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VI. Siam and the Malay Peninsula

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

C. O. Blagden
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Extract

In his interesting paper on “The Nāgarakretāgama List of Countries on the Indo-Chinese Mainland,” Colonel Gerini objects, reasonably enough, to the claim set up by the Javanese author of the Nāgara Krĕtāgama that the states of Kĕdah, Kĕlantan, Trĕngganu, and Pahang in the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore at the south of it were dependencies of the Javanese empire of Majapahit. This alleged Javanese supremacy over the Peninsula cannot, in view of the known facts of Malay history, have been much more than a mere pretension, never substantiated by any real effective occupation. The claim was no doubt made under the influence of the stirring events which in or about the year 1377 a.d. culminated in a great, though transient, expansion of the Javanese sway. Palembang, Jambi, Pasei, and Samudra (in Sumatra), Ujong Tanah (the “Land's End” of the Malay Peninsula, now known as Johor), Bangka, Bĕlitung, Riau, Lingga, Bentan, and a number of other small islands in this region, as well as certain points on the coast of Borneo and other places to the eastward, are in the Pasei Chronicle recorded as having been conquered by Majapahit at this period or as being tributary to it about this time.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 1906 , pp. 107 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1906

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References

page 107 note 1 J.R.A.S., July, 1905.

page 108 note 1 p. 27 (p. 17 of the article).

page 108 note 2 I need hardly say that I do not for a moment impute to Colonel Gerini any intention to mislead; but he appears to be so much influenced by the Siamese point of view that he sees Malay history through a distorting medium.

page 109 note 1 Apparently rather to the north of this parallel on the west coast of the Peninsula, and to the south of it in the districts further east.

page 109 note 2 See Newbold, , “ Straits of Malacca,” vol. ii, pp. 2, 67.Google Scholar

page 109 note 3 ibid., pp. 71–3; Annandale & Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, Supplement, p. xii.

page 110 note 1 See Fasciculi Malayenses, Supplement, p. xxii, for the census figures showing the Malay preponderance in the Patani states. (No figures are given for Kĕdah, which is even more Malay.) In Ligor, Patalung, and Sĕnggora, on the other hand, the Siamese preponderance is marked.

page 110 note 2 Groeneveldt, in “ Miscellancous Papers relating to Indo-China,” 2nd series, vol. i, pp. 243et seq.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 This independence is of course considered by the Chinese chroniclers as being subject to the general overriding suzerainty then claimed by China over the whole of Eastern Asia. It is really comical to read of Java, Siam, and China all almost at the same time claiming supremacy over the Peninsula, while in fact none of them had any actual footing there. These rival claims (even if we did not know their hollowness aliunde) are enough to destroy one another.

page 112 note 1 The account in the History of the Ming Dynasty might be taken to mean that Malacca was tributary to Siam up to the year 1403, and renounced its allegiance at the suggestion of the Chinese envoy. But this hardly seems consistent with the conservative tendencies of Chinese policy, and is therefore improbable. If it was, however, the fact, it goes to show that the Siamese supremacy was of a very nominal character, seeing that it could be thrown off so easily. There can have been no real sway, no actual Siamese occupation, but a mere paper suzerainty at the most.

page 112 note 2 A translation of the laws of Malacca will be found in Newbold, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 231 et seq.

page 112 note 3 Translated by W. de G. Birch in the Hakluyt Society's publications. See especially vol. iii, pp. 71–84.

page 112 note 4 Partly translated by John Leyden under the title “Malay Annals.” The best edition in Malay is that of Singapore (1896, ed. Shellabear).

page 113 note 1 Actes du Onzième Congrès International des Orientalistes, ii, pp. 239–253.

page 113 note 2 See Groeneveldt, op. cit., p. 163. At some time between 1408 and 1415 the King of Malacca appears to have raised a claim to sovereignty over Palembang, which place seems to have been still under Javanese supremacy, and there was a suggestion that this claim was put forward with the sanction of China; but this was formally repudiated by the Chinese emperor.

page 114 note 1 Actes du Onzième Congrès International des Orientalistes, ii, pp. 250–1.

page 116 note 1 See his contributions to the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review in the years 1900–1902.

page 116 note 2 Southern Sĕlangor, North-Eastern Pahang, the Nĕgri Sĕmbilan, and Northern Johor.

page 117 note 1 Compare the forms of these numerals:—

It is obvious that in some cases the modern forms in the aboriginal dialects of the Peninsula are more archaic than the modern Mon speech itself.

page 118 note 1 The rest is under British overlordship. The Peninsula, having never achieved political unity, suffers from the want of a convenient proper name. “ Golden Chersonesus ” and “ Malay Peninsula ” are clumsy descriptions. “ Malacca ” was (and to some extent still is) used by Continental authorities as a name for the Peninsula, but has not found favour with English writers, and sounds rather absurd locally because the town to which the name really belongs has lost all its old political and commercial importance.

page 118 note 2 Leyden's “ Malay Annals,” pp. 321–3; “ Sĕjarah Malayu” (ed. 1896), pp. .

page 119 note 1 Little weight can be attached to the statement in the Marong Mahawangsa on which Colonel Gerini relies. That work is one of the least satisfactory of Malay chronicles, being indeed little more than a collection of fairy tales.

page 119 note 2 As my friend Mr. E. J. Wilkinson has pointed out to me, the name should, if it is to fit this fictitious etymology, be pronounced Alang-kah-suka.

page 119 note 3 See Fasciculi Malayenses, pt. ii (a), pp. 25–6; and Skeat, “ Fables and Folk Täles from an Eastern Forest,” pp. 49–51, 81.