what is Thai literature?
Thai literature has its roots in ancient inscriptions, which date back to the Sukhothai period (13th-14th centuries) and the Ayutthaya period (14th-18th centuries). These inscriptions often consisted of religious texts and historical records. One of the most significant literary works of that formative period is the Ramakien, which is the Thai version of the Indian epic, the Ramayana, i.e. the well-known story of Rama, an avatar of the god Vishnu, and his quest to rescue his wife, Sita, from the demon king Ravana. Classical Thai poetry may be divided into various genres or registers. The genre known as "klong," is characterized by its intricate rhyme schemes and meter. Klong poets often composed verses praising the king, extolling the virtues of Buddhism, or celebrating nature's beauty. Lilit is a form of Thai poetry that consists of lullabies. These verses are often sung to children and convey love, tenderness, and care.
Modern Thai literature began to flourish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Influenced by Western literary styles, Thai writers began to produce novels, short stories, and plays that explored contemporary themes, and social issues, including the impact of modernization, the monarchy, and the changing roles of women in society. The list of contemporary Thai authors includes such names as Pramoj Malakham, Saneh Sangsuk, and Chart Korbjitti. Novels and short stories are written both in the local language and in English. They often evoke the link to Buddhist traditions and the strength of identities and origins, both Thai and multiethnic. Just to give an example,Thảo Thư Từ Lan ("Letters from Thailand") by Botan tells the story of a Chinese immigrant to Thailand, providing also a historical perspective on the Chinese community in the country.
Thai novels started appearing early in the 20th century. Among the classics, there is Si Phaendin ("Four Reigns") by Kukrit Pramoj. This epic historical novel spans four reigns of Thai monarchs and provides a vivid portrayal of Thai society and culture during the 19th and 20th centuries. Another example among those early novels is Nang Sao Suwannee ("Behind the Painting") by Siburapha. It tells the story of a forbidden love affair between a Thai student and a married woman and provides insights into the changing values of Thai society.
Although we might associate Thailand primarily with the chaotic urban landscapes of Bangkok, Thai literature often depicts a much quieter, rural reality. Khamphiphaksa ("The Judgment") by Chart Korbjitti explores such themes as poverty, social injustice, and the struggles of the rural poor. Monsoon Country by Pira Sudham (1988) is a familiar story going on throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The seasons bring about maturation, travels abroad, increased awareness, while apparently, the traditional ways of life continue unchanged. In the final chapter corresponding to the year 1980, there is still a banyan tree and a young man from the village to be ordained monk in a Buddhist monastery. The ritual scars on his head correspond to other scars, traces of encounters with the world.
Modern Thai literature began to flourish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Influenced by Western literary styles, Thai writers began to produce novels, short stories, and plays that explored contemporary themes, and social issues, including the impact of modernization, the monarchy, and the changing roles of women in society. The list of contemporary Thai authors includes such names as Pramoj Malakham, Saneh Sangsuk, and Chart Korbjitti. Novels and short stories are written both in the local language and in English. They often evoke the link to Buddhist traditions and the strength of identities and origins, both Thai and multiethnic. Just to give an example,Thảo Thư Từ Lan ("Letters from Thailand") by Botan tells the story of a Chinese immigrant to Thailand, providing also a historical perspective on the Chinese community in the country.
Thai novels started appearing early in the 20th century. Among the classics, there is Si Phaendin ("Four Reigns") by Kukrit Pramoj. This epic historical novel spans four reigns of Thai monarchs and provides a vivid portrayal of Thai society and culture during the 19th and 20th centuries. Another example among those early novels is Nang Sao Suwannee ("Behind the Painting") by Siburapha. It tells the story of a forbidden love affair between a Thai student and a married woman and provides insights into the changing values of Thai society.
Although we might associate Thailand primarily with the chaotic urban landscapes of Bangkok, Thai literature often depicts a much quieter, rural reality. Khamphiphaksa ("The Judgment") by Chart Korbjitti explores such themes as poverty, social injustice, and the struggles of the rural poor. Monsoon Country by Pira Sudham (1988) is a familiar story going on throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The seasons bring about maturation, travels abroad, increased awareness, while apparently, the traditional ways of life continue unchanged. In the final chapter corresponding to the year 1980, there is still a banyan tree and a young man from the village to be ordained monk in a Buddhist monastery. The ritual scars on his head correspond to other scars, traces of encounters with the world.
