“According to the myth of Khoun Borôm, a myth commonly related among Tai-speaking peoples, in ancient times people were wicked and crude. A great deity destroyed them with a flood, leaving only three worthy chiefs who were preserved in heaven to be the founders and guides for a new race of people. The deity sent the three chiefs back to the earth with a buffalo to help them till the land.
The chiefs and the buffalo arrived in the legendary land of Muang Then, located at today’s Điện Biên Phủ, Vietnam. Once the land had been prepared for rice cultivation, the buffalo died and a bitter gourd vine grew from his nostril. From the gourds on the vine, the new human race emerged. Relatively dark-skinned aboriginal peoples emerging from gourds cut open with a hot skewer and the lighter skinned Tai peoples emerging from cuts made with a chisel.
The gods then taught the Tai peoples how to build houses and cultivate rice. They were instructed in proper rituals and behavior, and grew prosperous. As their population grew, they needed aid in governing their relations and resolving disputes. Phagna Thèn, the king of the gods, sent his son, Khoun Borôm, to be the ruler of the Tai people. Khoun Borôm ruled the Tai people for 25 years, teaching them to use new tools and other arts.
After this quarter-century span, Khoun Borôm divided the kingdom among his seven sons, giving each one of them a portion of the kingdom to rule…
Some interpreters of the story of Khoun Borôm believe that it describes Tai-speaking peoples arriving in Southeast Asia from China (mythically identified with heaven, from which the Tai chiefs emerge after the flood). The system of dividing and expanding a kingdom in order to provide for the sons of a ruler agrees in general with the apparent organization and succession practices of ancient Tai village groups was called mueang.
Scholar David K. Wyatt believes that the Khoun Borôm myth may provide insight into the early history of the Tai people in Southeast Asia. Versions of the Khoun Borôm myth occur as early as 698 CE in Xiang Khouang, and identify Tai-speaking kingdoms that would be formally established years later. This may indicate the early geographical spread of Tai-speaking peoples, and provides a mythological explanation for why modern Tai-speaking peoples are found in such widespread pockets”. – Wikipedia, Khun Borom
The earliest recorded account of Khun Borom from Thailand dates back to the 600s C.E, the 7th century, but its oral traditions may stem back further.
Whether this story was influenced by Christians may be debated, as Christianity first came to China in the in the 3rd century by Nestorian preachers, and the spread of Christianity may have trickled down to other East Asian continents and cultures from that time. This may be also indicated in that the story mentions a son of the gods coming down to save humanity and share his kingdom with them, which was not a part of the Noah tale, but was certainly preached by Christians.
“Around 1510, the Italian merchant Ludovico di Varthema was accompanied in southeast Asia by two Christian guides from Sarnau (probably Shahr-i Naw, the Persian name for Ayutthaya). They told him that there were many Christians in Sarnau, even “great lords”, that they were white men and that they owed their allegiance to the Great Khan of Cathay. Varthema also recorded that the King of Pegu employed 1,000 Christians soldiers recruited from the Ayutthaya Kingdom and that they wrote their script from right to left. Although it is probable that these accounts are exaggerated to impress westerners, it is possible that these first Christians in Thailand were the descendants of Nestorians who fled China after the fall of the Yuan dynasty in 1368. They would have most likely used the Syriac script”. – Wikipedia, Christianity in Thailand
However, it should be noted that the earliest Christians in Thailand in this scenario likely were in the 14th century, and therefore, the story of Khun Borom has equally good a chance of pre-dating Christian influence. The notion of a son of God coming down may have very well been a teaching spread across humanity in different forms, originating from the original promised seed according to the Eden story of Genesis
Of the key similarities, we see:
- Mankind had become immoral
- God sends a flood
- A small group survive
- Mankind develops irrigation methods
- God gives mankind new instructions and laws
- The human race is reset
Proselyte of Yah 