WHILE many believe some ruined forts in Kedah belonged to Raja Bersiong, and that an altar at Sungai Batu Pahat in Merbok was where his victims were killed, there is no archaeological evidence for any of it.
The Bujang Valley, a sprawling 224sq km area stretching from Merbok to Sungai Muda, is filled with hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist candi (temples), signifying a vibrant entrepot spanning more than a millennium between the third and 14th centuries before the Malaccan Sultanate emerged.
Merchants from China, India and Arabia traded ceramics, glass beads, spices, and aromatic woods for the locals’ repair services and forest products.
These temples are built using imported materials and technology -- terracotta, laterite and granite bricks cemented together using a mixture of eggs and honey (though the merchants soon found more cost-effective material in sugarcane molasses instead).
The area forms a historical complex at the Lembah Bujang Archeological Museum. These candis were unearthed from various areas in the Merbok area and reconstructed at the museum.
One archaeologist, who wishes to remain anonymous, suggests that Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was contemporaneous with that period in Lembah Bujang, but archaeology has not so far corroborated the stories in that document.
He says the locals were experts in timber structures, which would not stand the test of time as long as the terracotta, granite, and laterite temples of Lembah Bujang.
"It is difficult to prove the existence of the kings mentioned in Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa based on Lembah Bujang archeological find," he said.
The lack of written evidence also suggests that Lembah Bujang was not so much a city as an international trading hub.
Kedah and Perlis National Archive director Shafie Awang says there was no known correspondence between the ancient Kedah kingdom with others before the 17th century.
“Papers, unless kept in a controlled humidity and temperature, naturally decay,” he said.
At present, the oldest documents archived in Malaysia are letters by Sultan Abdul Hamid from 1882 to 1943, recognised by Unesco on its Memory of World Register.
“We are continuously looking for ancient documents on ancient Kedah history,” Shafie said.
The historians have made a firm stand that Raja Besiong is but a character from an epic and a story adored by romantics, but many Kedahans believed the king’s blood runs in its people.
At her food stall tucked away in a village between Bukit Selambau and Jeniang, Mak Chu (not her real name) wipes her hands on her apron and bends down behind her counter to extract out a tightly rolled piece of paper.
It is a genealogy chart filling the breadth of ten sheets of A4 paper taped together.
“I am the seventh generation of Raja Bersiong,” said Mak Chu proudly.
Raja Besiong had at least two wives, she explains: a Malay and a Pattani. Mak Chu’s father was descended from the Malay lineage, and had travelled to Pattani as a trader.
There he had married another descendant of Raja Bersiong, of the Pattani lineage. Years later, they moved back to Kedah and raised the Fanged King’s seventh generation.
When war broke out between Kedah and Siam in 1821, the princes of various lineages fought over the throne. Those not favoured were hunted down, and their families retreated deep into the hinterlnd of Kedah, discarding their titles to live as commoners.
Mak Chu said they still feared repercussions if the truth be told. “It is not true that Raja Bersiong is a myth,” she said. “He was once the ruler of Kedah.”
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This is the final of a four-part series.
NST pictures by Syaharim Abidin and Shahrizal Md Noor
Showing posts with label Kedah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kedah. Show all posts
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Fanged King: Part 3
HIKAYAT Merong Mahawangsa, a historical epic of the Kedah rulers commissioned during the reign of Sultan Rijaluddin Muhammad Shah (1625-1651), has a chapter on Raja Besiong.
According to the epic, Merong Mahawangsa, the first ruler of Kedah, sent his four children to open new kingdoms. The eldest was crowned Raja Siam; the second prince shot a silver arrow and became Raja Perak; the third, a princess, became Raja Pattani; the youngest, Raja Seri Inderawangsa, lived with Merong Mahawangsa in Kedah.
When Raja Seri Inderawangsa ascended the throne he married a “gergasi” or “ogre” princess, against his father’s wishes. The Kedah History Association’s Datuk Dr Wan Shamsuddin Yusof speculates that she might have been an aboriginal woman.
They bore a son, Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria, who is named in the epic as “Raja Besiong” (translated from Jawi script without the “r”). “The book described him from young as ‘kahar’ (a rogue) and he never outgrew that even when he became the ruler and took a Malay wife,” Wan Shamsuddin said.
“When he was asked to quit killing people for their blood, he shrugged them off saying that the spinach broth was simply too delicious to quit.”
The Al-Tarikh Salasilah Negeri Kedah by Muhammad Hassan bin Dato' Kerani Muhammad Arshad, published in 1927, is more “historical” than the magical realism of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (which, in Chapter Two, describes Raja Kampar transforming himself into a tusked wild boar, a venomous black cobra, and a ferocious tiger).
