Page:Story of records of Siamese hist - Damrong - 1915.pdf/2

 4.The Book of the Lady Nobhamat. This book was the work of the Lady Nobhamat, a daughter of Phra Sri Mahosot, who was of the Brahmin caste in Sukhothai. It relates how her father presented her to be a wife of King Phra Ruang, and how she became first wife with the title of Thao Sri Chulalaks. She lived in the royal palace, and became familiar with the royal customs and observances. These she noted down in her book, together with geographical details with regard to places, villages and towns and the surroundings of the palace. The whole is contained in three Siamese volumes, called variously the Book of the Lady Nobhamat, or the Tables of Thao Sri Chulalaks.

In reading this book I came to the conclusion that as regards language it is a modern work of the Bangkok period, the idiom being different from that used in the time when Sukhothai was the capital. Moreover there are certain things in it that cannot possibly be true, such as the statement to the effect that there were foreigners, English, French, Dutch, Spaniards, and even Americans, there. The truth is, as we now know, that no such foreigners, or indeed any farangs at all, had come to Siam at the time of the Lady Nobhamat. Furthermore in the time of Sukhothai there could not have been big guns weighing a hundred or a thousand piculs, as such guns had not then been made anywhere. For these reasons I came to suspect that it was a modern work, which some one else had written, using the name of the Lady Nobhamat. I once had an opportunity of putting the case before His late Majesty, who said that as far as language goes the book was certainly modern, and that there were certain things in it which could not be true. On the other hand scholars formerly — King Mongkut and Prince Wongsadirat-sanid in particular — admired the book very much. Now they must have observed the element of the marvellous in the book, the same as we do, and what other grounds they had for putting faith in it we do not know. But His Majesty King Chulalongkorn, as the result of the examination he made, was of opinion that an original version of the book once existed, that this original version became impaired, and that it had been restored during the Bangkok period, but that the person compiling the new version did not have sufficient intelligence or knowledge for the purpose, as can easily be seen.

5.The History of the Statue of the Buddha named "Phra Sihing." This work was written, in Pali, by a priest named Bodhi-