Malay Manuscripts in Germany: a review of their catalogues

by

Ibrahim bin Ismail"

Abstrak: Koleksi manuskrip Melayu yang terdapat di dalam koleksi-koleksl Jermanadalah kurang daripada seratus buah jumlahnya. Usaha untuk mendokumentasikanmanuskrip-manuskrip ini bermula lebih seratus tahun dahulu. Beberapa jenis katalogtelah disedia dan diterbitkan di dalam bentuk makalah, buku dan juga sebuah katalogpameran. Usaha mutakhir ialah sebuah katalog induk yang amat teliti yang diterbitkanolen Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia.

Abstract: The Malay manuscripts known to be available in German collections areless than one hundred in number. Efforts to document these manuscripts began overa hundred years ago. Several types of catalogues have been prepared and publishedin the form of articles, books and even an exhibition catalogue. The latest effort is adetailed union catalogue published by the National Library of Malaysia.

German repositories holding Malay manu-scripts can boast of having some of the earliestextant specimens. That they have survived theravages of war and destruction is testimony to thecare and attention which scholars and librarianshave devoted to their safety and preservation forposterity.

Information on Malay manuscripts in Ger-many may be found in a few catalogues pro-duced overthe last hundred years. These haveappeared as articles in learned periodicals, asmonographs, union lists and even as an exhi-bition catalogue.

Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje's Katalog dermalaiischen Handschriften der Koniglichen Hot-bibliothek in Berlin was completed in 1889, butit remained as a handwritten catalogue in theUniversity of Leiden Library (Cod. Or. 8015)until 1989 when the publishing house of FranzSteiner produced a fascsimile edition of it assupplementary volume no. 29 in the seriesVerzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriftenin Deutschland.

Seventy Malay Manuscripts are describedin this catalogue under six subject headings:

1. Fiction and narrative - 23 manuscripts2. Poems - 6 manuscripts3. Muslim dogmatics, law, - 27 manuscripts

mysticism and edifyinglegends

4. History of East Indian - 4 manuscriptsdynasties

5. Codes of East Indian - 2 manuscriptsempires

6. Politics, didactical - 8 manuscriptsworks, calendars,prophecies, etc.

The manuscripts are described in greatdetail. Each entry begins with a serial numberfollowed by the press-mark of the manuscript;title; material; foliation; size and number oflines per page. These preliminaries are fol-lowed by detailed notes on the contents withreferences to manuscripts with similar titles inother repositories and their catalogues.

Carl Brockelmann's Katalog der orientalis-chen Handschriften der Stadtbibliothek zuHamburg; mit Ausschluss der Herbraischen(Hamburg: Otto Meissners Verlag, 1908) holdsdescriptions of manuscripts in two parts: Is-lamic and Christian. Five Malay manuscriptsbearing serial numbers 293-297 are described

"Acquisitions Librarian, University of Malaya Library

~ Kekal Abadi 12 (1) Mac 1993

briefly under the section on Islamic manu-scripts.

Hans Overbeck produced the first Englishcatalogue in his 'Malay manuscripts in thepublic libraries of Germany', Journal of theMalayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,vol.4, pt.2 (1926) pp. 233-259. This is a unionlist of Malay manuscripts known to be availablein German collections to the compiler. Therepositories and the number of manuscripts inthem are:

1. Preussische Staatsbibliothek, - 64 manuscriptsBerlin

2. Sachsische Landesbibliothek, - 2 manuscriptsDresden

3. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, - 6 manuscriptsMunich

4. Stadtbibliothek, Hamburg - 1 manuscript

Under each repository, the manuscriptsare listed according to the numerical sequenceof their press-marks. The description of eachmanuscript includes make of paper; size; folia-tion; and lines per page. The titles of manu-scripts of texts with known titles are provided.Otherwise a note on the contents of a manu-script serves as title. Scribes' names and datesof copying are noted wherever these are avail-able. Manuscripts with more than one texthave the texts listed in order with indications ofthe folios on which they begin and end. Refer-ences to published catalogues and informationon similar manuscripts elsewhere are also pro-vided.

