City Identity of Lanna Kingdom

Abstract

In the traditional era, the city identity of the Lanna Kingdom consisted of three essential aspects – King, Buddhism (or Brahmanism) and Spirit. The Lanna Kingdom had a systematic management of city identification through the institution of the King by considering the visual identity, together with physical identity, with the center of the city called Khum Luang Hor Kham Kaew. The kingdom separated the city areas to be many districts. For the Buddhist or Brahmin system, important temples were built as components of the city; for example, Ming Mueang temple, Hua Khuang temple, Si Mum Mueang temple and Luang temple in each city in the Lanna Kingdom.

For the important relics in the city or in the kingdom, there were systems of management by following relics birth years, systems for worshiping the relics of five god kings, and systems for worshiping the relics that were kept in temples that were locate at the four corners of city, called the Si Mum Mueang or the Si Chom Relics system. Construction and location of relics district temples or Buddhist/Brahmin districts were on mountains and important areas in the kingdom. For the spirit system, there was a gradation of spirits to control and cover each community level in the city. There was also a spirit systems to protect each corner of the four directions of the city, as well as guardian spirits for protecting inside the city and important areas in the city, such as a pillar (called Inthakhin Pillar), even including old trees in the city.