Asian and African studies blog

Among the Malay manuscripts in the British Library collections which have been digitised and can now be accessed online are several studies of the Malay language by European scholars. 

The earliest is a Malay grammar by William Mainstone, who served with the East India Company in Banten, Makassar and Jambi in the 17th century.  Mainstone has also been identified as the owner of a Malay manuscript of the Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah in Cambridge University Library.  In 1682 he compiled a ‘Gramatica Mallayo-Anglica’ which is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Ashmole 1808), but the British Library holds a copy (Add. 7043) made by John Haddon Hindley (1765–1827) in the early 19th century (although undated it is written on English paper watermarked ‘G Jones 1805’).  Hindley was librarian of the Chetham Library in Manchester, where he was inspired by the rich collections of Oriental manuscripts to study Persian, which may have awakened his interest in Malay.  In copying out Mainstone’s grammar, Hindley appears to have deliberately left blank pages in between, on which he could practise writing a few Malay words.

Personal pronouns, and their socially-appropriate use, from the Malay grammar by William Mainstone, 1682, copied by John Hindley, early 19th c..  British Library, Add 7043, f.57r.

Next in date are two Malay vocabularies, contained in Egerton 933.  The first item in this composite volume, occuping ff.1r-23r,  is a romanised Malay and English vocabulary entitled Kitab Malayo, compiled by ‘F.E.’ and dated 1731.  A second Malay item in the manuscript, on ff. 27r-31v, is a work entitled Ingatan Deri Pada Commissaries Gouverneur, Ingatang dery Bahasa Engres dan bahasa Malaijoe. 1815.  Together with a Malay and English vocabulary and phrasebook is a diary of events for the month of Oct. 1815, called Ingatang dery apa jang suda djadij harij-harij, including the arrival of news of the escape and return to France of ‘Bonapartij’ and the activities of several Dutch and Englishmen.  Nothing is known of the authors of either work.  The volume was previously in the library of Dr Adam Clarke (1762-1832), a Methodist minister and noted Biblical and Oriental scholar, some of whose manuscripts were acquired by the British Museum in 1842.

Malay vocabulary by ‘F.E.’, 1731.  Egerton 933, f.1r (detail).

The last manuscript, Or. 4575, is a  romanised French-Malay vocabulary, probably compiled in the early 19th century.  At the end of the volume are two pages with Malay pantun (quatrains), the last of which is the following (in modernised orthography):
kura-kura dalam perahu / kalau ginkgen mati bediri
pura-pura tidak mau / gelap buta datang sendiri
In the boat the turtle lies / the ginkgen expires if placed upright
she pretends to despise / but willingly comes at dead of night

Malay pantun at the end of a French-Malay vocabulary, early 19th c.  British Library, Or. 4575, f.35v (detail).

The volume is accompanied by a letter from Sir Woodbine Parish to a Revd. W. Barnes of Dorchester, sending him ‘the vocabulary of a South American language – though of what language I cannot say – I obtained it accidentally without any further account of it’ (f.3r).  Parish (1796-1882) was a British diplomat active on the continent in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, and who later served in Argentina.  William Barnes (1800-1886) was a Dorsetshire poet, and Parish’s gift of the mysterious unidentified vocabulary can be explained by Barnes’s profound interest in philology and etymology: his Philological Grammar of 1854 draws examples from more than sixty languages. 

Malay manuscripts from the India Office collections due to be digitised in 2014 include word lists collected by Thomas Stamford Raffles and John Leyden, and a proof copy of Thomas  Bowrey’s 1701 dictionary of Malay, with manuscript annotations by the Oxford scholar Thomas Hyde.  Watch this space!

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asian studies

Last month I wrote about Or.13295, a beautiful manuscript of the Taj al-Salatin, ‘Crown of Kings’.  The Taj al-Salatin is a 17th-century Malay work modelled on the Persian genre of ‘Mirrors for Princes’, texts containing moral and ethical advice on good governance for rulers. Or. 13295, which was copied in Penang in 1824, is one of the finest illuminated Malay manuscripts known, and all my attention in that blog post was focussed on its artistic aspects: the exquisitely decorated frames, the accomplished and neat hand of the scribe, and the deluxe binding of red leather and gilt. 

