Lanna : Logged by Other Nations

Abstract

          Learning and understanding the past legends of Lanna from our ancestors is a way to deepen our knowledge about ourselves. However, there are many tangible ways to learn about history such as story telling, traditional performing arts, traditional costumes, cultural rituals, architectural sites as well as language. All of these can obviously be learning logs that reflect the origin of mankind including past way of life. Furthermore some evidence appears to be complex and requires more research to unlock the truth.

           It is said that knowing the past can shed light to understand the present and help predict what the future could be. Most of the time we tend to learn our own history from the resources recorded by our own people in our own language. This could be because of language barriers and limited resources. However, knowing the story of our own nation recorded by other nations can provide another perspective of who we were, how others viewed us and why we are here today. Examining Lanna in the past could be very broad as there are many dimensions and areas of study. Hence the key area of this study aims to scope down to study about Lanna in the past from the documents recorded by other nations. This is to uncover the stories of other nations related to Lanna in the past as pointed out in their own history.

          The article will focus on investigating historical documents that record information regarding Lanna in the past by other nations, using content analysis methodology to report the findings. The article specifically focuses on documents occurred during the establishing of Lanna Kingdom till the time Lanna consolidated with Siam during the reign of King Rama V. The content analysis is mainly derived from published Chinese historical documents available for interpretation. The resource comprises of the history of Yuan Dynasty, the new edition of history of Yuan Dynasty and the history of Ming Dynasty, the Chiang Mai Chronicle recorded in Burmese language by the Burmese author and from books written by Christian missionaries who worked in Lanna provinces during King Rama V period. By focusing on the chosen sources of information, the article can provide a variety of findings regarding Lanna, covering from war time, trade, international relationships, Lanna territories as well as other Tai groups closely related to Lanna.

          Till now there is still a limitation of books, documents about Lanna recorded by other nations printed in Thai language. This provides an opportunity for future research to be made available in the local language.

          Hopefully, the article would help to reflect another point of view towards Lanna and provide a benefit to those who are keen to study the  historical interrelationship of Lanna and other nations. However this does not only benefit the present time but it also provides a future perspective of how Lanna could progress towards a sustainable development of society and way of life.