Asian and African studies blog

When first published in 1783, The History of Sumatra by William Marsden represented the first systematic account of the island of Sumatra published in English or any other European language. The History (henceforth) was highly praised by contemporary scholars and writers and secured Marsden’s reputation as an author, linguist and collector, a reputation that continues to the present day.

Born in 1754 in County Wicklow, Ireland, Marsden was raised in a moderately wealthy family and at the age of 16 joined his elder brother in the service of the English East India Company (EIC henceforth) at Fort Marlborough, now Benkulu, in western Sumatra, Indonesia, as a writer. Marsden remained in Sumatra for 8 years, rising to the rank of Principle Secretary to the EIC Government but resigned from his post aged 24 and returned to London in December 1780, where he pursued a career as an author scholar and later as the First Secretary to the Admiralty (1804-1807).

During his time in Sumatra however, Marsden not only fulfilled his role for the EIC but became an avid collector and documented of the island’s languages, fauna and flora – all of which came to underpin the contents of the History with its chapters of ‘beasts’, ‘vegetables’, ‘medicinal shrubs’, ‘gold, tin and other metals’ and ‘languages’ to name just a few.  

The success of the 1783 first edition was such that a second edition quickly followed in 1784, at the same time in which Marsden was firmly establishing himself in London’s networks of science and learning, following his appointment as a fellow of the Royal Society (1783) and the Society of Antiquaries (1785). Marsden continued to write and publish following the second edition of the History, including a Dictionary and Grammar of the Malayan Language (both 1812), a translation of The Travels of Marco Polo (1818) and Numismata Orientalia Illustrata (1823-5) one of the most influential early publications on Asian coinage produced in Britain and Europe. These works illustrated the broad range of subjects - from linguistics to coins to travel accounts that interested Marsden following his return from Sumatra. The History was also translated into German (1785) and French (1788) however Marsden was keen to prepare a new edition of the History, updated with new information and illustrations acquired from his friends and connections still in Sumatra. It would be this updated version, the third edition of 1811 with an additional 100 pages of text and 19 plates containing 27 engraved illustrations of the plants, animals, people, tools and landscapes of Sumatra. Of the 27 illustrations, twelve record different animals found in Sumatra that are described in the main text of the History. What is interesting is that all but one of the illustrations of animals in the History were based on watercolour paintings and pen and ink studies now held in the Visual Art collections of the British Library.

These original works include a study of a Sunda or Malayan pangolin, shown standing in profile on an outcrop of rock, with its coat of scales clearly delineated. This watercolour with pen and ink sketch was used as the basis for plate 10 of the History, and although the original painting is not signed, according to the engraving, the work was made by ‘W. Bell’ believed to have been Dr William Bell, a Company surgeon based in Sumatra in 1792.

Plate 10 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a Sunda pangolin and the original watercolour with pen and ink sketch, NHD1/16, 1784-1808

The original paintings for other works labelled as being the work of ‘W. Bell’ in the History are also found in the Library’s collection of natural history drawings, including pen and ink studies of the skull of a serow, a mammal similar to a goat or antelope and a muntjac skull, also known as barking deer.

Plate 13 no.2 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing the skull of a ‘Kambin-utan and a Kijang’ alongside the original ink drawings; above NHD1/11; Below NHD1/10, 1784-1808

The details of bone, horns, fractures and teeth of both of these sketches has been carefully copied onto a single plate by the Flemish engraver Anthony Cardon (1772-1813) who engraved all of the animal illustrations in the History.

Whilst the work of ‘W. Bell’ is used for 6 of the animal illustrations in the History, a second artist’s work is also included. This artist is unnamed by Marsden in the History, their work simply signed ‘Sinensis del.’ indicating that the work was the creation of an artist from China. This includes a rather stunning double page engraving of a flying lemur hanging from the branch of a langsat tree, holding an infant on its body whilst two giant squirrels sit and climb on the other end of the branch eating the fruit of the tree.

The original painting for these engraving has at some point become divided into two pages – with the squirrels on one page and the lemur and young on another. However the tip of one of the squirrel’s tails continuing across onto the second page indicates that at one point these two separate pages were once joined or at least were meant to be viewed together as shown in the engraved illustration. The original painting is faithfully reproduced in reverse in the engraving, including the botanical details of the interior of the langsat fruit shown in the lower right of the page.

Plate 9 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a flying lemur hanging from a branch with two giant squirrels other the other end, alongside the original watercolour paintings; left NHD2/285; right NHD1/18, 1784-1808

Other works by a Chinese artist include a detailed study of a long tailed porcupine and a pair of greater mousedeer (also known as greater chevrotain) that are both painted without any background or surrounding details. Nonspecific landscapes have however been added to the engraved plates in a style similar to those included in the original works by ‘W. Bell’.

Plate 13 no.1 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a long tailed porcupine, alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/17, 1784-1808

Plate 12 no.1 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a greater mouse deer, alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/18, 1784-1808

 A hand written pencil note on the painting of the greater mouse-deer indicates the small scale of these animals and states that they should not be shown too large on the resulting plate to ensure this diminutive nature is accurately reflected in the published work.

The majority of the animal illustrated in the History show mammals, however there is one image of a reptile – a study of a common flying dragon which is also stated to be the work of a Chinese artist in the History although no signature is found on the delicate watercolour on which this engraving was based. The original watercolour shows a dorsal and ventral view of the reptile, highlighting the different colouration on the top and bottom of the common flying dragon as well as the outspread skin that allows the lizard to glide through the air.

Plate 10 no.2 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing a ventral and dorsal view of a common flying dragon alongside the original watercolour painting, NHD1/26, 1784-1808

A third artist, Eudelin de Jonville, is also referenced in the History’s illustrative animal plates. Although little is known about de Jonville, EIC records show that he worked as a cinnamon surveyor in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, between 1798 and 1800 when he travelled with Major-General MacDowall to the Court of Kandy, where he remained until around 1805. The one work by de Jonville in the History is a set of four studies of the beaks of different species of hornbill – two illustrating the great pied hornbill, one of a Malabar pied hornbill and finally one image of a rhinoceros hornbill. As with the previously mentioned engravings, the original pencil sketches of these studies is in the Visual Arts natural history collections,  each with a scale in inches added to illustration to provide the accurate measurement of each species.  Although also unsigned the original pencil sketches is accompanied by a letter written in French by de Jonville to Marsden describing the hornbill of Sri Lanka, strengthening the attribution of this work to the artistry of de Jonville.

Plate 15 from The History of Sumatra, 3^rd edition, 1811, showing the skulls of three species of hornbill alongside the pencil sketches, NHD1/5, 1784-1808

The original paintings described above are all part of a larger collection of natural history studies collected by Marsden following his return from Sumatra in 1780. These include watercolour and pen and ink studies of fish, shells, a buffalo and several birds alongside the animals discussed above. In total 35 paintings acquired by Marsden are now in the Visual Art collections following their donation by Marsden’s widow to the EIC library after his death in 1836. The collections of the EIC library and that of the India Office Library have subsequently been transferred to the British Library, where they are now available to view in the Library’s reading rooms.

By Cam Sharp Jones, Visual Arts Curator

Further reading:

Mildred Archer, Natural History Drawings in the India Office Library, 1962.

John Bastin, The British in West Sumatra (1685-1825): a selection of documents, mainly from the East India Company records preserved in the India Office Library, Commonwealth Relations Office, London., Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1965

Diana J. Carroll, "William Marsden, The Scholar Behind The History of Sumatra." Indonesia and the Malay World 47 (2019): 66-89.

William Marsden, The History of Sumatra: Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with a Description of the Natural Productions, and a Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island. By William Marsden,... The Third Edition, with Corrections, Additions, and Plates. ed. 1811.

William Marsden, with introduction by John Bastin, The history of Sumatra, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986

Annabel Teh Gallop, Early Views of Indonesia: Drawings from the British Library, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995.

Alexander the Great was born in Macedon in 356 BC, and by the age of twenty-five, he had defeated the Persian army. Over the next seven years, Alexander created an empire that stretched from Greece to Egypt and beyond the Indus river in the east, before his early death aged just 32 in Babylon in 323 BC. However, the focus of the current British Library exhibition, Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth (21 October 2022-19 February 2023), is not on the historical Alexander, but on how the great hero was adopted by countless cultures, each of which remoulded him in their own image. Alexander appears in myths and legends in languages ranging from Greek to Hebrew, Syriac and Coptic, and notably in Arabic and Persian, where he is known as Iskandar Dhu al-Qarnayn, ‘the Two-Horned’. And it was from a Persian prototype that Alexander entered the Malay world as Iskandar Zulkarnain, legendary ancestor of Malay kings.

The Malay tale of Alexander the Great, Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, dated 30 September 1713. Leiden University Library, Cod. Or. 1970.