Based upon published catalogues availa-ble at that time, J.H. Howard published a unioncatalogue under the title Malay Manuscripts: aBibliographical Guide (Kuala Lumpur: Univer-sityofMalaya Library, 1966). Fifteen reposito-ries are listed. The German repositories are:Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; PreussischeStaatsbibliothek, Berlin; Sachsische Landesbi-bliothek, Dresden and Staats- und Universitats-Bibliothek, Hamburg.

An exhibition catalogue of Southeast Asianmanuscripts appeared in 1976 under the titleHandschriften aus Sudostasien (Berlin: Staats-bibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1976).Thirty-one Malay manuscripts are describedwith information on title (or provided title inGerman); short notes on contents; press-marksand references to published catalogues.

Adnan Jawad AI-Toma described in detailtwenty-five manuscripts in his Die arabischenHandschriften in der universitatsbibliothek Mar-burg (Marburg : 1979). The index to this cata-logue indicates that Malay texts are to be foundin seven of these manuscripts.

Detailed descriptions of four Malay manu-scripts were published by L.F. Brakel in 'Four'Malay' manuscripts in Hamburg : some pro-blems encountered in describing them', MajalahPerpustakaan Malaysia, vol.9 (1981) pp.13-16.

An account of the history of the collectionof oriental manuscripts and the inventoriesavailable forthem in the Bavarian State Library(Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) was publishedby Gunter Gronbold in 'The oriental manu-scripts in the Bavarian State Library', Interna-tional Association of Orientalist LibrariansBulletin, no.21 (1983) pp. 7-17. Eleven Malaymanuscripts are noted as available in thiscollection.

The latest addition to this list of cataloguesis Katalog Manuskrip Melayu di Jerman Barat.Catalogue of Malay Manuscripts in West Ger-many (Kuala Lumpur: Perpustakaan NegaraMalaysia, 1992). It is based on the researchand bibliographical expertise of Asma Ahmatof the Malay Manuscripts Centre at the Na-tional Library of Malaysia, and is the eighthnumber in a series of catalogues on Malaymanuscripts published by the Centre.

The catalogue holds descriptions of ninety-one Malay manuscripts in the following reposi-tories:

1. Staatsbibliothek Preussischer - 64 manuscriptsKulturbesitz

2. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, - 9 manuscriptsMunich

3. Universitatsbibliothek - 6 manuscriptsHeidelberg

4. Stadtbibliothek, Trier - 1 manuscript

5. Universitatsbibliothek - 5 manuscriptsMarburg

6. Universitatsbibliothek Bonn - 1 manuscript

7. Universitatsbibliothek - 5 manuscriptsHamburg

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In a short introduction the compiler pro-vides a brief history of the Malay manuscriptsheld in each repository and provides refer-ences to the catalogues which hold descrip-tions of them.

The description of each manuscript inlcudesthe press-mark of the manuscript; name of therepository in abbreviation; title; author/copyist;date ofwriting/copying; the structure ofthe manu-script including its foliation, height and width,type of material, watermarks, collation, catchwords, number of lines per page and size of thetext area. Notes are provided on the style ofwriting, rubrication and binding; contents withincipit and explicit; summary of contents; bibliog-raphy and other related titles and texts.

The compiler has provided detailed de-scriptions and notes on each of the manuscriptwhich has been examined in the true traditionof bibliographical scholarship. The catalogueis equipped with indexes for titles, authors/copyists, places and watermarks.

The existence of Malay manuscripts in thecollections of the Staatsbibliothek PreussischerKulturbesitz inBerlin, the Bayerische Staatsbiblio-thek in Munich, the Universitatsbibliothek Mar-burg and the Universitatsbibliothek Hamburghave been noted in earlier cataloqees. Thiscatalogue brings to light the availability of Malaymanuscripts in the Universitatsbibliothek Heidel-berg, the Stadtbibliothek Trier and the Univer-sitatsbibliothek Bonn.

Classical Malay literary scholarship is manu-script based and the traditional centres oflearning have always been those with largecollections of manuscripts and accessible catalo-gues of their holdings. The efforts of the MalayManuscripts Centre to locate Malay manu-scripts in any part of the world and to documentdescriptions of them will assist scholars tre-mendously in their search for primary sources.In Kata/og Manuskrip Me/ayu di Jerman Baratwe have yet another valuable item added to theslowly but steadily growing collection of refe-rence tools for Malay manuscript studies. _

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