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father's stronghold, includes at last an area quite comparable in extent to that held by Siam today, and not greatly different from that[1]. Had this been all, he would not command from us more attention than we give to many another bold adventurer who has done as much or more. But of his battles and campaigns—which no doubt were many—there is no parade whatever. If the Epilogue be the work of another hand, as indeed seems likely, there is no mention of them at all in the Prince's writing, save in that one opening scene wherein he slyly laughs at his own boyish presumption and lack of decorum. Whoever wrote the Epilogue, the ambition there ascribed to him "to become lord and ruler unto all the Thăi" was undoubtedly his. But it was coupled with the nobler ambition "to become preceptor and instructor to teach all the Thăi to know true righteousness," "to plant and rear the host of the sons of his city and realm to be in accord with righteousness, every one."
This capacity for a noble idealism is everywhere apparent throughout this all too brief writing. It is seen in the Prince's. choice of the things he deems most memorable in all his reign:—the invention of writing; the solemn reverence paid by him and by his people to the sacred relics—symbols of the best and the highest they knew in human life and character; and the consecration and setting up of the inscribed stones which were to record in Siamese words the achievement of a united Siam. It is seen in the love of justice and the passion for righteousness which everywhere flash forth from the writing. It is seen in his unaffected delight in the prosperity of his realm, the piety and the happiness of his people. It is
- ↑ Phitsanulok, distant about twenty miles from Sukhothai to the south-east, is named in the list of places added by the Prince to his realm. The fact that the name of Si Sachanalai, at about the same distance to the north, does not appear as part of the Prince's style and title until we find ourselves among the later events of his reign, leads us to count it also as a city that he had recently won. Tak, at a little greater
distance to the west, seems to have been contested ground at the opening of the story.
In comparison with Siam of today, the Prince's territory in its northern portion was considerably larger, reaching as it did from beyond the Me Khong (ll. 115—116) to Pegu and the ocean (l. 120), and including the valley of the U, the great northern affluent of the Khong (l. 100). At the same time, it did not include the Chiangmai-Chiangrai area, which at this time was dominated by the picturesque and famous Meng Rai, who founded Chiangmai in 1296 A.D., only three years later than our date. In the Menam delta, the list includes nothing to the east and south-east of the Phitsanulok-Nakhawnsawan-Suphan-Thachin line,—nothing, that is, to the east of the western delta-stream. The omission of Lawo (Lophburi) is also significant. The forces which brought about the supremacy of Ayuthia, and with it the downfall of Sukhothai, were, no doubt already at work, though the city of Ayuthia was not founded until sixty years later; that is, in 1350 A.D.
