Yuan Phai

Yuan Phai

Epic poem

Yuan Phai (

Historical background

Main article:

Ayutthaya-Lan Na War

By the 14th century, there were three centers of power in the

vied to control the Northern Cities and thus dominate the whole basin.

ruling families on the male and female side respectively.

Soon after this accession, Phraya Yutthisathian (

nobility.

King Tilokkarat of

seems to have controlled the place from the late 1460s.

Although the poem presents the battle as a great victory, it did not settle the contest between

Lanna

over the Northern Cities which continued intermittently until the mid 16th century.

Summary of the poem

The poem has four parts: a eulogy of King

Trailokkanat

(preamble and stanzas 1-60); a summary of key events from 1431 to c.1466 (stanzas 61-82); a main narrative of events from 1451 to the battle (stanzas 83 to 266); the battle and celebration of victory (stanzas 267 to 295).

The eulogy

The king's knowledge of Buddhism is presented through a one-to-nine series of numbered lists of Buddhist concepts. His skill in warfare is vaunted by comparison to the Hindu gods and characters from the Mahabharata. His other skills are celebrated include prediction of future events, literary composition and recitation, debating skills on religious issues, knowledge of history, and insight into the minds of others. The eulogy ends with the poet apologizing for his own shortcomings in composing the work.

Summary of key events

King

.

Main narrative

The same events are recapped in slightly greater detail (stanzas 83 to 104). King Tilokkarat of

readies his army at Phitsanulok, travels up the River Nan, and then marches towards Chiang Chuen (stanzas 175-201). The army is described, including the infantry (stanzas 203-210), the elephant brigade, portrayed in great detail (stanzas 211-248), the cavalry (stanzas 249-255), and the march (stanzas 256-266).

The narrative breaks off in the middle of describing the march and resumes in the thick of the battle. A section has been lost, inadequately substituted by a short insertion in prose.

Battle and celebration of victory

In the battle (stanzas 267-287), the Yuan forces initially gain the upper hand because of the number and weight of their elephants, but the tide of the battle turns when an Ayutthaya elephant named Songbun triumphs in an elephant duel (stanzas 272-3).

๏ ทรงบุญถอยเร่ร้น รุกแทง
ลาวแล่นเปรตายหัว ขวดขวํ้า
ขอเขนกระลึงแวง วยนมาตร
หอกช่วยเชองชักซ้ำ ซ่นไฟ ฯ

๏ ลาวหัวขาดห้อยติด คอสาร
ฟูมเลือดหลามไหลจร จวบจั้ง
พระเทพประหารหัก โหมเกลื่อน
เขนแนบเขนตาวตั้ง ต่อตาย ฯ

Songbun retreats, returns in fierce attack.
The Lao, in flight, head lopped, collapses down.
Troops swirl with saber, goad and shield. Sparks fly!
The pikemen cheer the tusker, "Thrust again!"

The Lao hangs headless down the tusker's neck.
His blood wells up and floods away till gone.
Phrathep Phrahan attacks. Men dies in droves.
Shield clashes shield. Sword hacks at sword till death.

Emboldened by this event, the Ayutthaya troops fight harder. The Yuan break and flee and are 'slashed down dead / like row on row of felled banana trees' (stanza 283). Victory is then celebrated (stanzas 288-295), beginning with lines on the people and property seized (stanzas 285, 287):

๏ เสียนางลเอ่งเนื้อ นมเฉลา
เสียสาตราวุธสรรพ์ ใช่น้อย
เสียพาลยพัฬเหา ทองแท่ง
เสียกั่นโทงถ้วนร้อย มาศเมลือง ฯ

๏ เชลอยลากลู่ม้า มือมัด
เขาเมื่อยจำจูงขาย แลกเหล้า
พระยศพ่อท่านทัด ไตรโลกย์
ดินหื่นหอมฟ้าเร้า รวดขจร ฯ

Their ladies, lustrous skin and bosoms—lost!
Their weapons, kit in no small measure—lost!
Their countless bars of gold and children—lost!
Their howdahs gilt and many tuskers—lost!

We tie up prisoners, drag them round by horse.
When tired, they're sold away or swapped for booze.
The King's repute, as great as all three worlds,
now spreads at speed, admired through earth and sky.

Principal characters

King Boromma

Trailokkanat

Yuan Phai is the only source of information that he was born in the year that his father,

in this era. According to the chronicles, he received this name at a tonsure ceremony shortly before his accession.

His reign appears to have been remarkable. He gave the site of the old

Around 1463,

in 1488.

King Tilokkarat of

Lanna

According to the

Phraya Yutthisathian

He is possibly the only Thai historical figure named after a

Theory of kingship

The opening stanzas of Yuan Phai are an early and important source for one of the main theories of kingship in

๏ พรหมพิษณุบรเมศรเจ้า จอมเมรุ มาศแฮ
ยำเมศมารุตอร อาศนม้า
พรุณคนิกุเพนทรา สูรเสพย
เรืองรวีวรจ้า แจ่มจันทร ฯ

๏ เอกาทสเทพแส้ง เอาองค์ มาฤๅ
เป็นพระศรีสรรเพชญ ที่อ้าง
พระเสด็จดำรงรักษ ล้ยงโลกย ไส้แฮ
ทุกเทพทุกท้าวไหงว้ ช่วยไชย ฯ

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, golden Meru's lord,
great Yama, fine Maruti on his horse,
Viruna, Agni, demon-chief Kuvera,
the sky-illuming sun and lustrous moon;

these gods eleven joined with one resolve
to make a holy Lord All-Knowing one
to come, protect, sustain and feed this world.
All gods vouchsafed to help Him to succeed.