The Malay Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, the ‘Tale of Iskandar the Two-Horned’, was most probably translated into Malay in the early 15th century, from an Arab paraphrase of a Persian source, which can be traced back ultimately to the Greek ‘Alexander Romance’ attributed to the writer known as ‘Pseudo-Callisthene’. This literary adoption most likely took place in Pasai in north Sumatra, which had been the first Malay kingdom to embrace Islam in the 13th century. Two recensions of the Malay tale are known today, a shorter Sumatran version which ends with the marriage of Iskandar to the daughter of king Tibus of Damascus, and a longer one associated with the Malay Peninsula, which extends to the death of Iskandar.

In the eponymous hikayat, Iskandar Zulkarnain, accompanied by the Prophet Khidr and Greek wise men, leads expeditions to the West and the East, conquers Iran and Egypt, Andalusia and Ethiopia, Syria and India and finally reaches the edges of the earth. As noted by Vladimir Braginsky (2004: 176-177), the Islamic world of the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain ‘widened the limits of the inhabitable world for the Malays and disclosed the unity of humankind to them and their own place in it.’

The opening pages of a three-volume Malay manuscript of the Hikayat Iskandar Zulkarnain, copied in Melaka by Encik Yahya bin Abdul Wahid for William Farquhar, dated 15 February 1817. Royal Asiatic Society, Farquhar 2, Volume 1.

The towering presence of Iskandar is not confined to the eponymous hikayat, for he also appears in other Malay literary works, including the earlier Hikayat Amir Hamzah, narrating the adventures of an uncle of the prophet, which was probably rendered into Malay in the 14th century. In this heroic tale Iskandar is renowned for converting many peoples to Islam (maka segala raja-raja di negeri Zamin Tauran itu semuanya diislamkan oleh Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain; MCP: AHmz 607:34), and when Amir Hamzah sets out from Zamin Ambar on his way back to Rukham, he is guided on his way by landmarks erected by Iskandar Zulkarnain (berpedomankan menara-menara perbuatan Raja Iskandar Zulkarnain itu, MCP: AHmz 676:35). Iskandar Zulkarnain is hailed as a conqueror, statesman and paragon of sagacity in the Taj al-Salatin or ‘Crown of Kings’, a ‘mirror for princes’ composed in Aceh in 1603, and in the Bustan al-Salatin, the universal history compiled by Nuruddin al-Raniri in Aceh in the early 17th century.

The emblematic appearance of Iskandar in Malay literature is in the chronicle of the great sultanate of Melaka, the Sulalat al-Salatin, commonly referred to as the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals. Iskandar is the first actor on the scene in this text, from the manuscript below: ‘according to the teller of tales, one day Raja Iskandar, son of Raja Darab, of the race of Rum [Constantinople], from the country of Macedonia, entitled the ‘Two-Horned’, set out to see where the sun rose, and so journeyed until he reached the border of India.’ (kata yang empunya ceritera, pada suatu masa, bahwa Raja Iskandar, anak Raja Darab, Rum bangsanya, Maqaduniah nama negerinya, Dhu al-Qarnain gelarnya, sekali baginda berjalan hendak melihat matahari terbit. Maka baginda sampai pada [sarhad] negeri Hindi.)

After defeating the ruler of this country, Raja Kida Hindi, Iskandar is married to his daughter at a wedding officiated at by the prophet Nabi Khidir, and the story of their encounter and marriage is related at length in Firdawsi's 11th century Persian epic the Shahnamah. It is from this union that Malay kings trace their descent, for the Sulalat al-Salatin narrates how three princes, progeny of the line of Raja Iskandar Zulkarnain, suddenly appear on Mount Siguntang at Palembang in Sumatra. The eldest became ruler of Minangkabau, the second ruler of Tanjung Pura, and the youngest stayed at Palembang and founded the line of the sultans of Melaka. Ever since, Iskandar Zulkarnain has often been a favoured regnal name for Malay kings, and the greatest ruler of Aceh in the early 17th century was named Iskandar Muda, ‘the Young Iskandar’.

Opening passage of Sulalat al-Salatin, introducing Raja Iskandar Zulkarnain. Copied in Melaka in 1873. British Library, Or 14734, f. 3r.

Space constraints mean that there are no Malay manuscripts featuring Iskandar Zulkarnain in the British Library exhibition, but the accompanying book (Stoneman 2022: 154) includes the royal Malay seal shown below. This is the seal of Sultan Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Saifuddin of Ternate in the Moluccan islands, who reigned from 1714 to 1751, and it is impressed in lampblack on a letter in Malay addressed to Governor General M. de Haan of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Batavia, dated 27 Muharam 1140 (14 September 1727). The seal is inscribed: al-mu'min billah Paduka Seri Sultan Kaicili Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Raja Ternate sanat 1128, ‘the believer in God, Paduka Seri Sultan Kaicili Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain, Raja of Ternate, the year 1128’ (1715/6), and is decorated with scattered star motifs. Note the use of dots in the date to indicate 'place value': three dots next to the numeral 1 standing for 1000; two dots next to the next numeral 1 indicating hundreds; and one dot above the numeral 2 indicating tens.

Seal of Sultan Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Saifuddin of Ternate, dated 1715/6. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Mal.-pol. 210, f. 12.

Another sultan of Ternate who ruled later in the 18th century also adoped Iskandar Zulkarnain as part of his regnal name, as can be seen in his red wax seal below, which reads: Billah Paduka Seri Sultan Kaicili Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Azimuddin Syah Raja Ternate sanat 1188, ‘Through God, Paduka Seri Sultan Kaicili Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Azimuddin Syah, Raja of Ternate, the year 1188’ (1774). This seal is stamped on a contract between Ternate and the VOC, dated 16 August 1774.

Seal of Sultan Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Azimuddin Syah of Ternate, dated 1774. National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia, Ternate 131

A century later, a sultan of Maguindanao – on the island of Mindanao now in the Philippines, just north of Ternate – assumed a similar regnal name. His seal, with the characteristic ‘trefoil crown’ of Maguindanao royal seals, stamped on a letter of 1888, is inscribed: wa-tawakkal ‘ala Allah huwa Datu Seri Muhammad Iskandar Zulkarnain, ‘And trusting to God, he is Datu Seri Muhammad Iskandar Zulkarnain’.

Seal of Sultan Muhammad Iskandar Zulkarnain of Maguindanao, ca. 1888. National Archives of the Philippines, Mindanao y Sulu, SDS 9241, f. 899

The seal of a sultan of Bacan – an island to the south of Ternate – is inscribed with his name of Sultan Amir Iskandar Zulkarnain Azimuddin, suggesting the strong appeal of Iskandar Zulkarnain as a regnal name in these north-eastern islands of the archipelago, a long way from the mountains of Palembang where the descendants of Iskandar are said to have first appeared in the Malay world. In view of the founding myth, it is however hardly surprising that the Malay region where the name of Iskandar Zulkarnain still resonates most strongly is in the Minangkabau highlands of west Sumatra. The letters of an 18th-century royal minister were impressed with a seal inscribed Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain, while the 17th-century Minangkabau prince Sultan Ahmad Syah, who fomented rebellion against the Dutch, used a seal inscribed Paduka Seri Sultan Ahmad Syah ibn zuriat Iskandar Zulkarnain, ‘Paduka Seri Sultan Ahmad Syah, descended from the seed of Iskandar Zulkarnain’ (Gallop 2019: 183-185). Even in the late 19th century, a sultan of Inderapura on the west coast of Sumatra bore the seal shown below which laid claim to the whole panopoly of Minangkabau kingship in its grandiose inscription: bi-'inayat Allâh al-‘Azim Syah al-Sultan Maharaja Alif Sultan Maharaja Dipang Sultan Maharaja Diraja ibn Sultan Hidayat Allah ibn Sultan Iskandar Dhu al-Karnain khalifat Allah fi al-‘alam johan berdaulat bi-‘inayat Allah marhum Syah, ‘By the grace of God, the Most Supreme One, Syah, Sultan Maharaja Alif, Sultan Maharaja Dipang, Sultan Maharaja Diraja, sons of Sultan Hidayat Allah, son of Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain, vicegerent of God on earth, the champion endowed with sovereign power, by the grace of God, the late Syah’ (Gallop 2019: 178).

Seal of Sultan Firman Syah of Inderapura, on a decree of 1888. British Library, EAP117/11/1/5

And indeed, one of the latest acquisitions for the British Library, a new publication in Malay on the history of Minangkabau, is entitled Minangkabau: from the dynasty of Iskandar Zulkarnain to Tuanku Imam Bonjol.

Minangkabau: dari dinasti Iskandar Zulkarnain hingga Tuanku Imam Bonjol, ed. Amir Sjarifoedin. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2020. British Library (shelfmark pending).

References:

MCP: references to Iskandar Zulkarnain in the Hikayat Amir Hamzah were sourced through the Malay Concordance Project created by Ian Proudfoot.

