The Glorious Ruins of Ayutthaya, Thailand’s Old Capital
Upstream from Bangkok lies the destroyed capital of Siam, one of the most beautiful cities ever lost to history.
Cover photo: Ruins of the Wat Mahathat (Temple of the Great Relic), Ayutthaya, Thailand (2023). Photo by Danny With Love.
Intro
During my winter vacation to Thailand — upon the recommendation of my fellow teachers — I took an excursion to the Historic City of Ayutthaya (อยุธยา), the second capital of the Siamese Kingdom, and one of just six UNESCO world heritage sites in the nation. By the 17th century, Ayutthaya was one of the most prosperous cities in the world.
According to contemporary accounts, Ayutthaya was a radiant island fortress, resplendent with treasure and bustling with commerce. The Dutch sailor known as Glanius called it “the most lovely city on earth.”
“Ayutthaya was free from all misfortunes, serene and joyful, beautiful as a heavenly city, replete with food and other necessities in abundance,” recalled monk-historian Phra Phonnarat.
Siam’s best artisans and craftsmen lived in Ayutthaya; much of the art and architecture was created in the Lopburi (Khmer-era) and U-Thong (early Ayutthaya) styles, and influenced by trading partners from around the world.
The capital housed thousands of temples, with reliquary towers and Buddhist sculptures covered in precious metals and gems. “There are infinite Pagodes of Gold, Silver, Stone,” wrote the German adventurer, Sir Johann Albert von Mandelslo, and not one lacked gilded steeples, producing “a very beautiful effect from afar.”
Foreshadowing Ayutthaya’s tragic plunder, the Dutch merchant Jeremias van Vliet wrote, the royal treasures were so vast, that “a ruined kingdom could be restored.” Some 33 kings ruled over Ayutthaya for a period of over 400 years, from 1350, until the shining capital was devastated by the Burmese army in 1767.
Ayutthaya-native Nuttapon Kumsanlas, 29, an environmental engineer working in Osaka, Japan, tells me, “there may only be old temples, Buddha statues, or ruins [today],” but “we grew up with the memory of [the old] Ayutthaya”.
Whilst walking among the ruins — partially reclaimed by nature, partially restored — one can only imagine the splendor of this lost metropolis.
The Capital of Siam
A descendent of a rich Chinese merchant family, U-Thong (Ramathibodi I), King of Siam, founded Ayutthaya in 1350, on an island nestled by three rivers, the Pa Sak, the Lop Buri, and the Chao Phraya. The waters blessed Ayutthaya with fertile soil, natural defenses, and connected the island to the gulf for trade.
Linking the East and West, Ayutthaya became incredibly wealthy, exporting animal products like deer skins and elephant ivory, while trading in Venetian chandeliers, Persian rugs, Indian textiles, as well as Chinese porcelain, silks, and tea.
Ayutthaya was named after “the invincible city” of Ayodhya in northern India, birthplace of the deity Rama — incarnation of Vishnu — according to the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana. The capital was known as Judea or Iudia to the Dutch, La Ville de Siam (The City of Siam) to the French, and Yodaya to the Burmese.
“The Thai kingdom was not a single, unified state but rather a patchwork of self-governing principalities and tributary provinces owing allegiance to the king of Ayutthaya,” wrote researcher Barbara LePoer, at the U.S. Library of Congress.
Life in Ayutthaya
The Siamese capital utilized advanced water management systems, featuring a grid of roads, moats, and canals. In preparation of monsoon season’s annual flooding, houses were constructed on stilts and every household owned at least one boat. Author of the 17th century Description of the Kingdom of Siam, Jeremias van Vliet observed, “During high water boats can cross most of the streets and even reach the houses.”
Ayutthaya was a cosmopolitan metropolis. According to Sir Johann Albert von Mandelslo, 400,000 families resided within the city and its surroundings, totaling one million people, of which three-quarters were Siamese. The remaining inhabitants were comprised of as many as 40 different ethnic groups from lands near and far, including China and Persia.
The French ambassador Chevalier de Chaumont wrote, “There is no city in the Orient where one sees so many different nationalities as in the capital city of Siam and where one speaks so many different languages.”
Notable foreign residents included the Japanese samurai Yamada Nagamasa and the Greek adventurer Constantine Phaulkon who became counselor to King Narai (Ramathibodi III).