The Salasilah names the first ruler of Kedah as Maharaja Durbar Raja I, but concerns itself with nothing earlier than the ninth ruler, Maharaja Durbar Raja II, who embraced Islam and called himself Sultan Muzaffar Shah I (1136-1179).
Philologist Datuk Dr Professor Siti Hawa Salleh, who has done a comparative study on Kedah history and Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, said it was almost impossible to prove or disprove the existence of Raja Besiong.
“Can anyone prove Raja Besiong did not exist? On the other hand, can anyone prove he existed? I doubt it.”
Although Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was written in an epic style and filled with romance, magic and adventure, the writing is based on ancient Kedah history as far back as the second century.
“There are many things that we do not know about the Kedah ancient history,” Siti Hawa said. “Even the al-Tarikh cannot date the first Kedah king.”
Siti Hawa said much remained unknown of ancient Kedah history, especially on the lifestyle and culture of the people. “Perhaps the killings were influenced by an ancient sect where human sacrifice was an important holy ritual.”
Such rituals, she explained, are described in an old text, Maha Sutasoma. A young person would be sacrificed on an altar. A monk would stab the heart with a dagger, and the blood was collected and drunk. The heart was cut out and eaten by the person who wished to be purified.
Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, although an important text, is not readily available in bookstores. The copies available at Yayasan Karyawan are leather-bound collectors’ editions.
The Kedah Public Library Council has a collection of rare editions of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa by Pustaka Antara 1965 with a preface by Arenawati. There is also the University Malaysa Press 1968 edition compiled by Siti Hawa Salleh, and a 1898 stone imprint photocopy of R.J. Wilkinson’s compilation of the handwritten Jawi by Muhammad Yusuf Nasru’l-din.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the third of a four-part series. Watch out for Part Four tomorrow.
NST pictures by Syaharim Abidin and Shahrizal Md Noor
According to the epic, Merong Mahawangsa, the first ruler of Kedah, sent his four children to open new kingdoms. The eldest was crowned Raja Siam; the second prince shot a silver arrow and became Raja Perak; the third, a princess, became Raja Pattani; the youngest, Raja Seri Inderawangsa, lived with Merong Mahawangsa in Kedah.
When Raja Seri Inderawangsa ascended the throne he married a “gergasi” or “ogre” princess, against his father’s wishes. The Kedah History Association’s Datuk Dr Wan Shamsuddin Yusof speculates that she might have been an aboriginal woman.
They bore a son, Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria, who is named in the epic as “Raja Besiong” (translated from Jawi script without the “r”). “The book described him from young as ‘kahar’ (a rogue) and he never outgrew that even when he became the ruler and took a Malay wife,” Wan Shamsuddin said.
“When he was asked to quit killing people for their blood, he shrugged them off saying that the spinach broth was simply too delicious to quit.”
The Al-Tarikh Salasilah Negeri Kedah by Muhammad Hassan bin Dato' Kerani Muhammad Arshad, published in 1927, is more “historical” than the magical realism of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (which, in Chapter Two, describes Raja Kampar transforming himself into a tusked wild boar, a venomous black cobra, and a ferocious tiger).
The Salasilah names the first ruler of Kedah as Maharaja Durbar Raja I, but concerns itself with nothing earlier than the ninth ruler, Maharaja Durbar Raja II, who embraced Islam and called himself Sultan Muzaffar Shah I (1136-1179).
Philologist Datuk Dr Professor Siti Hawa Salleh, who has done a comparative study on Kedah history and Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, said it was almost impossible to prove or disprove the existence of Raja Besiong.
“Can anyone prove Raja Besiong did not exist? On the other hand, can anyone prove he existed? I doubt it.”
Although Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was written in an epic style and filled with romance, magic and adventure, the writing is based on ancient Kedah history as far back as the second century.
“There are many things that we do not know about the Kedah ancient history,” Siti Hawa said. “Even the al-Tarikh cannot date the first Kedah king.”
Siti Hawa said much remained unknown of ancient Kedah history, especially on the lifestyle and culture of the people. “Perhaps the killings were influenced by an ancient sect where human sacrifice was an important holy ritual.”
Such rituals, she explained, are described in an old text, Maha Sutasoma. A young person would be sacrificed on an altar. A monk would stab the heart with a dagger, and the blood was collected and drunk. The heart was cut out and eaten by the person who wished to be purified.
Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, although an important text, is not readily available in bookstores. The copies available at Yayasan Karyawan are leather-bound collectors’ editions.
The Kedah Public Library Council has a collection of rare editions of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa by Pustaka Antara 1965 with a preface by Arenawati. There is also the University Malaysa Press 1968 edition compiled by Siti Hawa Salleh, and a 1898 stone imprint photocopy of R.J. Wilkinson’s compilation of the handwritten Jawi by Muhammad Yusuf Nasru’l-din.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the third of a four-part series. Watch out for Part Four tomorrow.
