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Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, a revised romanised version of Raffles MS 67, together with an English translation

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Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, a revised romanised version of Raffles MS 67, together with an English translation

A.H. Hill’s 1960 edition of the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai provides the first revised romanised text and complete English translation of the sole surviving manuscript (Raffles MS 67, copied in 1814 from a Demak original), accompanied by a detailed introduction that re-examines the chronicle’s authorship, dating, and historical value. Hill argues that the text, composed in at least three distinct phases between approximately 1330 and 1390, represents the earliest extant literature in “Malacca” Malay and preserves a hard core of historical fact within a semi-historical romance framework.

Summary

The Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai is a Malay chronicle of roughly 30,000 words that narrates the islamisation of the north Sumatran kingdom of Semudera-Pasai, the adventures of the warrior-prince Tun Beraim Bapa, and the conquest of Pasai by Majapahit. Hill divides the text into three parts, each attributable to a different hand and period. Part I, describing the conversion of Merah Silu to Islam and the founding of the Semudera-Pasai dynasty, was likely first drafted during the reign of Sultan Ahmad (c. 1330) and subsequently revised by a zealous Muslim scribe who introduced distinctive Arabic phraseology (pp. 40–41). Part II, the romance of Tun Beraim Bapa, is written in archaic, cyclical Malay with heavy borrowings from Indian and maritime vocabulary, and was probably incorporated into the text soon after the flight of the Pasai court (p. 41). Part III, describing Majapahit’s conquests, is the latest section, written in simpler Malay with Javanese military and administrative terms, and may date to 1380–90 (p. 41).

Hill’s most significant historical contribution is his reconciliation of the conflicting genealogies given in the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai and the Sejarah Melayu. By identifying Maliku’l-Tahir with Maliku’l-Mahmud as one and the same person, and correlating the text with grave and coin inscriptions, he establishes the Semudera-Pasai dynastic line as: Maliku’l-Saleh (d. 1297) — Muhammad (d. 1326) — Ahmad — Zainalabidin (pp. 16–18). He further argues that the Sejarah Melayu author used an earlier version of the Pasai story, before the Muslim revision was undertaken, and that the discrepancies between the two texts reflect the biases of a Malacca court writer anxious to deflate Pasai’s claims to primacy in the region’s islamisation (pp. 36–38).

On the question of Semudera-Pasai’s location, Hill proposes that the original capital lay on the Pasangan river estuary, the longest and broadest river along that stretch of coast, which would have provided a natural highway for the transport of jungle produce to traders at its mouth. He suggests that a later shift to the Lho’seumawe area may have been prompted by external aggression, perhaps a piratical raid on the Pasangan mouth (pp. 12–13). The text’s description of the court’s prosperity is corroborated by Ibn Batuta’s 1345/46 account of a wealthy, walled city with a learned and pious ruler (pp. 14–15).

Key Findings

  • The sole surviving manuscript was copied for Raffles in 1814 from an original belonging to Kiai Suvadimanggala, senior regent of Demak; the 1814 copyist made no erasures and the text runs to 72 pages (pp. 4, 25–26).
  • Hill identifies 341 misreadings or printing errors in J.P. Mead’s 1914 romanised text, an average of over six per page, some of which are crucial for translation (p. 41).
  • The Semudera-Pasai dynastic genealogy, reconciled with grave and coin inscriptions, is: Maliku’l-Saleh (d. 1297) — Muhammad (d. 1326) — Ahmad — Zainalabidin; the name “Maliku’l-Zahir” was a dynastic honorific, not a personal name (pp. 16–18).
  • The conversion narrative of Merah Silu/Maliku’l-Saleh is structurally parallel to the Indian legend of King Perumal of Cranganore, suggesting a common origin in Indian Muslim tradition (pp. 11, 191).
  • The text contains the earliest written record of the Gayo people, who fled to the upper reaches of the Pasangan river to escape islamisation (p. 58, note 42).
  • The Majapahit conquest narrative in Part III includes a list of 36 places claimed as conquered, arranged in a logical navigational sequence, but no independent historical evidence confirms that a Majapahit fleet ever visited these locations in force (pp. 39–40).

Conclusion

Hill’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, far from being the “children’s fairy tale” that Snouck Hurgronje dismissed it as, is a complex composite document of genuine historical value. Its three parts, written over perhaps sixty years, preserve authentic memories of the islamisation of north Sumatra, the culture of the Semudera-Pasai court, and the political upheavals of the late fourteenth century. The text’s literary significance is equally important: it produced the first distinct Malay literary style that found its full expression a century later in the Sejarah Melayu (pp. 24–27).

Context

  • The manuscript forms part of the Raffles collection presented by Lady Raffles to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland in 1830; it is catalogued as MS No. 67 (p. 4).
  • The publication was necessitated by the loss of the original 1914 and 1916 issues of the JSBRAS (which contained Mead’s romanisation) when copies were removed from the Raffles Museum building by the Japanese in 1943/44 (p. 4).

References