Chronicle
Marong Mahawangsa: The Kedah Annals
Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa
Anonymous · 1800
Synopsis
Merong Mahawangsa, a king who descends, says the chronicle, from the conqueror Dhu al-Qarnayn, leaves Rome for China; on the way, the fabulous bird Garuda attacks his fleet, and he lands on the coast of present-day Kedah, where he founds the kingdom of Langkasuka. His sons then divide the country, and the chronicle follows their descendants from legend to legend, among them the cruel Raja Bersiong, the king with fangs.
Context
The chronicle was probably composed in the last years of the eighteenth century or in the nineteenth. Like other Malay dynastic histories, it mixes fact and the marvellous to found the line of the rulers of Kedah, which it traces back to Antiquity. James Low published an English translation in 1849, reissued in 2012. A study by UiTM distinguishes the marvellous episodes, such as the child born from a bamboo, from what archaeology confirms about ancient Kedah. The story inspired a film about Raja Bersiong in 1968 and an adventure film in 2011.
Who it is for
A short, marvellous narrative, which reads as a legend rather than as a history; it exists in English, but no French translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
A founding chronicle of the sultanate of Kedah, translated into English as early as 1849 and adapted twice for the cinema.