Funan (1st to 6th Century AD)
According to Chinese chronicles (which provide the name Funan), the kingdom was founded in the centered in the lower Mekong basin, covering parts of present-day southern Vietnam and Cambodia. The name is likely a transliteration of the Old Khmer word bnam or "mountain"). It is recognized as the earliest organized Indianized state in Southeast Asia.
Emerging in the early centuries of the Common Era along the Maritime Silk Road, Funan functioned as a vital crossroads connecting India, China, and Southeast Asia. Indian traders, scholars, and monastics introduced both Brahmanical Hindu traditions and Buddhism to the local populace. Rather than functioning as a sole state religion, Buddhism coexisted smoothly alongside Hindu traditions (particularly Shaivism and Vaishnavism) as well as indigenous animist beliefs. While Funanese rulers frequently invoked Hindu deities—especially Vishnu and Shiva—to consolidate political authority, Buddhism gained strong traction among urban merchants, seafaring communities, and scholarly monastics.
By the 5th and 6th centuries, Buddhism had developed a flourishing presence supported by royal patrons and wealthy elites. Historical records show that Funan maintained strong diplomatic and intellectual ties with China. King Kaundinya Jayavarman sent a diplomatic mission to the imperial court in 484 AD led by the Indian monk Nagasena, who presented carved ivory Buddha images. Royal devotion continued under King Rudravarman, who reportedly sought to legitimize his reign by securing a sacred Hair Relic of the Buddha. Furthermore, two prominent Funanese scholar-monks, Mandrasena and Sanghapala, traveled to China during the 5th and 6th centuries to translate major Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures into Chinese under the patronage of Emperor Wu of Liang, demonstrating that Funan was an active participant in the wider Asian Buddhist intellectual network.
The practice of Buddhism in Funan was characteristically diverse and primarily Sanskrit-based during the 6th century, setting it apart from the later dominance of Theravada in the region. Archaeological research and art historical analyses, such as those by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Silpakorn University’s Faculty of Archaeology, indicate that multiple Buddhist traditions were present simultaneously. By the late Funan period, both early Theravada and Mahayana imagery were sponsored by wealthy patrons in key urban centers like Angkor Borei. The cult of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was notably prominent, offering divine protection to sailors and merchants navigating hazardous maritime trade routes.
Material evidence highlights the sophisticated adaptation of Indian artistic traditions to Southeast Asian settings. Archaeological excavations at sites like Óc Eo and Angkor Borei have yielded striking standing Buddha sculptures carved from dense tropical hardwoods (such as the Lợi Mỹ Buddha) as well as stone, showing artistic influences from India’s Gupta and Amaravati styles. Beyond free-standing imagery, archaeologists have recovered gold leaf sheets inscribed with sacred Sanskrit mantras, lotus motifs, and clay votive tablets used in personal devotion or buried beneath sanctuary foundations to consecrate sacred spaces.
When Funan gradually declined in the late 6th century and was absorbed by its inland neighbor, Chenla, its religious networks did not vanish. However, Funan's Buddhist traditions should not be directly equated with the Theravada Buddhism that later became dominant in Thailand. Early Southeast Asian Buddhism was multifaceted, evolving across several subsequent cultural and political centers—including Dvaravati, Srivijaya, and the Khmer sphere. Funan's ultimate legacy rests in its role as a pioneering trading civilization where Sanskrit Buddhism and art flourished, helping to shape the cultural environment through which Buddhist traditions were transmitted across the region.
Dvaravati (6th to 11th Century AD)
As Funan waned, Mon-speaking groups in the Chao Phraya River basin began to coalesce into independent urban centers. Rather than a unified empire, Dvaravati is best understood as a network of Mon-speaking city-states sharing a common cultural and religious framework, with key centers such as Nakhon Pathom, U Thong, and Lopburi.
While early historiography framed Dvaravati as a purely Theravada society, modern archaeological and epigraphic research highlights a dynamic, multifaceted Buddhist landscape where multiple traditions coexisted. The dominant civic tradition was Pali Theravada, evidenced by widespread discoveries of stone slabs, wheel bases, and terracotta objects inscribed in Indian Pallava script with Buddha’s teaching on cause and effect.
Sanskrit-based Theravada (such as the Sarvastivada school) and Mahayana/Esoteric Buddhism held a prominent presence, particularly from the 8th century onward. In areas like the Khorat Plateau, active devotional cults were dedicated to compassionate intercessors, as demonstrated by bronze and stone statues of Bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara (adorned with an ascetic’s crown featuring the Amitabha Buddha) and Maitreya (the Future Buddha). Furthermore, while Brahmanical Hinduism was practiced at courtly centers like Si Thep, it functioned alongside Buddhism within a shared cosmos of merit-making and royal prestige rather than as an opposing force.
Buddhist practice was built into the physical architecture and daily life of Dvaravati settlements. At sites such as Wat Phra Pathonnachedi in Nakhon Pathom and Khao Khlang Nai in Si Thep, stupa basements were decorated with elaborate stucco and terracotta reliefs illustrating scenes from the Jataka tales. These reliefs functioned as visual textbooks, instructing lay worshippers in karmic morality and spiritual discipline as they performed ritual circumambulation (padakkhina). Lay devotion was heavily centered on personal merit-making (bun), realized through direct support of monasteries and the creation of sacred offerings. Devotees produced millions of mold-stamped terracotta votive plaques (Phra Phim) depicting the Buddha seated beneath the Bodhi tree or performing the Great Miracle at Sravasti. Often stamped on the reverse with the Ye Dhammā verse, these portable tablets were deposited inside stupa relic chambers or carried by pilgrims and merchants, broadcasting Dvaravati’s Buddhist iconography and core doctrines across the region.
