Talk:Suwannaphum

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I'm re-posting the new text here, in case some Thai nationalist comes along and decides to re-write the entire entry with the same propaganda nonsense they put in the museums.

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Suwannaphum (also Suwarnabhumi) remains one of the most mythified and contentious toponym in the hisory of Asia. In Thailand, government proclamations and state museums insist that it was somewhere along their southern coast (and, in celebration of this, the government has named the new Bangkok airport after the mythic kingdom of Suwarnabhumi, or "Suwannaphum"); meanwhile, in Myanmar, authorities insist that it was the Sittang River in Burma. Working from limited historical sources (primarily, the vague accounts of the region provided by Chinese pilgrims on their way to and from India) the term has been idenified with coastal regions from Indonesia to Malaysia.

The issue at the base of all these modern myths is the appearance of the term in the ancient stone inscriptions of Ashoka; it is significant that none of these myths existed (in any country in South-East Asia) prior to the publication and translation of the edicts of Ashoka in the 19th century.

Scholars identify the "Suvannabhumi" named by Ashoka as a toponym in Southern India, and deny that it has anything to do with South-East Asia. The later (and less contested) references to the region in Chinese historical sources depends on the (highly conjectural) identification of Chinese idiograms with phonetic equivalents, and the subsequent identification of those phonetic toponyms with ancient civilizations.

Responsible modern scholarship does not accept that Ashoka's missionaries went any further east than Sri Lanka, and archaeological evidence tends to affirm this. Further, the attempts to identify the modern ethnic/political groupings of "Thai" and "Burmese" with a conjectural "Suvannabhumi" of the 2nd century BCE flounders on the simple fact that neither the Tai-Kadai migration nor the Sino-Tibetan population of Burma had yet come to pass. In other words, if the myth identifying Ashoka's "Suwannaphum" with Burma or Thailand were true, it would entail an impossible anachronism, as neither any Thais nor any Burmese lived on that coast for many centuries thereafter.

See also:

         Pyu
         Dvaravati
         History of Burma
         History of Thailand

[edit] NPOV notice

I've added the NPOV notice to this article. This is due to the use of terms like "highly conjectural", "responsible modern scholarship", "attempts ... flounders on the simple fact that" and "if the myth were true". This borders on original research. I could have simply removed the sentences, but I know nothing about this subject. I think any cleaning up needs to be done by someone knowledgeable, i.e. someone else. Aecis 11:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree: The articles indicates confusion of the language issues and the people groups.-—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.55.230.121 (talk • contribs) .

I will humbly try to improve this article. The main problem with this article (aside from the weasel words and POV) is that it just addresses the dispute, not describing the kingdom. I have removed the weasel words mentioned by Aecis above and fixed a few other factual references. I will gradually add more info to change the nature of the article. With no objections, I will also remove the NPOV tag.--WilliamThweatt 01:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote the article, trying to put the focus on the place itself instead of the disputed legacy. I consulted many sources, including translations of the ancient originals, and recent scholarly analysis. It was hard weeding through the conjecture, baseless nationalistic claims and tradition to find useful sources and even then, they sometimes contradict one another. Also, I can't believe how many websites mirror or cite Wikipedia (but that's a topic for another day). The article could use some more fleshing out but I feel it is now sufficiently NPOV to remove the tag so I will do that now.--WilliamThweatt 02:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes of July 27 by User:86.200.251.230

I'm not going to revert the changes, for now. However, I don't believe this is an improvement to the article. The article previously stated that Suwannaphum isn't mentioned in any verifiable independent sources, which is true. All of the "sources" noted in today's changes (with the possible exception of the Roman one) are merely later retellings or reworkings of the original story...not contemporary independent sources. Also, all of the info regarding the Rock Edict (as it is presently written) is superfluous as it doesn't mention Suwannaphum and the explanation of the rulers mentioned is irrelevant to the article as well.

Please provide rationale for your edits, including citation of sources or I will revert back to the previous version. I am going to make some changes to the formatting and other errors introduced today. I will revert in a couple days if the edits aren't justified.--WilliamThweatt 20:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)