TheIndosphere

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BuddhistLate Medieval

Lan Xang

Also known as Kingdom of a Million Elephants

Lan Xang, "a million elephants", was the Lao kingdom founded by Fa Ngum in 1353 on the middle Mekong, ruled from Luang Prabang and later Vientiane, which divided into three rival kingdoms in the early eighteenth century.

Foundation

Lao chronicles tell that Fa Ngum, a prince of the ruling family of the upper Mekong, grew up in exile at the Khmer court of Angkor and married a Khmer princess. With an army given to him by the Khmer king, he returned up the Mekong, subdued the Lao principalities, and was crowned at Xieng Dong Xieng Thong, later Luang Prabang, in 1353. The chronicles say that his Khmer wife and the monks who came with her brought Theravada Buddhism, and an image of the Buddha, the Phra Bang, which later gave the royal city its name. Fa Ngum was deposed by his own nobles in the 1370s and died in exile, and his son ordered a census that, by tradition, counted three hundred thousand Tai men, giving the kingdom a reputation for great size.

Setthathirath

In the sixteenth century Lan Xang was drawn into the wars of its neighbours. Setthathirath, who for a time ruled the northern Thai kingdom of Lan Na at Chiang Mai as well, brought from there the image known as the Emerald Buddha. In 1560, under pressure from the expanding Burmese empire of Bayinnaung, he moved his capital south to Vientiane, where he built the Pha That Luang, the great stupa that remains the national symbol of Laos, and a temple for the Emerald Buddha. He also built the Wat Xieng Thong at Luang Prabang. Bayinnaung's armies took Vientiane in the 1560s and 1570s, and Setthathirath disappeared in 1571 during a campaign in the south. For some decades Lan Xang was a Burmese vassal.

Sourigna Vongsa

The longest and most stable reign was that of Sourigna Vongsa, who ruled for more than half a century in the seventeenth century. The Dutch merchant Gerrit van Wuysthoff, who came up the Mekong in 1641, and the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Maria Leria, who arrived soon after, described a prosperous court and a city full of monasteries, and a kingdom respected by its neighbours. Lao literature and Buddhist scholarship flourished.

Division

Sourigna Vongsa died in the 1690s without a surviving son, and the succession was fought over. By 1713 Lan Xang had broken into three kingdoms: Luang Prabang in the north, Vientiane in the centre, and Champasak in the south. Each was weaker than its neighbours, and during the eighteenth century all three fell under the influence of Siam or Burma. In 1779 the Siamese took Vientiane and carried the Emerald Buddha to Thonburi; it is now in Bangkok. After Chao Anouvong of Vientiane rose against Siam in 1826–28, the Siamese destroyed his capital. In the 1890s France took the lands east of the Mekong into French Indochina, and the kingdom of Luang Prabang survived under French protection. The memory of Lan Xang became central to Lao national identity.

Further reading

  • Coedes, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press, 1968
  • Gombrich, Richard F. Theravada Buddhism: A Social History. Routledge, 2006
  • Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhism. Cambridge University Press, 2013

See also

  • Khmer Empire — The Khmer Empire was a Southeast Asian state centered on Angkor in present-day Cambodia that flourished from 802 to 1431 CE, building its political and religious order on Indian Hindu and, later, Buddhist models.
  • Buddhism — Buddhism is a religious and philosophical tradition founded in northern India in the 5th century BCE by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, centred on the Four Noble Truths and a path to liberation from suffering.

This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.