I have readV. Vinicchayakul, Skin Deep. Contemporary Thai Tales (2025)
Veeraporn Nitiprapha, The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth (2019) |
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traveling to Thailand
2568 BE
It seems like a trip into the future: I visited Thailand in 2568. Indeed, the local calendar system is a fascinating blend of Buddhist philosophy, astrology, monarchy, and practical modern timekeeping. The year is counted from the Buddha’s enlightenment, thus 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar, while months and days are Western. Alongside the solar calendar, Thailand uses a lunar calendar for Buddhist holy days (Wan Phra), major festivals and monastic routines. This lunar calendar includes leap months (adhikamāsa) to realign lunar and solar cycles, and leap days (adhikavāra) in certain years. So Thailand lives in two time systems at once: administrative and sacred. What is more, between cosmology and astrology, the days of the week have a peculiarly developed symbolism: a tourist may notice how much attention is dedicated to them in the Sanctuary of Truth in Pattaya, this postmodern reinvention of the religious. But there are more things, such as royal clothes in special colour for every day of the week, rooted in Hindu-Buddhist astrology: Monday – Yellow. Tuesday – Pink. Wednesday – Green. Thursday – Orange. Friday – Blue. Saturday – Purple. Sunday – Red. Flowers chosen according to day-colors. Time is therefore chromatic, not neutral. Qualitative rather than merely quantitative: days are auspicious or inauspicious, fast or slow.
I delve into the Thai time as I travel north, then south: to Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam destroyed by the Burmese, and then Rattanakosin, the central island of Bangkok, the new capital built up after the disaster.
I delve into the Thai time as I travel north, then south: to Ayutthaya, the capital of Siam destroyed by the Burmese, and then Rattanakosin, the central island of Bangkok, the new capital built up after the disaster.
Ayutthaya
the capital of Siam (1351-1767)
Wat Mahathat
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Here it is. The famous Buddha head overgrown by a bunyan tree.
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Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon
1357, a massive Sri Lankan bell-shaped chedi with a monastic complex expanded after a major victory over Burma (1592).
Wat Phra Si Sanphet
Three Sri Lankan-style chedis (15th c.) containing royal relics, an example of mature Ayutthaya court architecture
Wat Ratchaburana
1424. Wat Ratchaburana offers an almost intimate encounter with the ideological heart of early Ayutthayan kingship. Founded by King Borommarachathirat II on the site of a fratricidal succession struggle, the temple is not merely commemorative architecture but a carefully staged meditation on power, merit, and cosmic order. Its central prang, rising with elegance rather than monumental excess, anchors the site as both reliquary and political statement. The Khmer-derived form is unmistakable, yet already softened and localised: less triumphalist than Angkorian prototypes, more introspective, signalling Ayutthaya’s transition from inherited models toward its own visual language. The true revelation lies within the crypt, whose mural paintings and stucco reliefs form one of the most intellectually sophisticated programs of the period. Not available to the general public, yet I climb the prang nonetheless, only to smell the intense, jungle-moist air in the narrow inner gallery, trying to imagine them from what I've read. Here, Buddhist cosmology unfolds not as abstract doctrine but as a densely layered visual system: nāgas, devas, celestial palaces, and vegetal motifs interlace in a rhythm that suggests both abundance and containment. The murals—remarkable for their early date—retain a narrative clarity while resisting illusionistic depth, privileging symbolic hierarchy over spatial realism. One senses an art still negotiating between Indic cosmological diagrams and emerging Thai narrative sensibilities, where surface becomes a site of meaning rather than mere decoration.
What makes Wat Ratchaburana especially compelling is its atmosphere of arrested time. Unlike later Ayutthayan monuments rebuilt into theatrical ruins, this temple retains a certain austerity, even inwardness. Weathered brick, subdued scale, and the partially concealed crypt encourage close looking rather than distant awe. For the art historian, Wat Ratchaburana reads as a hinge moment: a place where royal memory, religious orthodoxy, and artistic experimentation converge, producing a monument that is less about spectacle than about intellectual and spiritual calibration at the dawn of a new imperial culture.
What makes Wat Ratchaburana especially compelling is its atmosphere of arrested time. Unlike later Ayutthayan monuments rebuilt into theatrical ruins, this temple retains a certain austerity, even inwardness. Weathered brick, subdued scale, and the partially concealed crypt encourage close looking rather than distant awe. For the art historian, Wat Ratchaburana reads as a hinge moment: a place where royal memory, religious orthodoxy, and artistic experimentation converge, producing a monument that is less about spectacle than about intellectual and spiritual calibration at the dawn of a new imperial culture.
Wat Chaiwatthanaram
A relatively late construction, 1630, under king Prasat Thong. Khmer influence.
