Article

Hikayat Raja Pasai: a second manuscript

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Hikayat Raja Pasai: a second manuscript

E.U. Kratz’s 1989 article reports the discovery of a second manuscript of the Hikayat Raja Pasai (British Library Or. 14350), acquired by the British Library in 1987, and uses its detailed colophon to reconstruct an interinsular network of Malay manuscript circulation in the late eighteenth century. The manuscript, written in a single hand in 1797 in Semarang on behalf of a Makassar patron, contains both a complete Hikayat Raja Handik and an incomplete Hikayat Raja Pasai, the latter missing roughly 20% of its text. Kratz’s overarching thesis is that the colophon provides rare, explicit evidence of a systematic network through which Malay texts were copied, commissioned, and transmitted across the archipelago.

Summary

The manuscript Or. 14350 comprises 83 folios on European paper (19.5 × 15 cm), written in a single hand and containing two distinct prose texts. The first, the Hikayat Raja Handik berperang dengan nabi Allah, is a well-known religious legend of which more than a dozen manuscripts exist; here it is complete and carries a detailed colophon. The second, the Hikayat Raja Pasai, is the only second witness to that text and is missing approximately 20% of its content, primarily from the final section, so that it lacks its own colophon (p. 1). Both texts share distinctive orthographic features—final h in segerah, bagindah, adindah, kudah; final t in dibawat; final q in pulaq—confirming they were copied by the same scribe in close temporal proximity (p. 3).

The colophon of the Hikayat Raja Handik identifies the scribe as Ence’ Usman, son of the Malay juru tulis of Makassar, working in the house of Ence’ Johar in Kampung Melayu, Semarang, on behalf of Ence’ Usep (Kar Telolo) of Kampung Belikang, Makassar. The master-copy was owned by Abdullah, the Kapitan Melayu of Semarang. The date given is 8 Syaban 1211 AH, corresponding to 6 February 1797 AD (p. 3). Kratz argues that this colophon, “in all probability representative of others of the same kind,” documents an interinsular network that enabled a literate patron in Makassar to locate a text in Semarang, commission a copy, and have it returned—without intermediate staging posts (pp. 3–4).

Kratz then compares Or. 14350 with the sole previously known manuscript, Raffles Malay 67, using Russell Jones’s 1987 edition as a reference point. In most cases the new manuscript confirms Jones’s emendations, but in others it diverges from both Raffles Malay 67 and the edited text, offering alternative readings that sometimes resolve textual difficulties (pp. 4–9).

Key Findings

  • The colophon explicitly names the scribe (Ence’ Usman), the patron (Ence’ Usep / Kar Telolo of Makassar), the master-copy owner (Abdullah, Kapitan Melayu of Semarang), and the place and date of copying (Kampung Melayu, Semarang; 8 Syaban 1211 AH / 6 February 1797 AD) (p. 3).
  • The manuscript’s opening exhortation addresses readers of three ethnic groups—Malay, Makassarese, and peranakan (Chinese)—indicating a Chinese Muslim readership of Islamic literature in the late eighteenth century, a finding that challenges Iskandar’s (1981) observation that baba readers were generally uninterested in religious texts (pp. 1–2).
  • The colophon documents an interinsular manuscript-circulation network linking Makassar and Semarang, suggesting that texts could travel considerable distances “with ease and without the need for intermediate staging posts” (p. 4).
  • The late-eighteenth-century interest in Malay texts in South Sulawesi is plausibly linked to the flight of Malays to the region after the fall of Malacca in 1511, and indirectly corroborates Roolvink’s (1967) view that the Sejarah Melayu was brought to Johor from Sulawesi (p. 4).
  • Comparative readings show that Or. 14350 resolves several textual problems in Raffles Malay 67: it supplies hayam seekor (one chicken) where Jones emended kerbau (water-buffalo) as the per-person contribution to a royal feast, and it reads sukalah where Raffles Malay 67 has an unexplained segala (pp. 8–9).
  • The missing pages of Or. 14350 (approximately 25 pages of Raffles Malay 67 equivalent) include the final section that might have clarified how long the list of countries connected with Pasai and Majapahit had been part of the “original” text (p. 4).

Conclusion

Kratz’s definitive takeaway is that the colophon of Or. 14350 constitutes the first explicit, detailed documentary evidence of a structured interinsular network for the commissioning, copying, and transmission of Malay manuscripts across the archipelago in the late eighteenth century—a system previously only suspected but never spelled out with such clarity. The manuscript also revises assumptions about the ethnic composition of Malay readership, demonstrating that peranakan (Chinese Muslim) readers engaged with Islamic literary texts, and it provides a valuable second witness for the critical edition of the Hikayat Raja Pasai.

Context

  • The manuscript is held at the British Library under acquisition number Or. 14350; the primary witness to the Hikayat Raja Pasai remains Raffles Malay 67, also in the British Library collection.
  • The article was published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS), Vol. 62, No. 1 (1989), pp. 1–10.

References