The Hikayat Indraputra, or adventures of Indraputra, is a fine example of traditional Malay story-telling, in the form of the prose hikayat. It follows the hero through the fantastic realms of jinns and demigods where he wins the hands of beautiful princesses and obtains magic stones to aid him in his battles. It is a tale that is well-known and must long have been popular among he Malay-speaking peoples, to judge from the large number of manuscripts that have survived. Dr. Mulyadi presents the complete Malay text, according to the reading of a manuscript dating from 1700 and now kept in the collection of the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology, Leiden. She also gives a very full English rendering of the story, and enough background information to provide a sound basic for further literary analysis. There is ample material here for the student of folklore, as well as those interested in the problems of Malay philology. This work represents a further step forward in the study of traditional Indonesian literatures, hence its place in the series Bibliotheca Indonesica, which aims to make texts in critical editions accessible to a wider public.

'If not now, when?' Hillel, Pirke Avot, I 14. The text edition which I hereby submit to the reader has been my constant companion for much of the last nine odd years. But the relative stability of my main preoccupation contrasted sharply with my wanderings during this same span of time. In fact, for most of it I was more or less constantly on the move, trekking from the Nether lands to Australia and back again, then to the United States, with three excursioru; to Indonesia. On all these trips I carried my notes and kept working on this project, the conclusion of which continued to elude me. Even today I can hardly believe it is allover - and in fact it is not, as this volume will soon be followed by a companion containing a shortened English translation and dealing in much greater detail with the relationship between the Malay Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah, its Persian source and Muslim literature in general. I sincerely regret that technical and financial considerations have combined to make inclusion of the apparatus criticus in this edition impossible. A limited number of copies of this apparatus are avail able on personal application either direct from the author (C/o the Indonesian Department, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia), or from the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Stationsplein 10, Leiden, the Netherlands.

Texts about the nocturnal journey of the Prophet Muḥammad (Mi‘rāj) abound in the Muslim world and outside. International attention has never been afforded to any version of text in any language of the Indonesian archipelago. One old version of the text from the area, the Malay Hikayat Mir’āj Nabi Muḥammad is presented here in Malay and English translation. The introductory chapters place the text in a wider context in Indonesian literatures while the manuscript of the text (Cod.Or. Leiden 1713) is described in detail. The text and translation purport to enhance interest in this important text in the Muslim world as seen from the Malay/Indonesian perspective.

In this travel-diary Ahmad Rijaluddin recorded his impressions of a visit to Calcutta in 1810. Although the hikayat purports to give a description of negeri Benggala, the author focuses on Calcutta's government House. He is fascinated by the might and majesty of Raya Benggala. Ahmad's description is on the whole realistic and not without its humor, yet his style is conventional and reveals little of the writer's personality.

The stimulus for the joint venture of which the present book is the visible result was provided by the discovery of a Malay manuscript of the long lost Hikayat Patani by one of the authors, and the publication, quite independently, of a Thai version of the same text by the other. The authors, who were not acquainted with one another before this, "found" each other at the suggestion of Professor O. W. Wolters, to whom they are grateful for the idea. The preparation of the book took place on both sides of the Atlantic, with a frequent exchange of letters containing the results of the work of each author. In August, 1969, Teeuw was given the opportunity to visit Cornell University, where in a fortnight's most intensive contact and concentrated research all the drafts were checked, supplemented, rewritten and improved, and the definitive arrangement of the book decided on. The work on the manuscript was completed in the following four months, again in geographically separated spheres. The actual manuscript was rounded off at the beginning of 1970.

Sekalipun sering dianggap sebagai karya pertama sastera klasik Melayu oleh kaum sarjana yang meminati ilmu pengajian Melayu, dan tela’ah demi tela’ah telah dilakukan terhadapnya sejak pertengahan abad ke-19, namun Hikayat Raja Pasai, belum pernah dikaji secara mendalam oleh sejarawan. Penerbitan edisi terbaru karya yang melakar zaman awal kedatangan Islam di Sumatera Utara oleh Prof. Emeritus Datuk Dr. Ahmat Adam ini adalah percubaan terkini beliau untuk mengetengahkan beberapa tafsiran baru mengenai karya klasik Melayu yang belum pernah diungkapkan oleh mana-mana kajian; satu daripadanya ialah aspek tasawuf di dalam karya itu.

Karya ini sekali lagi mempamerkan keberanian pengarangnya dalam memberikan tafsiran baru terhadap satu lagi karya klasik agung orang Melayu. Kali ini dengan menggunakan kaedah filologi, Prof. Emeritus Datuk Dr. Ahmat Adam secara kritis telah membedah isi kandungan sebuah hikayat yang selama lebih daripada dua abad ternyata salah dibaca dan silap ditransliterasikan ke huruf Rumi oleh para pengkaji Orientalis dan tempatan. Kesalahan zaman-berzaman ini jugalah yang menjadikan hikayat yang masyhur ini telah silap ditafsirkan bukan sahaja dari segi penyebutan nama gelaran Laksamana Melaka yang sebenar, tetapi juga dari segi isi kandungan yang menceritakan petualangan Laksamana yang masyhur itu. Yang menjadi lebih parah lagi ialah selepas kisah legendaris Laksamana itu diceriterakan oleh pengarang Sulalat u’s-Salatin, kisah pengembaraannya yang dilukiskan di dalam Hikayat Hang Tuha telah mempengaruhi pemikiran sebahagian anggota masyarakat dan dipercayai oleh mereka itu sebagai kisah yang benar-benar terjadi dalam sejarah Melaka. Melalui kajian ini pengarang cuba mengajak pembaca agar menilai sendiri karya sastera yang berlatarkan sejarah ini, dan cuba berfikir secara kritis untuk membezakannya dengan sebuah karya sejarah yang lebih tulen mengenai kesultanan Melaka dan Laksamana yang benar-benar wujud pada zaman abad ke-15 dan ke-16.