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THE MALAYS

I

“Brown in complexion, medium in stature and maritime in habits, these people left their cradle land somewhere in Asia, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra or India. The true origin of the Malay race cannot be definitely ascertained today”. (‘Early Philippine History’, Zaide).

The Hon. W. Marsden in his ‘History of Sumatra’, London, 1811, expressed the view that they originated from Sumatra.

“Who is the civilised Malay, or as he is also termed, the Deutro-Malay or Coast Malay, of Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Male, Borneo, Celebes,….. and other islands?

This broad headed individual with more or less Mongolian features – is the proto Malay with many foreign strains… many of the aborigines were proto-Malay maritime folk.” (Malays – ‘Cultural History’ by Sir Richard Winstedt, p. 15).

II

THE MALAYS IN CEYLON

The Malays in Ceylon are known by the Tamil appellation CHAVAKAR (‘JAVAVAR’ THE PEOPLE OF JAVA), and are descendants of soldiers brought to this country by the Dutch during their occupation of Ceylon. The Dutch had also deported to Ceylon some members of the Javanese nobility many of whom are said to have returned to their home country later.

When the Dutch withdrew from the island handing over Ceylon to the British, many of the Malay families continued to live here and some of them have married among the Tamil Muslims of Ceylon. The Dutch referred to the Malays as ‘Ambiones’, and the German Diarists of the seventeenth century state that they were fond of cock-fighting; and as guardians of the state, they were more feared by the Sinhalese than the latter were of the Dutch themselves.

The German Diarists refer to the inhabitants of Ceylon as “SINGUALESE (ZYNGALESE) MALABARIANS, AMBIONES and other natives called the CINGOLESES”. (vide, ‘Germans in Dutch Ceylon’, Vol. I, p. 28, translated with notes by Raven Hart).

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III

MALAYS – SOUTH INDIA AND SUMATRA

One of the early kingdoms KAN-T’o-Li referred to in Chinese annals is said to have been “located somewhere in Sumatra by the best modern opinion; the rulers were in communication with China during the period A.D. 456 to 563”.¹

The names of these rulers were typically Hindu, and the manners and customs are said to have been similar to those of Champa and Kambuja, two countries which came early under South Indian influence.

“The presence of certain names of tribal sub-divisions which are unmistakably South Indian, among the SIMBIRING, a brand of the Karo-Batah race points to early Tamil influence in Sumatra. These names are, Coliya, Pandiya, MELIYALA, and also PELAVI (CHOLA, PANDYA, MALAYALA, PALLAVA, all historic Tamil rulers) as well as Tekang (Takkanam-Deccan). ‘The social organisation of the Karo-Dataks seem to date from very remote part and it is quite probable that these names were taken over when they were still powerful realities in South India”.

These influences appear to have reached Sumatra at a time when South Indians still built their temples of wood or other perishable material. The preservation and worship offered to large kettledrums in later Javanese temples show that a connection has been maintained between the older Indonesian religion and the later Hindu Javanese temples, as the drums are said to have belonged to an earlier phase of Indonesian religious life.²

Thus Sumatra seems to have come in contact with South Indian Hindu culture very early and this contact “never wholly ceased and was kept up through changing fortunes for well over a thousand years”……. What happened in Sumatra is typical of the history of almost every one of these colonies. Sumatra was again invaded by the Cholas in the eleventh century. A Tamil inscription, of Luba Tua in A.D. 1088, and the Dravidian tribal names are evidences of the continuity of this influence.³

Thus the earliest people bring their culture from India were the Tamil Pandyan, Chola and Chera peoples. This was followed in the 6^th century by another South Indian dynasty, the Pallavas. The downfall of the Pallava power was brought about by the Chalukyas and the Cholas.

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The ultramarine colonies of South India in Indonesia were now able to coalesce with the Hindu Malay Empire of Sri Vijaya which flourished from the eighth to the twelfth century and gave way to the Madjapahit Empire which succeeded it. The fall of Sri Vijaya was partly due to the deadly attack launched by the Cholas in 1025; the Cholas did not follow up their conquest, however, and re-appeared in 1068 as the friends of the Sri Vijayan Empire.

Madjapahit, Hindu in culture, and Saivite in religion reached its zenith in the 14^th century. In 1478 it was replaced by the Islamic Malay Empire of Malacca and was in turn broken up in the 16^th century by the Portuguese.

Islam itself was preached and spread in Sumatra, Java and Malay by the South Indian Tamil Muslim converts who flocked in numbers to Malaysia as traders. “Java dealt the death blow to the old Empire of the Maharajahs, and Islam deprived Siva and Buddha and their spiritual ascendancy in the Malay world”.⁴

Roland Braddell tells us that the South Indian Tamils were the most famous of Indian pilots in ancient times and it was the Tamil seamen who brought civilisation first to Malaysia. Swami SATYANANDA in his ‘History of Malay’ p. 22, tells us that MALAIYU, the capital of Sumatra, is the corruption of the Tamil name Malai-Ur given to it by the early Tamil colonists, as this new country was full of mountain ranges. ‘MALAI’ (mountain) ‘Ur’ (country).

