Page 45 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

36 HIKAYAT PATANI

brackets indicating words which, though occurring in A, should be
deleted, and round brackets indicating additions to the text as found in
A — such additions are mostly taken from B, unless otherwise indicated.
Very minor and obvious errors in A have been tacitly emended. On the
other hand, not all variants in B have been recorded in the Notes. In
all cases where the differences are more than stylistic variants they have
been recorded fully; of the stylistic variants, embellishments, etc., only
a selection has been printed in the Notes, in order to enable the reader
to obtain some idea of how the MSS. are related. Although this proce­
dure may seem rather unsatisfactory, the alternative of publishing the
complete text of both MSS. seemed hardly a better one, as the differences
are really too small to warrant such a double text. However, in all cases
where the text seemed doubtful or difficult to interpret, we have given
whatever variants B showed. We have translated all variants into English
in the footnotes to the text, except where the translation of the variant
was not significantly different from the translation of A.

THE MALAY HIKAYAT PATANI COMPARED WITH OTHER TEXTS
a. Newbold’s text
It has been pointed out above that chronologically it is impossible
or at least highly improbable that Abdullah should have had Newbold’s
MS. at his disposal when copying the text, or similarly that the man who
copied a MS. for Skeat should have had access to the Newbold MS.
It is useful to investigate whether internal evidence can shed any light
on the relationship of the three versions. Meanwhile, it should be kept
in mind that Newbold’s summary is so succinct that a detailed comparison
is not possible. It can nevertheless be proved that Newbold’s MS. must
have been very close to Abdullah’s text. This appears from the following
facts:
(a) The beginning and end of the Abdullah and Newbold versions
are, if not identical, at least very similar. Both begin with the same story
of the foundation of Patani and both manuscripts end with what New-
bold calls “some curious instructions touching the Noubet and the twenty-
four Ragams or musical modes”. This is all the more remarkable since,
as will be demonstrated below, this end can hardly be considered to form
the original ending of the text. It seems to be an appendix, and the fact
that it is contained in both MSS. proves that they are closely related.
The Skeat MS., on the other hand, lacks this final part and in this
respect therefore represents a different version.