The Story of Thailand's Ancient Buddhist Kingdom | the Dvāravatī Mon Kingdoms of Southeast Asia 

Mon people still live in Thailand and Burma. Similar to the Chams who loss their territories in Vietnam, the Mon are now a smaller ethnic groups amongst the Tais now. Their Dvaravati kingdom truly was probably even older than the Khmer empire of Angkor.

Well, this is is a complex subject. But Thailand officially traces the beginning of their national history to Sukhothai. Some people would tie their heritage with Dvaravati. But Dvaravati was a Mon state or states.

Wow a discovery that old ! 😮❤ and showing a deeper details on the come about of the Thai or Siamese. We sort of aware that Thais or the Siamese people are a big mixture of many different local groups along with the migration traveling in from a far and finally settled in together in this fertile prosperous land. This is amazing when you Thai can traced back your bloodline that far back. Knowing who might be your ancestors group that goes back even further in time ritually shows how far in progress you have achieved as a race. Its unlikely that a Culture and civilization only derives from just one uniqueness. Every regions around the world will always have undiscovered links in connection. We always suspect that it is not only the Indian from the west or the the Chinese from the east or the indigenous from the south or the Persian and Arab from the north that made up Thailand in Southeast Asia over the past 800 to 900 years. There must already be some older local as the first settlers around the area in the first place, whom of which had form up the first early advance civilization, in this case nearly 2000 years ago. The new found biggest evidence of an empire city as huge as this will definitely proved that Siamese or Thai race has already been there for a long period of time and that Thai isn’t just the the migration of people. Apart from the hunter gatherer group which we won’t mention because that will take us back further than 4000 years, the Central plains of Thailand is generally safety in climates with rich natural geography resources that can easily attract attention from abundances of life. Therefore, if Thailand were to dig up even more, undoubtedly another discovery of civilization as big as this or older than this is probably very likely to be found. Indeed so far with modern scientific technology, this journey is nothing but incredible. Not only it is another welcome additional information to what has already been found. But it is a keepsake treasure evident for a beautiful country with diversity of heritages that has been running through time. We understand that history is forever changing. Your new discoveries can be passed on for many more Thai generations to come and of course your history have to be re written once again. Well done to the Thai and the archeologist team on their hard work. In the geographical world and world history this is BiggG🎉❤

Mon descendant here. nice video 🎉

Love it! Can you make a video about Srivijaya empire?

A few backgrounds of historiography, first of all, "the oldest Southeast Asian Kingdom " is more complex, more akin to David Graeber and Wengrow book " The Dawn of Everything". The establishments of Funan in around 68 CE, is more construction from Coedes, based on the Vo Canh incription and other sources (mainly Chinese) from the third century CE. However, archaeological LIDAR evidence, Funan capital, Angkor Borei, has seen numerous inhabitants since at least around 500BCE, making it older than the oldest estimate of Dvaravati, SriVijaya and Linyi. Yet, whether the estimation, Funan, was clearly more regional superpower, due to many evidences such as international port of Oc Eo (mentioned by Ptolemy). 68 CE, is more if Coedes went by the "marriage" of Kaudinya/HunTien (if he really existed) to the queen of already existing kingdom. This possible marriage is how the inhabitants told the Chinese emissaries and written on stone inscription, as their earliest known history and the origin of literacy and clothing. Other SEA kingdoms, such as Dvaravati, Sri Vijaya (est 200 BCE), likely come the same way, existing as small mandala chiefdoms, until noticed or influenced by more literate civilizations. The Chinese Buddhist Yijing, staying at the Buddhist Sri Vijaya at the time, mentioned that more Khmers in the mainland were also devoted Buddhists, until a recent prosecution by a king and resulted in the destruction of the religion. Also, more complex is that Funan, Zhenla, Champa, Dvaravati, Annam, might just be simply mistaken terms from confused travelers and historians. As more research came up, it is unlikely that Champa had ever been a unified state, so did Annam for most of its history under Chinese "rule". Funan and Zhenla were seen as the strongest polities in the mainland by Chineses, but it is unclear, how much territory that it "solidified its rule"until Jayavaraman II (800CE). Dvaravati (iirc, has more mentions in the Angkorian inscription) is a city further away from Lavo. The ancient Khmers may simply think all the lands west of Lavo, belong to Dvara(Door)vati, the same way the Vietnamese/Khmers believe Zhanceng/Vijyaya ruled all the Chams and the Chinese believed that Funan ruled all the Khmers land and Malay searoutes. This might explained the lack of Dvaravati showing up in inscriptions, since the territories that it thought to have, in actuality, belonged to different mandala polities.

