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THE KE H
ANNALS.
By
R.. O. WINSTEDT,
K.B.E. C.X.G.
D.Litt.
Were it not for a colophon giving a list of Kedah Sultans,
-and for a preface, copied word for word from the
Malay Annals
of
1612A.D. an d borrowing for a farrago of folk-tales their name of
Sulalatu s-Salatin.
the
Hikayat Merang
(or
Marong Mahawatrgsa
would never have been styled
the
Kedah Annals or been accepted
as serious history.
It starts with confused Malay traditions of the great empires
of Byzantium (Rum) and China, of Sri Rama an d Hanoman
and Langkapuri from the Ramayana (so often the source of
Siamese shadow-plays and Siamese art, and of Vishnu s roe or
Geroda, a figure the shadow-plays and today a crest on Siamese
railway carriages. As a Muslim, the author drags in the Prophet
Solomon, king of the animal world and so lord of the Geroda
I
There are enough tusked rajas in Siamese art to inspire any
teller of tales, but the story of the cannibal king of these so-called
annals has been taken from an Indian and Buddhist source and is
to be found
n the Maha-Sutasoma-]ataka,
No. 537 of the usual
series of
Jataka
tales , a series familiar enough to
the
Buddhist
Siamese.
The story of the Prince from the Bamboo
and of a Princess _
from river spume is common folk-lore, in various forms: in
Kedah, Patani and Perak. The Rajas of Raman may not eat
bamboo shoots, because their ancestor came out of the bamboo ;
an dthe Malay A nnals
tell of
the
birth of a prince of Champa from
an areca-palm spathe. A bamboo princess occurs in Polynesian
folk-lore, in Malay versions of the Ramayana, in the
Hikayat
Raja-Raja Pasai
and n
the Hikayat Aelleh. Into
the present work
the
story
n
dragged for no reason, and the Carp Princess
is
for no
reason made to commit adultery with a commoner and bear a
son, Meget Zainal, whose place in Kedah history
is
not explained
further.
The abduction of a princess by a roe,
the
wrecking of her
bridegroom-to-be on the island to which she has been carried, the
secret meetings arranged by the old waiting-maid,
Kampar s
magic combat with the Tusked Raja, the fight of the Bamboo
Prince against four
Patani
robbers, the choice of a ruler by a
sagacious elephant, these and other incidents are the common
stuff of Malay romance,
. Langkasuka
is
a name and little
more: it
.. faced Pulau Sri
and
it was
far from the sea. The incidents connected with later
Kedah settlements are unimportant and probably anachronistie
myth. The only real attempt at history is a romantic account of
how the first ruler of Kedah to accept Islam was converted by a
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31
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32
The Kedah Annals.
Shaikh Abdu Ilah
Yamani
0.1
Abani) from Baghdad. (This
seems to be by a different hand, as it employs the Javanese style
t an
p t r m l m t ~
and
t u l ~
saudagar The name of this first
Muslim Sultan of Kedah is given as Muzaffar Shah and he is said
in the colophon to have been fifth
ascent from Sultan Sulaiman
who died a prisoner in Acheh just after 1622. The fifth ruler in
descent from Sulaiman was alive in 1741,
and
the fifth in ascent .
may possibly have reigned as early as 1474, the date given an
Achinese account for Kedah s conversion.
But of this or any date,
as well as of the story told n the
Malay
u t ~ l s of Kedah s embassy
to Sultan Mahmud, who ruled in Malacca from 1488
t ll
1511, no
word is to be found.
is, however, related that hearing of Kedah s
conversion, the Sultan of Acheh
and
Shaikh Nuru d-din sent to the
Kedah court two treatises the Sirat al-Mustakim and
b
a n
t.ikah.
Actually this Shaikh Nuru-td-din, translator of the
Sirat
al-Mustakim
and author of the
Bustanu s-Salatin,
did not reach
Acheh from India until 1637.
The work is
ull
of omissions, anachronisms and errors.
The seven pre-Muslim rulers of Kedah bear Sanskrit-Siamese titles
and may indicate a Siamese suzerainty following wars of the 13th
century when the Emperor of China issued an order to Siam not to
hurt
the Malays. But no historical data are attached to the names.
Similarly in the title of Klana. Hitam there is a reminiscence of the
Bugis invasions which wasted Kedah for half a century from
1723, but again only a name is given and it is connected with wild
romance. There is also cursory reference to the selection of the
island of Indra Sakti by a pre-Muslim Kedah prince loosing an
arrow (in accordance with Persian and Arabic but not Malay pre
cedent) to choose a kingdom: according to this Kedah folk-lore, the
island became the capital of a kingdom the prince founded and
ruled, calling it Perak after his silver arrow. But Indra Sakti
on the Perak river was founded and named by Sultan Iskandar,
not
a Kedah but a Perak prince, who reigned from about 1750 till
1764. Nor was Perak ever subject to Kedah until 1818, so
that
it
is
difficult to conceive of folk-lore concocting the arrow story
before that date.
