Historical figure
Satha I
Satha I was a 16th-century king of Cambodia who reigned at Longvek until the Siamese took the capital in 1594.[1] Nhim Sotheavin, who wrote a 2020 history of the fall of Longvek, gives his reign as 1576 to 1594 and describes him as a grandson of King Ang Chan.[1]
Name
The royal chronicles call him Satthā. In a paper for Sophia University, Nhim writes that Saṭṭhā took the throne under the royal title Mahindarājā, a name found only in the Vāṃṅ Juon chronicle, and that other chronicles call him Paramarājā IV.[2] An inscription at Angkor Wat known as IMA 3 names a king Jayajeṭṭhā, or Chey Cheytha I. In his 2020 study, Nhim identifies him with the Satthā of the chronicle, citing the scholar Saveros Pou's edition of the inscription.[1] The Sophia paper also credits Pou with that identification.[2] The same paper, following the historians Mak Phoeun and Khin Sok, gives the name Jayajeṭṭhā I instead to a son of Saṭṭhā. It counts the later king Jayajeṭṭhā, who moved the capital to Oudong in 1620, as Jayajeṭṭhā II, and says that this Jayajeṭṭhā appears in IMA 3 at an age of about 40.[2]
Reign
His father, whom Nhim calls King Paramarājā III, set him up at Longvek. Nhim dates this to 1572, following the Vāṃṅ Juon chronicle, and notes that the P/48 (II) chronicle and the Garnier version place it in 1570.[1] His father died in 1576 by the Garnier version of the chronicles, or in 1579 by the Vāṃṅ Juon chronicle, and Satthā then took the throne at Longvek.[1]
When he came to the throne, Cambodia and Siam were at peace under a treaty. Ayutthaya, the Siamese kingdom, was ruled by Mahādhammarājā from 1568 to 1590 and came under repeated Burmese attack. Satthā sent an army under the Mahā Uparāja Srī Suriyobarm to help Siam against the Burmese, beside a Siamese army led by the Uparāja Naresūr (Naresuan), Mahādhammarājā's eldest son.[1] The Vāṃṅ Juon chronicle records that on the way back the two princes quarreled, after Naresūr had the heads of Lao prisoners cut off in front of Srī Suriyobarm. Satthā then broke off the alliance with Siam, and Naresūr began to raise an army against Cambodia.[1]
The inscription IMA 3 records that Satthā meant to restore the enclosure wall of Braḥ Bisṇulok (Angkor Wat) in the traditional way of earlier times.[1] Nhim wrote that Satthā, like Ang Chan before him, went back to Angkor and restored parts of Angkor Wat.[2] The same inscription records that in 1579 he took his sons to Angkor Wat for a ceremony that dedicated them to the Buddha and the gods.[1]
Relations with Manila
Nhim, drawing on a European source, wrote that in 1590 Satthā sent an envoy to the Spanish governor of Manila with two elephants as a gift. He asked the Portuguese Diego Belloso to take his envoy there to seek friendship and military help against Siam. Manila was slow to answer, and when Belloso came back to Cambodia in 1594 with its agreement, Longvek was already in Siamese hands.[1]
Fall of Longvek
The Vāṃṅ Juon chronicle records that Satthā chose to hand the throne to his two young sons, then aged 11 and 6. It dates this decision to 1586, and other versions of the chronicles to 1584.[1] Nhim wrote, following that chronicle, that the decision dismayed the Uparāja Srī Suriyobarm and the court officials, because the princes were too young to reign, and that the Siamese army then entered the capital without strong resistance.[1]
In Nhim's account, the Siamese army took Longvek in 1594. Satthā then left quietly for Srei Santhor and went on to Laos, leaving the viceroy Srī Suriyobarm in control of the capital.[1] The European source that Nhim cites gives other timings. In one passage, Nhim gives its account as Satthā fleeing to Laos with his two sons and other royal kin when the Siamese attacked Longvek in late 1593. In another, Nhim writes that the same source has the king escape to Laos with his two sons and his wife after the Siamese had taken control of Longvek.[1] Nhim also summarizes the reading of the historian Grégory Mikaelian, in which Satthā had left Longvek for Laos and Srī Suriyobarm, left to guard the capital, gave himself up as a hostage to the Siamese.[1]
Nhim wrote in his 2020 study that the Siamese took Srī Suriyobarm and other royal kin to the court of Ayutthaya as hostages.[1] His Sophia paper dates this to 1595, when the Siamese king Naresūr went back to Siam and took Srī Suriyobarm and thousands of Khmer families with him.[2]
Death and succession
The sources differ on where Satthā died. In his 2020 study, Nhim follows the account that he died in Laos, and cites the European source for it.[1] In the Sophia paper he sets out the versions. In the Vāṃṅ Juon chronicle and the P/48 (I) chronicle, Saṭṭhā died of a disease at Stung Treng. He had fled there with his family after a night attack by the followers of Braḥ Rām Joeṅ Brai. Fragment 1170, the Vatt Kok Kak chronicle, the P/48 (II) chronicle and the Garnier version have him flee to Srei Santhor, then on to Laos, where he died. European sources also place his death in Laos.[2]
His sons later came back to Cambodia from Laos with Diego Belloso and the Spaniard Blas Ruiz, who helped them gain the throne.[1] In Nhim's list of kings, his son Bañā Tan reigned as Paramarājā V from 1597 to 1599, and another son, Bañā Ñom, reigned as Kae Hvā I from 1600 to 1602.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 Yosothor, Nhim Sotheavin, Considerations Regarding the Fall of Longvek, UDAYA, Journal of Khmer Studies No. 15 (2020)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Institute of Asian Culture, Sophia University, Nhim Sotheavin, Factors that Led to the Change of the Khmer Capitals from the 15th to 17th century (undated)