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The Malay Annals: the history brought from Goa

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

The Malay Annals: the history brought from Goa

C.A. Gibson-Hill published this short but tightly argued note in 1956, addressing the transmission history of the Malay Annals manuscript (Raffles MS 181) between the Portuguese attacks on Johore in 1535–36 and its reappearance in the Malay world around 1612. His central thesis is that the draft, compiled at the court of Sultan Mahmud of Malacca, was carried to Goa by the Portuguese, spent decades in the Goa Government Archives where the historian Diogo do Couto had access to it, and was returned to Malaya during Portuguese diplomatic overtures to the Johore court circa 1610–12.

Summary

The article tackles a specific documentary puzzle: the Raffles MS 181 version of the Malay Annals ends abruptly after describing the first Portuguese attack of 1535, with no account of the second attack in 1536, yet the Shellabear preface records the sudden appearance in 1612 of “a Malay history brought by people from Goa.” Gibson-Hill argues that the 1536 attack by Dom Estevao de Gama provides the obvious mechanism for the manuscript’s removal to India, and that the Portuguese diplomatic mission of 1611/12 (headed by an envoy named de Amoreira, according to Rouffaer) explains its return. The gap between these two events—roughly 1540 to 1610—is the period during which the manuscript would have sat in the Goa Government Archives (p. 186).

The decisive evidence Gibson-Hill marshals is textual rather than archival. Four Portuguese writers—Tome Pires, Albuquerque, Barros, and Eredia—all independently describe the last ruler of Singapore as a refugee prince from Palembang (Parameswara) who murdered his host and seized the city, and who was subsequently driven out by Siam or a Siamese vassal. The Malay Annals tells a wholly different story: Iskandar Shah succeeded his father normally, and the city fell through the treachery of a treasury official whose daughter had been the sultan’s mistress and was publicly humiliated for infidelity. Gibson-Hill notes that this Annals version is “well suited to the tenor of the Malacca portion of the work,” preserving a direct succession and casting Iskandar Shah as “more sinned against than sinning” (p. 187).

The critical observation is that a fifth Portuguese source, Diogo do Couto, gives an account closely matching the Annals—naming the last ruler Raja Sabu or Iskandar Shah, and repeating the treasurer’s-daughter episode—despite never having visited Malaya. Couto served as Keeper of the Goa Archives from 1595 until his death in 1616, and Gibson-Hill reasons that if the Annals manuscript was in the archives during that window, Couto would have had direct access to a translation. The fact that Linschoten, resident in Goa from 1583 to 1589, reports yet another founding story for Malacca (a village of fishermen from Pegu, Siam, and Bengal) further indicates that the Annals version was not commonly current in oral circulation, strengthening the inference that Couto’s source was the manuscript itself (pp. 187–188).

Key Findings

  • The Raffles MS 181 draft was compiled by a Malacca court man of Sultan Mahmud’s court and terminates after the 1535 Portuguese attack, with no reference to the 1536 attack by Dom Estevao de Gama (p. 185).
  • Dom Estevao de Gama returned to India in 1539 and served as governor of Portuguese India 1540–42, providing a plausible vector for the manuscript’s transfer to Goa (p. 185).
  • Diogo do Couto held the post of Keeper of the Goa Archives from 1595 until his death at Goa in 1616, giving him a window of seven to fifteen years of potential access to the manuscript if it was stored there (p. 187).
  • Four Portuguese authors (Tome Pires, Albuquerque, Barros, Eredia) uniformly identify the founder of Malacca as Parameswara, a refugee from Palembang who murdered his host; none mention Iskandar Shah (p. 186).
  • Couto alone among the Portuguese writers gives the Iskandar Shah / treasurer’s-daughter narrative matching the Annals, despite never having visited Malaya (p. 187).
  • Linschoten, in Goa 1583–1589, records a completely different Malacca founding story (fishermen from Pegu, Siam, and Bengal), indicating the Annals version was not in common oral circulation (p. 188).

Conclusion

Gibson-Hill concludes that the convergence of circumstantial evidence—the abrupt termination of the manuscript, the Shellabear preface’s reference to a history “brought from Goa,” Couto’s archival position and his anomalous agreement with the Annals, and the absence of the Annals version from other contemporary sources in Goa—makes it highly probable that the manuscript did travel to Goa and was returned around 1610–12. The argument is presented as a reasoned inference from the available documentary record rather than a proof from a single smoking-gun document, and Gibson-Hill explicitly acknowledges that “no one has looked to see if there is any real evidence that it actually was in India between 1540 and 1610” (p. 185).

Context

  • The article draws on the Raffles MS 181 (Royal Asiatic Society, London), the Shellabear recension (3rd ed., Singapore, 1948), and the published Portuguese sources of Pires, Albuquerque, Barros, Eredia, Couto, and Linschoten, alongside I.A. MacGregor’s 1955 study of Portuguese-Malay relations (pp. 185–188).
  • Historiographically, the piece contributes to the source-critical study of the Malay Annals by proposing a concrete transmission pathway for the manuscript and identifying Couto’s Asia as a potential witness to the Annals text in its pre-1612 form, a point that subsequent scholars have taken up in debates over the Annals’ composition and redaction history.

References