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

208 REVIEW AHTICLE
year dates are given, but tiger year, which may be assumed to represent
the 1350-51 of other texts, is specified for the founding of the city.
Thereafter the chronicle runs through the reigns of kings who may
generally be recognized as those of the standard Ayutthayan chronicles 2
and ends in the period of Prasat Thong, in 1640.
The text is generally
very summarized and there are few political or military details before
the time of King Maha Chakrapattbirat.
Thereafter relations with
Burma and Cambodia are reported quite fully, but with the details often
confused.
For the 17th century, the period which van Vliet knew from
personal experience, there is a good deal of information which must
represent --his own research and which is also included in his other
works.
Although the kings are the same as in the other chronicles, their
reign periods are usually quite different from both of the major chronicle
traditions.
The textual material is also different, and this, together
with its brevity for the first two hundred years, leads one to wonder
whether van Vliet translated a Thai text or put together a history from
disparate information he had collected from various informants.
Although the editor, Wyatt, felt that, "it is much too early to begin
to assess the full value" of vV (p. 9), material is readily at band to go
much farther in this direction than be chose to do, and in fact should
have done, in the present publication.
I intend thererfore, to use this
occasion to compare "his [van Vliet's] version with that of the several
versions of the Royal Chronicles of Ayudhya and other documents," (p. 9),
in order to situate it much more firmly within the picture of Ayuttbayan
history such sources have provided.
2) These are the Hlvan prasro'!h/Luang Praso't (LP) chronicle and a group which
I shall refer to as the 1157 tradition (1157), consisting of a chronicle com·
posed at that date, equivalent to A.D. 1795, and represented today by
Bancandanuma§ (P), and its direct descendents : the version of Samtec bra( 1
banratn (Wyatt's Phonnarat), the so-called British Museum version, the Bradley
version, and The Royal Autograph Chronicle (RA), of which the edition to be
cited here is the sixth, Chonburi, 2511 [ 196 8 J.