V.I. Braginsky, The heritage of traditional Malay literature: a historical survey of genres, writings and literary views. Leiden: KITLV, 2004.
Annabel Teh Gallop, Malay seals from the Islamic world of Southeast Asia: content, form, context, catalogue. Singapore: NUS Press in association with the British Library, 2019.
Richard Stoneman (ed.), Alexander the Great: the making of a myth, co-editors Ursula Sims-Williams with Adrian S. Edwards and Peter Toth. London: British Library, 2022.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

Alexander the Great: the Making of a Myth is on at the British Library, 21 October 2022 - 19 February 2023

We are indebted to the Kusuma Trust, the Patricia G. and Jonathan S. England – British Library Innovation Fund and Ubisoft for their support towards the exhibition, as well as other trusts and private donors.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to sail around the southern tip of Africa and across the Indian Ocean to reach India and then Southeast Asia. In 1511 Portuguese forces captured Melaka, the greatest Malay kingdom in Southeast Asia, and held it until 1641. Throughout the 16th century armed Portuguese envoys-cum-merchants roamed across the Malay archipelago in search of spices, without competition from northern European traders, who only arrived on the scene at the turn of the 17th century. It is thus a source of consternation that almost no Malay or other vernacular Southeast Asian manuscripts can be found today in Portugal, compared with the many hundreds held in Britain, the Netherlands, France and Germany. Admittedly, the oldest surviving paper manuscript in Arabic script from Southeast Asia – a letter in Arabic of 1516 from the ruler of Pasai in Sumatra to the Portuguese governor of Goa in India – is held in the Torre do Tombo Archives in Lisbon, as are the two earliest known Malay manuscript letters, from Ternate in 1521 and 1522. But not a single Malay manuscript volume or ‘book’ is known to be held in Portugal.

Ivo Castro, Hugo C. Cardoso, Alan Baxter, Alexander Adelaar, and Gijs Koster (eds), Livro de Pantuns: um Manuscrito Asiático do Museo Nacional de Arqueologia, Lisboa / Book of Pantuns: an Asian Manuscript of the National Museum of Archeology, Lisbon (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 2022).  British Library (shelfmark forthcoming). 

Therefore, the news of the recent publication this year of Livro de Pantuns / Book of Pantuns, presenting a manuscript containing Malay pantun or quatrains, from the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology, Lisbon, was greeted with much interest all over the world. The manuscript was said to date probably to the late 17th/early 18th century, and contained a number of sequences of poems written in both Portuguese creole and Malay in romanised script, created and circulated in the mixed Mardijker communities of Tugu and Batavia around present-day Jakarta in Java. Would this discovery perhaps lead to the unearthing of other Malay manuscripts long hidden in repositories in Portugal?

We are most grateful to the publishers for kindly sending a copy to the British Library, and as soon as it arrived on my desk, I eagerly unwrapped the package to browse the volume. To my surprise, it transpired that the manuscript had not, as I had assumed, been resting undisturbed for several centuries in Portugal since making its way to Europe from Java (p. 97). Instead, it had first surfaced in London in around 1865, in the hands of the now venerable but then newly-established antiquarian bookseller, Bernard Quaritch (whose firm has just celebrated its 175th birthday). The purchaser, Ernst Reinhold Rost (1822-1896), was a polymath linguist who had close connections both with the British Library and Malay scholarship: from 1869 to 1893 he served as Librarian of the India Office, and he also contributed the articles on ‘Malay Language and Literature’, amongst others, to the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Rost was in contact with Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927), a professor at Graz in Austria who had a lifelong interest in creoles or dialectal variants formed through contact between European and other languages. The Pantuns manuscript was of enormous interest to Schuchardt, to whom Rost sent the manuscript in 1885, initially on loan before formally gifting it in August 1895 (pp. 98-99). On his own death in 1927, Schuchardt in turn bequeathed the manuscript to a Portuguese scholar, José Leite de Vasconcelos (1858-1941), who had visited Graz especially to study the book. Leite was the founder of the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon, and on his death his papers and collections were all willed to the Museum. However, as Leite never mentioned that the Malay manuscript was in his possession, it was only ‘rediscovered’ in a box in the Museum in 2018 (p. 96) – which happy event led to the publication of the present book.

This fully bilingual book is a rich collaboration between a large number of scholars, with detailed contextual studies on the history of the manuscript by Ivo Castro and Hugo C. Cardoso; on the ‘Portuguese-lexified Creole’ verses by Alan Baxter and Cardoso; on the Malay poems by Gijs Koster; and on the spelling and language of the Malay used by Alexander Adelaar. As shown below, the manuscript itself is presented generously and impeccably, with a beautifully printed full facsimile accompanied on each page with a diplomatic transcription of the text. This is followed by the edition proper in which the Malay pantuns appear in turn in diplomatic transcription, modernised spelling, modern Malay rendering, Portuguese translation and English translation, with full bilingual annotations at the foot of each page for easy reference.

Facsimile of the manuscript, with the diplomatic transcription of the text in the margins of each page. Livro de Pantuns, pp. 224-225

Text edition of the manuscript, presented in five columns, with on the left hand page first the diplomatic transcription of the Malay, followed by the modernised spelling in the centre and then the modern Malay rendering. On the right hand page are the Portuguese and English translations of the Malay. Livro de Pantuns, pp. 332-333.

I chose the pages above because they contain the section entitled Panton Dari Sitie Lela maijan, ‘The poem about Siti Lela Mayang’, which, as Gijs Koster explains (p. 138), bears strong similarities in parts to a well-known narrative poem called Syair Sinyor Kosta, ‘Poem on Sinyor Kosta’. This poem is also known as Syair Silambari, and is found in the Malay manuscript shown below (MSS Malay B 3), from the collection of the India Office Library and now held in the British Library, copied in Penang in 1806 by the scribe Ibrahim.  The Penang version begins with this verse:

Penang, 1806:
Ada satu silam bari / bunga kembang dini hari
pari bijak si Peringgi / kita karang satu nyanyi

In a tale from long ago / A flower blossomed in the early morning
About the wisdom of that Portuguese / I have composed a song

While the Batavia 'Panton', written down perhaps a century and a quarter earlier, begins:
Ayo silam konon bari  / kembang bunga dini hari
kita karang satu nyanyi / akan bijak si Peranggi

Long ago, they say, in the distant past / A flower blossomed in the early morning
I have composed a song / About the wisdom of that Portuguese

And indeed, the next quatrain in the Penang manuscript - introducing Siti Lela Mayang - occurs on the following page of the Batavia manuscript too. Hearing exactly the same phrases and words in the Batavia panton and the opening of the Penang syair, even with the lines transposed, hints at just how familiar this repertory of verses would have been to the audiences of port cities throughout the Malay world in the 17th and 18th centuries. It furthermore illustrates the crucial importance of the Lisbon manuscript as an early chronological marker for the circulation of these poems.

It is tempting to wonder whether Reinhold Rost ever considered presenting his Malay manuscript of pantuns to the India Office Library, to join its 'sibling' Syair Silambari MSS Malay B.3.  However, if this had happened, it is unlikely that the Livro de Pantuns / Book of Pantuns would have benefitted from the combined attentions of such an impressive array of experts as has been assembled in Lisbon, resulting in this wonderful new publication.

Syair Silambari, Malay narrative poem, copied by Ibrahim, Penang, 1806. MSS Malay B 3, ff. 22v-23r   

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

This is the final part of a series of blog posts which has firmly resisted the temptation to dwell on the impressive illuminated frames in Qur’an manuscripts, in order to focus on the smallest artistic elements found on the inner pages. The first post looked at verse markers, the second text frames, the third surah headings and the fourth juz’ markers, all features which are common to many Qur’an manuscripts from all over the Islamic world. This fifth post, on the recitation markers ruku‘ or maqra’, is rather different, as these are not found in Qur’ans in all regions, or even in all parts of Southeast Asia, and are rarely mentioned in the scholarly literature on Qur’an manuscripts.

Maqra’ inscribed twice in tiny red letters in the margin, at the start of Juz’ 2 (Q.2:142), in a Qur’an manuscript from Patani or Kelantan, 19th century. British Library, Or 15227, f. 13v.

The more widely-used term is ruku‘, which has two related meanings. The first is the ritual act of bowing from the waist while standing during the formal prayer (salat). The second meaning of ruku‘ is a section of the Qur’an, in principle forming a thematic unit, selected for recitation. According to a recent study by 'Abd al-Qayum al-Sindi (2012/3), the tradition of dividing the Qur'an into ruku‘ appears to have developed in Central Asia and India around the 3/4th (10/11th) centuries. The aim was to facilitate reciting the Qur’an in Ramadan, aiming for completion by the 27th day of the holy month, the Laylat al-Qadr, believed to be the day that the Qur’an was first revealed to the prophet Muhammad. As a section of the Qur’an would be recited during each of the 20 rakat (cycles) of the evening tarawih prayers during Ramadan, each concluding with the ordained bow or ruku‘, the Qur’an was therefore divided into 540 (20 x 27) ruku‘, although other authorities give the number of ruku‘ as 558.

