Asian and African studies blog

134 posts categorized "Digitisation"

07 December 2013

Malay manuscripts from Borneo

The two Malay manuscripts from Banjar presented here could not be more different in content and form: one a carefully-crafted court chronicle, presenting and perpetuating the public image of a Malay sultanate; the other a letter written hastily with no thought for posterity, and yet which nearly two centuries later vividly conveys some of the preoccupations of daily life in Kalimantan in the mid-19th century.  

The alun-alun or public square in Banjar.  Photograph by G.F.J. (Georg Friedrich Johannes) Bley, 1925-1933.  Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).
The alun-alun or public square in Banjar.  Photograph by G.F.J. (Georg Friedrich Johannes) Bley, 1925-1933.  Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).  noc

Hikayat Banjar is the dynastic chronicle of the most important kingdom on the south coast of the island of Borneo.  Its narrative, spanning the 15th to 17th centuries, relates the founding of the kingdom of Banjar, the rise of the ruling house, and its later conversion to Islam.  According to the text, the kingdom was founded by a merchant prince from India who comes to seek his fortune in Southeast Asia.  His newly-established court, modelled on the great Javanese kingdoms to the south across the Java sea, initially thrives on trade with China, but is eventually unsettled by the booming pepper market and its impact on the established social order in Banjar.

The first page of the Hikayat Banjar, which begins with the story of a rich merchant in India named Saudagar Mangkubumi, ancestor of the kings of Banjar.  British Library, Add.12392, f.2v.
The first page of the Hikayat Banjar, which begins with the story of a rich merchant in India named Saudagar Mangkubumi, ancestor of the kings of Banjar.  British Library, Add.12392, f.2v.    noc

The text of Hikayat Banjar was completed in or soon after 1663, but all surviving manuscripts date from the nineteenth century.  The British Library’s manuscript, Add.12392, which has just been digitised and can be read online here, is the earliest copy known of this work.  It was copied in 1816 for Thomas Stamford Raffles while he was Lieutenant-Governor of Java (1811-1816), through the assistance of Sultan Syarif Kasim of Pontianak (r.1808-1819), on the west coast of Borneo.  According to a note at the beginning of this manuscript, Raffles had asked the Sultan - who had previously sent him a Malay legal text and a copy of the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain - to find him a manuscript of Hikayat Banjar.  Sultan Syarif Kasim had despatched a boat in search of the text, and a copy was finally located in the possession of the ruler of Kota Ringin in south Borneo, from which the present manuscript was copied.  But by the time the copy was completed Raffles had already left Java for Europe, and so Sultan Syarif Kasim writes that he is sending the manuscript to John Crawfurd, Resident of Yogyakarta in Java, in order that Crawfurd might convey it to Raffles in England.  Probably due to the scholarly rivalry between Crawfurd and Raffles – both were engaged in writing major works on the history of  the Malay archipelago – the manuscript was never delivered to Raffles, and in 1842 entered the British Museum along with Crawfurd’s other Malay manuscripts.

Tertulis pada satu hari bulan Zulkaidah pada tarikh sanat 1231.  British Library, Add. 12392, f.1r (detail).
The note dated 1 Zulkaidah 1231 (23 September 1816) explaining that the manuscript was a gift from the sultan of Pontianak for Raffles: Ini surat hikayat Lambu Mangkurat Jenral Mister Raffles sudah minta kepada Sultan di negeri Pontianak tolong cari ini hikayat, maka Sultan Pontianak sudah suruh satu perahu cari ini hikayat, maka sudah dapat di dalam negeri Kota Ringin kepada raja Kota Ringin, maka Sultan Pontianak sudah dengar khabar Mister Raffles Lutenan Jeneral sudah pulang di Europa, maka Sultan Pontianak sudah kasih ini hikayat kepada sahabat kita Kapitan William Scott biar Kapitan William Scott kasih kepada Mister Crawfurd residen di dalam negeri Jogja, dan jika Mister Crawfurd pulang di negeri Europa bilang sultan Pontianak kasih tabik salam banyak2 kepada Mister Raffles.  Tertulis pada satu hari bulan Zulkaidah pada tarikh sanat 1231.  British Library, Add. 12392, f.1r (detail).  noc

The second manuscript is a very brief letter, Or. 14537, dated 8 Zulhijah 1259 (30 December 1843).  It is from Haji Abdul Rahman, penghulu or chief of Banjarmasin, to two Dutch officials, asking for the return of wooden beams for the mosque, urgently needed before of the feast of Id al-Adha on the following Monday.  The single sheet of paper was then simply folded and then sealed shut, and the address written on the outside.  Haji Abdul Rahman writes his signature in fluent roman letters, suggesting he was literate in both Arabic and Latin script.  Why or how this letter - never intended to outlast its aim of retrieving the mosque beams - survived is not known, but we are glad to have it, as a rare example of a concise Indonesian 'memo' written nearly two hundred years ago.

British Library, Or. 14537 (detail)
Text of the letter: Bahwa ini surat daripada saya Haji Abdul Rahman penghulu di Banjarmasin mendapatkan sahabat saya Tuan Hendrik postaur di Muara Pantuil atau Sennyur Karlus postaur di Muara Cerucuk. Ini kaum2 mesjid di Banjar saya sudah mencari batang mesjid larut kabar2 orang ada di Pantuil kepada sahabat kita, iaitu kalau betul ada kita minta kembali itu batang pakai batang mesjid boleh sahabat kita kasih saja itu batang kepada yang membawa surat kita ini mau dipakai lekas sebab hari isnin yang di muka ini ada hari besar bulan Haj demikian adanya. Maka tiada apa2 lain hanya dicintakan sahabat kita tetap di dalam segala selamat juga adanya. Hari Sabtu 8 bulan Haj sanat 1259. ‘This is a letter from me Haji Abdul Rahman, Penghulu of Banjarmasin, to my friend Tuan Hendrik, Posthouder of Muara Pantuil, or to Senor Carlos, Posthouder of Muara Cerucuk. My mosque congregation in Banjar has been searching for the beams from the old mosque, and some people say that these are in Pantuil with my friend; if this is true then we request that these be returned for use in the mosque, my friend may give the beams to the bearer of this letter, because we need them urgently as this coming Monday is the feastday of the month of Hajj. There is nothing more to add save my loving wishes that my friend may remain in all safety. Saturday 8th of the month of Hajj, the year 1259.’  British Library, Or. 14537 (detail).  noc

Further reading

I. Proudfoot and A.T. Gallop. ‘57. Hikayat Raja-Raja Banjar’.  Macau: o primeiro século de um porto internacional / Macau: the first century of an international port, Jorge M. dos Santos Alves.  Lisbon: Centro Cientifico e Cultural de Macau, 2007, pp.160-162.

