Page:Story of records of Siamese hist - Damrong - 1915.pdf/5



I have received your letter of the 5th inst. informing me that the National Library has obtained two other copies of the History, the one written in C. E. 1145 and other judged to date from C. E. 1157. The matter agrees with that given in the printed copy. But in the manuscript written in 1145, some words are missing and some are added, and in this respect it shows differences' from the printed copy. I have examined one part and return herewith the two copies with the comparisons I have made. You do not express any opinion as to whether the manuscript dated 1145 comes from Ayuddhya or from Dhanaburi, I have made an examination, but am unable to establish the point definitely.

It appears to me that, in the composition of all these versions of our history, we have five different sources. The first is the yearly calendar (Pum). The second is the account dealing with the period from the reign of Somdet Phra Maha Chakrabarti to that of Prâsât Thong, and these documents are understood to have been written in the reign of Somdet Phra Narayana Maharaj. This part of the history is based on the war reports, just as was done afterwards in regard to the reign of Phra Chao Krang Dhanaburi, as I have shown in the Phra Rajavichan.

The third source is the story that takes our history from the reign of Phra Narayana to that of Boromakot. It is understood that this was composed in the reign of King Boromakot by his orders. For that period there were no war reports, so events were simply noted down, and may be fittingly compared with the way in which evidence was formerly taken in Jaw cases. The evidence without any attempt at style or order was noted down as given, and the book in which it was noted down was bound up and provided with a seal of wet clay to which the person giving evidence had to affix his thumb mark.

Fourthly, from the time of Phra Boromakot up to the destruction of Ayuddhya the history may be said to have been written by order of Phra Chao Krang Dhanaburi. There are two versions.