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CHAPTER II
MAN AND HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE
(a) Creation of Man
A COMMON feature in Malay romances and legends
is a description of the supernatural development of a
young child in the interior of some vegetable production,
usually a bamboo.
Sir W. E. Maxwell has pointed out the fact of the
existence, both in Malay and Japanese legends, of the
main features of this story, to which he assigns a
Buddhistic origin.
He tells the story as follows :
" The Raja of the Bamboo. Some years ago I
collected a number of legends current among Malayan
tribes having as their principal incident the supernatural
development of a prince, princess, or demi-god in the
stem of a bamboo, or tree, or the interior of some
closed receptacle. 1
I omitted, however, to mention
that this very characteristic Malay myth occurs in the
" Sri Rama," a Malay prose hikayat? which, as its
1
JournaloJ'the Royal Asiatic incarnated from the hollow Society', part of a
N.S. vol. xiii. part iv. Cp. also the note bamboo." See also J.R.A.S., S.B.,
to page 8 supra, in which the Golden No. 9, p. 91.
Dragon is made to say, "I have 2
Hikayat ; i.e. "romance."
neither father nor mother, but I was