A Tamil Malay Manuscript.
BY DR. PH. S. VAN RONKEL.
Professor of Malay at Leiden University.
It is well known that Islam and the greater part of Moslem mysticism found its way to the Indonesian Archipelago not from Arabia, but from Southern India. It is, indeed, a truth so well. proved, that it seems superfluous to lay stress on it, or to deal with it. in detail. It may suffice to remind the reader of the undeniable fact that the very form of popular Islam, the character of its mysticism, the whole islamic edifying and romantic literature, the form of many Arabic loanwords, the style of Muhammedan tombs and so on point to Southern India as the land of their origin.
The Tamil words which were introduced by the Dravidian Moslem merchants, who converted the partly animistic partly Hinduistic population of Sumatra and Java, are still in use. Many a Dekhan saint or divine is venerated in these islands to the present day; in short, the Muhammedanism of the Dekhan still flourishes in the Indonesian world, in spite of later orthodox in- fluences from Mecca and Hadramaut.
The substratum of animistic ideas is always visible through the Islamic tenets in their popular form while the Hindu nomen- clature of some Moslem ideas indicates the intermediate layer that preceded the Islamic period. Let us only call to mind that to de- signate the Moslem teacher, the Islamic fast and the Muhammedan religion old Sanskrit words (guru, puwasa and agama) have sur- vived in many Indonesian languages.
All such historical evidence as is now available regarding the introduction of Islam into the Archipelago has been elucidated by various scholars in the course of their investigations. The people themselves are not aware of the link which exists between their creed and the distant Mohammedan provinces of Southern India. At best, a few Indian immigrants may have a dim consciousness of the existence of that historical connection. Thus, some thirty years ago, a member of the Indian merchant family Akuan at Samarang showed a trilingual Muhammedan manuscript to Dr. Snouck Hurgronje. "This document," the owner explained, "shows the way by which the penetration of Islam has taken place; the Persian part representing the original literary language of Islamic culture in India; the portion in a modern Indian idiom, not understood by us, being represen- tative of the interjacent country between Hindustan and these islands, and the third portion, the wholly intelligible Malay part, the speech of Islam as it is now in this country." But that intelligent merchant certainly is an exception. In order to follow the current of Islamic civilisation we have to examine historical facts and lin. guistic and religious evidence. In certain cases we have to rely on a single book, tale or manuscript.
