Dvaravati

Dvaravati (Thai: ทวารวดี) was a medieval Mon political principality from the 6th century to the 11th century, located in the region now known as central Thailand,^: 234 and was speculated to be a succeeding state of Lang-chia or Lang-ya-hsiu (หลังยะสิ่ว).^{: 268–270, 281} It was described by Chinese pilgrims in the middle of the 7th century as a Buddhist kingdom named To-lo-po-ti situated to the west of Isanapura (Cambodia), to the east of Sri Ksetra (Burma),^{: 76 : 37} and adjoined Pan Pan in the South.^{: 267, 269} Its northern border met Jiā Luó Shě Fú (迦逻舍佛), which was speculated to be either Kalasapura, situated along the coast of the Bay of Bengal somewhere between Tavoy and Rangoon,^: 108 or Canasapura in modern northeast Thailand. Dvaravati sent the first embassy to the Chinese court around 605–616,^: 264 and then in 756.

Dvaravati also refers to a culture, an art style, and a disparate conglomeration of principalities of Mon people. The Mon migrants as maritime traders might have brought the Dvaravati Civilization to the Menam Valley around 3000 BCE,^: 32 which continued to the presence of a "Proto-Dvaravati" period that spans the 4th to 5th centuries, and perhaps earlier.

The center of the early Davaravati was speculated to be Ayojjhapura (present-day Si Thep) but the power was shifted to the lower basin in Lavo's Lavapura in the 10th and 11th centuries. The rise of the Angkor in the lower Mekong basin around the 11th–13th centuries, the Menam Valley and the upper Malay peninsula conquered of Tambralinga's king Sujita who also seized Lavo in the mid-10th century,^{: 283 : 16} the 9-year civil wars in the Angkor in the early 11th century, which led to the devastation of Lavo, as well as the Pagan invasion of Menam Valley around the mid-10th century.^{: 41 : 4} All of these potentially are the causes of the fall of the Dvaravati civilization.^{: 283 : 41}