Page 72 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

STRUCTURE, AUTHORS AND DATE 63

of the book a more general appreciation of this text as an example of
Malay historiography will be given. Suffice it here to point out that
this author follows the traditional style of Malay historiography without,
however, referring to any other Malay text specifically. There are few
traces left of what Ras has called the Malay myth of origin — the
remarkable thing is that such traces are to be found at all (p. 74),
apparently without much relevance to the remainder of the text. From
what is known from Siamese sources it seems that perhaps one should
speak of a Southeast Asian rather than a Malay myth, but in any case
the few details which our text gives link it to Malay mythology in general
rather than to specific historiographical texts. This book, too, contains
the story of a Malay town which is centred on the kings and the court.
The story of the foundation of the town and of the Islamization of its
ruler is duly given at the beginning. It is followed by a number of stories,
or anecdotes, carefully selected in order to present the reader with a
consistent view of the glorious past of the town and its kings — or rather
of the kings and their town; the stories are similar in character to those
in other Malay historical texts, but are never identical with them. As
was said above, we can prove no specific relationship to any other Malay
text. In particular, no mention is made of the Sejarah Melayu, and
Malacca plays no role in our text, whereas Pasai is still given its
traditional honour of being the cradle of Islam in the Malay world.
The text is written in good, careful, classical Malay, with few
deviations or localisms. There are a few Thai words — besides the large
number of Thai titles — such as sen, which may be typical for Patani
Malay. As a whole, however, the text is certainly not written in East
Coast Malay but in Classical Malay, of which Johore was probably the
main centre at the time (early 18th century). The Palembang episode
gives the author an opportunity to show off his knowledge of Javanese
elements in Palembang Malay.
The most remarkable thing about the author politically speaking is
his positive appreciation of the Siamese. This becomes especially evident
in the story of Mudhaffar Syah and his expeditions to Ayudhya. The
first, friendly visit is described on pp. 15—17, and although it is obvious
from this story that Mudhaffar Syah was not altogether happy about
his reception and that he had some trouble getting away from Ayudhya
again, it is hard to find a good reason in the story as it is told here for
the military expedition against Ayudhya which Mudhaffar Syah begins
to prepare immediately after his return (p. 19). And after Mudhaffar
Syah’s arrival in Ayudhya there seems to be less reason than ever for