Panya Khamphong

Panya Khamphong, titled Phraya Khamphong, ruled the Lao principality of Muang Sua, on the site of later Luang Prabang, from 1316. His father Panya Lang had founded the panya dynasty in 1271, in a Mekong valley under strong Mongol influence after the fall of Dali in 1253.

In 1286 Khamphong took part in a coup, probably Mongol-inspired, that exiled his father. Between 1286 and 1297 his lieutenants, acting for the Mongols, pacified wide territories, and in 1308 he seized the ruler of Muang Phuan, which was his vassal by 1312.

After his son Phi Fa took one of Khamphong's wives as a lover, Khamphong drove Phi Fa and his young grandson Fa Ngum into exile at Angkor in the 1320s. Fa Ngum later returned and founded the kingdom of Lan Xang in 1353.