The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

REVIEW ARTICLE
339
dav jian run kaev jay mo'an, and arranged [ray n~J it to fit".36 Thus
the name of the child was manray. This is obviously a folk etymology,
and a very tortuous one, devised to explain a name unlike the ordinary
run of northern Thai names and the origin of which had long been
forgotten.
With the appearance of Mangrai the story becomes very much like
that of the well-known Chiang Mai chronicles, but with the emphasis on
Chiang Saen, and we very soon reach a period for which the relationship
between the chronicle and true his tory is not much in doubt. I shall
leave it for the moment and return to the TS proper.
To most readers the story of TS part 1 and the beginning of part 2
would appear, I believe, as a fairly clear case of Indian and Buddhist
themes being taken over, mixed with local lore, placed in the geographical
setting of northern Thailand, and of interest mainly for the way in which
it was done. If there is any of the real history of northern Thailand to
be gleaned from the mixture, it can only be done when the foreign
elements have been identified.
Manit, however, prefers to see it as a work of straight Thai history
"concerning the period when the Thai people entered and became
important in the area of present Thailand".37 Nevertheless, be says, it
may appear confused if read superficially, due to lacunae and poor
arrangement in successive stages of copying. It is only when read
carefully and interpreted that the full meaning is clear, and his copious
notes are to show us what the true meaning is and to explain the
assumptions which his interpretation requires.
The most drastic of Manit's revisions of what seems to be the
superficial meaning of the text concerns the chronology. Instead of a
sequence of pre-Buddhist era, Buddhist era, saka era and finally, in part 2
which he didn't publish, cula era, Manit claims that the eras used in TS
are·:
- poralJ (ancient), or pa{hama (first) era, beginning from 413 B.E.
(130 B.C.), the era with which the text opens.
36) PP 61, p. 124.
37) Manit, p. 4.