Vladimir Braginsky

Malay scribes on their craft and audience (with special reference to the description of the reading assembly by Safirin bin Usman Fadli)

Although traditional Malay literature cannot boast special treatises about the proper and the improper in the activity of the writer or the copyist, all kinds of marginal notes and scribal additions to manuscripts (henceforth MSS), their colophons as well as prefaces and postscripts to literary works make up for this situation to some extent. In the 1970s the present author (see Braginsky, 1979) and somewhat later his colleagues (see Muhammad Haji Salleh, 1989, 1991, 2000; Koster, 1997) used these prefaces and postscripts extensively in their reconstructions of Malay ideas of literature, its creation and perception, its ideals and concepts. Roughly at the same time, E.U. Kratz (1977), T. Iskandar (1981), H. Chambert-Loir (1984, 1991), and some other scholars, on the basis of colophons and scribal notes, wrote their stimulating articles on Malay copyists, owners of lending libraries, and their readers. It is precisely the latter line of inquiry, still far from being exhausted, that the present author continues in this article. It seems that a quotation from Kratz’s article about a lending library in Palembang in the late nineteenth century could serve as an appropriate beginning. Studied in that article is a syair (‘poem’) by the owner of the library, which represents a list of regulations of sorts about how the borrowed MSS should be treated. The poem shows the great concern of the owner, who knew only too well the ways and habits of his customers, that his precious manuscripts might be spoilt. As Kratz remarks:

The science of women and the jewel: the synthesis of Tantrism and Sufism in a corpus of mystical texts from Aceh

Introduction Sufism was widely spread in north Sumatra, and particularly in Aceh between the 16th and 19th centuries CE. This regional tradition of Sufism is mainly known through surviving systematic learned treatises or kitab, the principal topics of which are mystical ontology and metaphysical discussions of the paths of ‘descent’ (tanazzul) and ‘ascent’ (taraqqi) of the soul, as well as different kinds of ‘recollection’ (zikir, from the Arabic dhikr), the major instrument of spiritual progress. In current scholarship Sufism in Aceh is considered to be largely similar to its Near and Middle Eastern counterparts. This point refers both to the more radical wahdat al-wujud or existential monism of Hamzah Fansuri and Syamsuddin of Pasai, and to the more moderate wahdat al-wujud, if not the wahdat al-syuhud or experimental monism of Nuruddin ar-Raniri and Abdurrauf as-Sinkili. Acehnese Sufism is also normally understood as a form of Islamic mysticism markedly different from Javanese Sufi doctrines and practices with their considerable admixture of HinduBuddhist, and particularly Tantric, elements and their specific, and frequently quite whimsical, symbolism. Although by no means groundless, this categorisation of north Sumatran Sufism is nevertheless far from comprehensive. It overlooks a number of ‘jigsaw pieces’, to use Riddell’s expression, or rather an important body of evidence deriving not from the ‘Sufism of kitab’ but from other types of Sufi writings. At least two types of writings are of particular interest. One, which we might call ‘poetical Sufism’, includes Sufi poems based on the symbolism of images, letters and numbers in addition to plot-focused Sufi allegories in verse and prose. The other is less distinguishable from either the ‘Sufism of kitab’ or poetical Sufism as it includes both Sufi treatises and Sufi poems. And yet, works belonging to this category are united by one and the same salient feature, namely all of

A JAWI SOURCEBOOK FOR THE STUDY OF MALAY PALAEOGRAPHY AND ORTHOGRAPHY

This special issue of Indonesia and the Malay World was compiled by friends and colleagues as a tribute to Professor E. Ulrich Kratzs three decades of teaching Jawi and traditional Malay literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and to mark his 70th birthday on 14 October 2014. Reflecting Ulrichs deep interest in Malay manuscript texts and letters over many years (see the list of publications compiled by Helen Cordell in this issue), this Festschrift takes the rather unusual form of a compilation of reproductions of Malay manuscripts in Jawi script, accompanied by commentaries on the handwriting and spelling. Nearly all the manuscripts are dated or firmly dateable, and come from known locations. The hope is that this issue will be useful as a sourcebook for the study of the development of Jawi script, and in particular its palaeography and orthography, over the course of nearly three and a half centuries. The manuscripts presented date from the end of the 16th century to the early 20th century, and originate from all corners of the Malay world, from Aceh to Aru and from Melaka to Mindanao, as well as from Malay communities in Sri Lanka and Mecca.

