¹ ‘ Mahōrasop in a Thai Manōrā manuscript’, BSOAS, XXX, 2, 1967, 391–403 Google Scholar.

² The writer wishes to express his gratitude to Mrs. Maenmas Chavalit, Director of the National Library of Thailand, for permitting a microfilm to be made of the Bangkok MS.

³ Each verse of the text is set out here in the form of seven groups of four syllables so as to allow easy reference to the structural plan of surāngkhanāng verse given in BSOAS, XXX, 2, 1967, 392 Google Scholar. In samut thai manuscripts the four-syllable groups are set out across the folio as spaced units. Two groups are sometimes joined into one unit and groups are sometimes arbitrarily broken at the right-hand edge of a folio. Frequently, as in this and the RAS MS, verse divisions are not marked by symbols or special spacing.

⁴ The hō call is a long drawn out cry given by a leader and responded to by a shout from a chorus of voices. It is employed in group activities of many kinds, especially those of a ceremonial nature.

⁵ Thai boxing developed under royal patronage as one of the more common military games. The opponent may be struck by the elbows, knees, and feet as well as with the fists. The back of the hand is also employed. At the present day boxing gloves are used, but in former times boxers bound themselves with bandages from knuckles to elbow.

⁶ The /mongkhon/ maṅgala thread is a band of unspun cotton threads about two inches wide, bound in white cloth to make a fillet. It is placed upon the crown of the head in situations where an auspicious device is required. The mongkhon is worn during the preliminary ceremonies and removed before the bout begins.

⁷ The hopes of the onlookers are disappointed by an unexpectedly poor performance.

⁸ /somphoot/ sombōj (Pali sambhojeti) ‘to entertain to a feast’. In Thai usage the term is confined to royal ceremonies and frequently occurs in the chronicles in conjunction with mahōrasop (alternatively mahōrasop); e.g. in A.d. 1592, in the reign of King Ēkāthotsarot, following the placing of new statues of the Buddha ‘a somphōt feast was arranged and mahōrasop entertainments were played for seven days on a magnificent scale’ ( Phrarātchaphongsāwadān Krung Sī Ayuthayā chabap Phanchanthanumat, Bangkok, 1964, 850)Google Scholar.

⁹ Suthon, having acquired Manōrā, the kinnarī, the bird-maiden, from the hunter who had captured her at the forest pool, brought her to his father's kingdom. The celebrations form part of the vivāha maṅgala ceremonies, her marriage to Suthon.

¹⁰ Rāma adopts the elaborate trick of feigned death to force the return of Sīdā to him after her long forest exile. This episode precedes the final reconciliation and the entry into Ayuthaya. A version involving the funeral urn is given in the texts both of Rāma I and Rāma II of the Bangkok period.

¹¹ daśalcaṇṭha ‘the ten-necked one’. A common epithet for Rāvaṇa in the Thai Rāmakian.

¹² This is the popular nāng lōi incident, an episode which occurs in variant versions in all traditional texts of the Thai Rāmakian but has not been traced to a foreign source. It is placed in the texts immediately before the episode in which the monkey army commences to build the bridge to Lankā. Rāvaṇa's ruse, if successful, could have made the campaign of rescue irrelevant by showing that the abducted Sīdā was already dead. This motive is explicitly stated in the Rāmakian of the second reign (1809–24). Bot lakhōn Rāmakian rātchakan thī 2, Bangkok, 1966, p. 99 Google Scholar. Benyakāi reverted to her demoniac form when placed as Sīdā upon a funeral pyre. After fleeing from the seene she was caught and courted by Hanumān.

The Edinburgh shadow-play text Or. Coll. PL 42 provides an excellent version of the central part of the incident. It may well be a copy of an Ayuthaya type text (pre-1767) though a very similar version in the Vajirañāna Library was ascribed to Rāma II (1809–24) by Rajanubhab, Prince Damrong, Kham phāk Rāmakian: Fragments of the Rāmāyana, Bangkok, 1918, p. 5 Google Scholar. Part of the Edinburgh text is given below in order to illustrate, in translation, the clear, incisive style of the play books.

Fading—the stars; falling the moon—dropping down.

Rising the brilliant golden rays—fanning out.

Soon the Sun God, Suriya, will come

Visiting upon the mountain tops.

¹³ Structural rhyme exists between verses and between groups within a verse according to a theoretical form which is strictly applied in the MSS under discussion. By rhyme ‘pattern’ is meant the phonological similarity of the medial + final units of the syllables concerned. Lexical variants in rhyming syllables may or may not disturb the pattern. Additional rhyme and alliteration may occur within groups.

¹⁴ The references are probably to dance-fight movements couched in technical language. The penultimate group has an incomplete graph as the final element. The correct form is probably ; cf. the traditional military expression ‘the time to pursue’.

¹⁵ Compare : a dance movement involving hand gestures made in front of the face.

¹⁶ See Simmonds, , art. cit., 395 Google Scholar, 400.

¹⁷ ibid., p. 399, n. 27.

¹⁸ ibid., n. 28. However it should be noted that in Bunnōwāt kham chan(d) the appropriate term, ‘to pursue in a circle’, occurs in a verse describing rabëng (Bunnōwāt kham chan(d), Bangkok, 1923, p. 24, v. 4)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ This text, though obviously subjected to later interference, is traditionally ascribed to the Sukhothai period (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries).

²⁰ Yānī is a type of kāp verse consisting of four groups of syllables with the arrangement 5–6–5–6.