Geography

In the poem, the town which is the site of the battle is called Chiang Chuen (Thai: เชียงชื่น) except in one place where it is called Cheliang (Thai: เชลียง). The identification of this location was uncertain; some believed it was at Long in Phrae province. In 1968, MC Chand Chirayu Rajani proposed that Chiang Chuen was the site now known as Si Satchanalai, although he had never visited the place. In 1970 Chanthit Krasaesin ^[9] showed that the geography sketched in stanzas 169-170 fits exactly with Si Satchanalai. The poem states that the town is screened by three hills, is flanked by rapids in the river and the Meng marsh on one side, and has a triple moat and laterite walls. The three hills, now known as Khao Yao, Khao Suwanakhiri, and Khao Phanom Phloeng, stretch across the north of the city. The rapids in the Yom River, now known as keng luang, the great rapids, are on the northeast side. The Meng marsh was probably to the southeast. The main moat can still be seen, and there are remaining stretches of laterite wall.

The poem does not mention any buildings at Chiang Chuen.

Genre and sources

Yuan Phai is the only martial poem to have survived from the Ayutthaya era. Indeed, there is nothing similar in the Thai language until Lilit Taleng Phai, Defeat of the Mon, composed in the 1830s with many borrowing from Yuan Phai, including the echo in the title.

Yuan Phai references several characters from the

in this era, and was the inspiration for Yuan Phai.

Form and meter

The poem was once generally known as Lilit Yuan Phai but this has been challenged. A lilit (

: ดั้น) is a subcategory of the khlong verse form.

The main meter used is khlong bat kunchon, (Thai: โคลงบาทกุญชร, an elephant-foot khlong). Each stanza has four lines, and each line is five syllables with a two to four syllable tailpiece. Rhymes link one of the two final syllables in the line to the 4th or 5th syllable in the line next but one, crossing stanza boundaries throughout the poem. At certain positions in the stanza, the syllable must have a first or second tone mark (Thai: ไม้เอก ไม้โท).

This latter rule indicates that the verse was composed before the great tone shift in the Tai family of languages. Before that shift, there were only three tones, indicated by one of these two tone marks, or their absence. The meaning of the tone marks prior to the shift is unknown, but most likely an unmarked syllable was a mid tone while the first and second tone marks probably indicated low and high tones respectively. With unmarked, first, and second tones represented as da, do, and di respectively, a typical line (the exact position of the tone-marked syllables may vary slightly) can be represented as follows:

     da   da   da   da   di       da   da   da   da
     da   do   da   da   da       da   di
     da   da   da   da   da       da   da
     da   do   da   da   di       do   da

The preamble and insertion following stanza 264 are in rai (Thai: ร่าย) meter. Two stanzas following stanza 124 are believed to have been composed by Phraya Trang in the early 19th century to fill a lacuna and are not included in the numbering scheme. A stanza 294 appeared on the end in some earlier additions but is now considered a late addition and omitted.

Date and authorship

As the poem is written to glorify King

Manuscripts and publications

The

samut thai

manuscripts of all or part of the poem. However, all clearly stem from a single original as the content and obvious lacunae are the same; they differ in spelling and wording.

In 1970, Chanthit Krasaesin (Thai: ฉันทิชย์ กระแสสินธุ์) produced a critical edition of the poem with details on the variations in different manuscripts and his interpretation of each stanza in modern Thai prose.^[13] In 1976, A. B. Griswold and Prasert na Nagara published an article in English^[14] setting the poem into its historical context, using material culled mainly from the Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai chronicles. They provided a rough translation of around half the stanzas, largely following Chanthit, and a summary of the rest.

In 2001 the

As many words are obscure, and parts of the manuscript may have been corrupted by damage or faulty copying, the committee offered alternative readings of several lines.

English translations

The poem has been translated into English by Thailand's National Team on Anthology of ASEAN Literatures (คณะทำงานโครงการรวมวรรณกรรมอาเซียนประเทศไทย). The translation is featured in the Anthology of ASEAN Literatures of Thailand, Volume II a (วรรณกรรมอาเซียน ประเทศไทย เล่ม ๒ เอ), first published in 1999.[15]

In 2017, Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit published an English verse translation.^[16]

Legacy

Yuan Phai had a formative influence on a later tradition of royal-panegyric literature in Thai including works in praise of King

Taleng Phai (ตะเลงพ่าย, "Defeat of the Mon"), an epic poem composed by Prince Paramanuchitchinorot, is modelled on Yuan Phai.^[18]

References

Citations

Sources

External links

• Full text of Yuan Phai at the Vajirayana Digital Library (in Thai)