The major purposes of this dissertation were to investigate the status of Ramkien and identify its political aspects and meanings. The conventional method was used in doing this research by means of political interpretation of the contexts and the behavior of the actors within the Ramkien as composed under the patronage of King Rama I per se; comparing with the Thai historical events, with the Valmiki and local Thai Ramkien versions, and with the latter day events. The results of the analysis of the Ramkien King Rama I’s version, indicated that its contents had a significant relationship to political science in the aspects of theory (philosophy) , practice, and the political vehicle. It was found that Ramkien, according to theory, was latent with political concepts which projected expectancies and described politics and society as other political and social philosophies did. It not only was connected in the political sociological bases to social class, family and belief, or even to the political and executive systems, stressing the structure and function of the state but also to the political philosophy expressed, absolutely, in the elite influence over others by the facets of the stratification and relationship system. In practice, the study isolated the collective idea in Ramkien from other contemporary literatures. The literary revision, thus, created the legitimacy to rule in the same way as the chronological revision. Moreover, the political pragmatic principles of Ramkien were congruent with real political phenomena in Thai society, especially during King Rama I’s period, in the preparation for ascendency to the throne and after being on the throne. As the political vehicle, the findings obtained from Ramkien the instrumental manual for King Rama I to transmit the guidelines by political socialization. Consequently, it appeared that the distortion of its contents in the version of King Rama I, constrasts with Valmiki and Thai local Ramkien rituals. Such results are still reflected even now because of the qualitative findings which are correlated, rather than having a causal relationship between the Ramkien contents and the present events.
