Page 56 - วารสารแสงธรรม เล่ม 10

The Light of Dharma July 2021 – June 2022 55

by them. The Lao therefore declined toms. The Tai knew how to pick and
more and more until finally the only choose. When they saw some good fea-
ones left were scattered populations liv- ture in the culture of other peoples, if it
ing in the forest, whom the Tai of the was not in conflict with their own inter-
north called Lawa (ละวะ) and the Tai of ests, they did not hesitate to borrow it
the south call Lawa (ละว้า). Even now and adapt it to their own requirements.
they can still be found in nearly every For example they took a Khmer script
27
province of Siam . and adapted it to produce one that
When the Tai became rulers of would be suitable for the Tai language.
Sukhodaya, which had been founded by In the same way the Tai who settled at
the Khmer long before, both Mahayana Sukhodaya and farther south-in contrast

Buddhism and the Brahmanical religions to those who settled in Lan Na and Lan
were already established there, as well Chang – took over curtain religious and
as the use of Khmer language and script. cultural practices from the Khmer, includ-
Thus the peoples who now came under ing some of their linguistic and intellec-
control of the Tai were for the most part tual habits.
attached to Khmer civilization and cus- (to be continued)

1 King Asoka of India reigned in the third century B.C. (A.B.G.)
2 It is now believed that these people were Mon, nor Lao or Lawa; at lease the vernacular inscriptions found at
Nagara Pathama and other Davravati sites are in Mon. (S.D.) Nagara Pathama has yielded a greater quantity of
antiquities of Dvaravati style than any site, but there is no means of knowing whether or not it was the capital
of Dvarawati. Drawing political conclusions from art styles in sometimes hazardous. (A.B.G.)
3 The Theravada or ‘Doctrine of the Elders’ is the form of Buddhism that uses Pali as its sacred language and tries
to adhere as closely as possible to teachings of the Buddha preserved in that language. Tha Mahayana or
‘Greater Vehicle’ is the name of a much expanded form of Buddhism that arose in Northern India some four or
five centuries after the Buddha’s death; it used the Sanskrit language, gave more importance to ideas of divinity
and ritual introduced from the Brahmanical religions, and invented new doctrine freely. The adherents of this
sect used the term Hinayana (‘Lesser Vehicle’ or ‘Inferior Vehicle’) to describe the Theravada. ‘Hinayana’ also
includes a few sects, such as the Sarvastivada, whose doctrine, preached in Sanskrit, was mainly the same as the
Theravada but influenced to a minor extent by the Mahayana. (A.B.G.)
4 The argument that Buddhism was introduced into Siam in the first century B.C. needs to be qualified. None of
the stone Wheels of the Doctrine or other ‘aniconic’ symbols that have actually been discovered in Siam date
th
from any earlier than the 6 century A.D., as we know from the style of their floral and other patterns, and many
th
of them are a good deal later. (One of the Wheels dates from the 9 century.) Nevertheless it is possible that
they are copies, at one or more removes, of much older objects that no longer survive. If so they may be evi-
dence, though not conclusive evidence, that Buddhism was first brough to Siam in very early times. Not a single
example of Dvaravati art can be dated earlier than the 6 century A.D., though a few much older pieces of Bud-
th
dhist art, made in India or Ceylon, have been found in Siam. (A.B.G.)
5 Since 1926, when Prine Damrong’s book was first published, a number of images of the Bodhisattva Avalokites-
vara of Dvaravati style have been discovered, which show that the Mahayana had at least some adherants in the
Dvaravati area around the 8 or 9 century; and there is ample evidence that it had adherents at Pagan in Burma
th
th
st
rd
from the 11 to th e 13 ; though both places were predominantly Theravadin. (A.B.G.)