The Oldest Known Writing in Siamese: The Inscription of Phra Ram Khamhæng of Sukhothai, 1293 A.D.

Front matter

THE INSCRIPTION OF

Phra Ram Khamhæng of Sukhothai

1293 A.D.

Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Bowring, Sir John : The Kingdom and People of Siam. London 1827. Vol. I. pp. 278—279. (A very brief notice accompanied by a specimen of the writing—an indifferent pen-sketch of the first few lines.)

Bastian, Dr. A. : Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. Vol. XXXIV. 1864. (The translation occupies pp. 7—12 of the reprint, which alone I have been able to see. It is really no translation, but a first sketch, in which the writer reports such impressions of the drift and import of the writing as he was able to get from Siamese sources.)

Schmitt, Père : Excursions et Reconnaissances, Vol. VIII. Saigon 1884. pp. 169—187, with 9 plates of the text—its first publication. (The text is neither a facsimile nor a tracing, nor a rendering of it by any method of accurate reproduction. What the author supposed to be found on the stone, and what he supplied from conjecture, are both set down alike in coarse black letters apparently drawn with a brush. Words still plainly to be read on the stone reappear strangely, or even absurdly, transformed. The translation, naturally repeats the errors of this transcript, with, of course, others of its own.)

Schmitt, Père : Deux Anciennes Inscriptions Siamoises transcrites et traduites par M. Schmitt. Saigon 1885. (A little booklet apparently made up of reprints of the article just named, and of another from Vol. VII. of the same series ).

Pavie Auguste : Mission Pavie, Indo-Chine, 1879—1895. Études Diverses II. Paris 1898. pp. 176—201. (Introductory Note, transliteration, translation, and text by the author of the two preceding studies. It is in fact another edition of them, revised and altered somewhat, and with the text now in photographic reproduction. But for the scholar, the value of this text is very seriously diminished by the fact that it has everywhere been retouched, and that too, it would seem, without reference to the original, but to some inaccurate transcript—apparently the one twice published before. Similar changes of the text appear, and nearly all the lacunæ are written in so as to appear as text. Transliteration and translation are, of course, no more authentic than the text on which they are based—if it be not rather sometimes the case that the interpretation has determined the text.)

—— —— วจิรญาณ (Vajirañana Magazine, Vol. VI. pp. 3574—3577. Bangkok 1898. A short article embodying in a freely modernized version nearly the whole of the fourth face of the inscription, including the dates, the story of the origination of Siamese writing, and the boundaries of the realm.)

—— —— เรื่อง เมือง สุโขไท (Bangkok 1908. A pamphlet of 22 pages, prepared and printed for H. R. H. the Crown Prince, containing two inscriptions from Sŭkhothăi and one from Khămphæng Phĕt. The first of these, the one with which we are here concerned, is the text in modern Siamese characters and spelling, with occasional substitution of modern words. Here also there is no indication of what portions are conjectural. But upon the whole, I find it the least inaccurate text so far produced.)

The Oldest Known Writing in Siamese

The Oldest Known Writing in Siamese.

Mr. President, Members of the Siam Society, Ladies and Gentlemen:— I feel very sensibly the honor you have done me in asking me to present first of all before you some of the results of my months of study here. Those studies lie, as you all know, in the very heart of the Dryasdust realm, and are not supposed to be interesting, or intelligible even, to any save dryasdust people. I felt sure that no other sort of people would come here this evening. I confess therefore to no little surprise at the large and distinguished gathering that I see before me—surprise not unmingled with fear at thought of what you may be ready to do to me before the evening is done. My own impression of people who work on inscriptions has not greatly improved on closer acquaintance with them. My subject has one point of general interest, however, which I may do well to mention at once. The earliest known inscription in Siamese is a unique document, not merely among the documents of Siam, but among the documents of the world. If I am not entirely wrong, there is no other document extant which records the achievement of letters for an untamed speech by one to whom that speech was native, and which at the same time fully illustrates that achievement. When we recall the part these very letters of this very inscription have played in the culture and the life of the Thai race both north and south, and when we reflect that the very form in which we read and write Siamese today is the lineal descendant of that,—not far removed and but little changed,—we may be interested to know something more about it.

