Background Stuff

This section serves to un-encumber or lighten the load on the "Malay Annals - A Companion Handbook".

The book is entitled "Sulalat us-Salatin" which means "Genealogy of the Sultans" in arabic. It is commonly known as "Sejarah Melayu" which means "Malay Annals" in malay. 

Because of the different versions of Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals, I keep having to refer to here and there... which takes all the fun and magic out of the project. As such, I am dumping some of the more technical facts here or a sub-page... and there will be some repetition. 

Versions

There have been several versions of the Malay Annals. Original copies of Sejarah Melayu were in hand-written manuscript in jawi, which is the malay language in arabic script. The oldest known manuscript called "Raffles MS#18" is from 1612 authored by Tun Bambang under commission from Raja Bongsu.

Over the centuries, copies of these manuscripts have been transliterated into roman script and some translated into english (and other european languages). For more details, read "The Variant Versions Of The Malay Annals" found at Sabri Zain Org.

For this document, the versions we shall refer to are :-

• "CCBrown" or CCB - uses Raffles MS#18 transliterated into roman by (Sir) Richard O Winstedt in 1938, translated into English by Charles Cuthbert Brown in 1952

• "Leyden" or JL - translated into english by (Dr.) John Leyden, published posthumously in 1821,

• "Samad" or ASA - transliterated into roman by A Samad Ahmad for Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka from 1979,

• "Shellabear" or WGS - transliterated into roman by Abdullah Abdul Kadir in 1831, compiled into english by William G Shellabear in 1896.

• "Rahman" or ARI - Raffles MS#18 transliterated by Abdul Rahman Hj Ismail, compiled by Cheah Boon Kheng in 2009 (MBRAS).

Although they tell the same stories, they are all presented with some small differences.

A collection set of Leyden, CCBrown (with included Shellabear) and Rahman is available at Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

A comparison of the myth-origins for Malay Annals is contained in 1926 Journal MBRAS vol.IV pg.413 article "The founder of Malay royalty and his conquest of Sakatimuna, the Serpent" by RO Winstedt. 

Lineage of Alexander

  Kida Hindi          Darab

      |                 |

Shahr ul-Bariyah -+- Alexander   Raja Turkistan

                  |               |

           Aristun Shah -+- daughter^ 

                         | 

                     Aftus

                     |

                 Sabur

               /     |

         Kasdas   Amtabus                  Qobad

                   |                         | 

            Gudarz Kuhan              Nushirwan Adil

              |                        |           |

Ardashiri Papagan -+- daughter of Nushirwan Adil   ?

                   |                               |

             Derma Nus                             ?

                 |                                 |

      Shah Narsi Tersi                             ?

      /       |                                    |

Hurmizd   Zimrut     Raja Amdan Nagara             ?

            |              |                       |

 Narsi Baradarash -+- daughter^   Onang Kiu -+- Shulan  

                 /  \                        |

 Kudar Shah Jahan   Suran Padshah -+- Chendani Wasis

           |                   /   |   \

       daughter^          Jiran Chulan Pandayan

Rulers of India from the line of Aristun CCB 

The information on the lineage of Alexander and the subsequent rulers is sufficiently detailed to construct a time-map. The time-map Est.Date #1 uses the death of Alexander in the year 323 BC as the starting point.

Unfortunately, there are several problems. Note that some reigns are of 120 years to 350 years. Moving on, I have used Ardashir-i Papagan as the time-map's first reconciliation point, marked with *. Ardashir-i married the daughter of Anushirvan. We know Anushirvan the Great lived 501 -579 AD. Ardishir-i could have been crowned around 531 which  indicates that the early half of the time-map is missing some 200 years.

However, Narsi Biradarash would have lived around the same time as Raja Shulan of Nagapatam. Adding 200 years to Narsi Biradarash's time-map gives a reign of 1034 - 1104 AD. Assuming Raja Shulan is Rajendra Chola I who reigned 1012 - 1044, the later half of the time-map seems to work. The time-map Est.Date #2 has 200 years added on. 

Spelling of Names

Who is Who in Sejarah Melayu  - Names & Spelling used 

The single biggest pain-in-the-donkey is spelling. Every version spells the names differently. And this is before the differences in storylines! 

Some tables here exist just to show the different spellings of names of people and places. They appear in the order of: CCBrown, then Leyden, then Samad versions. The occasional 4th alternative is from the 2009 Rahman version. Other alternative spelling would be in square-brackets [parentheses].

Coming to the Malay lands

Arrived on the hill