1. The Chao Phya: the lifeline to the city for centuries
Oct 02, 2004
Central Thailand’s primary waterway, the Chao Phya River, brings
us ebbs and flows that are at the core of Bangkok culture. This
“mother of waters” has provided the country not only with a major
means of transportation, but also with rich mineral deposits that
make its vast basin among the world’s most fertile farming regions.
Bangkok’s development over the centuries has moved in harmony with
the Chao Phya’s cyclical breaths.
In the early 14th century, the Chao Phya didn’t exist as we know
it now. The small waterways that remain its major tributaries –
the Ping, Wang, Yom and Nan rivers – and many small streams originating
in the mountains of the north, united at Pak Nam Pho, in present-day
Nakhon Sawan, and wound southward for more than 300 kilometres.
They passed Ayutthaya and Bangkok before flowing into the Gulf of
Thailand in what is now Samut Prakan’s Pak Nam district.
Bangkok, then officially known as Thon Buri Sri Mahasamutr, was
the most important port for Ayutthaya in the early 14th century,
an island within what became the Chao Phya. The river flowed like
an oxbow around the land.
Foreign traders were ordered to leave their ships at the mouth
of the river and seek permission from the governor of Bangkok to
visit Ayutthaya.
It was King Chairachathirat, the 15th ruler of Ayutthaya, who in
1542 ordered a canal to be dug through the port city, straightening
the river to enable foreign traders to reach Ayutthaya more easily.
The new canal divided Bangkok into a west and east bank, Thon Buri
and Bangkok as they are known today. The river’s new route – past
what is now Thammasat University, Siriraj Hospital and the Temple
of Dawn – became the Chao Phya. The old branch is today the Bangkok
Yai and Bangkok Noi canals.
Nonetheless, in the Ayutthaya period, the Chao Phya River was known
to foreigners as the Meinam (or maenam, literally “river”). The
name “Chao Phya” seems to have first appeared during the Rattanakosin
period.
King Rama IV explained in the Bangkok Recorder newspaper in 1850
that the Siamese in the old days had called every river “maenam”,
adding the name of the most important settlement nearby, such as
Maenam Bangkok and Maenam Tha Cheen. “The true name of Maenam Bangkok
is Maenam Chao Phya”, the king said.
Ayutthaya’s long, proud rule came to an end in 1767, when the king
of Ava ordered his army to invade Bangkok in order to approach Ayutthaya
from the South. The Siamese general Phraya Tak soon reclaimed Bangkok
from the usurpers of Ava, however, and established Bangkok as the
Kingdom of the new Siam. Crowned King Taksin, he occupied the throne
from 1767 to 1782.
Taksin built his capital, which he named Thon Buri, on both banks
of the Chao Phya River. His residence and offices were on the west
bank, on land now belonging to the Royal Navy, Wat Rakhang and the
Temple of Dawn. The east bank, from present-day Wat Mahathat and
the Royal Grand Palace to Wat Poh (Phra Chetupon), was occupied
by Chinese settlers.
Thon Buri was the capital of new Siam for 15 years. On April 6,
1782, King Taksin was assassinated at the Temple of Dawn, and Thon
Buri soon after became part of a Bangkok, re-established on the
east bank as Rattanakosin, the capital city of the Chakri Dynasty.
The Chao Phya was no longer the chief route to the great capital
of old Siam but the central artery itself of the capital of the
new Siam. New palaces for the king and members of his family were
built on the river, as were the raft-houses of his ordinary subjects.
The river now came into its own as the main means of transportation
between the inland cities and farmlands to the outside world. Trading
flourished along its course and boat-building and fishing along
its banks. No wonder the Chao Phya is so revered: in the Rattanakosin
era, it brought new life, hope and opportunity to the millions living
along its shores.
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