THE ART HISTORY OF SIAM AND LAOS

Photo of S K MONOHA 's wedding, on the 25 November 2007 in Battambang.

By S K MONOHA of Cambodia

The history of Siamese art proper begins in the the thirteenth century with the overthrow by Thai chieftains of the Khmer Governor of southern Siam ( Khmer land ) and the formation of kingdom of LAVO. Then in 1287, the very year in which the mongols captured Pagân, the three most powerful Thai chieftains in the central and northern part of the country combined to form an alliance. This consolidated both the Kingdom of Sukhodaya,the first to create an independent culture tradition, and a second major state whole capital was farther north at Chiengmai.

The pattern of Siamese history was thus established,with two chief region of power and culture; one in the flat rice-fields of the south, around the lower reaches and delta of the Menam river comlex ; the other in the mountainous, forested region of that river's northern tributaries,and including a region of certain tributaries of the Mekong itself. Between them, the central region around SUKHODAYA (Sukhothai) held an uneasy balance.

The inhabitants of the southern region were predominantly Khmer Môn, and they had been for centuries one the main sources of the intellectual strength of the KHMER EMPIRE. Works of KHMER ART had been made in their territory, testimony to the Hindu royal cult of CAMBODIA. There survive a fair number of Siamese fragments of Khmer art, and it is clear that Siamese art traditions take their rise from provincial KHMER prototypes. The people who formed the new states were not Khmer Môn,however,but Siam or Thai. The Thai were actually of the same racial stock as the Vietnamese or nam-viet (the real name), and had,during the early years of the Christian era,been forced gradually out of the regions of Canton and then Tonkin by pressure of Chinese colonization. Whereas the Vietnamese moved south-east along the coastal strip into Annam, overran CHAMPA, and adopted Chinese culture and methods of civilization, the Thai crossed the hills westward into the high reaches of the Mekong and Menam.

At the height of the power of the KHMER EMPIRE they were not able to make much headway down the rivers. But when Khmer fortunes declined they were free to move into the out-lying provinces, make them their own,and ultimately wreck the Cambodian heart of the Empire,utterly destroying its irrigation system. Siam ( now call Thailand ,was the Kampuja Land ) was their most successful venture. Modern LAOS is descend from another of their land (Mongol people ).

The Thai were originally a tribal people without writing or an organized state. Although the Buddhism they eventually adopted from their contact with the Kingdom of Pagân gave them an integral culture, a literature and a system of education, it could not be converted into a state-religion unifying the whole country and directing its efforts. At the same time, though they were adequate farmers, they never learned any elaborate hydraulic techniques like those the khmer,which would have given them the ability to amplify the resources of their land. Also,their country was far off the Chinese-Indian sea-trade routes. They therefore lived a self-contained existence, in separate city-states,and the history of the Thai kingdoms was marked by internal dissensions and shifts of power rather than by major foreign encounters. The Burmeses, their co-religionists,were their chief ennemies, often subjecting them to cruel invasions. Two Thai cities, Chiengmai in the north and Ayuthia in the south,remained the principal centres of foreign contact- Chiengmai because of its central position on the roads between Burma and the rest of Southeast Asia, and Ayuthia for its place on the river in the heart of the southeast religion.
to be continued.......