Bendahara Sri Lanang — Malay Tun Sri Lanang, also styled Bendahara Paduka Raja and Toen Moehammad — was the Bendahara (chief minister) of the sultanate of Djohor, the author of the Sadjarah Malajoe (the Malay Annals), and one of the principal Malay literary figures caught up in the 1613 Atjehnese attack on Batoe Sawar and the subsequent captivity of the Johor court in Atjeh. He is, in Hooykaas’s reading in his survey of Malay literature, “ongetwijfeld een diplomaat en stylist” (undoubtedly a diplomat and stylist) — “een man die de kunst verstond de voor land en dynastie onaangename situaties van hun gunstige kant te beschouwen” (a man who understood the art of viewing the unpleasant situations for country and dynasty from their favourable side).
Office and Genealogy
The Bendahara — the chief minister of the sultanate of Johor — was, in Hooykaas’s reading, “de hoogste ambtenaar en het best op de hoogte met politiek en hof” (the highest official and the best informed about politics and court). The author of the Sadjarah Malajoe identifies himself, in the work’s introduction, as “Sēri Lanang, memanggangkanja Padoeka Radja gēlarannja, Bēndahara, anak Orang-Kaja Padoeka Radja, tjoetjoe Bēndahara Sēri Maharadja, tjitjit Bēndahara Toen Narawangsa, pioet Bēndahara Sēri Maharadja, anak Sēri Naradiradja Toen ‘Ali, anak baginda Mani Poerindan, (gaddasa ‘Llahoe sirrahoem), Malajoe bangsanja, dari Boekit Sigoentang Maha Méroe, Malakka něgérinja, Batoe Sawar dâroe’s s-saam” — that is, Sri Lanang, with the title Paduka Raja, Bendahara, of a long line of Bendaharas stretching back through Seri Maharaja, Tun Narawangsa, Seri Maharaja, Seri Naradiraja Tun ‘Ali, to Mani Purindan (God sanctify his mystery), of the Malay people, from Bukit Siguntang Mahameru, of Malacca the city, of Batoe Sawar the present residence.
The author’s self-identification — which places him in the direct line of the Bendaharas of Malacca and Johor, and at the present residence of Batoe Sawar — is the principal autobiographical datum of the Sadjarah Malajoe’s introduction.
Commissioning of the Sadjarah Malajoe
The Bendahara was commissioned to compose the Sadjarah Malajoe by the younger brother of the reigning Sultan Alā’uddīn Ri’āyat Shāh III, one Radja ‘Abdoellāh, on the occasion of the Mawlid (Mūlūd) festival of Sunday 13 Rabīʿ I 1021 AH — that is, 13 May 1612. The commission, in Hooykaas’s reading, was to “beteren” (improve) an existing Hikajat Malajoe that had been brought to Batoe Sawar “door mensen uit Goa” (by people from Goa). The work was to be a “Geslachtslijst der Soeltanen” (Genealogy of the Sultans) — a title that, in Hooykaas’s reading, was modelled on the Tādj us-Salāṭīn (Crown of Kings) that the Bendahara would have encountered in Atjeh after his 1613 captivity.
The 1613 Atjehnese Attack and Captivity
The composition of the Sadjarah Malajoe was, in Hooykaas’s account, repeatedly interrupted by the 1613 Atjehnese attack on Batoe Sawar. “Het schrijven heeft niet ongestoord zijn gang kunnen gaan; een Atjehse vloot verscheen in 1613 onverwachts, die zich meester wist te maken van niemand minder dan de vorst ‘Alā’ oed-Din Ri’ājat Sjāh III, Radja ‘Abdoellāh en de meeste rijksgroten, waaronder de Bēndahara” (The writing was not able to proceed undisturbed; an Atjehnese fleet appeared unexpectedly in 1613, which managed to seize no less than the Sultan Alā’uddīn Ri’āyat Shāh III, Radja ‘Abdoellah, and most of the great men of the realm, including the Bendahara).
The captives were taken to Atjeh, where Sultan Alā’uddīn Ri’āyat Shāh III was held and “spoedig sterft” (soon dies) — at Pasai, according to the Sadjarah Malajoe’s introduction. Radja ‘Abdoellāh, the younger brother who had commissioned the Sadjarah Malajoe, “huwt met een zuster van de Atjehse Soeltān Iskandar Moeda en wordt begenadigd, waarop hij wordt teruggebracht en op de troon van zijn halfbroer gezet” (marries a sister of the Atjehnese Sultan Iskandar Muda and is pardoned, whereupon he is brought back and placed on the throne of his half-brother) — that is, becomes the new Sultan of Johor as a vassal of Atjeh.
The Completion of the Sadjarah Malajoe
It was in this context — with the new Sultan (the former Radja ‘Abdoellāh) asking the Bendahara to complete the work — that the Sadjarah Malajoe was finished. “De nieuwe vorst doet de Bēndahara weten dat hij prijs stelt op de voltooiing van zijn opdracht; deze krijgt het omvangrijk werk van 34 verhalen af” (The new ruler lets the Bendahara know that he values the completion of his commission; the latter completes the extensive work of 34 stories).
The completed work — 34 stories — was thus finished in Atjeh or shortly after the Bendahara’s return from Atjeh, and reflects the experience of the 1613 captivity. The work’s later stories (35-38) — added to the original 34 — cover the second Atjehnese attack on Batoe Sawar in 1615, the second flight of the Johor court, and the years of wandering that followed. Hooykaas notes that the Sadjarah Malajoe itself, “diplomatiek”, stops just before the second catastrophe: “Ze houdt, diplomatiek, juist daarvóór op, bejammerd alleen in gekuiste termen, dat de Sultan zo veranderziek was om weer hogerop een nieuwe kota te gaan stichten” (It stops, diplomatically, just before, lamenting only in chastened terms that the Sultan was so changeable as to go and found a new kota higher up).
The Silent Bendahara
A key feature of the Sadjarah Malajoe’s account of the 1613 and 1615 catastrophes is, in Hooykaas’s reading, the Bendahara’s diplomatic silence on the worst of the Atjehnese attacks. “Ook van deze geweldige Djohor-katastrofe zeggen de laatste bladzijden der SM niets” (Of this tremendous Djohor catastrophe too the last pages of the SM say nothing). The Bendahara’s silence is, in Hooykaas’s reading, the silence of a courtier writing under the eye of the new sultan — a vassal of Atjeh — and the silence of a captive who had himself been carried off to Atjeh.
Significance
For AcehWiki, the Bendahara Sri Lanang is significant as the author of the Sadjarah Malajoe — the principal Malay chronicle of the Malacca-Johor sultanate — and as one of the principal Malay literary figures caught up in the 1613 Atjehnese attack on Batoe Sawar. His captivity in Atjeh, his encounter with the Tādj us-Salāṭīn of 1607 (which, in Hooykaas’s reading, influenced his own concept of a “Geslachtslijst der Soeltanen”), and his diplomatic silence on the worst of the Atjehnese attacks are all part of the literary-historical context of the Sadjarah Malajoe’s composition.
See Also
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Tādj oes-Salatina
- Batoe Sawar
- Djohor
- Over Maleise Literatuur (1947)
- 1612
- 1613
- 1615
Source
Over Maleise Literatuur, by Dr. C. Hooykaas, Hoogleraarte Batavia; Tweede Druk (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1947), chapter 11 (“Geschiedschrijving in het Maleis”), pp. 96-98; Toelichting tot de Sadjarah Malajoe, Inleiding van de schrijver, pp. 203-205; chapter 19, p. 205.