There is another point also. As your President has just told us, the inscription itself has repeatedly been published, with transliterations, translations, and essays upon it. Yet few things in Bangkok seem so little known, or understood, or rightly valued. Few even of those who know something about it have ever seen the stone, or know where it stands, or have any clear idea of what it is all about. In spite of all that these various editors have done,—I am not sure but I should have said, in consequence of what they have done,—the real nature and intent of this perfectly direct and simple-hearted utterance seem at many points wholly misapprehended, One editor finds in it—apparently for no other cause than that it is now the thing to do—a complete code of civil law. Another finds in it a complete ritual of religious observance and ceremony. Another varies the now somewhat hackneyed performance of discovering the lost tribes of Israel, by unearthing, forsooth from the ruins of a forest-monastery,—or rather from the word aranyic which means 'forest-monastery'—his long-lost Aryan brothers! Setting all such notions aside, it has been my earnest endeavor to know the thing as it really is, and to understand as a native would, just what it says—its natural drift and import. The quest, begun in the interest of philology pure and simple, has proved of absorbing interest, has taken me far afield, has opened up unexpected realms of thought and of life. If it be then your will to accompany me a little way on this quest, let us begin.

THE STONE.

The stone is a short stumpy obelisk almost without taper, terminating above in a sort of low four-square

Shape and material.

dome. The material is a fine-grained compact rock not yet precisely determined, neither too hard for easy working, nor too soft to hold the inscription well under proper care. It stands 34 inches high above its mason-work pedestal; its faces are rough-hewn below, but above are worked to a smooth surface, forming an area for the inscription of about 14 inches by 23 on each side. In company with another stone from Sŭkhothăi, of

Present position.

later date, it now occupies the westernmost but one of the row of little open Salas on the north side of the main temple-building of Wăt Phră Kæo within the Royal Palace.

Of the earlier history of the stone absolutely nothing is

History.

known save what is said in the inscription itself, ll. 80—97. While the language there leaves something to be desired in the way of explicit connection of the various statements, it seems impossible to mistake its general import; namely, that this stone was one of four prepared at the same time, and—though this is not said—presumably of similar or identical content. The four were dedicated with imposing ceremonies religious and civic. Three of them were set up in separate places which are named. The date was 1214 (Măhasăkărat), equivalent to 1293 A.D. But the dynasty of Khŭn Ram Khămhæng and the supremacy of Sŭkhothăi were both shortlived. From that date not one word is heard of the stone for 540 years, that is until A.D.

Its discovery.

1833, when it was discovered by Prince Chău Fa Măha Mŏngkŭt, who afterwards became King Sŏmdĕt Phră Chom Klău. The story of its recovery is thus told by H. R. H. Prince Văjirăñan.—"In the year 1195 he [the Prince] made a progress through the northern provinces, doing reverence at various shrines, until at last he reached Sŭkhothăi. Here as he wandered about, he came upon a certain large flat slab of stone set in masonry on the terrace beside the ruins of an old palace. The stone was an object of reverence and fear to all the people. If any one failed to bow before it, or presumptuously walked up to it, he would be striken with fever or other disease. When the Prince saw it, he walked straight up and sat down to rest upon it; and, because of the power of his good fortune, he suffered no harm whatsoever. On his return to the capital he had the stone brought down and set in masonry as a platform at Wat Rachathĭwat. After his accession to the throne, he had it brought to Wăt Phră Sri Rătănă Satsădaram (Wăt Phră Kæo). He also secured a stone pillar inscribed in Khămen letters, and one inscribed in ancient Siamese, both standing now in Wăt Phră Sri Rătănă Satsădaram;—of wonderful import, as if presaging that he would be sovereign of Siam, a king of majesty, power, and goodness far-reaching, like the Phră Bat Kămărădeng At, . . . . who was king in Sŭkhothăi, as recorded in that inscribed stone."

