Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:34:02.136Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Malacca Sultanate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

P. E. De Josselin De Jong  and
H. L. A. Van Wijk
Get access

Extract

The importance of the Portuguese sources for our knowledge of Malayan history has long been recognized. Fortunately, most of them are now available in translation, and thus accessible to historians who have difficulty in reading 16th or 17th century Portuguese.

In the first place we should mention the English translations issued by the Hakluyt Society. These are:

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , September 1960 , pp. 20 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The Commentaries of the great Afonso Dalboquerque, second viceroy of India. Translated by de G. Birch, W.. 4 vols., 1875–1884. Hakluyt Society, Nrs. 53, 55, 62, 69. (The part dealing with Malacca is in Nr. 62).Google Scholar

2. The book of Duarte Barbosa. Translated by M. Longworth Dames. 2 vols., 1918–1921. Hakluyt Society, 2d Series, Nrs. 44, 49. (Malacca in Nr. 49).

3. Pires, Tome, Suma Oriental. Translated by Cortesāo, A. Z.. 2 vols., 1944. Hakluyt Society, 2d Séries, Nrs. 89, 90. (Malacca in Nr. 90).Google Scholar

1. Ferrand, Gabriel. Malata, le Malâyu et Malâyur. JA XI–11, pp. 391 ff; XI–12, pp. 51 ff.Google Scholar

2. Numbers in brackets correspond to the pages in the Portuguese text.

3. In August—September, 1509.

4. We have no idea what people can be meant. One explanation, possibly too far-fetched, and anyway not much more than guesswork, might be that “Gucos” is simply a typographical error, perpetuated in successive editions, for Çucos, and that Çucos refers to the northern kingdom of Sukhothai, which was absorbed by the southern kingdom of Ayuthia.

5. The Malay Annals are silent on the subservience of Patani, Kelantan and Pahang to Siam, but they do tell how Patani and Kelantan were subjected to Malacca during the rule of Mahmud, and Pahang during the reign of Sultan Mansur, 1468–1477. (Brown, C.C., pp. 92–93, 98, 133, 152).Google Scholar

6. The Sejarah Melavu does not speak of the Poyoá of Lugor, but of the Raja of Ligor and the Bubunnya of Siam. It seems likely that Poyoá and Bubunnya are renderings of the same word. If all relations between Malacca and Siam were channelled via the “Poyoá” of Ligor, it would not be surprising if in Malacca the Poyoa came to be considered as the suzerain instead of as the vassal. However, this does not shed any light on the word Povoá, for Bubunnya is still a crux interpretum. Brown, C.C. writes, (on pp. 223, note 210)Google Scholar, “Bubunnya: Cannot be identified as a Siamese title, unless it is a corruption of Borama which was part of the title borne by Siamese kings in the 15th century. Possibly the word is connected with Bana, a mid-15th c. Mon royal title, which has survived in Burmese as binnya”. We may add that G. Coedes, (in his Les Etats hindouisés d' Indo-china et d'indonesie, Paris, 1948, pp. 377 mentions that a 14th-century Thai ruler of Pegu was called Binnya U., and also draws reference (on p. 394) to the 15th century Cambodian kings Samdach Chau Ponhea and Chau Ponhea Yat.

7. De Barros says that the “Governor of Pam” was a cousin (hum primo) of Sultan Mahmud. From data in the Malay Annals we can construct the following family tree, to show the relationship between Sultan Mahmud and his vasal, Sultan Mansur of Pahang:

8. The Annals state that Pahang was aided not by Kelantan, but by Malacca itself, which sent a force led by the Bendahara (the Grand Vizier), the Laksa-mana (the High Admiral), and various other war chiefs mentioned by name. (Brown, C.C., p. 156).Google Scholar

9. The Malay Annals tell a somewhat different story — and we may remark in. passing that in this respect the two principal versions of the Annals, the 1536 and the 1612 versions, are in entire agreement with one another.

During the reign of Sultan Muzaffar (ca. 1450–1458), according to this account, the Siamese land forces struck inward towards Pahang. They were defeated near Ulu Muar. Shortly after, a second attempt was made, this time by sea. After suffering defeat near Batu Pahat, and then being led to over-estimate the strength of the Malacca forces, the Siamese withdrew. The preparations, for a third attack were disrupted by magical means, whereupon Siamese and Malays agreed to peaceful co-existence. During the reign of Sultan Mahmud, however, the Raja of Ligor broke the truce by advancing against Pahang. He was defeated by the men of Pahang, with the aid of a powerful force front Malacca. (For this, see Brown, C.C., pp. 64–73 and pp. 155–157)Google Scholar. So we see that according to De Barros two Siamese attacks were launched during the reign of Mahamed, [i.e. Mahmud]; according to the Annals only oner which corresponds with the second of the two described by the Portuguese author. The first attack in the Decades somewhat resembles the second attack during the reign of Muzaffar, in the Sejarah Melayu. We have not enough facts to allow us to decide which of the two accounts comes closest to historical truth; and the same applies to lesser discrepancies, such as whether Pahang was aided by Kelantan (as De Barros has it) or by Malacca (as in the Malay Annals).

10. Sultan Mahmud had killed his brother, his cousin, and his wife, says De Barros. Even the author of the Sejarah Melayu, who consistently praises the Malay virtue of loyalty to the Ruler, and who puts that virtue into practice in his descriptions of the Malacca Sultans, cannot avoid showing up Sultan Mahmud as a bloodthirsty tyrant and a thoroughly detestable character. De Barros's accusation is partly confirmed, and partly modified, by the Sejarah. This work does explicitly mention Mahmud's ordering the killing of his brother. Raja Zain-al-'Abidin, probably out of sexual jealousy (Brown, p. 133).

As to the murder of a cousin, this is an understatement. Shortly after 1509, Sultan Mahmud had his two uncles put to death: Sri Maharaja and Sri Naradiraja (the first of whom was his Bendahara), together with a number of their descendants and “all of their people who accepted to die with them” (Brown, p. 163).

The killing of a wife is not reported in the Annals. They mention five wives or consorts, namely Otang Kentang, Tun Birah, Tun Kudu, Tun Teja, and Tun Fatimah. The latter seems to have gained the sincere affection of her husband, so it seems unlikely she was the victim. Of the remaining four, it is only Tun Teja's death to which reference is made, with the words: “….the Raja's consort from Pahang is now dead” (Brown, p. 159), so if there is truth in De Barros's remark, the greatest likelihood may lie in Tun Teja's having been killed. A seemingly innocent remark veiling a reference to a bloody deed is a procédé which the writer of the Annals used on more than one occasion.

11. The wedding of Mahmud's daughter with the Sultan of Pahang is confirmed by the Annals. The preliminary negotiations, memtioned by De Barros, are passed over in silence, but it is stated that, after 1511, the marriage was concluded. The role of the King of Lingga is different in the Sejarah Melayu. According to that work, the King of Indragiri carries out a successful raid on Lingga, and then appears at Mahmud's court, where he is accepted as son-in-law. In fact, he is given the same daughter in marriage as had been earlier bestowed on Sultan Mansur of Pahang: she had become a widow, Mansur having been killed by order of his father).

One final remark: the Sejarah Melayu relates that Sultan Mahmud abdicated in favour of his son Ahmad in the period between the two Portuguese enterprises of 1509 and 1511, but killed his son and resumed the throne shortly after the loss of Malacca). De Barros, as we shall see, makes no mention of the brief reign of Sultan Ahmad.