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L.V. GORIAEVA

Edition of Malay manuscripts: diplomatic or critical?

Short CV: PhD in History of Asian Literatures, Leading research fellow,

Written Heritage department, Institute of Oriental Studies (Moscow), Russian
Academy of Sciences, specialist in Malay narrative tradition.

Abstract: The article raises the question of choosing the type of edition most
suitable for Malay manuscript texts’ publishing. The author speaks of her own
experience as editor and translator of traditional Malay texts and offers a
comprehensive approach to this3 issue, making it possible to reflect all the relevant
features of the text in most complete and verifiable form.

Keywords: Malay manuscripts, diplomatic edition, textual criticism, facsimile,

source copy, scribes’ errors, narrative structure, Brakel, Kratz, Chambert-Loir,
Winstedt, Dulaurier.

The subject matter of this paper is not new at all. The main approaches to this
issue were formulated by L.F.Brakel [1], E.U.Kratz [2] and St. Robson [3] [4] who
tried to bring together the general theory of text edition and their own experience
of working with Malay manuscripts. In the years that followed, a huge number of
literary and historical texts, originally written in Malay-Arabic script (jawi), have
been Romanized and edited according to modern spelling standards. Among them
the ratio of diplomatic and critical editions was roughly equal but the question
posed above has not lost its relevance up to now. In the present paper, arguments
regarding this issue will be to put forward, based on its author’s personal
experience as translator and editor of Malay manuscript texts. The key role is
played here by tasks put forward by the editor, by his professional skills and, last
but not least, by the number of copies of each text available for research.

The process of studying and publishing of Malay manuscripts began about

two centuries ago. It was an accessible and convenient means of teaching Malay to
European colonial officials (British and Dutch). Besides, these texts attracted
attention of scholars, some of which were part of the local colonial staff but did not
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limit their activities to formal duties. Sometimes the first editors of Malay texts
were not ready to go beyond the bounds of local tradition and deliberately change
its rules.

One of them was P.P.Roorda van Eysinga (1796-1856) who published in

Batavia in jawi script the famous Malay work in “mirror-for-princes” genre, Taj
as-salatin (Crown of Kings) by Bukhari al-Jawhari (1603) with parallel Dutch
translation and comments [5]. In his foreword composed in Malay in a strictly
traditional style he spoke about the blessing of Lord to those who would read this
book and follow its teachings. In another foreword, written in Dutch, the editor
pointed out that he compiled his text using five source copies, not mentioning
which ones exactly he used and what corrections he made. Far from being
academic, such a way of dealing with source texts was that of a common Malay
copyist of the past.

A similar approach was that of R.O.Winstedt (1878 – 1966) who published in

1906, also in jawi script, a text whose origin up to now remain obscure. It was
Hikayat Shamsu’l-Bahrain, a story of pure fiction, full of adventures and fantasy
[6]. In British collections there are three manuscripts bearing this title: Raffles
Malay 61 and Maxwell 3 (Royal Asiatic society), MS Malay c.1 (Bodleian Library)
[7]. The publisher did not mention which of them he used as source copy but the
spelling of the title shows that, most probably, it was MS Malay c.1, incomplete at
end. In his short foreword written in Malay R.O.Winstedt pointed out that he made
some corrections to the text and invited the future generations of copyists to
proceed in the same way. It may be two other manuscripts from the Royal Asiatic
Society collection that he used to complete the story. A scholarly edition of
Hikayat Shamsu’l-Bahrain (diplomatic or critical) is still a matter of future.

Both cases show that these editors, like common Malay scribes, had no
special concern for the exact, word-by-word copying of the original, if only the
narrative remained consistent and logical. A more academic approach to Malay
manuscripts’ editing was that of the French orientalist Edouard Dulaurier (1807 –
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1881). In 1840, being in London to consult the Royal Asiatic Society manuscript
collection, he made a handcopy of an early Malay chronicle – Hikayat Raja Pasai
[8] thoroughly reproducing all the imperfections of the source manuscript which at
that time was the only copy available of the chronicle. Later he published it in
Paris using the copy-text method, also in jawi script [9]. In the footnotes
E.Dulaurier suggested his own spelling of some words that he considered as
copyist’s errors.