Wat Phra Mongkhon Bophit
other places in Ayutthaya
Wat Khunsan
Bangkok
walking into Rattanakosin
War Phra Kaew : the Emerald Buddha
I have no picture of the Emerald Buddha itself. The temple is too sacred to take photos, and the figure too small and too high, anyway, to feature on a magnificent shot. The Emerald Buddha Temple, formally known as Wat Phra Kaew (Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram), lies at the heart of the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok. It has no resident monks; its role is ceremonial, royal, and symbolic, serving as a spiritual axis rather than a place of daily religious life. The Emerald Buddha, I've said, is unexpectedly small—about sixty-six centimetres high—yet endowed with an authority that renders scale irrelevant. The statue is not emerald, as its name suggests, but carved from a single block of deep green jade, or possibly jasper, polished to a cool, inward glow. Stylistically, it belongs to the early Thai–Lanna tradition, with a restrained elegance: smooth planes, softened contours, and an emphasis on composure rather than anatomical detail. The Buddha is seated in the meditation posture, legs folded in full lotus, hands resting in the dhyāna mudrā—a gesture of perfect equilibrium and collected awareness. The body is upright and contained, the face serene to the point of impersonality, as if individuality has been deliberately refined away. The statue is elevated high above the worshipper on a gilded, multi-tiered pedestal, surrounded by an architecture of increasing abstraction—gold, mirrors, and symbolic forms accumulating upward. This distance is deliberate: the Buddha is not intimate, but sovereign. As the palladium of the Thai nation, the image is believed to safeguard the kingdom and embody the moral legitimacy of royal rule.
According to tradition, the Emerald Buddha originated in India and journeyed through Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Laos before being brought to Thailand in 1779 by King Rama I, founder of the Chakri dynasty. Its arrival marked the establishment of Bangkok as both political capital and sacred center, binding kingship, Buddhism, and territory into a single cosmological order.
Three times a year, in accordance with the hot, rainy, and cool seasons, the King of Thailand—or his representative—changes the Buddha’s ceremonial golden garments. These seasonal costumes, delicately fashioned and richly ornamented, do not alter the statue’s essence but acknowledge the rhythms of time and climate, reaffirming royal stewardship over both the spiritual and natural worlds.
According to tradition, the Emerald Buddha originated in India and journeyed through Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Laos before being brought to Thailand in 1779 by King Rama I, founder of the Chakri dynasty. Its arrival marked the establishment of Bangkok as both political capital and sacred center, binding kingship, Buddhism, and territory into a single cosmological order.
Three times a year, in accordance with the hot, rainy, and cool seasons, the King of Thailand—or his representative—changes the Buddha’s ceremonial golden garments. These seasonal costumes, delicately fashioned and richly ornamented, do not alter the statue’s essence but acknowledge the rhythms of time and climate, reaffirming royal stewardship over both the spiritual and natural worlds.
Ramakien
The Ramakien is Thailand’s national epic and a localised adaptation of the ancient Indian Ramayana. While it preserves the broad narrative structure of the Ramayana, it is not a simple translation. The story was reworked over centuries to align with Thai culture, aesthetics, court values, and ideas of kingship. The most authoritative version was compiled in the late 18th century under King Rama I, at the very moment when Bangkok was being established as the new capital. In that sense, the Ramakien is not just a story but a foundational myth for the Thai state.
At its core, the Ramakien tells the story of Phra Ram (Rama), the embodiment of righteous kingship, his wife Nang Sida (Sita), and his loyal brother Phra Lak (Lakshmana). Sida is abducted by Thotsakan (Ravana), the demon king of Lanka, setting in motion a long struggle between order and chaos. With the help of an army of monkey warriors led by Hanuman, Phra Ram wages war to restore moral balance, defeat Thotsakan, and reclaim Sida. The narrative emphasises loyalty, duty, hierarchy, and moral restraint—values closely aligned with Thai royal ideology.
In the murals at Wat Phra Kaew, the Ramakien is rendered as a continuous visual cycle running along the interior walls of the temple cloisters. The murals were first painted in the late 18th century, shortly after the temple’s construction, and have been restored and repainted multiple times over the centuries, most notably in the reigns of King Rama III, Rama IV, and Rama V. This means what you see today is not a single historical layer, but a palimpsest—an evolving court tradition carefully maintained rather than preserved in a modern conservation sense.
Stylistically, the murals are characteristic of traditional Thai court painting, which prioritises clarity, hierarchy, and narrative density over naturalism. Perspective is conceptual rather than optical: important figures are larger, elevated, or centrally placed regardless of spatial logic. Multiple moments from the story often appear within a single panel, allowing time to unfold visually rather than sequentially. The viewer is expected to “read” the image, not simply look at it.
The visual narration is continuous and panoramic. Landscapes, palaces, forests, and battlefields flow into one another with little separation, guiding the eye along the wall as if along a scroll. Architectural forms tilt forward, trees are stylised into rhythmic patterns, and clouds or rocky outcrops act as soft dividers between episodes. Gold leaf and mineral pigments heighten key elements, especially royal figures, divine beings, and moments of moral significance.
