Reference: Winstedt "Chronicles"

THE CHRONICLES OF PASAI

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The Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai or Chronicles of Pasai, a little Malay state annexed by Acheh in 1524, are interesting for two reasons. They are the oldest of Malay chronicles, and apparently they served as a model for the Sejarah Melayu, whose author has paraphrased and quoted them and imitated their contents. 

The copyist of the one MS. known finished his work on 2 January, 1814 (21 Muharram, 1230 A.H.) and after the colophon in which that date is given, follow lists of place-names, which may or may not have formed part of the original work. But the Chronicles start with the reign of Malik al-Saleh, whose gravestone imported from Cambay gives 1297 as the year of his death, and then described the reigns of Malik al-Dzahir, who died on 9 November, 1326, and of his son Sultan Ahmad, and end with Majapahit's conquest of Pasai about 1350 and with Majapahit's vain attempt to conquer Minangkabau. The Chronicles therefore must have been written after 1350, and as they are quoted sometimes verbatim, in chapters 7 and 9 of the Sejarah Melayu, they must have been written before 1536 A.D., when the first draft of that work was completed. 

Examples of such quotations are :-

(1) the story of Merah Silu catching the "fishes that turned to gold, while the water in which they were cooked turned to silver.'' Both the Chronicles and the Malay Annals read gelang-gelang itu menjadi emas dan bueh-nya menjadi perak. 

(2) The story of the dog si-Pasai finding a large ant Semut, which gave the place the name of Semudera. In both the dog menyalak di-atas tanah tinggi, and the ant is besar saperti kuching. 

(3) The tale of how the Prophet told his followers when they heard of a place Samudra, to convert it quickly, because many saints (wali) will arise (jadi) there, and on their way they were to take along with them (kamu bawa serta) a fakir. 

(4) Both histories have close verbal resemblances in the speech of the dying Sultan Malik al-Saleh, advising his sons not to be covetous (tama) and not to disagree (bersalahan) . Three days later (selang tiga hari) - in both chronicles - the Sultan dies. 

(5) The Speech of sultan Malik al-Mahmud on his exiled brother which is identical in both chronicles - wah ! terlalu sa-kali ahmak budi-ku! karna sa-orang perempuan saudara-ku ku-turunkan dari atas kerajaan-nya, dan manteri-nya pun ku-bunoh. Dulaurier reads budi-ku like the Sejarah Melayu; Mead wrongly bagi-ku. 

p.25

(6) There is an unusual construction (which may come from some recited folk-tale) - jika Beraim Bapa mahu derhaka, jika Pasai sa-Pasai~nya, jika Jawa sa-Jawa- nya, jika China sa-China-nya, jika Siam sa-Siam- nya, jika Keling sa-Keling-nya tiada dapat melawan si-Beraim Bapa. Compare the speech in Chapter 34 of the “Malay Annals” - jikalau aku di-atas gajah-ku Binudam itu, Melaka sa-Melaka-nya Pasai sa-Pasai-nya, jika tiada dengan kuderat Allah melintang, ku-langgar kota Melaka itu. 

Pasai was the first Malay kingdom to be converted to Islam in the second half of the 13th century A.D. and, though that premises previous contact with Muslims, Arabic loan-words must have taken time to creep into the Malay language, and for that reason also the Chronicles could hardly have been compiled earlier than 1350. Actual incidents too, while often retaining the vividness of history not too remote, are given a mythical tinge that only time could add. It would, however, appear unlikely that the Chronicles were written after 1524 when Acheh drove out the Portuguese and annexed Pasai. Authors wrote generally to please a court and it is incredible that any author would have the stimulus or even the courage to begin a history of Pasai after 1524; for, after that date, its history could only be written discreetly as a chapter in the annals of Acheh. Nor again is it very likely that a Chronicle of Pasai, quoted in the Sejarah Melayu, came into the plagiarist's hands after 1511, when d'Albuquerque took Malacca and ousted not only the Malay court but all Muslims. It is far more probable that the Hikayat Pasai reached Malacca in Malay times and was used there (after its author was dead) by a Malacca man, who wrote at least part of the Malay Annals before 1511. One may conclude that the Hikayat Pasai was written certainly before 1524 and almost certainly before 1511, and, most probably in the 15th century. 

Today the language of Pasai is Achinese but the historian wrote Malacca Malay. It may be noted that an obsolete interrogative particle kutaha occurs, several times, while in other respects the Malay does not differ from the Malay of a century later. If copyists have modernized it at all, it looks as if it must have been done before 1536. But there is no reason to suspect drastic changes. Phrases in it suggest that the episode of the handsome and herculean young man killed by a suspicious ruler was based on some folk-tale, handed down by recital: - ayoh ! Dara Zulaikha Tingkap, bangun oleh engkau, asal-mu orang Terjunan Pangliran, karna engkau penghulu gundek-ku, bergelar Tun Derma Dikara, bangun apa-lah engkau... Hari dini hari, bulan pun terang. 

p.26

Interesting is the influence of the Hikayat Pasai on the Malay Annals and so on all later Malay histories. This influence may be seen in:- 

(a) The deliberate ascription of episodes from romance to historical personages. (The story of a Bamboo princess which occurs in the Ramayana, is found in the Chronicles of Pasai, in a Hikayat Acheh and in the Kedah Annals. Similarly the choice of a ruler by a sagacious elephant which occurs in the Katha Sarit Sagara, is found not only in the chronicles of Pasai but in the Kedah Annals). 

(b) Parallel folk-tales occur. Pasai was founded, where a dog (Pasai) is resisted by a courageous mouse-deer. So too, according to the Malay Annals was Malacca. 

(c) Long ethical exhortations are put in the mouths of dying rulers in both works. This is a notable feature. 

{d) The downfall of the handsome athletic warrior suspected of treachery, is a motif found here, in the Malay Annals and in the Hikayat Hang Tuah. 

(e) The description of the waiting-maid, hurrying untidy and dishevelled, is an episode common in Malay romance and found in the same three works. 

(f) Like the Chronicles of Pasai, the Malay Annals (and the Kedah Annals) contain mythical accounts of the conversion of a Malay court to Islam. 

Historically the chronicles are especially interesting for the picture they give of Indian influence at Pasai. Ghiath al-Din ministers of Malik al-Saleh, was a name common in Delhi but was never popular in Malaya. His companion Semayam (or, as the Sejarah Melayu reads Husam) al-Din also bears a name found in India. It is a “ Kling ” miner who discovers gold in Samudra and it is a Kling yogi who dubs Sultan Ahmad Perumudal Perumal and a Kling ship bringd four swashbucklers (pendikar).

SUMMARY OF THE CHRONICLES. 

This is a history of Pasai, the first Malay country to embrace Islam. There were two brothers Raja Ahmad and Raja Muhammad who opened a settlement at Semerlanga. One bamboo clump the workers count could not cut down until Raja Muhammad himself chopped it to find in one of the  bamboos a lovely girl child whom he and his wife called the Bamboo Princess. The elder brother, Raja Ahmad, settled a day’s journey away in the jungle. Hunting one day, he met an old man in a small house of prayer (Surau) and told him of the Bamboo Princess. The old man showed him a wild elephant with a small boy on its back. The Raja returned and told his wife. Then he went with an army to the same place. The house and the old man had vanished but he dug a shelter and waited for the elephant. When it came, he seized the boy and took him home to his wife. And they named {him Merah Gajah. In later years, he was wedded to} [^¹] the Bamboo Princess, by whom he beget one son Merah Silu and a younger Merah Hasum. Now the Bamboo Princess had on her head one sacred golden hair, and one day when she slept Merah Gajah pulled it out so that she died, Then Raja Muhammad fought and killed him, so enraged was he at the death of his adopted daughter. When Raja Ahmad heard of this, he fought his brother, until both of them fell slain. Then Merah Silu and Merah Hasum departed from Semerlanga as ill-starred and went to live at Bruana. 

p.27

One day Merah Silu caught river fish (gelang-gelang) that turned into gold and silver. Another time he caught all the wild buffaloes of the district and tamed them - at Kampong Kerbau. Merah Hasum reproached him. So he removed to Ulu Karang on the Pasangan river (where the people resented the damage done by his buffaloes) and thence to the Semenda to a place called Buloh Telang, where he met one Megat Skandar, at whose invitation he settled there and engaged in cock-fights, paying if he lost and never demanding payment from losers but giving all comers a buffalo each. Megat Skandar and Megat Kedah [^a] both being kakanda to Sultan Malik al-Nasar at Rimba Jerau, get Merah Silu elected king, the one objector being Tun Herba Benong. 

Sultan Malik al-Nasar attacks Merah Silu, is defeated and retreats to Benua. He attacks again and is defeated at Pertama Terjun, whence Merah Silu drives him to Gunong Telawas. Merah Silu attacks and defeats his enemy at Kubu, Pekersang and Kumat. Tun Haria Benong [^b] fled to Barus [^c] where the Raja arrested him, so that Barus and Pasai are friends to this day. 

Merah Silu ruled at Rimba Jerau (Mead ; Jeran Dulaurier). As he was hunting, his dog Pasai found an ant (semut) as large as a cat : Merah Silu ate it and founded a kingdom at the spot, calling it Semudera (or Large Ant)! The Sharif of Mecca heard of it and, fulfilling a prophecy of Nabi Muhammad, sent a ship captained by a Shaikh Isma'il. It was to call at Mengiri, where one Muhammad was Sultan, - a descendant of Abu-Bakar -, who gave up his throne and accompanied Shaikh Isma’il. Now one night Merah Silu dreamt that an aged man spat in his month and enabled him to speak Arabic and recite the Muslim creed, and moreover miraculously circumcised him. It was the Prophet himself, and he told his convert to change his name to Sultan Malik al-Saleh. Then Shaikh Isma'il arrived at Teluk Tria and installed the new Sultan, who had two ministers Tun Sri Kaya called Sayid ‘Ali Ghiath al-Din dan Tun Baba Kaya called Semayam [^d] al-Din. When Shaikh Isma’il departed, Sultan Malik al-Saleh gave him amber, camphor, eagle-wood and cloves and nutmegs, 100 bahara in weight, for the Khalifah Sharif at Mecca. The Sultan of Mengiri, now a fakir, stayed and converted all the people except the Gayos up the river Pasangan. 

p.28

Sultan Malik al-Saleh sends an embassy to Perlak to ask for the hand of one of the daughters of the Sultan of Perlak. Astrologers advise that he marry princess Ganggang, the handsome daughter of a secondary wife. Tun Perpateh Pandak, a son of the Sultan of Perlak, escorts her as far as Jambu Ayer where her betrothed meets her. They marry and she is given a palace at Rama Gandi and bears a son Malik al-Tahir. A “Kling” miner finds gold in Semudra. At a spot where his dog, Pasai, is stoutly resisted by a mousedeer, Malik al-Saleh founds Pasai and gives it to his son for a kingdom. Malik al-Tahir dies leaving two sons Sultan Malik al-Mahmud and Sultan Malik al-Mansur. Malik al-Mahmud becomes Sultan of Pasai with Sayid ‘Ali Ghiath al-Din or his prime minister. Malik al-Mansur succeeds his father as Sultan of Semudra. 

