Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/480

 4 o 4 FURTHER INDIA. BOOK VIII. CHAPTER III. SIAM. CONTENTS. Structures in the temple enclosures Temples at Sukhodaya, Phra Fathom, Sajjanalaya, Ayuthia, Lophaburi, Sangkalok and Bangkok Hall of Audience at Bangkok. ALTHOUGH the architecture of Siam is much less important than that of Burma on the one hand, or Cambodia on the other, it is still sufficiently so to prevent its being passed over in a general summary of styles. Its worst feature, as we now know it, is, that it is so extremely modern. In the loth century the Thai, a people from Sayam-de^a on the north, began to press southwards against the earlier Brahmanical state of Cambodia, and founded a new kingdom. Up to the I4th century the capital of this country was Sukhothai, or Sukhodaya, a city on the Me-nam, 250 miles from the sea in a direct line, and situated close to the hills. 1 About the year 1350 the Thai', now known as Siamese, were successful in their wars with the Cambodians, and eventually succeeded in capturing their capital, Dwaravati, which, under the name of Ayuthia, became the capital of the new empire, and practically they annexed all the western provinces of Cambodia to their dominion. They brought in Buddhism, which proved fatal to the Brahmanical civilisation, and architecture with the other arts degenerated. Having accomplished this, they moved their capital down to Ayuthia, a little more than 50 miles from the sea ; and three centuries afterwards Bangkok succeeded it, and is now 1 This city was visited by the late M. Lucien Fournereau, who was sent by the French Government in 1891 on volume appeared after the author's death in 1906, and contains plans of the older temples at Sangkalok, Phitsanulok, an archaeological mission to Siam. The results of his researches are published in two quarto volumes with admirably drawn Archeologie Epigraphie Geographic ' Lophaburi and Ayuthiia, but unfortunately without descriptions.' Le Siam Ancien : plans of numerous temples and photo- gravures of their remains. The second ('Annalesdu Musee Guimet,' tomexxvii. part I, and xxxi. part 2), 1905 and 1908.