Chapter VIII - Historical Literature

Summary

Historical literature is the richest, and probably the most important, branch of Malay literature. Almost every kingdom in the Archipelago had its own history. This told of events that had happened in the palace and focused on the fortunes of the kingdom over several generations. The idea behind the writing of such a history usually came from within palace circles and its audience too was commonly restricted to members of the nobility. This explains why historical literature was seldom produced outside the palace (C. Hooykaas, 1947: 89).

The word sejarah comes from the Arabic word syajarah, which means ‘a tree’. Syajarahalnasab, for example, means a genealogical tree. Another term often used to refer to history is salasilah (or silsilah), which means ‘a chain’. From the use of these terms, we can conclude that silsilah or lineage lies at the heart of Malay historical literature. R. Roolvink has shown that the Sejarah Melayu only gradually grew to become the Sejarah Melayu we know today. The Malay view of History is different from that of the West. The English word ‘history’ comes from the Latin, historia, which means a study or systematic account of real past events, narrated in a chronological fashion. The German term Geschichte (or geschiedenis in Dutch) is derived from the verb, geschehen, which means ‘to happen’ or ‘to occur’. Thus history is something that have actually happened and historians define history as a set of facts about the development of human society.

Historical literature has attracted much attention from scholars and various in-depth studies have been undertaken. However, scholars are still divided over the value of historical literature. There are some who argue that historical literature makes no distinction between myth and history. R. A. Kern, for example, argued that historical literature should not be taken seriously because, although it contains elements of history, it is deeply mired in fairytales and fantasy (J. J. Ras, 1968: 12-15).