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

REVIEW ARTICLE 345
Close examination of the cyclical combinations of the text of TS
shows most of them to be in the realm of utter fantasy.
Thus, to first
take only the sequence of cyclical years without reference to the accuracy
of the numerical dates, the first three, kat cai, huoiz pau, tap sai for the
years 17, 18,22 form a coherent sequence even if wrong for the dates in
question, but tbe next one, mo'iz kai for year 67, does not. By accurate
arithmetic mo'iz kai would be 64 and 67 would be kat yi. 49
The next three
dates, po'k cai, mo'iz sai, tau set for the dates 68, 97, 102 are coherent with
respect to mo'n kai- 67, but then out of order with the earlier dates. so
Accurate addition from this point would place 148, the year of the
Buddha's nirvana, in a po'k san year, but if the following year, first of
the new era, is moiz met, as the text says, 148 should be rahvay saiza two
years earlier than po'k san. Year 2 of the new era, as ra~vay san, is
quite incoherent, since ra~vay precedes rather than follows mo'n and the
next date, kat sai- 82, is not only out of sequence with all that has gone
before, but is an impossible combination. Following this there are year
dates 151, 152, 183, 200, 216, 218, 276 the cyclical combinations for
which are all but one incoherent with each other and with what has gone
before. Only 183, kap set, followed by 200, luoiz mau, provide a correct
sequence. 5 I
It is only when the dates get up to the beginning of what is clearly
the cula era, or as TS calls it, the third era, that we find some coherency
in terms of cyclical usage as preserved in extant contemporary documents.
Thus the year 1 of the third era is kat gai, as it should be. In the
saka or second era this would be 561, which the chronicler well understood
since he wrote that the third era was established by cutting 560
years from the second era.
Let's again test some of the earlier dates by proceeding back from
the coherent one. 560 saka would then have been po'k set and 559 mo'il
lau. But the text has 559 po'k set. This shows that the cyclical terms
were probably inserted post facto and the chronicler forgot that "cutting
49) Manit, pp. 27, 30, 32, 34.
50) Manit, pp. 34-35.
51) Manit, pp. 48, 53, 54, 55, 56.