J.J. Ras, Hikajat Bandjar: a study in Malay historiography.  The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968. (Bibliotheca Indonesica; 1).

A.T. Gallop, Three Malay letters from Sumenep, Banjarmasin and Brunei. Malay-Indonesian studies: dedicated to the 80th birthday of Vilen Sikorsky, ed. Victor A. Pogadaev.  Moscow: Econ-inform, 2012; pp.117-127. (Malay-Indonesian Studies; XIX).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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05 December 2013

Zoroastrian visions of heaven and hell

Three of the most fascinating exhibits in ‘The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination’, on view at the Brunei Gallery SOAS until December 15th, concern the Zoroastrian vision of heaven and hell.

The revelations of Arda Viraz (‘righteous Viraz’), or Viraf, as his name has been transcribed in Persian, were written in Pahlavi (pre-Islamic Persian) during the early Islamic period, and reflect a time of religious instability. The story is set in the reign of the founder of the Sasanian Empire, Ardashir I (r. 224-241). It describes how the Zoroastrian community selected the righteous Viraz to visit the world of the dead returning with an account of the rewards and punishments in store. Although the story did not assume its definitive form until the 9th to 10 centuries AD, it can be regarded as part of a tradition of visionary accounts, the earliest of which is found in present-day Iran in the third-century inscriptions of the Zoroastrian high priest Kirder.

Many copies of this popular story survive in both prose and verse, with versions in Persian, Gujarati, Sanskrit and even Arabic (Kargar, p.29). Several include vivid illustrations, re-enforcing the story’s underlying importance as a Zoroastrian pedagogic text.

Arda Viraz with the divinities Srosh, Mihr and Rashn, the judge, at the Chinvat bridge, which the souls of the dead must cross. Traditionally, if a soul’s good deeds outweigh the bad it is met by a beautiful woman (actually an embodiment of the deceased's life on earth), the bridge is broad and it can easily cross on its way to paradise; if not, the bridge becomes narrow, the soul encounters an ugly hag and falls into hell. Rylands Persian MS 41, f.12r.  Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester
Arda Viraz with the divinities Srosh, Mihr and Rashn, the judge, at the Chinvat bridge, which the souls of the dead must cross. Traditionally, if a soul’s good deeds outweigh the bad it is met by a beautiful woman (actually an embodiment of the deceased's life on earth), the bridge is broad and it can easily cross on its way to paradise; if not, the bridge becomes narrow, the soul encounters an ugly hag and falls into hell.
Rylands Persian MS 41, f.12r.  Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester

The two manuscripts in ‘The Everlasting Flame’ are copies of a popular Persian version composed in verse in Iran at the end of the 13th century by Zartosht Bahram Pazhdu. The British Library’s manuscript (Reg.16.B.1) was copied in India and dates from the late 17th century. Although the text is in the Persian language, it was copied line by line in both Persian and Avestan (old Iranian) scripts, reflecting a tradition of transcribing Zoroastrian texts in a ‘Zoroastrian’ (i.e. Avestan) script. The manuscript was acquired for the orientalist Thomas Hyde (1636-1703) who used it as a means of deciphering the previously undeciphered Avestan script.
 
Reg_16_b_1_ff1-2
The beginning of Thomas Hyde’s copy of the Arda Viraf namah
British Library Reg.16.B.1, ff 1v-2r.   noc

The second copy on display (John Rylands Persian MS 41) contains 60 illustrations which vividly depict the rewards and punishments awarded after death. The scene below describes happy souls in a sweet smelling garden in paradise where birds sing, golden fishes swim and musicians perform. On enquiring how they earned such a reward, Arda Viraf is told that, while living, they killed frogs, scorpions, snakes, ants and other evil creatures (khrastar and hasharat)– one of the most meritorious actions a good Zoroastrian could perform.
 
A scene in paradise. Rylands Persian MS 41, f.26r.  Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester
A scene in paradise. Rylands Persian MS 41, f.26r
Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester

In contrast, more than half of the illustrations in this manuscript depict the gruesome punishments in store for those judged deficient at the Chinvat Bridge. These were to some extent tailored to the crimes committed on earth; for example the man who had butchered believers was punished by being flayed alive, another who had overindulged and not given food to the poor was starved until forced to eat his own arms out of hunger. Punishments were meted out by demonic creatures, mostly consisting of those same evil scorpions, snakes and reptiles which good Zoroastrians were encouraged to destroy.
On the right: sinners who neglected to wear the sacred girdle (kusti) and were slack in matters of religious ritual are being eaten by demonic animals. On the left: a woman is hung upside down and tormented. Her crime was to disobey her husband and argue with him. Rylands Persian MS 41. ff 47v-48r.  Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester
On the right: sinners who neglected to wear the sacred girdle (kusti) and were slack in matters of religious ritual are being eaten by demonic animals. On the left: a woman is hung upside down and tormented. Her crime was to disobey her husband and argue with him.
Rylands Persian MS 41. ff 47v-48r.  Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester

This manuscript was copied in July 1789 in Navsari, Gujarat, by a Zoroastrian, Peshotan Jiv Hirji Homji. It was brought to England at the end of the 18th century by a collector Samuel Guise, a surgeon working for the East India Company at its factory in Surat. Guise’s collection caused quite a stir in the literary world, being mentioned in journals such as The Edinburgh Magazine and the British Critic (Sims-Williams, p.200). The orientalist William Ouseley reproduced the illustration of the disobedient wife in his Oriental Collections published in 1798. After Guise’s death in 1811, his collection was sold. Most of his Zoroastrian manuscripts were acquired by the East India Company Library (now at the British Library) but this manuscript was purchased by the Persian scholar, John Haddon Hindley. Eventually it was bought by Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford, from the estate of another Persian scholar, Nathaniel Bland and is now in the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. It has recently been digitised and images of the entire work can be seen at https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/x263o9.
 
