Page:Constitution of the Kingdom of Siam.djvu/3

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Dated 10 December 2475
Royal Gazette
Volume 49, Page 531

makes His appearance at the Divine Hall of Eternal Union[1] amidst a full assembly of senior and junior members of the royalty, corps of diplomats representing various countries, House of Representatives Members, and military and civil royal officers, who, in unison and in sequence, are in attendance by the side of His lotus feet.[2]

With His gracious pleasure, He orders that the following remark of Him be announced: [When] the public servants, both civil and military, and the people under His authority informed Him, the Gracious Majesty, of their wish for Him to grant them a Constitution, so that the Kingdom of Siam would have an administration consistent with the practice of the civilised countries nowadays;

He entertained an opinion that for a full century and a half had Their Divine Majesties the Lords of the Land from the Grand Chakri Dynasty ascended and assumed the seat of majesty of the Siamese Country and carried out the royal policy for administration of the Kingdom under the regime of absolutism and under the tenfold royal virtue,[3] and tenderly had they maintained this Country that She had fully flourished, and now the people of Siam, who had all along enjoyed prosperity in various manners under the great royal government, had higher education that there were public servants so versed in the administration of the State, capable of leading their own Nation along the walk towards

  1. The throne hall Ananta Samakhom. Etymological, the name is from Sanskrit ananta ("endless, boundless") and samāgama ("union, assembly").
  2. The Royal Society of Thailand (2015, pp. 46–47): The term lotus feet refers to the feet of a king. It might have originated from the fact that the king, when seated on the throne, has his feet supported by a lotus-shaped base, or might be from the Buddhist belief that the Buddha, when he was an infant, walked seven steps and from each step sprang a lotus flower, or might be just a metaphoric reference to the feet of a revered one.
  3. A Buddhist principle, known is Pali as dasavidha-rājadhamma.