Artistically, Dvaravati master craftspeople synthesized imported Indian models—derived from Gupta, Post-Gupta (Sarnath), and Pallava traditions—into a distinctive Mon-Dvaravati visual idiom designed to express core Buddhist teachings. Monumental stone Dharmacakras ("Wheels of the Law") mounted on tall octagonal pillars, often guarded by crouching deer statues and carved with lotus motifs, were erected at city boundaries and open-air sanctuaries to symbolize the Buddha's First Sermon at Sarnath and the cosmic turning of the wheel of Dhamma.
Dvaravati sculptors introduced key iconographic innovations, most notably the Double Vitarkamudra, where standing Buddha figures raised both hands symmetrically to chest height in the gesture of teaching and exposition. Other prominent sculptural forms included colossal seated Buddhas in the pralambapadasana ("European posture," seated on a throne with legs pendant) and figures characterized by continuous, joined eyebrows forming a single sweeping arch, broad facial features, prominent hair curls (ushnisha), and sheer robes clinging gracefully to the body. Through these enduring monastic structures, ritual practices, and artistic innovations, Dvaravati established the core Theravada heritage that was later inherited and carried forward by subsequent kingdoms.
Lavo (648 to 1388 AD)
Centered at Lopburi, the Lavo are considered a transitional bridge in Thai history. Existing for over 700 years, it served as the cultural conveyor belt that transitioned the region from the Mon-Dvaravati Buddhist traditions to the grand Khmer imperial style, and finally into the heart of the Thai Ayutthaya Kingdom.
During its early period, Lavo inherited the Buddhist traditions of the Dvaravati world. Buddhism was expressed through monasteries, religious monuments, Buddha images, inscriptions, votive objects and acts of merit-making. From approximately the 10th century onward, Lavo became increasingly connected to the expanding Khmer political and cultural sphere centred on Angkor. By the 11th–13th centuries, Lopburi had become an important Khmer-controlled or Khmer-influenced centre in central Thailand. This period brought significant changes to Lavo's religious landscape. Buddhism continued alongside Brahmanical traditions, while Mahayana Buddhist imagery and Khmer artistic forms became increasingly prominent. Evidence from the wider Lopburi–Pa Sak region demonstrates that both Theravada and Mahayana traditions were present, illustrating the religious diversity of the period.
The reign of Jayavarman VII (1181–1218) was particularly important for the development of Mahayana Buddhist art within the Khmer Empire. Jayavarman VII was a devout Mahayana Buddhist, and during his reign Mahayana Buddhism became closely associated with Khmer royal patronage. The most famous expression of Khmer-period Buddhism in Lavo is Phra Prang Sam Yot, the three-towered sanctuary in present-day Lopburi. The monument belongs to the Khmer architectural tradition of the late 12th or early 13th century and is associated with the Bayon period. Its three towers were associated with a Mahayana Buddhist religious programme involving the Buddha, Avalokiteshvara and Prajnaparamita. The sanctuary therefore provides particularly important evidence for the presence of Mahayana Buddhist ideas in Lavo during the period of strong Khmer influence. Although originally associated with Mahayana Buddhist worship, the sanctuary was incorporated into the Theravada Buddhist landscape of later periods.
The Khmer period introduced a richer vocabulary of Mahayana Buddhist imagery into Lavo. Images of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva associated with compassion, became important within Khmer Buddhist art. Prajnaparamita, the personification of transcendent wisdom, also appeared in the religious art associated with the Khmer Buddhist world. Lavo's position within this wider network is particularly visible in its sculpture, with 12th–13th-century crowned Buddha from Lopburi as an example of a new Buddhist conception in which the Buddha was represented as a crowned and bejewelled spiritual sovereign. The image reflects Indian Pala-period influences that circulated into Khmer-controlled territories and were reinterpreted by artists in Lopburi.
The interaction between earlier Dvaravati traditions and Khmer artistic influence produced what is commonly known as the Lopburi style Buddha images. Artists produced Buddha figures in both stone and bronze, while Buddhist imagery increasingly reflected the artistic vocabulary of the Angkorian world. One important form is the Buddha protected by the Naga, in which the Buddha sits in meditation beneath the expanded hood of the serpent Mucalinda. This imagery became especially prominent within the Buddhist art of the Khmer world during the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The Naga itself also connected Buddhist imagery with older Southeast Asian traditions concerning serpent or water spirits. Another distinctive form is the crowned Buddha, which reflects the conception of the Buddha as a spiritual sovereign, a mix between Khmer artistic traditions and Buddhist imagery derived ultimately from eastern Indian models.
Buddhism existed alongside Brahmanical Hindu traditions, including Shaivism and Vaishnavism, while older local beliefs also continued. Rather than Theravada being completely replaced by Mahayana and then later restored, archaeological evidence indicates that different Buddhist traditions could coexist and develop at different times and places. The Lopburi–Pa Sak basin, for example, contains evidence for both Hinayana/Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism and demonstrates connections with other Dvaravati centres and contemporary societies across Southeast Asia. This makes Lavo particularly important for understanding the history of Buddhism in Thailand: it was a meeting point between several Buddhist traditions, rather than belonging exclusively to one.