// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Maha Thammaracha I say to his king? "You rule, I maracha

For other uses, see Maha Thammaracha.

Li Thai ลิไทย
Phra Maha Thammaracha I
King of Sukhothai
Reign	1347 - 1368
Predecessor	Ngua Nam Thum
Successor	Lue Thai (Maha Thammaracha II)
Born	Li Thai c. 1300 Sukhothai Kingdom
Died	1368 (68 years old) Sukhothai Kingdom
Issue	Lue Thai (Maha Thammaracha II)
Regnal name Phrabat Kamrateng An Sri Suryavamsa Rama Mahadharmarajadhiraja
Dynasty	Phra Ruang
Father	Loe Thai
Religion	Theravada Buddhism

Maha Thammaracha I (Thai: มหาธรรมราชาที่ ๑, pronounced [mā.hǎː tʰām.mā.rāː.t͡ɕʰāː tʰîː nɯ̀ŋ]), born as Li Thai (Thai: ลิไทย, pronounced [líʔ.tʰāj]), was King of Sukhothai. He was the first Buddhist philosopher to write in the Thai language. He reigned from about 1347, and the end of the reign is given as 1368 or as 1374. Li Thai was the son of Loe Thai and the grandson of Ram Khamhaeng the Great.

Li Thai served as viceroy at Si Satchanalai and came to the throne at Sukhothai in 1347. He is known chiefly for his patronage of Theravada Buddhism. He wrote the Trai Phum Phra Ruang, brought a Lanka-trained monk from Martaban to head the Mango Grove monastery, took ordination himself, and commissioned bronze images and monastic building. Inscriptions of the reign also record campaigns, at Phrae and at Nan, Luang Prabang and the Pa Sak valley. In 1363 he moved his residence to Phitsanulok, where he stayed for the rest of his reign. The title Maha Thammaracha, by which he is known, was attached to that record of religious works.

Accession

The exact chronology of Li Thai's rise to the throne is unclear. Popular tradition names him as the fourth king of Sukhothai. Dynastic records seem to indicate that at least one other king, Ngua Nam Thum, ruled between Li Thai and his father, and that the regent Phaya Sai Songkhram ruled during Loe Thai's absence after the death of Ramkhamhaeng.

Li Thai served as Upparat (viceroy) during his father's reign from the city of Si Satchanalai, an important urban center of the early Sukhothai Kingdom. Baker and Pasuk place that residence in the early 1340s and describe it as given over to religious study and patronage. Chusak Satienpattanodom dates that accession to 1340 and observes that Li Thai counted his reign from it, which is why the inscriptions reach twenty-two years in 1361. He also has Li Thai write the Trai Phum Phra Ruang at Si Satchanalai, finishing it in 1345, and take Sukhothai by force in 1347. On that reading the Khmer inscription of Wat Pa Mamuang describes troops brought out from Si Satchanalai and the gates cut down. Michael Vickery read the inscriptions as treating Si Satchanalai and Sukhothai as separate towns, and found no record of a prince ruling at Si Satchanalai after 1347. He also questioned whether that Si Satchanalai was the walled town on the Yom, and proposed a deserted site about 20 km to its south. The end of the reign is given variously, as 1368 or as 1374.

Government

The kings of Sukhothai had used the Thammaracha (king of righteousness) style of rule before Li Thai's reign, based on the dharma of a king taken from Brahma scrolls. As Buddhism spread, its principles were absorbed into that style, and Li Thai held the religion in great respect. The principles he followed include Tosaphit Ratchatham, the ten virtues a ruler should hold; Chakkrawat Diwat, the twelve behaviours a ruler should follow; and Rachajanyanuwatr, the four abilities a ruler should possess.

The kingdom held many smaller towns tied to one another by kinship within the ruling class. Its structure of government has been described as an oligarchy or aristocracy, in which each town ruler followed the Aparihaniyadhamma, a set of rules meant to prevent decline.

On the same account the Thammaracha style produced a peaceful relationship between ruler and subjects, but discouraged conflict. It left Sukhothai with less military power and open to invasion by the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which later made it a tributary state.

Inscriptions 8 and 9 record military action under Li Thai. Prasert na Nagara reads the ninth as recording the taking of Phrae in 1359–60, and the eighth as recording his occupation of Nan, Chouburi (Luang Prabang) and the Pa Sak valley.

The inscriptions praise him for what he refrained from doing, which Baker and Pasuk take as an indication of what bad rulership was held to consist of. He is commended for not killing people for small offences, not subjecting the weak to heavy corvée, not appropriating the property of nobles and commoners at death, not seizing women at will and not interfering with people who trade.

Religion

Baker and Pasuk give the monk Si Sattha a large part in the religious life of these years. At Li Thai's invitation Si Sattha brought a relic to Si Satchanalai and placed it in Wat Mahathat. The two made offerings together, and the relic was said to have risen into the air and given off rays of six colours. The reigning king then sent for it to be brought to Sukhothai, where the chronicle records that it worked no miracle at all, because that city was not where it was to remain. Baker and Pasuk read such stories as placing religious power within the saṅgha and beyond the reach of the king. They read the wat chronicles of Lan Na, which describe a long struggle between monks and rulers, as marking the period in which warrior chiefs were remade as Buddhist kings.