‘NEWLY FOUND’ MANUSCRIPTS THAT WERE NEVER LOST

In the early 18th century the famous Dutch missionary and student of the Netherlands East Indies, François Valentijn, amassed a most valuable collection of about 30 Malay manuscripts. However, by the mid 20th century only one manuscript from this collection in the original and five others in later copies were extant in Dutch and British libraries. The fate of the rest was unknown. But in 1974 three more manuscripts from Valentijns collection, Hikayat Isma Yatim, Syair Perang Mengkasar and Ma‘rifat Islam, fleetingly appeared at Sothebys only to disappear yet again as it seemed at that time. However, these found their way into the collection of Muzium Seni Asia of Universiti Malaya, and resurfaced in 1994 in the form of a splendid facsimile edition, which drew surprisingly little attention. This article investigates salient features of the manuscripts, their contents and value for Malay literary studies, their three-century long journey across the Malay world to Europe and back to the Malay world, and the people involved: Malay and Arab writers and their royal patrons, copyists and collectors, auctioneers, booksellers and academics.

A NEW WAVE OF INDIAN INSPIRATION: Translations from Urdu in Malay Traditional Literature and Theatre

In the late 19th century the Malay world experienced a new impact of artistic stimuli from Islamic India. This not only brought to life half a dozen literary works, translation-adaptations from Urdu (Hikayat Gul Bakawali, Syair Indra Sebaha, Hikayat Sultan Bustamam, Hikayat Ganja Mara and some others), but also considerably enriched histrionic culture of the region, in particular through the creation of the Wayang Bangsawan theatre. The influential Indo-Malay community, Jawi Peranakan, played the role of cultural brokers in this process; the Indian Parsi theatre was its major medium. By studying in detail the extant bio-data of translators from Urdu, prototypes and principles of their translations, the history of the Parsi theatre in the Malay world and literary-theatrical interactions within it, the article reveals the paradoxical nature of the new wave of Indian inspiration. On the one hand, this wave contributed a great number of innovations to Malay culture, thus stimulating its modernisation; on the other hand, together with the burgeoning number of lithographs, it marked the beginning of a new (if final) era of flowering of traditional Malay literature. Another issue discussed in the article is the significance of this relatively well-documented stage of the Indo-Malay cultural interface for a better understanding of its earlier stages (for instance in Malacca of the 15th to 16th century or in 17th century Aceh), information of which is still scarce and uncertain.

Structure, Date and Sources of Hikayat Aceh Revisited. The Problem of Mughal-Malay Literary Ties

It is common knowledge that from the early centuries AD to the nineteenth century India remained an important source of inspiration for creators of traditional Malay culture and Malay men of letters. However, if literary ties between Hindu India and the Malay world, both direct and mediated by Javanese literature, have frequently drawn the attention of researchers, creative stimuli that came to the Malays from Muslim India remain inadequately studied. Yet the role of these stimuli, radiating from major centres of the Muslim, Persianate, India such as Bengal, Gujarat, Deccan, and the Coromandel coast, in the development of Malay literary culture was by no means inferior to the inspiration originating from Hindu India. In this context, cultural and literary contacts of the Sultanate of Aceh with the Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century are a particularly interesting and challenging subject.

Five pious ladies on the swing: Some considerations about Hikayat si burung pingai

This paper will discuss some aspects of the Malay Sufi composition Hikayat Si Burung Pingai, the ‘Tale of the Yellow (or pure) Bird’. There are two recensions of this work. The first of them includes three manuscripts in Jawi script which are held in Leiden, Jakarta and Paris. The second recension of the Yellow Bird tale, which bears the title Andai-andai Si Burung Pingai, is also known in three manuscripts, although in Rèncong script, which are kept in London (SOAS), Amsterdam and Coburg. The manuscripts of the Rèncong recension originate from Bengkulu and Lampung. The London manuscript, which is the earliest among them, was acquired by Marsden in the late 18th century. What is examined below is, however, only the hikayat of the Yellow Bird, that is its Jawi recension. The earliest manuscript of the Jawi recension was copied in Ambon between 1707 and 1712 by Cornelia Valentijn, the wife of the well-known missionary Franciscus Valentijn. The Paris manuscript which in 1822 belonged to the missionary G.H. Huttman, originates from Malacca (Voorhoeve 1973: 55, 47; Van der Linden 1937: 239). About the Jakarta manuscript we only know that it was acquired by the Batavia Society in 1868 and comes from Gorontalo (Van Ronkel 1909: 444). The Leiden and Jakarta manuscripts are quite close to each other in their content and wording, whereas the Paris manuscript differs from them somewhat. All three manuscripts abound in scribal errors and lacunae of various lengths. In addition, in the Paris manuscript – which is generally better than the others – two fairly long and important passages appear in the wrong order. As manuscripts of the Yellow Bird tale are spread across the Archipelago from Ambon and Gorontalo to Bengkulu and Lampung it is difficult to establish the place of origin of this tale. We can, however, guess that the Jawi recension, which seems to be the earlier of