Monks alone totalled 20,000 people. While in the previous capital of Sukhothai, “the king was revered as a father by his people,” explained Barbara LePoer, “the paternal aspects of kingship disappeared at Ayutthaya … behind a wall of taboos and rituals.” According to Van Vliet, the King only appeared in public once a year, in an annual procession to visit the Wat Mahathat (Temple of the Great Relic).
U-Thong had declared Buddhism the official religion of Ayutthaya. The faith was crucial to maintain social order, promoting the divine right of the king and later justifying all social hierarchy. Education was taught by monks, and reserved exclusively for boys — though women enjoyed great freedom, including the ability to own land and property.
Since inception, the Siamese Kingdom suffered labor-shortages, with King Ramathibodi II establishing a formal caste system in 1518, called sakdina (ศักดินา). Translated simply as “feudalism,” sakdina made explicit the social division between the nai (patron nobles) and phrai (peasant men).
All Siamese men were required to register with the government. During peacetime, phrai were obligated to serve the nai — under the king’s command — for three to six months of the year, and during wartime, phrai were conscripted into the military. Wealthier phrai were able to offer various commodities or money instead of labor service. Siamese society also included a class of that, outright slaves.
According to Van Vliet, “most of the inhabitants are very devout and superstitious heathens.” Yet, despite the importance of Buddhism, Ayutthaya was remarkably accommodating. Over 160 days of the year were devoted to celebrations from a variety of cultures, with a total 15 dedicated to Songkran, the traditional new year.
Siamese monks confirmed, “one can come into heaven in various religions,” notes Van Vliet. “However their own religion is the best of all.”
Under the pretext that French missionaries sought to convert the dying King Narai to Christianity, court official Phetracha orchestrated a coup in 1688. As king, Phetracha expelled French troops from the city, further consolidated royal power, and granted the Dutch a monopoly on trading rights.
Established in 1602, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had built Ayutthaya’s first permanent trading office in 1608, leading to the development of a nearby Dutch village with 1,500 inhabitants. Competing with the Portuguese, Spanish, and the French, the Dutch were the principle European traders in the city and surviving Dutch records offer invaluable information for historians today.
The Burmese Sacking of Ayutthaya
Ayutthaya was thought to be impenetrable as “the yearly inundation by the river would force [armies] to leave the plains,” explained Van Vliet, but the Toungoo dynasty had successfully invaded Ayutthaya in 1569, and reduced Siam to a Burmese vassal state under the rule of Maha Thammaracha. His son, the young Prince Naresuan, was taken to Burma as hostage.
After his release — as king — Naresuan declared Siam’s independence, ultimately killing the Burmese Crown Prince in a dramatic elephant duel in 1593.
Naresuan is still revered today as the only king in Thai history to defeat the Burmese army. His victory is commemorated every January as Royal Thai Armed Forces Day.
The 17th century ushered in the golden age of Ayutthaya. Though China was embroiled in civil war and Japan adopted isolationism, the city maintained access with merchants from both nations, while providing a safe port for international traders.
After a century without attack, Siam’s walls were allowed to decay. “In general the Siamese nation loves peace, commerce and agriculture,” wrote Van Vliet in 1692, noting, “in the whole kingdom there is hardly to be found a single well walled city or a good fort.”
Eager to reclaim Burma’s former territory, the “robber” King Hsinbyushin waged a three-year-long campaign against Ayutthaya, with a fourteen-month siege resulting in the capital’s complete annihilation in 1767, a “vandalism that is almost unmatched in Asia,” argues the British-American author and journalist Simon Winchester.
Precious stones were looted, and the entire city island was set ablaze, with fires raging for a week. Countless paintings, libraries, and archives were destroyed. As many as 30,000 captives were marched west to Burma, though a majority died of disease, exhaustion, and hunger before reaching their destination.
While neighboring armies expelled the Burmese forces within the year, the scale of the destruction was so devastating that the capital was ultimately moved downstream to the “village of the wild plum,” or Bangkok.
King Rama I sought to develop the fledgling town in Ayutthaya’s image, ordering the construction of canals, and commanding the Grand Palace to be modeled after the royal residence of the old capital. The official title of Bangkok retains the name of Ayutthaya.
