The Legend of Queen Cama (Camadevivamsa), an early fifteenth-century Pali chronicle written via Mahathera Bodhiramsi, recounts the tale of the founding of the dominion of Haripunjaya within the Chiang Mai valley of Northern Thailand within the 7th century C.E. just like different Theravada Pali chronicles, the legend integrates non secular and political tales, particularly, Queen Cama's founding of a dynastic lineage and the fortunes of Buddhism inside of it. The Legend of Queen Cama deals revealing insights into the character of Buddhism as a dwelling culture in the course of one of many maximum sessions within the historical past of Thai Buddhism. those insights contain the symbolic constitution of Buddhist cosmology, the shut organization of Buddhism and the founding of urban states, the interrelationship of renowned Buddhist moral teachings and devotional faith, and the inherently syncretic nature of Buddhism as awarded in a textual content indebted to the folkloric traditions of Northern Thailand.

One of the main extraordinary gains of the publication is the parallelism among the text's dominant narratives--the Buddha's trip to Northern Thailand and his prediction of the invention of a Buddha relic by means of King Adittaraja (eleventh century C.E.), and the founding by way of Queen Cama of a lineage destined to manipulate Haripunjaya for 5 hundred years. The Buddha and Queen Cama are equivalent companions during this artistic, cosmically major act. either plant the seeds that mature right into a Mon Buddhist politico-cultural heart that predates the appearance of Thai suzerainty in Northern Thailand by means of years.

Donald ok. Swearer is Charles & Harriet Cox McDowell Professor of faith, Swarthmore university. He has written and edited many books, between them The Buddhist international of Southeast Asia and Me and Mine: chosen Essays of Bikkhu Buddhadasa, either released by means of SUNY Press.

Sommai Premchit is a learn affiliate on the Institute for Social study, Chiang Mai college, Chiang Mai, Thailand, and an Emeritus Professor, division of Sociology. he's coauthor of The Lan Na Twelve-Month Traditions.