An 18th century facsimile of Samuel Guise’s copy  of the Arda Viraf namah, included with some of the earliest engravings of Zoroastrian manuscripts in William Ouseley’s Oriental Collections. British Library SV 400, vol. 2 part 3, facing p. 318.
An 18th century facsimile of Samuel Guise’s copy  of the Arda Viraf namah, included with some of the earliest engravings of Zoroastrian manuscripts in William Ouseley’s Oriental Collections.
British Library SV 400, vol. 2 part 3, facing p. 318.  noc

Further reading:

S. Stewart (ed), The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Special discounted paperback edition available only from the SOAS bookshop
Articles: “Ardā Wīrāz”  by Ph. Gignoux,  “Činwad puhl” by A. Tafazzoli and “Kartir”  by P. O. Skjærvø in Encyclopædia Iranica (http://www.iranicaonline.org/).
D. Kargar, Arday-Viraf Nama: Iranian conceptions of the other world. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2009.
H. Jamaspji Asa, M. Haug, and E.W. West, The Book of Arda Viraf: The Pahlavi Text Prepared by Destur Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa. Bombay: Govt. Central Book Depot, 1872.
J.A. Pope (tr.), The Ardai Viraf Nameh; or, the Revelations of Ardai Viraf. London: Black, Parbury & Allen, 1816.
W. Ouseley, The Oriental Collections. London: Printed by Cooper and Graham, 1797-1800.
U. Sims-Williams,  “The strange story of Samuel Guise: an 18th-century collection of Zorostrian manuscripts,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19, 2005 (2009), pp. 199-209.

 

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies
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25 November 2013

Two Malay manuscripts from Wales: Sejarah Melayu and Hikayat Hang Tuah

To many young Malays today, the most immediate fact that comes to mind about Wales is Malaysian ownership of the Cardiff City football team.  But there is another, much older, Welsh-Malay connection: for over 160 years, two important Malay manuscripts were housed in the small but historic town of Lampeter in southwest Wales.

Malay literary manuscripts are rare, and it is always a cause for some excitement when a previously unknown one surfaces. It is even more interesting when two manuscripts are found together, and they contain the two iconic Malay texts from the glory days of the great kingdom of Melaka: the Sejarah Melayu or Sulalat al-Salatin, ‘Descent of Kings’ (Or.16214), and the Hikayat Hang Tuah, ‘Epic of Hang Tuah’ (Or.16215).  These two manuscripts, which were acquired by the British Library in 2006 from the University of Wales in Lampeter, have just been digitised and can be read by clicking on the highlighted shelfmarks above.  
    
The story of the manuscripts revolves around the figure of Thomas Phillips (1760-1851), a London-born but Welsh-bred East India Company surgeon who for many years was based in India.  In 1796 he visited Penang on his way back to India from Australia, and in 1811 he accompanied the British expeditionary force under Lord Minto which invaded and captured Java (Morgan-Guy 2010).  In 1817 Thomas Phillips retired and returned to London a wealthy man, but a notably generous and charitable one.  In retirement in London, he developed 'what can only be termed an obsession for the purchase and distribution of books on a massive scale’ (Walters 1999: 37), presenting over 22,000 volumes to St. David’s College in Lampeter, including our two Malay manuscripts.

First page of the Sejarah Melayu manuscript.  British Library, Or.16214, f.1r.
First page of the Sejarah Melayu manuscript.  British Library, Or.16214, f.1r.  noc
Colophon of the manuscript, called here Hikayat Melayu, and dated Saturday 16 Rejab in Singapore: Tamatlah kisah Hikayat Melayu ini kepada enam belas hari bulan Rejab dalam negeri Singapura yaum al-Sabtu jam pukul sebelas maka ada pun surat ini disalin daripada surat yang ada kepada orang Melaka yang menyuratnya Enci’ Husain bi[n] [I]smail yang ada terhenti di Tanah Merah itulah adanya.  British Library, Or.16214, f.301r (detail).
Colophon of the manuscript, called here Hikayat Melayu, and dated Saturday 16 Rejab in Singapore: Tamatlah kisah Hikayat Melayu ini kepada enam belas hari bulan Rejab dalam negeri Singapura yaum al-Sabtu jam pukul sebelas maka ada pun surat ini disalin daripada surat yang ada kepada orang Melaka yang menyuratnya Enci’ Husain bi[n] [I]smail yang ada terhenti di Tanah Merah itulah adanya.  British Library, Or.16214, f.301r (detail).  noc

The manuscript of Sejarah Melayu is a copy of the ‘long’ version, ending with the defeat of Johor by Jambi, which was copied in Singapore on 16 Rejab (no year given), by Husain bin Ismail – one of the most prolific Malay scribes known (Tol 2001) – from a manuscript belonging to a person of Melaka. At the top of the first page is a note: ‘Sa Jarha Malayu, or Code of Malay Law, copied from a Manuscript lent me by Count von Ranzow who had it from His Highness Abdoolrachman Shah, Sultan of Linga. F.J.D.’. Lodewijk Carel, Graaf von Ranzow, was the Dutch Resident in the Riau islands, to the south of Singapore, from 1822 to 1826, while Sultan Abdul Rahman Syah, sultan of Riau, reigned in Lingga from 1812 to 1832. However, the identity of F.J.D. is unknown.  This manuscript can be compared with another copy of the Sejarah Melayu in the British Library, Or.14734, which I wrote about in September, which was copied in Melaka in 1873.

A view of Singapore published in 1830, just before the manuscript of the Sejarah Melayu was copied in Tanah Merah.  British Library, P1681.
A view of Singapore published in 1830, just before the manuscript of the Sejarah Melayu was copied in Tanah Merah.  British Library, P1681.  noc

The manuscript of Hikayat Hang Tuah contains some reading marks in pencil in English in the margin, dated 1835.  It joins another manuscript of this epic in the British Library, Add.12384, which was copied in Kedah, and which has also been digitised and can be read here.  

