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Sakna / Sakdina

Land possessions were non-hereditary are; while there are certain rules, established by King Trailok, concerning the granting of land to nobles according to their rank, land allocations are in principle at the discretion of the king. The king would grant a temporary prebendal right over an amount of land to aristocrats and officials. Unlike other rewarded properties from the king such as slaves, animals, clothes, and jewelry which became privately owned, the land had to be returned to the king when the grantees died or were deposed.

King Borommatrailokkanat also established the Sakna or Sakdina system (feudal system). Up to the mid nineteenth century, indeed, prior to 1905, the traditional system for distinguishing between different levels of social hierarchy is called the sakdina system. Under this system people could own rice fields in proportion to their rank. Sakdina was used to separate people according to status, and for the allocating or withdrawing of privileges. Common people were able to remain to farm the land but the male adults had to spend six to eight months per year working for or fighting in battles under the command of the noblemen or the soldiers who were granted the ownership of the land.

Although the word "territorial" is inapplicable to the so-called system of Siamese feudalism, the dignity of the various grades of nobility was measured in terms of land. A sakdina literally is a compound word combining the Sanskrit Sak-thi (power) and the Thai Na (paddy field). The relative social position of every individual was specified in numerical units, called sakdina, which could be translated as "field power" or "land status" or "status as shown by land". The king assigned every household head a sakdina (“honour marks” or dignity) rank from 5 to 100000 sakdina. The land-holding nobility consisted of those with a sakdina rank of 400 [160 acres] or higher, and was effectively open only to descendants of nobles. The Law on the Civil Hierarchy specified the sakdina rank. All males were incorporated into a single social hierarchy called the sakdina system, with each man, except the king, given a place in the pecking order (sakdina).

A 'titled one' could be either an official or a titled aristocrat. Commoners could attain only the ranks of muen and khun: the Chinese up to phraya: and Westerners were conferred only honorific titles and ranks, for unlike Thai nobles, they were not officially in the government. None of the titles correspond to those in use in European languages, and only vague notions regarding these Siamese titles exist,

The ordinary freeman [Phrai] was considered worth twenty-five rats or rai [10 acres], which is the amount of land he is supposed to be able to till. Nobility commenced with four hundred rai and rose to ten thousand [the top-ranking official, or Khunnang]. The fiction of conferring an estate with a title of nobility was preserved. Of course the wealthy classes owned a good deal of landed property which they let or cultivate by slaves or retainers, but the bulk of the land belongs to those who till it, subject to the paramount ownership of the king. All the nobles, except the few who have work in the provinces, live in Bangkok. There were no great country houses or castles, and so there had never been anything resembling the feudal power of the great European nobles.

In the year 1887 a very ancient law was resuscitated which provided for the appointment of an heir-apparent to the throne, or Crown Prince, by each sovereign during his reign and thus fixed the succession which had for some centuries been a matter of much ambiguity and a perennial source of danger to the public tranquillity. The first prince to occupy this exalted position unfortunately died in 1895, and was succeeded by a half-brother, now His Majesty Maha Vajiravudh, at that time a boy pursuing his education in England, who returned to Siam in 1902. From that time onward he filled the role of Second Personage in the State, until the much-lamented death of his father called him to assume the dignities and grave responsibilities of the throne.