The historiography of Ayutthaya
The division between hinterland and coastal states in Southeast Asia in the early pre-modern era (roughly twelfth to fifteenth centuries) has long been recognised. The hinterland rulers extracted resources from the land and the forests by the command of manpower. They built walled cities to provide protection, accumulated sacred goods to attract pilgrims and devotees, and raided outlying areas and competing centres to carry away people. They elaborated law codes, recruitment systems and complex social hierarchies to manage manpower, and they have left behind both monuments and records. By contrast, the rulers of the coastal centres were oriented toward trade, looking outwards to the oceans and often to China as the centre of commercial demand and political legitimation. Some copied aspects of China's tribute system in their own relations with subordinate centres. Their capitals were cosmopolitan settlements. They paid little attention to land administration or religious splendour and left little to posterity in the form of either written documents or durable architecture.