152 NOTES ON MALAY HISTORY. 



necessary to name. Unfortunately these old names tell us very 

 little about the condition of the Peninsula at the period when the 

 Nagarakretag-ama was written. But they tell us something-. We 

 need not follow the loyal and courtly Prapancha in claiming that 

 Majapahit exercised a real supremacy over all these places; 

 Palembang was not conquered by the Javanese until a dozen 

 years later and yet it is included amongst the dependencies of 

 Majapahit in the poem. It is equally improbable that such 

 outlying places as Kelantan and Sai were genuinely subject to 

 Majapahit. But the list of Peninsular names suffices at any 

 rate to negative the view recently put forward by Mr. R. J. 

 Wilkinson in " Papers on Malay Subjects " (History, Part I, p. 8) 

 that the Malay colonisation of the Peninsula dates only from the 

 year 1400 A. D. Evidently there were already in the middle of the 

 14th century a number of settlements scattered along the 

 coast-line, both on the east and on the west side of the Penin- 

 sula. (It is noticeable that unlike the names relating to Sum- 

 atra none of the Peninsular names given in the Nagarakretagama 

 have any reference to the interior of the country: they are 

 settlements on the coast or barely a few miles inland). Some 

 of these settlements even then bore the same names as they 

 do at the present day and one or two of these names are distinct- 

 ly Malay. Langkasuka is no doubt of Indian origin, Nagor (if 

 that be the right reading) is Indian modified by Indo-Chinese., 

 pronunciation, Kelang Kedah and Jere may possibly be of Mori- 

 Khmer origin, Sai is perhaps Siamese, and most of the others I 

 would not try to explain. But Kelantan seems to be Malayan 

 in form, and Dungun is the Malay name for a common sea- 

 shore tree (according to Mr. H. N. Eidley in No. 30 of this Jour- 

 nal, pp. 87 & 44). Of course Sang Hyang Hujung is Malayan 

 also, but it is just the sort of name that mariners give to a not- 

 able landmark and by itself it would not be evidence of actual 

 Malay settlement but merely of Malay navigation and trade. 

 Taking these names, however, as a whole, I think they support 

 the inference that before 1365 A. D. theMalays had already colon- 

 ised both coasts of the Peninsula. It is also pretty clear that 

 at that date Singapore was still in existence and that Malacca 

 had not yet been founded : for a list that enumerates Kelang, Sun- 



Jour. Straits Branch 



