Taju’s-salatin. “The crown of kings”
This is a short note by R. O. Winstedt summarizing a paper by Dr. Ph. S. van Ronkel on the Taju’s-Salatin (“The Crown of Kings”), a Malay romance of Persian origin (p. 37).
Winstedt situates van Ronkel’s work within the broader Dutch scholarly effort to trace the sources of Malay literature, noting that while early scholars assumed Arabic was the primary source, Persian—transmitted largely through India—accounts for the Malay script, vowel-point names, loan-words, and many romances (p. 37). Regarding the Taju’s-Salatin specifically, Winstedt corrects the earlier identification of the author as “Bokhari of Johore,” explaining that he was in fact “a Bokhari,” a native of Bokhara practising the trade of a jauhari (jeweller) (p. 37). The note then catalogues the Persian sources cited within the text, including the Akhlaq-i-Muhsini (1494), the Sijar u’l Muluk of Nizam u’l Mulk, verses from Attar, and the romances of Mahmud and Ayaz, Laila wa Majnun, Khusrau wa Shirin, and Yusof and Zulaikha (p. 38). The chronogram in the introduction dates composition to 1012 A.H. (1603 A.D.), and Winstedt concludes that, though no Persian original has been found, the work is clearly of Persian origin and was probably derived from India (p. 38).