Opening page of the Hikayat Hang Tuah.  Or.16215, f.2v (detail).
Opening page of the Hikayat Hang Tuah.  Or.16215, f.2v (detail).  noc

Although Phillips was in Southeast Asia on at least two separate occasions, he appears to have acquired the Malay manuscripts after his return to London in 1817, for they are both written on English paper, watermarked with the dates ‘1832’ in the case of the Sejarah Melayu, and ‘1828’ for the Hikayat Hang Tuah.  The two manuscripts were probably acquired by Phillips from the same source, for both bear pasted-on printed labels apparently cut out from a bookseller’s or auctioneer’s catalogue, that on the Hikayat Hang Tuah reflecting a complete lack of understanding of the role of rubrication (the use of red ink to highlight certain important words) in the Malay (or any other!) manuscript tradition: ‘Another copy of the Hang Tuah, of larger size, on European paper. / All the preceding Malay MSS, are fairly and elegantly transcribed in the Arabic Character, and on every occasion that a lacuna in the original MS is supplied in the copy, it is done in red ink; an evidence of the fidelity of the writer.’ The wording of the label suggests that this was just one of a number of Malay manuscripts offered for sale, presumably in London, probably between the years 1835 and 1842, the date of their donation to Lampeter.  I have not been able to identify the source of these printed labels; if anyone can, please contact me!

Cutting from a bookseller's catalogue, and old ownership label from St. David's Lampeter, on the Sejarah Melayu manuscript.  British Library, Or.16214, f.10v.
Cutting from a bookseller's catalogue, and old ownership label from St. David's Lampeter, on the Sejarah Melayu manuscript.  British Library, Or.16214, f.10v.  noc
Label from a bookseller's catalogue on the Hikayat Hang Tuah manuscript.  British Library, Or.16215, f.1r (detail).
Label from a bookseller's catalogue on the Hikayat Hang Tuah manuscript.  British Library, Or.16215, f.1r (detail).  noc

Further reading

John Morgan-Guy, ‘Biography of Thomas Phillips: A Cultivated and Well-Stored Mind, Thomas Phillips MRCS, Benefactor of St David's College Lampeter’,  2010.
Roger Tol, ‘Master scribes: Husin bin Ismail, Abdullah bin Abdulkadir, their handwritings and the Hikayat Abdullah’, Archipel, 2001, 61 (1):115-138.
Gwyn Walters, ‘Books from the ‘Nabob’: the benefactions of Thomas Phillips at Lampeter and Llandovery’, Trafodion Anrhydeddus Gymdeithas y Cymmrodorion 1998 / Transactions of the Honorouble Society of Cymmrodorion.  New series, Vol. 5, 1999, pp.36-61.

Annabel  Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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22 November 2013

‘The Speech of the Birds’: an illustrated Persian manuscript

Among the treasures recently digitised thanks to the generous support of the Iran Heritage Foundation is an illustrated copy (BL Add. 7735) of one of the most famous works in all classical Persian literature: Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr (‘Speech of the Birds’), a Sufi allegory of the quest for God.

In Manṭiq al-ṭayr, ‘Aṭṭār describes how the hoopoe, leader of the birds, tries to persuade them to set out on a quest to find the Sīmurgh, the supreme and immortal Bird who here symbolises the Creator. Most of the birds produce reasons why they cannot – or will not – undertake the perilous journey. Finally the hoopoe sets out with a few companions. Traversing seven valleys, which represent stages of the mystical Path, the thirty birds (sī murgh) finally encounter the object of their search, the Sīmurgh. Losing their illusory separative identities in the beatific vision, they find everlasting fulfilment.

Such is the narrative framework; but as in his other didactic works in masnavī form (rhyming couplets), ‘Aṭṭār intersperses many moral and instructive tales touching on the main themes of the poem. These include spiritual and earthly love and passion; faith and disbelief; death and the transitory nature of life in this world; and the ways in which ‘worlds collide’ in encounters between people who because of their respective positions in life are divided by a gulf that at times appears – and is surely intended by the author to be – partially analogous to that between the Creator and His creation. For that is one of the predominant leitmotifs in the illustrations to our manuscript. A future posting will look at the subjects of the paintings and their relationship to ‘Aṭṭār’s didactic messages.

First page of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr.  British Library, Add.7735, f.1v.
First page of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr.  British Library, Add.7735, f.1v.  noc

What is now Add. 7735 was acquired by the British Museum in 1825 by Act of Parliament from the estate of Claudius James Rich (1787-1821), British Resident at Baghdad and a discriminating collector of some 806 Islamic manuscripts, all now in the British Library. The previous history of this manuscript is almost completely unknown; firstly because it is now incomplete and has no colophon, and secondly because any other evidence has been lost through the removal of any folios at the beginning or end of the volume which did not contain text. Folio 1r has several ownership inscriptions; all, however, date from the 12th/18th century.

An interesting feature of this manuscript which has hitherto escaped attention is the omission of a number of the stories that occur near the end of the poem. As Dick Davis, whose translation omits the epilogue, has remarked, it is anticlimactic. Indeed, its omission from Add. 7735 would have been more understandable for the sake of literary effect. But comparison with pp. 253-8 of the critical edition by Sayyid Ṣādiq Gawharīn, to whose memory this posting is dedicated, shows that the manuscript, which has matching catchwords and no missing text folios, lacks six consecutive stories altogether, then resumes with the last three tales about the Seljuk vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (ed. Gawharīn, p. 258), the Prophet Solomon, and the famous Khurāsānian Sufi Abū Sa‘īd of Mihana. The epilogue text ends as in Gawharīn (p. 259), leaving about 40% of the text area free for the colophon that was never added.

Last page of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr.  British Library, Add.7735, f.208r.
Last page of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr.  British Library, Add.7735, f.208r.  noc

Further textual omissions appear to have been avoided by the calligrapher who copied the manuscript writing in a smaller hand to compensate for want of space. A total of 18 extra bayts (couplets) were fitted into the lengthy story of a king who killed his vizier’s son out of jealousy (cf. ed. Gawharīn p. 238-43): 3 bayts on 195v, 3 + 3 on 196r, 3 on 197r, 3 on 197v, and 3 on 198r. Further scrutiny may perhaps bring further actual omissions from Add. 7735 to light.