Hearing of the wealth of Pasai, the king of Siam sends a force against it under a warrior Talak Sambang to demand tribute. The Pasai forces under Barang [^e] Laksamana and Tun Rawan Pematang and Tun Aria Jong and the Sultan drive the Siamese back to their boats. 

Malik al-'Mahmud gets a son, Sultan Ahmad Perumudal Perumal. One day when Malik al-Mahmud is away, his brother al-Mansur ravishes a maid from his palace. A chief, Tulus Agong Tokong Sukara, father-in-law of Sayid Ali Ghiath al-Din, advises Malik al-Mahmud to invite his brother to the circumcision of his son Ahmad Perumudal Perumal, when he seizes and banishes him to Temiang and beheads his minister Semayam al-Din. The head caught in the rudder of Sultan al-Mansur’s boat and was discovered at the Jambu Ayer anchorage : he begged his brother for the body and buried the remains at Padang Maya. Later Malik al-Mahmud repented and sent to bring his brother back, but on the return Sultan al-Mansur died beside the grave at Padang Maya. Malik al-Mahmud also dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmad as Sultan. 

A Kling ship arrives bringing a yogi acrobat who fainted before the sanctity of Sultan Ahmad. He became a Muslim and he {confers to Sultan Ahmad the title as} [^²] it was styled the Sultan Perumudal Perumal "Famous Great Chief". Among thirty children, the Sultan begets by the same mother Tun Beraim Bapa [^f] Tun ‘Abdu’l-Jalil; Tun Abu al-Fadzil and two daughters Medam Peria [^g] and Tun Takiah [^h] Dara. 

p.29

Tun 'Abdul-Jalil was very handsome, the light of the palace and the town. If he dressed in Javanese style, he looked a Javanese, if in Siamese style a Siamese, if in Tamil fashion a Tamil and if as an Arab he looked an Arab.'' His fame reached princess Gemerenchang, daughter of the ruler (ratu) of Majapahit. His learning was known as far as the land of Samarkand. 

Now Sultan Ahmad conceived a passion for his own daughters and asked his ministers '' Who should first taste the first-fruits of a man's own planting? " Tulus Agong Tokong [^i] Sukara, knowing what was in his heart, replied, "Another" but one Baba Mertuah, ignorant of his master's passion, replied “Oneself". The daughters tell their brother Braim Bapa at Tukas and he removes them there, angering his father. 

One day a Kling ship brought four skilled fencers (pendikar) to Pasai, insulting and provocative. The Sultan sends for Braim Bapa, who collects warriors who feast with beat of drum, till the Sultan calls a waiting-maid, Zulaikha of the window, keeper of his concubines, and asks her what enemies approach. Hurrying to him her dress in disorder, her hair loose and in curls and full of scented flowers, she says it is only Braim Bapa and his warriors. The Sultan replies, “Keep it secret, but may my throne pass from me and may I never smell heaven, unless I kill him." 

In the morning Braim Bapa arrives and his horsemanship and sword play frighten the four Tamils back to their ship, whereupon his father forgives and praises him. 

But soon he incurs paternal ire again for joking with one of his father's concubines. The Sultan decides to take Braim Bapa on a river picnic. Braim Bapa takes leave of all his friends, saying that he may not return to joke with them again. After he has shifted the Sultan's boat from a reef by his great strength, the Sultan sends him poison, calling it warming medicine. It is so heating that the trees he leans against die and the people he touches perish. His two sisters drink it and die. But Braim Bapa has to catch a river serpent and eat its flesh to reinforce the poison before it can kill him. Braim Bapa goes to Mt. Fadzul Allah and casting a spear desires to be buried where it falls. Then he dies. 

Having seen the portraits of 100 princes drawn for her, Princess Gemerenchang, daughter of the ruler of Majapahit, sails for Pasai for love of the portrait of Tun 'Abdul-Jalil, the Sultan's second son. Jealous, the Sultan kills him. The princess heartbroken prays that her ship may perish. It sinks. Sang Nata comes with a fleet from Majapahit to punish Pasai. Pasai is conquered, and a tree (pokok pauh) on its parade-ground (medan) is bent by the piles of enemy lances, wherefore the place is still called the Field of the Bent Tree. As the fleet sails home, Jambi and Palembang submit to Majapahit. Prisoners from Majapahit could live where they liked in Majapahit, and that was why at that time there were many keramat in Java. 

p.30

Sang Nata instructs Pateh Gajah Mada and other warriors to attack countries not yet subject to Majapahit. Temenggong Machan Negara, Demang Singa Perkusa, and Sinapati Anglaga set out to conquer first Ujong Tanah and the islands off the south of the Malay Peninsula, then many places in Borneo, Sambas, Mempawa, Sukadana, then the Bandan islands and many others. 

Finally Majapahit determines to conquer Pulau Percha. Pateh Gajah Mada takes a magic buffalo there. If it wins, he is to conquer Pulau Percha; if not, to return. By a trick, a Minangkabau buffalo calf beats the Majapahit buffalo, and the Minangkabaus treacherously stab the throats of the Javanese warriors by thrusting sharp bamboo drinking vessels down their throats. 

This MS. was written on 21 Muharram, A.H. 1230, (2 Jan. 1815). Then follow lists (a) of countries mentioned in the Chronicles and (b) of countries subject to Majapahit when Pasai was conquered. 

THE KEDAH ANNALS

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 1612 A.D. and borrowing for a farrago of folk-tales their name of Sulalatu's-Salatin, the Hikayat Merang (or Marong) Mahawangsa 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 and Hanoman and Langkapuri from the Ramayana (so often the source of Siamese shadow-plays and Siamese art, and of Vishnu’s roc or Geroda, a figure in 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 ! 

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 in the Maha-Sutasoma-Jataka, 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 Carp 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 ; and the Malay Annals 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 in the Hikayat Acheh. Into the present work the story in 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 roc, 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 anachronistic 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 

Shaikh ‘Abdu’llah Yamani (or Abani) from Baghdad. (This seems to be by a different hand, as it employs the Javanese style tuan perempuan and tuan saudagar.) 

p.32

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 in 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 in an Achinese account for Kedah's conversion. But of this or any date, as well as of the story told in the Malay Annals of Kedah's embassy to Sultan Mahmud, who ruled in Malacca from 1488 till 1511, no word is to be found. It 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 Bab a'n-nikah. Actually this Shaikh Nuru’d-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 full 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 precedent) 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 Ahmad Taju-’d-din Halim Shah, who conquered Perak in 1818 and was driven out of Kedah by the Siamese in 1821 not to return till 1842. This Batavian MS. belonged 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 Raffles MSS. though Raffles was once stationed at Penang. The Chronicles of Pasai have survived only in one MS. written for Raffles in 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.”

p.33 

The appearance of the names of the reputed two first Muslim rulers of Kedah in a preface cribbed from the Malay Annals of 1612 A.D. is no evidence of a 15th or even of a 17th century compilation. 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 or early in the 19th century, there is nothing wonderful in written memoranda or verbal tradition having preserved their names, seeing 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, the 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 marry, to wit, a son of the 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 Mahawangsa off Kuala Changgong which was ruled by a Raja Gulanggi (or Kelinggi). But the prince from Rome gets ashore on a plank and hides in a cave on Langkapuri, daily meeting his future bride in secret. And Marong Mahawangsa reaches the mainland and founds a kingdom Langkasuka facing Pulau Sri. When Geroda reports 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 the 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 Mahapodisat, changing its name to Kedah Zamin Turan, and sails back to Rome. 

Of the sons of Marong Mahapodisat, the eldest became king of Siam ; the second shot a silver arrow that fell on the island Indra 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 Serukum : whenever his eldest brother in Siam begat a child, he sent the child a present of gold and silver flowers. 

p.34 

Sri Mahawangsa died of grief because his son and successor Sri Indra Wangsa married a demon (gergasi) girl, who bore a son Ong Maha Perita Deria, destined to become famous as the Tusked Raja (Raja Bersiong). 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 Pulau Seri had become Gunong Jerai and Pulau Jambul had become Bukit Jambul 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 fall in his spinach and was forced by him to confess why the spinach tasted to him so delicious. After that the king drank the 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 attacked the palace, its female inmates arranging for the palace guns to be loaded only with powder. The Tusked Raja escapes up-country, lives with 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, ruling over negritos and other aborigines. He decided to invade Kedah and become its king. West of Ligor he met a Siamese force under a Siamese minister Kelaham, was defeated and taken a prisoner to Siam. Kelaham marches along the coast to Sala, where he builds a palace for the new king and instals him as Phra Ong Mahapodisat. The new king returns to Kuala Muda, begets a son Phra Ong Mahawangsa and 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 Bukit Penjara 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 and 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’llah, a saint of Baghdad, had a pupil ‘Abdu’llah of Yaman, who was shown by Iblis how he stirred up strife in homes and markets and gambling and opium dens and schools, and how he caused women to commit adultery and husbands to murder wives, and princes like Kamishdzur and Kamishkar to war. And ‘Abdu’llah of Yaman and Iblis came to the palace of Phra Ong Mahawangsa where Iblis filled the king's wine goblet half full of urine, and Abdu’llah reproached Iblis, who vanished taking from Abdu’llah the wand of invisibility he had given him. The king wakes and questions the intruder, who persuades him and his people to break and burn their idols of gold, silver, wood and clay and to embrace Islam. 

p.35

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 Sultan of Acheh and a Shaikh Nuru’d-din send the Kedah court two treatises, the Sirat al-mustakim and the Bab a'n-Nikah. No Kedah girl wanted to marry Shaikh ‘Abdu’llah, because he was soon to return to Baghdad. 

Now the Prince from the Bamboo was sent north west to find a site 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 attacked by four robbers from Patani, Dato’ Sangkai, Senik Ipeh, Senik Ratu, Senik Payu. He kills them but is so wounded that he becomes once more bamboo and vanishes. 

Mua’zzam Shah succeeds his father, who retires to a religious life. Sulaiman Shah rules the island of Langkapuri. Mahmud Shah rules up-country (ulu). The work concludes with a list of Sultans of Kedah, down to Ahmad Taju’d-din Halim Shah. 

The Date, Authorship, Contents and some new MSS. of 

THE MALAY ROMANCE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

By his thesis on De Maleische Alexanderroman (Meppel 1937) Dr. P. J. van Leeuwen has added another to the list of valuable Malay studies inspired by the requirements for a doctorate of letters in Holland, though he has overlooked some of the material, not found other accessible and has therefore left several interesting problems unsolved. 