The British Library also holds another manuscript of a shortened version of the Taj al-salatin, Add. 12378, which is much more typical of most Malay manuscripts in being quite plain in its presentation, the lines of text in black ink only enlivened by occasional dashes of red to highlight certain words, for example to indicate the start of a new section. Again, as is the case for most Malay manuscripts, there is no indication of where or when it was copied, but in view of the use of English paper watermarked ‘1803’ and ‘1806’, and the characteristic ‘Kedah’ shape of the letters jim, ca, ha and kha, it is likely that this manuscript was also copied in Penang, where its later owner, John Crawfurd,  was based from 1808 to 1811 in the service of the East India Company.

The opening lines of a shortened version of Taj al-Salatin, addressed firstly to rulers (raja), secondly ministers (menteri), thirdly subjects (rakyat), and fourthly, the readers and future copyists of the book (orang yang menurutkan kitab ini dan menyalinkan kitab ini).  British Library, Add. 12783, f.1v. 

Without the distraction of any beautiful decoration, we can focus on the contents of this text, which was written by Bukhari al-Johori in Aceh in 1603.  Its advice on ideals of behaviour for kings, ministers and subjects is illustrated by Qur’anic quotations and through anecdotes (hikayat) about role models such as ancient Sassanian kings, Islamic prophets and the early caliphs, with many references to Persian and Arabic works.  Taj al-Salatin became one of the most popular works in the Islamic courts of the Malay archipelago: over twenty Malay manuscripts are known, as well as translations into Javanese, and it was printed in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) by a Dutch scholar as early as 1827.  The full text of ‘The Crown of Kings’ contains 24 chapters, arranged in four sections, three major and one minor, and the scholar Vladimir Braginsky has suggested that the structural arrangement of the text can be likened to the shape of a traditional Persian crown itself (as depicted in the miniature below from the Shahnama), with the concept of justice as the apex from which radiate outwards the main sections of the text, and their further subdivisions.


Bahram Gur winning the crown, from the Persian epic Shahnama, a manuscript from India, 1437.  British Library, Or.1403, f.363v. 


Schematic representation of the structure of the Taj al-Salatin, recalling the radial form of a traditional Persian crown, with the concept of justice at the apex, by Braginsky (2000: 201).  Reproduced with permission from the author.

Chapter 12 of the Taj al-Salatin is devoted to the behaviour of envoys and diplomats, and their need for honesty and integrity.  A good example of the narrative style of the Taj al-Salatin is a cautionary tale retold from the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, of when Iskandar sent an envoy to King Dara.  On his return, the envoy read out Dara’s reply.  Something struck Iskandar as being suspicious, and he ordered another envoy to write down the statement and report the matter back to Dara.  The letter was returned to Iskandar with the offending word cut out, and Dara’s reply, ‘I cut out the word in the letter because that word is not my word. When I read your letter, your envoy was not present, otherwise I would have had his tongue cut out of his mouth, and so instead I have had the word cut out from the letter (Bermula aku mengeratkan kata ini di dalam surat itu karena kata itu bukan kataku, dan tatkala kubaca surat itu tiada ada hadir pesuruhmu supaya kusuruh kerat lidah pesuruhmu itu, maka aku mengeratkan kata itu yang bukan kata aku).’  Iskandar summoned the offending envoy and, as punishment, ordered his tongue to be cut out.


King Dara’s reply to Iskandar Zulkarnain, from Pasal 12 of Taj al-Salatin.  British Library, Add. 12378, f.42r (detail).

Both manuscripts of the Taj al-Salatin are amongst nearly fifty Malay manuscripts in the British Library now fully accessible online on the Digitised Manuscripts site.

