Singhanavati

The name Singhanavati comes from the semi-legendary founder of the Yonok Kingdom, an early Tai polity centered on what is now Chiang Saen on the Kok River. Chronicle tradition makes Singhanavati a prince who led his people south from the upper Mekong and founded his capital there in the seventh century BCE; the kingdom is said to have fallen to earthquake and vassal revolt, its people dispersing into successor states such as Ngoenyang.

Later Thai traditions connect southern branches of this northern lineage with the ruling houses of the Chao Phraya basin. In that genealogical tradition the name is attached to the princes of Lavo, Suphanburi and Ayodhya in the fourteenth century.

Among them were Prince Uthong, who unified the Lopburi and Suphan Buri power centers and founded the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1351 as Ramathibodi I, and Boromracha, whose Suphanburi line contested the Ayutthaya throne.