The Mahidharapura Kingdoms () were a group of ancient political entities under the control of the Mahidharapura dynasty from the 600s to the 17th century in the present-day Nakhon Ratchasima and Buriram provinces of Thailand. Its main chief centers were Vimayapura () in modern Phimai and Kasitindrakama (), near the Prasat Phanom Rung and Prasat Muang Tam in Buriram province; however, some speculate Kasitindrakama was probably in the present Sisaket province and Mahidharapura was in modern Mueang Buriram. The Mahidharapura house, led by Jayavarman VI, that subdued Yaśodharapura in the Tonlé Sap Basin in 1080, likely originated from Vimayapura. The most recent archaeological studies suggest its capital, Mahidharapura, was probably modern Sakon Nakhon.
Mahidharapura polities covered the area of the present-day Buriram province and the eastern part of Nakhon Ratchasima. To the south, it met the well-known Angkor and adjoined Dvaravati's Canasapura (later Khorakhapura) to the west. Bordered an unknown kingdom ruled by Sri Jayasimhavarmman to the north in the Kaset Sombun Valley; possibly part of Bhavapura. To the east and northeast, met a group of city-states of Wen Dan, which occasionally equated to Bhavapura, and adjoined Keoi Lau Mì of the Kuy to the southeast.
Previously, several scholars believed the Phimai region had been a vassal to the kings of Angkor since the beginning of the Angkorian period. Nonetheless, the Phanom Rung Inscriptions (K.384), dated 1050 CE, which outline the ancestry of the Mahidharapura dynasty, demonstrate the alliance between Mahidharapura and Yaśodharapura rather than a relationship of vassals and suzerains, at least before the specified period.
Following the decline of Angkor in the late 13th century, the Mahidharapura polities experienced limited population and vanished from the historical records, reappearing in the 15th century when it was made a dependency of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. A monarch with the same regnal title, Mahīđharavarman (III), appears in the 13th-century Chinese text. He was enthroned as the king of a short-lived kingdom of Chen Li Fu in the western Menam Basin in 1204; however, was later overthrown by Phrip Phri's king Mahesvastidrādhirājakṣatriya in 1225. The connection has been put no higher than a name. The Indic royal name borne by the ruler of Chen Li Fu may be that of a prominent ruler from the polities north of the Dangrek range, taken up as a formal style for dealings with the Chinese court and perhaps accompanied by kinship ties.
History Pre-literate era: 500 BCE – 500 CE The Phimai region entered the pre-literate Iron Age around 500 BCE – 500 CE. In the late prehistory (200 BCE – 300 CE), it is estimated that the population density on the upper Mun River alluvial plain may have been as high as 80 individuals per km2 with the lowest 14 per km2 in the uplands; however, this drastically reduced to less than 50 individuals per km2 during the Angkorian period (1000 CE – 1300 CE). The settlements were densely situated along the river plains, and the settlements were larger when compared to the Angkorian-period-founded sites. David J. Welch posits that these domains experienced a population decline throughout the Angkor period, though not necessarily utter abandonment.
The excavations at the Prasat Phanom Wan, located 10 kilometers northeast of the present-day Nakhon Ratchasima city, revealed prehistoric remains, including some Iron Age burials. As well, the Prasat Hin Phimai area, subsequently incorporated into Angkor around 1000 CE, exhibits substantial evidence of prehistoric habitation that persisted for several centuries before Angkor's emergence. Several sculptures from the upper Mun provide some of the earliest evidence for contact between Southeast Asia and India, such as a small bronze standing Buddha image found at Nakhon Ratchasima, which is in the southeastern Indian or Ceylonese Amaravati or Anuradhapura style and dates from 100 to 400 CE.
+ Settlement details comparison in the Phimai region in the 700 km2 survey area Phase Period Number ofsettlement Total settlement area EPD Prehistory 200 BCE – 600 CE 71 584 42 Dvaravati 600 CE – 1000 CE 65 393 28 Angkor 1000 CE – 1300 CE 76 449 32
Dvaravati–Chenla period: 500s – 900s The regions entered the Early Historic period around 300–500 CE. The archaeological evidence confirms the importance of Indian influences transmitted to the plateau from the 7th to 10th centuries. However, the record of the Phimai region during this period is very sparse. Its early chiefdoms were speculated to have been formed around the 500s – 590s, and were ostensibly influenced by Buddhist Dvaravati of the Mon people to the west and the Khmer Hindu-dominant Chenla to the south. The earliest inscriptions are in Sanskrit alone; later indigenous languages, like as Khmer and Mon, occur on certain inscriptions. Only later did Khmer texts become common. The cultural and political differentiation between the Mon and Khmer in northeastern Thailand, especially in the southern part, is likely unjustifiable until at least 1000 CE, when Dvaravati dissolved and Angkor rose. Some artifacts, dated 6th-7th centuries, are pre-Angkorian Cambodian styles, while some are found to resemble Dvaravati-style Buddha figures from central Thailand. Buddhist sculptures discovered at the Prakhon Chai hoard in modern Buriram province reveal the connection to Si Thep on the margins of the Khorat Plateau, which was once strategically located on a route linking the Mekong and Mun rivers with the Chao Phraya Valley. Local textual tradition names Prakhon Chai, in those sources Talung ( or ), as having been under the authority of Padumasuriyavamsa (r. 757–800).
