Dialogue  July - September, 2003 , Volume 5  No. 1

Kingship in Thailand
Dr. Nandana Chutiwongs

Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia, and one of the few countries in the modern world that still retains a system of monarchy. This became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, but the age-old traditions and values linger on and are still very much alive among the majority of the population.

A background

The Indian concept on kingship evidently reached Southeast Asia during the early centuries of the Common Era, together with elements of Indian statecraft, religious beliefs, cosmology and the mythologies that bestow a divine flavour to the rulers of man (Coedes 1968; Kulke 1993: 262-379). Brahmans, the acknowledged disseminators of the higher aspects of India culture, are reported to have been present in large numbers in the region from that time, where they enjoyed respect and admiration of the local populations. Hinduism and Buddhism found enthusiastic responses at the various courts, and subsequently, Southeast Asian kings began to adopt Sanskrit titles and claimed association with the powerful gods of the Hindu pantheon. Royal capitals too, frequently received consecrated names in Sanskrit, the sacred language of India. The first kingdoms and city-kingdoms known in the region which is now Thailand, bore official names of Dvaravati, Lavapura and Haripunjaya (Coedes 1968: 76-77), all of which recall place-names associated with Visnu and with his Krsna and Rama incarnations.

We may identify the local conception of kingship in early Southeast Asia from the royal inscriptions, most of which are of a religious nature. They fulfilled the ideological concept of Indian kingship as being the leader of the people and the protector of religion. A claim for relationship with the divine, is frequently reflected in their consecrated names, such as Bhadravarman, Mahendravarman, Sambhuvarman, Isanavarman and Rudravarman of Campa and Cambodia (Coedes 1968: 47-48; 57-62; 65-72), and in the king’s own words, as in the case of Purnavarman of Java (Chhabra 1965: 93).

The region that constitutes the country of Thailand today had been occupied by many ethnic groups during the first millennium AD. There were the Mons in the Chao Phraya River valley, the Khmers to the East, and presumably large colonies of Indians in the peninsula. The Thais themselves were newcomers to Southeast Asia and began to appear on the scene in considerable numbers only from the twelfth century onwards. In the centuries that followed, they wrested a large dominion from the earlier inhabitants and established their own city-kingdoms, to become a great political power in Southeast Asia. They eventually became masters of the territory, but at the same time absorbed many elements of culture from the earlier inhabitants of the region.

Ancient system of government and kingship

The earliest system of government used by the Thais was probably of simple patriarchal form, having a chieftain ruling as a ‘father’ over a small and compact community. After having settled down in cities and kingdoms, they absorbed religious beliefs of the Theravada form of Buddhism from the Mons, and acquired fresh stimuli of such from their own contacts with Sri Lanka, the greatest bastion of this doctrine. They assimilated the traditional views of Buddhist kingship, as adhered to by the Theravada kings of Sri Lanka, and, simultaneously, elements of Hindu Khmer civilization that unequivocally elevated the rulers of humans to the status of the divine (Coedes 1947; Kulke 1993:327-379).

The early Thai kings followed the traditional Indian concept of kingship that regarded themselves as the rulers of the earth, the great warriors and protectors of the material and spiritual well being of the people. Their chosen religion was Buddhism of the Theravada form from the very beginning of their establishment in Thailand. According to the Theravada view, an ideal king fulfilled the function of a lokapala, as the protector of the world, and that of a dharmaraja, the righteous ruler, or a term that can also be taken to mean the chief protector and defender of the doctrine of the Buddha (dharma). The stability of the country as well as the proper functioning of the universe, depended on the good conduct of the king. The legitimacy to the throne in general, was therefore confirmed and sanctified by the Head of the monk community (sangha), while the king maintained the power to appoint and approve the investiture of that high ecclesiastical office. The State and the Church thus rendered mutual support to one another, strengthening thereby the position of both (Gunawardana 1979: 177; Siddhi Butr-Indr 1980:343-344.

Kingship and Religion

As in other Theravada Buddhist countries, the ideology of kingship is strongly interwoven with that of the cakravartin and the bodhisattva doctrines, the two idiosyncrasies which are themselves interrelated (Rahula 1956:66). According to many jataka stories that became popular everywhere in Southeast Asia, an ideal king is both a cakravartin and a bodhisattva by virtue of their perfect conduct and sublime morals. The Buddha, in many of his previous lives, had lived as a great king, renown for his temporal powers as well as for his perfections of Righteousness and Charity, that qualified him to the status of a bodhisattva, a potential Buddha and a Buddha in the making. Such ideas, nevertheless, appear to have been more predominant in Sri Lanka and Burma than in Thailand (Rahula 1956:62; Quaritch Wales 1977: 9). The wall paintings adorning the interior of the Phaisanthaksin edifice in the compound of the Grand Palace (ill.1), where the royal coronation takes place, constitutes a rare instance which underlines the close connection between the bodhisattva ideal, and the anointed king. The eulogy of the ‘descent of the Buddha lineage’ applied in one particular case to a royal prince of the sixteenth century (Wood 1924:100), may not have a fully religious connotation, since the Buddha himself is said to have descended from the ancient family of the Cakravartin Iksvaku/Okaka (Gunawardana 1979:173-174; Geiger 1986:112). Throughout history, the Thais appear to consistently favour a clear segregation between the temporal and spiritual world. Royal titles that refer to the status of a bodhisattva, the Buddha incipient, are relatively rare, although the term ‘Buddha’ has been applied posthumously to the two initial monarchs of the Cakri dynasty (Subhadradis Diskul 1978: pls.1-3; Naengnoi Sukri 1999:150), and to King Chulalongkorn of the fifth reign (Phra Phutthachao Luang). This unusual application of the ‘Buddha’ eulogy could be a phenomenon of ancient ancestor worship among the ethnic Thais, further inspired by the apotheosis system of Angkor, with which the Thais had come into close contacts after their arrival into the Chao Phraya Rive