Mahasenapati of Grahi

Who he is

Name

Galanai (Kamrateng An Mahasenapati Galanai, as the inscription gives it; the form of the name is as in the Wikipedia summary)

Title

Mahasenapati (commander) of Grahi

Since

not known (in office 1183)

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

medium

Named on the Old Khmer pedestal inscription of 1183 at Wat Hua Wiang, Chaiya, as the man who carries out the maharaja's order to make a Buddha image. Chit Phumisak reads 'Kamrateng An' as the title of a governor of a subject city; Walailak Songsiri reads it as a formal address.

Overlord

The Maharaja of Malayu in 1183.

What it holds

• Chaiya and Wat Phra Borommathat
• Bandon bay and the Tapi
• The portage head at Phunphin

How things stand that morning

Not recorded after 1183; he may be alive, replaced, or dead with a successor of the same office.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: One inscription, dated and signed, 17 years before the date.

On the map: Drawn on the bay only.

Primary sources for Grahi

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Grahi (Chaiya) Buddha inscription and the Tambralinga records, Various (the officers of Grahi and the kings of Tambralinga), edited by George Coedes (the Chaiya bronze Buddha inscription 1183; the Nakhon Si Thammarat records 13th century; edited 1929, revised 1961). The peninsula in 1200 has one near-contemporary dated text: the Old Khmer inscription on the base of a bronze Buddha from Wat Hua Wiang at Chaiya, dated 1183, which records the image's casting by order of the mahasenapati Galanai, governor of Grahi, under the king Srimat Trailokyaraja Maulibhusanavarmadeva, a name that is argued to be either a Malayu (Srivijaya) overlord or a local king.
• The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K. Read online
• A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online