Manṭiq al-ṭayr, with six couplets added.  British Library, Add.7735, f.196r.
Manṭiq al-ṭayr, with six couplets added.  British Library, Add.7735, f.196r.  noc

The lack of documentary evidence for the date and region of origin of the manuscript is compensated for, to a limited extent, by the presence of miniature paintings in a style that displays a number of specific influences, and with which the fine nasta‘līq calligraphy and opening illuminated headpiece are consistent. Published descriptions of the paintings describe them as being in what is called the Later Herat style, associated with the patronage of Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā who ruled from that city between 1469 and 1506, and with Kamāl al-Dīn Bihzād (d. 1536), the most famous of all Persian painters. Despite their similarities, however, the miniatures in Add. 7735 differ noticeably from those found, for example, in the British Library manuscripts Add. 25900 and Or. 6810, both copies of Niẓāmī’s Khamsa (‘Five Poems’), and in the superb copy of Sa‘dī’s poem Būstān (Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, Cairo), all produced under Bihzād’s supervision and with his participation. Likewise, they differ from the four contemporary illustrations in the equally magnificent, and Bihzādian, manuscript of ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr (Fletcher Fund, 63.210) preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The miniatures in Add. 7735 do possess some of the charm, compositional flair and atmosphere of the late 15th century masterpieces just referred to; but they are less conceptually ambitious, more restricted in palette, architectural detail and landscape, and lack the magisterial touch of Bihzād. It is known, however, that Bihzād, his star student Shaykhzāda, and a number of other Herat painters were ‘offered’ positions at the court of the Uzbek Shaybānids, based at Bukhara, who conquered the region in 1506. Others joined later, finding themselves no longer comfortable as Sunnīs in Iran under the militantly Shī‘ī Safavid dynasty. These developments ensured the partial continuation of the Later Herat tradition. Given their similarity, in certain respects, to some of the more Herat-influenced Bukhara painting of the first two or three decades of the 16th century, one is tempted to assign the Manṭiq al-ṭayr tentatively to that era.

So far as can be ascertained, our Manṭiq al-ṭayr manuscript has been ‘formally’ exhibited (apart from occasional appearances in the general display of manuscripts in the British Library, and before that in the British Museum) only twice, in 1967 and 1977; and most of the nine miniatures have never been published. Moreover, there are several inaccuracies in the descriptions of their subjects given in Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts, the late Norah Titley’s pioneering and invaluable catalogue and subject index of miniatures in the British Library and British Museum. It therefore seems a worthwhile project to reproduce and discuss them, with reference to ‘Aṭṭār’s text, in a future posting for this blog.

This manuscript is now available in our digitised manuscripts viewer. Follow us on twitter (@BLAsia_Africa) to keep in touch with further developments.


Further reading
‘Aṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn Muḥammad. Manṭiq al-ṭayr (Maqāmāt al-ṭuyūr). Ed. and comm. Sayyid Ṣādiq Gawharīn. Tehran, 1342/1963.
Attar, Farid ud-Din. The Conference of the Birds. Tr. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis. London, 1984.
Bahari, Ebadollah. Bihzad, master of Persian painting. London and New York, 1997.
Lukens, Marie G. ‘The Fifteenth-Century miniatures’. Online: Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with JSTOR (PDF downloadable here).
Titley, N.M. Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts. London, 1974.
 
Muhammad Isa Waley, Curator for Persian

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18 November 2013

The Malay Story of the Pig King

One Malay manuscript in the British Library never fails to attract the attention of visiting scholars from Malaysia and Indonesia.  The manuscript is not beautifully illuminated or especially old, nor does it contain a text of great historical or literary value.  But everyone is intrigued by its title, Hikayat Raja Babi, ‘The Story of the Pig King’ (Add. 12393), highly unusual in a Malay Muslim milieu, where pigs are regarded as unclean animals staunchly avoided and best ignored.  What’s more, this Pig King is described as a paragon of courage and nobility.

Hikayat Raja Babi tells of the adventures of a prince who came to the world in the form of a pig.  Most Malay works of fantastical literature are anonymous, and are only known today from manuscripts that are probably multi-generational copies of the original composition, and which have usually been embellished by each succeeding scribe.  The manuscript of Hikayat Raja Babi is quite exceptional in opening with a lengthy note by the author, explaining why, how and when he came to write the tale.  The story was written by Usup ibn Abdul Kadir, a merchant from Semarang of Indian descent from Cooch in west Bengal (peranakan Kuj), during a trading voyage to Palembang. Having no success, he anchored in Sungai Lawang and consoled himself by writing this story, and completed it in twenty days, on 10 Zulkaidah 1188 (12 January 1775).  He begs his readers not to mock or scorn his unruly letters or his handwiting which had run wild, mengamuk – familiar as the Malay word which has entered the English language as ‘amok’.

Palembang harbour, a pen-and-ink and wash drawing probably by one of Colin Mackenzie’s draftsmen, ca.1811-1814.  British Library, Add.Or.5003.
Palembang harbour, a pen-and-ink and wash drawing probably by one of Colin Mackenzie’s draftsmen, ca.1811-1814.  British Library, Add.Or.5003.  noc

The author’s note on completing the story (Hijrah al-nabi salla Allah ‘alayhi wa-salam seribu seratus delapan puluh delapan tahun sepuluh bulan kepada bulan Zulkaidah dan kepada tahun ha dan kepada hari Jumaat dan waktu pukul sebelas bahwa tamat hikayat caritera Raja Babi adapun yang punya Ayahan [or ayahnya?] Usup ibn Abdul Kadir peranakan Kuj anak di negeri Semarang di Kampung Melayu asalnya duduk kemudian maka pindah di Pakujan luar kota tatkala pergi berdagang ke negeri Palembang maka tiada punya dagang dan duduk berlabuh di Sungai Lawang maka hendak mengiburkan hati supaya jangan menjadi gundah maka duduk menyurat dua puluh hari lamanya maka tamat dan barang siapa suka membaca tetapi jangan ditertawakan dan disunguti daripada hal hurufnya karena kalamnya mengamuk urat kenakan tauladannya d.m.y.t.q tamat bi-al-khayr). British Library, Add. 12393, f.3r.
The author’s note on completing the story (Hijrah al-nabi salla Allah ‘alayhi wa-salam seribu seratus delapan puluh delapan tahun sepuluh bulan kepada bulan Zulkaidah dan kepada tahun ha dan kepada hari Jumaat dan waktu pukul sebelas bahwa tamat hikayat caritera Raja Babi adapun yang punya Ayahan [or ayahnya?] Usup ibn Abdul Kadir peranakan Kuj anak di negeri Semarang di Kampung Melayu asalnya duduk kemudian maka pindah di Pakujan luar kota tatkala pergi berdagang ke negeri Palembang maka tiada punya dagang dan duduk berlabuh di Sungai Lawang maka hendak mengiburkan hati supaya jangan menjadi gundah maka duduk menyurat dua puluh hari lamanya maka tamat dan barang siapa suka membaca tetapi jangan ditertawakan dan disunguti daripada hal hurufnya karena kalamnya mengamuk urat kenakan tauladannya d.m.y.t.q tamat bi-al-khayr). British Library, Add. 12393, f.3r.  noc

The story was evidently well appreciated in Semarang, for it passed from the author’s possession to three generations of owners, who recorded their names on its pages: Muhammad Salih (f.105r); Ismail ibn Muhammad Salih (f.105r); and Encik Amaladin ibn Ismail Muhammad Salih (f.2r), who asks anyone who borrows the book to be sure to return it as soon as they have finished reading it.  The manuscript was subsequently acquired by John Crawfurd, who served in the British administration in Java from 1811 to 1816, and whose collection of Indonesian manuscripts was sold to the British Museum in 1842.  No other manusript of this story is known to be held in any other library. 

