Page 23 - A History of Siam

INTRODUCTION

THE which confronts the writer who
principal difficulty
tries to compile a history of Siam is the almost entire
absence of reliable native chronicles.
The official records and annals of the Kings of Ayut'ia
were all destroyed when the Burmese captured that
in 1767. the of Taksin and
city During reigns King
King P'ra Putt'a Yot Fa Chulalok (Rama I) attempts
were made to reconstruct the history of Ayut'ia from
such sources as were then available. The result is the
P several versions of which are in existence.
'ongsawadan,
the of the either
Unfortunately, compilers P'ongsawadan
or at least did not the documents
destroyed, preserve,
from which they derived their information. Con-
it is now to that
sequently, although possible say many
of their statements were erroneous, it is not easy to
discover how the errors arose, and still less easy to
correct them.
The two most widely known versions of the P'ong-
sawadan are the P'ongsawadan in Two Volumes^
at Dr. in and the
published Bangkok by Bradley 1863,
"
Royal Autograph Edition/' which was revised by
Maha and in
King Mongkut (Rama IV) printed 1907,
with notes by Prince Damrong. There have been several
editions of both these versions.
printed
The difference between these two versions
principal
" "
is that the Royal Autograph Edition gives a King,
who is said to have from to
Int'araja II, reigned 1449