The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

REVIEW AHT!CLES 267
was Sultan Maliku'tl-Tahir who was Raja of Pasai. After describing
tbe captive as Raja of Semudra ...._. the annalist suddenly tells us
that Raja Pasai was carried off to Siam. Yet it was Raja Semudra
who was made to tend the palace fowls in Siam. The rescue from
Siam was made by the chief minister of Pasai, yet when they
returned home it was to Semudra that they went!"
Obviously the reason t?at the Sejarah Melayu confused the Rajas
of Semudra and Pasai in this particular episode was simply because there
were two Semudras, one on the Peninsula and th~
other in Sumatra.
Also obviously the royal house of Malacca, for whose benefit the Sejarah
Me!ayu was written, preferred to get their religion from the west through
a fakir sent by the Prophet (may God bless him and give him peace) from
Mecca, rather than from a faker from the land of infidels (may God
curse them and give them hell). I will squeeze just one more drop of
juice from this particular lemon. The first of the three presents that the
Chief Minister of Pasai made to the King of Siam was a tree made of
gold. I would interpret this to mean that when Malikul Saleh the father,
who was a vassal of Siam, quit Semudra on the Peninsula for Pasai and
left his younger son as ruler, the traditional homage of gold and silver
trees sent by vassals at stated intervals were not sent.
This was tantamount
to rebellion, so the King of Siam sent an official to investigate.
The official, Ok~ya Pichai (? A wi Dichu), entered the city and took the
new Raja back to Siam as hostage.
When the Chief Minister followed
with tbe necessary homage, and after explanations had been made, the
captive was set free.
As for the palace fowls, perhaps the King presented
the Raja with a few chickens as a momento of his visit. Siamese fighting
cocks, called syamgooks in the Balinese language, are recognised as the
finest bruise;rs.
Alternatively the Raja might have turned chicken-thief
and pinched a few of tbe fowls under his charge that bad become particularly
attached to him.
But of course· the story might merely mean
that the King of Siam, who was a Buddhist, preferred a Moslem to slit