Thread by @uglyluhan

After seeing a video on Tiktok, my friend asked me about the giant serpent of Kedah mythology. Though a few older folks have some vague recollection of a legendary big snake in Kedah, the tale itself is forgotten in modern #MalayFolklore

As far as I know, the story has only been recorded by Sherard Osborn who heard it from a Batak boatswain in the 19th century. The significance of this legend will become apparent as we go on

The story goes that the first Arab hajis to arrive in Kedah came during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and converted the local king. But as they found out, pagan Kedah had a macabre custom

Every time a new monarch ascended the throne, or whenever Kedah declared war on another kingdom, a virgin daughter of the royal family had to be sacrificed to a giant snake in Langkawi

Note that this creature is referred to in the text simply as an "ular besar" meaning big snake. Alternate versions like "ular raksasa" are modern embellishments. They might sound cooler at first, but just stick with me to the end and you'll understand

The king took the hajis' advice to end this tradition of sacrifice, but as you'd expect, this made the snake angry. It began eating the locals and livestock until there were almost no people left on the island, and the fields were turning to forest

The newly converted Malays prayed in the mosques for an end to the serpent's rampage, but to no avail. Some reverted back to paganism. Then finally, a sheikh from Arabia arrived who told them that this was all a test from God, and the people need only to keep their faith in Islam

Upon arriving at Langkawi and performing his prayers, the sheikh confronted the snake with a Quran balanced on his head. The snake swallowed him whole, but soon writhed in pain until it fled to the mountains

Neither the snake or sheikh (hey it rhymes) were seen again. Ever since then, it was said that pythons no longer ate humans in Langkawi and preyed only on animals

While the story may seem basic on the surface — virgin sacrifice, defeating an evil snake, Islam good, pre-Islamic bad — a closer examination of its motifs is what makes it interesting. Most of this is explored in depth by Maziar Mozaffari Falarti

The primary purpose of this tale is that of a conversion story. It explains the arrival of a new religion while putting the older belief system and its traditions in a bad light. Stories of this genre are found all over, and in Southeast Asia they actually predate Islam

The Javanese legend of Aji Saka describes the arrival of Hinduism. The hero Aji Saka comes from India and defeats the local ruler Dewata Cengkar, who's portrayed as a man-eating demon

Aside from this characterisation legitimising Aji Saka's rule, it also implies that the pre-Hindu kings were cruel and cannibalistic

Since then, revisionists have tried to reimagine Aji Saka as a Muslim figure dressed in Arab-influenced attire

But I feel the story of the giant snake shares a greater affinity with the conversion legend of the Maldives, which also tells of regularly sacrificing virgin girls to a sea demon at a temple. What is their obsession with virgin girls anyway..

The demon is scared off by a Berber hafiz who recites the Quran at the temple throughout the night. The grateful Buddhist king was converted, as were the rest of the people

en.yabiladi.com/articles/detai…

Conversion stories like these depict the coming of Islam in heroic terms, with a solitary foreign preacher and a single major event as the pivotal moment when the entire community embraced the Muslim faith. But these legends obviously shouldn't be taken as historical events

In all Southeast Asian Muslim communities, conversion to Islam was a gradual process over a long period rather than a quick and decisive event brought on by any single person or miraculous phenomenon. Conversion was motivated more by practicality than a spiritual awakening

Conversion legends always have the ruler convert first, with the rest of his subjects following suit. This has remained in the popular imagination. But it's long been established that Muslim traders were present in Southeast Asia before the rulers converted

Rather, it would appear that the first to convert were the merchant class of the maritime towns who came into contact with foreign Muslims. The rulers were then compelled to convert by both foreign Muslim traders and newly-converted local merchants

jstor.org/stable/3351154

Additionally, Southeast Asian conversion stories almost always credit an Arab (or occasionally some other Middle Eastern) man for introducing Islam. As I've explained previously, Arabs were not the main driving force behind Muslim conversion in SEA

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1292102880871104517?t=HPUFQWP9B19JtaKuN5sxYg&s=19

