Xiu Luo Fen

Xiū Luó Fēn () was an ancient Xiān political entity recorded in the New Book of Tang and the Cefu Yuangui, a leishu compiled during the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE).  Chinese sources describe the polity as being located north of the South Sea, with an urban perimeter—possibly corresponding to Indaprasthanagara in the Phraek Si Racha area—enclosed by wooden palisades rather than masonry walls. Its territory is further said to have reached eastward toward the Kingdom of Zhenla and southward to the maritime frontier. These spatial descriptions stand in clear tension with the identification advanced by Tatsuo Hoshino in his earlier study, which equated Xiū Luó Fēn with Isanapura, the capital of Zhenla.

During the Tang period, three closely associated city-states—Xiū Luó Fēn, Gē Luó Shě Fēn, and Gān Bì—were documented as sending tributary missions to the Chinese imperial court in 665. The three shared broadly similar sociopolitical customs and systems of governance, each ruled by its own sovereign and protected by fortified city walls.

Militarily, Xiū Luó Fēn maintained a substantial army of 20,000–30,000 elite soldiers under the command of its ruler, Shīdámó Típó (; ). Its principal allies are recorded as Gē Luó Shě Fēn, which reportedly possessed around 20,000 elite troops, and Gān Bì, whose military establishment was considerably smaller, numbering approximately 5,000. The region tentatively associated with Xiū Luó Fēn is also later linked in local historical traditions to the dynastic lineage of Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri, figures who subsequently played a role in the consolidation of multiple principalities within the Menam valley, a process that ultimately culminated in the establishment of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 14th century.

No extant contemporary record documents the termination of Xiū Luó Fēn’s authority in the Phraek Si Racha area. However, later French accounts—most notably Du Royaume de Siam and Instructions Given to the Siamese Envoys Sent to Portugal (1684)—refer to the relocation of Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri to Sukhothai in the 1150s. Local text, Ayutthaya Testimonies, describes him as a prince serving under Anuraja, identified as the last ruler of Xiū Luó Fēn. In the aftermath of this relocation, a short-lived polity known in Chinese sources as Chen Li Fu appears in records dating from 1180 to the early 13th century, with its proposed center likewise situated in the Phraek Si Racha region. The rulers of this polity are reported to have maintained dynastic connections with the Mahidharapura Kingdoms of the Khorat Plateau. According to the Legend of Nakhon Si Thammarat, in 1225 Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri returned to his ancestral domain and incorporated it into Xiān at Ayodhya under the rule of his son, Uthong II.

Interpretation

The toponym “Xiū Luó Fēn” bears a phonetic resemblance to “Xiān Luó” (), the designation used in early Chinese sources for Ayutthaya. The element “fēn” () has been tentatively interpreted as corresponding to the Sanskrit suffix “pūra”, meaning “town” or “city.”  The character “Luó” () may further reflect a transcription of “dvara” (door, gate, or entrance), as comparable forms—Luó and Luò —appear in Chinese renderings of Dvaravati.  On this basis, Xiū Luó Fēn could be understood as referring to a “gateway city (country) to (of) Xiān.” Alternatively, the designation may be interpreted as “the city (or country) of Xiū.”

If the latter interpretation is adopted, the reference would correspond closely to the polity of Āśe (, ) mentioned in the Northern Chronicle, situated in the Phraek Si Racha area, lay north of Davaraburi (, identified with Dvaravati’s Nakhon Pathom) and south of Kosambi (, corresponding to the ancient Ban Khlong Mueang in the modern Kosamphi Nakhon district). These settlements were among the seven polities traditionally attributed to the authority of King Kalavarnadisharaja (r. 648–700) of Lavo during the peak of Dvaravati civilization.

People

The Japanese historian Tatsuo Hoshino advanced the hypothesis that Xiū Luó Fēn represented an early Siamese polity that maintained strong commercial and cultural relations with other small-scale kingdoms along the trans-Mekong trade corridor, including Gān Bì, Zhān Bó, Wen Dan, Qiān Zhī Fú, and Cān Bàn. These polities were inhabited by an early Monic Siamese people as well as Tai-speaking populations, who are believed to have migrated into the region by at least the 7th to 8th centuries. Over time, these communities came into contact with another branch of Tai peoples migrating southward from Chiang Saen into the Menam Valley, thereby contributing to the broader ethnocultural consolidation of early Tai civilization in mainland Southeast Asia.

Hoshino's theoretical framework concerning the early Siamese polities is consonant with the historical narrative preserved in the Ayutthaya Testimonies, which assert that Indraraja, also designated as Pra Poa Noome Thele Seri—the progenitor of Ramathibodi I, the inaugural sovereign of the Ayutthaya Kingdom—was the filial descendant of Anuraja, the reigning authority of the polity at Phraek Si Racha. The dynastic lineage of Anuraja can be traced to the 8th century, reflecting a continuity of regional rulership over multiple generations. This account exhibits significant correspondence with the Legend of the Arhat (Tamnan Nithan Phra Arahant; ), which delineates the genealogical succession of Kalavarnadisharaja, the founding monarch of Lavo. Notably, one of his grandsons, Sai Thong Som, is recorded to have emerged in the 7th century as the offspring of a union between a Mon sovereign and a Tai princess.

List of rulers

The duration of the reign of this dynastic lineage, extending from Bharattakabba to Anuraja, was retrospectively calculated on the basis of the regnal-year figures recorded in the Ayutthaya Testimonies. The terminal point of the lineage is identified with the conquest of the region by Sri Dharmasokaraja II of Tambralinga in 1167 CE, as attested by the date recorded in the Dong Mè Nang Mưo’ng Inscription (K. 766).

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