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- "The universe consists of an infinite amount of suns and an infinite amount of worlds. At the center of each is Mount Meru."
– Chaophraya Thiphakorawong
Mandala is a unique civic of the Siamese civilization in Civilization VII.
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Civilopedia entry[]
A mandala is a circle. Naturally, as a political system, a mandala is a political circle – a radiance of power, using a combination of charisma and force, to draw in the hinterlands. This encapsulated the political systems of Southeast Asia before the mid-19th century: borderless kingdoms where one could fall between competing spheres of power. These ideas of land and lordship were different from European ideas of power (especially those of post-Westphalian Europe). Today, a nation has complete authority up to its border (and none across it), but in the past authority radiated outward. It could be bright in the center and diminish towards the edges.
Powers caught between mandalas, such as Laos, Cambodia, the Shan States, or Lanna (Chiang Mai), might pay a small tribute to each potential center, and could even be a lesser mandala in its own right. Scholars have termed this system “a galactic polity," Just as a star draws in its planets, each planet can have a pull on its own moons.
As a political system, the mandala ended with the rise of colonialism. The Siamese and British argued incessantly over where to place boundaries between new British conquests in Burma and Siamese dependencies on the frontier. The British sought to define a distinct border, whereas the Siamese argued that only an enemy would insist on a border (and they did not seek enmity with the British). However, the Siamese soon caught onto the rules of the game and spent much of the later 19th century converting formerly independent states that were marginally under their rule into parts of a kingdom with firm borders.
| Civilization VII Civics [edit] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Antiquity | Standard | |
| Unique | ||
| Exploration | Standard | |
| Theological | ||
| Unique | ||
| Modern | Standard | |
| Ideological | ||
| Unique | ||
| 1 Requires DLC | ||
