During the Sukothai Period, the Mongol Court's emissaries of 1282, 1293, and 1294 that were sent to summon the Thai King called the Kingdom "Hsien" (G. William Skinner, Chinese Society in Thailand: 2). Later on during the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese emissary of 1370 called the Kingdom "Hsien-lo" -- a combined term of "Hsien" for Sukothai and "Lo-hu" for Lawo Kingdom, as a recognition of Ayuthaya as the power holder of both (Skinner: 3).
Other neighbors also called the Thai Kingdom by similar names. The Khmers, one of the most ancient of all people ever lived in the area, refered to the Thais as Syamas. The same word was used by them to refer to the aborigines who lived scatteredly in the area prior to the Thais' arrival in the 13th century. The Vietnamese, the Assam, Lawa, and Mon people, the various people of modern day Myanmar and the various chinese groups of South China area -- all called the Thai by the similar sounding names of sam, siam, syam, seem, same, san, tsim, siang, syeem, seyae (Jit Poomisak, Kwam Pen Ma Kong Kum Siam). This word itself, Siam, noone really knows what it means or where it originated from. Some believe it's a sanskrit word meaning black or dark gold. Some say it's from the word "Cham," either Cham in Burma or Vietnam area.
When the European arrived, following Thailand's neighbors, they too called the area "Siam" and the occupants "Siamese". The Thais always have called themselves "tai" -- be it Red Thai, Black Thai, Big Thai, Small Thai, etc.
King Mongkut (Rama IV), upon opening the country to the Europeans, was the first to officially use "Siam" as the name of the country. He also was the one to coin up the word "Pra Siam Tevatirat" as a name for the national guardian spirit. Prior to this, there existed no such concept as "nation," and no corresponding national guardian spirit. People were either from, or belong to, a certain "Ban" (villages) or a certain "Mueng" (cities or principalities); and there were only "Phi Ban" (village guardian spirit) and "Phi Mueng" (city guardian spirit). Thus King Mongkut was the first to introduce the concept of "nation" or "state" to Thailand, and the first to try to create a national identity for the country, as a response to the encroaching Western cultures and influences.
King Mongkut's idea of a Siamese identity was to revert back to the "Tripitaka," one of the most ancient of the Theravada Buddhist teachings. Based on the Tripitaka, a King was to lead as a righteous "Dhammaraja": to uphold the Buddhist law as supreme and rule with independence, equality, fraternity, and liberty of his people in mind.
Taken from two different sources of influence, one Western (nation/state) and the other Buddhist (Tripitaka), King Mongkut sought to promote a nation of democratic Buddhist -- at least in principle if not in practice!. But his idea was not followed through by his son and successor, King Rama V, nor by his grandson after that, King Rama VI.
King Rama V's reign was full of reforms and projects, but ideological work was not prominent among them. His son, King Rama VI, made up for it. He had another idea, though, one that was quite different from his Grandfather's. The democratic aspect of his grandfather's "Buddhist Nation" based on the Tripitaka was replaced by his concept of "Nation, Religion, and King," a trinity he came up with (taken from the British trinity of Empire, God and King), coupled with the revert to the "Tripoom Pra Ruang," the most sacred book that dominated the Siamese ideology since it was authored by King Li Thai in the early Sukothai period. Tripoom pra Ruang was a mixture of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs. Full of rituals and magic, it was the book to live by from its inception, throughout the Ayuthaya period, and up until the early Bangkok period.
Why would King Mongkut (King Rama VI's grandfather) want to supplant the Tripoom Pra Ruang with the Tripitaka as an ideological base? Perhaps a combination of two reasons. First, after spending 27 years of his life in monkhood before he ascended the throne, he came to deem the Tripitaka the real, unalloyed Buddhist teaching. Second, to rid his kingdom of the "unscientific" rituals and beliefs prescribed by the Traipoom Pra Ruang would be an added "development" in the eyes of the Westerners. But King Rama VI's ideology was the one that stuck. King Rama VI struck the right chord with the Thai psyche somehow. Even at the time of the revolution that changed the form of government in Thailand (1932), the People's Party, the proponent of the Revolution, did not immediately seek to supersede King Rama VI's ideological work.
The proponent of the revolution was consisted of the bureaucrats, the military, and the educated elites (dubbed "the official class" by Ajarn Chai-anan Samuddavanija); and was supported by the mainly Chinese bourgeoisie class, who up to that time was quite weak and dependent on this official class. Nevertheless, the revolution was the beginning of the commitment to constitutionalism which changed the country from absolutism to a more plural, economically and culturally, character. Evident of this was the memberships in the appointed legislature of such outsiders as Sino-Thai businessmen, Muslim leaders from the south, Esan leaders from the northeast, etc. But lacking a strong civil society (the existing peasantry of the time was far from an organised and powerful civil group) to control the official class, a faction of the official class under the leadership of Field Marshal Pibulsongkram took over the control and created its own version of constitutionalism which was not constitutional but authoritarian/absolutist.
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