“Phaya Mangrai” The Founding King and Righteousness Ruler of Lanna Kingdom

Abstract

The objectives of this paper were to investigate the ruling system based on righteousness approach of Phaya Mangrai that favored glory and civilization to ancient Lanna Kingdom; and to propose the guidelines for city administration based on “Mangrai Theory”. The authors employed documentary analysis to analyze documents, books, academic articles, and online anecdotes for reference and description in this paper. The paper was therefore sectioned into 3 parts. The first part was an investigation about royal institution of Lanna Kingdom which originated from local state. It was found that beliefs and attitudes towards Lanna state and king were relatively local and simple as they inherited local traits and beliefs from Buddhism principles. The administration was also quite relaxed as the capital city did not hold much of the power. Bonding was a means to hold unity among these states located in deep. Centralization power of ancient Lanna society was with the king so key features of ancient Lanna kingship was relatively simple and the king was not the representative of god or deity. The second part presented the administration structure of Lanna Kingdom based on universal principle of ancient states that focused on centralized sovereignty of the king where capital city was served as the central of the universe and then surrounded by cascading subordinate states. The third part outlined key features of “Mangrai Theory” which was considered the oldest law theory existed in Lanna Kingdom. This law was developed from local regulations, rituals, religion, and tradition which were systematically inherited from generations to generations and undergone categorization based on key features. The underlying concepts were similar to those of international law theories. The law originated from local rituals so it clearly displayed ways of life of Lanna people. So, Lanna king righteousness referred to an approach that concentrated on the king who followed principles based on Buddhism beliefs and performed his way of life in compliance with these principles. The king therefore promoted and endorsed Buddhism activities as the king was the greatest Buddhism supporter in the kingdom. The king also performed his duty by supporting and promoting dissemination of Buddhism beliefs in this region. Another key feature of Mangrai Theory was the use of rule of law in administration. This approach was aimed for peace and stability of people in the kingdom so that the nation could favor security and reliability for life and property of the people. This clearly showed that Lanna Kingdom exploited identical administration system of Sukhothai Kingdom.