at the shrine, their children, as well as those of common people, can be overheard urging their nurses or their parents to let them stay to the end of a performance. And so the story, though it may be presented gracelessly, becomes part of the children's lives.
Rural Performances
Ten or twenty years ago the playing of Sang Thong by a group of traveling performers, in either lakhon nok or likay style, was a common occurrence in towns and rice villages. Now it seems to be far rarer. But performances much like those at the shrine of the guardian spirit in Bangkok are still given at temple fairs in Nakhon Pathom, a provincial town.
Villagers in Sagatiam, west of Bangkok, tell of performances of Sang Thong given until about ten years ago. The head-teacher of the school taught village people the parts, and they performed in the surrounding area for various festivals or for people wishing to make repayment to the spirits for some good fortune. It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which such players followed a text or merely followed the general lines of the story, making up their words and inventing their dance movements as they went along. Today, the eyes of old and middle-aged villagers glisten as they talk of performances of Sang Thong. Mrs. Bunsong Jai-ngam, for example, daughter of a woman who often acted with the head-teacher's group, had been talking to us of past performances as she squatted on the floor washing dishes. Suddenly she put down her dishcloth, stood up, and began to dance. The words she sang, as she recalled the old performance, were exactly those of Rama II's version. The part she spontaneously danced and sang was from Act Two, in which the little Prince Sang, eager to sec the toy promised by a soldier sent to kill him, stretches out his hand and is caught. Since other village people have spontaneously related poignant portions of the drama, I am inclined to think that these especially were carried, word for word, from the "great" tradition of the courtly version to the "little" tradition of country people.
Memorial Volumes
At the cremation ceremony of a respected Thai, the family presents guests with a volume, sometimes having special meaning to the deceased or one of his relatives, sometimes chosen by the National Library as having general worth. In 1961 a special printing of the Rama II version of Sang Thong was done for the cremation of Police Lieutenant-Colonel Kowit Praphrupan. In answer to my letter asking why Sang Thong had been chosen, his older brother responded, with elegant simplicity, "It is a treasure of the Thai people."
School Programs
A piece of literature, particularly a long one, is seldom taught all at one time in Thai schools. Instead, an episode appropriate to the students' understanding is given them to read. Although many Thai students go far enough to study "The Choice of Husbands," "The Winning of Rochana," and "Hunting and Fishing," which are considered finer Thai poetry, fourth-graders already know the play from their study of "The Birth of Prince Sang."
Jaroen Jai-ngam, a Thai village teacher, explains that when "The Birth of Prince Sang" was taught twenty years ago, the only purpose was memorization of portions of the text by the school children. Today, the teacher reads the poetry to the children in the thamnawng style, which is quite different from the way "Western poetry is read. The students repeat after him, to get a feeling for the sounds. The teacher then tells the story, explaining names and trying to interest his students in the characters. (Mr. Jaroen confides that he himself likes Sang Thong better than the greater classic Ramakian, because the characters in Sang Thong seem to have more human feelings.) The children read the first part of "The Birth of Prince Sang," which has been put into simple prose. Then they read the few verses of poetry which tell of the son's feeling that it is his responsibility to help his mother in return for her care, and the teacher tries to help them feel the importance of this parent-child relationship.
Mrs. Malulee Pinsuvana, who has danced several parts in Sang Thong in the classical theater, recalls that when she was a small child and had to choose a new notebook for school, she would repeatedly buy one that had scenes from "The Birth of Prince Sang" on the cover. It is now the favorite story of her own small sons.
SANG THONG IN OTHER SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES
The Chiang Mai priests wrote the Pamnāsa Jātaka on palm leaves in fifty bundles, according to Prince Damrong, who also noted that copies of the Pannāsa Jātaka still existed in 20th-century Luang Prabang, Laos, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Quite possibly copies of the Chiang Mai palm-leaf manuscripts were sent to Laos, Cambodia, and Burma, with which Chiang Mai priests had contact.
Laos
At the present time a Pali palm-leaf manuscript of the Sang Thong story, generally similar to "Suvarna-Sankha-Jātaka," exists in a Buddhist temple, Wat Ong Tue, in Vientiane. Other such manuscripts existed in the past, according to Maha Kikeo Oudom of the Library of Fine Arts in Vientiane, but were lost during the Siamese occupation of Laos in the 19th century.
In another story which is very popular in Laos, the hero, Sin Xay, has a brother called Thao Sang who, though born in a shell, has few other similarities to the Thai Prince Sang. As in the Thai version of the Sang Thong story, the queen, mother of Sin Xay and Thao Sang, is sent weeping from the kingdom because of the unnatural birth.
In northeastern Thailand, which has alternately been Laotian and Thai territory, stories about both Sin Xay and Sang Thong have been popular through the years. Between the time of a death and a cremation, when friends of the deceased stay to keep the family company, a villager will often read one of the stories from a palm-leaf manuscript. Professor Visudh Busyakul is presently translating one of these manuscripts, written in old Laotian script, in which the Sang Thong story is quite different in detail from either the "Suvarna-Sankha-Jātaka" or the Rama II Sang Thong. In this Laotian version the king and queen are even pleased with the birth of a son in a shell!
Cambodia
A Cambodian classical dance-drama known as Preas Sang follows the episodes of the Thai version from the point where Rochana chooses Prince Sang, disguised as an ugly Negrito, as her husband, to the point where the king of Samon honors his formerly despised son-in-law after the latter has engaged in combat with Indra.25
This Cambodian version does not, however, contain the birth of Prince Sang, the treachery of his father's jealous minor wife, the prince's descent to the world of the serpents, his nurture by the ogress Phanthurat, or King Yosawimon's search for his son. Thus the Preas Sang episodes performed in Cambodia are the same ones from Sang Thong currently performed by the National Theater of Thailand. In both countries other acts present in the Rama II version of Sang Thong are omitted in current performances. Possibly this similarity of staged episodes results from the influence of Thai dancers who went to Cambodia in the 18th and 19th centuries and revived the art of Cambodian classical dancing. This art had died in Cambodia when the Thais defeated Angkor (1431) and brought the Cambodian palace dancers to the Thai capital. James Brandon writes that "the Royal Cambodian Ballet of today is actually a reimportation of ancient Khmer dance, as modified by some twenty generations of Thai court artists."26 Since Rama II's version had been written by the 19th century, and since certain acts may have been performed more often than others, it is conceivable that those acts preferred in Thailand were taken to Cambodia by Thai dancers.
Burma
In Burma there seems to be little, if any, acquaintance with the Sang Thong story today. Thai scholars believe that manuscripts of the Pannāsa Jātaka sent from Chiang Mai to Burma were burned by a king who felt they were not true birth-stories.27 Although a Pali version of Pannāsa Jātaka was published 111 Rangoon in 1911, the "Suvarna-Sankha-Jātaka" was not part of it.28
Thus the presence of the Sang Thong story in some, although not all, of Southeast Asia reflects cultural differences and similarities in that area of the world.
THAI VIEWS OF LIFE IN THEIR ASIAN CONTEXT
The
