The sources of the Shellabear text of the Malay Annals
This brief note by W. Linehan (1947) identifies the textual sources Shellabear used for his editions of the Malay Annals and draws attention to a previously overlooked reference to Leyden’s translation in Col. James Low’s work on the Kedah Annals.
Summary
Linehan catalogues the materials Shellabear cited in the introductions to his Jawi edition (Singapore, 1896) and Romanised edition (Singapore, 1898) of the Malay Annals. The principal source was a copy of an old Singapore edition—probably printed at the Mission Press after 1831, without date or title page, and bearing an introduction probably by Abdullah Munshi—which Shellabear obtained from the Logan Library and on which he based his text mainly (p. 105). Shellabear also compared his text with a manuscript in the possession of Mr. R. J. Wilkinson (p. 106).
Linehan then reproduces a note by Col. James Low in his translation of the Kedah Annals (Hikayat Marong Mahawangsa), in which Low explains that Leyden’s translation was a free rendering based on a copy made by Ibrahim the Moonshee at Malacca and taken to Bengal, where Ibrahim read it to Leyden and explained its meaning (p. 106). Linehan observes that Shellabear appears to have been unaware of this reference to Leyden’s translation, which may also have escaped other commentators on the texts of the Malay Annals (p. 106).