Abstract:

This essay offers a preliminary account of the ways in which alterations to the landscape of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Sukhothai and Chiang Mai figured within the micro-politics of these city-states. I show how landscape alterations inspired by Laṅkā and mainland South Asia served the consolidation and projection of royal power within the context of local and regional competition, and how such alterations formed part of strategic royal engagement with Buddhist monastic lineages.

Author: Anne M. Blackburn