Khun Chang Khun Phaen

Their stories transpire amid the larger backdrop of national events, including two wars, several abductions, a suspected revolt, an idyllic sojourn in the forest, two court cases, trial by ordeal, jail, and treachery.[1] Like many works with origins in popular entertainment, it is fast-moving and replete with heroism, romance, sex, violence, folk comedy, magic, horror, and passages of lyrical beauty.Children learn passages at school, and the poem is a source of songs, popular aphorisms, and everyday metaphors.It originated as a folk entertainment some time around 1600 A.D., developed by storytellers who recited episodes for local audiences, and passed on the story by word-of-mouth.The storytellers recounted the story in stylized recitation, using two small sticks of wood (krap) to give rhythm and emphasis.Sujit Wongthet argued a connection to the Sanskrit word sewa, indicating some original association with ritual.After the foundation of Bangkok in 1782, the new royal court made efforts to retrieve all kinds of texts which had survived the sack of Ayutthaya fifteen years earlier.Several other chapters were compiled later, probably during the reign of King Rama III, by Khru Jaeng, a performer of sepha and other forms of entertainment.A former missionary, Samuel Smith, printed the first book version in 1872, probably using a manuscript belonging to Somdet Chaophraya Borommaha Sisuriyawong.He deleted some passages which he considered obscene, and some which depended on topical jokes and other material which he felt were no longer comprehensible.Performers and authors had already developed many more episodes which extended the story down through three generations of Khun Phaen's lineage.When Phlai Kaeo returns victorious, Khun Chang plots to have him banished from Ayutthaya for negligence on government service.At first she is reluctant to leave her comfortable life, but the passion rekindles, and they flee to an idyllic but frugal sojourn in the forest.Phra Wai pleads successfully with the king for a reprieve, but the order arrives fractionally too late to avoid her execution.His evidence was a memoir believed to have been taken down from Thai prisoners in Burma after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 (Khamhaikan chao krung kao, The testimony of the inhabitants of the old capital).The authors build an atmosphere of realism by cramming the narrative with anthropological detail on dress, marriages, funerals, temple ceremonies, feasts (including menus and recipes), court cases, trial by ordeal, house building, travel, and entertainment.Most of the action takes place in Suphanburi, Kanchanaburi, and Ayutthaya, and the locations are easily identifiable today, including temples and cross-country routes.Several places mentioned in the text appear on some early nineteenth century maps which were recently discovered in the royal palace in Bangkok.In India, where they probably originated, such diagrams are composed mostly of geometric shapes with symbolic meanings arranged in symmetrical patterns (the mandala is a yantra).These oracles include casting various forms of horoscope, looking for shapes in the clouds, and examining which nostril the breath is passing most easily.They are used for such purposes as stunning enemies, transforming his body into other forms, opening locks and chains, putting everyone else to sleep, and converting sheaves of grass into invulnerable spirit warriors.In the twentieth century, episodes were adapted into the poetical form of nirat, and the folk performance of phleng choi.Khun Wichitmatra (Sanga Kanchanakphan) and Phleuang na Nakhon wrote a series of articles in the magazine Withayasan over 1954–57, collected together in book form in 1961.In 2002 Sujit Wongthet published a similar work which originated as a series of articles in the magazine Sinlapa Watthanatham (Art and Culture).The book includes a copy of two manuscript versions of chapter 17, which Sujit secured from the National Archives under the Freedom of Information Act.It is also the name of a famous amulet, reputed to bring success in love, and the slang for a large "chopper" motorcycle.In Suphanburi and Phichit, towns which figure prominently in the poem, the major streets have been named after characters in the story.In addition, despite the work's focus on common protagonists, feminists and political correctness movements of the 1970s have criticized the story for celebrating Khun Phaen as a promiscuous lover, and making Wanthong a tragic victim.Prince Bidyalongkorn wrote two articles on the poem in the Journal of the Siam Society in 1926[9] and 1941[10] which explain the metrical form of the sepha and give a summary of the plot.E. H. S. Simmonds published an aritlce in Asia Major in 1963 which compares one episode in the standard text with a version he recorded in performance.