Further reading

Vladimir Braginsky, ‘Tajus Salatin (The Crown of Sultans) of Bukhari al-Jauhari as a canonical work and an attempt to create a Malay literary canon’, The canon in Southeast Asian literatures, ed. D. Smyth (London: Curzon, 2000), pp. 183-209
P.P. Roorda van Eysinga (ed.), De Kroon aller koningen, van Bocharie van Djohor, naar een oud Maleische geschrift vertaald (Batavia: Lands Drukkerij, 1827).
Khalid M. Hussain (ed.),  Taj us-Salatin.  Bukhari al-Jauhari. (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1992).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asian studies

In my last post I wrote on the Sejarah Melayu, the chronicle of the great Malay kingdom of Melaka, which fell to the Portuguese in 1511.  A prominent role in the story is played by Hang Tuah, the Malay sultan’s most loyal servant and a model of Malay manhood, who rose from humble origins to the position of Laksamana or Admiral.  Hang Tuah’s devoted service to his king, and his string of dashing exploits, have made him the quintessential Malay hero – Sir Galahad to Sultan Mansur Syah’s King Arthur, at the glittering Malay Camelot of Melaka.  While the Sejarah Melayu foregrounds the sultans of Melaka, Hang Tuah is accorded his very own epic, the Hikayat Hang Tuah. 

The age of the hand-written manuscript is long gone, but Hang Tuah lives on in the popular imagination in the Malay world, ever-present in films, plays, comic books and children’s stories.  He is credited with the rallying-call ‘Malays will never die out in this world’ (Tak kan Melayu hilang di dunia) – even though these words never occur in the Hikayat Hang Tuah. 

‘From the heroic epoch of Hang Tuah … comes a love story steeped in tragedy!’ – detail of an advertisement for the Malay film Tun Mandan, directed by Salleh Ghani, 1964.  Majallah Filem, vol.4, no.48, March 1964.  British Library, 14632.f.2.  

Hikayat Hang Tuah, ‘The story of Hang Tuah’, was probably composed in Johor – whence the Melakan court had found refuge – some time in the second half of the 17th century.  Over 20 manuscripts of Hikayat Hang Tuah can be found in libraries in Europe and Southeast Asia, with three held in the British Library, one of which (Add. 12384) has just been digitised.  Written on English paper watermarked ‘1805’, this manuscript was copied in the port of Kedah from a manuscript belonging to the Sultan of Kedah.  With the permission of the senior minister, the Bendahara, the book was brought to Penang in 1810.  It was owned by Bapu Kandu, who can be identified as the father of Ibrahim, a Malay scribe who worked for Thomas Stamford Raffles in Penang and Melaka.  Bapu Kandu hired this copy of the Hikayat Hang Tuah out to readers, urging them to take great care of it and not to keep it for too long, and also to correct any mistakes they might find in it.  The fee for borrowing this manuscript is expressed in terms of the ingredients needed for a satisfying chew of betel nut: ‘a bunch of paired betel leaves, a casket of Javanese tobacco, fifty measures of Siak gambir, and a bowl of Kedah lime’ (sirih rakit satu ikat dan tembakawa Jawa satu tepak dan gambir Siak lima puluh dan kapur Kedah satu cowek). 

The book did not circulate long in Malay circles, for very soon it passed into the hands of John Crawfurd, an official of the East India Company who served in Penang from 1808 to 1811 and later in Java and Singapore.  Crawfurd was well versed in Malay literature, and in his notes at the end of this book he compares Hang Tuah to the Franco-Viking hero Rollo or the Persian Rustam of Shahnama fame.

In 2007, this manuscript of Hikayat Hang Tuah travelled to Lisbon for display in an exhibition about Macau.  In the story, during an embassy to China Admiral Hang Tuah is confronted by the Portuguese fleet off the coast of Macau.  With the aid of a magic spell which silences the Portuguese cannons, the Malays win the battle and the Portuguese captain is forced to flee in a small sampan or rowing boat.  Mere wishful thinking, alas, but it was through such literary devices that the anonymous author of Hikayat Hang Tuah introduced the Portuguese onto the scene as an ominous presence in the Malay world, foreshadowing the cataclysmic defeat of Melaka in 1511. 


