Thailand: Tosakanth (Ravana) going into battle against Rama, silver reproduction from the famous Ramakien murals in Wat Phra Kaeo, Bangkok, here seen at Wat Meun San, Chiang Mai, northern Thailand

The old silversmiths’ quarter centred on Baan Wua Lai (Spotted Cow Village) stretches along both sides of Wua Lai Road, to the south of Chiang Mai's old city. This long-established, prosperous community of artisans maintains a tradition that stretches back more than two centuries, to the time of Chao Kawila’s re-establishment of Chiang Mai in the years after 1797.

Silversmiths have long been valued and held in high esteem by Southeast Asian royal courts from Burma to Java, and in times past the Lan Na Kingdom was no exception.

The Ramayana is a story as old as time and - at least in the Indian subcontinent and across much of Southeast Asia - of unparalleled popularity. More than two thousand three hundred years ago the scholar-poet Valmiki sat down to write his definitive epic of love and war.

The poem Valmiki composed is styled the Ramayana, or 'Romance of Rama' in Sanskrit. In its present form, the Sanskrit version consists of some 24,000 couplets divided into seven books.

The Ramakien is the Thai version of this epic and has an important influence on Thai literature, art and drama. It is regarded as the National Epic of Thailand.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From Asia