Khun Borom Rachathirath is the legendary progenitor of the Tai-speaking peoples, considered by the Lao and others to be the father of their race. The Tai languages are a subgroup of the Tai Kadai language family. ...

Mythology

According to the myth of Khun Borom, commonly related among the Lao, people in ancient times were wicked and crude. A great deity destroyed them with a flood, leaving only three worthy chiefs who were preserved in heaven to be the founders and guides for a new race of people. The deity sent the three chiefs back to the earth with a buffalo to help them till the land. The chiefs and the buffalo arrived in the land of Muang Then (believed to be present-day Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam). Once the land had been prepared for rice cultivation, the buffalo died and a gourd vine grew from his nostril. From the gourds on the vine, the new human race emerged- relatively dark-skinned aborigonal peoples emerging from gourds cut open with a hot poker, and the lighter skinned Lao emerging from cuts made with a chisel. Look up Flood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A flood (in Old English flod, a word common to Teutonic languages; compare German Flut, Dutch vloed from the same root as is seen in flow, float) is an overflow of water, an expanse of water submerging land, a deluge. ... The heavens are the sky, the celestial sphere, or outer space. ... A buffalo is one of several species of bovine. ... Dien Bien Phu (Điện Biên Phủ) is a small town in northwestern Vietnam. ... Species References ITIS 41975 2002-09-22 Rice (genus Oryza) is a plant of the grass family which is a dietary staple of more than half of the worlds human population. ... A gourd is a hollow, dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants. ...

The gods then taught the Tai people how to build houses and cultivate rice. They were instructed in proper rituals and behaviour, and grew prosperous. As their population grew, they needed aid in governing their relations and resolving disputes. The chief god sent his son, Khun Borom, to be the ruler of the Tai people. Khun Borom ruled the Tai people for 25 years, teaching them to use new tools and other arts. After this quarter-century span, Khun Borom divided the Tai kingdom among his seven sons, giving each one of them a portion of the kingdom to rule. The eldest son, Khun Lo, was given the kingdom of Muang Sua- modern day Luang Prabang. Other sons was given the kingdoms of Siang Khwang, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, Sipsong Pan Na (Southern Yunnan, China), Hamsavati (a Mon state in modern-day Myanmar), and an unknown area apparently in north-central Vietnam, sometimes identified with Nghe-an province. Khun Lo was the eldest of the sons of Khun Borom and first of the Lao kings. ... Muang Sua was the name of Luang Phrabang following its conquest in 698 by a Tai prince, Khun Lo, who seized his opportunity when the king of Nanzhao was engaged elsewhere. ... Royal palace museum of Luang Prabang. ... Ayutthaya (also spelled Ayudhya or Ayuthia) refers to The old capital of Thailand, see Ayutthaya (city) The province around the city, Ayutthaya province The ruins of the old palace, see Ayutthaya historical park Ayutthaya kingdom as the period of Thai history (1365-1768) in which Ayutthaya was capital This is... Chiang Mai is both a city and a province in Thailand. ... Yunnan (Simplified Chinese: 云南; Traditional Chinese: 雲南; pinyin: ) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwestern corner of the country. ... The Mon are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia. ...

Scholarship

Some interpretors of the story of Khun Borom believe that it describes Tai-speaking peoples arriving in Southeast Asia from China (mythically identified with heaven, from which the Tai chiefs emerge after the flood). The system of dividing and expanding a kingdom in order to provide for the sons of a ruler agrees in general with the apparent organization and succession practices of ancient Tai village groups, called müang.

Scholar David K. Wyatt believes that the Khun Borom myth may provide insight into the early history of the Tai people in Southeast Asia. Versions of the Khun Borom myth occur as early as 698 CE in Siang Khwang, and identify Tai-speaking kingdoms that would be formally established years later. This may provide an indication of the early degree of geographical spread found in Tai-speaking peoples, and provides a mythological explanation for why modern Tai-speaking peoples are found in such widespread pockets. Linguistic analysis indicates that the division of the early Tai speakers into the language groups that gave rise to modern Thai, Lao and other languages occurred sometime between the 7th and 11th Centuries CE. This split proceeded along geographic lines very similar to the division given in the Khun Borom legend, and left the original area of occupation of the Tai people- in Vietnam, in the vicinity of Dien Bien Phu- occupied by speakers from linguistic groups that may have already divirged earlier in history. Dien Bien Phu (Điện Biên Phủ) is a small town in northwestern Vietnam. ...

Sources

• Wyatt, David K., Thailand: A Short History, New Haven (Yale University Press), 2003. ISBN 0300084757