The opening lines of the Hikayat Hang Tuah: ‘This is the story of Hang Tuah, who was ever-loyal to his master’ (ini hikayat Hang Tuah yang amat setiawan pada tuannya).  British Library, Add. 12384, f.1v. 

Bapu Kandu’s admonitions to borrowers of the manuscript to take good care of it, for ‘it was such hard work to write this book, and even to find someone to copy it for a fee would be very difficult’ (kerana surat ini payah sangat manyurat dia payah sangat hendak upah orang pun payah sangat).  British Library, Add. 12384, f.237v. 

 

John Crawfurd’s note on this manuscript: Hang Tuah.  The adventures of the Laksimana or Admiral of Malacca, the Rollo or Rustam of Malayan story; a work of great esteem with the Malays.  British Library, Add. 12384, f.238r. 

Further reading

Hikayat Hang Tuah, ed. Kassim Ahmad.  (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1995).

The epic of Hang Tuah, translated by Muhammad Haji Salleh, ed. Rosemary Robson-McKillop. (Kuala Lumpur: Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia, 2010).

I. Proudfoot & A.T. Gallop, ‘29. Hikayat Hang Tuah’. 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.135-137.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asian studies

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Sometime around the year 1400, a prince from Sumatra named Parameswara founded a settlement at the mouth of the Melaka river on the west coast of the Malay peninsula.  Soon after one of his successors embraced Islam, and Melaka grew to become the greatest Islamic kingdom ever seen in Southeast Asia. Known as the ‘Venice of the East’, its spice trade attracted merchants from as far away as Arabia, India, China and Japan.  Such a honeypot proved irresistible to the Portuguese, who were the first Europeans to navigate around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.  Not content simply to join in the bustling trade, the Portuguese instead attacked Melaka and captured it in 1511. 

Plan of Melaka after its capture by the Portuguese.  Livro do Estado da India Oriental, by Pedro Barreto de Resende, 1641.  British Library, Sloane MS 197, ff.381v-182r.

    The Malay sultan, Mahmud Shah, fled southwards to Johor. As the exiled court began to face up to the realization that their enforced sojourn in Johor would not be temporary, it became ever more urgent to record for posterity the still-vivid memories of Melaka’s magnificence.  A chronicle was envisaged that would testify that the sultan and his kin now settled on the upper reaches of the Johor river were descended from a glorious line of Malay kings, originating in south Sumatra from the site of the ancient empire of Srivijaya, who had gone on to found at Melaka the richest emporium in Southeast Asia.  It so happened that the court official charged with the task, Tun Seri Lanang, was the greatest Malay writer of that or perhaps any period, and he produced what is now regarded as a masterpiece of Malay literature.  

    Entitled in Arabic Sulalat al-Salatin, ‘Genealogy of Kings’, but popularly known as Sejarah Melayu or the ‘Malay Annals’, this work is not only a literary triumph but also a handbook of Malay statecraft, outlining the solemn covenant between the ruler, who promises never to shame his subjects, and his people, who undertake never to commit treason (durhaka).  More than thirty manuscripts of Sejarah Melayu are known, with numerous different versions of the text, some designed to bolster the credentials of other Malay kingdoms by claiming links with the illustrious royal line of Melaka. 

    The enduring popularity of the Sejarah Melayu also lies in the skill of its author in addressing key historical episodes and refashioning these invariably to the greater glory of Melaka.  In one celebrated anecdote, when a delegation from Melaka visited China, all had to bow low and were not allowed to look at the Emperor’s face. When the Emperor enquired as to what food they liked, the crafty Malays specified kangkung, spinach, not chopped up, but left long.  They then ate the kangkung by lifting each strand up high and lowering it into their upturned mouths – thus enabling them to lift their heads and gaze upon the Chinese emperor!