In the second part of the 20th c. a number of critical editions appeared, to

mention, for instance, that of the chronicle Hikayat Banjar, carried out by J.J.Ras
[10], Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah by L.F.Brakel [11] and Hikayat Dewa
Mandu with an in-depth research by H.Chambert-Loir [12]. Nevertheless, a
considerable part of Malay manuscript texts are available in a very small number
of copies, not sufficient for a reliable critical edition, and even sometimes are
preserved in a unique manuscript. The present paper speaks about the author’s
approach to this issue, based on personal experience of editing and translating
Malay manuscript texts into Russian.

The first of them was Hikayat Maharaja Marakarma (The Story of Maharaja
Marakarma) [13]. Three copies of this text are part of the Malay manuscript
collection of Saint-Petersburg (Institute of Oriental manuscripts, Russian Academy
of Sciences) [14]. All three originate from the lending library of Fadli family
(Jakarta, Indonesia) [15]. The older one (С 1967) was dated 1844 or 1848. The two
others (B 2506 and D 450), dated respectively 1909 and 1912(?), are copies of С
1967 divided into two parts. Its text turned out to be unique: in spite of the title, it
was not the well-known Malay story by the name of Hikayat Marakarma (also
called Hikayat Si Miskin – The Story of a Poor Man), but its sequel, with a new
generation of heroes as main actors.

The edition comprised a facsimile of С 1967 on CD, its transliteration,

Russian translation, commentaries, research article and addenda. Most likely, В
2606 and D 450 were copied directly from С 1967. A comparison of initial and
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final fragments of the three manuscripts was an opportunity to see what changes a
scribe could bring to the source text [16].

The difference between С 1967 and B 2506 – В 450 concerned mainly such
formal aspects as the use of synonyms (permaisuri / tuanputeri, serta / seraya,
serupa / sama, naga / ular naga), addition or change of suffixes (negeri /
negerinya, didatangi / didatangan), reduplication etc. Most obviously, all these
were self-dictation mistakes, proper to any copyist who neglects minor details as
long as he follows the main line of the story. If the copyist of С 1967 was not its
author but just a scribe who used another source copy, he could have made similar
changes to the text while rewriting it. Therefore, the “original” or “archetype” of
such a text can hardly be reconstructed word-by-word.

Another text edition was that of Hikayat Pandawa Jaya, a Malay version of
Mahabharata [17][18]. Its source manuscript was Raffles Malay 2 from the Royal
Asiatic Society collection [19]. Since long time, Malay prose narratives going back
to the Old-Javanese epic poem Bharatayuddha (based on Mahabharata story)
attracted attention of Malay scholars [20]. However, issues of the relationship
between different versions of this story began to be considered only by the end of
the 20th c. L.F.Brakel compared the plots of 6 manuscripts of the Hikayat and draw
a stemma reflecting their alleged kinship [21]. H.Chambert-Loir made a thorough
description of the manuscript Malay B 12 (India Office Library) [22] followed by a
fragment of its text in Malay with French translation [23].

A word-by-word comparison of this fragment with similar passages from

Raffles Malay 2 and another manuscript from this group, Br 2 [24] revealed a
stability of vocabulary common to all three and covering the necessary minimum
of words by which a coherent story could be told. Small differences between the
three fragments did not alter at all the general course of the narration [25].
However, a comparison of texts on the level of the story’s plot structure reveals
significant differences between them.
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Raffles Malay 2 is the longest of all the above-mentioned versions of the

Malay Mahabharata. Bharatayuddha was not the only source of its story: half a
dozen episodes were inspired by some other Old-Javanese epic poems and wayang
(shadow-puppet theatre) plays. The anonymous Malay writer compiled them,
weaving the narrative plot line like a music composer, with some themes coming
back again and again. Such texts derived from more than one source are said to be
contaminated [26].

It is hardly possible here to imagine a form of comparative text edition where

all these elements: vocabulary, plot structure, sequence of episodes – could be fully
taken into account, especially if the publisher has to deal with a contaminated
source text. The best choice is probably a facsimile/diplomatic/critical edition of
ONE manuscript, like that of Hikayat Maharaja Marakarma. References to other
manuscripts of the same work may be especially useful when some words or
fragments are unreadable. In the Hikayat Maharaja Marakarma edition some
passages from the corrupted pages 1 and 2 of С 1967 were reconstructed with the
help of B 2506 and D 450.