The division of the Qur’anic text into ruku‘, indicated with the letter ‘ayn inscribed in the margin, is indeed strongly associated with South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, both in manuscripts and in printed Qur’ans, but is not found in western Islamic lands or in the Ottoman realm. In Southeast Asia, the use of marginal ‘ayn to signify ruku‘,  often placed in illuminated ornaments, is prominent in the early wave of Qur’an manuscripts in the Sulawesi diaspora style dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as in Mindanao.

Ruku‘ indicated by the letter ‘ayn in an illuminated 8-pointed star-shaped medallion, with the actual point in the text marked by a composite roundel. Folios from a Qur’an in the Sulawesi diaspora geometric style now held in Kampar, Riau, part of a larger manuscript copied in 1740 now in the Sang Nila Utama Museum, Pekanbaru, Riau, Indonesia. EAP1020/3/2, p.4 

   
Marginal ‘ayn ornaments in a Sulawesi-style Qur’an, copied in Kedah in 1753, held in Masjid Sultan Riau, Pulau Penyengat, Riau Archipelago.

    
Marginal ‘ayn ornaments in Qur'an manuscripts from Mindanao, 18th-19th century; (left) Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms or. fol. 4134; (middle) University of Virginia Library, MSS 13296; (right) University of Bristol Library, D.M. 32.

From the 19th century onwards, marginal ‘ayn markers indicating ruku‘ are most strongly associated with Qur’an manuscripts from Java, and are often executed with stylish calligraphic flourishes.  In two Qur’ans from Java in the British Library, Add 12312 and Add 12343, the ruku‘ adhere to the locations given in modern printed Qur'ans, but in Add 12343 - and in a number of other Javanese Qur'ans - each marginal ‘ayn is accompanied by a number that is hard to interpret, seeming not to bear any correlation to either the number of the ruku‘, or the number of the verse, or the number of verses in that ruku‘.  These numbers are given here in bold in this listing of the 16 ruku‘ in the first juz’ of the Qur’an (S. al-Baqarah Q.2:1-141): 1 (2:1), 2 (2:8), 3 (2:21) 3 (this is the first ruku‘ marking in Add 12343), 4 (2:30) 13, 5 (2:40) 7, 6 (2:47) 7, 7 (2:60) 3, 8 (2:62) 9, 9 (2:72) 19, 10 (2:83) 4, 11 (2:87) 1, 12 (2:97) 7, 13 (2:104) 9, 14 (2:113) 9, 15 (2:122) 8, 16 (2:130) 12, with the 17th ruku‘ starting with Juz' 2 at Q.2:142.

Marginal letter ‘ayn in red accompanied by the number '7', marking ruku‘ 5 (Q.2:40), in a Qur'an from Java, ca. 1800. British Library, Add 12343, f. 3v.

Marginal letter ‘ayn in red topped with an elaborate triangle of alternating red and black lines, but without a number, while a tiny ‘ayn above the verse marker indicates the exact start of ruku‘ 5 (Q.2:40), in a Qur’an from Java, ca. 1800. British Library, Add 12312, f. 3v.

Ruku‘ marked with the letter ‘ayn in red ink in the margin, with a small ‘ayn at the exact verse, in a Qur’an from East Java, 19th century. EAP061/2/35, p.87.

According al-Sindi's research (2012/3), it was the Sindhi scholar Muhammad al-Tattwi (d. 1174/1761) who replaced the term ruku‘ with maqra’, dividing each juz' into 16 maqra’. He was the author of the Tuhfah al-Qari bi-Jama‘ al-Maqari (‘A Gift to the Reader of a Collection of Maqra’), said to be based on the ‘opinions of scholars from Bukhara’. Maqra’ inscriptions in Qur'an manuscripts are most evident in Southeast Asia, mainly in the Malay peninsula and Java. Important evidence of the usage of this term in the Malay world to refer to sections of the Qur’an for recitation is found in the historical chronicle by Raja Ali Haji, ‘Genealogy of the Malays and Bugis’ (Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis) composed in 1868. In one episode, Gusti Jamril, son of the ruler of Mempawah on the west coast of Kalimantan (Borneo), pays a visit to Pangiran Dipati, the elderly ruler of Pinang Sikayuk. The young prince is quizzed on his religious learning:

His Highness asked him, ‘Has my grandson learned to recite the Qur’an?’ Gusti answered, ‘Yes’, and so His Highness instructed him to do so. So Gusti recited two makra before pausing, and His Highness listened to him with pleasure. (Dan baginda pun bertanya pula, "Apa cundaku tahu mengaji Quran?" Maka jawab Gusti, "Tahu". Maka disuruh baginda membaca Quran. Dan membacalah Gusti ada dua makra berhenti. Maka baginda pun suka mendengarnya.  Raja Ali Haji 2016: 212, identified via the Malay Concordance Project.)

Maqra’ marking in a Qur’an manuscript from Java, 19th century. Pura Pakulaman Library, Yogyakarta, Is. 4.

Illuminated floral maqra’ marking in a Qur’an manuscript in the Patani style, 19th century. Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, 1998.1.3494

   
Illuminated maqra’ markers, from left to right: from a Patani-style Qur’an, 19th century, Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, 1998.1.3501; and two from the royal La Lino Qur'an, early 19th century, probably made on the East Coast of the Malay Peninsula but long held in the Palace of Bima, Sumbawa, now in the Bayt al-Qur'an and Museum Istiqlal, Jakarta. Note the similar stylish calligraphic treatment of the letter alif.

Maqra’ inscription in red ink, in a Qur’an manuscript in the Patani style, 19th century. British Library, Or 15227, f. 24v

Illuminated maqra’ ornaments are actually quite rare, as maqra’ markings in Qur’an manuscripts are usually just inscribed in the margin in red ink, as shown in Or 15227 above. In this manuscript each juz’ is divided into not 16 but eight maqra’, and those in the first juz’ are located at Q.2:26, 2:44, 2:61, 2:75, 2:91, 2:106 and 2:124. Thus maqra’ do not relate to ruku‘, but rather constitute an eighth of a juz’, thereby matching the divisions of a juz' notated in other manuscripts as thumn (eighth), rub‘ (quarter) or nisf or hizb (half). And indeed, in a recent official Malaysian government publication, the maqra’ is defined as a quarter of a hizb: ‘the Qur’an contains 323,671 letters, 77,437 words, 6236 verses, 114 surah, 30 juz’, 60 hizb and 240 maqra’ (Panduan Rasm Uthmani, 2012: 3, cited in Muhammad Azam 2021: 9).

In the manuscript cultures of Sumatra, notably in Aceh and Minangkabau, neither ruku‘ nor maqra’ markings are generally found in Qur'an manuscripts, which are more likely to indicate fractions of a juz' (although, as can now be recognized, these are in fact the same divisions as indicated by maqra’ markings). The illustration belows show a Qur'an manuscript from India, which was probably brought to Aceh and used and rebound there. The original manuscript has marginal 'ayn in red ink, but a local (Acehnese) hand has added in black ink the inscription rub', indicating a quarter of a juz'.

Qur'an from India, brought to Aceh, ca. 19th century. British Library, Or 16603, f. 73r.

The evidence so far from Southeast Asian manuscripts suggests that maqra’ are a simple quantitative division of the Qur’anic text, while ruku‘ are a qualitative division, aiming for thematic completeness within each section. However, in some manuscripts from Java, both inscriptions are found together (see illustrations below), and certain current Indonesian sources suggest that the terms ruku‘ and maqra’ are used interchangeably.  A recent study of the tradition in Lampung of reciting Surat al-Taubah over a woman in the seventh month of pregnancy describes how the Imam will read until he reaches the 'ayn: "the sign of 'ayn, also called ruku‘ and makra’, placed in the margin, is a sign of the completion of a story or discussion within the Qur'an. Thus it is advised that when you wish to stop reciting, this should be done when you encounter the 'ayn sign" (tanda ‘ain disebut juga ruku’ dan makra’ yang terletak di pinggir garis yaitu isyarat sempurnanya kisah atau suatu pembahasan di dalam Al-Qur'an. Sehingga dianjurkan ketika ingin mengakhiri bacaan al-Qur’an hendaknya ketika menemui simbol ‘ain, Musrochin 2021: 330).

  
Two Qur'an manuscripts from Java, with marginal inscriptions in the same place of 'ayn for ruku‘ and maqra’.  Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, (left) 2004.2.4, (right) 2004.2.3.

The terms ruku‘ and maqra’ for Qur'anic divisions for recitation may thus defy firm categorisation, but have meanings which continue to evolve over place and time.

