5
The six works selected by the Board of the Royal Library for publication as a single volume consist of, firstly, the Royal Chronicle of the North, secondly, the Royal Chronicle: Luang Prasoet's Version, thirdly, stories from the time of Sukhothai according to stelai, fourthly, the Khmer Chronicle, fifthly, the Chronicle of Bamars and Ramans, and sixthly, the Chronicle of Lan Chang. What each of these six works is about will be known in the following explanations.
Chronicle of the North
As regards the Chronicle of the North, His Majesty King Phutthaloetla Naphalai,[1] whist still holding the rank of Krom Phra Ratcha Wang Bowon Sathan Mongkhon,[2] ordered Phra Wichianpricha (Noi)[3] to collect accounts and compile them into it in the Year of the Rat, Year 9, 1169 LE, 2350 BE.[4] The manuscript available in the Royal Library contains the following preamble:
"May it please Your Majesty, this servant of yours, Phra Wichianpricha Noi, chief of the Right Department of Royal Scholars, hereby presents a work, which he has undertaken with his low competence and wisdom, of composing a royal chronicle of the northern towns of Siam from the establishment of Satchanalai and Sawankhalok Towns by Ba Thammarat, who then reigned under the name of King Thammarachathirat and was successively succeeded until King Uthong, who established the kingdom of Glorious Ayutthaya, the ancient royal realm."
This compilation called the Chronicle of the North is, in fact, composed of several accounts which have been in existence since the time of the Old Kingdom[5] but which seem to have originally been remembered and recorded under various titles.