Dr. van Leeuwen unfortunately professes no knowledge of Arabic or Persian and has had to depend on a friend for comparison of the Malay recension with Arabic versions of the tale of Alexander at Berlin, This comparison has led him to deduce that the Malay Hikayat Iskandar Dzu'l-Karnain comes from an Arabian version, a deduction he finds corroborated by Arabisms in the Malay text. As he points out, in the time of the Prophet, Arabs knew little of the story of Alexander. The mention of Dzu'l-Karnain in the Quran attracted their notice. A translation of the Syriac version of the tale of Alexander the Great a few centuries later failed to shake their belief in the identity of Dzu'l-Karnain and al-Iskandar, and they welcomed a synthesis by 'Umara whose version reconciled Quranic tradition with the Pseudo-Callisthenes : still the son of Philip of Macedon, Alexander became an Apostle of Islam and set out on missionary wars under the guidance of Khadlir. Then about 1000 A.D. the Arabs got to know the Shahnama of Firdausi through a summary by Mansur at - Ta'alibi, which described Alexander as founder of the throne of Iran and gave the names of the ancestors of Bahman but otherwise had little influence on the Arabic version of the romance. 

Dr. van Leeuwen notes that two MSS. presented by Mr. R. J. Wilkinson to the University of Cambridge mention al-Suri as the name of the Arabian author whose recension has been used for the Malay version (cf. I. Friedlander's Die Chadirlegende und der Alexanderroman, Teubner, Leipzig, 1913, pp. 179-191). He has not remarked what Mr. Wilkinson tells me occurs in his MSS. and what I have found in what I shall term below Winstedt MS. No. II (page 63) that the name of al-Suri is associated with that of 'Abdu'llah ibu [^a] (or [^b] so that either the Malay work or its source is a compilation : the sentence in my MS. runs "Say al-Suri and 'Abdu-llah son of [^c] whose hikayat it is”, implying presumably that the source of the Malay romance was a compilation from more authors than one. 

"The peculiar circumstance that in the Berlin Arabic and the Malay versions Alexander first conquers Dara his brother, then, as king of Persia conquers the kingdoms of the west and next, on his march to the east, had again to fight a king of Persia," namely Darinus, can be explained as follows. The compiler borrowed Firdausi’s version up to Alexander mounting the throne and then wrote of his travels west and east. He knew from the complete Arabic Pseudo-Callisthenes or from Mubashshir's version that Alexander first conquered different western kings, then fought Dara and afterwards went east and defeated Porus. So he concluded that Alexander had to fight another king of Persia besides Firdausi’s Dara. Perhaps one of his sources mentioned not Dara but Darius, whence he created the name Darinus. Whether this distortion of the story dates from ‘Umara or from al-Suri, I cannot determine, as I know ‘Umara only from the short outline in Friedlander. Probably ‘Umara did not have it or know the Shahnama.” 

p.2

So van Leeuwen. The distortion is due to an attempt to reconcile Arabic and Persian recensions, and the place where one would naturally look for such an attempt is British India, the source of so many early Malay versions of Muslim literary works. It is possible that further research among Persian and Indian versions of the tale may throw more light on the origin of the Malay recension. 

When Dr. van Leeuwen comes to discuss the age of the Malay Hikayat Iskandar Dzu'l-Karnain, he has overlooked two references in the Bustan as-Salatin of 1638 A.D. and was unaware of the earliest text of the Sejarah Melayu, whose introductory chapter is summarized from the Malay Hikayat Iskandar. He notes the reference in that chapter to “the famous hikayat” and surmises that it was therefore famous in 1612 A.D., the hitherto accepted date for the Sejarah Melayu. But 

(a) the 1612 edition of the "Malay Annals” was a drastic Johor revision of a history "brought from Goa’’, which had been started before 1511 A.D. and went down to 1536 A.D. 

(b) The printed text of the 1612 edition has a preface in praise of Allah and His Prophet cribbed word for word from the Busan as-Salatin, which was begun in Acheh in 1638! Clearly that preface is a later interpolation after the 1612 edition. Was the introductory chapter on Alexander also an interpolation after 1638, seeing that the author of the Bustan as-Salatin twice refers to himself as having written in Malay about Alexander? 

(c) The MS containing the oldest recension of the Sejarah Melayu, namely Raffles No. 18 in the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, is a copy of a MS. which appears to have been the 1536 “history brought from Goa’’ and to have belonged to Raja Bongsu (=Sultan 'Abdu’llah Ma'ayat Shah born 1571 died 1623), the patron and perhaps part editor of the 1612 revision of Sejarah Melayu. It does not contain the long half-Arabic preface cribbed from the Bustan as-Salatin - an omission perhaps only due to that common accident, the loss of the first leaf of a MS. - but it does contain much of the 1612 preface, giving particulars as to that date and the persons engaged in thee 1612 revision. And it contains also the introductory chapter summarized from Hikayat Iskandar Dzu'l-Karnain and follows it up by the most complete Malay list extant of the Persian and Indian descendants of Iskandar, an extraordinary list apparently copied from a genealogical tree.* 

p.3

Does Raffles MS. No. 18 therefore represent the 1536 text of the Sejarah Melayu plus the introduction of 1612 and a summary from the Hikayat Iskandar added in 1612 or even about 1638? It would remove certain absurdities and inconsistencies to start the Sejarah Melayu with its second chapter, the descent of Hindu princes on Bukit Si-Guntang, excising altogether from that chapter, as Raffles MS. No. 18 excises in part, all references to Iskandar. But in that case, this MS. would be a most extraordinary hotchpotch even for a Malay MS. It would contain 

(a) the original history down to 1536, a history to be altered and faked later by the 1612 editors; 

(b) a preface added in 1612 and 

(c) an introductory chapter on Iskandar from a long Hikayat Iskandar, compiled, it was once erroneously suggested by Mr. R. J. Wilkinson on the imperfect evidence then before him, just prior to 1638 by an Indian in Acheh. 

But if this introductory chapter dates from 1638 or even 1612, why was the original 1536 draft of the Malay Annals retained ? Why was not the revision of 1612 preferred as in all other MSS. of the Malay Annals? Again if the introductory chapter dates from 1638 or even 1612, are we to suppose that Raffles MS. retained the 1536 draft but interpolated in the chapter on the Portuguese attack on Malacca references to the Hikayat Amir Hamza and the Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah, a knowledge of which Perso-Arabic romances seems to fit the summarizer of the Iskandar introductory chapter? It seems far more probable that all three works were more likely to be popular and in the hands of an author writing in cosmopolitan Malacca before D’ Albuquerque took it in 1511 than popular and in the hands of a Malay editor working on the troubled Johor river in 1612. 

It is in the second book of the Malay Bustan as-Salatin that the author refers to himself as having written in Malay about Alexander the Great. As Dr. van Leeuwen has overlooked these references, I quote from the Jawi version edited by Mr. R. J. Wilkinson and printed by the American Mission Press, Singapore, in 1900. 

Shahadan ada-lah 'umor Sultan Iskandar itu ĕnam-puloh tahun ; kata sa-tĕngah sa-ribu ĕnam ratus tahun dan ada-lah 'umor-nya dan bangsa-nya ikhtilaf sĕgala ahl al-tarikh, tiada-lah fakir mĕlanjutkan pĕrkataan-nya dari karna sudah-lah di-Jawikan fakir lain dari-pada kiiah ini (p. 14). 

Fasal yang kĕtiga pada menyatakan ahual sĕgala raja-raja benua Yunan dan Rum pada zaman dahulu kala. Kata ahl al-tarikh bahawa ada-lah sĕgala raja-raja benua Yunan itu sakaitan-nya muluku't-tawa'if jua dan sakalian mĕreka itu-lah mĕnghukumkan bĕnua Rum pada masa itu, tiada tĕrmashhur nama mĕreka itu mĕlainkan Sultan Filipus ia-itu nenek Sultan Iskandar sa-bĕlah bonda-nya, tiada-lah fakir mĕlanjutkan pĕrkataan karna tĕlah sudah di-jawikan fakir lain dari-pada kitab ini (p. 26). 

p.4

These passages may be translated as follows:-

"The age of Sultan Iskandar was sixty years : half the authorities say one thousand six hundred years, and all the chroniclers are mistaken as to his age and nationality: your humble scribe will say no more because he has written something else in Malay besides this book." 

"Section three setting forth the history of the rulers of Yunan and Rome in ancient times. All chroniclers say that the rulers of Yunan were kings of Alexander’s provinces and, all of them ruled Rome at that time, none of them being famous except King Phillip who was Alexander’s maternal grand-father. Your humble servant will say no more because he has written something else in Malay besides this book.” 

The form and scholarly detail of the first passage make it quite unlikely that it is one of those interpolations loved by Malay copyists.

The author of the Bustan as-Salatin (J.R.A.S.S.B. 82; 1920) 

was a Shaikh Nuru’d-din ibu 'Ali ibn Hasanyi ibn Muhammad ar-Raniri of Gujerat, who came to Acheh on 31 May 1637 and got instructions to write the Bustan on 4 March, 1638 that is twenty six years after the 1612 Johor revision of the Sĕjarah Mĕlayu. Even if he had Malay blood and knew the language before his arrival in a Malay country in 1637, he could not be the author of a Malay Hiyakat Iskandar "famous” before 1612, that is famous some thirty years before his arrival in the Malay archipelago. 

At first I was disposed therefore to think that Shaikh Nuru’d-din was responsible only for revising the older Hikayat Iskandar and was the author of what may be termed the Sumatran recension of that work. But this theory has to be abandoned, seeing that the more scholarly author of the Bustan calls Phillip of Ionia, the maternal grandfather of Iskandar, while Hikayat Iskandar calls him Qilas (? a corruption of Failakus = Philipus) of Macedonia. One can only surmise that Shaikh Nuru’d-din wrote a book referring to Alexander which has not yet been discovered or identified.

What I term the Sumatran rescension of Kikayat Iskandar is that of the three Leiden MSS., the Schoemann MS. at Berlan on Dutch paper (J.R.A.S.M.B. IV, 2 Overbeck), a Batavian MS. (No. CCCXXXV) and the Paris MS. copied by the same scribe as Leiden Codex 1696, all of which van Leeuwen traces back  to one of the Leiden, MSS., Codex 1970 (Juynboll's Catalougs, No. CLXXX) dated 1713 A.D. and once the property, of  an Arab living in the Archipelago, Omar ibn Sakhr Ba'abuj; - or alternatively the other MSS. go back to the same original as Codex 1970. 

p.5

What I term the British Malayan recension comprises the Farquhar MS. of 1805 A.D. in the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, a MS. presented by Mr. R. J. Wilkinson to Cambridge with a colophon saying it was copied in Sungai Ujong in 1902, and Batavian MS. CCCXXXVI, which is a copy of the Farquhar MS. The oldest version of this recension, van Leeuwen surmises from textual criticism, was the original of Wilkinson's Sungai Ujong copy. 

Dr. van Leeuwen has detected these two recensions, though 

he has not noted their territorial nature or given them the names 

Sumatran and British Malayan. The Sumatran recension alone 

starts with the doxology, relates how Allah showed Adam his 

descendants and gives a list of the predecessors of Bahman. It 

does not carry the story of Alexander so far as the British Malayan 

recension. '' Otherwise the order of the contents and the con- 

tents themselves are precisely similar in both recensions ; nearly 

every sentence in the one finds a parallel in the other, though 

they vary in choice of words and construction of sentences." 