Such an approach to the text’s edition seems to be the only one possible if the
book survived in a single manuscript or two, as it was the case with the above-
mentioned Malay chronicle – Hikayat Raja Pasai (The Story of the Kings of Pasai)
[27]. Up to 1986 the only available manuscript was Raffles Malay 67 from the
Royal Asiatic Society collection, not taking into account its handcopy made by E.
Dulaurier.

In 1986 the British Library acquired a Malay manuscript (Or.14350), the

second part of which contained the text of the chronicle [28]. Unfortunately, it
couldn’t be of any help for a proper critical edition because 20% (17½ pages) of its
text were lacking. E.U.Kratz published a thorough research article about Or.14350
[29]. He compared some similar passages of the two manuscripts, but, as the
second one was incomplete and without colophon, it contained no data about its
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source text. The problem of the origin and of the alleged kinship of Raffles Malay
67 with Or.14350 remain unsolved.

Therefore, a multi-level approach to Malay manuscripts’ editing seems to be

the best solution. In cases when a publisher has only one manuscript at his
disposal, a diplomatic edition becomes the only suitable method of publishing. It
opens a way to further research when new manuscripts of the same work are found.
Such an edition should comprise the manuscript’s facsimile (like Russell Jones’
edition of Hikayat Raja Pasai [30] or the Russian edition of Hikayat Maharaja
Marakarma) so that the readings that may seem dubious to other scholars can be
verified.

At the same time, it is equally important (and perhaps even more important)
to study the text’s narrative structure and composition. As the example of Hikayat
Pandawa Jaya has shown, it can give us much more information about the text’s
history and the origin of some of its elements.

NOTES

1. Brakel L.F. Der ortliche Faktor in der indonesischen handschriftlichen

Uberlieferung. Review of Indonesian and Malayan Affairs, v.11, July/Dec 1977,
pp. 87 – 98.

2. Kratz E. U. The Editing of Malay Manuscripts and Textual Criticism. Paper

read at the Second European Colloquium on Indonesian Studies, London, 2-6
April 1979.

3. Robson St. Wanban Wideya. Critical edition and translation.

The Hague, Nijhoff, 1971. 323 p.

4. Robson St. Principles of Indonesian Philology. Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-,

Land en Volkenkunde. Working Papers 1. Dordrecht-Holland/Providence-
U.S.A., Foris Publications, 1988. 53 p.
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5. Roorda van Eysinga P.P. (ed.). De Kroon aller koningen, van Bocharie van
Djohor, naar een oud Maleische geschrift vertaald. Batavia, Lands Drukkerij,
1827.

6. Winstedt R.O. (ed.) Hikayat Shams ul-Bahrain. Journal of the Straits Branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society. N 47, 1906. Singapore, Methodist Publishing House,
pp.1–269.

7. Ricklefs M,C., Voorhoeve P. & Gallop A.T. (). Indonesian Manuscripts in

Great Britain. A Catalogue of Manuscripts in Indonesian Languages in British
Public Collections. New Edition with Addenda and Corrigenda. Ecole française
d’Extrême-Orient, Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Yayasan Pustaka
Obor Indonesia. Jakarta, 2014. Pp. 104, 140, 143.

8. Cabaton A. Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits Indiens, Indo-Chinois et

Malayo-Polynésiens de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Paris, 1912. P. 224.

9. Dulaurier Ed. (ed.) Collection des Principales Chroniques Malayes. Premier

fascicule. La chronique du Royaume de Pasey. Paris, 1849.

10. Ras J.J.(ed.) Hikayat Bandjar. A Study on Malay Historiography. The Hague,
Nijhoff, 1968. 655 p.

11. Brakel L.F. The Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah. A Medieval Muslim-Malay

Romance. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff (Bibliotheca Indonesica, 12), 1975. 319
pp.

12. Chambert-Loir H. Hikayat Dewa Mandu. Epopée malaise. Texte et

présentation. Vol. 1. Paris, Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1980. 358 p.

