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The Light of Dharma July 2021 – June 2022 57

to have been very imperfectly known to him, being based chiefly on his acquaintance with a certain number of
Jatakas gained after his conquest of Thaton. It was only in the reign of his second successor Kyanzittha (1804-1113)
that Theravada Buddhism became predominant at Pagan; see Luce, Old Burma, Chapter IV. If Anuruddha con-
quered Northern Siam, which he almost certainly did not (see note 14), it seems unlikely he would have planted
Theravada Buddhism there, where at the time it was already much better known the at Pagan. As the kingdom
of Haripunjaya (Lumpun) was an offshoot of Dvaravati, there is every reason to believe that the Mon form of the
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Theravada was implanted there around the 8 century when the kingdom was founded, and we know from in-
scriptions at Lampun that it was still flourishing there in the early 13 . (A.B.G.)
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18 More research is needed to discover how much of Siam, if any, was conquered by Anuruddha. (S.D.)
19 The theory that the Tai of Siam came from Yun-nan can no longer be taken seriously. See F. W. Mote, ‘Problems
of Thai Prehistory’, Social Science Review, Vol. II, No. 2. In writing about the supposed Tai kingdom between
China and Tibet, the author was misled by 19 -century European Sinologists who translated the Chinese histories
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of the kingdom of the Nan-chao. On the basis of very flimsy evidence these scholars concluded that Nan-chao
was a Tai kingdom (see Mote, op, cit.). It now seems pretty certain that the predominant race in Nan-chao were
a Tibeto-Burman people who spoke a language akin to Lolo, and were therefore probably the ancestors of the
Lolo who still form a considerable proportion of the population of Yun-nan; if there were any Tai in Nan-chao
when it was an independent kingdom, they played an insignificant part in its affairs. More recent studies suggest
that the principal homeland of the Tai before the beginning of the Christian Era was in the region of the present
Chinese provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Kweichow, where there is still a large Tai-speaking population. At
that period the Tai very likely had city-states and principalities of there own there. Various groups of there Tai
later moved into Tongking. Some of them remained there, and the present-day Tai of Tongking are presumably
their descendants. Other groups eventually went father west and settled in Laos. As Prince Damrong observes
further on, the Tai of Loas were probably the ancestors of the Tai of Sukhodaya. (A.B.G.)
20 As the author remarks in a footnote, it has been suggested that Shan and Syam (Siam) are the same word. This
identification now seems fairly sure. (A.B.G.)
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21 This statement seems to be based on the belief which was prevalent in the early 20 century that the kingdom
of Haripunjaya (Lampun) was rule by the Khmer. We now know it was an offshoot of Dvaravati, and it was ruled
by a Mon dynasty, several of whose inscriptions in Pali and Mon of the 11 (?) to 13 century still servive. (A.B.G.)
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22 This statement needs qualification. Sukhodaya became an independent kingdom at an unknown date, very
likely a little before 1250 A.D., but remained quite a small state for several decades. King Ram Kamheng (r. 1279?-
1298) expanded it enormously, until the end of his reign he controlled a large part of Siam, as well as the Malay
Peninsular, Lower Burma and parts of Laos. But he did not conquer Lan Na, with which he had an alliance; he
probably did not conquer Lavo (Labapuri); and it is unlikely that he controlled more than a small part of North-
eastern Siam. (A.B.G.)
23 cf. above, notes 14, 17.
24 The author’s statement seems to be based on the belief that the Tai came from Nan-chao (see above, note
19); and as we know from the Chinese accounts the rulers of Nan-chao professed the Mahayana. There is no
evidence that any substantial number of Tai were Buddhists before the 13 century A.D. Even today many of the
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Tai of Laos are not Buddhists but animists. The same is true of most of the Tai of Tongking,Kweichow, Kwanghsi
and Kwangtung. (A.B.G.)
25 They almost certainly did not adopt it from Pagan (see note 17). It seems more likely they adopted it from
Haripunjaya. Even as late as 1345 A.D. Prince Lidaiya (the future Mahadharmaraja I of Sukhodaya), in the introduc-
tion to his famous work Traibhumikatha, acknowledges his indebtedness to a monk from Haripunjaya for help in
composing it. (A.B.G.)
26 The decline in the power of Pagan after Anuruddha’s death was brief; his second successor, Kyanzittha, was the
real consolidator of the kingdom. The author, however, may have been thinking of a considerably later period,
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in the second half of the 13 century A.D., when the kingdom of Pagan collapsed. (A.B.G.)
27 It is not clear what people the author means by the ‘Lao’ (ลาว), some of whom became assimilated by the
Khmer and some by the Tai, while others became the ancestors of the modern Lawa and Lawa. Presumably they
were the ancient Lao (ลาว) he mentions two paragraphs earlier, with whom the Pu Tai, the Lu, the Kon, and the
people of Luang Pra Bang, Veing Jan and the northeastern provinces of Siam were confused, with the result that
these Tai became mistakenly Known as Lao (ลาว). (A.B.G.) The Lawa or Lawa discussed here must be the people
of Indonesian race who had migrated to Indochina in the neolithic period. They were not Mon, nor did they use
the Mon language of the Dvaravati kingdom. (S.D.)