Page 62 - A History of Siam

60 A HISTORY OF SIAM
"
further recorded of him that his mercy and charity
were as boundless as the waters of the ocean. He loved
his like his own children. He was wont to
people pardon
them the wherewithal to make restitution
criminals, give
for their crimes, and send them home. In his time there
were no slaves in all the land. All men were free and
happy. His fame spread among all nations, and men
flocked from side to live in under his
every peace gracious
rulc."
King T'ammaraja Liit'ai was a lover of peace. Only
the few occasions when he was forced to go to war, such
as an which he undertook P're and
expedition against
Nan in he won less renown his
1359, by military prowess
than by the humanity with which he treated his prisoners.
In the East, at that period, prisoners of war who were not
became slaves. But this had
slaughtered usually King
"
no use for slaves, so he supported and fed his prisoners,
and would not let them come to and ruin."
misery
Sic transit mundi. The name of this
gloria very great
and good King was forgotten, together with all his noble
deeds, until the year 1833, when the stone inscription
describing his reign was deciphered, after having lain
neglected for five hundred years. Later, in 1912, a
treatise on Buddhist cosmology, composed by this King,
was discovered and It is called the Trai-
published.
bhumikatha and both in its and in its
y bears, style spirit,
the imprint of the personality of King T'ammaraja
Lttt'ai.
This monarch also built and other
palaces public
1
This is from a stone inscription in the Khmer language, discovered in 1833
by Prince Maha Mongkut (later King Rama IV) and translated by Prime
Pawaret. This stone has since crumbled away to such an extent that a large
part of the inscription has now vanished for ever. There is reason to suppose
that Pnncc Pawaret's translation was not very exact.
For a French translation of this inscription, in its present state, and of other
stone inscriptions dealing with the Kings of Suk'ot'ai, see the Rtccuil des
Insrri7>f?ons du Siam, Part I, by Professor G. Coedes published in Siamese and
French, Bangkok, 1924.