Dr. van Leeuwen points out that the British Malayan recension 

cannot be derived from the Sumatran, because it often has a better 

text and carries the story further ; nor yet can the Sumatran have 

been derived from the British Malayan recension, as it sometimes 

has a sentence missing from the latter and it has the doxology, 

the story of Adam and the list of Bahman's predecessors, all of 

which the British Malayan MSS. omit. But, he concludes, 

though in the Arabic there are at least two versions one beginning 

with the story of Bahman and the other enumerating his prede- 

cessors, the similarities between the two Malay recensions are too 

close for them to be separate translations of different Arabic MSS.; 

they must descend from a common Malay original. 

A Wilkinson Cambridge MS. of 1808 A.D. is the only MS. 

extant (except one in my possession, which concludes with the 

death of Alexander) giving nearly the whole of al-Suri's Berlin 

version. From cursory examination both Dr. van Ronkel and 

Mr. R. J. Wilkinson erroneously took this MS. of 1808 A.D, to 

contain a wholly different version to that of the other Malay 

MSS. According to Dr. van Leeuwen '' it begins, where the 

Wilkinson Cambridge MS. of 1902 ends, except that for a few pages 

the versions overlap." Both MSS. appear to have the same con- 

tents but the older is more detailed and contains more digressions. 

On the evidence of a few pages of overlap it is impossible to deter- 

mine to which recension it should be assigned, but it appears to 

be the sequel to the longer British Malayan version. It appears 

also to be a better text than the Farquhar MS., a view supported 

by its far closer resemblance to the story of Kida of Hindi as 

summarized in the Malay Annals, 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, T * 

R. O. Wmstedt, 

To sum up. Can we conclude that the oldest translation 

was done in Malacca ? that it was the text used by the author 

of ihe Malay Annals and already " famous " before 1511 ? that it 

is more nearly represented by the British Malayan recension ? 

and most nearly of all by the Wilkinson MS. of 1808 now at Cam- 

bridge ? ^ Were it not that Malay copyists take great liberties 

with their te.xt, a careful study 'of the Malay vocabulary 

might determine the original place of authorship. ' 

I will now give a bnef account of the four MSS. of the 

Hikayat Iskandar m my possession, which will ultimately find a 

place in a public library at London or Oxford. For convenience 

I will term them the Winstedt MSS. 

WlbiSTEDT MS. I contains 327 pages 12|- x 8i inches with a 

water-mark of three crescents and Roman (apparently Endish) 

lettenng If my memory serves, it came from Sungai ulonv 

It bears the date 1302 A.H. 1884 A.D. It has the abbreviated 

preface of the British Malayan recension and follows closely with 

some verbal differences, the excerpts from that recension given 

by van Leeuwen. In some places it appears to correct his text 

e g Kur anyang‘adzimmstta.dotKtir’anyang‘alini (v L p 46 

16) nah hta instead of nabi {ib. 1. 14), di-Mahm instead of 

dt-ketahuan4ah {tb., p. 96, 1. 13), etc. 

Page 20o ends Maka ada sa-orang dari-pada mereka itu 

dan-pada amk chuchu Nabi Yusuf 'alaihi as-salama, maka 

bermimptpada suaiu malam Nabi Yusuf berkata akan dia “ Persi- 

lah W Then follow ten and a third blank pages 

till on page 216 the text begins again ° 

di-dengar oleh Raja Bakhtiar 

kata ISabi Khtdhr tiUymaka %a pun segera herdiri*'. 

pis actually represents a lacuna from line 34, page 243 of 

Leeuwen s outline to page 255, where Bakhtiar the son of 

Puz surrenders and accepts Islam. 

text berins'^ 4 f ^ ^ ^ then the 

akan pfihalplktjlT ^^^^^^Ua-lah hati Raja Bakhtiar 

abruptly with the line kelihatan pula 

Raja Daljan dengan segala tantha-nya lima-puloh ribu hulubalana 

mai 7 ^«'*‘**- M‘^ka Ltanya Raja ulnya- 

maj pada Abdu l-nar, Kaum mana ini ? ” This coincides with 

page 259 of van Leeuwen’s outline coincides with 

WINSTEDT MS. II. 

are "“If aeveoteen 

J owned Malayan Branch |Vol. XVI, Part II, 

Malay Romance of Alexander the Great. 7 

Maka.kemhali4ah sigala kaum 'Ajam and it goes on do relate 'the 

interview where Ltika Hakim advises .Qilas to ..submit to, .Darab'. 

(van 'Leeuwen p..234). ■ 

The last two lines of the last page vnn.^Arakian maka 

hMnnu4ah mheka itu dengan sulu Raja Iskandar itu pmganjur 

Raja Radliah mmyurohberdatang simhah ka-pada Raja Radliah. 

Maka oleh panglima daMpada isiert Raja T thus itu di-suroh-nya 

sa-orang orang-nya ka~pada Raja Iskandar, Bakaw a kami 

datang inijj djid then continues in a marginal note under the line 

carrying on to another page or MS., pmyuroh isteri Raja Tibus 

memhawa surat dan bingkisan dan mengatakan diri taalok ka-pada 

Raja Iskandar (van Leeuwen p. 251). 

From a comparison of several passages it seems to be a less 

careful copy from the same MS. as my MS. I . Bngkau is sometimes 

changed into hamba, 

WINSTEDT MS. HI. 

A MS. of 179 pages 12| x inches with a colophon saying 

that the copying of it was finished on 9 Muharram 1289 A.H. 

at Eampong Ulu in Malacca, it being “ volume I of the Hikayai 

and the property of the Dato' Muda of Linggi, Enche' Mohammed 

Perghal (? = Corporal). The Muslim date is the equivalent of 20 

March 1872. The first page has an old number 77 in Roman 

figures and begins abruptly akaii Raja Tibus itu telah datang4ah 

mengadap Raja di-negeri Filastin dhigan penyuroh Raja Darinus. 

Not till line 13 of page 17 do we meet the line that concludes 

WinstedtMS. II so that there is an overlap of 16| pages between 

the two MSS. 

This MS. Ill is interesting and valuable for three reasons : — 

{a) On p. 63, it contains the mention noted above of two 

Arab authors 

{b) It ends with the tale of Alexander's marriage with 

Badru'l-Qumriya, the daughter of Kida Hindi, a version very close 

to the tale as summarized in the “ Malay Annals ", though not 

so close as in Wilkinson's MS. of 1808. 

I give the passage to which the author of the “ Malay Annals " 

was indebted in his chapter I, printing phrases he actually quotes 

in italics. 

Maka di-panggil-nya sa-orang manteri-nya yang ' akil pada 

tempat yang sunyi, maka sabda raja, “ Ada suatu bichara-ku. 

Ada-lah anak-ku tiga orang. Maka ada sa-orang anak-ku perem- 

puan, pada mata-ku amat elok rupa-nya. Sekarang bichar a aku 

hendak ku-persembahkan ka-pada Raja Iskandar. Benar-nya pada- 

mu ? " Maka sembah manteri itu, “ Sa-baik-baik kerja-lah yang 

di-bicharakan duli shah ' alam itu Maka sabda Raja Kida 

Hindi, “ Jika demikian itu, baikdah engkau pergi pada Nabi Khizr 

katakan oleh-mu saperti bichara kita ini, jikalau kira-nya suka raja 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, 

8 

R. 0. Winstedt. 

berhambakan anak-ku ini, neschaya ku-persembahkan ka-bawah 

duli raja.” Hatta maka keluar-lah manteri itu dari-pada raja-nva 

lalu pergi ia pada Nabi Khizr, maka di-katakan-nya-lah saperti 

bichara raj a-nya itu. Maka Nabi Khizr pun pergi mengadap Raja 

Iskandar, maka di-cheritrakan-nya-lah saperti kata manteri Raja 

Rida Hindi itu. Maka sabda baginda, Kabul~lah hamba 

menerima anak-nya itu akan isteri hamba, tetapi baik juga Nabi 

Allah pergi ka-pada Raja Kida Hindi itu akan ganti hamba ” 

Hatta maka Nabi Allah pun kembali ka-khemah-nya di-dapati 

manteri itu pun. (Here I omit a passage greatly abbreviated in 

the Malay_ Annals. My MS. then continues) Sa-ketika dudok 

Maka herdin-^lah Nabi Khizy memuji Allah suhhanahti wa-taala 

rfewgaw berbagai-bagai pujian. Maka ia menguchap selawat akan 

Nabi Ibrahim alaihi wa’s-sallama. Kemudian dari itu, maka 

di-bacha khutbah nikah Raja Iskandar dengan anak Raja Kida 

Hindi, di-nyatakan-nya kapada Raja Kida Hindi, “ Hai raja 

barang di-sudikan raja kami jadi menantii Raja Kida Hindi ? 

Jangan kira-nya kamu ‘kan berkaseh-kasehan dengan raja 

mashnk dan raja maghrib, telah di-serahkan Allah taala muka 

bumi ini dalam tangan-nya pada zaman ini. Kabul-kah raja 

atau tiada-kah ? Maka sahut Raja Kida Hindi “Telah kabul- 

lah hamba, dari karna hamba sahaya pada duli shah 'alam, dan 

telah di-ketahui oleh tuan-tuan yang hadzir ini, Nabi Allah-lah 

^karang akan wakil hamba dan anak hamba puteri Badru’l- 

Qumnya itu.” Maka ia pun turun-lah dari atas kerusi-nya lalu 

di-kechupi-nya tangan Raja Iskandar dan Nabi Khizr. Kemudian 

maka berjawat tangan ia dengan raja-raja yang ada hadlir itu. 

maka dudok-lah ia atas kerusi-nya. Kata 

» ■ di-anugerahi baginda pula persalin akan 

Kaja Kida Hindi dari-pada pakaian baginda sendiri dan sa-puloh 

ekor kuda yang baik dengan alat-nya dari-pada emas bertatahkan 

manikam. Sa-telah di-dengar Nabi Khizr kata Raja Kida Hindi 

berwakil pada-nya itu, maka kata Nabi Allah pada Raja Iskandar 

^karang barang di-ketahui, ada-lah isi kahwin puteri itu tiea 

ratm nbu dinar (Maka ada-lah kira-kira tiga ratus ribu dinar 

Itu hma mishkal dan-p^a emas yang merah. ) Kabul raj a member! 

d?mLan^tt ” ' Iskander, “ Kabul-lah hamba, yang 

Sa-telah sudah Raja Iskandar berkahwin dengan puteri Bad- 

rul-yimnya maka bangkit-lah segala raja-raja dan orang besar 

^ menghamborkan 

emas pada kaki Raja Iskandar. Maka minta doa-Iah mereka itu 

IsTa^ndnr^^\f^t“‘ Khizr pun minta doa akan Raja 

Iskandar. Maka segala raja-raja mengatakan amin. 

