Period One

Ban Chiang to Sukhothai

Sukhothai

In 1238 AD two Thai chieftains, Pho Khun Pha Muang and Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao rebelled against the Kambuja Empire and took over Sukhothai as their capital. As at this time the power of the Kambuja had been already falling the Thais were successful in their enterprise. So, Sukhothai can raise the claim of being the cradle of the Thai nation as before only smaller individual Thai city states had existed mainly under Kambuja rule. Now, for the first time these city states became a network under a central Thai power.

In 1249, Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao became under the name Pho Khun Si Indrathit first king of the Sukhothai Empire, he was succeeded after his death first of his elder son Pho Khun Ban Muang and then Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng who started his reign in 1278 AD.

King Ramkhamhaeng the Great became famous through creating the first Thai alphabet and telling the previous thai history in his most famous stone inscriptions. The earliest of these stone inscriptions derive from 1283 AD but the content is still controversial in the eyes of the most historians. Another achievement of King Ramkhamhaeng was the establishment of Theravada Buddhism as state religion. Further, Ramkhamhaeng was not only a good statesman on the interior but made excellent connections with other empires. So, the technique of producing the famous Sanghalok ceramics was actually imported from the Yuan Dynasty of China. At the peak of his reign the empire stretched from Nakhon Si Thammarat in the South to Lampang, Phrae and nan in the north, and from the West of the Gulf of Bengal to Vientiane in the East

After King Ramkhamhaeng the Great's death, it showed that even a most powerful kingdom very much depends on its leadership. In the reign of the direct successors of Ramkhamhaeng, Loethai, the states of Luang Prabang, Vientiane and Uttaradit were the first to break free from Sukhothai rule. Then, in 1319 AD, the Mon state in the west broke away and in 1321 AD the Lanna took Tak. Finally, after even the powerful city of Suphanburi had declared independence, still in the reign of Loethai , Sukhothai's former power had been reduced to local status only.

As the power of Ayuthaya rose, in 1365 AD Sukhothai became a vassal state itself until 1378 AD as it had to finally fall and become only a part of this new empire.