Shaer Raksi. . Overbeck
H. Overbeck’s 1923 article in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society presents a full transcription and English translation of the Shaer Raksi, a Malay verse text that codifies the Arabic abjad numerological system used to determine marital compatibility. The work, attributed to Raja Haji Ahmad of Riau and reprinted in Singapore in 1915, reveals how a sophisticated letter-value arithmetic—rooted in the Islamic scholarly tradition—was adapted into a practical folk divination tool for Malay communities.
Summary
Overbeck situates the Shaer Raksi within the broader Malay cultural practice of assessing whether a prospective marriage is auspicious. He begins by citing Abdullah bin Abdulkadir’s autobiographical remark that his parents were said to be tiada sa-rasi—literally, that their “stars” did not agree—thereby establishing the indigenous concept of rasi (from Sanskrit, meaning zodiacal constellation) as the conceptual frame into which the Arabic numerological method was later grafted. The article then reproduces the full text of the shaer, which instructs the reader to convert each letter of a person’s name into its abjad numerical equivalent, sum the values, divide by nine, and compare the two remainders to determine the couple’s raksi (affinity). Overbeck provides a worked example using the names Hassan (remainder 1) and Meriam (remainder 2), which the text declares the best possible match, “like that of Adam and Eve” (p. 283).
The bulk of the article consists of the forty-five couplet stanzas that enumerate every possible pairing of remainders (1 through 9), each with a brief prognostication ranging from “exceedingly well” to “keep away from her as from a loathsome snake” (pp. 283–292). The verses are rendered in a colloquial Malay orthography of the period, and Overbeck’s translations are literal but serviceable. Following the marital compatibility section, the text extends the numerological logic to a calendar of auspicious and inauspicious days within the lunar month, advising on the timing of trade, agriculture, marriage, travel, and even the begetting of children (pp. 293–300). The final pages shift to a brief code of social etiquette—when to visit a sick person, how to conduct oneself in the presence of a superior, and the proper conduct of a nurse—giving the work the character of a general petua (advice) manual rather than a purely astrological treatise (pp. 301–307).
Overbeck’s editorial contribution is modest but important: he identifies the textual provenance, notes the variant attribution to a “Shaikh Jalalu’d-din” in one edition, and flags a likely scribal error in the Adam-and-Eve passage where the expected remainders do not match the stated example (p. 282, n. 1). His introduction also raises the question of whether the system was imported intact from Arabia or developed locally, a point he leaves open.
Key Findings
- The Shaer Raksi was written by Raja Haji Ahmad, a native of Riau, and a lithographed edition was published in 1915 by Haji Muhamad Amin at 7 Bagdad Street, Singapore, indicating continued popular demand for the text (p. 282).
- The abjad letter-value table used in the system assigns values from 1 (alif) to 1000 (ghain), following the standard Arabic abjad sequence: abjad, hawwaz, hûtî, kalaman, sa’fas, qarshat, thakha, dhadha, ghayin (p. 283).
- The worked example given in the text—Hassan (sum 118, remainder 1) and Meriam (sum 290, remainder 2)—is declared the supreme raksi, “which cannot be surpassed, as it is like that of Adam and Eve” (p. 283).
- The most severe prohibition in the text concerns the pairing of remainders 2 and 8, which the shaer declares “the raksi which absolutely forbids marriage,” comparing the woman to “a loathsome snake” and warning that she “will find work in the byeways” (p. 287).
- The text extends beyond marital divination to a lunar-month calendar: the 28th and 29th days are declared universally auspicious for all work, while the 20th and 25th are flagged as inauspicious, with the 25th specifically described as “unlucky according to the writings of learned men” (hukama) (pp. 298–299).
- Overbeck notes that one edition of the text attributes authorship to a “Shaikh Jalalu’d-din,” suggesting the shaer may be a compilation drawing on earlier sources rather than an original composition (p. 282).
Conclusion
Overbeck’s article serves primarily as a philological and ethnographic record of a living Malay divination practice at the moment when such customs were under increasing scrutiny from both colonial administrators and modernizing Malay intellectuals. By publishing the full text with translation, he preserves a document that encodes not only a numerological system but also a worldview in which cosmic order, social conduct, and domestic happiness are governed by the same underlying arithmetic—a worldview that the 1915 reprinting in Singapore testifies was still very much in active use.
Context
- The article draws on a lithographed Malay edition published in Singapore (1915) and references older catalogues of Malay publishers in that city; no extensive archival research is indicated beyond the text itself.
- Overbeck (1867–1948) was a German-born Sinologist and Malayist who served in the Dutch colonial administration in the East Indies before moving to Singapore, where he became a leading figure in Malay literary scholarship. His work here is characteristic of his broader project of documenting and systematizing Malay vernacular literature for a Western academic audience.