D-,- hari-nya maka datang-lah 

mula wft "f" dengan barang kuasa-nya ; 

lldl SS T?r han maka tatkala (itu) sampai-lah puteri itu . 

nf^ <r f ^ f IskandOT. _ Maka han pun malam-lah, maka di-bawa 

ka-pada khemah Raja Iskandar. Sa- 

lah baginda rupa t^ puteri itu. maka terchengang- 

lah Raja Iskandar, dalam haft-nya. " Aku sangkakan anak Raja 

Journal Malayan Branch [Vol. XVI, Part 11, 

9 

Malay Romance of Alexander the Great 

Dariniis jnga yang terlebeh baik pada segala : mannsia : akan 

piiteri' ini ;terlebeh pula elok paras-nya dari-pada segala maniisia, 

tiada berbaik dan berbagai dan tiada dapat di-sifatkan rnpSL-njB./', ' 

Al-kesah, kata yang empunya cheritera ini, pada rnasa itu 

tiada sa-orang jna pnn sa-bagai-nya pada nxpa-nya dan lakn-nya, 

mnka-nya berchahaya-chahaya bertambah pula’^dengan chahaya 

manikam yang terkena pada pakaian itu. Maka sukacliita-lah 

Raja Iskandar sebab melihat paras tuan puteri itu. Sa-telah 

pada esok hari-nya maka di-persalin Raja Iskandar akan tuan 

puteri itu dan di-perbuat baginda suatu khemah akan dia saperti 

khemah anak Raja Darinus, puteri Ruqaiyatul-Kubra. Maka tiga 

orang-lah isteri Raja Iskandar dengan anak Raja Tibus. Maka 

baginda pun keluar-lah di-adap oleh segala raja-'raja dan manteri 

huiubalang sakalian. Maka di-suroh Raja Iskandar panggil 

Raja Kida Hindi. Sa-telah datang, maka di-suroh Raja Iskandar 

dudok di-atas kerusi emas bertatahkan ratna mutu manikam 

sa-banjar dengan Raja Neemat di-sisi geta kerajaan Raja 

Iskandar. Maka di-persalin Raja Iskandar akan segala raja- 

raja dan orang besar-besar, pangiima yang memegang negeri dan 

manteri huiubalang, di-suroh buka tiga buah perhendaharaan 

baginda dan di-beri sedekah akan fakir dan miskin. 

Twelve more lines follow and then the M.S. ends. The last 

sentence reads : 

Maka Raja Kida Hindi pun sangat hhbuat kehaktian ka-pada 

Raja Iskandar dan Nahi Khidlir 'alaihi as-sallama wa htllahi iaufik. 

(c) On p. 28 the episode of the wife and daughter of Raja 

Tibus ends. Here, as van Leeuwen notes, all MSS. of the 

Sumatran recension finish, and between this end of the Sumatran 

recension and the beginning of the next episode in the Farquahar 

M.S. “ there is a hiatus, not filled by any MS. known to me. The 

length of the hiatus it is hard to discover” (p. 326). So van 

Leeuwen, who doubts if theKasak (Cossacks) would be introduced 

abruptly in the fight with Darinus without any explanation. 

My M.S. is the first known MS, to fill the hiatus and takes 70 

pages to do so : their contents are given in the outline below. 

The text then continues as in the Farquahar MS, and tells the 

story of the tiger skin coats for the Kasak (van Leeuwen p. 251), 

WINSTEDT MS. IV. 

A MS. of 297 pages 12| x 8 inches in large English note-book 

with ruled lines, copy completed on Sunday, 10 Rabi al-akhir, 1324 

A.H. (3 July 1906) by Ibrahim bin 'Abbas for Wan Besar ofKedah. 

It starts abruptly Al-kesah. Tatkala Raja Iskandar mmda- 

tangi akan Raja Puz Hindi, maka kata sahib al-hikayat, maka 

tatkala sudahdah Raja Kida Hindi alah, herhenti-lah Raja Iskandra 

ada sa-puloh hari dan pada $a-hUas hari-nya baginda pun berangkat 

etc. The numbering of the pages is stamped. 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, 

10 R. 0. Winstedt. 

Pages 28-30 correspond with the extract on pp. 190-192 of 

van Leeuwen ; pages 173-188 with that on pp. 193-208 ; pages 

263-285 with that on pp. 208-231. 

My MS. is often carelessly written and corrupt and omits 

redundant phrases but rare Arabic words frequently have the 

diacritical marks. The MS. corresponds except for a few liberties 

of the copyist with Wilkinson’s hitherto unique Cambridge MS. 

of 1808 A.D. (Add. 3770). It will be useful to correct errors in 

the Wilkinson MS, e.g. ’where the Wilkinson MS. reads obviously 

erroneously aia suatu rantai dari-pada emas sa4inggi manusia 

berkuda dan suatu rantai lagi dari-pada pihak itu sa-tinggi itu juga 

berdiri di4anah (van Leeuwen p. 194, lines 23-5) my MS. reads for 

tiie last seven words perak sa4inggi manusia juga berdiri di-tanah; 

and where the Wilkinson MS. reads htbahagi kami makan daging- 

nya inldbr -I* , B eriambah kaum kami (^5. p. 198, lines 35-6) my 

MS. reads berhahagia ioi hhbahagi. For Asatlin my MS. reads 

Astalin, Bor supay a {ih. p. 208, 1. 36) my MS. rightly reads 

siapa; for barang {ib. p. 209, 1. 29) it rightly reads naung and so on, 

to take a few examples at random. According to van Leeuwen the 

Wilkinson MS. ends with the death of Balminas who is succeeded 

by his reprobate son S. li, who migrates to Z.h.h. : as he is having 

an affair with a woman the MS. ends abruptly. My MS. IV 

continues for thirteen pages and is the only MS. known, to com- 

plete the romance : the contents of these pages are given in the 

outline below. This MS. is not only unique in completing the 

Malay romance of Alexander the Great. In agreeing with 

Wilkinson’s MS. of 1808, so far as that MS. goes, it agrees with 

what van Leeuwen has discovered, from comparison with the 

introductory chapter of the Malay Annals, to be the oldest 

recension of the Malay Hikayat Iskandar Dzul-Kar?iain, 

In the hope it may help British or Indian scholars ignorant 

of Malay (and Dutch) to identify more closely its source, I subjoin 

an outline, in parts paraphrased from that of Dr. van Leeuwen, 

of the whole romance as now first known in its completeness from 

my unpublished MSS. 

OUTLINE OF THE HIKAYAT DZU’L-KARNAIN, 

God is merciful, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, omniscient, 

and Muhammad is the last of His prophets. God showed Adam the 

denizens of heaven and hell, princes like shepherd of sheeps, 

saints like shinning ones, Ibrahim breaker of idols, Daud worker 

in iron, Sulaiman lord of genies and beasts, of the names of Allah 

engraved on a ring and of a magic flying carpet. Adam promised 

Daud 40 of his 1,000 years to give him a life of 100 years but after 

960 years denied it wherefore agreements among men are written 

and witnessed. The next greatest after Sulaiman was Iskandar 

Dzu’l-Karnain, son, say sQine, of Darab of Rum, of Qilas, say 

others, of raja Dawab the Persian, say others. 

Jcmrmt Malayan Branch [VoL XVI, Part IIj 

■Malay Romance of 'Alexander' tlie Great. ■ ' 11 

The fist of his line was Gayopart (=Gayumart), builder of 

boats, and,, houses, maker of. saddles,., sender. „ of envoys, 

teacher,' of... singing to devils, fabricator of coins. " Then ,' follows a 

list of the ■ kings of Babil down to Bahman, father of princess 

Humani, whom her father according ' to his, Majiisi religion 

wedded. He leaves his kingdom to their son but his mother 

pretends it was a girl and died, and she hides the child in a chest 

that is set afloat on the river where a washerman finds and adopts 

him/giving him the name of Darab. Aged 25 he discovers his 

parentage, fights in his mother’s army against her enemy Qilas 

king of Rum and slays his champion Jerjis (== George)." He is 

recognised by Humani, and seven days later succeeds her as ruler 

of Istakhr with her general Mihran of Dailam as second king. 

Qilas attacks ' Ajam, is defeated by Darab and flees home to 

Macedonia, where Luka Hakim advises him to submit, buying 

peace by yearly tribute of 100 gold and 100 silver eggs, Daral) 

asks him for a portrait of Qilas’ daughter, Safiya Arqiya. 

They wed but separate because of her bad breath. A doctor 

gives her a herb, iskmidar, to cure it, but too late ! Darab 

marries Sudagin, daughter of Mihran, wiio comes in disguise for 

fear she too may be divorced. Safia Arqiya bears a son, Iskandar, 

and Sudagin a son Dara. Iskandar is taught the Koran by 

Aristotle of Istambiil and succeeds Qilas on the throne of Macedo- 

nia. He tells Dara that the hens which laid the golden eggs have 

ceased laying and the seas wLich produced tribute pearls have 

dried up. The3^ fight at Dar, wLere one Sabur reigns. ' Irak is 

conquered : Madain invested, when his mother writes that Dara 

is his brother. But already Dara had been murdered. His 

murderers were impaled and he w^as buried beside Darab. 

Intoxicated wdth his glory Iskandar thinks there is none greater 

than himself. Then the prophet Khadir gets a revelation to tell 

Iskandar Allah has chosen him to rule the world. Angry at his 

preaching, Iskandar imprisons him, but is w^arned by "iblis of 

Khadir’s power. An angel releases Khadir and takes him to a 

mountain spring. 100 horsemen sent to arrest him are 

smitten by the fire of his breath. Iskandar follows Khadir who 

foretells Isa and Muhammad. He goes to Qustantiya to fetch 

Aristotle who excuses himself because of his age but gives him his 

pupil Naqfanus (Nectanebos) and a ring that can detect poison — 

it exposes Naqfanus who is made to eat the food he has poisoned. 