In a Batavian MS. of the Kedah Annals, the list of kings
in the colophon ends with Sultan Abmad Taju- d-din Halim Shah,
whoconquered Perak 1818 and was driven
out
of Kedah by the
Siamese in 1821 not to return till 1842. This Batavian MS. be
longed to Von de Wall, a Dutch scholar, who lived from 1807 until
1873, and is therefore probably older than the three other MSS.,
two of which belonged to Sir William Maxwell and one to Mr.
R. J.
Wilkinson. There is no MS. of the work at Leiden and none in
the older London collections, not even among the RafBes MSS.
though Raffies was once stationed
at Penang The Chronicles of
Pasai have survived only in one MS written for Raffles 1815
though Pasai ceased to have a court or be a kingdom after 1524.
But, notwithstanding
that
case, the paucity and modernity of the
MSS point to the recent origin of these
romantic
Kedah Annals.
ourn l Malayan B aiu:h [Vol. XVI , Part IT,
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R. O. Wiustedt.
33
The appearance of the names of the reputed two first Muslim
rulers of
Kedah
a preface cribbed from the Malay A
in ls
of
1612 A.D. is no evidence of a
5th
or even of a 17th
century
com-
pilation. Clearly
they
were chosen as the only two prominent
Muslim rulers mentioned in
the text and
even if, as seems certain,
the text was not completed till late in the 18th 6r early in the 19th
century, there is nothing wonderful in written memoranda or
verbal tradition having preserved
their
names, see
ing
that there
are few Malay countries where the names of the first royal convert
to Islam
and the
first successful missionary of Islam are forgotten.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT.
After
the
war of Sri
Rama and
Hanoman, t he monkey god,
was over,
the
island of Langkapuri was deserted save for Vishnu s
bird, Geroda. One day Geroda made a wager with his Muslim
lord, the Prophet Solomon,
that
he could keep
apart
two persons
fated to mar ry, to wit, a son of t he emperor of Rome and a daughter
of the Emperor of China. The Chinese princess and her old maid
and confident, Geroda carries off to Langkapuri. Then with the
tempest of his wings, he sinks the fleet of the prince from
Rome;
as
he thinks, drowning the prince and his companion Marong Maha-
wangsa off Kuala Chahggong which was ruled by a Raja Gulanggi
or Kelinggi).
But
the prince from Rome gets ashore on a plank
and
hides
a cave on Langkapuri, daily meeting
his
future bride
secret. And Marong Mahawangsa reaches the mainland and
founds a kingdom Langkasuka facing Pulau Sri. When Geroda
report to Solomon
that
he
has
won his wager, Solomon sends genies
to fetch the prince and princess, whose appearance so confounds
Geroda that he keeps his word and vanishes to the Red Sea far
from
the
sight of man. Solomon sends t he young couple to China
with a
letter
to the Emperor, who agrees to their marriage.
From
Langkasuka Marong Mahawangsa sends embassies to
two large neighbouring countries, Acheh which only became a
kingdom
at
the
end
of the 15th century) and to Burma , the
country
of the Raja of Gulanggi or Kelinggi) famous for its great jars. At
Gulanggi is anchored a fleet from Rome come for news of Marong
Mahawangsa who now surrenders his kingdom to his son Marong
Mahapqdisat, changing its name to Kedah Zamin Turan, and sails
back to Rome.
Of t he sons of Marong Mahapodisat theeldest became king
of
Siam;
the second shot a silver arrow
that
fell on the island
lndra Sakti and became ruler of Perak. His daughter was placed
on a sacred elephant along with a magic creese Lela Mesani, and
the elephant carried her to Patani where she became queen. His
fourth son, Sri Mahawangsa, succeeded to the throne of Kedah and
removed from Langkasuka, which was far from the sea, to Seru-
kum : whenever his eldest brother in Siam begat a child , he sent
th e child a present of gold and silver flowers.
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The Kedah Annals.
Sri M.ahawangsa died of grief because.his son ,and successor
SriIndra Wangsa married a demon. (gergtm) girl, who bore a son
OngMaha Perita Deria, destined to become famous as the Tusked
Raja
(Raja BersiC ng . Ong Maha Perita Deria moved his court
from .Sungai
Emas
to
Kota
Aur, where he built stone palaces of
carved stones .. from Acheh . By this time Pulati Seri had
become
G1. J1ong J er ai a nd Pn la u
Jarnbul had become Bukit Jam-
bu t and
.Pulau Tanjong had joined the mainland.
One
day
Ong Maha
Perita
Deria found he
had cut
a tusk.
Next
a serving-maid who had cut her finger let a drop of blood f ll
in his spinach an d was forced by him t confess. why
the
spinach
tasted to him so delicious. After that .the king d ra nk t he blood
first of condemned criminals, and
then
of innocent victims. (One
man,
Kampar
of
Sri
Gunong Ledang, dared
the
Raja,
by
magic
turning
himself into a boar, a snake and a tiger and evading stabs
and blows.) At last
the
four ministers at ta ck ed t he palace, its
female inmates arranging for the palace guns to loaded only
with powder. The Tusked Raja escapes up-country,
Iiveswith
a
rice-planter and gets a child by his daughter. He evades soldiers
sent to kill
him.
