On September 15, a seminar marked the 250th Anniversary of the Fall of Ayutthaya and the Rise of Thonburi 1767-2017. The seminar was held under the leadership of the Foundation for the Promotion of Social Sciences and Humanities. This worthy organization was founded in 1966 by Dr. Puey Ungphakorn to promote the publication of quality textbooks in the Thai language. Subject matter includes geography, history, economics, political science, social sciences and humanities, philosophy, psychology, language and literature. It was held at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Center (SAC), Borommaratchachonnani Road, Taling Chan District, Bangkok. For students and ajarns who have not yet visited the Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Center, it has many points of interest for a study visit. There is a charming Pottery Museum featuring a gallery of Thai ceramics from prehistoric sites such as Ban Chiang and Ban Kao, stoneware from Northeastern Thailand, pottery from Sukhothai, and Buddhist tablets from different historical eras. There is also The SAC Library, an excellent collection of around 90,000 books in Thai, English, and French. Students and ajarns who are preparing research projects on anthropology will naturally be interested to browse on the shelves of the SAC library for information, but there are also significant collections of books on philosophy, religion, sociology, literature, and art. The library also has scholarly journals and all dissertations in anthropology written about Thailand over the past twenty years. The SAC Library archive further collects documents, photographs, slides, and films by anthropologists and scholars working in Thailand.
This scholarly atmosphere was appropriate to welcome the distinguished speakers from the Social Sciences and Humanities Textbooks Foundation on September 15. The keynote speech was by Ajarn Nidhi Eoseewong, a noted Thai historian and author. Among books by Ajarn Nidhi in the collection of the Thammasat University Libraries is Pen and Sail: Literature and History in Early Bangkok, including the History of Bangkok in the Chronicles of Ayutthaya.
The English language edition of this book was edited by Chris Baker, who was also present at the seminar, the late Professor Benedict Anderson, who generously donated many books of great interest to the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan Campus, and Craig J. Reynolds. According to a review by the leading Thai historian Ajarn Thongchai Winichakul of the Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, a TU graduate:
Nidhi Eoseewong is unarguably one of the best Thai historians of our generation. His works since the late 1970s, as collected in Pen and Sail, are important contributions to the history of the early Bangkok period and they have had a huge impact on historical scholarship in Thailand. But it took more than twenty years for his important works to be available in English. This should make us ponder about the gap and relationship between different academic worlds even in the age of globalisation… The articles in Pen and Sail were produced between 1978 and 1982, culminating in the most important piece in this book, ‘‘Bourgeois Culture and Early Bangkok Literature.’’ In a short span of time, Nidhi’s tour de force has shaken the entire corpus of Thai historical scholarship.
Ajarn Thongchai explains the exciting changes represented by Ajarn Nidhi in the way Thai history is perceived include the fact that conventionally:
Bangkok in the late eighteenth century was depicted as a rather static agrarian society like its predecessor, Ayutthaya, which was sacked by the Burmese in 1767. Any interesting history only took place in the battlefields and in the court. In the early 1970s, some Thai perception of the past around ports and sails, may look familiar to historians of the archipelago, even though they may look very distant from the agrarian hinterland that until then dominated the Thai perception of history… Pen and Sail is a testimony to one of the most creative and brilliant contributions to historical scholarship that I have ever known.
Ajarn Nidhi was born in Chiang Mai and studied at Assumption College Sriracha in Chon Buri. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and taught history at Chiang Mai University until he completed a PhD from the University of Michigan in 1976 with a thesis on Fiction as History: A Study of Pre-war Indonesian Novels and Novelists 1920–1942. Although he retired in 2000, he has remained active in the academic community. Among honors he have received are the Outstanding Research Award from the National Research Council of Thailand, the Siburapha Award, and the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize. Among highly informed speakers on the fall of Ayutthaya and rise of Thonburi were Professor Chris Baker, a remarkably prolific scholar who has written, edited, and translated dozens of invaluable books about aspects of the Kingdom. He was the principal author of the United Nations Development Programme’s Thailand Human Development Report 2007: Sufficiency Economy and Human Development, which praised HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s (King Rama IX) self-sufficient economy theory. Ajarn Chris is married to Pasuk Phongpaichit, a Thai economist who teaches at Chulalongkorn University. The TU Libraries own many books by Ajarn Pasuk as well. Together, Professor Chris and Ajarn Pasuk Phongpaichit published a compilation and translation of the Thai epic poem Khun Chang Khun Phaen, entitled The Tale of Khun Chang, Khun Phaen : Siam’s Great Folk Epic of Love and War. Also they have produced a useful history of Thailand and A History of Ayutthaya : Siam in the Early Modern World. Professor Chris has edited books of urgent interest for students concerned with Thai culture, such as Protecting Siam’s Heritage; and Van Vliet’s Siam. The latter is a detailed account of old Siam written by Dutch merchant, Jeramias Van Vliet between 1636 and 1640.
Professor Chris also edited The Chronicle of our Wars with the Burmese: Hostilities between Siamese and Burmese when Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam, by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab. This renowned history book was first published in 1917. It recounts 24 wars between Siam and Burma from 1539 to 1767. Stories chosen by Prince Damrong from historical chronicles include those recounting the heroism of Queen Suriyothai, the elephant duel at Nong Sarai, and the drama of Ayutthaya’s fall.
Among other speakers at this distinguished gathering was Ajarn Charnvit Kasetsiri, former rector of Thammasat University and generous donor of the books in the Charnvit Kaetsiri Room of the Pridi Banomyong Library. Also present was Ajarn Pimpraphai Bisalputra, an expert in the histories of the Chinese diaspora and Thailand. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Cornell University who has published extensively on the subjects in the Thai language. Among her most recent works is A History Of The Thai-Chinese, co-written with her husband, the Singaporean author Jeffery Sng. A large audience of students, ajarns, and others listened avidly to all the presentations.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)