storyThe hermit's school

สำนักพระฤๅษีสุกกะทันตะ · samnak phra ruesi sukkathanta

Mangrai of Chiang Mai and Ngam Mueang of Phayao are said to have learned to box in Lopburi.

Quantplinus · CC BY-SA 4.0

What it is

A school at Khao Samo Khon in Lavo — now Lopburi — kept by a hermit called Sukkathanta, teaching a subject called Mai Sastra.

The long version

Thai Wikipedia's history of the sport dates it to AD 657, the Hariphunchai period, and names the subject: มัยศาสตร์, Mai Sastra — glossed there against Kannada ಮೈಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ, where mai is courage or the facing of danger and sastra is a manual or body of knowledge. It covered boxing, the sword, the bow, and the handling of elephants and horses.

The students it names are the point. Mangrai, who founded Chiang Mai. Ngam Mueang, who ruled Phayao. Ban Mueang and Ram Khamhaeng of Sukhothai. Four northern and central rulers, in one classroom, in the city that one of the four named boxing styles is named after.

The hermitage is still visitable, at Wat Khao Samo Khon in Lopburi.

Inference — hold this the way you would hold any origin story that arrives already tidy. A seventh-century date, a single named teacher, and a class list of exactly the kings a national history would want in it, is a story doing work. What it is good evidence of is that the tradition places the sport's teaching north and central rather than in Ayutthaya, and that it wants Lanna in the room. The Mangrai law of 1296 is the harder evidence for that, and it is on its own page.

Connected to

• The Mangrai law, 1296 The harder evidence.
• Muay Lopburi The school named for the city.
• Lanna Who is in the room.
• How old is any of this How to hold a tidy origin.

Named here by

• Fon jerng The older claim underneath it.
• The Mangrai law, 1296 The softer claim.

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