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Three old Achehnese Manuscripts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P. Voorhoeve
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Extract

No written literature of an Indonesian people has been so brilliantly and completely described as that of the Achehnese in the north of Sumatra. This description was the work of Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje. Before it appeared in 1894 as one of the seven chapters of his work De Atjèhers, all that was known to the outside world about this literature consisted of a few specimina, printed (under Snouck Hurgronje's supervision) in K. F. H. van Langen's manual of the Achehnese language (The Hague, 1889). After some preparatory work in Holland and a stay of only seven months in Kutaraja (in wartime, cut off from intercourse with the country by the then prevailing system of a concentrated line surrounding the capital), Snouck Hurgronje was able to reveal the existence of a rich epic, romantic, and relïgious Achehnese literature, to give summaries of all its works of any importance and to deal elaborately with its chief masterpieces, to investigate the prosody of the poetry in which nearly all these texts are written as well as the origin of the foreign elements found in many tales and treatises. In the second edition of his work, which was published in English (The Achehnese) in 1906, only a few additions had to be made. The catalogue of the manuscripts, collected by Snouck Hurgronje himself and by some pupils and friends inspired by his example, will show some more, but they do not alter the general picture drawn in the first edition.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1952 , pp. 335 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1952

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References

page 336 note 1 Some redactions of the original Hindustani work also are named after the hero Tāj al-Mulk, but it seems unlikely that Djajadiningrat's text could be a new translation made directly from Hindustani.

page 336 note 2 Not the same as the Beukeumeunan mentioned in The Achehnese II, p. 188.Google Scholar Some MSS. of Ḳawā'id al-Islām have been catalogued as Malay, e.g. van Ronkel, Ph. S., Catalogus Mal. hss. Batavia, p. 412.Google Scholar

page 336 note 3 Bibliotheca Marsdeniana, p. 304.Google Scholar

page 337 note 1 This kind of paper was first used in the second half of the seventeenth century; see van Nieuwenhuijze, C. A. O., Šamsu ‘l-Dīn van Pasai, 1945, p. 300.Google Scholar

page 338 note 1 1. tō' ka (emendation by Mr. H. T. Damste).

page 338 note 2 Thus I read the words , taking -ōn as the Achehnese pronunciation of Arabic ul (nominative -u followed by the article). Dr. A. A. Bake remarks that it could also be the Urdu plural ending.

page 339 note 1 Dutch “tuin”, often mistranslated as “garden of Holland”, used in the otherwise obsolete meaning of “fence”.

page 340 note 1 Doorenbos, J., De geschriften van Hamzah Pansoeri uitgegeven en toegelicht, 1933Google Scholar; see also the review of this book by Drewes, G. W. J. in Tijdschr. v. Ind. Taal-, Land- en Volkenlcunde 73 (1933), p. 291Google Scholar sqq. According to Dr. Drewes there is no reason to ascribe the Shaer Baḥrunnisa' to Ḥamzah.

page 340 note 2 Dr. A. A. Cense informs me that similar doctrines are set forth in the Makasar work Maut al-anbiyā'.

page 341 note 1 Of the MSS. I saw, only a fragment in the library of the Athenaeum at Deventer (no. 1834, XXX, 29) (and the Bugis translation) mention the name of this Sultana: Ṣafīyat ad-Dīn bint Iskandar Muda. A complete copy is described by van Ronkel, , Catalogus Mal. hss. Batavia, p. 413.Google Scholar

page 341 note 2 Literature on Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī, see: Hurgronje, C. Snouck, The Achehnese, II, p. 12nGoogle Scholar (here we first find the erroneous Ranīrī for Rānīrī, afterwards repeated by other authors); Djajadiningrat, H., “Critisch overzicht van de gegevens over het Soeltanaat van Atjèh,” Bijdr. t. d. Tool-, Land- en Volkenk, LXV (1911), p. 135 sqq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (from this study we took the dates of Achehnese Sultans); Kraemer, H., Een Javaansche primbon uit de 16de eeuw, 1921Google Scholar, Index S.v. Ranīrī; C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuyze, O.c. Index S.v. Ranīrī; Winstedt, R., “History of Malay Literature” (JMBRAS, Vol. XVII, Pt. 3), p. 98 sqq.Google Scholar; Hooykaas, C., Over Maleise literatuur, 2de dr. (1947), p. 174Google Scholar; Voorhoeve, P., “Van en over Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī,” Bijdr. T.L.V., 107 (1951), p. 353 sqq.Google Scholar

page 342 note 1 MS. India Office, Loth 690 (Anon.). Its ascription to al-azālī is clearly an error.

page 342 note 2 The title—given in Cod. Or. 3201 (Leiden), von de Wall 48 (Djakarta), and the Makasar version—is , (“The Courtyards of Resurrection”); in Cod. Or. 1960, the third consonant of the word is not clear. This passage does not occur in the Achehnese versions.

page 342 note 3 See van Ronkel, Ph. S.: “Raniri's Maleische geschrift: Exposé der Religies,” in: Bijdr. t. d. Taal-, Land- en Volkenk. 102 (1943), p. 461CrossRefGoogle Scholar sqq., and: “Aanvulling der beschrijving van de Maleische … benevens van een Atjèhsch handschrift” … Ibid, 103 (1946), p. 599.

page 343 note 1 Marsden, W.: History of Sumatra (3rd edn., 1811), p. 427.Google Scholar

page 343 note 2 Cowan, H. K. J.: “Aanteekeningen betreffende de verhouding van het Atjèhsch tot de Mon-Khmertalen” (Bijdr. Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, CIV, 1948, p. 464).Google Scholar

page 344 note 1 See Matthes, B. F., Kort versing (1875), p. 56, no. 142 and p. 97Google Scholar, Br. Mus. no. Add. 12371 (Bugis) and Vervolg op het Kort verslag (1881), p. 16Google Scholar sqq., no. 209 (Makasar); a fragment also in Cod. Or. 7146.

page 344 note 2 Valentijn, Fr., Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, III, 1 (1726), p. 27.Google Scholar

page 344 note 3 Another copy in the same library is Oph. 112, dated 1860. Its text is very corrupt. The title is al-Kitāb (!) al-Ḳiyāmat or Sūrat al-Ḳiyāmat. The name of the author is not mentioned.

page 345 note 1 2nd ed. H. 1357, together with Nalam sipheuet dua plōh. Also in Cod. Or. 6747, Leiden; another redaction Amsterdam 674/867 (catalogued by Damsté, H. T. in: Mededeeling Koloniaal Inatituut no. XXXVI (1935), p. 151).Google Scholar