Where are the Palembang Kraton manuscripts? Trajectories of a royal library
The role of Malay royal courts as patrons of manuscript production has been deemed to be prominent, but the collections of manuscripts they housed have been very little known to scholarship. Through the case of the Palembang Sultanate in Sumatra, I investigate the extant manuscripts originating from...
Enregistré dans:
| Udgivet i: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/archipel, |
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| Hovedforfatter: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprog: | Anglais |
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Archipel
2025
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| Online adgang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Summary: | The role of Malay royal courts as patrons of manuscript production has been deemed to be prominent, but the collections of manuscripts they housed have been very little known to scholarship. Through the case of the Palembang Sultanate in Sumatra, I investigate the extant manuscripts originating from the palace library. Some moved into the hands of private owners in Palembang, while others were dispersed into colonial collections in Europe and Southeast Asia. Harking back to the early formation of the royal collection in the 17th century and its destruction upon the British and Dutch attacks in the early 19th century, this reconstruction of the collection uses the royal library as a viewpoint through which to understand the impacts of colonialism on manuscript traditions in the region, and to situate Palembang intellectual culture within regional and interregional scholarly networks. |
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