Decoding Sejarah Melayu: The Hidden History of Ancient Singapore

by Jason Heng

Everyone knows Singapore as the Lion City and the story behind of a Palembang prince, Sang Nila Utama, sighting a lion on this island that was first published 200 years ago in John Leyden's translation of the Malay classic Sejarah Melayu. But few people have actually read the Sejarah Melayu to realise the fairytale-like claims of Singapore's supposed medieval founder as a descendant of Alexander the Great, and the son of an Indian king who tried to conquer China and a princess from underwater; or that the creature he purportedly saw was not described as a lion, but a chimera with a red body, black head, white breast, and was a little larger than a he-goat. And barely anyone remembers the days when respectable residents of Singapore scoffed at suggestions that Singapore's name has anything to do with the Felis Leo.   Decoding Sejarah Melayu daringly challenges the assumption that the Sejarah Melayu records Singapore's pre-modern past, which has been held since Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in 1819 and declared himself at the "ancient Capital of the Malay kings". It seeks to grasp what is the Sejarah Melayu and how its accounts of Singapore as Temasek and Singapura were written, critically re-examines key historical text such as the Malay epic Hikayat Hang Tuah , Tomé Pires' Suma Oriental and 14th century Chinese travelogue Daoyi Zhilue, and makes an expansive study into other sources in Malay, Javanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Siamese, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and the English language to discover clues to ancient Singapore's long hidden past. This is a book that will profoundly change understandings of Singapore's history and identity.

166 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 28, 2021

Reviews

[Rindo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed reading this book.

If you're the kind of person who enjoys analyses of the historicity of old texts often touted as canon, this book is for you.

The Sejarah Melayu - the Malay Annals - is a fascinating treatise that's part chronicle, part genealogy, part hagiographic mythology. The author Jason Heng really gets into the weeds, decoding the history behind the myths, and piecing together a more tangible reality from a quasi-historical work that has changed, evolved - and been retconned! - across the ages.

I highly recommend reading The Malay Annals first, before you get into Jason Heng's analysis of it.