On their reading Li Thai answered that by seeking the power of appointment over monastic office. In 1359 he went to Wat Padaeng, a forest monastery at Si Satchanalai, to preside over its abbot's funeral and appoint the successor. Inscription 9, as Vickery reports it, places two foundations in 1359. In connection with worship at the Mahathat of Si Satchanalai, Li Thai had a dwelling built for the monk Mahā Kalyāṇa Thera, and had the Red Forest Monastery built for him. The original location of its stones is not known. In 1361 he had the Mango Grove monastery enlarged and brought a Lanka-trained monk from Martaban to head it, cast a large Buddha image for Wat Mahathat and had himself ordained there. The four inscriptions commemorating the ordination have him say that he wished for no treasure of a cakkavattin, of Indra or of Brahma, but only to become a Buddha and lead all creatures across the three realms. By the 1410s a Sukhothai ruler could appoint the heads of religious orders and preside over an ecclesiastical court, and officials existed to manage relations between ruler and saṅgha. Winai Pongsripian reads the same patronage as political work. On that account the merit-making answered the rival claim of the Pha Mueang branch, presented Li Thai as Ram Khamhaeng's rightful heir, and bound his kinsmen to him.

Theerasak Thanusilp reads the Wat Pa Mamuang inscription of 1361 as recording a large bronze Buddha enshrined in the middle of the city. He takes it to be most probably the Si Sakkayamuni, a colossal image moved to Bangkok in the reign of Rama I and now in the vihara of Wat Suthat. He records a second commission, a bronze deity image installed at the Maha Kaset Thewalai (เทวาลัยมหาเกษตร) outside the city. He treats such castings as declarations of royal power as well as acts of merit, and connects them to the iron and bronze production found in the hills about 20 km north-west of the capital.

Li Thai used Buddhism as a diplomatic, educational and governing instrument. He divided the monkhood in two. The Kamawasi taught Buddhism to the laity and studied the Pra Trai Pidok (พระไตรปิฎก), while the Aranyawasi sought enlightenment, so that the order might both enrich the religion and spread its teaching.

He allowed the study of Buddhist disciplines, and the study of the liberal arts by Brahmins, within the precincts of the royal palace.

He spread the teaching mainly through the Trai Phum Phra Ruang, and also through temple building and by entering the monkhood himself in 1362 as an example to his subjects. He urged people to visit temples to hear teaching and give alms, sent monks to teach in other states, and invited other towns to pay respect at Sukhothai's religious buildings. He invited a Buddhist patriarch from Lanka, repaired temples and built many Buddha images, among them the Phra Phuttha Chinnasi.

His support of Buddhism earned him the title Thammaracha, glossed as a king who brings contentment through dharma. George Cœdès renders the fuller form Maha Thammaracha as "great pious king". He constructed many Buddha footprints and restored Wat Mahathat of Sukhothai, and was succeeded by his son Lue Thai.

Works

Prince Damrong Rajanubhab held that the walled town of Kamphaeng Phet, on the east bank of the river, was built in Li Thai's reign. He explained its absence from Li Thai's inscription by the inscription's concern with the Wat Mahathat of the older town on the west bank, which it calls Nakhon Chum.

Phitsanulok

In 1363, under pressure from Ayutthaya's advance to the south, Li Thai moved the capital of the kingdom to Phitsanulok so as to look after the towns on that side. He stayed there for seven years, until the end of his reign in 1369. He built there the Chan Royal Palace, which remained the residence of the rulers of Sukhothai after his death and of the monarchs of the Ayutthaya period after the kingdom was absorbed.

He also built Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat at Phitsanulok, whose principal image is the Phra Phuttha Chinnarat.

He was the first king to settle at Phitsanulok, and is credited with its rise.

Trai Phum Phra Ruang

Li Thai wrote the Trai Phum Phra Ruang, "three worlds by Phra Ruang", Phra Ruang being the dynastic name of his lineage. It is a religious and philosophical text describing the worlds of Buddhist cosmology and the way in which karma consigns living beings to one world or another. The Ten Virtues of a sovereign were set down as guiding principles for Thai monarchs. The Trai Phum Phra Ruang would go on to serve as an important political document, being re-interpreted in response to changes in the domestic and international political scene.

The Trai Phum Phra Ruang is the oldest known Thai literary work apart from Sukhothai Inscription 1, written by Li Thai in about 1345, six years after his appointment as viceroy. Vickery calls the work "of uncertain origin" and notes that it is traditionally attributed to Li Thai. Its opening and colophon say that the author's father ruled Si Satchanalai and Sukhothai, and that the author had ruled at Satchanalai for six years when he wrote it. He intended it for teaching, to lessen conflict and crime and to improve conduct through the doctrine of karma and related ideas, which set the fear of karmic consequence beside the encouragement of good deeds. It is closely referenced, which was rare for its time, citing 32 Buddhist works, among them parts of the Phra Trai Pidok and the Atthakatha.

Being a Buddhist text, it uses many uncommon words of Pali and Sanskrit origin, and is studied as a source for the literature and literacy of the Sukhothai period. It is still read in religion and literature classes in Thailand. In 1981 the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community asked each member country to choose a literary work for translation into English, and Thailand chose the Trai Phum Phra Ruang in the version prepared by Pithul Malival (นายพิทูร มลิวัลย์). It appeared in 1985 as Traibhumikatha: The Story of the Three Planes of Existence in Anthology of ASEAN Literature volume 1a, with a simplified version in volume 1b.

The book sets out Buddhist cosmology, the birth of the universe and of the beings in it, and its division into three realms. It describes the structure of the world, Mount Meru and the other principal mountains, the courses of the sun, moon and zodiac, and the destruction and rebirth of the universe. Its matter is carried largely in short fables.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Maha Thammaracha I
8. King Si Inthrathit of Sukhothai 4. King Ram Khamhaeng of Sukhothai 9. Sueang 2. King Loe Thai of Sukhothai 1. King Maha Thammaracha I of Sukhothai

Sources

• Jackson, Peter. 'Re-Interpreting the Traiphuum Phra Ruang' in Buddhist Trends in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. 1993. ISBN 981-3035-81-1.

See also

• Sukhothai kingdom