Thailand's Theory of Monarchy : The Vessantara Jātaka and the Idea of the Perfect Man

source materials largely unknown in Western scholarship, Jory traces the history of the Vessantara Jātaka and its political-cultural importance from the ancient to the modern period. Although pressures from European colonial powers and Buddhist reformers led eventually to a revised political conception of the monarchy, the older Buddhist ideal of kingship has yet endured. [Publisher's Text]