Page 41 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

32 HIKAYAT PATANI

The manuscript is a lined oblong notebook, format 21 x 17/2 cm. It
numbers 67 written pages, and has 17 lines per page. The handwriting,
though in pencil, is clear and legible. It is obviously a copy made for
Skeat from another manuscript during his stay in Patani in 1899.19 The
MS. has no colophon, nor does the beginning give us any clue as to
the origin or age of the text from which it was copied. On comparison
with the Abdullah manuscript (A), this MS., which will from here on
be referred to as B, turns out to cover only part of A. It ends at the end
of part I, story 22, p. 74 of A, i.e. the end of the Inland dynasty. It does
not contain what follows in A, except for some ten lines which in A
occur on pp. 88—89, and which in B are to be found — in a somewhat
different order — on p. 24 of our text, at the end of story 6.
On closer inspection the two MSS., in so far as they cover the same
period, appear to be largely similar though not identical. The sequence
of events is nearly always the same in both texts, and the wording too is
often practically identical; but frequently there are minor differences
in spelling, syntax and forms used, while sometimes one text is also more
detailed or extensive than the other. Some of these differences seem to
be accidental, and the result of careless copying, while others are obvious
mistakes (haplographies are fairly frequent in both MSS.); in yet other,
not infrequent cases, copyists have tried to improve or embellish the text
they were copying. Especially in the case of B literary embellishments
have often been added, e.g. in battle scenes, where descriptions such as
those which occur in Malay hikayats are to be found. In general, B is
somewhat more discursive and detailed, whereas A is more concise and
matter-of-fact. As was said above, this is not an overall characteristic
of the MSS. In some parts the MSS. are much closer to each other than
in others, but wherever they tend to diverge it is usually — though not
always! — B which is the more circumstantial, without, however, adding
substantial information. In only relatively few cases is the difference
more than a stylistic one and does one text give information which in
the other is absent or essentially different.
A number of examples of typical differences between the MSS. may
throw some light on their relationship; the reader is referred to the Notes
to the Text for more complete and detailed information.* 20

18 On this expedition see Skeat, 1953.
20 References in this section are to page numbers of the Malay text and the num­
bers of notes in the Notes to the Text (Chapter IV).