In Rumiya-al-akbar the wise Balminas sends Iskandar magic 

stones efficacious against sickness, wild beasts, and dumbness ; 

a diamond that gives light by night, and a powder to sharpen 

sight. On ships and a bridge Iskandar crosses from Andaius 

(where king Ni'mat son of Basrah is a believer in the God of Ibra- 

him) to the land of the Habshis, to wLom Khadir talks in their 

own language, converting them : they follow Iskandar, leaving 

their families on an island in the sea Luliimat. Iskandar comes to 

the valley of ants frequented by Solomon and then to a copper 

man on a horse pointing with a sword that belonged to Yafat son 

of Nukh. Then he captures a man, P....tah, on a girafle, wdiose 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, 

12 

R. 0. Winstedt. 

queen Raziya worships Saturn : really in youth shp hori 

converted to the true faith by a daughter of a king of the jins and 

foreknew the coming of Iskandar. Near Jerulalem iSTnTar 

reaches a city of palaces and mosques built by Sulaiman and 

Sakbr Jin and guarded by that jin’s son Dahar/ He co^es to a 

pass with statues of fiye mounted swordsmen, whose swords thev 

take. They come to Jabalsa where ‘Abud, a sun-worshipper is 

^ inviting him to worshiif Allah 

Soldiers sent to capture Khadir cannot see him and diAbv tW 

o™ swor*. He is decoyed oo to on island wte e mefare £wa4 

Jaijtail dnves them off and brines hint food 

Abud plans to attack Iskandar before Khadir returns but Khai^ir 

ht Ob tie sea. With the h^, S from hiveS 

They meet cave-dwellers, the men with one 

foot and one eye the women with four feet and two eyes Mndess 

worshippers of Allah, using stones for coins. ThJ comfto a 

tad mSe? i°t PbopIeworsUpSatniandpos^ss 

aiamona mines. At the mmes a yoice is heard saying “ There are 

ta "htan^o^T i° d"”"” ?rdaS S 

iew«i= r a ^ Iskandar makes a crown of two great 

jewels and so, some say, got the name Dzu’l-Karnain. ^ 

Iskandar comes to a place, where the soil is of cotton and his 

Kllfh stone-weapons flung by genies half man 

^ human prince and ten daughters of Iblis ■ 

as they will not eschew his worship they are slaT^ ’ 

the^Xii?^ travels eastward for forty days in 

their prey with their nails and worsWp darSess’^^and tlT^^ 

bun of a river that can be crossed only at ni^ht 25 if? 

troops stoned by ereat flies Khadir ^ ^ 

kins, also caM Mh“ SS S?5oa, 

named N-karia, join Iskandar ostnch-ndmg troops, 

the outer provinces of oSaSn *^0 mpnths they come to 

whose king, Hawas. lives in Dzu’l-arkan and 

UlcLUgllLCl 

Journal Malayan Branch [Vol. XVI, Part II, 

, , Malay. Romance, of Alexander the Great. . ij 

Shamsul-barrina. Handing his army to his son Yias, Howas goes 

as an astrologer to Iskandar, tries to stab him,.' is forced to learn the 

.shahadai and released. ^ But he plots to fight. ' Muslim's army 

is beaten by Ni'mat of' Andalus, Iskandar kills Hawas in 

battle, and Yias retreats to Sharpan (or Sharshan). Disguised 

as a B-rb-r, Iskandar goes to Gidaqah, whereat the shaitan who 

talks to her in the idol Q-t-rush is silent. She recognizes Iskandar, 

of whom there are 30 portraits in Andalus, but Khadir 

rescues him and converts her. Shamsu'l-barrina has been cap- 

tured and Muslim has to accept the true faith to marry her. He 

goes to his island kingdom Siqiliya and is followed by Iskandar, 

who converts the 700 princes of the islands and makes Muslim 

king of Qairawan and Afriqiya. On the way back Iskandar 

passes a volcano that goes down to hell: because of the heat 

the people wear thick clothes made in Tilqan. Khadir captures 

swift animals called S-m-nd-r, whose fat has curative properties. 

It is 20 years since he left Maqdimia and Aristatalis now^ sends 

word that ‘ Ajam has seceded from the faith. Iskandar sets out 

for Barqa (=Syrenaica), where Darinus, son of Dara, reigns. 

In vain Safiya Arquiya has tried to restrain him but Persia 

China, Hind and Turki now all worship fire. Iskandar sets out 

for Mesir, where also fire is worshipped, and sends across the desert 

an envoy Z-nah to Alwah where H-rza, son of Y-lab reigns ; the 

envoy gets into danger but is saved by the wind-borne advice of 

Khadir and returns. H-rza tries to cut Iskandar off from water 

but is killed by Muslim. His army retires to the capital, where is 

entrenched H-r-b, brother of H-rza. But one of his viziers con- 

verted by Z-nah turns traitor and advises H-r-b to leave the city. 

His army of 500,000 men is defeated by Salani (brother of Muslim) 

in Ganab. Khadir and Salam destroy his idol and capture him 

in his sleep, but he refuses to abjure and is killed by Salam. 

Tutah, sister of H-r-b, sends a sea of w^ater and a sea of fire over 

Tskandar's host but they are quenched by Khadir and she is slain. 

After 30 days Iskandar comes to a desert, bounded by Tubi 

{?=Nubia or Jabal Tuba in Tunis), where queen Qibta (=Kopt) 

rules. Marking with sticks the places where Iskandar will find 

water, Khadir takes her an invitation to accept Islam. Allah 

encircles him with a wall of fire to save him from Iblis who has 

fled to Tubi and got 100,000 men from Qibta to try to kill him. 

Qibta finds all her idols broken by the lances of the angels slaying 

the indwelling devils, is amazed at Khadir's gift of tongues and 

embraces the faith. One of her viziers tries to stab him but his 

arm drops nerveless and he stabs himself. Iskandar goes to 

B-yah, whose king Nabila is advised by Qibta, his ally, to submit ; 

but his son refuses, and though brought drunk to Iskandar and 

pretending to marvel at his power and to accept Islam, he collects 

an army and is killed. Qibta and Nabila follow Iskandar with 

30,000 men. 

Solomon's treasure spent, for 3 months Iskandar mines gold 

and then reaches Qus on the way to Mesir where king Palaug 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, 

14 

R. 0. Wiiistedt. 

reigns. His spies are detected by Khadir one is killori 

Palang to paj tribute aS accept Sta ^He' 

offjs tribute only and trying to poison Khadir poisons himself 

and dying embraces the faith. He gives Khadir his^treasure and a 

^®°ds Iskandar a letter ffis 

l^h!!r to his camp, whence on the seventh dav 

^ adir re.scues hm. Tibus is defeated and slain. Sur (=Tvref 

Antaquiya and Dimashq submit In Ouaish-iriTra /r- ^ ’ 

Iskandar seeks for the tLbs of Ibrahim^and fcfonat 

and goes to the Baitu’l-mukaddas where he has his nami 

BaTmtf u On the Lfto Sur h“e™s 

Iminas build a town, Iskandardun (Aleppo), on a steep rock 

In Sur reigns Q-rqirus, who is as wise as Aristotle He covers his 

deadly burning-glass with cloths soaked in vinegar accept the 

Isk “ unquenchable tapper, ffis pLple 

sk for a remedy against poisonous snakes and against the hLt 

£v khadir discovers! gian jin se 

a slaJf ?o’tX'T disguised as 

‘ s Sf, ttTiS“^,rs7;‘Lrs 

lily's s c 

dayssenSherXk1„“tSTe?mothef"- 

flees to Sham, whose chiefs are converted 

the 

the iire-worlCh.rti'nrofK „™f ‘ 

Iskandar finds DariLs teide Fty",E°"?X 1 °"' 

fThis te^teted passage is preserved only in Winstedt MS. III. 

Journal Malayan Branch [Vol. XVI, Part II, 

Malay Romance of ' Alexander the Great ■ IS 

(Cossacks) .and L-dlan, allies of Darinas. ' The king' of ,K,Ii- 2 riah, 

.Fdnt-s, takes the title "of Raja Sahd. ■ Iblis sends all the ‘asMr' 

birds in the world to Kasak, where of the hundreci in the royal 

cages only one survives, incarnate in which Iblis tells;, king Alahsam 

to kill . Khadir. A skin-clad minister, S-tlabab .(or ,Di-bab or 

Dlabab) is captured, converted and takes a letter to. the king who 

follows the same course. Balminas puts a bronze scarecrow on a 

pElar inscribed with charms to keep away the once sacred birds. 

Iskandar conquers the Lalan and their ruler Batrak deserts his 

bird gods and takes the name ‘Abdullah. Balminas makes a 

mechanical crow that frightens away the other crows. All the 

conquered rulers join Iskandar, who now sends a letter to Darinus. 

Its cover Darinus wraps round a dog. The men from the Hejaz 

secede from him and become Muslim. Iskandar makes armour 

of tigerskins for the Kasak, whose king takes command in the 

battle with Darinus.] Khadir carries off the enemy’s queen, 

children and treasure from behind his army, but Iskandar 

restores the women and children, and the queen tries to get Darinus 

to accept the true faith. Darinus plans to retreat and fall on 

Iskandar ’s rear but the plan is disclosed. Soldiers of ‘ Ajam 

return to their old allegiance to Iskandar and the men of Akrar 

whom Darinus bribes to fight are all slain by Iskandar by the 

sword of Yafat. Darinus and his army flee to istakhr (Persepolis) 

where Darinus w^eeps over a letter from Puz (=Porus) of Hind 

refusing him aid. By degrees ‘Irak is converted and disguised 

Iskandar himself takes a letter to Darinus begging him to accept the 

true religion: recognised by one of the court he makes an excuse to 

leave the tent and flees on horseback across the frozen P-rmas. 

Next day mounted on his steed Dzal-r-qin (=BucephaIos) he 

slays Darinus in single combat, enters Istakhr and makes Juba 

Mud-k-r, son of Mihran of Dailam, its governor. Darinus is given 

a royal funeral and Iskandar marries his daughter, Rnqaiyatul 

Kubra and reports his victory to Aristatalis. In response to 

Iskandar’s demand, only the rulers of Ispahan, Bokhara and 

Ray refuse conversion. Converting the people of Hamdan (Ecba- 

tana) on the way, Iskandar sets out against S-rdin, king of Ray, 

who against his ministers’ advice leaves his city w^hich Khadir 

invests so as to cut him off from return. Raziya slays S-rdin, his 

people are converted and his brother succeeds and follows Iskandar* 

The king of Bokhara, pretending interest in the true religion, 

treacherously tries to kill Khadir, who visits him with his slave 

P-tah Mis-k ; but the sword kills its owner, the fire dies in the 

temples and the king accepts the faith and agrees to pay tribute 

and put Iskandar’s head bn his coins. Raja Ispahan plots with 

Raja D-ljan of Turki to attack Iskandar but killing the Turkish 

envoy in a quarrel accepts the faith, destroys his temples and 

joins Iskandar with 30,000 men. Iskandar’s troops have to wait 

till the river Jaihun (Oxus) freezes before they can cross. On the 

opposite bank the rulers B-rkuli and China M-liku submit, but 

D-ljan, ruler of Turki, is possessed of a devil but is defeated by 

Raziya and Salam, and taken captive is won over by courtesy 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society. 

16 

R. ■ 0. Winstedt. 

and is converted and follows Iskandar with 100,000. The princes 

subject to him present horses to the victor. Coming after 60 

days to a green land, they see a tall mountain : take a stone from 

it and pray for rain, and Khadir says, rain will fall. The people are 

the sun-worshippers of Khuz (Khuzistan), The king plots to kill 

Khadir by putting him in a house built on salt which will melt 

so that the house shall be buried. The salt melts but the house 

stands and the man who built it is buried in the earth with all his 

family. The king joins Iskandar with 60,000 men. 

Traversing a desert they reach the spring Sh-qqa, whose 

water fresh as dew and sweet as honey has curative properties. 

Khadir tells of a similar spring, Bap, in Sind. By day the stones 

remain under the water but at night rise. They come to a grassy 

land, called Sind and ruled by Kidi of Hind, a fire-worshipper, 

while in Hind rules the Buddhist Puz (Porus). Puz writes to 

Iskandar to save his life and go back. P-tah Mis-k takes a letter 

to Kidi of Hind, who however tries to encircle his enemy, The 

kings of Turki and Khorasan attack Kidi, Iskandar w^ounds him 

in single combat, D-ljan captures him and he embraces Islam and 

gives Iskandar his daughter Badrul-Qumriya and a dowry of 

300,000 dinar. 