References:
‘Abd al-Qayum b. ‘Abd a-Ghafur al-Sindi, Mustalah ar-ruku fi l-masahif, madlulahu, nashatuhu wa aqwal al-ulama’ fiha (‘The term ruku‘ in mushafs: its meaning, origin and opinions of scholars on it'), Majallah Tibyan li-d-Dirasat al-Qur'aniyah / Tbeian: for Qur’anic Studies, 1434 (2012/3), 24: 20-73.
Raja Ali Haji Raja Ahmad, Salasilah Melayu dan Bugis, diusahakan Mohd. Yusof Md. Nor. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2016.
Masruchin, Pembacaan Surat At-Taubah dalam tradisi “Tobatan” pada usia kehamilan tujuh bulan di Dusun 2 Umbulkadu Desa Sendang Asri Lampung Tengah.  Al-Dzikra: Jurnal Studi Ilmu al-Qur’an dan al-Hadits, 2021, 15(2): 317-336.
Muhammad Azam bin Adnan, The Malay Quran manuscripts in Muzium Negara. Malaysia Museums Journal, 2021, 38: 7-25.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

I would like to acknowledge the valuable help of Mykhaylo Yakubovych in sharing and interpreting the article by al-Sindi, and I am also grateful for comments from Johanna Pink and Ali Akbar.

The British Library holds a small but important collection of about 120 manuscripts written in the Malay language and the Jawi (Arabic) script, originating from all over maritime Southeast Asia. These Malay manuscripts have always – in theory – been accessible publicly in the reading rooms initially of the British Museum and the India Office Library, and latterly in the British Library, but in practice access was restricted to those who could afford to travel the long distance to London. Microfilm was the standard reprographic medium at this time, which could at least enable manuscripts to be shared, but only the most dedicated philological scholars were prepared to tackle the cumbersome microfilm readers. In the 21st century, digitisation has been a game changer: now anyone, anywhere, can read a centuries-old Malay manuscript, on a computer at home, or on their smartphone while waiting for a bus.

Through the generous support of William and Judith Bollinger, over a two-year period from 2013 to 2015 the British Library was able to digitise its complete collection of about 120 Malay manuscripts in a collaborative project with the National Library Board of Singapore. The digitised manuscripts can now be accessed online, both through the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts portal and on the National Library of Singapore’s BookSG site. A full list of the 120 digitised manuscripts can be found here.  Many of these Malay manuscripts were displayed in the National Library of Singapore’s exhibition Tales of the Malay World in 2017, and in the accompanying book edited by curator Tan Huism, which featured 14 manuscripts from the British Library.   

Hikayat Nabi Yusuf, ‘The Story of the Prophet Joseph’, copied in Perlis in 1802 by Muhammad Lebai. British Library, MSS Malay D.4, ff. 3v-4r

However, in the crowded digital universe, it was also important to find effective ways of bringing this valuable resource to the attention of the audiences who would most appreciate it, in the Malay world of Southeast Asia. Fuelled by a conviction that all manuscripts have a unique story to tell, each Malay manuscript was given its Warholian '15 minutes of fame' through posts on the British Library’s Asian and African blog. The blog posts, which were further promoted through social media such as Facebook, gained a faithful audience, and in 2020 Malaysia and Indonesia were the two top countries for readers of the BL Asian and African blog after the UK, US and India.

The impact of the project may be judged by some of the varied and creative uses to which the digitised Malay manuscripts in the British Library have been put over the past few years, some of which are outlined below. Or rather, these are the stories we know about, for the manuscripts are freely accessible online to all. Digitising a manuscript is like opening the door of a bird cage: once the bird flies off into the world, we do not know where it will alight.

Among the most traditional outcomes of the project are scholarly editions of Malay texts. The British Library collection is particularly rich in literary manuscripts, quite a few of which appear to be unique. Thus Hikayat Ular Nangkawang, 'The Story of the Serpent Nangkawang', only known from two British Library manuscripts – Add 12382 and MSS Malay A.1 – was published in 2019 by the Language and Literary Bureau of Malaysia (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka), edited by Fathenawan Wan Mohd. Noor.

 
(Left) A new romanised edition of the Hikayat Ular Nangkawang (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2019), British Library, YP.2019.a.7399, based on (right) British Library manuscript MSS Malay A.1, f. 1v

The digitised manuscripts are regularly used all over the world for teaching and research.  At Goethe University, Frankfurt, Prof. Ulrich Kratz and his postgraduate class on Malay philology are currently working together to transliterate a unique manuscript of Hikayat Raja Dewa Maharupa, MSS Malay D.2.  Each year, Asep Yudha Wirajaya S.S., M.A., a lecturer at Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS, University of the Eleventh of March) in Surakarta, Central Java, sets his philology students to work on a digitised Malay manuscript from the British Library, including those accessible through the Endangered Archives Programme. I frequently receive emails directly from Pak Asep’s students with queries: for example, in 2019, Muhammad Zulkham asked about watermarks, and Siti Nafi'ah Nur Halimah enquired how the shelfmark MSS Malay B.10 was assigned. It is rewarding to see lasting outcomes from these academic exercises, and the British Library manuscript, Hikayat Selindung Delima (MSS Malay C.6) – containing the rare prose (hikayat) version of a tale more commonly found in poetic (syair) form – was published in 2019 by the National Library of Indonesia, edited by Dita Eka Pratiwi with Asep Yudha Wirajaya.

Asep Yudha Wirajaya S.S., M.A. (centre) with his Malay philology class at Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, in December 2019.  Image source: Facebook page of Asep Yudha Wirajaya, 8.12.2019, reproduced with permission.

 
(Left) A new romanised edition of Hikayat Selindung Delima (Jakarta: National Library of Indonesia, 2019), based on the (right) British Library manuscript MSS Malay C.6, f. 65v , copied in Melaka in 1223 (1808), showing above the final page with the colophon and date.

Studies on British Library digitised Malay manuscripts are also recorded in academic journals.  In the National Library of Indonesia journal Jumantara, Nurhayati Primasari discusses a popular catechism by al-Samarqandi with Malay translation (MSS Malay C.7), copied in Batavia in the early 19th century (Jumantara 8(2), Aug. 2019), while in the same journal Hazmirullah published a farewell letter to Raffles from the Bupati of Cianjur in west Java (Add 45273, f. 36r), unusually written in romanised Malay (Jumantara 11(1), June 2020). 

Many of the Malay literary manuscripts in the British Library originate from the collection of John Leyden (1775-1811), who spent several months in Penang in 1806 in the house of Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826). The Malay poem, Syair Jaran Tamasa (MSS Malay B.9), appears to have particularly caught Leyden’s attention, for in a notebook he had begun an English translation. In a blog post in 2016 I noted that this Malay poem, of  which no other manuscript is known, to that day remained unpublished. This ‘challenge’ was picked up by Dr Mulaika Hijjas at SOAS, who devised the innovative Jawi Transcription Project to crowd-source the romanised transliteration of this manuscript.

The Jawi Transcription Project, initiated by Dr Mulaika Hijjas of SOAS to romanise the Malay poem Syair Jaran Tamasa, British Library, MSS Malay B.9.

The involvement of the Malaysian ‘indie’ publisher Fixi is particularly gratifying in extending the reach of Malay manuscripts beyond a traditional scholarly audience, and bringing alive these centuries-old tales for a modern audience. Two British Library Malay manuscripts have been published by Fixi in innovative formats, both transliterated by Arsyad Mokhtar. With its many fight sequences, Hikayat Raja Babi, ‘The Story of the Pig King’ (2015) - based on a manuscript written in Palembang in 1775 by a writer from Semarang, Usup Abdul Kadir, Add 12393 - has been designed to appeal to silat or kung fu martial arts afficianados, with comicbook manga-style illustrations by Arif Rafhan Othman. The same artist opted for a different approach in the Hikayat Nabi Yusuf, ‘Story of the Prophet Joseph’ (2018) - an edition of a  manuscript copied in Perlis in 1802, MSS Malay D.4 - which is a deluxe hardcover production on glossy paper with a sumptuous palette evoking the setting of the story in Pharaonic Egypt. Recently, the Hikayat Raja Babi has been reborn as a children’s book in English, The Malay tale of the Pig King (2020), retold by Heidi Shamsuddin with dreamy illustrations by Evi Shelvia, published by Fixi with crowdsourced funding.

 
(Left) Romanised edition of Hikayat Raja Babi (Kuala Lumpur: Fixi Retro, 2015).  British Library, YP.2016.a.2565. (Right) A children’s version in English, The Malay tale of the Pig King (Kuala Lumpur: Matahari Books, an imprint of Fixi, 2020).  British Library (shelfmark pending).

Hikayat Nabi Yusuf (Kuala Lumpur: Fixi Retro, 2018). British Library, YP.2019.a.2275.

