16 oct 2003

A month ago UNESCO announced that the famous stone known as Sukhothai Inscription One had been accepted into UNESCO’s world heritage list. Immediately, a majority of Thailand’s publicly prominent historians came out to express their surprise. Why, they asked, did the Thai government ask for this UNESCO listing, when the origin, the dating, and the significance of the stone are matters of doubt and debate.

Over a decade earlier, two prominent historians raised questions about the stone. Many others gave them cautious backing. They challenged whether the stone was what it claimed to be – that is, a message written in Sukhothai in the late thirteenth century by a king called Ramkhamhaeng. This challenge was based on highly technical arguments, especially about language. But in the background it was also a challenge to what the stone had been made to stand for – to the romances which people have written onto the stone since it was discovered in the nineteenth century.

By romance here is meant a story, but a story with atmosphere, with magic, and with meaning. On the (four) face(s) of it, Ramkhamhaeng simply tells us about his childhood, and about what a wonderful place late thirteenth-century Sukhothai was.

But there have been many romances written onto this stone. The story changes with the times.

The first important romance was created a century ago after King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) visited Sukhothai with a copy of the stone’s text. He found the description of Sukhothai on the stone seemed to match the ruins which remained. Hence, he concluded, the stone seemed to be an authentic historical document. Only a year earlier, his father (King Chulalongkorn) had given a speech saying that proper countries (like those in Europe he had just visited) had histories proven by documents going back at least one thousand years. Siam needed such a history. With Inscription One, Siam was almost three-quarters of the way there.

In this first romance, Sukhothai became Thailand’s first royal capital, and thus the beginning of a story that continued right down to Bangkok. In this romance, there were two special things about Siamese kings, proven by the stone. First, Ramkhamhaeng was not just a great warrior, but a talented man in other ways – such as inventing the written Thai language. Next, Ramkhamhaeng seemed to welcome a close and open relationship with the people. On the stone he told about the processions and festivals where he mingled with the people, and he mentioned the bell which any petitioner could ring to get the king’s attention.

At the time this romance was written, the public presentation of the Siamese monarchy was undergoing a complete change. Earlier, the royal body had been rather hidden and mysterious. Suddenly it had become much more visible. Chulalongkorn appeared on stamps, postcards, coins, the great equestrian statue, in person at Wat Benja fair, and in grand processions through the city. The great royalist historian, Prince Damrong, claimed this showed Chulalongkorn was a king “of the people” and “for the people”. Damrong’s histories also highlighted the multifarious talents of Chulalongkorn and other Chakri kings. This talent was part of what qualified them as absolute rulers. The first romance of Sukhothai Inscription One showed this royal openness and royal talent were part of Thai tradition reaching back centuries.

The second romance was written by Luang Wichit Wathakan between the 1930s and the 1950s. This was the era of nationalism, the end of the absolute monarchy, and the first stirrings of a new urban middle class. For Luang Wichit, the important story of the stone was not about the kings but about the Thai as a people, as a nation. The Sukhothai era was the perfect expression of the freedom-loving character of the Thai. Freedom gave opportunities for all to contribute their talents to the nation. That was why Sukhothai was so creative in art and language, and so productive in material life. Wichit highlighted passages in the Inscription about the freedom of merchants to trade. For Wichit, Sukhothai Inscription One was proof that “free enterprise has been part of Thailand’s philosophy for many generations”.

The third romance appeared in the 1950s and 1960s. Two of its main authors were Kukrit and Seni Pramoj. This was a time when monarchy was making a comeback. Kukrit and Seni were prominent among a new band of neo-royalists who thought the monarchy had to change slightly in order to flourish in a new world of democracy and constitutions. In their romance, Inscription One turns out to be a constitution. What’s more, it was a constitution written and granted by the king himself. It also describes a king who was “father of the people” whose job was to “look after the people as his own children.”

So many romances on one small stone.

The historians who came out to challenge the stone over a decade ago were also writing their own kind of romance, but a romance in a postmodern genre. It is a story with no beginning and no end. It has a plot so obscure that its meaning is uncertain. In short, it’s a mystery.

Now UNESCO had registered the stone, there is a new romance. The National Commission liaising with UNESCO said the listing proved the stone is authentic. The Fine Arts Department says we should all believe in it and say nothing that might spoil the country’s reputation. The Education Ministry is planning a celebratory event. The cabinet secretary said “some academic topics should not be debated.” The minister of culture ordered us to stop all debate about the stone’s origins and simply take UNESCO’s word for it, as critical analysis could have damaging effects.

UNESCO is now our (cultural) father.

This is the new message of the stone. Not so much a romance as a how-to manual for success at the current time: obey the boss, abandon independent thinking, enjoy a national celebration.