Ram Khamhaeng Inscription

The text falls into three parts: Ram Khamhaeng’s account of his family and youth; a description of Sukhothai — its abundance, its justice and its freedom of trade (the ruler “levies no toll”, and people trade freely in cattle, horses, elephants, silver and gold), its religious life and the stone throne set up in 1292, with the dates of the enshrinement of relics at Si Satchanalai (1285) and of the invention of the script (1283); and a eulogy listing the towns that recognised his power. The end of the eulogy (lines 12–27 of the fourth face) is in a different hand and was probably added later; the date 1292 is the one generally accepted, following George Cœdès. The pillar was found in 1833 or early 1834 by Prince Mongkut, then a monk, at the site believed to be the old palace, together with a stone slab thought to be the royal throne; it is now in the Bangkok National Museum.

In 1987 the historian Michael Vickery questioned the script, vocabulary and content of the inscription, and in 1988 the art historian Piriya Krairiksh argued that Mongkut himself had forged it. A 1990 analysis with a scanning electron microscope found the stele to be as old — some 500 to 700 years — as four other Sukhothai inscriptions. The debate has not been settled, but most specialists regard the text as at least partly genuine, and in 2003 it was entered in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. Under Ram Khamhaeng (reigned c. 1279–1298) Sukhothai’s power grew and relations with Yuan China began; the creation of the Thai script and the adoption of Theravada Buddhism are traditionally credited to him, though historians debate both.