It is a particular pleasure to see Malay manuscripts used as sources of artistic inspiration. One of the first artists to be inspired by the British Library corpus was Hafizan Halim, an acclaimed illuminator from Kedah, now with many royal Malaysian patrons. He was entranced by a beautiful golden letter from Temenggung Ibrahim of Johor to Emperor Napoleon III of France, written in Singapore in 1857 (Or 16126), the only known traditional Malay example of chrysography, writing in gold. Hafizan has copied and adapted the illuminated borders of this letter in many guises in his artworks, often as the setting for Surat Yasin of the Qur’an.

 
(Left) Malay letter from Temenggung Daing Ibrahim of Johor to Emperor Napoleon III of France, 1857, British Library Or 16126, inspired the golden frame around Surat Yasin drawn by Hafizan Halim of Kedah (right).

Detail of Hafizan Halim’s drawing based on the illuminated headpiece from of the royal Johor letter of 1857, Or 16126. 

This same golden letter from Johor also provided the setting for the invitation to a illustrious  wedding held on the island of Pulau Penyengat in Riau on 6 September 2018, of Raja Sufriana - daughter of Raja Hamzah Yunus, an eminent aristocrat and cultural figure - and Aswandi Syahri, a local historian who was involved in the EAP153 project to digitise Riau manuscripts.  It was especially poignant to see how these beautiful royal Johor patterns and motifs, preserved in Or 16126, were revived to celebrate a marriage at the very centre of the historic Malay kingdom in which these art forms would have evolved.

Wedding invitation of Raja Sufriana and Aswandi Syahri, 6 September 2018.  Reproduced courtesy of Aswandi Syahri.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

Further information:

Why we need to digitise our history, talk by Annabel Gallop at TEDxUbud, September 2014

In 2013, through the generous support of William and Judith Bollinger, the British Library embarked upon a five-year project, in collaboration with the National Library Board of Singapore, to digitise materials in the British Library of interest to Singapore. The project initially focussed on Malay manuscripts, early maps of Singapore, and archival papers of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who had founded a British trading settlement in Singapore in 1819. The project later also encompassed Bugis manuscripts, reflecting the cultural heritage of a distinctive community within the broader Malay population in Singapore, and the small collection of Qur’an manuscripts from Southeast Asia in the British Library. The digitised materials are being made accessible through the websites of both the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts and the National Library of Singapore's BookSG.

Malay manuscripts
The complete collection of Malay manuscripts in the British Library, comprising about 120 volumes and about 150 letters and documents in Malay, has now been fully digitised. The manuscripts date from the 17th to the late 19th centuries, and originate from all over Southeast Asia where Malay was the common language of trade, diplomacy and religious education. Highlights include the oldest known copy of the earliest Malay historical chronicle, Hikayat Raja Pasai (Or 14350), copied in Semarang in north Java in 1797, and two copies of the history of the great sultanate of Melaka, Sulalat al-Salatin or Sejarah Melayu, one copied in Singapore around the 1830s (Or 16214) and one in Melaka in 1873 (Or 14734). The collection is rich in literary works, both in prose and in poetic (syair) form, and also has a few finely illuminated manuscripts, including an exquisite copy of a ‘mirror for princes’ containing advice on good governance, the Taj al-Salatin or ‘Crown of Kings’ (Or 13295), commissioned in Penang in 1824 by Ralph Rice for his 'bibliomanist' brother, Rev. Rice of Brighton. While technically admirable, of greater cultural significance is a nicely decorated copy of the story of the Prophet Joseph, Hikayat Nabi Yusuf (MSS Malay D.4), copied in Perlis in 1802, as this is the only illuminated Malay manuscript known to identify the artist by name: Cik Mat Tok Muda, or, in more formal terms, Datuk Muda Encik Muhammad.  The Malay manuscripts can be accessed here and through BookSG.

Hikayat Nabi Yusuf, the Malay story of the Prophet Joseph, copied in Perlis, 1802. British Library, MSS Malay D.4, ff. 3v-4r.

Many of the Malay letters in the British Library were written to Thomas Stamford Raffles, who spent nearly two decades in Southeast Asia in the service of the East India Company, initially in Penang and then as Lieutenant-Governor of Java (1811-1816) and of Bengkulu in Sumatra (1818-1824). The majority of the letters date from around 1811 when Raffles was based in Melaka making preparations for a British invasion of Java, as the Napoleonic wars in Europe spilled over into the Indian Ocean arena and Southeast Asia. Other letters were sent to Raffles at later dates, including a collection of formal farewell letters on his departure from Java in 1816.

Illuminated farewell letter in Malay from Sultan Cakra Adiningrat of Madura to T.S. Raffles on his departure from Java in 1816. British Library, MSS Eur E378/7.

Early maps of Singapore
Tom Harper, Lead Curator, Antiquarian Maps, describes this part of the project:
"Approximately 250 early maps and charts featuring Singapore have been digitised. Ranging in date from the late 15th to early 20th centuries, these were sourced from across the British Library’s collections including the India Office Map Collection and the Topographical Collection of George III. Of particular significance are the maps of Singapore Island and town drawn by the governor of Singapore William Farquhar a mere five years after the foundation of the British settlement in 1819. Other included maps illustrate the strong continuity and tradition of maritime charting of the Singapore strait from the chart drawn by the Frenchman Jean Rotz and presented to Henry VIII in 1542 (Royal MS 20 E IX), to British Admiralty charts of the straits surveyed and published three centuries later.  Finally, the hand-drawn atlas of 1700 by William Hack, formally owned by George III (Maps 7.TAB.125), containing 85 charts of the coasts between South Africa and Japan and prominently featuring the Singapore Strait and surrounding area, was digitised in its entirety for the first time." The map collection can be accessed here.

A chart of the coast of Asia, from Cochin China on the east, to Ormus on the west, with Sumatra, Java, and part of Borneo; drawn in 1578, by Joan Martines of Messina.  British Library, Harley MS 3450, f. 7r

Papers of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
Antonia Moon, Lead Curator, India Office Records (Post-1858), writes:
"27 volumes were digitised from the India Office Private Papers. These included 14 volumes of Raffles’s own correspondence, journals, notes and observations, which most interestingly reflect his administration of Java, his interest in the history and culture of the people, and his early explorations of Singapore. Also digitised was correspondence with Lord Minto, Governor General of Bengal, which contains Raffles’s narratives of the natural history and antiquities of South East Asia. Five items were digitised from the Raffles Family Papers, including the list of Raffles’s personal possessions lost on board the ship ‘Fame’. Copyright clearance was achieved on most of the material including, importantly, that created by Raffles."  The Raffles Papers can be accessed by searching for 'Mss Eur' on BookSG.

Statement of personal property of Sir Stamford Raffles lost on board the Fame, 1824. British Library, Mss Eur D742/4, f. 6.

Bugis manuscripts
Singapore is home to a substantial Malay community of Bugis/Makassar descent, who maintain a strong interest in the language, culture and traditions of their ancestral homeland in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The 32 Bugis and 2 Makasar manuscripts which have been digitised, listed here, were taken in 1814 during the British attack on the kingdom of Bone in south Sulawesi, and entered the possession of John Crawfurd, a senior East India Company official. The collection includes an important series of royal diaries kept by senior court officials, including some belonging to the former king of Bone himself, Sultan Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin (1775-1812).

Bugis diary of the Maqdanreng (most senior court official) of Bone, showing the entry for March 1729, with a detailed account of activities on 15th March written in a square spiral. British Library, Or 8154, f. 77r.

Southeast Asian Qur’an manuscripts
The Bollinger-Singapore project enabled the completion of the digitisation of the British Library’s small collection of eight Qur’an manuscripts from Southeast Asia, making publicly accessible a selection of Qur’ans representing three distinct regional traditions of the Malay world, from Aceh, Java and Patani on the East Coast of the Malay pensinsula.

Qur’an from Java, 18th-early 19th century, collected by John Crawfurd. British Library, Add 12312, ff. 1v-2r.

The Bollinger-Singapore Digitisation Project was initiated when William and Judith Bollinger moved from London to Singapore in 2012, and extended their already generous patronage of the British Library to a project which they envisaged would enhance collaboration between the British Library and the national library of their new home.

Liz Jolly, Chief Librarian of the British Library, describes the impact of the project: “We are so grateful for this visionary support from William and Judith Bollinger, which has allowed the British Library to make freely and fully accessible a highly significant part of its collections relating to Singapore and the Malay world, benefitting not only the scholarly community but also reaching new audiences, especially in Southeast Asia."

Tan Huism, Director of the National Library of Singapore, expresses appreciation of the project and outlines some of the beneficial outcomes: “It takes a special person, in this a case a special couple, to support digitisation work. While digitisation is largely unseen work done by libraries, it is crucial work in enabling access and the sharing of collections with people all over the world when put online. The National Library of Singapore is grateful to Bill and Judy for their generous support in this project which has not only enabled the Singapore public to engage with these wonderful treasures held by The British Library digitally but the digitisation had also facilitated the loans of some of these materials for exhibitions in Singapore.”