13.Goriaeva L. (ed.) Povestʹ o makharadzhe Marakarme. Transliterat͡sii͡a, perevod

s malaĭskogo, issledovanie, kommentarii, prilozhenii͡a L. V. Gori͡aevoĭ.
Pami͡atniki pisʹmennosti Vostoka, 129. (The Story of Maharaja
Marakarma /Hikayat Maharaja Marakarma. Facsimile of the manuscript,
transliteration, Russian translation, research analysis & commentaries).
Moscow, ‘Oriental literatures’ Editions, 2008. 527 p.
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14. Braginsky V.I.& Boldyreva M.A. (1990). Les manuscrits malais de Leningrad.
Archipel 40. Etudes interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien, Paris, 1990,
pp. 153 –178.

15.About the Fadli lending library see: Braginsky V.I. Malay scribes on their
craft and audience (with special reference to the description of the reading
assembly by Safirin bin Usman Fadli. Indonesia and the Malay World. V. 30,
N 86, 2002; pp. 37 – 61; Chambert-Loir H. Muhammad Bakir. A Batavian
author and scribe of the nineteenth century". Review of Indonesian and
Malaysian Affairs n°18, 1984, pp. 44 – 72; Chambert-Loir H. Malay
Literature in the 19th century; the Fadli Collection. J.J. Ras and S.O. Robson,
Variation, Transformation and Meaning; Studies on Indonesian Literatures
in Honour of A. Teeuw, Leiden, KITLV Press, 1991, p. 87 – 114; Goriaeva L.
La dernière hikayat malaise. Archipel 61. Etudes interdisciplinaires sur le
monde insulindien, Paris, 2001, pp.99 – 113.

16. Goriaeva 2008, p. 523 – 525.

17. Goriaeva L. (ed.) – Hikayat Pandawa Jaya. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa
dan Pustaka, 2017. 431 p.

18. Goriaeva L. (ed.) Pami͡atniki malaĭskoĭ knizhnosti XV—XVII vv. Perevod s

malaĭskogo, issledovanie, kommentarii, prilozhenii͡a i ukazateli L. V. Gori͡aevoĭ.
(Monuments of Malay Book Culture from 15th to 17th Century. Hikayat
Pandawa Jaya and Taj as-Salatin of Bukhari al-Jawhari. (Russian translation,
research analysis, commentaries). Moscow, ‘Oriental literatures’ Editions,
2011. 646 p.

19. Ricklefs M,C., Voorhoeve P. & Gallop A.T., p.133.

20. See for ref. Goriaeva 2011, p. 15 – 17.

21. Brakel L.F. Two Indian Epics in Malay. Archipel 20. Etudes
interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien, Paris, 1980, pp.143 – 160.

22. Ricklefs M,C., Voorhoeve P. & Gallop A.T., p. 124 - 125 .

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23. Chambert-Loir H. A propos du Mahabharata malais. Bulletin de l’Ecole

Française d’Extrême-Orient. T.LXIV. Paris, 1977, pp. 265 – 291.

24. Khalid Hussain (ed.) Hikayat Pandawa Lima. Kuala Lumpur, Dewan Bahasa
dan Pustaka, Kementerian Pelajaran, 1964. 255 p.

25. Goriaeva 2011, p.345-357.

26. Maas P. Textual criticism. Transl. from German by B. Flower. Oxford,

Clarendon Press, 1958. 59 p. P.7 – 9.

27. Goriaeva L. (ed.). Povestʹ o radzhakh Pasei͡a (The Story of the Kings of Pasai).
Russian translation, research analysis, commentaries. Moscow, ‘Oriental
literatures’ Editions, 2015. 190 p.

28. Thanks to Annabel Gallop, Lead Curator of the Southeast Asian Studies
department at the British Library, the facsimile of the manuscript can now be
consulted online. See http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?
ref=or_14350_f045v-f083v

29. Kratz E.U. Hikayat Raja Pasai: a second manuscript. Journal of the Malaysian
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. 62, No. 1 (256), 1989, pp.1 – 10.

30. Jones R. (ed.) Hikayat Raja Pasai. Dikaji dan diperkenalkan oleh Russell
Jones. Kuala Lumpur, Yayasan Karyawan dan Penerbit Fajar Bakti, 1999. 142
p.