Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Yonok
emerged along the Mekong river in the vicinity of Bokeo province. By the late tenth
century, Buddhism was blossoming in Yonok, transforming the localized Buddhism into an
institutionalized religious tradition with ties to the civilizations of the Mon and Ceylon. It
was around this time that the Tai were beginning to move onto the lowland plains, suitable
for extensive cultivation of rice.
Though the origin of the first Lao principalities is ill-defined to say the least, it appears that
the first significant Tai centres in what is now Laos took root in the north, at Luang Pra-
bang and Xieng Khuang, both of which are identified in legends as areas ruled by the sons of
Khoun Borom.
By the thirteenth century, Luang Prabang, along with Chiang Saen, Jinghong (the Tai Leu
capital located in Yunnan) and a Black Tai centre near the Da River in Vietnam, had emerged
as one of the chief Tai centres of the Upper Mekong, an area settled by people who called
themselves
Lao
and lived under the threat of invasion from Nanchao and Vietnam. A cen-
tury later, Luang Prabang, then known as Xieng Dong Xieng Thong, had become but one
of many small Lao principalities that existed on the fringes of two larger Tai states that had
emerged:
Lan Na
, centred on Chiang Mai, and
Sukhothai
, the principality which is viewed
as the cornerstone in Thailand's development. These states had capitalized on the collapse of
the region's classical Indianized empires, Angkor and Pagan, their growth fuelled by large
bases of rice land and manpower. Inscriptions from the Siamese
muang
of Sukhothai indicate
that Lao rulers from Xieng Dong Xieng Thong were paying tribute to the Sukhothai by the
late thirteenth century.
Yet even as the sun began to set on Angkor in the thirteenth century, the Khmer empire's
most lasting impact on its still nebulous northern neighbour was to come in the form of a
helping hand to the young exile who was to transform the petty Lao principalities scattered
across Laos and portions of Thailand into a power in mainland Southeast Asia.
The rise of Lane Xang
Legends tell of a young prince named Fa Ngum, who belonged to the ruling family of Xieng
Dong Xieng, being cast out of the fledgling Lao principality. But in 1351 he returned, backed
by an army provided by the Khmer court at Angkor, and began fighting his way up the
Mekong Valley atop a war elephant. After subduing the lower Mekong Valley, Sikhotabong
(present-day Thakhek) and Kham Keut (near Lak Sao), Fa Ngum proceeded to the Plain of
Jars where, with the aid of an exiled Phuan prince, he captured Muang Phuan, the capital of
the principality of Xieng Khuang.
In 1353, Fa Ngum returned to Xieng Dong Xieng Thong, where he ascended the throne and
began the reign considered the cornerstone in Laos's development. Fa Ngum called his new
kingdom
Lane Xang Hom Khao
, the Kingdom of a Million Elephants and the White Para-
sol, a name signifying military might and royal prestige. For two decades he continued to ex-
