- 2 For previous installments of my ‘Inscriptions of Sumatra’, see Griffiths 2011, 2012 and 2014 in the (...)
- 3 Old Malay is here understood to be “the variant of the Malay language found in documents written in (...)
1The preceding report by Daniel Perret, Heddy Surachman & Repelita Wahyu Oetomo on recent archaeological surveys in the northern half of Sumatra mentions inscriptions in Indic script found respectively near the Makam Ambar in Barus, North Sumatra, and at the village Kubu Sutan in nagari Lubuk Layang, kec. Rao Selatan, kab. Pasaman, West Sumatra.2 The purpose of this note is to publish my readings of these two inscriptions, both of which are written in Old Malay.3 The first, clearly an epitaph and almost certainly engraved to commemorate the death of a Muslim, according to the authors of the report, bears a date equivalent to 29 June 1350 ce, which makes it the earliest Islamic inscription in Indic script from Sumatra.
Fig. 1 – Photograph of the Pananggahan Old Malay inscription. Repelita Wahyu Oetomo, Sept. 2019.
2The raison d’être of the second inscription, datable to the same period, is less clear; this second inscription, almost certainly from a religious context where Islam had not yet penetrated, casts interesting light on the history of application of Indic verse forms to Nusantaran languages.
3The text is deciphered here from photos furnished by Daniel Perret, one of which is shown as fig. 1. I refer to the preceding report for photos showing the shape and decoration of the stone.
4(1) (vars)uri diṁ sākavarṣa 1-
(2) 272 hi[laṁ] Ā(ṣā)ḍha kr̥-
(3) ṣṇapakṣa caturdviṁṣat· (m)aṅgala-
(4) vāra tatkāletu bhagi(n)da hilaṁ
- 4 Because a toponym would hardly fit the context and one would expect to find in Indic script a spell (...)
- 5 Because in an inscription in Indic script, one would expect a form of the word closer to the Sanskr (...)
51. (vars)uri: This word is still obscure to me, and the reading therefore uncertain, although all constituents of vars seem detectable on the photographs and no clear alternatives present themselves for transliterating the engraved characters. Unless the text we have is the continuation of a preceding part engraved on another support, we expect here an auspicious word of the type Oṁ or svasti that is normally found before a dating formula in the Indic inscriptions of Indonesia, including those of Northern Sumatra (see examples in Griffiths 2014: 217, 220, 225, 234). I have considered but rejected the possibilities (a) that we are dealing with a form of the ancient name of Barus4 or (b) that we have here a form of the word suri in the meaning “queen,”5 or in any of the other meanings that this Malay word can have.
61. diṁ: understand diṅ, i.e. /di-ṅ/. For another epigraphic instance of the preposition di with the definite article ṅ, in the inscription Tandihat III from Padang Lawas, see Griffiths 2014: 225.
72. hi[laṁ]: I have no satisfactory hypothesis for reading the second syllable and interpreting this word. The reading tentatively chosen here is based on the assumption that we are dealing with scribal sloppiness, due to anticipating of the crucial verb form of this text that comes in its expected place at the end of the text. I have also considered the possibility that the word beginning with hi here is some bisyllabic Arabic term suitable to the context, perhaps an allusion to the Hijra era, although this would not be more natural in the context than the word hilaṁ is.
83. caturdviṁṣat·: since it is incomprehensible if it means “four two six,” this sequence probably has to be understood as corrupt form of the Sanskrit numeral caturviṁśati “twenty-four.” In the spelling caturvviṁśati, this last word would look very close to caturdviṁṣat· in the original script. See below p. 58.
94. tatkāletu: understand tatkāla itu, joined in vowel sandhi. On vowel sandhi in Old Malay texts, see my review in BKI 166 (2010): 137 (mentioning parāhūraṁ = parahu orang in the Tanjung Tanah manuscript); there are also instances among the Old Malay inscriptions of West Sumatra (e.g., Bukit Gombak I, lines 13 and 15, sāsanenan = śāsana inan and dharmmenan = dharmma inan; Padang Roco, punyeni = puṇya ini). For discussion of the Old Malay expressions tatkāla itu = sana tatkāla, see Griffiths 2014: 225 and 227 and 2018: 279.
10barsuri (?) In Śaka year 1272, demise, (month?) of Āṣāḍha, waning fortnight, the twenty-fourth (day of the month), a Tuesday: that was the time of his/her highness’ demise.
11The date is expressed in the Indian pañcāṅga (“five-element”) calendar system, in a manner quite comparable to what we see in the aforementioned inscription Tandihat III from Padang Lawas, which is 171 years older (Griffiths 2014: 224–226). Our dating formula involves the following variables:
Era Śaka
Year 1272
Month Āṣāḍha
Fortnight kr̥ṣṇa, i.e. waning
Number caturdviṁṣat
Weekday Maṅgala, i.e. Tuesday
12In my interpretation above, p. 57, caturdviṁṣat is a localized form, if not to say an error, for caturviṁśati and meant to indicate the 24th civil day of a full month starting at new moon, i.e. the 9th tithi of the waning fortnight.6 If one fills in the above parameters, while using the value 9 for the tithi, in the online date conversion software Pancanga,7 the result is June 29, 1350 ce, which date fell on the Tuesday required by the text. The result is confirmed by the software HIC, which I have used to create the diagram shown here as fig. 2. None of the other interpretations of caturdviṁṣat that have occurred to me, namely the values 14 (caturdaśa in Sanskrit) or 12 (catur 4 + dvi 2 + ṣaṭ 6), yield a result as satisfactory as the one I propose here. Why this date is expressed using civil day rather than tithi remains an open question.8
- 9 See van der Molen 2008 and De Casparis 1980.
