Hikayat Abu Nawas. 



By E. 0. Winstedt. 



Apparently there are no MSS. of this story in England or 

 Holland. There is a MS. in Eaffles' Library, Singapore, in the 

 colophon of which it is stated that the MS. was transcribed at 

 Sungai Kalang, tout no date is given: obviously it is not old. 

 Another version has been lithographed in Singapore quite lately, 

 A.H. 1336. The two Singapore texts are identical in subject- 

 matter, and differ little even verbally. 



Three MSS. of the Hikayat are in the library of the Batavia- 

 asch Genootscliap (Vide van EoiikeFs Catalog us in Deel LVII of 

 the Yerhandelingeri of that Society: pp. 125-127 ). The first two 

 of these MSS., Xos. CXXVII and CXXVIII in the Catalogus, give 

 a version different from the Singapore recension. They make Abu 

 Nawas the son not of a Kathi but of a Penghulu. The manteri is 

 .given a name, that of the famous Luqman'(m& Hughes' "Dictionary 

 of Islam"). On p. 22 of the first MS. there is the story of how 

 Harun a'r-Eashid bade Abu Nawas sew up a broken stone mortar. 

 That MS. is dated 1865 and contains 21 tales. It would appear to 

 be identical with Tjerita Aboe Nawas printed by Albrecht and 

 Eusche in Batavia (3rd edition 1891:), of which I give an outline 

 below. MS. No. CXXVIII is described as " inferior, indecent and 

 incomplete/ 7 in .all of which respects perhaps it resembles the 

 Singapore texts. The third MS., No. CXXIX, was collected by 

 von cler Wall: like the Singapore versions, it makes Abu Nawas 

 the son of a Kathi and omits mention of Luqman. 



Yan Ophuijsen has printed four tales, (which I have numbered 

 (9), (3), (6) and (?) in my summary below of the Singapore 

 Tersion), on pages 25-6, 115-121 and 152-164 of his Eomanized 

 Maleisch Leesboek (Leiden 1912). Ophuijsen does not give the 

 source of his text : slightly better in style and here and there fuller 

 in phrase, it resembles otherwise the Singapore versions very close- 

 ly both in wording and in matter. 



(Here I should like to call the attention of English students 

 to the value of the Eeaders and Bloemlezing edited by so many 

 Dutch scholars as store-houses of fragments selected from un- 

 published Malay MSS.). 



I have printed two tales, numbered (5) and (13) in my sum- 

 mary of the Singapore version, in Pelampas Akal, (pp. 36-37, and 

 63-67) a Eomanized Malay Eeader for Standard III of the 

 Government Malay Schools: Kelly and Walsh, Singapore, 1919. 

 As it is a school-book, I have. emended a few difficulties in the text. 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 81, 1920. 