So what is Hikayat Raja Babi about?  The story starts by describing how this Pig King was so brave and strong that no other king could match him.  But what happened next?  The answer, alas, is unknown, for despite the flurry of interest always aroused by its title, Hikayat Raja Babi has never been studied or published.  If anyone would like to be the first to do so, just click here and start reading!

The story begins: ‘This is the tale of the Pig King, the greatest hero of his age, no other prince could match the Pig King’ (Al-kisah peri mengatakan cetera Raja Babi yang pahlawan lagi perkasa kepada zaman masa itu seorang pun tiada boleh segala raja2 sebagai Raja Babi).  British Library, Add. 12393, f.3v.

The story begins: ‘This is the tale of the Pig King, the greatest hero of his age, no other prince could match the Pig King’ (Al-kisah peri mengatakan cetera Raja Babi yang pahlawan lagi perkasa kepada zaman masa itu seorang pun tiada boleh segala raja2 sebagai Raja Babi).  British Library, Add. 12393, f.3v.   noc

Two owners of the manuscript have inscribed their names: Encik Muhammad Salih and - doubtless his son - Encik Ismail ibn Muhammad Salih of Semarang, Kampung Pakujan, Gang Tengah.  British Library, Add. 12393, f.105r (detail).
Two owners of the manuscript have inscribed their names: Encik Muhammad Salih and - doubtless his son - Encik Ismail ibn Muhammad Salih of Semarang, Kampung Pakujan, Gang Tengah.  British Library, Add. 12393, f.105r (detail).  noc

Another owner, Encik Amaladin ibn Ismail Muhammad Salih is evidently the son and grandson of the first two owners mentioned above.  British Library, Add. 12393, f.2r (detail).
Another owner, Encik Amaladin ibn Ismail Muhammad Salih is evidently the son and grandson of the first two owners mentioned above.  British Library, Add. 12393, f.2r (detail).  noc

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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11 November 2013

Semarang: Javanese city of Malay scribes

Last month I wrote about one of our most important Malay manuscripts, the Hikayat Raja Pasai, ‘Chronicle of the kings of Pasai’, Or. 14350, which was copied in Semarang in 1797.  At least four other Malay manuscripts in the British Library’s collection can also be linked to Semarang, a bustling port city on the north coast of Java, which in the 18th and 19th centuries seems to have been a hive of Malay scribal activity, centred on the districts of Kampung Melayu, Kampung Tawang and Kampung Pakujan.  These manuscripts are all now fully accessible online through the ongoing project to digitise Malay manuscripts in the British Library.

The countryside around Semarang, on the north coast of Java, by Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn.  British Library, 1781.a.21, plate 1.
The countryside around Semarang, on the north coast of Java, by Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn.  British Library, 1781.a.21, plate 1.   noc

First is a copy of the Hikayat Dewa Mandu, Add. 12376, which tells the story of Raja Kangsa Indra Pekerma Raja. This belongs to a very popular Malay genre of fantastic adventure narratives, mostly composed anonymously in the 16th or 17th centuries, drawing upon a great number of motifs and descriptive devices deriving from Indian, Javanese and Middle Eastern literatures, yet representing true Malay re-creations rather than mere translations.  According to Braginsky (2004: 319-321), all these stories follow the same pattern: a prince is born in a great kingdom, who through some misfortune is forced to leave his native land and undergo a long and arduous journey involving battles with monsters and other adversaries, during the course of which he marries – sometimes several times – before finally triumphantly returning and regaining his throne.  Although the text of the British Library’s Hikayat Dewa Mandu is incomplete, the manuscript contains some charming doodled sketches of faces drawn in accordance with the stylised iconographic conventions of wayang kulit, the Javanese shadow puppet theatre.  A note at the end is dated 1200 AH (1785/6 AD) and mentions that the owner was Encik Babah of Kampung Tawang, Semarang.  Kampung Tawang’s current claim to fame is as the site of Semarang’s Tawang Station, built in 1868 and one of the oldest railway stations in Indonesia.

Sketch of a figure in wayang style.  British Library, Add. 12376, f.221r (detail).
Sketch of a figure in wayang style.  British Library, Add. 12376, f.221r (detail).  noc
Hikayat Dewa Mandu, beginning of an episode concerning Raja Belia Dewa and Dewa Raksa Malik.  British Library, Add. 12376, f.108r.
Hikayat Dewa Mandu, beginning of an episode concerning Raja Belia Dewa and Dewa Raksa Malik.  British Library, Add. 12376, f.108r.  noc
A note dated 1200 AH (1785/6 AD) giving the name of the owner as Encik Babah and his residence as Kampung Tawang in Semarang.  British Library, Add. 12376, f.217v (detail).
A note dated 1200 AH (1785/6 AD) giving the name of the owner as Encik Babah and his residence as Kampung Tawang in Semarang.  British Library, Add. 12376, f.217v (detail).  noc

Also copied in Kampung Tawang is a manuscript of Hikayat Syahi Mardan, Add. 12388, one of the most popular and widespread of the fantastical adventure Malay hikayat, manuscripts of which have been found from Minangkabau to Mindanao.  A colophon in syair verse form at the end of the text states that the manuscript was completed on Sunday at 9 o'clock in the morning in the month of Muharam – frustratingly, as is often the case in Malay manuscripts, no year is given – by Encik Amat of Kampung Tawang, Semarang.  On the following page is a note with the date 1810 naming the next owner as Encik Abdullah;  Kampung Pakujan is mentioned below.  Could this be the same Encik Abdullah, the Kapitan Melayu of Semarang, who is named in Or.14350, f.45r, the British Library’s manuscript of Hikayat Raja Pasai and Hikayat Raja Handik, as the owner of the original copy of Hikayat Raja Handik from which Or.14350 was copied?

