Page 68 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

STRUCTURE, AUTHORS AND DATE 59

not particularly good. With respect to language the position of parts III
and IV is less clear, the language of these parts seeming at least a better
Malay than that of part V, but in the case of part III this may be partly
due to its simple, straightforward content; in IV there are obscurities of
which it is not clear whether they are caused by faulty expression or by
corruptions in the text.
Whatever the case, V must originally have had a different source
from I, II, III, IV. A further complication is provided by the fact that
it is not clear where the real ending of V is. Historically speaking the
story of V seems to be rounded off at the end of the first paragraph on
p. 87, where it is said that the present Datuk Bendahara Tarab was in
office until the arrival of the Siamese, and that Baginda left for Tardih
(or Teradih). This implies that V was written after 1707, and probably
shortly afterwards, because neither the return of Baginda nor even the
accession of a new king is mentioned. Now after the statement that
Datuk Tarab was in office until the arrival of the Siamese, V returns
to the story of Datuk Sai (p. 87), whose death was already mentioned
on p. 84; on pp. 87—88 a much more detailed story of his death is told.
The story is followed by a paragraph containing details about a number
of other people mentioned earlier in the text, including Dang Jela and
Dang Sirat from the story about the prince of Johore in part I — which
may indicate that part V was in any case not added to the rest of the
text by sheer accident, but that this was done with a purpose. It looks
as though some footnotes have been attached to the main body of part V,
and it is difficult to ascertain whether they were written by the same or
by a different author. The language and composition of this final para­
graph do not show any differences, and therefore pp. 87—88 have been
included in V.
With regard to part VI, it is impossible to say anything about its
author except that he must have been a man who was well versed in
court adat, an expert on Malay music, especially as regards the playing
of the royal orchestra. It seems a plausible assumption that this fragment
was originally written when the heyday of Patani was not too long past,
as it reflects clearly a glorious period in the court life and history of
Patani. As Tan Sri Hj. Mubin Sheppard wrote in a personal letter in
respect of the text of part VI,

One of the striking facts about this script is that the instruments in the
Patani Nobat are far more numerous than in any of the Malay Nobats
of the Peninsula ... Such a large orchestra is evidence of great affluence