- 10 See Guillot & Kalus 2008: 177–179, for stones dated 1297 (Malik al-Sâlih) and 1326 ce.
- 11 See Perret, Heddy Surachman & Repelita Wahyu Oetomo in this volume, fig. 3.
- 12 “One problem is that the Arabic inscription, although referring to the same event, displays a diffe (...)
- 13 “[…] one of the riddles surrounding the Pĕngkalan Kĕmpas inscriptions: the approximately four years (...)
13If my interpretation is correct and if it may be assumed, with Daniel Perret, Heddy Surachman & Repelita Wahyu Oetomo in their report on the discovery of this tombstone, that we are dealing with a specifically Islamic epitaph, then we must note the total absence of explicit indicators of the knowledge of Arabic language/script and of Islam in the Old Malay text, which would contrast with the other early Islamic inscriptions in Old Malay known so far, the ones from Minye Tujuh (Aceh) and Pengkalan Kempas (Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia).9 And, still assuming that the Islamic affiliation of this tombstone is a valid hypothesis, we may draw the conclusion that this tombstone, just a few decades more recent than the oldest dated Islamic tombstones that have so far been found on Sumatra,10 is indeed the oldest Islamic tombstone known so far from the Barus area. The Arabic epitaph previously claiming that honor was found at the exact same cemetery in Barus and bears a date also falling in 1350 ce,11 but some months after June in that year. It is very regrettable that the Arabic inscription is damaged while the preserved part does not contain the name of the deceased person, which is apparently unmentioned in the Old Malay epitaph. Nevertheless, the correspondence of the shapes of the two tombstones has led the archaeologists to propose that the two might have marked a single grave. If that was the case, then we must find an explanation for the fact that the conversion of the Hijra date contained in the Arabic epitaph and that of the Śaka date contained in the Old Malay epitaph does not lead to the exact same date in the common era, a situation somewhat different from the disagreement between dates observed in the case of the Minye Tujuh epitaphs,12 or the disagreement of dates between the texts written in Jawi and in Indic scripts on the Pengkalan Kempas tombstone.13 I must leave open the questions (1) whether there is any issue with the reliability of the conversion mechanisms applied to the Śaka or Hijra dates on the two Pananggahan tombstones, (2) whether there are problems with the decipherment of the Arabic text — in which two cases it may be possible to bridge the narrow gap between the two Barus epitaphs — or (3) whether the disagreement between the dates actually means that the two epitaphs do not belong to a single grave.
Fig. 2 – Diagram showing the dating parameters of the Pananggahan tombstone inscribed in Old Malay.
- 14 The sources at my disposal mention various dates: April 1975 (Satyawati Suleiman 1977: 2), “sekitar (...)
- 15 Satyawati Suleiman 1977: 2, with reproduction of an estampage of face B in plate 3. Her information (...)
- 16 This article is based on an unpublished report by Budi Istiawan (1992).
- 17 Hunter (2015: 375 n. 60) attributes the typescript to De Casparis, but I suspect it is by Boechari, (...)
14This inscription, engraved in a form of script practically indistinguishable from the script that is typical of Ādityavarman’s inscriptions, was discovered in the 1970s14 and briefly mentioned by Satyawati Suleiman (1977: 2)15 and Machi Suhadi (1990: 227, 1995–96: 21) before it was finally published by Budi Istiawan (1994).16 Apparently unaware of this publication, Hunter (2015) reproduces an unpublished reading that he found among the papers of J.G. de Casparis kept at Leiden University.17 None of the existing publications is accompanied by reproductions allowing to verify the readings, and it does not appear to have been observed so far that the inscription is metrical — in other words, that we are dealing with a poem —, while awareness of the metrical structure makes it possible to achieve a more reliable reading and interpretation. For these reasons, it may be useful to include my decipherment here, even though the text remains very challenging.
- 18 For general information on how Indic meters work, in a Nusantaran context, see Zoetmulder 1974: app (...)
15My reading is based on the estampages bearing the numbers n. 2005 and n. 2006 held at the EFEO in Paris, which were made during my 2011 campaign of documenting inscriptions in West Sumatra. In my edition, in lost parts whose metrical structure is known, I use ⏑ to indicate a lost short syllable, and – to indicate a lost long syllable. The breve sign ˘ on top of a vowel means that it is short but needs to be read as long to suit the meter.18 The several instances of a closing symbol are here represented by the pilcrow sign (¶).