The manner of the Prophet – concealed, found and regained: Revisiting the science of women

ABSTRACT This article continues an earlier investigation in this journal (2004), of the synthesis of Sufism and Tantrism in a corpus of texts from Aceh between the 16th and 19th centuries. The revisiting was stimulated by a rapid development of scholarship on the interaction of Sufism and Tantra/yoga in the Islamic oikoumene and the discovery of new, more detailed texts in Malay on this subject. The most important among them is Bustān al-sālikīn (Garden of wayfarers); found in the MS PNI Jakarta Ml. 110 (ff.2v–30r). A loosely structured themed anthology, Bustan consists of ten chapters that contain treatises providing a comprehensive idea of the Sufi-Tantric branch of Islamic mysticism in Aceh and, mutatis mutandis, in the Malay-Indonesian world. Although summarising the entire Bustan, the article concentrates on ilm al-nisa (‘ilm al-nisā’; the science of women) from the text’s early chapters and examines it within the context of the Acehnese Sufi-Tantric corpus and Sufi-yogic/Tantric works of the Islamic world. The author of Bustan made every effort to legitimise the science of women as a genuinely Islamic doctrine of spiritual wedding with unio mystica as its final goal. Allegedly created and practised by the Prophet Muḥammad himself, ilm al-nisa includes the practices of mystical gazing, breathing, touching and coition. The article scrutinises their Sufi and Tantric aspects, revealing the synthesis underpinning them. Against the background of early forms of Islam in the Malay-Indonesian world, this synthesis, by facilitating the mutual ‘translatability’ of the old and the new religion, was instrumental in the peaceful Islamisation of the region.

IMAGINING KINGS OF RUM AND THEIR HEIRS

Raja Rum whether understood as a Greek, Persian or Turkish ruler is a popular figure in traditional Malay literature. A great array of kings of Rum occurs in many Malay literary genres in which his protean image emerges as king-sage, just king, or tyrant. However fantastical adventure tales and historical or quasi-historical chronicles are his favourite ‘habitats’. In the former genre, Raja Rum appears in the fanciful world of heavenly and demonic creatures that populate various never-never lands in some of which allusions to the Ottoman empire can be discerned. A different, although no less imaginary, Raja Rum appears in works of the latter genre. This is Iskandar Zulkarnain (Alexander the Great), first a Persian and later a Turkish king, the greatest ever monarch of East and West and the preacher of the primordial Islam of the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). Represented as the progenitor of local dynasties, this ‘stranger-king’ dominates the world of political mythology in chronicles of many peoples of the Malay Archipelago. He and his descendents create the ‘dynastic space’ in which Malay dynasties are linked to each other and with lineages of the great powers of the external world. On the basis of Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) and Tambo Minangkabau (Minangkabau traditions) the article examines this mandala-like dynastic space which, inter alia, shows an interaction between the political mythologies of these two works.

MEANING OF THE SOUND: MAGIC AND SUFI MYSTICISM IN THE PHONIC STRUCTURE OF THE MALAY CHARM AND CHANT

The poetics of oral Malay charms (incantations) is based on lexical repetitions and parallelisms intended to enhance their magic power. These poetical devices, in their turn, bring forth phonic repetitions of different kinds (alliterations, assonances, etc.), which make possible an increase in information conveyed by the incantation without diminishing its magical efficacy. One of the forms of such repetitions is the anagram, i.e. a device based on the division of the word-theme, for instance the name of the spirit invoked, into individual sounds or syllables and their reiteration in other words of the text. The article discusses the structure and meaning of anagrammatic sound organisation, its origin from the magic notion of the equivalency between the whole and its part, as well as the use of poetical devices of oral literature, and of the anagram in particular, in written Sufi works (Hikayat Si Burung Pingai, verses by Abd al-Jamal and Syair Perahu) which resort to the archaic poetics of the charm and chant, although reconsidering them from the new perspective.