สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume III - 2011 Volker Grabowsky 99 Mon alphabet of Hariphunchai, is from the year 1376. 1 The earliest datable evidence of the Dhamma script used for writing a vernacular Northern Thai text that has been identified so far is inscribed on the pedestal of a Buddha image housed in Wat Chiang Man in the city of Chiang Mai. This inscription dates from 1465. It comprises two short lines (mentioning the names of Buddhist dignitaries who supported the casting of the Buddha image as well as the name of the laywomen who sponsored it), that are preceded by two lines written in Pali. The diffusion of the Dhamma script in the Upper Mekong region has still to be studied thoroughly. However, based on our present state of knowledge, we may assume that the script spread from Lan Na to Chiang Tung and Chiang Rung (Sipsong Panna) no later than the mid-fifteenth century. It ultimately reached Lan Xang, where it made its first documented appearance in 1520/21 in a monolingual Pali palm-leaf manuscript kept at the Provincial Museum in Luang Prabang (formerly the Royal Palace). 2 Unlike Sipsong Panna and Chiang Tung, Lan Sang developed a secular script nowadays called çOld Lao scripté ( tua aksorn lao buhan ). Though influenced by the Fak Kham script of Lan Na, the secular Lao script also shows traces of independent development. Following the disintegration of Lan Na in the wake of the Burmese conquest of 1558, Lan Chang became the most significant polity in the DSCD for almost two centuries. 1. The DCDS before the emergence of the modern nation-state The Mekong River and its tributaries served as a cultural corridor linking the oral and written literatures of the Tai-Lao peoples who live in the Mekong River basin from the Tai Lue of Sipsong Panna and the Tai Khuen of Chiang Tung in the north to the Tai Yuan of Lan Na and finally to the Lao of the Khorat Plateau and Champasak in the south. The same holds also true with regard to political and dynastic bonds among the Tai mueang as well as with regard to economic and trade relations. 1 It is a Pali inscription of one single line discovered in the early 1980s on a golden leaf in a cetiya in Sukhothai. The inscription runs over four lines. Three lines are written in Thai language and Sukhothai script; only the fourth line, containing a Pali phrase, uses the Dhamma script. See Udom 1999: 2363. 2 For details, see Grabowsky 2008: 16. 98-112_mac9 4/26/12, 9:10 PM 99