Lithai, who served as uparat during the reign of his father, Lerthai, from the city of Srisatchanalai, an important urban center of the early Sukhothai kingdom, had succeeded to the Sukhothai throne in 1347.

Lithai is known as the writer of the Traiphuum Phra Ruang ('Three worlds of Phra Ruang', Phra Ruang being the dynastic name of Lithai's linneage), a religious text describing the various world of Buddhist cosmology, and the way in which karma consigns living beings to one world or another.

The Traiphuum will go on to serve as an important political document, being reinterpreted in response to changes in the domestic and international political scene.