Tumasik or Old Singapore

Author(s): R. O. Winstedt
Source: Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 42, No. 1 (215),
Singapore 150th Anniversary Commemorative Issue (July, 1969), pp. 5-9
Published by: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41491958
Accessed: 18-05-2017 08:58 UTC

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 Tumasik or Old Singapore
by R. O. WlNSTEDT

Extract from A History of Malaya, published in the Journal as

Part 1 of Volume 13, 1935 .

Just as Indian trade led to the rise of Kedah and other Malay States of
the north, so China trade brought into being ancient Singapore, de Barros
writing in 1553 relates that it was the resort not only of Indian shipping but
of traders from China, Siam, Champa, Cambodia and the Malay Archipelago.
Its modern importance, its claim to have been the first kingdom of the founder
of Malacca and the folk- tales associated with it in the Malay Annals have
given the port kingdom a particular glamour and prominence, although the older
and more important kingdoms lay in the north of the Peninsula. It was
important enough in the the fourteenth century to provide territorial titles for
two non-resident Majapahit "princesses of Singapore," one unnamed, one named
Sri Wardhanadewi. Writing in 1557 from his fathers notes the bastard son
of the great Albuquerque records "it was a large and populous town, as is
attested by the great ruins visible still today." Crawfurd, Resident of Singapore
from 1823 to 1826, traced the remains of its ancient boundaries: in front, the
sea, at the back the Hill Tabu, now Fort Canning; on the west the Singapore
river; on the east an earth wall sixteen feet broad at the base and eight or
nine feet high running along the Bras Basah river. Roughly the walled port
ran a mile inland and was just over half a mile broad.
It has been sought to identify ancient Singapore with I-tsing's (690 A.D.)
"Mo-ho-sin," the "Hasin" or "Salt-Sea State" of an eleventh-century Javanese
inscription, though it is almost certain that "Hasin" was in Java. Ibn Khord-
adzbeh (844-8) after mentioning Kilah or Kedah refers to Salahit or Slat , the
Malay word for Straits, which vague description has been taken to denote
the south of the Peninsula: certainly to this day it is a name for Singapore.
Attempts to connect Marco Polo's Malayur with Singapore have hitherto not
been accepted, though the latest translation from a revised text has already
started a fresh effort and the problem must again receive the attention of
geographers. "Not far from Pentan," that is Bintan or Bintang, south of
Singapore, "there are two other islands .... Proceed between these two islands

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R. O. Winstedt JMBRAS, Vol. 42

Fig. 12. Plan of Ancient Singapore

for 60 miles. The water is only about f

they pass through, must haul up their ru
paces of water. After those sixty miles
30 miles; then one reaches an island t
capital are called Malaiur. They have a
The city is very large and noble. There
other wares. For there is great abunda
the last sentence perhaps confusing the w
of the land. Older versions read agai
impossible for the new direction, if accu
Jambi was as Malayu from the time of
Kertanagara (1286), but the new direc
passage northwards from Bintan betw
with a tack back from the Carimons to
Jambi, also, is called Malayur in the Tanj
lived on a hill much like Fort Canning
of Singapore lived: the Jambi hill is ab
between the Batang Hari river and a tr
to be a combination of two Tamil words
puzzling about two or three similar hill-

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Part 1, 1969 Tumasik or Old Singapore

