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

REVIEW Al\TICLE 363
tradition, as for example recorded in the Sasanava1?7sa, 84 there is
distortion, but both are still on a distant border, even if in the northeast
rather than the northwest. The probable explanation for the TS pattern
is that the chronicler was brought up in the Burmese Buddhist tradition
and knew that his own country was Yonaka. He also desired to
incorporate local belief that it was an important Buddhist center and
had been founded by a member of the Magadban dynasty. The result
was a distorttion of the classical system through which Chiang Saen,
while still remaining Yonaka, was also close to the important middle
country.
We must acknowledge, I think, that TS, in its early part, was
intended as a story of the original Buddhist middle country, but the
chronicler believed that country to have been spread over Yunnan, the
Shan States and Northern Thailand.
One more aspect of the composition of TS seems also to be
attributable to an Indian origin. Chiang Saen, in the story, bas four
lives. That is, after its foundation by Sii:tbanavati it is destroyed or
deserted three times and rebuilt under new names, thus:
1. mo'an nagab'tmdhusinhanava£inagara, founded by Sinhanavati.
There are hints in a confused part of the text that it was
destroyed by earthquake and flood. In any case it appears,
veJy close to a change o~ era, from ancient to Buddhist, with a
new name,
2. mo'an yonakanagara jaiyapurirajadhani sri jian saen. Tbis city
was in turn destroyed by earthquake and flood at a date which
I have suggested should be 1000 B.E. The city was then
recreated as
3. vian pru'k~a. Then a new ruler sent down from heaven
established the cula era and renamed the city
4. vian herananagara ho'n yail jian saen.
84) Sasanava•:ua, Mabel Bode, ed., Pali Text Society, London, 1897, and in English,
Siisanavan;tsa, B.C. Law, translator, Sacred Books of the Buddhists, vol. 3 3,
London 1952. See the former, pp. 3-10, and the latter, pp. 1-18.