Today
Today the Ayutthaya district is home to some 160,000 people, with the local economy reliant on a combination of tourism and industrial manufacturing. There is also an illicit network of antique smuggling, as the ruins are too vast to protect properly.
The old capital provided the unified foundation for modern Thailand and the historic city lives on in the hearts and minds of Thai people, many who still maintain a grudge against Burma — now called Myanmar — for the capital’s destruction.
Journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk writes, “Some Thais still wonder how many kilograms of pure gold coating the 105-meter-tall Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar, must have been taken from Ayutthaya and melted down.”
Following the life of the prince destined to restore Siam’s independence, the 2007 historical drama Kingdom of War: The Legend of King Naresuan (ตำนานสมเด็จพระนเรศวรมหาราช) directed by Chatrichalerm Yukol remains one of the nation’s highest-grossing films. The patriotic trilogy was funded by the government with approximately $20 million U.S. dollars — the most expensive Thai production at the time — with the first film alone earning $10 million.
While sakdina was formally abolished in 1932 as a result of the military coup, many scholars argue that its legacy persists, such as in the general public’s deferential treatment of the royal government and the successful transition to “Thai bureaucratic capitalism.”
In his landmark 1980 thesis, economist Sungsidh Piriyarangsan described Thailand’s neo-feudal system — consisting of centralized land-holding, monopolized trade, and limited reinvestment — as a fundamental obstacle to the disruption of international capital, resulting in low productivity, sluggish growth, and limited social mobility for the masses.
The new ruler, Luang Phibunsongkhram renamed the Kingdom of Siam as Thailand in 1939, with the word Thai (ไทย) both meaning “free man” and referring to the nation’s dominant ethnic group. Phibun promoted the nationalist idea of “Thailand for Thai people [only]” (ประเทศไทยเพื่อคนไทย), while creating economic and immigration policies to limit the influence of foreigners, particularly Chinese residents.
Excavations of Ayutthaya began in earnest during the 20th century, with, the new government agency, Fine Arts Department registering Ayutthaya as an important historical site for exploration and preservation in 1935.
Famously, Ayutthaya’s Wat Ratchaburana (Temple of Royal Restoration) was looted in 1957. Thieves raided an underground chamber, which protected gold crowns, swords, jewelry, and statues, weighing a total 136 kilograms (300 pounds).
In 2005, guilt-ridden local Li Kasemsang came forward as one of the looters, admitting, “I felt bad because those treasures belonged to the king and I don’t want to violate the monarchy.” Li explained, “I was poor; I had no job.” Less than 20% of the haul was ever recovered.
The looting inspired the construction of the first national museum outside of Bangkok, the Chao Sam Phraya National Museum, founded in 1961.
By 1991, an area of 289 hectares (1 square mile) within Ayutthaya was inscribed by UNESCO as a world heritage site, with hopes to expand the property to better facilitate conservation of the old capital. Excavations are ongoing.
Visit
For my own visit, I opted for just a day-trip, as part of a tour group, which offered the easiest transportation both to and around Ayutthaya. I booked the trip with Thailand Tour and Travel — whose office I found on Khaosan Road — for the price of 1,300 baht, or approximately $40, which included ticket entry to six temples, a local guide, transportation, and even a modest lunch.
A private van picked me up from my hotel in Silom early morning (6:30) and — after picking up other travellers — we arrived in Ayutthaya around 9:30. The tour itself lasted five hours, including lunch. While the tour guide was very knowledgeable we moved quickly, leaving at 14:30 (2:30 PM), to avoid the traffic of Bangkok’s rush hour.
The weather was perfect, the sky was beautiful, and I felt at peace. In the spirit of old Ayutthaya, I also enjoyed practicing my French and Japanese with fellow visitors!
The trip was an excellent introduction to the site, but if I were to return, I would plan to stay longer in Ayutthaya: exploring the ruins, the restored buildings of foreign settlements such as the Baan Hollanda museum and St. Joseph’s Church, and certainly the Chao Sam Phraya National Museum. Within recent years, the city has also welcomed the addition of luxury hotels and unique dining spaces.
Ayutthaya-native Nuttapon Kumsanlas hopes visitors experience Thailand’s “way of life that combines the elegance of past cultures and … the changing era.”
