ABSTRACT
This essay explores inscriptions, the Three Seals Law Code, chronicles, royal eulogies,1 and other primary sources in an attempt to understand some of the conceptions and idealizations of kingship and religion and the intricacies of ritual relations from the Ayutthaya to the early Ratanakosin period. I include brahmans because I do not believe that the Buddhism of Siam (or that of the region) can be studied in isolation, without taking into account the social and ideological ecologies within which it and other knowledge and ritual systems have functioned. If Buddhism was the dominant discourse in the ideological hierarchy, it was not the only one, and the brahmanical discourse should not be ignored. Brahmans played, and to a degree still play, a significant role in the state rituals of successive Siamese kingdoms. They presided over their own brahmanical rites and participated in ceremonies with Buddhist monks. In both cases they received offerings, and otherwise they – or the deities they cared for – received land grants with attendant privileges.