This digitisation project was one of the first to make widely accessible such a range of primary source material for the study not only of the history of the Malay world, but also for its literature, art, calligraphy, book culture and writing traditions.

Further interest:

A video of Judy Bollinger speaking in 2018 at the National Library of Singapore.

Tales of the Malay world, an exhibition of Malay manuscripts at the National Library of Singapore in 2018.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

The finest Qur'an manuscripts in Southeast Asia were produced on the East Coast of the Malay peninsula. Especially sumptuous were the Qur'ans of Terengganu, notable for their technical finesse and lavish use of gold, which were prized all over the archipelago. Further north, the Malay kingdom of Patani - now part of Thailand - has long been recognized for its artistry, manifest in a range of art forms including weaponry, grave stones and primarily wood carving, as beautifully captured in the exhibition book Spirit of Wood (Farish and Khoo 2003).  The best Qur'an manuscripts from Patani are notable for their perfect proportions and and betray a more individualistic aesthetic than the more rigorous and disciplined Terengganu Qur'ans.

An exquisite small Qur’an manuscript in the British Library, Or 15227, which has been fully digitised, is at first glance characteristically Patani in style. Illuminated frames enclose the opening chapters of the Qur’an, with the Surat al-Fatihah on the right-hand page and the first verses of the Surat al-Baqarah on the left.  Although positioned separately on two facing pages, the two frames radiate an intimate and empathetic connection, like a bashful bridal couple on a dais.

Illuminated frames at the start of the Qur’an. British Library, Or 15227, ff. 3v-4r

As can be seen from the diagram below outlining the key features of the 'Patani' style of manuscript illumination, this Qur'an manuscript contains numerous typically Patani elements.  These include ‘interlocking wave’ arches on the vertical sides composed of two intersecting arc surmounted by an ogival dome, and a small border of little chilli peppers (cili padi) or seeds.  These can be seen in the pair of decorated frames located at the end of the Qur’an, containing the final two chapters, with Surat al-Falaq on the right and Surat al-Nas on the left.

Characteristic features from the Patani style of manuscript illumination, reproduced from Gallop 2005: 119, Figure 2.

Illuminated frames at the end of the Qur’an, with 'interlocking wave' arches. British Library, Or 15227, ff. 303v-304r

Detail of the 'interlocking wave' arch, with chilli pepper border below of alternating blue and red seeds. British Library, Or 15227, f. 303v (detail)

Another interlocking wave arch. British Library, Or 15227, f. 222v (detail)

The Qur’an is written in fine small controlled hand, and like all East Coast Qur’an manuscripts, is copied in accordance with a model of page layout perfected by the Ottomans in the 17th century.  In this ayat ber-kenar system, each juz’ or thirtieth part of the Qur’an occupies exactly 10 folios of paper or 20 pages, with each page ending with a complete verse. Thus each new juz’ always starts on the top line of a right-hand page in the manuscript, and is marked with a beautiful marginal ornament composed of a concentric circle inscribed al-juz’, extended upwards and downwards with floral motifs. Inscribed in tiny red letters alongside each juz’ marker is the word maqra’, indicating the start of a selection of text for recitation.

Marginal ornament marking the start of juz’ 14, which is also the beginning of Surat al-Hjir. British Library, Or 15227, f. 133v

Although the juz’ markers are all composed of the same basic components of a concentric circle with floral ornaments, each is coloured and finished individually with a different selection of pigments. The ending of the finial at top and bottom with a little droplet is a typically Patani feature - in Terengganu Qur'ans, such finials would end in a fine tapering line.

    
Marginal ornaments marking the start of juz’ 5, 6, 7 and 8, each located exactly 10 folios apart. British Library, Or 15227, ff. 43v, 53v, 63v and 73v.

In Southeast Asian Qur’an manuscripts, chapter or sura headings are rarely ornamented with colour, save in the finest examples from the East Coast, such as this manuscript. On the final two pages towards the end of the Qur'an, a beautiful selection of coloured headings can be seen in the cluster of short suras in the final juz 'amma.  The title of the sura, the location of its revelation in Mecca or Medinah, and the number of verses (aya) it contains, is inscribed in reserved white against a ground of five alternating red and either green or blue panels.

Colourful chapter headings, with the titles of the sura reserved in white against a selection of coloured panels. British Library, Or 15227, ff. 302v-303r

While the architectural structure of the illuminated frames and decorative motifs are undoubtedly Patani, there are a number of unusual features which make this a uniquely hybrid manuscript.  The uniformly repeating floral motifs, and the deep strong palette, recall Terengganu production, compared to the generally more organic vegetal motifs and pastel hues found in Patani manuscripts.

Even more unusual though is the location of two further pairs of illuminated frames. The positioning of decorated frames in the centre of a Qur’an manuscript from Southeast Asia is one of the most dependable indicators of regional origin: in Acehnese Qur’ans decorated frames in the middle always mark the start of the 16th juz’, at Surat al-Kahf v. 75; in Java and the Sulawesi diaspora it is always the beginning of Surat al-Kahf which is ornamented; while on the East Coast of the peninsula, if illuminated frames are located in the middle they invariably adorn the beginning of the 17th chapter, Surat al-Isra’. Yet in this small manuscript, uniquely, double decorated frames mark the start of both Surat al-Kahf and Surat Yasin. Indeed, despite the special significance of Surat Yasin in the hearts and lives of all Muslims, this is the only Southeast Asian Qur’an manuscript known in which the beginning of Surat Yasin is marked with illuminated frames.

Illuminated frames marking the start of Surat al-Kahf. British Library, Or 145227, ff. 149v-150r

Illuminated frames marking the start of Surat Yasin. Or.15227, ff. 222v-223r

A further very unusual feature of this manuscript is the presence of two further pairs of monochrome decorated frames, drawn in black ink and with empty text boxes, found at the end of the manuscript. These are positioned immediately before and soon after the illuminated frame around the final two chapters of the Qur’an, and are significantly different from all the other polychrome frames in structure. In the first set, the inner frame around the text box is similar in composition to the final pair of illuminated fromes on the following folio, but it has an additional outer border hugging the edge of the paper.  These outer borders are a standard feature of larger quarto-sized Terengganu Qur’ans, but are rarely found in smaller octavo-sized Patani Qur’ans such as this. The second pair  sets the arched frames around the empty text boxes within red and black-lined arcs, highlighting the geometric proportions of the genre.

Black ink frames with an outer border in the Terengganu style, at the end of the Qur’an. British Library, Or 15227, ff.303v-304r

Black ink frames at the end of the Qur’an. British Library, Or 15227, 306v-307r

The manuscript is written on Italian paper with watermarks of moon face in shield and the countermark ‘AG’ [Andrea Galvani], indicating that the paper was made at the Galvani papermill in Pordenone near Venice in the second half of the 19th century.  The binding is entirely typical of Patani Qur’ans, with a plain black cloth cover, with intricately stitched endbands. The black paper doublures can be seen as confirmation of the production of this Qur’an manuscript in a Thai cultural zone such as Patani, as black paper is commonly used for Thai manuscripts.

Black cloth spine of binding with intricately stitched endbands of red and green thread. British Library, Or 15227, spine.

Southeast Asian Qur'an manuscripts almost never contain colophons giving the name of the scribe, or of the patron for whom the Qur'an was copied.  All we have in this manuscript is one tantalizing line written in Malay, set within another monochrome frame on a single page, which simply tells us the manuscript was written in the month of Shawal.

One line written in Malay - tatkala surat Qur'an ini pada bulan Syawal, 'this Qur'an was written in the month of Shawal' - in a monochrome outline of a frame. British Library, Or 15227, f. 1v

However, there are hints that the same artist might also have been responsible for illuminating a beautiful copy of the Mawlid sharaf al-anam, songs in praise of the prophet, held in the National Library of Malaysia as MSS 819.  It is difficult to compare the calligraphy as the Kitab Mawlid is written in two registers, with the Arabic text in bold with a tiny interlinear Malay translation.  But two features of the decorated frames - the four-petalled floral motifs in yellow with dark blue centres, and the striking borders of yellow plaited rope on a red ground with white and blue floral flourishes - are so similar as to suggest the hand of the same artist.

 
The same four-petalled yellow flower with dark blue centre can be seen in both British Library Or 15227, f. 149v (left) and National Library of Malaysia MSS 819 (right).

Yellow plaited rope on a red ground with white and dark blue floral motifs in British Library Or 15227, f. 222v (top) and National Library of Malaysia MSS 819 (bottom).