Characters are instantly recognisable through codified visual language. Phra Ram is calm, restrained, and regal; Thotsakan is imposing, richly adorned, and marked by his multiple faces; Hanuman is energetic, playful, and often depicted in acrobatic poses that inject movement and humour into the epic. Despite the abundance of action—wars, chases, transformations—the overall effect is controlled rather than chaotic. Violence is stylised, yet it is clear the whole story is pervaded with gore.
At its core, the Ramakien tells the story of Phra Ram (Rama), the embodiment of righteous kingship, his wife Nang Sida (Sita), and his loyal brother Phra Lak (Lakshmana). Sida is abducted by Thotsakan (Ravana), the demon king of Lanka, setting in motion a long struggle between order and chaos. With the help of an army of monkey warriors led by Hanuman, Phra Ram wages war to restore moral balance, defeat Thotsakan, and reclaim Sida. The narrative emphasises loyalty, duty, hierarchy, and moral restraint—values closely aligned with Thai royal ideology.
In the murals at Wat Phra Kaew, the Ramakien is rendered as a continuous visual cycle running along the interior walls of the temple cloisters. The murals were first painted in the late 18th century, shortly after the temple’s construction, and have been restored and repainted multiple times over the centuries, most notably in the reigns of King Rama III, Rama IV, and Rama V. This means what you see today is not a single historical layer, but a palimpsest—an evolving court tradition carefully maintained rather than preserved in a modern conservation sense.
Stylistically, the murals are characteristic of traditional Thai court painting, which prioritises clarity, hierarchy, and narrative density over naturalism. Perspective is conceptual rather than optical: important figures are larger, elevated, or centrally placed regardless of spatial logic. Multiple moments from the story often appear within a single panel, allowing time to unfold visually rather than sequentially. The viewer is expected to “read” the image, not simply look at it.
The visual narration is continuous and panoramic. Landscapes, palaces, forests, and battlefields flow into one another with little separation, guiding the eye along the wall as if along a scroll. Architectural forms tilt forward, trees are stylised into rhythmic patterns, and clouds or rocky outcrops act as soft dividers between episodes. Gold leaf and mineral pigments heighten key elements, especially royal figures, divine beings, and moments of moral significance.
Characters are instantly recognisable through codified visual language. Phra Ram is calm, restrained, and regal; Thotsakan is imposing, richly adorned, and marked by his multiple faces; Hanuman is energetic, playful, and often depicted in acrobatic poses that inject movement and humour into the epic. Despite the abundance of action—wars, chases, transformations—the overall effect is controlled rather than chaotic. Violence is stylised, yet it is clear the whole story is pervaded with gore.
Wat Pho : the Reclining Buddha
1832. Mother-of-pearl inlaid soles of the giant statue. This monastery is the birthplace of Thai academic art - a sort of public encyclopaedia of knowledge, medicine, the art of massage that later on became the country's most celebrated asset.
There are hundreds of chedis in different styles, four large stupas for the first four Chakri kings. Everything is covered with colourful glazed ceramics.
There are hundreds of chedis in different styles, four large stupas for the first four Chakri kings. Everything is covered with colourful glazed ceramics.
Wat Arun
A Khmer revival in full Rattanakosin period, with a central prang standing for Mount Meru. A steep, vertical silhouette like in Angkor, yet covered with the distinctive Thai ceramic ornament. The royal temple during Thonburi period.
Wat Saket : the Golden Mount
Simplicity, purity, spiritual ascent? There is a fairground beneath the temple! Yet as I learn, this is a very peculiar thing, งานวัด (ngaan wát), a temple fair. By the way, the vultures in the corner not only commemorate the victims of an epidemic but remind about the essential transience of life, apparently so colourful, so luxuriant, blooming around countless waterfalls covering the slopes of the artificial mound on top of which the temple stands.
Wat Suthat
Another giant Buddha all in gold, and a giant swing - the reminder of an even more extreme temple fair that once existed here, till the number of casualties finally made the compassionate authorities forbid the sport.
In this temple, I stay for the prayer. A long ceremony with a sermon and chanting hymns in old languages. I'm surprised how young are almost all the faithful, students, little more than this. How popular this religon must be among the youth.
The walls of the ubosot are covered with murals, the three worlds of Buddhist cosmology, but also scenes of Bangkok daily life.
In this temple, I stay for the prayer. A long ceremony with a sermon and chanting hymns in old languages. I'm surprised how young are almost all the faithful, students, little more than this. How popular this religon must be among the youth.
The walls of the ubosot are covered with murals, the three worlds of Buddhist cosmology, but also scenes of Bangkok daily life.
Pattaya
the Sanctuary of Truth
becoming a tourist: tropicality
riding elephants
eating as adventure
