From Cik Candra to Tengku Zamzam: snapshots of personal libraries from Kedah and environs in the 19th and 20th centuries
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article identifies and analyses two distinct ‘snapshots’ of manuscripts traceable to Kedah and the surrounding areas: the manuscripts collected by Raffles, Leyden, and others in the early 19th century, and those collected by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Bureau for Language and Literature) in the mid 20th century. These two collections show continuities in the kinds of people who owned and copied texts, in the practices of copying and borrowing, as well as in the genres represented, with literary texts prominent in both. Comparison with the genre profile of a collection assembled later in the 20th century, that of Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia (National Library of Malaysia), indicates that there were far fewer literary manuscripts available to collect then. This in turn suggests a different pattern of survival for literary as opposed to religious manuscripts.
Source: Archipel
DOI: 10.4000/15d9i
Author: Mulaika Hijjas
Institution: SOAS University of London
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Leverhulme Trust
OpenAlex ID: W4417429573
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