Since then the stone has not been moved. But it is

Its present insecurity.

greatly to be desired that a safer and more fitting resting place be found for this the most precious record and monument so far discovered within the realm of Siam. In its present position it is far too much exposed to the weather, to accidents, and to rough handling by unscrupulous persons. During the weeks of the writer's work upon it there was a constant stream of all sorts of people passing almost within arm's length of it, and without the slightest barrier interposed. Its security so far is almost wholly due to the entire ignorance of nearly everybody regarding its real character and value. Not only should it be placed where it may be safe, but where it can be examined and studied under suitable illumination. As it now stands, the inscription is exposed to such confusing and almost blinding crosslights, that direct study of it is extremely difficult, and attempts to photograph it are almost hopeless. Moreover good plaster copies of it should be made without delay, to serve for all ordinary purposes of study and reference, and to insure against entire loss of so unique a document.

The stone has suffered somewhat from exposure, and much

State of preservation.

more from outrageous mishandling—the latter incurred, so far as one can judge, chiefly during its transportation from the north. It has apparently been dragged along bodily over rock or grit, or pried about with crowbars, so that most parts of its surface are disfigured by long lines or sweeps of scratches. Besides this there are some channels and small areas that have been excavated by drip of water. The edge at points has suffered a smooth abrasion, no doubt caused by its use as a whetstone for sharpening knives. There is abundant evidence also of such things as recent dripping of oil and melted candle-wax upon the stone, and of the application of various inks and other pigments to the surface, presumably in attempts to secure reproductions of the inscription. By such means some lines of the inscription have become entirely filled up, and cannot be made to appear in any "squeeze" or "rub." These last, of course, are minor matters; it is possible to clean the stone. Yet they serve to emphasize what has already been said about the need of stricter care. Still, in spite of all that it has suffered, the inscription is legible almost throughout. The letters were deeply incised at the start, and with patience and a good light, may often still be read, though the surface seems hopeless. The absolute losses are mostly of one or two letters out of a word, and these the context often enables one to supply beyond a peradventure. There are not more than twenty words completely lost from the whole inscription, and the restoration of a number of these is scarcely conjectural. In all this matter the recurrent or the aphoristic phrase, the metrical balance, the clue of rhyme—things dear to the elder Siamese speech—are often the surest guides out of the difficulty. (See further below pp. 18-20.)

THE WRITING.

"Heretofore there were no strokes of Siamese writing. In

Record of its origin.

1205 of the era, Year of the Goat, Prince Khŭn Ram Khămhæng sought and desired in his heart, and put into use these strokes of Siamese writing. And so these strokes of Siamese writing are, because that Prince put them to use." [Inscription, ll. 105-108.] Thus in phrase curt and rugged even to harshness, as if with suppressed emotion, is recorded what was by far the most important event of Prince Ram Khămhæng's reign, or indeed of the whole period of Thăi sovereignty. The Prince himself seems to have felt its importance, for he has reversed the historical order to give this achievement the place of honor at the end and climax of his story.

The general appearance of this earliest Siamese writing

Its appearance.

may be seen in the accompanying photographic reproduction of the text. A more detailed study of it can easily be made with the help of the Transliteration into modern Siamese characters. In mass it presents itself as a singularly bold, erect, open writing, four-square, with gently rounded corners, beautifully aligned, and closely too, but without any confusion resulting from superscript or subscript elements, or from letters which extend above or below the line. Its look is therefore not unlike that of a text of Greek uncials or of our own square capitals,—somewhat stiff, but singularly clear. The only drawback in this regard is the running together now and then of the contiguous strokes of different letters. To the eye acquainted only with modern Siamese, this inscription seems at first quite as foreign as the Khămen inscription which stands beside it in the court of Wăt Phră Kæo. Closer scrutiny detects here and there a letter barely recognizable in its grotesque aldermanic breadth. And after the characters are all learned, their sequence is still a source of perplexity, being often quite different from that of modern Siamese.

The particular writing from which these letters were

Its source.

adopted and adapted has not yet been identified. Their general character confirms the impression based on quite other grounds that it must have been South-Indian or Singhalese; that its immediate exemplars were doubtless the Pali religious texts; and that the efficient agents in the accomplishment of the Prince's scheme were Buddhist scholars like him who is mentioned in the inscription as one of the chief glories of the realm,—the Măhathen who "had studied the Pĭdŏktrăi unto its end."