Colophon of Hikayat Syahi Mardan, in verse form:  tamatlah surat tamat hikayat / tamat di dalam hari ahad, kepada waktu pukul sembilan /  pagi kepada bulan Muharam, bukan hikayat bukan sindiran / akan pengibur hati yang dandam, Enci' Amat akan namanya / di bandar Semarang kediamannya, ialah terlalu amat daifnya / di Kampung Tawang akan rumahnya.  British Library, Add. 12388, f.79r
Colophon of Hikayat Syahi Mardan, in verse form:

tamatlah surat tamat hikayat / tamat di dalam hari ahad,
kepada waktu pukul sembilan /  pagi kepada bulan Muharam,
bukan hikayat bukan sindiran / akan pengibur hati yang dandam,
Enci' Amat akan namanya / di bandar Semarang kediamannya,
ialah terlalu amat daifnya / di Kampung Tawang akan rumahnya.

British Library, Add. 12388, f.79r.  noc

A third Malay manuscript from Semarang, Add. 12385*, Hikayat Dewa Indera Layangan, tells the story of a king Mengindera Cuwaca of Indera Percangga and his sons. This manuscript is dated clearly 1815, and was copied in Kampung Melayu in Semarang.

Opening page of Hikayat Dewa Indera Layangan, with a decorative headpiece.  British Library, Add.12385*, f.2v.
Opening page of Hikayat Dewa Indera Layangan, with a decorative headpiece.  British Library, Add.12385*, f.2v.   noc
Colophon stating that the manuscript was completed on 30 Safar 1230 (11 February 1815) on a Thursday, at 9 o’clock, in the Malay quarter of Semarang (tarikh seribu dua ratus tiga puluh tahun kepada tahun zai dan kepada tiga puluh hari bulan Safar kepada hari Khamis pukul sembilan dewasa itulah tamatnya Hikayat Indera Layangan dalam negeri Semarang Kampung Melayu adanya).  British Library, Add. 12385*, f.69r (detail). 
Colophon stating that the manuscript was completed on 30 Safar 1230 (11 February 1815) on a Thursday, at 9 o’clock, in the Malay quarter of Semarang (tarikh seribu dua ratus tiga puluh tahun kepada tahun zai dan kepada tiga puluh hari bulan Safar kepada hari Khamis pukul sembilan dewasa itulah tamatnya Hikayat Indera Layangan dalam negeri Semarang Kampung Melayu adanya).  British Library, Add. 12385*, f.69r (detail).   noc

All these manuscripts can be accessed directly by clicking on the highlighted shelfmarks above, or through the Digitised Manuscripts website.  In the next post I will discuss another Malay manuscript from Semarang, the strangely-named Hikayat Raja Babi, ‘The Story of the Pig King’ (Add.12393). 

Further reading
Vladimir Braginsky, The heritage of traditional Malay literature: a historical survey of genres, writings and literary views.  Leiden: KITLV, 2004.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

07 November 2013

Conference on Digital Islamic Humanities

Two representatives from the British Library attended the recent conference, ‘The Digital Humanities + Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies’, hosted by the Middle Eastern Studies Department of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Organised by Dr Elias Muhanna and held on 24-25 October 2013, this conference sought to bring together for the first time researchers and librarians using digital technologies in innovative ways to create and disseminate knowledge in the fields of Islamic and Middle East Studies

Throughout the lively conference discussion, particular themes were pursued that are very relevant to our own work at the British Library. Professor Beshara Doumani, director of Middle East Studies at Brown University, opened the conference by posing a number of important ethical questions about digital scholarship. For example, what ‘acts of violence’ are done to texts in the process of digitisation, translation, transliteration and indexing? What effect does the political economy of funding for digital projects have on the production of knowledge?

Letter from ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd (Ibn Sa‘ūd) to Captain Percy Gordon Loch, British Political Agent at Bahrain, dated 17 Safar 1335 (13 December 1916), following his visit to Kuwait to meet Sir Percy Zachariah Cox. Digitised as part of the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership. British Library, IOR/R/15/2/33, f. 11.
Letter from ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd (Ibn Sa‘ūd) to Captain Percy Gordon Loch, British Political Agent at Bahrain, dated 17 Safar 1335 (13 December 1916), following his visit to Kuwait to meet Sir Percy Zachariah Cox. Digitised as part of the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership. British Library, IOR/R/15/2/33, f. 11.  noc

These questions became a running theme throughout the conference and were picked up by Travis Zadeh (Haverford College) in his talk “Uncertainty and the Archive: Reflections on Medieval Arabic and Persian Book Culture in the Digital Age”. He demonstrated how important textual elements are lost in the modern proliferation of searchable digital forms of Arabic and Persian classical texts. Moreover, he showed how certain genres of literature, for example, manuscripts on the occult and magic, are often excluded from digitisation projects since they reflect a social history that is at odds with organisations that fund and produce these new digital archives.

Other highlights from the conference include the keynote speech of Dr Dwight Reynolds (Professor of Religious Studies, UCSB), who focused on the monumental Sirat Bani Hilal Digital Archive. This archive contains audio recordings of poets and musicians from Upper Egypt whose artistic legacy would otherwise be lost. This resource also constitutes a teaching tool, with English translations, written transcriptions from Arabic oral recitations of the thousand-year-old epic, and an explanation of the historical background of the text.

Dr Afsaneh Najmabadi (Harvard) presented her important project Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran in a talk entitled “Making (Up) an Archive: What Could Writing History Look Like in a Digital Age?”. She introduced ways in which technology can be used to document and disseminate objects central to social and cultural history that would not normally be accessible to researchers using administrative and national archives. These objects include women’s household items, dowry registries and marriage contracts, family letters and personal photographs, as well as oral history interviews.

Detail from the illuminated colophon of Tāj al-Salāṭīn, 'The Crown of Kings', a Malay guide to ethics for rulers, copied in Penang in 1239 AH (1824 AD).  British Library, Or.13295, f.191r (detail).
Detail from the illuminated colophon of Tāj al-Salāṭīn, 'The Crown of Kings', a Malay guide to ethics for rulers, copied in Penang in 1239 AH (1824 AD).  British Library, Or.13295, f.191r (detail).   noc

The difficulties and possibilities of using text mining techniques for the querying of biographical dictionaries were presented in a talk by Dr Maxim Romanov (Tufts) entitled “Abstract Models for Islamic History”. Dr Romanov accessed 29,000 biographical records to search for names, toponyms, and dates that allow the researcher to trace cultural or religious developments over an extended period or large geographical expanse. You can download a full copy of his fascinating paper here.