Of course I am Mon!

The Thai kings are descended from the Mon kings, and even now the Mon and Thai are still brothers. The Hanthawati Empire was destroyed by the Burmese Empire.😊

thanks u lm, Mons❤

Hi , can you tell me which chinese source mention the po-li-lo-cha kingdom ? I want to read it

Really nice. Do you play any paradox games like eu4?

You can study Dvaravati story from very old stone in Somanas Tample ,the red museum. IN BANGKOK.

I have seen no evidence of your proposed 10th C Burmese conquest of Dvaravati. Would like to read it if possible?

Where is mon inscriptional studies tht can access online?

⁠history version Sukhothai written by Thai leaders during western colonization to secure north and northeastern regions of tai tribes, but Thai actually Tai+Mon. Khmère never knew that many Ayutthayan lords are Mon, Thonburi king is Mon-tai-Chinese. And Bangkok premiere king is Mon descendant of Ayutthayan lords.

Mon people like the Cham people were literally absorbed to the point where their history is very hard to study. Mon people first co existed with the Khmers but that didn’t last long, then came the Tai who absorb them some more then the Burmese. Many of the ones in Burma don’t even know about Dravarati because the Mon had many states similar to Champa with many divided states. Eventually, both nations were absorbed.

Dwarawati word comes from Sanskrit. Dwaraka was Krishna's city and it still exists. Similarly Ayodhya exists in Indian and Hindu king names his kingdom same but today it's called Ayuttaya

I wish that there lasted some resources and artefacts left by the mon kingdoms, which usually had succumbed to their neighbors Khmer and Burmese often, the largest blow would have been during the tai invasions into northern and central thailand. The tai kadai had mixed and assimilated the mons in the central and north to form many Thai groups. In the northeast (Lao), tai-lao had mixed with some mon groups but more khmer and asiatic hill tribes (most likely) to form lao/laotian / isaan thai. I also wonder what it may have been like if some mon kingdoms existed to the present day and how that would have affected relations with Khmer / Cambodia as opposed to Siam and Ayutthaya.

Thailand has always talked about Travadi, but we still haven't found clear enough information to publish. People who study civilization always talk about this.

We believe now Dvaravati was not the Mon kingdom but the kingdom of Siam which people had both Tai and Mon and even Malay ethnic as the ancestors a.k.a. the mixed race.

Mon dan Khmer adalah penduduk asli Thailand. Sebelum abad ke 12, orang siam tidak ada di Thailand. orang Siam masih tinggal di pedalaman Yunnan China.

"Krungthep Dvaravati Sri Ayutthaya" , this name has existed since ancient times.

As DNA Analysis of international at Asian. Current DNA of Thai people are Ancient Mon including India that high and mostly in Asian but DNA of Cambodian people are same Indonesia. What's mean?🤔

But i'm think is culture more than kingdom , Because even not have a list of king .Is just a important state in south east asia

Bro tais came from china and call anyone a claimbodian and make death threats

Dvaratati is the kingdom of Mon not Siamese or Thai today.

Kid buddha wasn't even born at that time 😂 budhha was born 800 year's ago in a hindu family of India 🤦.

Dharabati ধরাবতী

mon kingdom . thai fight mon get land

Eh! Everyone claims they're Chinese now.

This should be named Mon kingdom . This is like calling it english history but the entire covering is about china .

no no Cambodia is the owner of the whole China and Japan you know this right

This Sus me

Yesss.. kelantan malay also a mon people who now identity malay.. we build a new kingdom after loss

Thai is not Mon. Don’t Thai To Me

It’s sad that Thai once again claim Dvaravati is Thai when it’s Mon just like how now they’re claiming Khmer empire and distorting truths

They Mon not Thai

The Thai alway say they are from China original and they always disguisted of people with dark skin. Now they claim that they native to this area? How?