The Story of Thailand's Ancient Buddhist Kingdom | the Dvāravatī Mon Kingdoms of Southeast Asia

Welcome! Today's video explores Southeast Asia's oldest Buddhist kingdoms formerly located in present-day Thailand. The ancient Mon kingdoms of the Dvāravatī thrived between the 6th century to the 13th century, and were potentially the first culture in Southeast Asia to fully embrace Buddhism in the late-first millennium. Please join on this fascinating journey through history.

For more information on the history of the Dvāravatī see:

Lawrence Palmer Briggs, “Dvaravati, the Most Ancient Kingdom of Siam,” Journal of the American Oriental Society (1945)

Ian Glover, “The Dvaravati Gap—Linking Prehistory and History in Early Thailand,” Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (2010)

For more information on the spread of Dvāravatī culture and Buddhism see:

Stephen A. Murphy, “Buddhism and its Relationship to Dvaravati Period Settlement Patterns and Material Culture in Northeast Thailand and Central Laos C. Sixth-Eleventh Centuries A.D.: A Historical Ecology Approach to the Landscape of the Khorat Plateau,” Asian Perspectives (2014)

H.G. Quaritch Wales, “Dvaravati in South-East Asian Cultural History,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1966)