Ayutthaya

Ayutthaya , or Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya , city (1990 pop. 61,185), capital of Ayutthaya prov., S central Thailand, on the Chao Phraya River. It is the trade center for a prosperous rice-growing region. Ayutthaya was the capital of a Thai kingdom founded c.1350 and was located on the site of a Khmer settlement. Destroyed by the Burmese in 1559, it was rebuilt by the Siamese in the late 16th cent. but was again devastated by the Burmese in 1767, after which the capital was moved to Thon Buri and then to Bangkok. Ayutthaya has some of the few monuments of early Siamese civilization, notably the royal palace (16th cent.) and numerous temples and pagodas.

Ayutthaya, Thailand Ayodhyā The full name is Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, meaning the ‘Sacred City of the Good and Invincible One’. Ayutthaya took its name from Ayodhyā, the Sanskrit for ‘invincible’ or ‘unconquerable’, while the Thai phra indicates divine status, nakhon ‘city’, and si ‘good’. Ramathibodi (1315–69), King of U Thong from 1347, moved his capital to an artificial island in the Chao Phraya River in 1350 and founded Ayutthaya as a small fortified city. The next year he became King of the Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya (1351–69) as Ramathibodi I and Ayutthaya began to grow into a kingdom, becoming one of the strongest in South‐East Asia. It was the capital of Thailand between 1351 and 1767 until being sacked and destroyed by the Burmese. Now a town replete with ruins from its heyday, it is sometimes called Krung Kao ‘Ancient Capital’.

Thailand (Prathet Thai) Ayutthaya, Siam/Syam The Kingdom of Thailand (Muang Thai, or Prathet Thai) since 1939. It is a constitutional monarchy, the absolute monarchy having been abolished in 1932. The country is named after the Thais whose name means ‘Free (People)’ from fra ‘to be free’. This denoted that the people of the central plain round Sukhothai had won their freedom from Khmer rule (in the 13th century). Derived from the Sanskrit pradesha Prathet means ‘Land’ or ‘Country’. Thus Thailand means ‘Land of the Free’. The first Thai kingdom was that of Sukhothai and it is regarded as the birthplace of the Thai nation. However, Thailand is said to have come into existence in 1351 when the Kingdom of Ayutthaya was founded and Sukhothai was in decline. The Khmers called the Thais syam or sayam, a name possibly derived from the Sanskrit shyama ‘swarthy’ or, in this case, ‘brown’, to denote the darker skin colour of those aborigines who lived in scattered settlements in the jungle along the middle reaches of the Menam River. Foreigners called the Kingdom of Ayutthaya Siam from the 16th century, but it only became the official title of the Thai kingdom in 1855. The Thai dictator, Phibun Songkhram, insisted on changing the name back to Thailand in 1939 because in his view Siam only referred to the Thai‐speaking people of old Siam and not the larger nation. The name Siam was restored in 1945–9 as a sop to extreme nationalism while Phibun was out of power; he reinstated the name Thailand in 1949. Other countries gave the name Siam only to the Tai who settled in the Chao Phraya River basin. Siam has given its name to a short‐haired breed of cat originally from Siam and to Siamese twins. The latter term originally referred to Chang and Eng (1811–74), twins joined at the waist, who were born in Siam and who gained world‐wide notoriety on their travels.