Phimai

History

The region was integrated into the Khmer Empire around 1000 CE. For the following 300 years, Phimai was a major regional administrative center. The temple Prasat Hin Phimai, in the center of the town, was one of the major Khmer temples in what is now Thailand, connected with Angkor by the Khmer highway, and oriented so as to face Angkor as its cardinal direction. The epigraphic evidence for that connection is unusually good for a place so far from the capital. The Preah Khan inscription of 1191 counts seventeen rest houses with hearths on the road from the capital to Vimāya, the Sanskrit name of Phimai, against fifty-seven on the roads towards Campā and 121 in all; and the Khorat Plateau is the one part of the wider region where Angkorian administration is attested epigraphically, by seven Sanskrit inscriptions of śaka 1108, that is 1186, recording hospital foundations of Jayavarman VII, five of them from this region. The site is now protected as the Phimai Historical Park. In the aftermath of the fall of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1767, attempts were made to set up five separate states, with Prince Teppipit, a son of king Boromakot, attempting to establish Phimai as one, holding sway over eastern provinces including Nakhon Ratchasima. The weakest of the five, Prince Teppipit was the first defeated and was executed in 1768. Phimai has recently been the base of operations for the excavation of Ban Non Wat.