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Kingship and Enthronement in Malaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

R. O. Winstedt
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Extract

There are two rulers in Malaya who claim descent from a Bichitram (? = Vicitram), reputed kinsman of the Sri Maharajas of Sri Vijaya, the Buddhist empire (fl. a.d. 750–1350) that extended over Sumatra and Northern Malaya and for a while Java. The name Bichitram is whispered into the ear of every Perak Sultan at his enthronement as that of the ancestor of the Perak (and old Malacca) dynasty. And Bichitram, according to the Sejarah Melayu, was brother of the first king of Palembang (= Sri Vijaya) and Singapore, and was himself ancestor of the Minangkabau line, from which the Yang di-pertuan of Negri Sembilan claims descent.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 77 , Issue 3-4 , October 1945 , pp. 134 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1945

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References

page 134 note 1 I am indebted to Dr. L. D. Barnett for the identifications in this paragraph.

page 138 note 1 Note: kṣurikā Skt., churigā Prakrit

page 140 note 1 A Minangkabau tribal headman of Negri Sembilan, when suspected of offering a bribe to an official, protested that, if he were guilty, then might he be stricken by the magic of magnetic iron, by the thirty chapters of the Kuran, by the divine power of his Ruler and might his tree of life be killed by the borer-beetle of Indra Sakti!

page 141 note 1 The horned angel (or, in one version, princess) of the moon is an intruder. Alexander the Great was known to Muslims as Dhu'l-Karnain or “twohorned” from a phrase in the Kuran. And Muslim missionaries, needing a pedigree for royal converts to compensate for their loss of Hindu godhead, fabricated for them descent from Alexander the champion of Islam (as their reading showed), with the genealogy of the Sassanian kings and Kaid the Indian as a link. Alexander's connection with Meru was patent! Dionysus was born from the thigh (mêros) of Zeus and raiding India Alexander found near Meru the people of Nysa, named after Dionysus’ nurse, who joined him in his raid on the Punjab. Once upon a time Alexander crossed to Andalus (Andalusia) and clearly this was Andalas (Sumatra); so Minangkabau folk-lore has put his tomb on the slopes of Palembang's Meru! It was therefore a brilliant thought to invoke the horned angel (or princess) of the moon to protect the descendant of Alexander the two-horned!