The Malay Founder of Medival Malacca

7/29/2019 The Malay Founder of Medival Malacca

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The Malay Founder of Medieval MalaccaBy R. O. WNSTEDT

IT is many years since at an Oriental Congress in Paris Dr. C. O. Blagdenstarted the comparative study of the genealogy of the Malay rulers ofmedieval Malacca, comparing the account in the then best known version ofthe Sejarah Melayu or "Malay Annals " with the list of rulers recorded inChinese sources (Essays Relating to Indochina, 2nd series, vol. 1, Notes onMalay Archipelago and Malacca, W. P. Groeneveldt) and in d'Albuquerque'sCommentaries (Hakluyt Soc., 1927). Since Dr. Blagden wrote his paper, therehave been published under my name two other Malay sourcesfor the genealogyof the Malacca dynasty: a chapter from a MS. of the Bustan al-Salatin byShaikh Nur al-din (JRAS., Straits Branch, 1920, No. 81, pp. 39-47) and anearlierversion of the " MalayAnnals " (JRAS., MalayanBranch, 1938, No. 16).There is also new material in the Suma Orientalis of Tome Pires (HakluytSoc., 1944, vol. ii, pp. 229-259). And there is a valuable paper on the Founderof Malacca by P. V. van Stein Callenfels (JRASMB., 1937, pt. ii, pp. 160-6).Here is the genealogy of Malacca's earlier rulers according to the threeMalay sources : the earlierversion of the " Malay Annals " termed Raffles MS.,the later termed Shellabear's edition, and the Bustan al-Salatin:-

Raffles MS.I. Raja Iskandar Shah;reigned three years inSingapore, twenty inMalacca.II. Raja Kechil Besar;Sultan Megat; reignedtwo years.

III. Raja Tengah; SultanMuhammadShah; diedaetat. 57.IIV. R. Ibrahim; V. R. Kasim;Sultan Abu- SultanShahid. MuzaffarShah.

Shellabear's Edition.I. Iskandar Shah; firstruler of Malacca.

II. Raja Besar Muda;R. Ahmad, md. a Pataniprincess.III. Raja Tengah: reigned.

IV. SultanShah. Muhammad

V. R. Ibrahim; VI. R. Kasim;Sultan Abu- SultanShahid. MuzaffarShah.

I.

II.

III.

Bustan.Sri Rama Adikermaalias Raja IskandarShah; last king ofSingapore, first ofMalacca.Raja Besar Muda, nick-named R. Ahmad.

Raja Tengah: reigned.

IV. Raja Kechil Besar;Sultan MuhammadShah.

V. R. Kasim;Muzaffar Shah. Sultan

The Portuguese, d'Albuquerque and Tome Pires, give a Parameswara asthe founder of Malacca and make Xaquem Darsa (or Iskandar Shah) his son,and this relationship has hitherto been accepted. Tome Pires, however, saysthat the Parameswara ruled Singapore for five years and begot there his sonIskandar Shah, who was " almost a man " at the founding of Malacca (about


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THE MALAY FOUNDER OF MEDIEVAL MALACCA1403, according to the Chinese),but, Pires continues, became a Muslim at theage of 72 and died eight years later-or, as the Chinese tell us, in 1424 ! Myreading of the evidence is that Parameswara and Iskandar Shah are the sameman beforeand afterconversion o Islam. The Chineserecordthat Parameswaraoften sent envoys to Chinaand himself visited it in 1411. And they note visitsto China by "Mukans-autirsha ", or Megat Iskandar Shah, in 1414 and in1419; the annalist, not having met the Malay visitor or understood Malay,naturally took this ruler to be different from Parameswara. But Raffles MS.states that Iskandar Shah reigned three years at Singapore and twenty atMalacca, the length of the latter reign coinciding with the Chinese dates 1403for the accession of the Parameswara and 1424 for the death of IskandarShah. This item of Chinese evidence therefore supports my view. So dothe ages given by Tome Pires. If Iskandar Shah were about 16 in 1403, asPires suggests, then by 1424 he would have been only 37; but if he is identicalwith the Parameswara, who was a grown man before he reached Singapore,ruled there from three to five years, and then spent some six years on theMuar and more at Bertam before he founded Malacca (Suma Orientalis,vol. ii,pp. 230-8), then the Parameswara alias Iskandar Shah, would have been oldby 1424 and might well have been described by Pires' Malay informants asa man of eighty. Again, the omission of the name Parameswara from allMalay accounts is incredible if he were a separate individual, but it is quiteexplicable if it means that Muslim Malays discarded from their history theHindu pre-Muslimstyle of the founder of Malacca, preferringto employ onlyhis later Muhammadantitle. Such a discard also explains how the last Malayruler of Hindu Singapore came to be known to Malay history as IskandarShah-a curious anachronism,if he were not identical with the Parameswara.And even if this Muslim title could have been borne in Hindu Singapore, theMalacca court would never have chosen for the title of a Malacca ruler thename of a predecessor who had been so ill-starred as to lose the throne ofSingapore. On the contrary, it was natural for history to give the loser ofSingapore his luckier name as the founder of a new kingdom. All these con-siderations confirm the identity of the Parameswara with Iskandar Shah.Who was this Parameswara ? d'Albuquerqueand Tome Pires make hima prince from Palembang (that is, Sri Vijaya), who marrieda Javanese princess,a daughter or (accordingto Pires) a niece of the Bhatara of Tumapel; worstedin a revolt against his father-in-law, he fled to Singapore where he at oncemurderedthe Sang Aji, its governor, and ruled the island for five years till hewas driven out by Siam or one of her tributaries Patani or Pahang. Piresmakes the Parameswara son of the Sang Aji of Palembang, then tributary toMajapahit, so that a Javanese princess would be his superior in rank, a factthat would explain his own title (Callenfels, op. cit.) and the title of Megatgiven to Iskandar in the Chinese records and to his son in the oldest versionof the Malay Annals. As the title Megat was common in Pasai and is foundonly with the Parameswara's Muslim designation, it must have been given

