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THAILAND
Ayutthya
Ayutthya is situated 80 Kms north of Bangkok. It was a very big empire during the period 1300 to 1700 AD. It is well known that Ayutthya was the birth place 5 Tirthankaras namely Rishabh Nath, and also of Lord Rama. An old temple shown in fig. contains a broken idol in padmasan posture. Fig. shows a series of padmasan stutues in dilapid condtion. IAccording to one inscription there existed one tower in the middle of the complex which was called as Meru. According to Indian Jaina traditions such towers were called as Maanstambha. This temple was built by King Borom Traikyaloknath. However, this temple was completely destroyed in 1767 by religious rivals
In 1378, King Paramraja of Ayutthya defeated the then reigning king of Sukhodaya-Mahadharmaraja II, son of the illustrious Lu Tai and reduced him and his kingdom to the status of a vassal. By 1438 the Sukhodayan provinces were decisively and irrevocably incorporated into the kingdom of Ayutthya. However, the irony is that the Thai were politically opposed to the Khmers (and vice-versa); they virtually made Angkor untenable through military invasions and made the Khmers abandon their monumental capital in 1431. But at the same time the Thai borrowed from Khmers many features of their administrative and political institutions, art forms system of writing and vocabulary. Cambodian brahaman priests conducted the rites. At the end of Rama Khamhengs dynasty at Sukhothai and the establishment of Ayodhia as the new capital, the Siamese kingdom had large territorial extensions. It became a powerful kingdom, controlling both the middle and lower Menam valleys and a good part of Malaya. The Siamese capital remained at Ayodhia till the catastrophe of a Burmese nvasion in 1767. The invasion resulted in the shifting of the capital North-wards to Bangkok. Ayodhia had a long lease of life; thirty-three Thai kings had ruled from that city. Chakri dynasty: After the fall of Ayodhia in 1767 and the rise of Bangkok as the new capital, a new dynasty of kings, taking the name from Generalissmo Chophya Chakri, who had rescued the kingdom from the Burmese, came to the throne. It is the present ruling dynasty of Siam. In this dynasty, till 1910 there have been six kings, each with the surname 'Rama'.
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