A roll call of names is dry if it is not put in the proper context. Srisakara Vallibhotama nevertheless use the Urangkhathat as the main reference for his study of pre-fourteenth century Vientiane and northeastern Thailand (Srisakara 1976a; Srisakara 1979, 35; Srisakara 2002; also see Phiseth 1980; Parichead 2002). Once he brought to light the existence of the first Mon chiefdom in the region of Vientiane, Gagneux (1983, 113-14) repeatedly advocated taking the Urangkhathat seriously to explain and to make sense of randomly unearthed archaeological artifact.
Paradoxically palm-leaf manuscripts of the Urangkhathat have seldom been transliterated from the old Lao or Tham script into modern Lao. The original text of the Urangkhathat was published in 1967 by Sila Viravong of the former Lao Ministry of Cults, but copies are now almost impossible to find. In 1969, the Urangkhathat was translated from a Pali palm-leaf manuscript into modern Lao and published as a cremation volume honoring the head of the clergy of the kingdom of Laos, Phra Luk Keo Khunmanivong (Urangkhathat 1969). In 1979, an eight-person committee charied by Phra Achan Thepphavongasa Prisa, Abbot of Vat That Foon Thep Nimit temple was established to translate the text into modern Lao. Phra Achan Thepphavongasa Prisa intended to return to the text but he never had the opportunity as he passed away in 2003. Boxes
Fig. 16. The Urangkhathat palm-leaf manuscript, presumably one of the first texts to record human settlement on both sides of the Mekong River.