388 Part V: Southeast Asia
the terrible battle of Kurukshetra, the pivotal event of the Mahabharata, whose
themes of conflict and doom seem to have been on the minds of Khmer kings.
One length of bas relief shows two ranks of soldiers, the disciplined Khmer
regulars in perfect formation contrasted with an unruly crowd of Thai merce-
naries, some gabbing to men behind them and others leering drunkenly out of
the bas relief. Yet the Thais’ day came. Angkor went into decline as the Thai
began their expansion on the Khorat Plateau, stealing their vassals and depriv-
ing Angkor of essential sources of land, people, and wealth. Sukhothai,
founded by Angkor, declared its independence in the thirteenth century; in the
next, it conquered Angkor. Irrigation systems fell into disuse, reservoirs silted
up. And in the great temples, seeds of the strangler fig fell and rooted, growing
in crevices and expanding, until like gigantic tusks they ripped stone blocks
apart, toppling roofs and towers, inviting the jungle to take back the monu-
ments of the Angkor kings.
The Thai: Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, Bangkok. The Chao Phrya valley has
been the principal domain of the Thai (Siamese) people. It is the location of
modern Bangkok and the site of the most recent and still surviving Cakri
dynasty of Thailand. Thai kingdoms were founded after 1300, but before the
coming of the Thai, there were earlier kingdoms. On the Khorat Plateau ofLow-relief carvings at Angkor Wat depicting war elephants and disciplined soldiers are a reminder
that Khmer kingdoms were sustained by military power despite their prevalent Buddhist ideology.