Muslim immigration sometimes didn't come from outside the region at all, but from other parts of SEA. Cham Muslims came to Melaka, Malay Muslims to the Philippines, etc. The assumption that because Islam is Arab so must've been brought by Arabs is popular, but inaccurate

Rather than taking conversion stories literally, we should understand their purpose and what they sought to convey. Tracing Islam to an Arab man helped link the religion to its Middle Eastern roots and to the Prophet himself, implied by the sheikh's green turban

Portraying the ruler as the first convert not only lends them and their dynasty prestige, but also gives them religious authority by making them symbolic of the religious conversion itself, and all the good things that's supposed to represent. More on that later

This would've been particularly important for Southeast Asians whose rulers had god-king status prior to conversion. Making the ruler a central figure in the narrative would maintain their revered position not just as monarch but a religious icon

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1477279557241565186?t=YyMgUwyKdq0LoowCp4JxBw&s=19

Malaysia actually tried to retain this aspect of local royalty through the constitutional monarchy by making the rulers the heads of Islam in their respective states, though this position has been undermined by the formation of JAKIM, with Islam now under government control

This particular story is also unique in that it takes place during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, not after. Most legends of this type are more realistic about the era in which they're set. Falarti notes this similarity to Fujian legend, suggesting Chinese Muslim influence

I take Farish Noor's view that this was meant to push Islam as far back in local history as possible. This occurs everywhere that a community adopts a foreign religion, even among Christians from India and the Philippines

The process continues today with the modern myth of Malay descent from Keturah, which I'm regularly forced to debunk

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1406494172115128325?t=RZopZXFxZul2zOLz9BHSPw&s=19

It will be noticed that the pre-Islamic in these stories isn't just depicted as evil and hedonistic, but also seems more closely linked to nature. Note how the snake almost reduces Langkawi to a forest by destroying human settlement

This also appears in the debate between garuda & Soloman in Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. The simplification of this theme in the movie adaptation is yet another example of the filmmakers' shallow understanding of the source material, and one of many reasons it's trash

Compare this to the sea demon of the Maldives, or the tree felled by Bayong. The fact that this theme shows up so consistently in conversion legends is clearly symbolic of pre-Islamic reverence for nature

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1189942625672892416?t=QiprAF9VmcZ9xLQdgpij0w&s=19

Note how it doesn't appear in the story of Aji Saka. His nemesis is not a beastly animal or nature spirit, but a man-eating ogre king. Yet Islam is instead portrayed as a civilising force, one that sets mankind further apart from the natural world. Interpret that how you will

But of all animals and natural phenomena to be chosen as the personification of "evil" paganism, this one is specifically a giant snake. Why so? The serpent as a satanic figure in Abrahamic religions might be too simplistic an explanation

The defeat of a large serpent is a recurring motif in Indo-Malay epics and stories. It occurs in the Sulalatus Salatin, Hikayat Indraputra, Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai, and numerous other folk tales

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1481011349643620352?t=VjnFFIf4OnWnqEVwQQaqVw&s=19

In a FB post, a popular ethno-supremacist blogger claimed this to be an Indo-European theme, separate from indigenous "Austronesian" myth. True, the dragon/serpent slayer is common in the west and elsewhere

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1192020378152927232?t=iTsPxVZOAPyRh5PMJpxGHA&s=19

This not only shows Miss Heroine Candy's lack of knowledge about Asian mythology, but also demonstrates how artificial divisions of what is and isn't purely "Austronesian" for nationalistic reasons will inevitably lead to the wrong conclusions

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1284190586187051008?t=T15qUPliW_XaxPawoTGmMQ&s=19

To fully appreciate the symbolism here, we must acknowledge the close relationship between snakes and dragons in folklore and iconography, without drawing too much of a distinction between them as westerners and westernised Indians are fond of doing

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1192028125674164227?t=HzTuO-B6pEqTa69PLsRxBQ&s=19

Dragons of Asia are snake-like. They control various natural processes, and are associated with water and hills. The giant snake of our story can therefore represent unbridled nature in all its fury