The mere acquisition of the letters was, of course, the least

The vowels

part of the Prince's task. Much more difficult must have been the expansion of the meagre Indian vowel-list to meet the unusually large demands of Siamese speech. Many of the devices adopted by the Prince to accomplish this end were not only illogical, but clumsy in the extreme; and there are many duplications among them. But since his time ั and ึ are the only characters that have actually been added to the vowel list. A few unnecessary อ's have been dropped, but quite as many unnecessary ones have been added. The shift of a number of the vowel signs from the line to the space above or below (see next paragraph) has caused some change in the order of letters in the syllable. But in the main, for its peculiar system of representing vowels and diphthongs, the Siamese of to-day must thank the Prince.

But the most original as well as the most interesting feature

Position in the line.

of his scheme of vowel-notation was his bringing of all the vowel-signs into the written line along with the consonants, and so practically into the alphabet itself. Inclusion of the vowels in the alphabet was a master stroke of the Greek genius, when once for all it adapted oriental letters to the needs of a new world of life and thought. It is that alone, for example, which has made possible for all western tongues the immense advantage of a perfectly fixed order of words in vocabularies and lists. The lack of such an absolute word-order is a difficulty and hindrance to scholarship more or less distinctly felt throughout the Eastern world, and everywhere for the same reason:—the vowels have no place in the alphabetical order. Prince Ram Khămhæng, so far as we can learn, is the only man in all this interval who has come at all near to duplicating that old Grecian thought. But he did not carry his thought through to its logical conclusion. He did not give the vowels their place in the sequence of elements in the syllable, as he had given them their place in the line. Siamese scholars, unlike the Greek, were continually conning oriental scriptures. They thus kept ever alive the old tradition, and obscured the new. Very few years passed before the vowels which had been brought into the line were back in their old stations in the field. Thus it is that for Siamese of to-day, type that can be conveniently cast and set, and dictionaries where words may be easily and certainly found, seem as unattainable as ever.

It seems that the adjustment of the consonant-scheme

The consonants.

should have been much easier; but it was much more clumsily accomplished, if the scheme in present Siamese is to be taken as the Prince's. The consonant sounds in present Siamese are only twenty-one in number; and though some changes have probably taken place in the six centries which have elapsed, the total number then can hardly have been very different from what it is now. The Indian consonant letters were thirty-three—giving, let us say, twelve supernumeraries to be stricken off the list, or else to be used only in rendering Indian words. But there were the

The "tones."

"tones" to be somehow indicated in writing. The easiest and most obvious plan would doubtless have been to indicate these directly by a series of accents. But those supernumerary letters seem to have led to the suggestion that they might somehow be used in indicating the "tones" of the vowels which follow them. To work out the suggestion completely by providing one letter of each sort for every tone, would require—if there were then as many tones as there are now in Siamese—no less than six times twenty-one, that is one hundred and twenty six letters. That being impossible, the compromise actually reached would seem to have been somewhat as follows:—1) One group of consonant-sounds, chiefly the non-aspirates and the aspirates, was actually provided with two letter symbols for each sound, the two letters indicating different tonal quality. The two parallel sets so formed were the so-called "high" and "low" letters. Each naturally gave its tone to the vowel which followed it. These two "inherent" tones were further susceptible of different modification by the use of two accent marks, the "ek" and the "tho," and also to some extent by final consonants; so that in the case of these letters all the required tones could be positively, though very clumsily, indicated. 2) A second group of sounds, mostly semi-vowels and nasals, was furnished with but one letter apiece, and that a "low" letter. To make good their deficiency, and to enable them to represent all of the required tones as well as their more favored companions could, it was arranged that whenever necessary one of the "high" letters should stand beside them—silent of course—and so endue them with all the privileges and powers of the "high" class. 3) A third group, originally it would seem of no more than three or four, with all the functions of the "high" class except inherent tone, and not provided with any means of extending their powers, formed the so-called "middle" class.

