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51. Notes on Clay Tablets from the Malay Peninsula* 



..By Rakbaldas Banerji. 



With an Introductory Note 



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67/ N. Annandale, Officiating Superintendent^ Indian Mtiseu^. 



Intkoductory Notk. ' 



In the ethnology of the Malay Peninsula no probleJm is more 

 difficult to unravel than that of the date or dates and the place or 

 places of origin of the many Indian factors in tl»e arts and legends 

 of the Malays and of the Siamese of the northern states. The 

 difficulty of attacking the problem is increased by tiie vagueness 

 of the idea implied in the term Indian, and it will perhaps clear 

 away misapprehension if I point out that it is not intended that this 

 term should have a restricted meaning, for by "Indian factors" 

 All that is meant is factors derived from peninsular India. Influ- 

 ences so derived are obviously of very diverse kinds so far as the 

 Malays^ have been concerned, for these people have been indebted 

 to India not only for the Buddhistic and Hindu beliefs which they 

 still retain unwittingly, but also in large measure for the religion 

 of Islam,* which they all profess. The Siamese of the Malay 

 States are Buddhists much in the same way as the Malays are 

 Muhammadans, but in their legends and incantations, just as W 

 those of the Malays, references to members of the Hindu pantheon, 

 ■especially to Bama and Hanuman, abound, side by side with in- 

 vocations and threats to or against local spirits and demons such 

 ^as people the mythology of all primitive races-- 



It has often been assumed that the Indian invasion of Malaya, 

 which was in all probability a peaceful one, started from Southern 

 India, and the fact of long- continued intercourse between the 

 Madras coast and the western ports of the peninsula cannot be 

 doubted- As 1 have pointed out elsewhere,^ this inteicourse still 

 persists, very little changed directly by European influences- 

 There are many similarities * between the Muhammadanism of the 

 " Labbies " of the Indian shore of the Gulf of Manaar and thd^t'of 

 the Malays, and I think that it would Hot be impossible to find 



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1 See Annandale, Fasciculi Malayensis^ Antbrop. I^ p. 91, Liverpool, 1903, 

 'Bnd Newboldt Political and Statistical Account of the British Settlements in the 



Straits of Malacca, Vol. II, p. 193, London, 1839. 



2 Crawford's Indian Archipelago, Vol. IT, p. 260. He mentions the "longer 

 and more intimate intercourse '* with the Arabs and the Mahomedans ofj the 

 eastern coast of India. 



3 Me7noirs of the Asiatic Society ofBengalyYol, I, Snppl., p. ii. 



* e.g. as regards the 'Aq'tqah ceTQmonj (see StBf>]^ton, Menfi. A-siaiffi iSoc* 

 Bengal, I, p. 32, 1905). - ^ ^ ._.. 



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