ABSTRACT
The Mon populations of modern Burma and Thailand are descendants of a branch of the Mon-Khmer peoples who first established settlements across mainland Southeast Asia at least two thousand years ago. Emmanuel Guillon has called the Mon a "vector of civilisation... of architectural, sculptural, literary, juridical and social creations as beautiful and powerful as those which were produced in Central Thailand ... or Pagan.... Mon civilisation had the vigour to bring Buddhist thought to western Southeast Asia, adapting it to its own genius and that of its neighbours."2 For more than a thousand years, neighbouring societies have been deeply influenced by Mon cultural, religious and political concepts. It is this phenomena that gives the Mon a special place in the history of Southeast Asia.