His troops unable to face the armoured elephants of Puz 

Iskandar makes all the idols he has red-hot, retires and lets the 

elephants charge the idols which burn their trunks and make them 

turn and scatter the Indian troops. Puz engages Iskandar in 

single combat but his attention distracted is killed by Iskandar 

who is mounted on DzuT-risin and wielding the sword of Yafat. 

After a furious fight, Bakhtiar son of Puz surrenders, is converted 

and follows his conqueror with 100,000 men and 5,000 elephants. 

P-tuh, the father of Puz, follows Iskandar with 20,000 picked men 

and 50,000,000 soldiers. 

They reach Tiridun, where nude Barham (Brahmins) live in 

caves. They write to Iskandar that they esteem nothing but the 

pursuit of wisdom. Iskandar with Khadir visits them and puts 

them questions : (1) Have they no graves ? They answer : where 

we die is our grave. 2. Are there more people alive or dead ? 

Answer : dead. 3. Will the world last longer than it has existed 

already ? Answer No. 4. Which is stronger, life or death ? 

Answer : life. 5, Which came first, sea or land ? Answer: land. 5. 

Which member is the most honourable ? Answer : the right 

hand. Iskandar asks what they want from him. They reply : 

immortality. When he says that he himself does not possess it, 

they ask why he troubles to conquer the world and he answers 

that it is the will of God, 

AEah causes Iskandar to stray from his army and see many 

strange lands and people (not described), till by prayer he recovers 

'his 'armj?',:':. ■ * ’'.JsvV'C' 

■ Jtmrmt Mdayan Branch [Voh XVI, Part II, 

Malay Romance of ^ Alexander the Great. 

17 

, 'Next to.Tiridun lay Qashmir, where, thoiigli'its king Kan^aff 

is afraid to resist, one of the subject' rulers Qubad' tries: tO' drive on 

the invader but is killed by Salam," .-A' devil tells Kansan, defeat 

was due to his abstaining from the fight, whereat he falls on 

Iskandar only to be beaten and flee inside the wails of Qashmir. 

Kliadir relates how it was founded by a king Qashmir who made a 

beautiful garden for his daughter Lab. She married Jamshid, 

who was driven from his kingdom by Soliak ; and when she died, 

Jamshid asked the king of the jins to guard her garden that no 

mortal might enter it for ever. Iskandar writes demanding the 

town's surrender and as his devil has fled at the mention of Allah's 

name in the letter, the king consents if Khadir can open the gates. 

This is done by calling on Allah's name. They see the garden and 

are given gifts by the jin. Kan'an pays tribute and gets a gift 

of raiment. Balminas makes a plaque inscribed with Allah's 

name to keep the jins from closing the garden again. 

They reach Sarandib, the mountain where can be seen the 

footprint of Adam as he alighted there on expulsion from paradise. 

Siilaiman visited it on his flying carpet and bade the jins let none 

but believers approach it. Their leader, Shamrakh a relative of 

Iblis, opposes Iskandar and tries to kill him but is carried back 

captive and put in a moated tent with plaques inscribed with 

Allah's names. S-rbiya, the jin's sister, contrives to enter the 

tent and tries to get him away in the shape of a horse. This 

fails, Shamrakh submits and Iskandar climbs the mountain. 

Iskandar builds ships to visit queen Z-ndaqah (PKandake) 

on a neighbouring island. Going in disguise to her palace he is 

recognised and put in gold fetters until Khadir arrives posing as a 

ship's captain decoys the queen abroad to see his treasures and 

takes Iskandar along as a porter. He is freed and they sail to the 

big country of Sialan, where the queen's army black-skinned, 

naked, some in steel armour, awaits them and its leader Z-mz-m 

refuses to submit unless she is freed. At night Khadir secretly 

moves his ship. When the next day the enemy devours 30 of his 

wood-cutters, Iskandar orders Raziya to attack them. They 

submit and Z-ndaqah joins the victor with 5,000 troops. 

On the way to China they reach a land of Wild Dogs (Anjing 

htitan) and F~sqa, whose king has been slain by the queen of a 

neighbouring island, Zahrat. Zahrat does not answer a letter from 

Iskandar as she thinks her land inaccessible. But Iskandar builds 

a ship and starts the voyage with Khadir, Balminas and 1,000 

men. On the way they reach the mountain S-l-y where Khadir 

quenches an ice-cold wind by the name of Allah and to the chrystal 

mountains Jil-r, whose burning rays Khadir dulls by a cloud and 

to S-lung where they stay a night. Khadir 's miracles convert 

Zahrat. During his long tour among the islands Iskandar gives 

the command of his army to Raziya, But Bahmak emperor of 

China decides to await his return before attacking. Iskandar 

inspects the tree Shayaratu'l-waqi whereon men grow and visits 

an island, where Kliadir had worshipped Allah with Musa son of 

1938 ] Royal Asiatic Society, 

18 

R. 0. Winstedt. 

Imram and ' Yusya son of Nun: on it was a rock from which water 

issued and a book in which the scriptures {taurat) written. 

When Iskandar rejoins his army, Raziya is about to engage 

Bahmak. Beaten Bahmak enlists a greater army but Khadir 

converts him. They reach Khaqa {?=Khan) midmost of China's 

300 countries, whereof Waq is the furthest. One of its king's seven 

astrologers sees in his 'moon' stone (one of seven stones called 

after the planets) the portrait of a man who is invincible. King 

Ququl sending artists to draw Iskandar, finds he is the invincible 

man and submits. Iskandar comes to a land where the grass 

causes deer to grow musk in their navels. Then he comes to 

mount Fir (Ophir) where a descendant of Sakhr guards diamond 

mines against his coming. He passes to the countries of Sanjab 

and Ilab, who are converted. In Ilab's country Salam slays a 

fish (Pdragon) which devastates it : its head was carried on 

elephants and was as large as 40 rice-plots. Khadir tells how yearly 

Yajuj and Majuj ate such a fish. 

Leaving China Iskandar marches for 60 days through a desert 

and then for 40 through a well- watered plain with a spring frequen- 

ted by animals : 10 days later he comes to a larger spring, with a 

statue placed there by Yafat the son of Nukh, a spring where sick 

beasts come to be cured or die. 40 days more on stony and 50 on 

fruitful soil bring them to a mountain pass on the border of 

Jabalsa, where Yafat had made images of mounted swordsmen 

worked by golden machinery. Khadir smashes the machinery, 

Iskandar takes the gold and gives the swords to Salam, Dailam, 

B-rb-rah, Bakhtiyar and Alakhsham. Beyond the pass they enter 

Jabalqa close to where the sun rises. They capture an inhabitant 

Abdul-nar Slave of Fire ") son of S-nin, who tells of the might 

of his king Manyamaj and carries a letter to him. Manyamaj 

offers tribute but will not change his religion. Under an um- 

brella and mounted on Dzul-banin, Iskandar leads his forces 

round the city walls but after three days has not circled a quarter. 

Trying to surprise Iskandar by night, Manyamaj is driven back. 

Khadir melts the copper of the walls by a burning-glass, whereat 

the king opens the gates, accepts Islam, destroys his temples and 

joins Iskandar. They come to hairy cave-dwellers who show 

where daily the sun is hauled up by angels from under Mt. Kaf, 

which rings the world. 

Going west, Iskandar meets the Kardam (? = Kurd) tribes 

who impressed by Khadir are converted and get from Balminas a 

medicine to remove the woolly hair from their bodies. Next he 

comes to the country of king Khuda, whose people sleep on an 

island to escape the fleas on the mainland : they are converted 

because Khadir's company are not bitten and because Balminas 

drives off the fleas. Then Iskandar reaches the kingdom of 

Shabarik, who is beaten by the Ka.rdam army and converted. 

Iskandar visits a jin told by Sulaiman to present gifts and lets 

Khadir be helped bj the jin to make a memorial to perpetuate his 

name. Queen Nu}um hearing of Iskandar's stay on the island 

JowfM Malayan Branch [Vol. XVI, Fart II, 

Malay Romance of '.Alexander the Great. 

19 

Nuqtah sends S-lban with presents and offers . of tribute, bnt refuses 

to change her faith until she has been worsted by Iskaiiclar in a 

duel On her ships Iskandar sails to Dzul-nabin, -king of the 

blacks (Zanggi), who 'fights and is killed at a frontier bridge. 

His people accept the faith and the daughter of Kida of Hind 

persuades Nujum to marry Shabarik. Tabarishtan accepts the 

faith. Then Iskandar comes to Darwanda ruled by Tarkhan, who 

orders Baliii to waylay him and demand toll. Balili breaks up the 

road and shows his skill as an archer by cleaving an arrow in 

mid air. B-rb-rah and the king of Jabalsa climb a hill beside the 

road and drive Balili to the plain where Khadir kills him. Khadir 

prepares armoured camels, muskets and grenades for the battle, and 

finally drops his weapons and utters the shakadat, whereupon 

Tarkhan appears wounded. A physician heals him and he Joins 

his conqueror with 50,000 men. They come to a treeless plain 

infested with thousands of snakes, which are killed by the babtl, 

the Kasak horsemen. Then they reach the land of king Riyan 

who is a willing convert. After 40 days they come to Asatlin, 

where Watid Qanatir ruler of the Manghak asks for help to fight 

the tribes of Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog). Khadir tells 

of their origin from Adam's seed. Iskandar fights the tribes and 

hears from prisoners that their king is Qanun a worsliipper of sun 

and moon. He hems them between two mountains that reach the 

horizon and locks them for ever behind a wall of iron, lead and 

copper. Next he comes to the Teryamaniun folk, whose king 

Farzil owns the books of Ibrahim : they are descendants of 

' Arjan, a relation of Nukh, live on tombs to be mindful of death, 

and doing no evil have no judges. After two months Iskandar 

reaches the margin of the sea that encircles the world, and meets 

Mikaii and other angels who guide the wind, the lightning and the 

rain. He comes to Durdur, the whirlpool where the w’^aters of all 

the seas, rivers and springs vanish into the earth. Iskandar 

descends into the depths of the sea in a chest, after bequeathing 

his empire to Khadir if he dies. The chest is swallowed by a 

glass bodied fish, which takes Iskandar below the 7 worlds to the fish 

Nun that supports the universe : on its nose is a leech that warns 

it not to listen to Iblis and overturn its burden. The fish vomits 

Iskandar on to a rock, where he sees the waters and the seven 

layers of the earth hung above him ; and he meets the angel guar- 

dian of the waters and hears a voice from heaven and prays Allah 

to restore him to the earth. And the fish again swallows the chest 

and vomits it out on the shore where his army lies. 

Iskandar comes to the people of Alaqla'at, ruled by king 

H-sht, whose devils take terrific shapes that frighten the army 

until Khadir expels them and defeat H-sht. They reach the land 

of the Bani Gurgur, whose men fight on foot and women mounted, 

and who worship Suwak Khadir sends 10,000 to seize their cattle, 

but they are surrounded by the tribesmen who leave them their 

weapons as the stars have told them Iskandar is invincible. With 

the help of an angel Khadir frees them. A captured female spy is 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, 

20 

R. O. Winstedt. 

sent to their king, Munkilan, who seeing a vanguard of 500/000 is 

astounded and is soon converted. 