Meanwhile the four ministers sent to Siam asking
for a king and were told by
the
court astrologers to loose an
elephant to find one. The same elephant which took Patani its
first queen brought the Tusked Raja s bastard son from the rice
clearing, to succeed his father .
On the island of Ayer Tawar, east of Gulanggi and south of
Siam, dwelt Klana Hitam, rulingover negritos and
ether
aborigines.
He decided to invade Kedah
and
become it s king; West of Ligor
he met a Siamese force under a Siamese minister e ~ a m w a s
defeated and
taken
a prisoner to Siam. Kelaham marches along
the
coast to Sala, where he builds a palace for the new kitig and
instals him as Phra Ong Mahapodisat. The new king returns to
Kuala Muda, begets a son
Phra
0ng Mahawangsa an d adopts also a
boy born from a bamboo
the
king
had
taken from outside
the
house
of two old peasants when he was hunting one day.
He
builds a
palace
at
Bukit Meriam to be
near
BukitPenjara where
the
Tusked
Raja lived on Sungai Dedap. One
day
his consort finds in the
spume of the Sungai Kuala Muda a beautiful
girl
whom he adopts
and names Princess Carp (seluang). Princess Carp is married to
the Bamboo Prince. Phra Ong Mahawangsa succeeds his father:
an d
is a great drinker of spirits.
Now Baghdad was a great centre for Islamic teachers, And
from Mecca came Shaikh Nuru d-din to Acheh bringing religious
treatises. Abdu lIab a saint of Baghdad, had a pupil Abdu
llab of Yaman, who was shown by Iblis how he stirred up
-strife in homes and markets
and
gambling and opium dens
an d
schools, and how he caused women to co mmit adulteryand hus
bands to murder wives,
and
princes like
Kamishdzur and
Kamish
kar to war. .And Abdu Uah 1 Yaman and Iblis came to
the
palace of Phra Ong M a:hawangsa where
lblis
frlled
the
king s wine.
JOflNUlI
Malayan Bra [Vol. XVI, Part n
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R. O. Winstedt.
goblet half full of urine, a
nd
Abdullah reproached Iblis, who
vanished taking from Abdu llah the wand of invis ibility he had
given him . The king wakes and questions the intruder, who
persuades
him
and
his people to break
and
bum
their idols of gold.
silver, wood and clay and to embrace Islam. The king s name
becomes Sultan Muzaffar Shah
and
his son and successor Mua zzam
Shah
and
his other two sons Muhammad Shah and Sulaiman Shah.
The S ul tan of Acheh and a Shaik
h Nuru
d-din send the Kedah
court two treatises,
the Sira: al-mustakim and the Bab a n-Nikah .
No Kedah girl wanted to
m rry
Sha ikh A bdullah, because he
was soon to r etur n to Ba ghdad.
Now the Prince from
the
Bamboo was sent north west to find
a sit e for a fort
and
palace.
By
a minister s son his wife, Princess
Carp, conceived
and
bare privily a son Meget Zainal. Prince
Bamboo opens a settlement
at Kota
Palas
and
is
attacke
d by four
robbers from Patani , Data Sangkai, Senik Ipeh, Senik Ratu Senik
Payu . He kills them but is so wounded that he becomes once more
bamboo
and
vanished .
Mua zzam Shah succeeds his father, who retires to a religi
ous life. Sulaiman Shah rules th e island of Langkapuri. Mahmud
Shah rules up -country
ulu .
The work concludes with a list of
Sultans of Ke dah, down to Abroad Taju d-din Halim Shah.
References. Hikayat
Mal 1lg
Maha Wangsa. ed. A. ] .
Sturrock, j R A.S.S.B., No. 72, 1916 ; Cannibal King in
the
Kedah A1mals
C. O. Blagden,
ib.
No . 79, pp . 47-8 ; Introduction
to the
Hikayat ri Rama
W. G. Shellabear,
ib.
No. 70, p. 191 ;
Malay Reader, Winstedt and Blagden, Oxford 1917, pp. 182, 187 ;
Catalogue of the Malay and Sundanese MSS. in Leiden University
Library, H. H. juynboll Leiden 1899, p. 235 ; Sejarah Melayu ed.
W. G. SheUabear; Date and au thor of Buslanus -Salatin Winstedt
] R A S.S.B. No . 82, pp . 151-2 ; Perak the Arrow Chosen,Winstedt,
ib. No. 82 p. 197 ; History of Perak, Wilkinson and Winstedt
J R A
.S.M.B. No. 12 1934),
Part
I, pp. 122-4, 132 ; Catalogue of
Malay MSS. in
the
Library of the
Batavian
Society, Dr.
Ph S
. van
Ronkel, pp. 290-3 ; The Kedah nnals
tr
. by James Low. reviewed
by C. O. Blagden ] R.A .S., London, April 1909, pp. 525-531.
1938J
Royal Asiatic Society .
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