During this period, the region contained several large settlements surrounded by circular or irregular earth walls and moats, which were probably the center of small political units. Most of the population lived in clusters of villages of 1 to 1.5 hectares, some surrounded by moats, most unmoated, with cultivated rice fields lying beyond the moats. The reduction in average settlement size discovered in this period indicates the migration from fortified major villages to vulnerable little hamlets, which was due to the emergence of a singular political authority and the cessation of recurrent conflict in the Phimai region. In the late Dvaravati period, the western side of Mueang Sema has been identified as potentially acting as a second-tier settlement, known as the regional center, in the Dvaravati hinterland. At the same time, the eastern region continued to grow, creating multiple competing centers that waned in Dvaravati influence and then entered the pre-Angkorian period. Summarized data from several surveys found that in the present-day Nakhon Ratchasima and Buriram provinces, which were the regions under the house of Mahidharapura, there are 335 ancient settlements in total, with 97 Angkorian-style stupas, and 12 klints.
+ Comparison of the village's sizes in the Phimai region before 1300 CEPhase Period Zone AverageAlluvial plainTerraceUplands Prehistory 200 BCE – 600 CE 9.2 5.1 8.1 8.2 Dvaravati 600 CE – 1000 CE 6.4 5.0 5.5 6.0 Angkor 1000 CE – 1300 CE 6.6 4.0 5.5 5.9
Dvaravati sphere: 500s – 900s Several Sanskrit, Mon, and Khmer Inscriptions dating to the 6th century support the existence of early chiefdoms that developed along the Dângrêk Mountains, although it has been held that, with at least one exception, the rulers who raised those inscriptions may never have actually ruled there. The Sanskrit Phimai Inscription No. 1 (K.1000), found at the Prasat Phimai and dated to the 7th–8th century, names a Buddhist king called Sauryavarman. The two mixed Mon–Khmer with Sanskrit script Hĭn K‘ôn Inscriptions (K.388 and K.389), dated the 7th–8th centuries, were discovered near an ancient in Nakhon Ratchasima. Both are dedications by a Buddhist monk identified as King Nrpendradhiphativarman, who set up four sema stones and endowed a temple and a monastery. They name further kings and polities otherwise unknown, among them one Soryavarman, perhaps related to Sauryavarman, whose name has been found suspiciously Angkorian. The two texts, often described as pre-Angkorian, have also been read as belonging instead to a somewhat later period and to an isolated local dialect. A further Sanskrit inscription of about 550–650 CE on the base of a large stone Buddha from Wat Chanthuek in Pak Chong (N.M. 4; K.1009) records its dedication by a queen described as a daughter of the Lord of Dvaravati. The wording has been read as evidence that the site lay outside Dvaravati and that the two houses were joined by marriage, and the unusually large stone images from Wat Chanthuek and Sung Noen mark a centre of power and wealth in the area of old Khorat in its own right. That authority covered the Phimai, Prakhon Chai and region from the reign of Padumasuriyavamsa (r. 757–800) The area, particularly the Phimai–Prakhon Chai zone, appears to have asserted political autonomy. This development is marked by the emergence of a new monarch, Mahidharavarman I, around 920. His royal house, later known as the Mahidharapura dynasty, came to rule the region and appears to have maintained closer political and cultural ties with Angkor to the south. Within this sphere, Prasat Phimai likely functioned as one of the most significant religious centers. The dynasty retained control over the region for several generations before extending its political authority southward into the Tonlé Sap Basin and eventually conquered Angkor in the 11th century.
The Chinese Book of Sui, dated 598–618, and the largest Chinese leishu, Cefu Yuangui, mention the kingdom of Zhū Jiāng, whose royals established relations via royal intermarriage with Chenla to the southeast.Book of Sui, Volume 82 (in Chinese) Retrieved 17 May 2025. Its identification remains uncertain. One reading places it in the upper Mun valley, another among the Dvaravati principalities of the Menam Basin. Some say it is the corrupted name of Zhū Bō () in the New Book of Tang, which has been identified with the Pyu Kingdoms in Myanmar, or even placed it on the Mekong plains. Another polity, Bhavapura, which occasionally identified with Wen Dan, might be on the Korat plateau as well.