Page 64 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

STRUCTURE, AUTHORS AND DATE 55

bertuah, which is totally out of place in this context, but which may have
strayed in from some religious, moralistic text. It is not uncommon to
find such disconnected sentences at the end of a text in Malay script,
and its occurrence is an indication that at some stage the text under
discussion ended with the preceding reference to Allah’s unknown in­
tention with regard to the future of Patani.
After this stray sentence, however, the text returns to Patani, and we
are given a short, matter-of-fact enumeration of the successive benda-
haras of Patani, specified according to the kings under whom they were
in office. This enumeration covers part of the period dealt with in part I,
and most, but not all of the period of part II. It starts with Bendahara
Kayu Kelat, who after his abortive insurrection against Raja Hijau
(Marhum Tambangan) (pp. 42—46) retired for good to Sai, and it
ends with Datuk Tarab who is said to have been prime minister “until
the present day; there have been no other prime ministers”. In II too,
Datuk Tarab is the last bendahara mentioned, but in III the last king is
Baginda, whereas II deals with his successor Alung Yunus in some detail.
So part II continues the history of Patani up to a later date than III
(and V — see below). If our chronology of the Kalantan dynasty is
correct, we may conclude that part III was written during the first reign
of Baginda, i.e. between 1704 and 1707, or immediately after that.
After the mention of the last bendahara, III also adds a paragraph
in which a pessimistic picture is given of the present state of Patani: ever
since Marhum Teluk’s rule, the text says, law and order have come to
an end and officials have been acting according to their own wishes,
and it is clear to the writer that the world “has reached a time of dam­
nation” — a typical example of the Islamic cultural pessimism which
is also well known from Indonesia.
This again sounds like the end of a story, both because of the mention
of Datuk Tarab as the “bendahara down to the present day” and because
of the moralistic, pessimistic final paragraph. However, the text as we
find it in the Abdullah MS. does not end here. It begins anew with a
story “as told by the old people” (p. 80). It opens with the elephant
doctor Cau Hang who, during the reign of Marhum Bungsu, came to
Patani, served the king and settled in Cerak Kin, which area he opened
up. Apparently the real function of the story is to give background
information about the bendahara Cerak Kin, the grandson of doctor
Cau Hang. His rule is spoken of in laudatory terms on pp. 82—83. It is
remarkable that this bendahara is not mentioned at all elsewhere in the
text, either as one of the bendaharas in the enumeration of part III