Sejarah Melayu: how the Malays ate kangkung (spinach) at the Chinese court, thereby managing to steal a glance at the face of the Emperor.  British Library, Or.14734, f.84r.

    There are two manuscripts of the Sejarah Melayu in the British Library, Or.16214 and Or.14734, which has just been digitised.   This manuscript was copied in Melaka itself in 1873, by which time the site of the great Malay sultanate had passed through the hands of a whole series of European colonizers, from the Portuguese to the Dutch and then to the British.  It bears the name of E.E. Isemonger, who served as Resident Councillor of Melaka in 1891.

Detail of the colophon, giving the name of the scribe and the date of copying in Melaka as Monday 19 Zulhijah 1289 (17 February 1873):  Tamatlah Hikayat Melayu ini di dalam negeri Melaka sanatahun 1289 kepada 19 hari bulan Zulhijah hari yaum al-Isnin adanya, wa-katibuhu Muhammad Tajuddin Tambi Hitam bin Zainal Abidin Penghulu Dagang Melaka Kampung Telangkira adanya.  British Library, Or.14734, f.200v.

Further reading

C.C. Brown, Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals.  An annotated translation by C.C.Brown, with a new introduction by R.Roolvink.  Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970.

A. Samad Ahmad (ed.), Sulalatus salatin (Sejarah Melayu).  Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka: 1986.

John Leyden's Malay Annals.  With an introductory essay by Virginia Matheson Hooker and M.B.
Hooker.  Selangor Darul Ehsan: MBRAS, 2001. (MBRAS reprint; 20).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asian Studies

One of the finest illuminated Malay manuscripts known is a copy of the Taj al-Salatin, ‘The Crown of Kings’ (Or.13295), which has just been digitised in full.  This ethical guide for rulers was composed in Aceh in north Sumatra in 1603 by Bukhari al-Johori, and contains advice on good governance.  This manuscript was copied in Penang by a scribe named Muhammad bin Umar Syaikh Farid on 4 Zulhijah 1239 AH (31 July 1824 AD).  It is in every sense a deluxe bibliographic production, with a red and gold leather binding.  There are two superb illuminated frames at the beginning and end of the book, while all other pages are set within multi-layered frames of black, red and gold ink.  The text is written in a very accomplished hand with a thin nib in black ink.  Rubrication – the highlighting of certain words in red – is used for a variety of purposes: for Qur’anic quotations, for words or phrases in Arabic, and for ‘paragraph words’ such as adapun or bermula, both meaning ‘then’, indicating a new section in the text. 

Throughout the Muslim world there is a highly distinctive manuscript culture of books written on paper in the Arabic script, with decorated frames spread across two open pages and symmetrical about the gutter of the book.  Within these broad design principles regional preferences are clearly apparent, and it is often possible to guess the geographic origin of a manuscript purely on the basis of the shape, ornamentation and colour scheme of the double decorated frames.

Initial pages of the Taj al-Salatin, ‘The Crown of Kings’, a Malay ‘mirror for princes’.  British Library, Or.13295, ff.1v-2r.  

The opening illuminated frames of the Penang ‘Crown of Kings’ manuscript (see above) are technically stunning but atypical for a Malay manuscript, with many features that draw more heavily on the artistic vocabulary of Indo-Persian and Ottoman manuscript art.  For example, the gently undulating yet basically rectangular composition of of the densely decorated frames is at variance with the Southeast Asian tradition of frames characterised by strongly arched outlines on the three outer sides.  On each of the two facing pages, the decorated frames are ‘hung’ from a vertical decorated border or ‘pivot’ along the spine of the book, recalling the supports for a door or window shutter; this too is a feature rarely seen in Malay manuscript art. The palette, dominated by two shades of blue and gold, is also more typical of Islamic manuscripts west of the Malay world, while in Southeast Asia the main colours found are red and yellow.  Another very unusual feature is the use of white pigment in the illumination; throughout Muslim regions of Southeast Asia the colour white in manuscripts is invariably represented by ‘reserved white’, where the uncoloured ground of the white paper is manipulated as a fundamental element of the artist’s palette.  Finally, the lines of text on the first two pages are set within cloudbands edged with black ink against a ground of gold.  This is a very common decorative device in Ottoman, Indian, Persian and even Chinese Islamic manuscripts, but is rarely encountered in Southeast Asia. 