The inheritors of this scheme, the Siamese and the Lao,

Tonal consonants in Siamese and Lao.

both preserve to-day all of its essential features; but they differ considerably as to the constitution of two of the groups, namely the "high" and the "middle" letters. The difference concerns the five simple (unvoiced), non-aspirate stops which stand each at or near the head of its particular order of consonants: ก, จ, ฏ, ต, ป. In Siamese these are all "middle" letters, while in Lao they are all "high." The question as to which more nearly represents the original scheme, can never be positively answered, because we can never recover the Sŭkhothăi pronunciation. But the probabilities seem all on the side of the Lao. In the first place, the Lao certainly seems the more primitive in type, preserving many archaic features which the Siamese has lost. In the second place, its central geographical position and its compact area would both defend it, in some degree at least, from the external contact and pressure which the Siamese has not been able to escape. And further, when we consider that any mind capable of thinking out such a scheme at all would not have made it purposely confused and irrational from the start; and when we recall how surely the mere progress of time operates to confound "the best laid schemes,"—as for example it has confounded our once quite rational English spelling;—we should be inclined, I think, to count that the best representative of the old, which most clearly shows evidence of order and intelligent plan. This the Lao does in surprising degree, as may be seen on comparison of any one of the consonant series of the Indian alphabet—the guttural for example—with the corresponding series in Lao. Thus:—

surd | sonant

simple | aspirate | simple | aspirate

|Indian | k | kh | g | gh

corresponds to

|Lao | k | kh | k | gh

simple | aspirate | simple | aspirate

"high" | "low"

That is,—The Lao, having no voiced sounds corresponding to g and gh, utilizes these letters as tonal variants of the unvoiced pair k and kh taken without change from the Indian alphabet. The same thing is done with the corresponding pair in each of the five series. And the first pair—simple and aspirate—are uniformly "high" letters, while the second pair are uniformly "low." Thus without help of any accents beyond the original mai ek (◌่) and mai tho (◌้) of the inscription, a fuller scheme of tones than that of modern Siamese is provided for, without duplication of letters, without lack, and with fair balance of parts. Such symmetry and adaptation of means to ends surely is not the result of accident. If we make a similar comparison in the case of the Siamese, we find—

surd | sonant

simple | aspirate | simple | aspirate

|Indian | k | kh | g | gh

corresponds to

|Siamese | k | kh | kh | kh

simple | aspirate | aspirate | aspirate

"middle" | "high" | "low" | "low"

Two things, apparently, have happened to the Siamese version of the scheme:—1) No. 1 of each group has lost its power of indicating "high" tone, and has gone to swell the list of imperfectly equipped "middle" letters: and 2) No. 3 of each group has taken on aspiration, and thus merely duplicates No. 4.

An outcome such as this is perfectly intelligible and natural if the original were something like the Lao. But the Lao scheme could have hardly have been developed naturally from a scheme originally like that of present Siamese. And if our present twice, nay thrice, involved scheme of Siamese tonal notation—the dismay and confusion of all students,—together with the absurdly inflated consonantal alphabet which is part and parcel of it, were all really the work of Prince Ram Khămhæng it might well bear the palm among what Professor Whitney has called "devices of perverse ingenuity."

As might have been expected, the working of the new

Spelling.

scheme was not always sure. In the inscription a number of uncertain or variant spellings are to be found, to say nothing of certain downright mistakes; but upon the whole the Prince seems to have been very well served by his scribes. Considering the difficulties encountered, this trial trip of the new writing was remarkably successful.

The Epilogue is almost certainly later than the rest of the

Subsequent history of this writing.

inscription. It may even have been written after the death of the Prince, though it contains no reference to such an event. It evidently was inscribed by a different hand, and was cut by a different engraver. The strokes are finer, the letters are distinctly more slender, and some of them already approximate their present shape. But quite as convincing as any of those more obvious features is the evidence of dialectal variation in the speech itself. The vowel ◌ื has entirely disappeared from the writing. It is everywhere replaced by ◌ี, precisely as is still the case in the provinces of Phrae and Lăkhawn, which directly adjoin the Sŭkhothăi region on the north. For a further difference in thought and style, see p. 21.

