Calendars, Kings, and Modernity: The Reconstruction of Public Time in Nineteenth-Century Siam

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Faced with the challenges of colonialism and the need to adapt to modernity from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, Siam underwent significant transformations in many aspects. Numerous works have explored how Siam responded to colonial pressures and modernizing forces. For example, Peleggi (2002) examined how Siam adjusted to Western modernity through material culture, while Winichakul (1994) analyzed the adoption of modern cartographic technologies and concepts that led to the emergence of the modern Siamese state. However, modernity is closely connected to conceptions of time. This article explores the transformation of Siamese temporality in the 19th century, culminating in the emergence of the Siamese calendar. It examines the evolution of ‘public time’—a concept encompassing the collective understanding of the past, present, and future—and how these shifts in time perception led to the Siamese elite’s attempt to create a national calendar as a tool to control time.

Methods: This article employs the historical method, with a particular emphasis on the intellectual history approach, to scrutinize both primary and secondary sources. Special attention is given to the state documents and the materials produced by the Siamese elite, especially those related to the conceptions of time. These sources are analyzed within the conceptual framework of public time, which encompasses ideas and experiences of the past, present, and anticipated future. Through this framework, the study seeks to elucidate how temporal changes were articulated and represented within Siamese society.

Results: The study finds that economic growth since the early Rattanakosin period, together with the adoption of Western world-order norms and print technology, gradually synchronized Siam’s “time” with modern world time. This process accelerated after the Bowring Treaty (1855), which tightly integrated Siam into the global trading system, resulting in the framework of “public time” shifting from an older regime to a newer one. In this transition, ideas and experiences of the “present” were disembedded from the Traiphum worldview and reoriented toward a present synchronized with the global community. At the same time, the meanings of ideas and experiences concerning the “past” and the “future” were rearranged under civilizational values and rationality according to the logic of “civilization.” These changes compelled Siamese elites to manage this “new set of public time” by creating a new calendar in order to incorporate people’s “private time” into alignment with the state, while establishing a national time within the new global order and still preserving certain sacred dimensions of time from the old calendar.

Application of this study: By revealing the intricate process behind the transformation of time in Siam and the emergence of the Siamese calendar, this research not only deepens our understanding of the concept of time in Thai society but also prompts further reflection on how Thailand has negotiated modernity—a historical legacy that continues to resonate in the contemporary era.

Conclusions: In their efforts to adapt to and control modern time, the Siamese elites defined public time through the creation of a new calendar system. The creation of the new calendar was done in three significant steps. The first step involved the standardization of timekeeping practices and the establishment of royal authority over the societal conception of time. The second step emerged from the creation of a distinct religious ceremonial calendar, separate from the civil calendar. The final step was the development of a ‘solar-lunar calendar,’ which aimed to harmonize traditional Siamese temporal structures with Western concepts of time. This integration marked an effort to consolidate the once-divided traditional and modern calendars into a unified system, reflecting the monarchy’s endeavor to establish a unified “national time.”