Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ively. In 1563, he officially moved his capital to Vientiane and quickly set about building
brick ramparts around the city. In deference to Xieng Dong Xieng Thong, the Pha Bang was
left behind and the city was renamed after the revered image, while the Emerald Buddha was
placed in the newly constructed Haw Pha Kaew in Vientiane.
Lane Xang managed to forge an alliance with Ayutthaya, but the Tai states proved no match
for the armies of the Burmese warrior-kings who reduced Lan Na, Ayutthaya and Lane Xang
to vassalage in a matter of a decade, and sacked Vientiane in 1565. The invaders were eventu-
ally repelled by a guerrilla campaign led by the king. After reclaiming Vientiane, Setthathilat
renovated That Phanom in Sikhotabong and built That Luang in the capital, in an effort to lift
the morale of his vassals in the central Mekong; they had misgivings about being ruled by a
royal line whose roots were in Luang Prabang, especially one that was taxing their resources
by waging a costly war.
By the end of 1569, Lane Xang was the only Tai power remaining. Burma once again set its
sights on Vientiane, which fell for the second time, and once again Setthathilat regained his
capital - but this time the heavy demands on the
muang
of the central Mekong brought resent-
ment to boiling point. Setthathilat was lured into a campaign against the mountain peoples of
the south by the powerful ruler of Sikhotabong, and was never seen again. The king's down-
fall revealed a major weakness in Lane Xang: the monarchy still depended on the loyalty of
its vassals, but the latter no longer felt any strong allegiance to the king or to Lane Xang. With
the death of Setthathilat, Lane Xang plunged into turmoil as the Burmese retook Vientiane
and extended their rule to the Vietnamese frontier. By the early 1580s the kingdom was in
such disarray that no king sat on the throne for nearly a decade. It would take half a century
for Lane Xang to recover.
Sourinyavongsa and the Golden Age
The decisive character who returned stability to Lane Xang and eventually ushered in its
Golden Age
was Sourinyavongsa (1637-94). Although rarely seen in public, he was a pop-
ular king who ruled over a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. The
first Europeans
to reach
Lane Xang, a mission from the Dutch East India Company led by Gerritt van Wuysthoff and
a party of Jesuits, arrived during Sourinyavongsa's reign to find a flourishing Buddhist king-
dom whose wealth was poured into the construction of religious monuments and the monastic
order. Monks - more numerous than the soldiers of Germany, as one visitor observed - came
from as far as Cambodia and Burma to Vientiane, which had emerged as a regional centre of
Buddhist studies.
Sourinyavongsa ensured his reign was peaceful by aligning Lane Xang with neighbouring
powers through marriage, although he did not hesitate to resort to force when necessary -
after all it was a violent struggle among relatives that won him the throne in the first place.
When the ruler of Xieng Khuang refused to offer his daughter in marriage to Sourinyavongsa,
