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id	eprints-37463
recordtype	eprints
institution	SOAS, University of London
collection	SOAS Research Online
language	English
language_search	English
description	This article investigates European collecting of Malay manuscripts during the colonial era to address two inter-related questions: was this collecting instrumental in destroying the Malay manuscript tradition, and are colonial collections accurate representations of Malay manuscript culture? It makes the case that while European intervention was certainly destructive, in fact the majority of Malay-language literary texts survive only in colonial-era collections. It also considers whether colonial collections, precisely because they are high in Malay literary texts and low in Arabic religious texts (known as kitab), are unrepresentative of Malay manuscript culture in the nineteenth century and earlier. Taking Marsden’s seminal collection of Malay manuscripts as its case study, the article provides a fuller account of how this collection was assembled, and traces the individuals known to have acquired manuscripts for Marsden. Newly documented manuscript collections that remain in situ in Indonesia and in Malaysian institutions are discussed as a counterpoint.
format	Journal Article
author	Hijjas, Mulaika
author_facet	Hijjas, Mulaika
authorStr	Hijjas, Mulaika
author_letter	Hijjas, Mulaika
title	Marsden's Malay Manuscripts: Reassessing a Colonial Collection
publisher	Brill
publishDate	2023
url	https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/37463/