JSS 1993/1. [antikvár]

In This Issue The Siam Society Under Royal Patronage most hum- bly and respectfully offers this issue of the Journal of the Siam Society to Her Majesty QUEEN SIRIKIT in commemoration of Her Majesty's Fifth Cycle Birthday, thus joining the entire nation in expressing affection and happiness on this most auspicious occasion. Council Member BONNIE DAVIS, the Society's chronicler of royalty, speaks for the Society as a whole in a warm-hearted tribute to the Society's Royal Vice-Patron. The Siam Society also warmly welcomes His Royal Highness Crown Prince MAHA VAJIRALONGKORN as a Royal Vice-Patron, deeply sensible of the high honor thus brought to the Society, and further reports upon His Royal Highness's graciously representing His Majesty the King at the Gold-Casting Ceremony for the Society's Buddha Foot- print Project in honor of Her Majesty the Queen. Distinguished personages who have received honors of special interest to the Society, namely H.E. Mr. ANAND PANYARACHUN, Dr. TEM SMITINAND, Mr. DACRE F.A. RAIKES, O.B.E., and Mr. JAN. J. BOELES, are given recogni- tion in the following pages. Members of the Siam Society finally met their coun- terparts in the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society during a gala weekend spent enjoying the hospitality of the MBRAS in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and at cultural monu- ments elsewhere in Malaysia. A return visit to Bangkok by the MBRAS is being planned. It is a pleasure indeed to announce that this issue of the JSS has been sponsored by Mrs. BOONKRONG INDHUSOPHON, to whom goes our great gratitude. Mrs. Boonkrong's late husband, Mr. PRAKAIPET INDHUSOPHON, the renowned philatelist, had in his collection the contem- porary letter of the English merchant WILLIAM SOAME, presented in this issue, which describes the violent events of 1688 in Siam. Soame's letter, published here for presumably the first time, serves to introduce a discussion in several ar- ticles of various aspects of the history of Ayudhya. Featured among these is a fresh and detailed scrutiny of the architecture of Ayudhya by Dr. PIRIYA KRAIRIKSH, President of the Siam Society, in which he proposes a revised dating for many of the monuments in that city. Prominent in the evidence that he adduces are the descriptions, literary and pictorial, made by early European visitors to Ayudhya, whose eyewitness accounts he compares with the monuments as they have been traditionally described or dated and as they appear today. We turn then to politicoeconomic accounts of Ayudhya, some of which bear a close relation to the stormy events recounted by William Soame. His Excellency GEORGE A. SIORIS, formerly Ambassador of Greece in Thailand and Member of the Council, discusses the character of Constance Phaulkon as reconstituted by a fellow Greek. DIRK VAN DER CRUYSSE summarizes the broader scope of Siamese- French relations during the eighteenth century as a whole, examining them in relation to a panoramic historical per- spective, especially as concerns early Siamese encounters with other Europeans besides the French. REIKO HADA, award- winning Japanese novelist, studies Phaulkon's Japanese wife in a manner similar to that of Greek Ambassador Sioris's examining the Greek Phaulkon. CHARNVIT KASETSIRI depicts the role played by overseas Chinese traders in the maritime economy of Ayudhya in its heyday. MICHAEL WRIGHT next turns his historian's telescope not back at Ayudhya from the present day, but forward to Ayudhya from prehistoric times. Here we leave Ayudhya for wider horizons as SUNAIT CHITINTARANOND examines the Thai image of Ayudhya's nemesis, the Burmese, and how that image of an implacable enemy was used to serve the goals of Thai patriotism. With CHRISTIAN BAUER we enter an entirely different arena as he focuses his epigrapher's scrutiny on the language of the Játaka glosses at Wat Sri Chum in Sukhothai; and with STEPHEN J. TÖRÖK we view the future of Cambodia, and indeed of a stable self-sustainable world, as envisioned by a philosophical political economist with farreaching historical insights who was on the spot in Cambodia helping the UN to help Cambodia elect a new government. PETER SKILLING, looking into Southeast Asian maritime history, notes references to a pair of ports in Suvarnabhumi, and brings readers up to date on half a dozen recent translations of Buddhist literature ranging from Pali through Sanskrit and Tibetan. Finally, after our review section, JAN J. BOELES calls upon Catullus in seeking a fitting threnody for a towering figure among Thai scholars who will ever live in the annals of Lanna culture and the Siam Society, KRAISRI NIMMANAHAEMINDA, who passed away in May 1992. Acharn Kraisri's luminous scholarship will cast an eternal light.