‘Throughout the period of Hindu dominance’ says Ginsburg Roberts Jr., in ‘MALAYA’, ‘there was no truly independent Malaya. The primary influences during this period were of Hindu origin stemming from Southern India either directly or in the case of Madjapahit through Java’.⁵

Klings and Tamil Muslims

By local usage all South Indians, Tamils, Telugus and Malayalees are called Klings….. but though the use of the term is a tribute to the greatness of his past, the Southern Indian now regards it as derogatory. The Malay for his part has borrowed the Lebai as a form of respect from the Labbae Muslims of the Madras Coast. TAMIL MUSLIMS occasionally won places and honour in old Malacca and in eighteenth century Perak, where the Sultan gave one a title for going to India and returning with a trader who brought elephants.

South Indians have played a great part in the Malay’s literature of translation, introducing him to Indian folklore, romance and mysticism. There are Sanskrit words in Tamil form

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and later Persian and Arabic words that Tamil Muslims from India had introduced.

Though South Indian traders had ships that could carry 600 passengers or more, they did not affect the physical appearance of the local people as Muslim Tamils in the nineteenth century affected the Malays of Penang.⁶

With the change to Islam ‘the Malay would become flooded by romances from the Deccan…. still full of Hindu mythology. Such a hotch-potch of Hindu Epics, Javanese rules and Tamil folklore was to be expected from a cosmopolitan port like Malacca in the 15^th century’.⁷

The medieval Malacca chiefs as well as Sultans were traders. The Malay annals say that BENDA HIRA or Prime-Minister to the last Sultan never failed in his ventures and was richer than the richest Tamil in the port.⁸

For a thousand years the Malay was under the influence of Hinduised courts, that were centres of Buddhism and Saivaism, Hindu magical science, Hindu Art and Hindu literature. During this time he borrowed the Indian Scripts – the Pallava from which Java as early as the eighth century A.D. evolved its Kaivi alphabet. A guild of Tamil traders in the same century left scraps of their Buddhist story of Manimekalai in Sumatran folklore that have been retold in the Malay Peninsula and written down in modern time Epics.⁹

Java and Tamils

We have clear evidence of a settled Hinduised society flourishing in West Java in the fourth and fifth centuries. Puranavarman ruled for over twenty years. This king is compared to Vishnu and was doubtless a Hindu colonist from South India of Hinduised Indonesia. That Hinduism was the prevalent faith at that time is borne out by FA-HIEN who came to Java from India via Ceylon in 414 A.D.

In the Hindu period Indian Epics were popularised in Java and in the Madjapahit colonies of Malays more by shadow plays than by written translations. The spirit of delight that animates such passages came from Hindu South India and with its sculpture and art, was doomed to fall before Islam.¹⁰

The Sailendras were doubtless a race of Hindu-Javanese rulers and not without South Indian affiliations of their own. In the organisation of rural economy and village administration Java presents the same unmistakable blend between pre-Hindu Indonesian institutions and ideas and those borrowed from South

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India. The proceedings at village meetings in Java even today strongly remind one of the courthouse of village administration in South India in ancient days as it is vividly portrayed in numberless inscriptions of the Chola monarchs.¹¹

There has been continuous contact maintained by Java with South India even in later times. The Nagarakretagama mentions that Buddariya sang slokas in praise of the Javanese ruler HAYAM WARUK in the fourteenth century. Jaganagara adopted the characteristic Pandyan title Sundara Pandya at his coronation early in the fourteenth century and adopted the Pandyan emblem of two carps (fishes) for his seal. There is literary evidence of an embassy from Malaya to Vijayanagar in the days of the great KRISHNA DEVA RAYA.¹²

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REFERENCES

1. KROM, HJG, p. 84, quoted by K.A. Nilakanta Sastri ‘South Indian Influences In The Far East’, p. 112.

2. K.A.N., ibid. p. 113.

3. K.A.N., ibid. p. 114.

4. ‘Malaya and its History’, Sir Richard Winstedt, p. 31.

5. Ginsberg and Roberts Jr. ‘Malaya’, p. 121.

6. Sir Richard Winstedt, ibid. p. 25.

7. Sir Richard Winstedt, ‘The Malays – A Cultural History’, p. 141.

8. Sir Richard Winstedt, ‘Malaya and Its History’, p. 104.

9. Sir Richard Winstedt, ‘The Malays – A Cultural History’, p. 139.

10. Sir Richard Winstedt, ibid. p. 140.

11. K.A.N., ibid. p. 134.

12. K.A.N., ibid. p. 135.