NST pictures by Syaharim Abidin and Shahrizal Md Noor
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Fanged King: Part 1
It begins very much like any other folklore, but the story of Raja Besiong, the tyrant king who drinks human blood, is entwined in myth and fact. Told in one of the oldest Kedah historical writings, Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, many believe Raja Besiong once ruled the region. SITI NURBAIYAH NADZMI retraces the facts and fiction of the Fanged King.
This is the story of Raja Besiong told to me by my great-grandmother in Tanjung Dawai:
A LONG, long time ago, there lived a prince whose father was a great ruler of Kedah. He was handsome, strong and a skilled hunter.
Sadly, the prince did not take after his parents' fair and kind traits. He was a spoilt and haughty youth, and a rogue even after he became king.
One day, the prince complained to his ministers of a nagging toothache in his upper jaw. A few days later, a pair of long pointed teeth emerged. Since then he was known as Raja Besiong, the Fanged King.
Raja Besiong was a cruel and merciless ruler. Those caught committing crimes, however minor, were severely punished.
One day, a cook cut her finger while preparing Raja Besiong’s favourite spinach broth, and her blood dripped into the dish. She didn’t have time to prepare another pot, so the tainted dish was served to the king.
Raja Besiong immediately tasted the difference. In fact, he found it exceptionally delicious. He finished the broth to its last drop and summoned the cook. He unsheathed his keris and held it to the terrified woman’s neck, forcing her to explain the alien ingredient added to the broth. She told him about the cut on her finger and how the blood had accidentally dripped into the pot.
He spared her, but from that day on ordered a criminal to be executed every day so that he could have blood for his broth.
Raja Besiong’s ministers begged him to stop these killings, but he refused to listen and challenged them to dethrone him. War broke out, and the kingdom was in chaos. Outnumbered, the king fled.
In exile, Raja Besiong repented his bloodthirsty habit, but it was too late. He was captured, and his fangs were forcefully extracted and flung out to sea.
They fell near Tanjung Dawai and became an island. A prison was built there to hold the king, who night after night wailed in pain and asked to be forgiven. No one took pity on him.
Raja Besiong’s grief moved the island to float closer to the land he once ruled, and in time it merged with the mainland to become Bukit Penjara.
Raja Besiong was left in the prison to suffer but it is not known how he died.
Until today, on quiet nights, fishermen off Bukit Penjara say they can still hear Raja Besiong wailing from the prison.
Quite extraordinary, but the story of Raja Besiong, as how the Kedahans would refer him, has many versions.
AHMAD Abdul Rahman or Tok Wan, bare-chested with his threadbare Pagoda singlet slung over his shoulder, grinned toothlessly.
“Raja Besiong?” said the 85-year-old man, in his melodious Pattani Malay accent. “It is a long story… but it’s wrong!”
We were at his house in Kampung Carok Kapas, Kuala Pegang, about 40km from Baling, Kedah, and Tok Wan would tell us the story of Raja Besiong as it had once been told to him by two storytellers from Selama, Perak.
Making himself comfortable, Tok Wan picked up the story from the time when the Fanged King had ignored the pleas of his queen and senior ministers, and had had to flee the revolt of his ministers against his murderous addiction to blood.
Raja Besiong (the storytellers had told Tok Wan) had retreated from his palace in Kota Aur through Kupang and Baling. Finally routed near Sik, he fled alone to Pattani.
There he sought refuge at a farmer’s house, and ended up getting his daughter pregnant. (“They don’t like this part,” chuckled Tok Wan. “It defames the kings.”)
The farmer, Tok Golok, had returned from his orchard to find his daughter crying. “Don’t cry,” the farmer said to his daughter. “Tell me what happened. What did he do?”
“He did like what mum and dad do,” said the girl.
A handsome child was born of that union, and news spread that a king in exile was living over the Pattani border.
The queen and her loyal ministers sent troops to capture the king. “They found him at Tok Golok’s orchard,” said Tok Wan, “and they put him in a lidded cauldron and paraded him back to Bukit Penjara (near Pantai Merdeka) in the most degrading way.”
They imprisoned him in the same secret underground chamber where his victims were killed for their blood.
Tok Wan’s version of the story ended much better for Raja Besiong’s son with the farmer’s daughter.
While the fugitive king was being hunted captured, and thrown in prison, in Ayutthaya in Siam a royal soothsayer had told the court that Raja Besiong had sired an heir.
“The Tok Nujum Siam asked for the White Elephant to be bathed in preparation to invest the prince regent from his humble abode to the Kota Aur in Kedah.”
So while the father had been borne home in a curry cauldron, the son was hailed on a sacred albino elephant as Kedah’s next king, and his mother was invited by the queen to live in the palace.
And all but Raja Besiong seemed to live happily ever after.
