Colonial Southeast Asia

This chapter covers the first years of Prisdang's exile, exploring his conflicts—both internal and external—during this period. An abiding patriot, he sought desperately to return to his native country, but only if the king would consent to hear his side of the story. Yet he not only penned a searing critique of King Chulalongkorn and his method of rule but presented it to British colonial officials in 1891. He defended himself as a “political refugee” because of his expression of views that contradicted those of King Chulalongkorn and the system of patronage that dominated politics in Siam. Was he a traitor, a patriot, a monarchist, or an opportunist? Regardless of one's interpretation, Prisdang caused friction between Siam and colonial governments everywhere he went in exile, even when he tried to eschew his royal and diplomatic identity and go underground in disguise as a commoner.

Afterlife

This chapter explores the circumstances of Prisdang's afterlife, and how he continues to be harnessed to several causes—international Buddhist diplomacy, monarchism, and democracy. Conservative royalists, antiestablishment politicians, and political progressives have also appropriated him, but for divergent purposes. By refusing to explicate why he fled Siam, he invited interested parties to speculate about and to project onto that silence. The story of his life, as this chapter shows, demonstrates that it is not so easy to encapsulate Prince Prisdang and his multiple political loyalties. All the reclamation projects have it partly right—and partly wrong. And that is likely the real impetus behind Prisdang's defiant grin.

Bangkok

This chapter speculates on the “incident” which had led to the rift between Prince Prisdang and King Chulalongkorn. It focuses on two particular incidents: one involving a man named Mom Jao Pan and another involving Khunying Si (hereafter “Si” or “Phi Si,” which means elder sibling), the widow of the brother of Prisdang's dear friend from London, Jamuen Saraphai (Joem Saeng-Chuto; hereafter “Surasak”). The Mom Jao Pan incident came to a head in May 1887, and the rumors regarding Si arose by June 1887. Although Prisdang's published autobiography suggests that his suicide attempt was a consequence of the king's repossession of the Phumnithet property, which relates directly to the Mom Jao Pan incident, his letters suggest it was rumors about an affair with Si that drove him to raise a gun to his head.

Gulf of Siam

This chapter showcases the circumstances of a fateful solar eclipse as well as the events in Prisdang's childhood following the ascension of Chulalongkorn as Siam's new ruler. Here, the chapter shows how, on Tuesday, August 18, 1868, at exactly 11:36 A.M. and twenty seconds, the sun was in total eclipse as observed by King Mongkut through his telescope on the terrace of his temporary palace on Wako Beach. Historical contingency—the unpredictable trajectories of a limited set of options—brought Prisdang, his father, King Mongkut, and his son to this remote beach, where they all contracted malaria, thus setting in motion a train of events that were equally unpredictable.

Bangkok

This chapter details the events following King Chulalongkorn's death and Prisdang's return home, as well as the latter part of his life and career. It shows how Prisdang's return in 1911 had delivered him into an unforgiving and vindictive social, material, and professional context. He had no place to live and no position to fill regardless of his qualifications. By the age of sixty, he had served as Siam's diplomat to the West, a civil engineer, an artist, an author, an abbot, a fund-raiser, and a rabble rouser who had established schools for the poor in Lanka, but in Bangkok he remained persona non grata even after King Chulalongkorn, the one person at the crux of his predicament and the only one in a position to have redeemed him, had passed away.

Europe

This chapter documents Prisdang's appointment to King Chulalongkorn's government, as he moved back and forth between Siam and Europe as he rose in the ranks from civil engineer to interpreter to ambassador. In him, however, what some considered brilliance others regarded as unmerited arrogance. The contradictory reactions his presence aroused in European and Siamese circles fueled his eventual expulsion from the center to the margins of Siam's political, social, and diplomatic arenas. His unnamed detractors who had influence with the king began to shred Prisdang's reputation, bit by bit over time, until he raised a gun to his head and considered pulling the trigger.

British Ceylon and India

This chapter examines Prisdang's exceptionally public life as a monk in Lanka. Over the course of his fifteen years in Lanka, Prisdang founded two free schools for impoverished children, acted as guide and interlocutor for many foreign guests, and rubbed shoulders with leading Theosophists, foreign royalty, authors, and political figures from around the world. In his writings from the period, he viewed Lankan Buddhism through the lens of imperialism's patronizing contempt, but with a twist. Yet, endlessly energetic and a showman at heart, he still could not suppress his apparent need to be at the center of politics, let alone exorcise his desire to return to Siam.

Staging Secrets

This chapter examines the context wherein Prince Prisdang Chumsai (1852–1935) had thrived and was ultimately exiled from. It also discusses Prince Prisdang's “silence”—in particular the reason, which he had pointedly removed from his autobiography, for his falling out of favor with Siam and its favorite monarch, King Chulalongkorn (r. 1868–1910). In addition, the chapter also explores the relative silence on Prince Prisdang's life and contributions to history in general, as he has only received marginal attention from historians despite his achievements, and despite his own efforts to demonstrate his own historicity by publishing his autobiography. Though turning to Buddhism in his later years, Prisdang did not write about his life as a series of mistakes from which he learned clear-cut Buddhist lessons. Instead, he wrote about what he did for Siam that changed its history and why he should be, but has not been, acknowledged for it.