The MSS of the Hikayat Iskander
This brief note by Dato’ F.W. Douglas traces the provenance of the four Hikayat Iskandar manuscripts catalogued by Winstedt, identifying their likely common source in a copy made in 1867 by Tungku Kudin (Tungku Dia-uddin), a Kedah prince and former Viceroy of Langat.
Summary
Douglas explains that the complete text contained in Winstedt’s four manuscripts was held by Tungku Musa-eddin, eldest son of the late Sultan of Selangor, who inherited it from his maternal grandfather, Tungku Kudin. Tungku Kudin’s copy was written in 1867 on English foolscap paper bearing a T.H. Saunders 1855 watermark, and is probably the original from which Winstedt’s MSS iii and iv were derived (p. 162). Winstedt’s MS iv was prepared for Wan Besar of Kedah in 1906, the year of Tungku Kudin’s death, while MS ii was copied in 1872 from a manuscript belonging to ‘To’ Muda Linggi, a Bugis official in Selangor, and may represent another copy of the same source (p. 162). Douglas also notes that Tungku Kudin was deeply interested in Malay literature and employed men to copy and translate Javanese tales, of which he possessed the only Malay translation of the Hikayat Angling Derma Wiraja (p. 162).