Setthathirath

Who is Setthathirath?

Setthathirath was a king of Lan Xang who briefly also ruled the northern Tai kingdom of Lanna (centered on Chiang Mai) in his youth through royal succession before returning to lead Lan Xang. Facing growing pressure from the expanding Burmese Toungoo Empire, he moved the Lao capital from Luang Prabang south to Vientiane around 1560, a more defensible and commercially central site on the Mekong. There he built the great gilded stupa That Luang, which remains the national symbol of Laos, and brought revered Buddha images, including the Phra Kaew (later taken to Bangkok as the Emerald Buddha) and the Phra Bang, to the new capital. He led Lan Xang through repeated Burmese invasions during the turbulent mid-16th century, at times allying with Ayutthaya against the common Burmese threat. His reign ended in uncertainty: he disappeared, and is generally believed to have died, while campaigning in the southern Lao or Cambodian borderlands around 1571-1572, plunging Lan Xang into a succession crisis.

Sources: Martin Stuart-Fox, A History of Laos (Cambridge University Press, 1997) · Grant Evans, A Short History of Laos: The Land in Between (Allen & Unwin, 2002) · Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn, Paths to Conflagration: Fifty Years of Diplomacy and Warfare in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, 1778-1828 (Cornell SEAP, 1998)