Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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THE FOUNDING OF CHIANG MAI
Mystery, History and More than a Dash of Magic

Text & Images : J.M. Cadet

Three Kings Monument

You've probably heard - and won't have been misinformed - that Chiang Mai's historical founder was Mengrai, a Tai prince who came down from the North some seven hundred plus years ago, liked what he saw here, and established his city.

But at the risk of making this picture less clear-cut, and with the addition of a dash of magic and mystery, I'd like to suggest there's more to the story of the Northern capital's foundation than immediately meets the eye. To make my case, we need to pay a visit to one of Chiang Mai's more spectacular caves, turn over a leaf or two of Northern Thailand's ancient chronicles, the dumnarn and pongsawadan, and listen to a modern ghost story.

Let's put the magic and mystery on the back-burner for a moment, though, and look at what history and tradition say about Mengrai's arrival here.

According to the Chiang Mai Chronicle, Mengrai (or Mangrai) had been jao muang (‘Prince/Lord of the City') of Chiang Rai prior to coming further south, and that in collaboration with a couple of other warrior princes, he'd established the firm political/military basis in the North from which the attack on what has become the Thai part of Southeast Asia was so suddenly and successfully launched. If you pay a visit to the Three Kings Monument at the junction of the Phra Pokklao and Inthawarorot Roads, furthermore, you can see one of Chiang Mai's more dramatic pieces of statuary, which celebrates this collaboration and its outcome.

The historical chronicles further tell us how Mengrai chose the site of his walled city and provided it with magical protection. And if up to this point you've been able to see the founder as not much different from feudal lords of Medieval Western Europe, references to the establishment of an apparently phallic pillar (lak muang) and a ‘navel' at the city's centre might begin to alter this perspective.

But it's when you go a couple of hundred metres to the south of the Three Kings Monument that your viewpoint is likely to undergo more drastic change. Because at the junction of the Phra Pokklao and Rajadamnern Roads, there's a small and enigmatic memorial to the monarch that raises more questions than it answers.

Mengrai memorial

At first sight there's nothing out of the ordinary about this commemorative space at the centre of the walled city. Raised a few feet above road level, paved with marble tiling, the site's most important structure is a covered plinth with a replica chedi on it. At the western edge of the site is an earth-located shrine, an apparently humbler but much respected dwelling place for a female spirit, Chao Mae Daengom. But it's a tablet of stone at the eastern end of the site that raises questions. What it says in Thai and English is that the site marks the place at the centre of his city where Mengrai was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning in his seventy-second year.

Now that will no doubt raise a question or two in your mind too. OK, you're going to say, lightning can and does strike people, even kings, but…in this case in the exact centre of his royal city? And in the king's ritually and spiritually-significant 72nd year? The Chiang Mai chronicle has some remarkably terse references to the matter, again raising rather than answering questions, but since we're looking at the founding rather than what's gone on in this city since, (and even though we might be reminded human sacrifice to provide protective spirits for important sites has been practised in Southeast Asia down to comparatively modern times), we're going to have to leave it there, moving on to some even more remarkable aspects of Chiang Mai's foundation, viewed from the mythical rather than quasi-historical aspect.

And here we come to the ghost story, as told to the writer by a knowledgeable Thai friend.

Some forty years ago, he says, a forestry official staying in a village not far from Doi Chiang Dao, woke from a nightmare to find himself grappling with a strangely-clad character…who then disappeared. Understandably puzzled, the official told his hosts what had happened, and they said he'd obviously had a visitation from Luang (‘Lord') Suwanna Khamdaeng, the foremost tutelary spirit of the North whose home is in Chiang Dao Cave. They also suggested it might be a good idea to propitiate him in some way, and the official followed this advice, setting up a spirit house some fifty miles north of Chiang Mai city, on the road to Farng. Here, in the ninth month of the Northern calendar - usually around June - you can see mediums performing an annual dance in honour of the hero and his mistress, Nang In Lao (‘the lady fashioned by Indra').

Now this story interested me, and turning to the chronicles I learned that there's hardly a ceremony in the northern capital that doesn't recognise the pre-eminence of the hero - whose name, in rough translation, means ‘Gloriously Golden'. And drastically summarised, this is what the chronicles had to say.

At a remote time in the past, the King of the Gods, Indra, dissatisfied with the backwardness of the then inhabitants of the North, sent a spirit in the form of a golden deer to appear before the King of Payao, Suwanna Khamdaeng's father. Enchanted by its beauty, the ruler told his son to capture it, and in turn the prince told his entourage that anyone letting the deer pass would be exiled from their city. In the hunt, though, it was Suwanna Khamdaeng who let the deer slip by - and not surprisingly, since the object of the spirit's appearance was to lead him on an adventure that would bring a new phase of history to the North. As a result, their quarry led the hunting party further and further from Payao till they came to Doi Chiang Dao, where the deer disappeared, and the spirit for which the mountain and cave are famous, came out to meet the hero, casting another spell of enchantment.

Chiang Dao Cave entrance

"The lady came out to look (at the hero)," the chronicles tell us. "She really met him. She saw him, Suwanna Khamdaeng. The lady fell in love with the lord. She engaged him in conversation. She wanted to talk with sweet words…." And so on. All with the supremely romantic constellation of the magnificent mountain and its cave as a backdrop. Can't you just picture it? And you can guess the outcome. Suwanna Khamdaeng took up residence with Nang In Lao and the deer was forgotten, for a time at least. Eventually, the courtiers reminded their leader of what they'd come for, and the hunt resumed, the deer once more leading them, though this time down to Doi Suthep.

At this point the animal-spirit disappeared for good, and appropriately, since this was the place appointed for the prince to found the new Tai city among the aboriginal inhabitants, the Mon-Lua. A suitable site between the Ping River and Doi Suthep was selected, the city established and Suwanna Khamdaeng and his courtiers having taken Lua wives, what followed was, so to speak, history.

"Oh. Come on now! History!" you're going to exclaim, "But didn't that start with Mengrai? And isn't this just fantasy - magical deer and all?"

Well, while there's no question this marvellous story of the Golden Prince and his Golden Deer has the odd element or two that isn't strictly historical, it's almost equally certain there's a sub-stratum of fact to it. According to the chronicles, when Mengrai founded his capital in 1296, he came across traces of previous city-building, among them the lak muang or phallic pillar no self-respecting Thai city can be without. This pillar was attributed in some chronicles to Suwanna Khamdaeng, and when Chiang Mai holds one of its most important festival in May/June, the Piti Sao Inthakhin (the ceremony to pay respects to the Intakhin pillar), Suwanna Khamdaeng as the protective father of the city, and the pillar that now represents the spiritual centre of the community, receive the honours due to them. It seems likely then that the legend of the hunt for the golden deer is based on the folk-memory of one of the earliest attempts at settlement by the south-tending Tai people, one that only partly succeeded, the smallness of the raiding party leading after a few generations to assimilation by the aboriginal Lua.

But Suwanna Khamdaeng is remembered not only in the ceremonies of the capital and the mediums' dance on the road to Farng, but also at the spectacularly beautiful mountain and cave of Chiang Dao, which are well worth visiting. It is here the hero is said to reside for all time, with his spirit-partner Nang In Lao.

And having looked at the wild crags, explored the glistening depths of the caverns, contemplated the sleek fish in the pools at the cave's mouth, you're likely to think that if Suwanna Khamdaeng had to be assimilated, his choice of location (not to speak of the companion for the experience) could hardly have been bettered.

And when it comes to the founding of Chiang Mai, isn't the city fortunate? Two accounts instead of one, both of them fabulous.