Many peoples have migrated over and through mainland Southeast Asia and many Princes and Kings have tried to control it. The success of these attempts has been variable and the area remains as a mosaic of different ethnic groups living next to each other. They may be close to each other geographically but still remain far apart in terms of their culture, beliefs and customs. Occasionally, a great ruler may gather together the people of his tribes and, perhaps with the assistance of his friends and allies, establish an independent state and build a city where he and his descendants could demonstrate their virtue by building wonderful temples and monuments to the Lord Buddha and the gods of Hinduism.
This was the situation for the legendary Lao Prince Fa Ngum, who founded the kingdom of Lan Xang - the land of the million elephants - together with its capital Louang Phrabang - the mountain of the holy golden Buddha. The city still remains in northern Laos and is one of the great architectural and heritage wonders of the world.
Details of Fa Ngum's life may occasionally be sketchy and contradictory but we are lucky to be so well-served by Royal Laotian Chroniclers, who preserved so much of the history of their land through the tales of the deeds and lives of great men. The Nithan Khun Borom (Chronicle of Lord Borom) is of the most help to us in this case. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to be careful to cross-check details with contemporaneous Thai and Chinese records for corroboration, as well as looking to the admittedly limited amount of archaeology that has been conducted there. Laos remains one of the poorest countries in Asia and attempts at careful excavations are hampered not just by the lack of money and skills but also by the presence of large amounts of unexploded ordnance dropped by US planes during the war in Vietnam, which still account for dozens of deaths and lost limbs every year.
It is clear that Fa Ngum as a Lao in Mueang Sua, probably in the year 1316. the Lao people are very closely related to the Thais and they too had been migrating slowly southwards over the course of several centuries from earlier homelands in southern and southeastern China and northwestern Vietnam. The diaspora of the Tai peoples (which include the Thai and the Lao, among others) was given fresh impetus by the Mongol conquest of China and the destruction of the state of Nanchao, which had previously acted as a shield for Southeast Asia against marauding nomads on their horses.