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R. O. WINSTEDT-him after his marriage with a daughter of the Muhammadan ruler ofPasai.

de Barros relates how after the death of Pararisa = Bhra Yang Wisesa,king of Tumapel 1389-1428, the splitting of Majapahit into two kingdoms ledto a dynastic war that caused many nobles, including a Parameswara, to fleefrom Java. And the late Dr. Callenfels (op. cit.), ignoring both Malay andPortuguese accounts of the Parameswara'sconnection with Singapore,suggeststhat Malacca's founder probably left Java during troubles in 1401 and thatno other date fits with Javanese history. But the records of Java's medievalhistory may well have omitted the story of a minor royal quarrel. And, in fact,the Malay accounts say nothing of any marriagewith a Javanese princess or ofa flight to Singaporebut make Iskandar Shah a Palembang prince, member ofa family ruling a Singaporethat was a colony of Palembang till Java conqueredit about 1365. If Tome Pires is right in saying that Iskandar died at the ageof 80 (in 1424), then the " MalayAnnals " may be right in making the Javaneseconquest of Singaporethe cause of his flight from Singapore to Malacca. Or,as Iskandar Shah would in 1365 have been a youth of nineteen, the Javanesemay have maintained him as a harmless puppet, given him a Majapahitprincessfor bride,and left him on the Singaporethrone till Siam drove him out.Callenfelsalso inclines to the view of de Barros and GasparCorreathat theParameswarawas a Javanese. But several facts make this highly improbable.None of the court titles in Malacca were Javanese. All Malay tradition givesthe Malacca dynasty a Palembang (Sri Vijaya) origin. So do the earlierPortuguese histories. There was no particular reason for a Javanese noblemanto have thought of Malacca as the site of a kingdom or to have sought a bridefrom Muslim Pasai. But as a Palembang nobleman the Parameswara maywell have chosen Malacca as an outlying post in his ancestors' peninsularpossessions that lay as far as possible from Siam. And a Palembang noblemanwould have good reason to seek to marry into the Pasai royal family whichduring the fourteenth century appears to have exercised some sway over SriVijaya's old territory in Northern Malaya (" A Malay Sha'ir in Old SumatranCharactersof 1380 A.D. ", Stutterheim, Acta Orientalia, 1936, vol. xiv, Leiden;" A History of Malay Literature ", R. 0. Winstedt, JRASMB., 1940, vol. 17,pt. 3, p. 126), and to have carried Islam as far east as Trengganu (" An EarlyMalay Inscription ", H. S. Paterson, ibid., vol. 2, pp. 252-263). The Chineseannals record that in 1406 the Parameswaraclaimed the throne of Palembang.As for subsequent rulers the title Sultan Megat of the Raffles MS. wasfortuitous confirmation of the view that Parameswara was a title denoting aconsort of rank inferior to that of his wife, the male offspringof such a marriagebeing termed Megat (magadha). The same MS. says he ruled only two years,which is plausible if his father was 80. The Chinese references to him or hisson as Sri Mahalain 1424 and to a Sri Mahalain 1433 reveal a return to the oldPalembang title of Sri Maharaja and presumably denote a backsliding fromIslam. Omitting the shadowy Sultan Megat, there may have been only one

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THE MALAY FOUNDER OF MEDIEVAL MALACCASri Maharaja, the Raja Tengah, who according to Raffles MS. finally becameSultan Muhammad Shah, or there may have been two, the Raja Tengah andhis son Sultan MuhammadShah of the other two Malay sources. The Chineserecord under 1445 the accession of a son and successor to a Sri Mahala, thisson being Parmisiwartiupasha (? Parameswara Dewa Shah). Parmisiwartiu-pasha would either be the Sultan Muhammad Shah of the two later Malaysources or more probably the ill-fated Sultan Abu-Shahid. In that caseMuzaffarShah would appear to have waited for a decade before sending toChinato " ask to be invested ": but according to d'Albuquerquehe assumedthe title of Sultan only shortly before his death.

VOL. XII. PARTS 3 AND 4.

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The Malay Founder of Medival Malacca