Reaching Hind again Iskandar gives Kida rich presents and 

returns his daughter for whom he longs. 

The Atdan Gula are converted by force. Seven months later 

an anchorite brings a letter from Aristatalis, who warns Iskandar 

to be careful as he is now 30 years old. 

Iskandar travels through Istakhr and Kirman and reaches 

Yaman, where Tamimat a witch promises her king Sarwah she 

will destroy the invader. She creates a sea and a castle but 

Khadir defeats her magic and she is converted, and they send a 

wind-borne message to Sarwah who also accepts the true faith. 

Iskandar visits the palace Iram Dzat al-'imad alti (Koran 89 : 0 

and 7) built by Shahad ibn 'Ad and entered only by Sulaiman, 

who left an inscription over the gate relating how once Allah 

punished him for his pride by commanding the winds to let his 

magic carpet fall and kill 4,000 men and how the queen of the ants 

shamed him by discourse on the frailty of life ; nor could he enter 

the palace even with the help of the king of the spirits D-mi Ban, 

until the bird F-si assisted. Iskandar enters and by secret 

galleries comes to a river with jewelled margins and a statue, having 

about its neck an inscription in Saryani saying, 'T, king Shahad, 

was a mighty prince but in due time I died and all my servants 

deserted me."' A voice bids them visit the palace again and they 

find a garden with a silver w^all and golden fruit, a temple-niche 

with gold candlesticks and 20 underground chambers with treasure 

and a chest with a Greek inscription : " Having heard from a 

greybeard of the horrors of hell and the glories of heaven, Shadad 

brought his treasures and built a palace to rival heaven but when 

he would enter it, his life was taken by the angel of death.” 

Iskandar comes to Mekka, ruled then by Misrah, who greets 

him. He makes two relations of Ismail Chiefs {amir) of Mekka and 

gives the people rich gifts. In Hijaj Balminas destroys the 

plague of ants and Khadir*s spittle destroys devils that trouble 

visitors. The land is also called Hayy wa-'adzab apd 'Aidzab. 

Its king Sabur rules at Qus and with the rulers of Kandariya and 

Uswan had been converted by Palang from Mesir. Iskandar 

visits the rulers of Mesir and Qus and throws a bridge over the 

Nile to Kandariya. Khadir tells how twice the Nile dried up and 

twice Allah bid it flow again, the last time through Yusuf. All the 

kings of Yunan seek audience. Khadir relates how Kandariya 

was founded by Jubair, when Ch-n-k destroyed the Baitud- 

mukaddas. Jubair involved in war with H-rufah, queen of Mesir, 

which had then existed 700 years — , captured Beraqi Ahlam and 

forced H-rufah to surrender Kandariya, his last refuge. Jubair 

wanted to marry her but she required him to build her a town on 

the sea. What he built by day was destroyed by creatures from the 

sea. Distracted he roamed the forest till at Mt. S.hl he met a 

goat-herd who told him of a mermaid who fought him on condition 

Journal Malayan Branch [Vol. XVTj Part II, 

Malay Romance of Alexander the Great 21 

: that if ...she won she got: a goat and if he won she would be his 

bride, and he always lost. ^ They changed clothes and Jubair beat 

the mermaid, Kandariya, who then married the goat-herd. 

Meeting the couple, Jubair was advised by the woman to let 

draftsmen down into the sea to draw the sea-creatures and then to 

make images of them that w^ould frighten the originals. Jubair 

told H-rufah when the town was built and she sent him a poisoned 

dish whereof he died. 

When Ni'mat of Andalus asked, Khadir who looks 30 years 

old says he was born in the time of Ishak, in the same year as 

Yakob Israil, that he was a friend of Yusuf, when Yusuf ruled 

Mesir, and that when he met Musa he lived in MajmahiO-bahrain. 

Jubair had been dead 500 years. 

In place of Kandaria Iskandar builds a new city, Iskandariya, 

from Abl-wai Riyun to Abuamar and from Galian Kar to the sea, 

with conduits underground to the Nile and a Manar (Pharos) built 

by F-rbulis, with a glass showing the smallest boat approaching 

the town. He travels on and arranges to build a copper city 

w^here he can live on his return from visiting the water of life. 

Going west he builds a city, Sagarsa, for the cave-dwellers of 

' Ainul-jamiat, and then enters the land of darkness {tirai 

lulumat), riding mares instead of stallions and giving Khadir a 

radiant gem to guide his followers. After five days the hooves of 

the mares crunched what proved to be gems in water : on the 

ninth they came to low forest-clad hills and on the tenth there was 

light in the sky and they came to a glittering bejewelled palace of 

gold. Here Iskandar left his followers, that they might not share 

with him the glory of immortality from drinking the water of life. 

After a long while Khadir left them to seek Iskandar, when 

troubled and fearful they consulted the seven wise men with the 

host, who all died in the morning from concern for Iskandar. Khadir 

returns with two young men, Nabi Alias and Aram, (Melkisedek), 

whose feet turn stones to jewels and gold, and relates how he met 

the beast, Dabbatud-arz with the legs of a camel, the feet of an 

elephant, the face of a man and the fur of a sheep who on the day of 

judgment will mark the faithful with the seal of Suiairaan and the 

infidel with the staff of Musa, Then he met Iblis disguised first 

as an ascetic and then as an old woman, who tried to mislead him 

as to the place of the water of life, but he found it and beside it 

Alias and Aram. 

Now Iskandar reached a jewelled palace where he wandered 26 

days and saw first a bird which eating one grain of mustard a day 

had eaten seeds stored in 1,000,000 houses, before Adam was 

born, and now had no work but to cry '' There is no god but Allah 

and Muhammad is his prophet/' Next he met Asrafil who told 

him of the day of judgment and of the near advent of Muhammad ; 

gave him a string of raisins and bade him return. Iblis meets him 

on the way back in the guise of an old man, an ascetic and an old 

woman, gives him an apple to eat but fails to lead him astray. He 

rejoins his army and shows Khadir a gem given him by AsrafiL 

1938] Royal Asiatic Society, 

22 

R. O. Winstedt. 

Weighed it is heavier than tons of gold but lighter than a clod 

of earth ; for man’s eyes are not satisfied by all the wealth in the 

world but are filled only by a clod of earth. Iskandar is 

downcast and repents that he did not take Khadir ivith him to find 

the water of Hie. 

They return to Sagarsa, where Balminas and Ast-rma are 

a^ppomted governors in place of S-ndsalus. Iskandar goes to 

b -rfur. Balminas has a son S-li. One day a man tells him that a 

fish his wife had prepared leapt from the dish and cried, " May 

God put to shame an unfaithful woman S-li goes with him and 

finds his wife has a lover disguised as a slave-girl. Balminas dies 

leads an evil life and removes to 

z-fi-fi (or 1 1-1-h-t) to escape his counsellors. *One day a beautiful 

woman comes to borrow money and he invites her to marry him 

secretly. She refuses but tells him to come to her house for the 

marnage. He sets out and meets various portents explained to 

him by a young man who proves to be the Angel of Death A bitch 

asleep ivith her young quick within her symbolizes the veiling of 

wisdom in a wise man turned fool. A stag, with a rider, its antlers 

grasped by one person and its tail by another symbolizes, the rider 

fuf u ^ ^ wicked woman, 

tne nolaer of its tail wisdom masquerading as folly. A 100 she- 

goats suckling one ravenous kid symbolize the eternal thirst of 

greedy usurers A man filling a pond from a well and then when it 

is full letting the vvater run back into the well signifies a young 

her riches. A min leaving ripf 

spiholizes the angel of death ivho takes 

the young if their hour has come. A man thin and emaciated 

S ^ohow the wisdorJ 

hnfiVA between him and his love’s house sym- 

An?el o?De^tr+ After these explanations tte 

h*®uth takes his life ; his corpse is eaten by a cannibal 

vomited up and devoured by beasts. ' 

T1 1 ^ Balminas. When he comes to 

Tl-I-h-t Khadir Alias and Aram bid him build a bridge from 

Hajar-al-amil to Afnqiyah as an escape for men from a being who 

will be bom in (or Andalus) with a horse’s mane on his 

fouunund Jibrail smashes the bridge with 

the tip of his wing. Iskandar visits Mekka, Yaman the land 

of pearl-fishers of Irak, and then hearing that Raia S-rih has con- 

vop^'+n ^ revived fire-worship attacks and slays him. He 

goes to K-nman _and Persia and builds Iskandariah. After 

“ Kh-mir on life’s vanity, he travels sick 

IrquTvl to teute^S^^^^ hfs’ mother Safija 

h to Uen w " 1 f Sandalus takes 

davq dinner ^ ^ ^ Kasik her son has been dead two 

dS of drums and trumpets. Some say he 

^d of chagnn because he failed to get the water of 

•From here to the end ocenrs only in Winstedt MS. IV. 

Journal Malayan Branch [Vol; XVI, Part 11, 

23 

Malay Romance of Alexander the Great. 

life. He was buried in Maqduniyah. The work ends with his 

obsequies and Khadir’s reflections’ on the vanity of life and the 

distribution of his riches to subject princes and soldiery. 

Sources, 

Hikayat Iskandar Dzu’l-Karnain Winstedt MSS. I to IV ; 

De Maleische Alexanderroman, P. J. van Leeuwen, Meppel 1937 ; 

Die Chadirlegende und der Alexanderroman, J. Friedlander, 

Leipzig 1913 ; Encyclopaedia of Islam [sub Iskandar, Khadir’ 

Yajuj Wa-Majuj) ; Malay Literature, R. J. Wilkinson, P.M.S.’ 

Kuala Lumpur 1907 ; History Part I, R. J. Wilkinson p. 19, 

P.M.S., Kuala Lumpur 1908. 

It is related in the “Malay Annals” (Shellabear’s Romanized edition, vol. II, page 177, 1910: chapter 27) that Sultan Mahmud of old Malacca wished to wed the fairy princess of Gunong Ledang. She replied to his messengers, “ If the prince of Malacca desires me, make me a gold and a silver bridge from Malacca to this mountain : for a betrothal gift I want seven trays of mosquitoes’ livers, seven trays of lice’s livers, a tub of tears, a tub of the juice of young betel-palms, a basin of the prince’s blood and a basin of the blood of his son Raja Ahmad.” 

There is a parallel to this episode in the Persian Sindibad Nama. “ A merchant arriving at Ivashgar sells his stock of sandal-wood to a rogue, who persuades him it is valueless, on condition that he give in return ‘Whatever else he may choose.’ Finding himself swindled he resorts in disguise to the house of the blind chief of the rogues and hears him rate his subordinate, ‘ You are a fool; for instead of this merchant asking a measure of gold, he may require you to give him a measure of male fleas with silken housings and jewelled trappings and how will you do that? ’ Next day before the Ivadzi the merchant makes this demand and gets back his sandal-wood. The same story contains the incident of a worsted gambler being required to drink up the sea.” (Clouston’s “Popular Tales and Fictions,” Vol. II, pages 105-106).