The chiri
This short note by W. E. Maxwell (W. E. M.) presents a Pali reading and translation of the Chiri, an unintelligible formula recited in Malay courts at the installation of chiefs, building on the author’s earlier 1830 paper in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (p. 287).
Summary
Maxwell reproduces the Chiri as printed in the 1830 paper, noting variant readings across four manuscripts (Nos. 18, 35, 39, and 80) in the Royal Asiatic Society Library, and provides a full transliteration of the Arabic-script text (p. 288). The central contribution is a Pali reading and English translation supplied by a Sinhalese Pandit, to whom the three versions (Perak, Brunei, and Sajarah Malayu) had been submitted by J. A. Swettenham in Colombo in September 1881 (p. 287). The Pandit’s translation renders the formula as an elaborate royal address praising the king’s sedate gait, prowess, majesty, and lion-like ferocity in battle, concluding with the titles “Supreme Lord” and “Chief over the King of righteousness” (pp. 288–289). Dr. Rost of the India Office is quoted as judging the Pandit’s unriddling “certainly very ingenious, and at any rate competes favourably with all others yet attempted” (p. 289).