Khun Sangkhan : the Role and the Existence in Lanna Society in the Present Day.

Abstract

This article aimed to study the story of Khun Sangkhan in the context of Lanna literature and analyze the roles, functions, and existence of Khun Sanglhan in present Lanna society, was conducted under the qualitative research by using the content analysis method and functionalism theory, then summarized to present the result which collected from the Lanna ancient manuscripts those are 10 copies of Pab-saa and Pab Khoi. The result shown that Khun Sanglhan in Lanna people’s belief was contributed by personification under the assimilation of 3 believes: Brahmanism-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Animism, the story of khun Sangkhan is inherited in two kinds as the oral telling and manuscript one. Lanna people practice their own tradition to Khun Sangkhan in ways of custom and ritual continually. The appearance and existence of Khun Sangkhan is still in the belief of Lanna people tightly and fully functions and does the role among Lanna society in five ways as follow: the predication of the year, 2) the guider who tell human about the time and takes them pass across the old day and the old year into the new year on “Wan Sangkhan Long”, the person who takes out the unfortunates and reminds human about their actions and all of results they got in the past year, and the representative of identity of Lanna society.