Page 74 - Hikayat-Patani-The-Story-Of-Patani 1

STRUCTURE, AUTHORS AND DATE 65

Johore may have been indifferent or even non-existent. The same holds
good for the relations with Palembang and Acheh — it is certainly not
actual problems with these two countries which inspired him to tell
stories and describe incidents at the expense of these Sumatran king­
doms. It is remarkable that so very little is said of Patani’s relations
with other Malay states in the Peninsula; as was mentioned above,
Malacca is scarcely referred to, while Pahang is only mentioned in con­
nection with the marriage of Raja Ungu and her being summoned
back to Patani by Raja Biru (pp. 50—51); apart from that there are
no further references. About Kalantan nothing specific is said; Kedah is
not mentioned, although there must have been frequent contacts between
Patani and Kedah in those days. Trengganu is hardly mentioned at all.
Summarizing the above we can say that the author of part I must
have lived and worked during a period when Patani was effectively and
definitely under Siamese dominion. He carefully avoided anything in
his book which might have been detrimental to his own or his country’s
friendly relations with the Thai court. He wrote his story some time
after the death of Marhum Besar; if the story of part I as we have it
in A represents the original text it can hardly have been committed to
writing before 1720, but we must leave open the possibility that A itself
represents an edited version of an earlier Hikayat Patani.
Part II must have been written by a man who had witnessed the death
of Alung Yunus and felt much involved in it. He must have been an
adult person in 1730, and may have written his story not much later
than that year. It is possible, though not probable, that he was the same
person as the author of I; he certainly wrote a story about the kings of
the Kalantan dynasty which was very different from that about the
Inland dynasty. The fragment is too short to allow of any conclusions
as to his background, linguistic or other; his frequent references to the
will of God predominating over the intentions of man suggest that he
was a pious Muslim, as does his specific mention of the five religious
leaders who attended so well to the needs of the people of Patani during
the reign of Alung Yunus and his final paragraph on the adversity
Patani suffered after the death of Alung Yunus. One tends to wonder
whether this author may not have been very close in time to one of these
religious leaders whom he knew so well.
With regard to the author of part III it has been pointed out that he
probably wrote this short survey somewhere between 1704 and 1707, but
certainly not much later, and that it is improbable that he was the same
man as the author of part II; the matter-of-fact mention of Bendahara