Final pages of the Taj al-Salatin, dated 4 Zulhijah 1239 (31 July 1824).  British Library, Or.13295, ff.190v-191r. 

The final double frames (see above) are equally accomplished, but in a contrasting stylistic tenor.  The key difference is the arched outline of the gently graduated multi-lobed domes on the three outer sides, linking this manuscript to artistic traditions not only in the Malay world but also along Indian Ocean trading networks, notably in Oman and Yemen.  Gold is used more sparingly, and thus although the other components of the palette are the same, the overall effect is more variegated.  The colophon, with the name of the scribe and the date of copying – with, unusually, the Persian word for month – is presented in oval cartouches set within the frame above and below the textblock on each page.  The scribe was therefore familiar with Malay, Arabic and Persian, and was most likely of Indian descent. 

The history of the peregrinations of this book – from Penang to Bombay and thence on to Brighton and London – can be partially reconstructed.  A flyleaf bears the inscription:

To the Revd. J. M. Rice, Brighton, from his brother, Ralph Rice, Recorder of Prince of Wales Island A.D. 1824.  This M.S. is a Malay story & was made at Pinang in the above year – with a hope, that it wd receive admission, into the library, of so renowned a Bibliomanist, as is the said J. M. Rice.
Ralph Rice, now one of the Judges of the – Court at Bombay.  Bombay, May 19, 1825

Sir Ralph Rice (b. ca. 1781-1850), served as the third Recorder or government legal officer of Penang from 1817 to 1824, and was later Senior Puisne Judge of the Bombay Supreme Court. He thus appears to have commissioned this manuscript in his last year in Penang, and from his new post in Bombay presented it to his older brother, the Revd. John Morgan Rice (b. ca. 1774-1833) of Brighton.  The manuscript also bears the bookplate of ‘Percy M. Thornton’.  Percy Melville Thornton (1841-1918) was a Conservative politician whose mother was Emily Elizabeth Rice, daughter of John Morgan Rice.  The manuscript was offered for sale at Sotheby’s in London on 9 December 1970, when it was purchased by the British Museum.  In 1973, together with the other books and manuscripts in the British Museum, it passed into the collections of the newly-formed British Library, and has now been digitised along with other Malay manuscripts in the Library.

Further reading

A full facsimile of British Library Or.13295 has been published:
Taj al-salatin: mahkota raja-raja.  Pengenalan oleh Muhammad Haji Salleh.  Johor Baharu: Yayasan Warisan Johor, 2001.

 Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator for Southeast Asian Studies

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Another Malay 'Mirror for Princes'

This beautiful royal Malay letter (Or.16126) from the ruler of Johor, Temenggung Daing Ibrahim, to the Emperor of France, written in Singapore in 1857, is a triumph of style over substance. Its thirteen golden lines pay effusive compliments to Napoleon III but little else, as can be seen from the translation (see link given below). The letter was accompanied by a handsome gift of Malay weaponry.
 

