An account of some of the oldest Malay Mss. now extant
Rev. W. G. Shellabear’s 1898 article in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society presents the first scholarly examination of a group of early Malay manuscripts held in European collections, arguing that the Bodleian specimens—particularly the letters of authority to trade issued by the sultans of Acheen to English captains in the early 1600s—constitute the oldest extant Malay manuscripts and are of paramount value for the study of the Malay language and its literary history.
Summary
Shellabear undertook his examination in the summer of 1895, with the courtesy of librarians at the British Museum, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the University Library at Leiden. He identified seven manuscripts that had never before been noticed in any scientific journal or examined by anyone capable of appreciating their historic and philological interest. The corpus consists of six letters and a copy of the Hikayat Sri Rama, a Malay translation of the Ramayana. The letters are arranged in approximate chronological order, spanning from the early 1600s to the 1670s, and Shellabear provides Roman transliterations and English translations for the six letters, along with a substantial extract from the Hikayat Sri Rama to illustrate its orthography and divergence from the text used by R. van Eijsinga in his edition.
The historical significance of the collection lies primarily in the first three manuscripts, all connected to the early English East India Company’s dealings with the Sultanate of Acheen. Letter A is a letter of authority to trade, probably granted to Sir James Lancaster during his 1601 voyage, and is accompanied by the latter portion of an Arabic letter from the King of Acheen to Queen Elizabeth, an English translation of which appears in Purchas’s Voyages (1625). Letter B is an original document bearing the stamp of Sultan ‘Ala’u ‘d-Din Shah, addressed to Captain Harry Middleton, who accompanied Lancaster in 1601 and was sent to Priaman with a cargo of pepper. Letter C, dated 1024 A.H. (1612 A.D.), is an elaborately illuminated scroll from the Sultan of Acheen to King James I, in which the Sultan declines the English request to trade at Tiku and Priaman, directing them instead to Acheen proper. The remaining letters (D, E, F) date from approximately 1669–1680 and involve Dutch and English commercial interests at Jambi and Buton.
From a philological standpoint, Shellabear draws attention to the strong Arabic influence on the orthography of the earliest letters (A, B, C), including the use of tashdid, the spelling of Sanskrit-derived words with shin rather than sin, and the use of the French word Inglitir for England. He contrasts these with letter F, which shows Javanese influence (dotted dal, Javanese titles adipati and pangeran) and a notable absence of Arabic orthographic features. The Hikayat Sri Rama manuscript, acquired by the Bodleian in 1633, is a quarto volume of approximately 800 pages on Eastern paper, with handwriting of exceptional quality.
Key Findings
- Letter A (Bodleian MS. Douce Or. e. 5) is dated 1011 A.H. (1602 A.D.) and is a copy of a letter of authority to trade from the King of Acheen to an English captain, probably Sir James Lancaster; the accompanying Arabic letter to Queen Elizabeth is the same document translated in Purchas’s Voyages (1625) (pp. 103–105).
- Letter B (Bodleian MS. Douce Or. e. 4) is an original document bearing the stamp of Sultan ‘Ala’u ‘d-Din Shah of Acehen, addressed to Captain Harry Middleton, who was sent to Priaman in 1601 and returned on 21 June 1603 with a cargo of pepper (pp. 106–107).
- Letter C (Bodleian MS. Laud Or. b. I (R)) is dated 1024 A.H. (1612 A.D.), written on a scroll approximately three feet long, and is an elaborately illuminated letter from the Sultan of Acheen to King James I, in which the Sultan explicitly refuses the English request to trade at Tiku and Priaman, stating those places are “negri dusun” (wild countries) too distant from Acheen (pp. 107, 128–130).
- The Hikayat Sri Rama manuscript (Bodleian MS. Laud Or. 291) is a quarto volume of approximately 800 pages on Eastern-manufacture paper, acquired by the Bodleian in 1633, and is undated but probably arrived from the East at the same time as letter C (p. 113).
- Letter D (Leiden University Library) is dated 1080 A.H. (1670 A.D.) and was written by the Captain Laut of Buton to Governor General Johan Maetsuijker at Batavia; letter E, from the King of Jambi to the same Governor General, is minuted on the back in Dutch as received on 30 April 1669 (pp. 107, 135, 138–139).
- The earliest letters (A, B, C) share distinctive orthographic features including the use of Inglitir (French) for England, meli for beli, consistent use of tashdid, and suhbat for sahabat, indicating they were likely composed by the same scribe or at the same time (pp. 106–107).
Conclusion
Shellabear’s definitive contribution is the identification and documentation of what are almost certainly the oldest surviving Malay manuscripts, demonstrating that the Malay literary and administrative tradition in the Arabic script was already well established by the early seventeenth century and was deeply shaped by Arabic linguistic and scribal conventions. The corpus provides a critical baseline for tracing the development of Malay orthography from its early Arabic-influenced forms toward the more standardized spellings of later centuries.
Context
- The primary archival collections examined are the Douce and Laud collections at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Harleian collection at the British Museum; and the Malay letter collection at the University Library, Leiden.
- The article represents the first systematic philological and historical study of these manuscripts, filling a gap noted by Shellabear himself: that they had “never before been noticed in any scientific journal” despite their presence in major European libraries for decades (p. 103).