Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Indianized influences
From the first century AD, Indian traders made their way east through Southeast Asia by land
and by sea en route to China. Hinduized enclaves sprang up along the coast of Indochina and
later inland civilizations developed in Burma, Cambodia and Thailand. It was these classic-
al
Indianized civilizations
along with individual Indian traders and travelling monks, rather
than Chinese culture, that would shape the identity of the Lao, an influence evident today in
the sharp difference between the Tai groups who underwent Indianization, became Buddhist
and incorporated Pali and Sanskrit words into their languages, and those that did not.
The foundation of Buddhist civilization in Thailand and Laos was laid by a unique
Theravada Buddhist cultural complex known as
Dvaravati
. This civilization grew up to dom-
inate the Central Plain of Thailand for several centuries, although more as a cultural influence
than an empire. Sites found across Thailand and Laos suggest Dvaravati was a prosperous,
expansive civilization that flourished between the sixth and ninth centuries. The sites appear
to have been most densely clustered around the lower Chao Phraya River Valley of Thailand,
along what were regular routes of communication and trade, which contributed to the spread
of Buddhism in the area. This is evidenced by the discovery of eleventh- and twelfth-cen-
tury relics in Luang Prabang and near Phonhong on the Vientiane Plain, the earliest Buddhist
statuary yet discovered in these parts of Laos.
The Khmer
By the end of the ninth century, Dvaravati's influence over central Southeast Asia was rapidly
being eclipsed by the
KhmerEmpire
of Angkor. At its height, this empire extended from its
core of Cambodia and the southern half of northeastern Thailand into Vietnam, central Thai-
land and Laos, where the Khmer built dozens of Angkor-style temple complexes. As a result
of this expansion, the Khmer gained control over important trade routes between India and
China. The empire was held together by an extensive network of communications and insti-
tutions, as well as a system of highways linking key centres of the empire, traces of which
are visible between Wat Phou and Angkor.
As the empire grew, Khmer governors, who were sometimes princes with ties to the royal
house at Angkor, were placed in control of newly acquired areas, bringing with them tax col-
lectors, judges, scribes and monks and ordering the construction of enormous religious monu-
ments. The people then living in what is now southern Laos were probably predominantly
Khmer as far north as Savannakhet, although by the eleventh and twelfth centuries, ethnic Tai
made up a significant portion of the population on the fringes of the Angkor empire.
Early Tai principalities
The first record of contact between the Khmer empire and a Tai state occurred sometime after
the seventh century near Chiang Saen in far northern Thailand, where a Tai state known as