Illuminated letter in Malay from Engku Temenggung Seri Maharaja (Daing Ibrahim) of Johor to the Emperor of France (Napoleon III), written in Singapore on Monday 17 Syaaban 1273 (12 April 1857). Or.16126.   View digital copy


It is hard to know what either side hoped to gain from the despatch of such a magnificent missive, for in the mid-19th century French interests in Southeast Asia were primarily focused on Indochina, while Johor’s allegiance was firmly with the British. In the letter the Temenggung makes no requests of the French, and adroitly expresses his greatest praise for Napoleon III in terms of the Emperor’s cordial relations with Queen Victoria, ‘both sides thereby gaining in such strength that no other nation can match them, as long as the sun and moon revolve’ (bertambahlah kakuatan antara kedua pihak tiadalah siapa bangsa yang boleh bandingannya selagi ada perkitaran bulan dan matahari). It is most likely that the French envoy named in the letter, M. Charles de Montigny, who was in 1857 based in Singapore, procured the letter for his own personal or professional advancement.

Politically, historically and diplomatically this letter could be regarded as something of a dead end, but as a work of art it is far more significant. Despite the frequent use of gold in Malay manuscript illumination, this is the earliest known example of chrysography – writing in gold ink – in a Malay letter. It is beautifully illuminated with a rectangular golden frame on all four sides of the textblock, surmounted with an elaborate arched headpiece in red, blue and gold.

In format and structure, this epistle an exemplar of the courtly Malay art of letterwriting. At the top is the kepala surat or letter heading in Arabic, Nur al-shams wa-al-qamr, ‘Light of the sun and the moon’; this phrase is very commonly encountered in Malay letters addressed to European officials. The letter opens conventionally with extensive opening compliments or puji-pujian, identifying the sender and addressee, and with fulsome praise for the Emperor on account of his renown. Strangely, we do not encounter the Arabic word wa-ba‘dahu or its equivalents such as the Malay kemudian daripada itu, traditionally used to terminate the compliments and mark the start of the contents proper, for the simple reason that there is no real content to this letter. The compliments meld seamlessly with a brief mention of the French envoy entrusted with the letter, before gliding into the final section with a statement of the accompanying gift and thence onto the termaktub, the closing line giving the place and date of writing.

Seal of the Temenggung of Johoor

At the top of the letter, in a conventional position with its midpoint precisely to the right of the first line, is stamped the round black ink seal of the Temenggung, inscribed in both Arabic and roman script: 

al-wāthiq billāh Datuk Temenggung Seri Maharaja ibn Temenggung Seri Maharaja sanat 1257 // AL WASEKCUPBILAH DATU TUMONGONG SREE MAHARAJAH BIN TUMONGONG
‘He who trusts in God, Datuk Temenggung Seri Maharaja, son of Temenggung Seri Maharaja, the year 1257 (AD 1841/2) // He who trusts in God, Datu Temongong Sree Maharajah, son of Tumongong’
  

The Temenggungs of Johor were amongst the political winners following the establishment of a British settlement at Singapore by Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1819, and the British-Dutch Treaty of London of 1824 which led to break-up of the historic kingdom of ‘Johor and Pahang and Riau and Lingga’. Daing Ibrahim’s son, Temenggung Abu Bakar, successfully negotiated with the British to assume the title ‘Sultan of Johor’, and founded the modern ruling house of Johor, now one of the states of Malaysia.

This letter has been digitised as part of the Malay manuscripts digitisation project (see my previous post ‘British Library's Malay manuscripts to be digitised’, and a full transcription of the Malay text together with an English translation can be downloaded from this link:  Download Or.16126 Malay text and translation

Further reading

A.T. Gallop (ed.) A cabinet of Oriental curiosities: an album for Graham Shaw from his colleagues. London: The British Library, 2006.
A.T. Gallop, ‘Golden words from Johor: a royal Malay letter from Temenggung Daing Ibrahim to Emperor Napoleon III of France’, Kumpulan kertas kerja seminar antarabangsa manuskrip Melayu: melestarikan manuskrip Melayu warisan agung bangsa. Kuala Lumpur: Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2006, pp.165-172.
Anthony Reid, ‘The French in Sumatra and the Malay world, 1760-1890’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 1973, 129 (2-3): 195-238.
R.O. Winstedt, A history of Johore (1365-1941).  With a final chapter by Khoo Kay Kim. Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1992 (MBRAS Reprints; 6).


Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asian Studies

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British Library's Malay manuscripts to be digitised

The complete collection of Malay manuscripts in the British Library is to be digitised thanks to a generous donation of £125,000 from Singapore-based American philanthropists William and Judith Bollinger. The five-year project, in collaboration with the National Library Board of Singapore, will fund the digitisation of materials of interest to Singapore held in the British Library. In addition to Malay manuscripts, early maps of Singapore and selected archival papers of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles – who founded a British settlement in Singapore in 1819 – will also be digitised and made freely accessible online. 

For centuries, the Malay language has played an important role as the lingua franca of trade, diplomacy and religion throughout maritime Southeast Asia.  It was the language through which Islam spread across the archipelago from the 13th century onwards; it was the language in which visiting merchants from the Middle East, India, China and Europe would barter for spices in the rich port cities of Melaka, Patani, Aceh, Banten and Makassar; and it was the language through which British and Dutch colonial officials communicated with local sultanates. Until the early 20th century Malay was generally written in a modified form of the Arabic script known as Jawi, and Malay manuscripts originate from the present-day nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the southern regions of Thailand and the Philippines.
 

A map showing the area over which the Malay language was commonly spoken, from the first original Malay-English dictionary, by Thomas Bowrey, 1701  (British Library, 68.c.12)

The British Library holds over a hundred Malay manuscript texts and several hundred Malay letters and documents, dating from the 17th to the 19th centuries. These manuscripts derive mainly from the historic British Museum collections, including Malay books owned by John Crawfurd, who served under Raffles during the British administration of Java from 1811 to 1816, and then as Resident of Singapore from 1823 to 1826, and from the India Office Library (which became part of the British Library in 1983), which holds Malay manuscripts belonging to John Leyden, Raffles’s closest friend and advisor, who died of fever shortly after the British capture of Batavia in 1811; Col. Colin Mackenzie, Raffles’s Chief Engineer in Java; as well as a few manuscripts previously owned by Raffles himself. 

Although not large, the British Library collection of Malay manuscripts includes some very important works, including the oldest known manuscript of the earliest Malay history, ‘Chronicle of the kings of Pasai’, Hikayat Raja Pasai, (Or.14350), describing the coming of Islam to Sumatra; two copies of the most famous Malay historical text, the ‘Malay Annals’, Sejarah Melayu, (Or.14734 & Or.16214) recording the glories of the great kingdom of Melaka up to its capture by the Portuguese in 1511; literary works in both prose (hikayat) and verse (syair), some of which – such as the intriguingly-named ‘Story of the Pig King’, Hikayat Raja Babi (Add.12393), written by a merchant from Semarang during a voyage to Palembang in Sumatra – are unique copies; as well as texts on law and Islamic religious obligations.  A few of the manuscripts are exquisitely illuminated, including a fine copy of an ethical guide for rulers, ‘The Crown of Kings’, Taj al-Salatin, copied in Penang in 1824 (Or.13295). 
  

A sumptuously illuminated manuscript of an ethical guide for rulers, ‘The Crown of Kings’, Taj al-Salatin, copied in Penang in 1824  (British Library Or.13295, ff.190v-191r)


The Malay manuscripts are being digitised in the British Library and will be fully available on the Library’s Digitised Manuscripts online (search on keywords ‘Malay’ or ‘Jawi’), while the National Library Board of Singapore will also be mounting the images on their BookSG website. Thus through this project, manuscripts which previously could only be viewed by visiting the British Library’s reading rooms in London will soon be made freely accessible online worldwide to anyone with an interest in Malay heritage and culture.

Over the next few months, on this blog we will be exploring in more detail individual manuscripts as they are digitised and made available online. If you would like to keep in touch, subscribe by email (at the top of this page) and follow us on Twitter @BLAsia_Africa.

Further reading

Malay manuscripts in the British Library are catalogued in:
M.C. Ricklefs & P. Voorhoeve, Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977)

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asian Studies