day there is a Malayu River with a hill sixty-five f

the south coast of Johor. There is also a Kampong
river. There are innumerable places called Bandar m
is a Sri Menanti in Johor and another in Negri Sem
places called Kota Baharu, the New Fort, while in Po
a hybrid Sanskrit-Portuguese place-name, Kota Ka
both in Riau and up the Johor river. Meaning perhaps
term Malayu came to be descriptive of any spot wh
newcomers, just as Kampong Acheh is a name for man
So Malayur could be applied to Jambi and Singapore
than Jambi, Singapore and Johor would fit the Ma-
the Yuan dynasty, where under 1295 it is related
strife between the Siamese and the Ma-li-yu-eul, an
adjured the Siamese to keep their promise not to h
records associate Kertanagara, king of Tumapel, with S
long campaign, which by 1286 made him victorious
namely the Jambi that had usurped the empire
suzerainty over the island port implied in his recorded
which sometimes signified for Majapahit the Mala
having intrigued with the invading forces of Kublai K
over Tumapel and is less than a century took Tumasik,
The historian makes a sure land-fall at last when he comes to this fourteenth
century Tumasik, so-called by Wang Ta-Yuan in 1349 and in the Malay Annals
- probably anachronistically as having been "visited" by a Chola king after
his conquest of Lenggiu on a tributary of the Johor river in the eleventh
century! The history of ancient Singapore in those same annals is unfortunately
only a hotch-potch of myths and tradition. The annalist gives a dynasty of
five kings. The progenitor of the line bears the name of Sang Sapurba after
a nymph of Indra's heaven, perhaps a corruption of Prabhu. a fourteenth
century title of Majapahit princes; but criticism is hardly concerned with a
male nymph who was credited with being the founder of the royal house of
old Palembang and at the same time the son of Raja Suran, the Chola invader
of the Xlth century! As ruler of Palembang he styled himself Trimurti Tri-
buana! A son of his with the name of another nymph, Nila Utama, married
the daughter of a Permaisuri queen of Bentan, and descrying Tumasik from
a tall cliff, while hunting deer, crossed over, became its first king and changed
its name to Singapura, styling himself Batara Sri Tribuana. The style Tribuana
was best known as that of a queen of Majapahit (1329-50) but may refer to
the three kings of Sri Vijaya to whom the Ming chronicles allude. The last
king but one of Singapore is given the old Sri Vijaya title of Sri Maharaja,

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R. O. Winstedt JMBRAS, Vol. 42

while the last of all is credited with the M

because Sumatran folklore connected wi
Sailendra dynasty, and as the Malay rul
those Sailendras, they also must have be
must have been the Macedonian conqueror
saw the coming of Islam; and according to
it; so tradition slipped an Iskandar into
plausible place, the only possible place
historical rulers of Malacca. So much for
Wang Ta-Yuan, the Chinese trader w
picture. He tells of what reads like Kep
two hills of the Tan-ma-hsi barbarians
hot rainy climate, a land of poor soil and
were loot from the Chu'an-Chou trader
Western sea, these people let them pas
back they have reached Carimon island,
armour and padded screens to protect the
certainty two or three hundred pirate
people lived mixed up among the Chin
digging the ground found a bejewelled
moon, the chief wearing this cap and put
the congratulations of the people. At the
presents among themselves (like the Ch
up their hair in a chignon and wore "a
tied round them." Just before 1349, th
closed its gates and successfully resisted
for a month, until the appearance of a
withdraw. Albuquerque declares it wa
Two decades or less after its repulse o
was sacked by Majapahit. A Javanese histo
Gajah Mada, a famous minister of Majap
dish until he had subdued ten countrie
Tumasik. As we have seen, in 1365 the Nag
places Tumasik as subject to Majapahit. M
conquest of Sri Vijaya before 1377. It r
kings of Sri Vijaya, the Maharaja of Pal
a third whose name defies interpretatio
died and was succeeded by his son Maha
throne without the authority of the C

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Part 1, 1969, Tumasik or Old Singapore

gave a seal but the Javanese who had already conquere

and killed the imperial envoys. Can Tan-ma-sa-na-ho b
Tumasik?

An inscription in Majapahit script of the fourteenth

stood at the mouth of the Singapore river and might have
on the island's history, was blown to fragments by the
ment a hundred years ago. One undecipherable fragment p
Museum is all that is left of old Singapore except a pair of
gold bracelets and other gold ornaments of the same c
root of a tree on Fort Canning, the Hill Tabu, where
reputed to have lived. The Malay Annals ascribe the fal
treachery of a chief aggrieved at the cruelty of a sens
granaries of a port dependent on imports were empty,
to come and one dawn opened a gate for their onset. Th
soil of the Hill Tabu has given rise to the story that it
its Javanese invaders. But if the defenders were indeed m
must have been due to desperate courage; for behind them
into which they could have filtered like minnows and
escape to Seletar on the east of the island and thence t

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