Kitab Mawlid sharaf al-anam, 19th century. National Library of Malaysia, MSS 819

Further reading
A.T. Gallop, ‘The spirit of Langkasuka? illuminated manuscripts from the East Coast of the Malay peninsula’, Indonesia and the Malay World, July 2005, 33 (96): 113-182, pp.146, 161.
A.T. Gallop, 'Palace and pondok: patronage and production of illuminated manuscripts on the east coast of the Malay peninsula', Warisan seni ukir kayu Melayu / Legacy of the art of Malay woodcarving, ed. Zawiyah Baba; pp.143-162. Bangi: ATMA, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2010.
Farish A. Noor and Khoo, Eddin, Spirit of wood: the art of Malay woodcarving. Works by master carvers from Kelantan, Terengganu and Pattani. [Hong Kong]: Periplus, 2003.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

In March 2019, the digitisation was completed of 75 Javanese manuscripts from Yogyakarta now held in the British Library, which had been captured from the Kraton or Palace of Yogyakarta in June 1812 following a British assault.  What is much less widely known is that the British Library also holds the core of another royal library from Indonesia, also taken in armed conflict during the brief period of British administration in Java from 1811 to 1816 under the command of Thomas Stamford Raffles. All  the 34 manuscripts from south Sulawesi in the British Library can be identified as originating from the palace of the Sultan of Bone, and were seized in a British attack in June 1814.

Bugis diary of a senior court official of Bone, for May 1793. British Library, Add 12373, f. 7v 

At the time the ruler of Bone was Sultan Muhammad Ismail Muhtajuddin (r. 1812-1823), also known as La Mappatunruq and posthumously as Matinroe ri Lalebbata; he was the son of the redoubtable Sultan Ahmad al-Salih Syamsuddin (r. 1775-1812) who had died just two years previously. Following disagreements between the Sultan and the British Resident of Makassar, an expedition was despatched from Java under the command of General Sir Miles Nightingale. On 8 June 1814, troops led by by Lt. Col. McLeod attacked and overran the palace of the Sultan of Bone at Bontoala outside Makassar, with a considerable loss of life on the Bugis side. Five cannon and a large quantity of armaments were captured - and also, evidently, many manuscripts from the royal library - after which the palace was set on fire by the British (Thorn 1815: 341).

An account by Captain David Macdonald ([1840?]: 222) confirms that present on the Makassar expedition in 1814 was the Resident of Semarang, John Crawfurd. In 1842 Crawfurd's collection of 136 Indonesian manuscripts was acquired by the British Museum, including thirty manuscripts in Bugis and Makassarese, all of which can now be identified as coming from the court of Bone.  The British Library also holds four further Bugis manuscripts which appear to originate from the same source. These include two royal Bone diaries from the India Office Library (MSS Bugis 1 and 2) which bear Raffles's bookplate, and were presumably presented to him after the military expedition.  Another court diary -  of the Maqdanrang, one of the most senior officials of Bone - was presented to the British Museum in 1916 by a Miss E. G. Wren (it is now shelved as Or. 8154, alongside a volume comprising letters and fragments of documents found within the diary shelved as Or. 8154*). It is possible that certain Bugis manuscripts held in other British institutions may also have been taken on this expedition, including a Bugis diary from Bone presented to the Royal Asiatic Society by a Professor Lee in 1828 (RAS Bugis 1) and Bugis manuscripts now at SOAS from the collection of William Marsden, including a court diary from Bone (SOAS MS 11398) and a volume received from a Captain Owen RN (SOAS MS 12159).

Collection of fourteen short Bugis poems in tolo' style. British Library, Add 12346, ff. 2v-3r 

The 34 manuscripts now in the British Library are mainly in Bugis, with two volumes in Makassarese, and the contents were described in detail by the Dutch scholar A.A. Cense for the catalogue by Ricklefs and Voorhoeve (1977, reissued in 2014). The manuscripts are primarily concerned with historical, literary and chancery matters, as well as some religious topics. There are 11 volumes of diaries or daily registers from the court, and 3 volumes of documents. Four volumes contain literary works translated from Malay, including the tales of the great Islamic heroes Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiah in Bugis and Hikayat Amir Hamzah in Makassar, as well as Bugis versions of the ethical court romance Hikayat Isma Yatim and Hikayat Cekel Wanengpati, a Malay version of adventures of the Javanese hero Prince Panji.  There are five volumes of Bugis and Makassar poems, including two volumes which contain parts of the Bugis La Galigo, probably the longest epic poem in the world.  A further five volumes concern practical knowledge, with treatises on gunnery, medical, agricultural and astronomical matters.  These include Bugis translations of Makassarese translations made originally in the 17th century of Portuguese works on gunnery and armaments; these are the only known examples of scientific works translated from European languages into Southeast Asian vernaculars. The remaining five volumes deal with religious matters, including a manuscript in the original Arabic of the handbook on Islamic law, Minhaj al-Talibin, by al-Nawawi, with Bugis notes, as well as Bugis translations of Malay works including the Akhbar al-Arifin composed in Aceh in the 17th century by Nuruddin al-Raniri, and Bugis tracts on Sufism and mystical practices.

Treatise on gunnery in Bugis by  Fahalajun Ahmad and Ance' Lati'. Add 12365, ff. 8v-9r 

To what extent does this collection of manuscripts now in the British Library represent the contents of the royal library of Bone? The answer is probably: only partially.  From a comparison of Crawfurd’s collection of Javanese manuscripts taken from the court of Yogyakarta with those of Colin Mackenzie, it can be seen that Crawfurd focussed particularly on historical and literary works and chancery documents, and showed little interest in texts on dramatic performances (wayang), Islamic practice and divination (primbon), or works in Arabic.  Thus one notable absence in the British Library collection is al-Nur al-hadi, the mystical work composed by Sultan Ahmad al-Salih in 1787, and one of the few Southeast Asian compositions cited in Brocklemann's survey of Arabic literature. Futhermore, when the royal Bone library at Watampane was ransacked by the Dutch in 1905, the 33 manuscripts taken to Batavia, and now held in the National Library of Indonesia in Jakarta, included a diary for the period 1795-1807 (Tol 1993: 617), indicating that at least part of the library had survived the British onslaught at Bontoala in 1814.

With generous support from William and Judith Bollinger, the complete collection of 34 Bugis and Makassar manuscripts in the British Library has now been digitised, in collaboration with the National Library of Singapore. Singapore is home to a substantial community of Bugis descent, as reflected in a recent exhibition in 2018 at the Malay Heritage Centre, Sirri na pesse. The full list of digitised Bugis and Makassar manuscripts from the British Library can be accessed here.

Collection of Sufi tracts, including notes on the five daily prayer times. British Library, Add 12363, ff. 63v-64r 

Public awareness of the fate of the Kraton library of Yogyakarta, and the identification of the individual volumes held in different British public collections, owes much to plentiful contemporary accounts and the work of historians such as Peter Carey and Merle Ricklefs, while in Java the memory of the Geger Sepehi, the 'Sepoy Calamity' (so-named for the Indian troops under British command in the attack on the palace), was kept alive at the court of Yogyakarta, the only traditional monarchy to retain a political role in the Republic of Indonesia. Fewer published reports of the Bone expedition, and a circumscribed public space for the descendants of the Bone kings, mean that there is far less known today about the royal library of Bone. It is hoped that the digitisation of these manuscripts will lead to many more studies, and a better appreciation of the writing traditions at the Muslim courts of south Sulawesi.

Further reading:

Brief accounts of the British expedition to Makassar in 1814 are found in:
William Thorn, Memoir of the conquest of Java, with the subsequent operations of the British forces in the Oriental Archipelago. London, 1815 (pp. 340-1).
David Macdonald, A narrative of the early Life and Services of Captⁿ D. Macdonald ... embracing an unbroken period of twenty-two years, extracted from his journal, and other official documents. 3rd ed. Weymouth, [1840?] (pp. 213, 222).

On Bugis manuscripts:
Roger Tol, A royal collection of Bugis manuscripts.  Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 1993, 149 (3): 612-29.
Roger Tol, A separate empire: writings of south Sulawesi.  Illuminations: writing traditions of Indonesia, ed. Ann Kumar & John H. McGlynn; pp. 213-230.  Jakarta: Lontar Foundation, 1996.
M.C. Ricklefs and P. Voorhoeve, Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. [With descriptions of Bugis and Makassar manuscripts by A.A. Cense.]

Postscript, 23 January 2020

After the publication of this blog post on 6 January 2020, I was very grateful to receive a communication from Dr Campbell Macknight, of Australian National University, which succeeded in clearing up a matter which had puzzled me: how did the British troops which had landed in Makassar succeed in reaching the palace of Bone - located at Watampone over 130 km away on the other side of south Sulawesi - by the following morning? From the account of Captain Macdonald, Dr Macknight explained that the dwelling of the Sultan of Bone which was attacked was not in Watampone, but at Bontoala, just outside the fort of Makassar (see the map below). Thus the Bugis and Makassar manuscripts captured constitute not the sole royal library of Bone, but the library held at the palace of Bontoala. The blog post has now been edited to correct these points.

Map of Sulawesi, showing Makassar and Bontoala on the west coast of south Sulawesi (circled in green), and Watampone in Bone on the east coast (circled in red).

Annabel Teh Gallop, Head, Southeast Asia section