Article

Hikayat Sri Rama: introduction to the text of the Ms. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Hikayat Sri Rama: introduction to the text of the Ms. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford

W.G. Shellabear’s 1917 introduction to the Bodleian Library manuscript of the Hikayat Sri Rama establishes that this text—acquired by Archbishop Laud in 1633 and probably the oldest Malay book in existence—is not a translation of the Sanskrit Ramayana but a distinct literary work that shares its characters while diverging substantially in narrative structure, theology, and detail. Published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 70), the article serves as the critical apparatus for the full text printed in the following number (No. 71).

Summary

Shellabear’s central task is twofold: to orient the reader to the Sanskrit Ramayana so that the Malay text can be properly evaluated, and to provide a detailed analysis of the Bodleian manuscript that highlights where and how the Malay version departs from the Indian epic. He begins with a concise summary of all seven Books of Valmiki’s poem, annotating each with notes on the principal variations found in the Malay text. This is followed by a page-by-page analysis of the Hikayat Sri Rama itself, tracing its narrative from the opening account of Ravana’s asceticism through the main story of Sri Rama’s adventures, the war with Ravana, and the post-victory episodes.

The article reveals that the Malay text is a fundamentally reworked composition rather than a derivative one. The first fifty pages deal exclusively with Ravana’s genealogy and the politics of Indra Puri Nagara—material with no counterpart in the Sanskrit original. The birth of Sita is entirely reconceived: rather than emerging from a furrow in King Janaka’s field, she is the daughter of King Dasarata’s wife Mandu-dari, born in Ravana’s palace and cast into the sea in an iron coffin. The dramatic core of the Sanskrit poem—Rama’s banishment, Bharata’s refusal of the throne, the emotional confrontation between father and son—is entirely absent from the Bodleian text, which instead has Sri Rama voluntarily wandering the forest because the kingdom was promised to his half-brother Bardan. The theological framework is likewise transformed: the Hindu pantheon is replaced by a monotheistic God (whose name has been scratched out by a later hand and replaced with dewata mulia raya), and the prophet Adam appears as a divine agent.

Shellabear’s method is comparative and philological. He draws on Marsden’s 1812 extracts, Roorda van Eysinga’s 1843 Amsterdam edition, and the French analysis published in the Journal Asiatique (1846) to triangulate the relationship between the Malay text and its Indian source. The Bodleian manuscript’s archaic spelling is reproduced faithfully, with even palpable copyist errors left uncorrected, making the text a valuable witness to the history of the Malay language.

Key Findings

  • The Bodleian manuscript was acquired by Archbishop Laud in 1633 and is described as “probably the oldest Malay book in existence” (p. 181).
  • The first Malay extracts were published by Marsden in 1812 (Malayan Grammar); Roorda van Eysinga issued a quarto edition at Amsterdam in 1843, describing it as “a translation of the original Sanskrit by Valmic”—a claim refuted in the Journal Asiatique of 1846 (4th Series, Vol. 7, p. 425) (p. 181).
  • The words for “God” in the manuscript have been scratched out by another hand and replaced with dewata mulia raya (“the great and glorious gods”), indicating a later process of textual sanitisation (p. 189).
  • The Malay text’s main Sri Rama narrative does not begin until page 51 of the manuscript; the preceding fifty pages are occupied with Ravana’s genealogy and the hostilities between Raja Shaksha and Raja Balikasha, material absent from the Sanskrit original (pp. 189–190).
  • The dramatic episode of Rama’s banishment and Bharata’s refusal of the throne—considered “perhaps the best and most dramatic of the entire poem” in the Sanskrit—is entirely absent from the Bodleian text (p. 185, n. 5).
  • The complete text is printed in No. 71 of the same Journal; the manuscript had previously been described in No. 31 (p. 181).

Conclusion

Shellabear’s definitive takeaway is that the Hikayat Sri Rama must be understood as an independent Malay literary creation that absorbed the skeleton of the Indian epic and reworked it into a narrative shaped by local theological sensibilities, narrative preferences, and cultural logic. The manuscript’s great age and archaic orthography make it not merely a comparative curiosity but a foundational document for the study of early Malay literature and language.

Context

  • The primary source is the Bodleian Library manuscript (described in JSBRAS No. 31), supplemented by comparison with Roorda van Eysinga’s 1843 Amsterdam edition and the French analysis in the Journal Asiatique (1846).
  • The article’s historiographical contribution lies in establishing the Hikayat Sri Rama as a distinct Malay work rather than a Sanskrit translation, a correction that had been pending since 1846 but had not been systematically demonstrated against the oldest available manuscript until Shellabear’s edition.

References