Sukhothai kingdom begins its decline in Siam

1344

The Thai kingdom that had invented the Siamese script and defined Theravada Buddhist kingship lost territory steadily to its southern neighbor Ayutthaya. Sukhothai's graceful walking Buddhas and lotus-bud stupas would survive as masterpieces of Southeast Asian art; its political power would not. Within a century it existed only as a vassal of the rising Ayutthayan empire.