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Nicolas: Musical Terms in Malay Literature NSC Working Paper No. 24
Musical Terms in Malay Classical Literature:
The Early Period (14th–17th Century) 1
Arsenio Nicolas
Abstract
From the late 14th century, Malay literati made use of musical references and imageries to
illustrate the music of their time. These attestations of musical terms may be interpreted
as either having been known for a period of time in musical circle or in elite courtly/literary
culture, or as having been newly introduced into the literary language. This study highlights
five linguistic sources of these musical terms: 1) Austronesian; 2) Indic- or Sanskrit-derived,
appearing later than in Old Javanese, Old Balinese, Khmer and Cham; 3) Middle-Eastern; 4)
Javanese (as a product of a long-term contact between Majapahit, Samudra-Pasai and Melaka);
and 5) Austroasiatic (via the Orang Asli of the Malay Peninsula). Here I present and discuss
various lists of musical terms mined from a pool of Classical Malay and Javanese sources, as
well as European and Malay-Indonesian dictionaries. The lists are intended to provide new
materials for the study of the musical history of the Malays and, in general, of Southeast Asia.
Introduction
The history of musical exchanges in the Thai-Malay Peninsula may date back to a
prehistorical period when Neolithic communities started to inhabit the coastal, inland
as well as cave and mountain regions. Subsequent musical developments starting from
the mid-first millennium BCE point to long-term exchanges among the communities in
the peninsula, continuing to the present. This study explores the historical significance of
musical terms mentioned in selected Classical Malay texts that date from the late 14th to
the early 17th century. During this period of transition from a Hindu-Buddhist culture
to an Islamic culture among the Malays, Indic (predominantly Sanskrit), Middle Eastern,
and Malay musical terms were referred to in various texts and in various contexts. Of
particular interest is the entry of Sanskrit musical terms in the literary lexicon, which
raises two questions—one, their sources and origins, and two, whether these musical
instruments with Sanskrit names were indeed part of the musical heritage of the Malay
courts and society during this period. In this regard, literary evidence cannot be taken as
1 I am deeply thankful to the Institut Bahasa, Kesusasteraan dan Kebudayaan Melayu (IBKKM, Institute
of Malay Language, Literature and Culture), now Institut Alam dan Tamadun Melayu (ATMA, Institute
of the Malay World and Civilization) at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) in Bangi, which
granted me a Karyawan Tamu Research Fellowship in 1989–91, during which time I worked on this study.
I sincerely thank with much appreciation and gratitude the Nalanda Sriwijaya Centre at ISEAS–Yusof
Ishak Institute for the publication of this article. I am also grateful to the editors of this Working Papers
Series: Terence Chong (Head, NSC), Nicholas Chan Wai Yeap, Helene Njoto, and especially Andrea Acri,
who invited me to submit this paper.
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