Notes on Malay History. 



By C. 0. Blagdex. 

 I. Introductory. 



About a dozen years ago a comparison of the details of 

 Malay history as given in the Sejarah Melayu ' (or "Malay 

 Annals") with the information contained in the Notes on the 

 Malay Archipelago and Malacca (extracted and translated from 

 various old Chinese sources by Mr. W. P. Groeneveldt) and 

 with the section in the Commentaries of Alboquerque relating 

 to the history of Malacca led me to the conclusion that the 

 usual chronology, which dated the fall of Singapore and the 

 foundation of Malacca in the year 1252 A.D. or thereabouts, 

 was hopelessly untenable. The evidence available seemed to 

 make it pretty clear that these events must be put somewhat 

 more than a century later, probably somewhere about the 

 year 1377 A.D., in fact. A short paper embodying this con- 

 clusion and some of the arguments leading to it was read by 

 me before the Xlth Oriental Congress at Paris in 1897, and 

 subsequently appeared in the printed transactions of that con- 

 gress. 



The arguments, in outline, were these. First, the receiv- 

 ed chronology gave absurdly long reigns to the Malacca Rajas: 

 for instance four generations of them, from Sultan Muhammad 

 Shah to Sultan Alauddin Shah inclusive, are made to cover a 

 space of 201 years ; which is extremely improbable and next 

 door to impossible. Similarly the life cf the great Bendahara 

 Paduka Eaja, a leading minister of state in Malacca in the 

 loth, century and one of the most striking figures in the 

 Sejarah Melayu, would (if we accept the ordinary chronology) 

 cover about 130 years, during more than 100 of which he must 

 have held the office of Bendahara ! This is manifestly absurd. 

 Secondly, the Chinese records, which in some cases are con- 

 temporary with the events they relate, give a list of the names 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 53, 1909- 