The direct successor of the Sŭkhothăi writing was, as has

Fak Kham writing.

already been said, the Făk Khám letters, so called because of the peculiar elliptical curve of the vertical strokes, recalling the curve of a tamarind-pod as it hangs on the tree. Early examples of of this type from the Sŭkhothăi region, no later than sixty or seventy years after our inscription, already exhibit its principal features:—superscript and subscript vowels, entire loss of the ◌ื vowel, more slender bodies of the letters, and a gradual approach to the modern type. For a time the Khămén character seems to have been a formidable competitor, especially in the religious field. But the Făk Khám finally won its way, at least throughout all the north, as is attested by numberless inscriptions reaching down to quite modern times. It finally gave way in that region to the present round Lao writing; but at what date and from what source is still in question. Of its history in central and southern Siam I am not prepared to speak. But late northern Făk Khám is already so nearly like southern Siamese of the 18th century, that there can be no doubt of their common relationship. From that time to this its course is a matter of common knowledge. The use of better surfaces and better instruments for writing, long practice, with resulting sureness and swiftness of stroke, have operated to lessen the stiffness, to reduce the more intricate turns, to diminish the aldermanic breadth of the original letters, and to give them the physiological slant. The modern Siamese written line—before type-writing and print had jostled it out of shape—was certainly more elegant, with its delightful clearness, its touch of feminine grace, its suggestion of accurate and fluent movement,. But otherwise it differs not very greatly from that of Prince Ram Khămhæng.

THE LANGUAGE

The total number of words used in this inscription is exactly

Vocabulary

1500. The actual vocabulary, the total number of different words used, amounts to 404. This shows very fair scope and range for a document of this kind. A preliminary sorting of this vocabulary results as follows:—

1 | Words recognized as of Indian origin | |63

2 | Words recognized as of Khămén origin | |13

3 | Proper names not Thai and not included above | |11

4 | Thăi, native or effectively naturalized | |317

|Total | |404

This analysis concerns the question of purity of diction.

Purity.

But purity, it must be remembered, depends very little upon the ultimate derivation of words, and very much upon the sense which they awaken in the cultivated hearer of nearness to or remoteness from the common speech. Therefore it is that no attempt has been made to distinguish here between Thăi words and words effectively naturalized. To distinguish between them is moreover absolutely impossible in the absence of any early records of Thăi speech. But the groups in the scheme above are not mutually exclusive. Eleven words of group 1 and six words of group 2 seem thoroughly naturalized. After making the necessary changes the result appears as follows:—

Apparently native or fully naturalized | |334

Foreign or uncertain | |70

The Thăi element, that is, amounts to 83 per cent of the whole. Surprising as the figure is, it would have been higher yet, had the count been made as is usual in such cases; namely, a count, regardless of repetition, of all words as they actually occur in the text, instead of counting each word but once, as has been done here.

Almost equally surprising is the very small number of

Obsolete words.

words in the Thăi group that have dropped out of current Siamese during the six centuries that have elapsed. As I count them, I find but twenty-one that seem really obsolete, that is, a trifle over 6 per cent.

Of the dialectal color of the Sŭkhothăi speech it is impossible

Dialectal color.

to speak in percentages. Of the twenty-one Thăi words accounted as not current now in Siamese speech, I have marked but six as known to me to exist in Lao. No doubt there are others as well, of whose use I am ignorant. To answer the question quantitatively, one would have to know also how many words out of this whole vocabulary are not—or rather were not—current in Lao. And even so, mere vocabulary does not by any means cover the whole ground of dialectal divergence, which consists quite as much in special applications of the same words, and in tone, accent, and phrasing—matters as yet wholly beyond our reach. But there can be no doubt that to a cultivated Siamese the northern flavor of this speech is quite pronounced; while to a cultivated Lao who should hear it read aloud by one of his countrymen, it would probably seem very good Lao, only perhaps a trifle old-fashioned. That is, the standard Siamese speech of that day had not yet diverged very far from the ancestral type.