu principles, compiled in 1776 from various ancient works.

The Pali literature of Siam is not very large. Some account of it is given by Coedès in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1915, III. pp. 39-46.]

[Footnote 241: When in Bangkok in 1907 I saw in a photographer's shop a photograph of the procession which escorted these relics to their destination. It was inscribed "Arrival of Buddha's tooth from Kandy." This shows how deceptive historical evidence may be. The inscription was the testimony of an eye-witness and yet it was entirely wrong.]

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CAMBOJA[242]

1

The French Protectorate of Camboja corresponds roughly to the nucleus, though by no means to the whole extent of the former Empire of the Khmers. The affinities of this race have given rise to considerable discussion and it has been proposed to connect them with the Muṇḍa tribes of India on one side and with the Malays and Polynesians on the other[243]. They are allied linguistically to the Mons or Talaings of Lower Burma and to the Khasias of Assam, but it is not proved that they are similarly related to the Annamites, and recent investigators are not disposed to maintain the Mon-Annam family of languages proposed by Logan and others. But the undoubted similarity of the Mon and Khmer languages suggests that the ancestors of those who now speak them were at one time spread over the central and western parts of Indo-China but were subsequently divided and deprived of much territory by the southward invasions of the Thais in the middle ages.