Page 44 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

THE HIKAYAT PATANI AND RELATED TEXTS 35

A curious difference can be observed on p. 52, where A displays much
subtlety in the use of different words to refer to the Sultan of Johore
in his relationship with the Queen of Patani, whereas B is more straight­
forward.21
Finally, there is a most remarkable difference which should be briefly
noted here; on p. 26, at the end of story 6, B has a passage of some
8 lines which does not occur in A in the same place. The passage in
question gives information on the nobat (the royal orchestra) and the
perkakas kerajaan (royal insignia) during the reign of Mudhaffar Syah.
What are actually roughly similar lines, though they come in a somewhat
different order, occur in an altogether different place in A, i.e. at the
beginning of what we have called part VI, pp. 88—89.22 We shall deal
with this difference in some detail below (Chapter III). In any case it
does not provide us with any conclusive argument with regard to the
text-historical relationship between A and B.
The above examples will suffice to show that it is impossible to say
which MS. is the better one. Either sometimes has errors or omissions
where the other seems to have preserved the correct text. What is certain,
though, is that both MSS. ultimately go back to one and the same
original version of this text. In a number of respects A seems to have
remained closer to this original, e.g. in some Thai words which it has
preserved and in the Javanisms in story 7 about the Palembang attack,
whereas in general the author of B or its model has tried to replace
foreign words with Malay ones, to embellish the text by means of literary
cliches, to elaborate the style, and to add explanations and comments of
his own. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of classical Malay as
represented by, e.g., the Sejarah Melayu, the author of B does not seem
to have had a very good grasp of the grammar; especially his frequent
use of (passive) di- forms, where classical Malay would require a nasal­
ized form with the prefix me-, and his strange use of Malay prepositions
are remarkable. In this respect A is definitely a better Malay text, though
by no means flawless. It should also be taken into account that A is
60 years older than B, so that on purely statistical grounds the chances
are high that A has preserved a more original text than B.
In view of the above facts we have decided to take A as basis for the
present edition of the Hikayat Patani. In all cases where the published
text is not identical with A we have given the readings of A in the Notes
to the Text — or where possible by inserting brackets in the text, square

21 See Chapter VI, section 16—20.
22 See Notes to the Text, pp. 88—89.