Page 49 - A History of Siam

A HISTORY OF SIAM 47

immigrants from the north that in A.D. 1388 their capital
was moved to Phnon Penh, and their still unfinished
temples were abandoned. Long before that time,
Brahmanism, triumphant in India, had declined in
Indo-China. Before the Brahman shrines of
great
Cambodia were forsaken, Buddhism had been introduced
into them.
Buddhism and Brahmanism continued to exist side
by side, but it is probable that neither of them really
the old animistic beliefs of the Khmer and
superseded
Lawa inhabitants, or the Tai immigrants, until about
the eleventh when the of the
century, conquests
Burmese King Anurutha resulted in a general
adoption of Buddhism. To this day very many
animistic beliefs and ceremonies
persist, particularly
in northern Siam.
In A.D. 1296 a Chinese Ambassador was sent by the
Emperor Kublai Khan to Cambodia. He has left an
account of his embassy. 1 He describes the magnificent
walls and of the
buildings capital, Angkor T'om, though,
strangely enough, he makes no mention of Angkor Wat,
which he must have seen. At that time
presumably
the Cambodian Empire had already lost a great part of
its As will be seen in the next
possessions. chapter,
Chiengmai, P'ayao, Suk'ot'ai, and probably Ut'ong
(Suwanp'umi) were independent States, under Tai
when the Chinese wrote his memoirs.
rulers, diplomat
to this ambassador, Cambodia was a vassal
According
State of China. Doubtless the Tai States
independent
were likewise the Chinese as vassals. These
regarded by
Chinese claims need not, however, be taken too seriously.
Every nation of the earth was at one time regarded as
"
to the Middle It would
subject Kingdom." probably
1
Translated by M. Abel Remusat (Nouvellcs mtlangts Asutitques, Paris, 1829.)