Fig. 3 – Lubuk Layang stela, face A. Estampage EFEO n. 2005. Photo courtesy of the EFEO.
- 19 It seems likely that what precedes formed part of at least one stanza, but the damage is too severe (...)
(1) {2 akṣ.} I[ndra] ...
(2) {1 akṣ.} (pu)rṇ(n)endra(bh)u ...
(3) ra ma {1 akṣ.} surimadaṇa ...
(4) dha(r)i[ṇi]19 // 0 // ¶ // 0 // ¶ // ...
(5) Om̐
- 20 The meter is Mālinī, containing four pādas, each of which has the pattern ⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑ – – – ⏑ – – ⏑ – ⏓.(...)
Amarabijaya yauvāsūk(ṣm)a jăy(6)endravarmman·,
satatavibhava p(ū)jāpa(7)ñcadānăsila(ta)tvā,
sadavaca(ṇa) bi(8)seṣābhakti dĭ mātapĭtā,
sakala(9)[ja](nas)utr̥ptisvasthaśanto(ṣabandh)[u]20
16(10) about 7 akṣaras illegible ¶ 0 //
Fig. 4 – Lubuk Layang stela, face B. Estampage EFEO n. 2006. Photo courtesy of the EFEO.
17B (West face, fig. 4)
- 21 This is the remainder of another Mālinī stanza. See n. 20. Since we lack 2×15+2 syllables before su (...)
(1) only traces of two akṣaras
⏑ ⏑ (2) sugatayavā(so) – ⏑ – – ⏑ – ⏓
(3) (nr̥)patibijayavarmma _ _ (n·) – ⏑ – – (4) na mokṣam·21
|| 0 || ¶ // 0 // ¶ // 0 //
18(5) Om̐
- 22 kr̥tya Astu: the apparent dot between the two words is probably accidental damage to the stone.
- 23 The meter is Rathoddhatā, containing four pādas, each of which has the pattern ⎼ ⏑ ⎼ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⎼ ⏑ ⎼ ⏑ (...)
yauvarājabijayendrasekharā,
(6) kr̥tya Astu22 paripurnna sobhitā,
ka(7)n pamūja di pitā mahādarā,
di (8) śri Indrakila(pa)rvvatāpuri || 0 ||23
19Face A:
Indra ..., ... earth.
Om. Jayendravarman is victorious over the immortals, youthful, subtle; is always mighty (due to?) being one who has the customary practice of the five gifts of worship (pūjā); he speaks the truth (? sadavacaṇa); is specially devoted to his parents; is a friend for the contentment, health and satisfaction of all people.
20Face B:
… abode of the Buddha ... king Vijayavarman, … death.
Om. May the deeds of the crest-jewel of victorious heirs apparent be perfect [and] beautiful with (kan) zealous (mahādara) offerings (pamūja) to parent(s) in the town of Śrī Indrakīlaparvata.
21Although it does not contain a date, this inscription can confidently be dated to the 14th century, based on the similarity of its script to that found in the preceding inscription, in the inscriptions of Ādityavarman, and in the Tanjung Tanah manuscript (Kozok 2015).
22Previous scholars have mainly commented on the names figuring in this inscription and proposed various scenarios in which the person or persons whom it celebrates may have been related — politically, chronologically, and in terms of family relationship — with Ādityavarman. I do not have anything to add on those issues, except to warn that any hypothesis is bound to be fragile as long as a comprehensive study of the Ādityavarman corpus has not been undertaken, and as long as the linguistic features of that corpus, to which this inscription seems comparable, are not given due account. In this case, I especially caution against the assumption, which underlies previous discussions of this inscription, that the diversity of names encountered in this text means that we are dealing with more than one protagonist.
- 24 Cf. the inscriptions Saruaso II and Paninggahan and the inscription on the Mañjuśrī statue from Can (...)
23Although it is found in a damaged context, the presence of the word sugata indicates that the religious context is (still) Buddhist. The theme of respect for parents and grandparents that we find expressed in two stanzas of the present inscription is also a red thread in the Ādityavarman corpus.24
- 25 See Pollock 1996.
- 26 On this topic, see Griffiths 2018: 279 and Griffiths 2020.
24Previous scholars do not seem to have stated explicitly that this inscription is formulated in a kind of mixed language, containing a conjugated Sanskrit verb form (astu) side by side with Malay prepositions (di, kan) and derived forms (pamūja). Such a mixture is not found in the Ādityavarman corpus, where a clearer distinction can be made between texts that are wholly or partly in Old Malay (Bukit Gombak I, Gudam II) and all other texts which are in a language that is admittedly very eccentric as Sanskrit, but nevertheless clearly not intended to be Malay. Furthermore, as stated above, the fact that this text is formulated largely, or perhaps entirely, in verse form has also escaped scholarly attention. Since versification is the hallmark of literary aspirations in the Indic cultural world (what Sheldon Pollock has called the “Sanskrit Cosmopolis”),25 the fact that the text is at least in some sense linguistically Old Malay combined with the fact that it is composed in verse means that this text constitutes a precious new piece in the puzzle that is the history of Malay literature.26
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