Dr Kirill Dmitriev (St Andrews University) presented the Language, Philology, Culture: Arab Cultural Semantics in Transition project to develop The Analytical Database of Arabic Poetry which will include comprehensive data on the vocabulary of early Arabic poetry (6th-8th centuries AD) in the form of an electronic dictionary.

Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative’s partners, Princeton University Library and Free University, Berlin, to create the groundwork for the preservation of manuscripts in private libraries in the Yemen together with the Imam Zayd ibn Ali Cultural Foundation.

Mss_jav_28_f019v
Serat Selarasa, Javanese manuscript digitised through the Ginsburg Legacy. King Kusywari attacks a Muslim sage who had interpreted his dream of three rainbows which burnt his palace as representing three princes who will overcome the country and become the new rulers. British Library MSS.Jav.28, f.19v. noc

This conference was an excellent opportunity for us to share information about the British Library’s major digitisation projects related to the Middle East, for instance the Endangered Archives Programme and the British Library’s partnership with the Qatar Foundation to digitise material related to the Persian Gulf and Arabic scientific manuscripts. We also had the opportunity to showcase current digitisation projects in the Asian and African Studies section of the Library, in particular, the Hebrew Manuscripts Project, Malay Manuscripts Digitisation Project and Persian Manuscripts Digitisation Project, as well as the smaller Southeast Asian Manuscripts digitisation project funded by the Ginsburg Legacy, all of which are expected to come to fruition in the next few years. These projects will make thousands of the British Library’s manuscripts freely available to the public on our Digitised Manuscripts website and greatly open up access to our collections.

Daniel Lowe, Gulf History and Arabic Language Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership, @dan_a_lowe

Nur Sobers-Khan, IHF Curator for Persian Manuscripts

04 November 2013

Malay manuscripts in the Sloane collection

Malay manuscripts have been present in the British Library from the very earliest days of the institution.  When the British Museum was founded in 1753, among the 71,000 natural history specimens, objects, manuscripts and printed books bequeathed to the nation by collector extraordinaire Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) were a number  from the Malay world.  These include three palm-leaf documents in Javanese (Sloane 1035, Sloane 1403.A and Sloane 1403.E), an Arabic treatise on Islamic jurisprudence with interlinear translation into Javanese (Sloane 2645), several of the earliest Malay printed vocabularies and translations of the Bible, and two manuscript volumes in Malay.  Together with all the other books and manuscripts in the library of the British Museum, these items were transferred to the newly-formed British Library in 1973. 

Portrait of Sir Hans Sloane holding a book, detail of an engraving from The Newcastle Magazine, 1785-6.  British Library, P.P. 6077.d.
Portrait of Sir Hans Sloane holding a book, detail of an engraving from The Newcastle Magazine, 1785-6.  British Library, P.P. 6077.d.  noc

The two Malay manuscripts from the Sloane collection are very different from each other, in both content and form.  One is a legal text or undang-undangSloane 2393, probably dating from the 17th or early 18th century.  Its physical form is highly unusual in that the text is written lengthwise across the page, parallel to the spine of the book.  This suggests that the manuscript may have originated in a region where palm leaf – with its horizontal format – was still the standard writing medium.  A few characters in Javanese script on the cover (see below) point to an origin in Java, or perhaps from the environs of the strongly Javanese-influenced courts of Jambi and Palembang in east Sumatra.  The text has been studied in detail by the Malaysian scholar Mohammed Jajuli Rahman, who found that it differs from most other Malay texts on Islamic law (fiqh) of the 16th to 19th centuries by focussing on criminal law (hukum jenayah).  The text introduces itself on the first page as Inilah bab takzir, ‘This is the section on punishment’, and presents definitions of and punishments for murder, injury, adultery, slander, theft and banditry, concluding with a final section on legal procedure, for example in dealing with witnesses.

Section discussing injuries to the head (Ini kitab pada menyatakan luka kepala), from Bab takzir, an early Malay text on punishments according to Islamic criminal law.  British Library, Sloane 2393, f.7r.
Section discussing injuries to the head (Ini kitab pada menyatakan luka kepala), from Bab takzir, an early Malay text on punishments according to Islamic criminal law.  British Library, Sloane 2393, f.7r.   noc

Detail showing Javanese characters on the cover of Bab takzir.  British Library, Sloane 2393, f.21v (detail).
Detail showing Javanese characters on the cover of Bab takzir.  British Library, Sloane 2393, f.21v (detail).  noc

The term ‘Malay manuscript’ generally calls to mind a work from Southeast Asia produced in a Muslim milieu, written in Malay in the adapated form of the Arabic script known as Jawi, such as Sloane 2393 described above.  But as the technical definition of  ‘Malay manuscript’ essentially covers any item written by hand in the Malay language, it thus includes some very varied types of works, such as the second Malay manuscript owned by Sir Hans Sloane: a compilation of Christian hymns and the Psalms of David, as well as services for marriage and baptism, written in romanized Malay in a 17th-century Dutch hand (Sloane 3115).  On the flyleaf is inscribed the name Cornelius van der Sluijs, and a note in Dutch stating that in the year 1672 he sailed on the ship ‘The Coat of Arms of Alkmaar’ ('t Wapen van Alkmaar) to the East Indies, as a church representative to visit the sick. His arrival in Ambon on 10 July 1674 is recorded by François Valentijn in his monumental Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën (1726, p.75), who described 'Cornelius van der Sluis' as a doctor from Utrecht.  The note in the manuscript further records that Van der Sluijs took his final church exams in 1678, and was then sent to Ternate as chief church minister.  This manuscript was therefore probably compiled in the Moluccas, in eastern Indonesia.

The Psalms of David, in romanised Malay, late 17th century.  British Library, Sloane 3115, f.16r.
The Psalms of David, in romanised Malay, late 17th century.  British Library, Sloane 3115, f.16r.   noc

Further reading
Mohamad Jajuli Rahman, The Undang-undang: a mid-eighteenth century Malay law text (BL Sloane MS 2393): transcription and translation. (Canterbury: University of Kent, Centre of South-east Asian studies, 1986).
Mohamad Jajuli Abd. Rahman, Teks undang-undang Melayu pertengahan abad kelapan belas (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1995).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asian studies

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