Ramakien: Rama's exile

At a Glance

Central figures: Phra Ram (Rama), incarnation of Phra Narai (Vishnu) and heir to the throne of Ayutthaya; Nang Sida (Sita), his wife; Phra Lak (Lakshmana), his loyal younger brother; King Thotsarot (Dasaratha), his father; Queen Kaiyakesi, Thotsarot’s second queen and mother of Phra Phrot (Bharata).
Setting: The kingdom of Ayutthaya, in the Thai Ramakien tradition - the Thai court version of the Ramayana, composed in its most famous form under King Rama I in the late eighteenth century, drawing on older Thai, Khmer, and Indic sources.
The turn: Queen Kaiyakesi invokes two old promises King Thotsarot once made her and demands that Phra Ram be banished to the forest for fourteen years and that her own son Phra Phrot be crowned in his place.
The outcome: Phra Ram leaves Ayutthaya willingly, accompanied by Nang Sida and Phra Lak. King Thotsarot, unable to bear the separation, dies of grief. Phra Phrot refuses the throne in his own name and rules only as regent, placing Phra Ram’s sandals on the throne as its rightful occupant.
The legacy: The exile sets in motion the central action of the Ramakien - Phra Ram’s forest wanderings, the abduction of Nang Sida by Tosakanth, and the great war against Longka. The sandals on the throne became a symbol of righteous kingship in Thai royal tradition.

The old king had promised twice, and a promise from a king cannot be taken back like water poured into a jar. King Thotsarot of Ayutthaya had made both promises to Queen Kaiyakesi years ago, in gratitude, in love, in the carelessness of a man who believes the future will never arrive to collect what he owes. She had saved his life on the battlefield once, tending his wounds when the surgeons had given up, and he had said: Ask me for anything, twice, and I will give it. She asked for nothing then. She kept the promises like coins sewn into a hem.

Now the day had come for Phra Ram’s coronation. The city was already decorated. Garlands hung from the gates. The Brahmin priests had set the hour.

Kaiyakesi went to the king’s chamber and asked for what was hers.

The Two Boons

She had watched Phra Ram grow into the kind of prince the court loved without reservation - tall, skilled with the bow, gentle in manner, the eldest son and the obvious heir. Her own son Phra Phrot was younger, quieter, less luminous. Kaiyakesi did not hate Phra Ram. But she understood the arithmetic of succession: once Phra Ram sat on the throne, Phra Phrot would spend his life bowing.

She knelt before King Thotsarot and reminded him of the battlefield, the fever, the promise. He remembered. He told her to name her wish.

The first boon: Phra Phrot would be crowned king of Ayutthaya.

Thotsarot’s face went white. He asked her to reconsider. She did not move. He offered her land, elephants, titles - anything else. She held firm and named the second.

The second boon: Phra Ram would be exiled to the forest for fourteen years.

The king wept. He begged. He offered his own life in exchange. But a king’s word, once given, stands like a pillar sunk into bedrock. He had no authority to undo what he himself had sworn. He sent for Phra Ram.

Phra Ram Receives the Order

Phra Ram came to his father’s chamber and found the old man sitting with his face in his hands, unable to speak. It was Kaiyakesi who told him. Phra Ram listened without interrupting. When she finished, he placed his palms together and bowed to his father.

He did not argue. He did not ask for the sentence to be reduced. He said that a son’s duty was to uphold his father’s honor, and that a promise given was not the king’s to break or the prince’s to contest. He would go to the forest. He asked only for time to remove his royal garments and put on the bark-cloth robes of a forest-dweller.

The court was in chaos. Ministers protested. Generals offered to intervene by force. Phra Ram refused every offer. The coronation decorations hung in the evening air like the remnants of someone else’s celebration.

Nang Sida and Phra Lak

Nang Sida was already dressed for the coronation when she heard. She took off her gold and her silk and put on the bark cloth without being asked. Phra Ram told her the forest was no place for a princess - the ground was hard, the food was wild roots, the animals were dangerous. Sida told him she would rather sleep on roots beside him than on silk without him, and that was the end of the discussion.

Phra Lak came next. He was Phra Ram’s younger brother by another queen, and he had worshipped Phra Ram since he could walk. He would not hear of staying behind. The forest with his brother was the only place he wanted to be.

The three of them walked out of Ayutthaya on foot. The citizens lined the road. Some threw themselves on the ground. Some followed for miles before Phra Ram gently sent them back. The chariots and elephants of the royal household stayed where they were. They crossed the river in a simple boat.

The Death of King Thotsarot

Thotsarot watched them go from the palace wall. He could see the three figures growing smaller on the road, the bark cloth dull against the green of the rice fields. When they disappeared from sight, he went to his chamber and lay down.

He did not rise again. The physicians said his heart had broken - not a metaphor but the actual organ, cracked like a gourd left in the sun. Some accounts say he died that night. Others say he lasted three days, calling Phra Ram’s name in his sleep. However long it took, the result was the same. The throne was empty.

Messengers rode hard to find Phra Phrot, who had been away from the capital. When he arrived and learned what his mother had done, he was furious. He did not want the throne. He had not asked for it. He rode into the forest himself to find Phra Ram and beg him to return.

The Sandals on the Throne

Phra Phrot found the three of them living under a broad banyan, their camp already established, a small fire burning. He prostrated himself before his elder brother and asked him to come back. Their father was dead. The kingdom needed its rightful king.

Phra Ram refused. The exile was fourteen years. He would serve every day of it. His father had given his word, and even Thotsarot’s death did not dissolve that word - it made it heavier.

Phra Phrot argued. Phra Ram was gentle but immovable. Finally, Phra Phrot asked for something to carry back to Ayutthaya - something of Phra Ram’s that could sit on the throne in his place, so the kingdom would know who its true king was.

Phra Ram removed his sandals and gave them to his brother.

Phra Phrot carried the sandals back to the capital. He placed them on the throne of Ayutthaya, and for fourteen years he governed from a seat below them, never once sitting on the throne itself. Every order he issued, he issued in Phra Ram’s name. Every judgment he rendered, he rendered facing the sandals, as if awaiting approval from the absent king.

In the forest, Phra Ram and Nang Sida and Phra Lak walked deeper into the wilderness. The trees closed behind them. Ahead of them, unseen, Tosakanth the demon king of Longka had already begun to hear rumors of a beautiful woman living in the woods with only two men to guard her.