An Easy at Dating and Description of a Malay Manuscript

Abstract

This paper sets out to establish the feasibility of dating Malay manuscripts by careful investigation, and at the same time attempts to provide a model of a manuscript description. Amongst the physical characteristics of the codex examined are the binding, the paper and the watermarks; the circumstantial evidence includes the dates between which it could have been acquired by the scholar in whose collection it is to be found, and touches on the early history of Penang; internal evidence includes a date given by the copyist. In conclusion the paper mentions the desirability that scholars who are obliged to work from microfilm copies of manuscripts should also be provided with a proper description of the manuscript itself to aid them in their research.