Phithak Thephamat


Krom Phra Thephamat, also known as Iang or Nok-iang, was a royal woman of the Thonburi dynasty, Siam. She was the mother of Taksin.
Official records of Thailand stated that she was a Thai noble woman, and married a Chinese merchant named Yong Saetae. She gave birth to Taksin the Great on 17 April 1734. Later, Taksin was supposedly raised as nobility because Phithak Thephamat was from a noble family. Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, also stated that she was a Thai. But, François Turpin stated that she was in fact Chinese; if so, Taksin was a full-blooded Chinese. Kulap Tritsananon, a Thai journalist, also stated that her family name was Ngo.
However, recent studies show that Nok-iang's mother was a younger sister of Phraya Phetburi and Phraya Ram Chaturong. Roeang was appointed by the King Borommakot in 1757 as governor of Phetburi, then the Mon population center and naval base. Phraya Ram Chaturong served as chief of Siam's Mon community during the reign of King Ekkathat before the fall of Ayutthaya. Phraya Ram Chaturong was killed in action by Burmese forces in the fall of Ayutthaya. She married a Thai man.
Nok-iang's cousin, Phraya Nakhone In, served as commander of Krom Dap Song Moe, one of Siam's several Mon military regiments too. Another cousin, who was a daughter of Phraya Ram Chaturong, was Thong-mon who later served as Thaw Songkadan in Taksin's Thonburi Grand Palace. Those facts prove that Nok-iang was a Mon-Thai descent, not a Sino-Thai as previously assumed.
In 1769, she was awarded the feudal title of Somdet Krom Phra Phithak Thephamat by King Taksin. She died in 1774.