Did he die in the secret chamber? Tok Wan shook his head. “He disappeared.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the first of a four-part series. Watch out for Part Two tomorrow.
NST pictures by Syaharim Abidin and Shahrizal Md Noor
This is the story of Raja Besiong told to me by my great-grandmother in Tanjung Dawai:
A LONG, long time ago, there lived a prince whose father was a great ruler of Kedah. He was handsome, strong and a skilled hunter.
Sadly, the prince did not take after his parents' fair and kind traits. He was a spoilt and haughty youth, and a rogue even after he became king.
One day, the prince complained to his ministers of a nagging toothache in his upper jaw. A few days later, a pair of long pointed teeth emerged. Since then he was known as Raja Besiong, the Fanged King.
Raja Besiong was a cruel and merciless ruler. Those caught committing crimes, however minor, were severely punished.
One day, a cook cut her finger while preparing Raja Besiong’s favourite spinach broth, and her blood dripped into the dish. She didn’t have time to prepare another pot, so the tainted dish was served to the king.
Raja Besiong immediately tasted the difference. In fact, he found it exceptionally delicious. He finished the broth to its last drop and summoned the cook. He unsheathed his keris and held it to the terrified woman’s neck, forcing her to explain the alien ingredient added to the broth. She told him about the cut on her finger and how the blood had accidentally dripped into the pot.
He spared her, but from that day on ordered a criminal to be executed every day so that he could have blood for his broth.
Raja Besiong’s ministers begged him to stop these killings, but he refused to listen and challenged them to dethrone him. War broke out, and the kingdom was in chaos. Outnumbered, the king fled.
In exile, Raja Besiong repented his bloodthirsty habit, but it was too late. He was captured, and his fangs were forcefully extracted and flung out to sea.
They fell near Tanjung Dawai and became an island. A prison was built there to hold the king, who night after night wailed in pain and asked to be forgiven. No one took pity on him.
Raja Besiong’s grief moved the island to float closer to the land he once ruled, and in time it merged with the mainland to become Bukit Penjara.
Raja Besiong was left in the prison to suffer but it is not known how he died.
Until today, on quiet nights, fishermen off Bukit Penjara say they can still hear Raja Besiong wailing from the prison.
Quite extraordinary, but the story of Raja Besiong, as how the Kedahans would refer him, has many versions.
AHMAD Abdul Rahman or Tok Wan, bare-chested with his threadbare Pagoda singlet slung over his shoulder, grinned toothlessly.
“Raja Besiong?” said the 85-year-old man, in his melodious Pattani Malay accent. “It is a long story… but it’s wrong!”
We were at his house in Kampung Carok Kapas, Kuala Pegang, about 40km from Baling, Kedah, and Tok Wan would tell us the story of Raja Besiong as it had once been told to him by two storytellers from Selama, Perak.
Making himself comfortable, Tok Wan picked up the story from the time when the Fanged King had ignored the pleas of his queen and senior ministers, and had had to flee the revolt of his ministers against his murderous addiction to blood.
Raja Besiong (the storytellers had told Tok Wan) had retreated from his palace in Kota Aur through Kupang and Baling. Finally routed near Sik, he fled alone to Pattani.
There he sought refuge at a farmer’s house, and ended up getting his daughter pregnant. (“They don’t like this part,” chuckled Tok Wan. “It defames the kings.”)
The farmer, Tok Golok, had returned from his orchard to find his daughter crying. “Don’t cry,” the farmer said to his daughter. “Tell me what happened. What did he do?”
“He did like what mum and dad do,” said the girl.
A handsome child was born of that union, and news spread that a king in exile was living over the Pattani border.
The queen and her loyal ministers sent troops to capture the king. “They found him at Tok Golok’s orchard,” said Tok Wan, “and they put him in a lidded cauldron and paraded him back to Bukit Penjara (near Pantai Merdeka) in the most degrading way.”
They imprisoned him in the same secret underground chamber where his victims were killed for their blood.
Tok Wan’s version of the story ended much better for Raja Besiong’s son with the farmer’s daughter.
While the fugitive king was being hunted captured, and thrown in prison, in Ayutthaya in Siam a royal soothsayer had told the court that Raja Besiong had sired an heir.
“The Tok Nujum Siam asked for the White Elephant to be bathed in preparation to invest the prince regent from his humble abode to the Kota Aur in Kedah.”
So while the father had been borne home in a curry cauldron, the son was hailed on a sacred albino elephant as Kedah’s next king, and his mother was invited by the queen to live in the palace.
And all but Raja Besiong seemed to live happily ever after.
Did he die in the secret chamber? Tok Wan shook his head. “He disappeared.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the first of a four-part series. Watch out for Part Two tomorrow.
NST pictures by Syaharim Abidin and Shahrizal Md Noor
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