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1192041316701499394?t=D8BIGkUtjH8WpZsK60d4mQ&s=19

When seen this way, the story can be viewed as a derivative of the chaoskampf motif and the serpent-slaying ur-myth in general. But contrary to Ms Candy's belief, this is not at all unique to Indo-European myths. The slaying of Xiangliu and Orochi in China & Japan come to mind

Orochi in particular shares the element of regularly sacrificing girls to the serpent. The similarities between dragon beliefs of Japan and the Indo-Malay archipelago were formerly noted by European writers, though their explanations for this are now outdated

Where our legend differs from the typical serpent-slaying myth is in the slayer himself. The Arab sheikh who subdues the snake is unnamed and never heard from again. He's not remembered as a culture hero, nor is he the focal point of the story

His fate appears to be based on a separate trope, that of being swallowed. This element occurs in many world myths, most famously the prophet Jonah (Yunus) of the Abrahamic religions. But unlike Jonah's fish, the snake here is an evil creature that devours the sheikh

Rather than Jonah, the sheikh seems more like Hanuman who was swallowed twice. He tore his way out of Simhika's body, and shrank to escape through the ear of the naga mother Surasa. The sheikh however doesn't appear to survive, making his act one of self-sacrifice

It's been noted that the story shares some affinities with the Chinese tale of Lady White Snake, in which a snake spirit (who may be good or evil depending on the version) is also subdued by a religious figure, in this case a Buddhist monk

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1080804201494507526?t=l3y-axxTAtEj_qTyKRas5A&s=19

The monk Fahai in the end hides in the stomach of a crab. This similarity is notable given the aforementioned possibility of Fujian influence, especially considering that the legend of Lady White Snake was known to Malays

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1466740012381196289?t=70NEUGe8ngDdeMPr1NItRw&s=19

The slaying of the snake might also represent social changes in Kedah and/or the Malay world at the time. Malays, like other Southeast Asians, generally believed the naga rulers lived at the bottom of the sea

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1192042035785564160?t=TsIZ40M0sWdZYHz9SIW6WA&s=19

But on the island of Lanka there's said to be a naga forest (Nagavana) where a naga king resides. In recreating India's sacred geography, Malays commonly associated Lanka (often called Langkapuri in Malay) with Langkawi

Naga worship is a practice in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, and has been recorded among Malays since the time of Srivijaya. An inscription in Nakhon Si Thammarat describes the king as a "patron of naga"

jstor.org/stable/10.3998…

Reverence for dragons isn't necessarily a Buddhist influence in Malay and Orang Asli cultures though. As with Japanese dragon shrines, Malaysian dragons are also tutelary spirits, which would make Buddhist dragon worship come easy to Malays

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1481005051410018306?t=WCQ2A-i6g7kKSKLmKyAEYw&s=19

One or more of the many Malay stories of serpent slaying might actually have their origins in (or at least have been influenced by) competing sects of Buddhism, possibly the suppression of tantric practices under the arrival or revival of Theravada orthodoxy

And finally, the snake or dragon was associated with royal blood, something that Malays had in common with China, India, and other Southeast Asian civilisations

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1192029037545189376?t=atQaq6vQOu_BMGUEAVOD6Q&s=19

The close link between snake-dragons and the royalty can be seen in many Southeast Asian legends, from Jaka Linglung in the tale of Aji Saka, to the aquatic golden dragon in Hikayat Raja Budiman, to the dragon princess of Angkor

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1247339783950454784?t=bYR9dlrVE5S8gjzcI_Cang&s=19

The term merong is a loanword from the Thai marong, meaning dragon. It has cognates in other Southeast Asian languages but its origin is the Old Chinese word for dragon, məroŋ (龍 pronounced lóng in Mandarin)

https://twitter.com/SEsbok/status/1477498587760132096?t=uMK1cyskCRo7na4OyyM5Ag&s=19

Wangsa is a cognate of bangsa, both deriving from the Sanskrit vamsa. It should not be understood as "race" in the modern sense. Merong Mahawangsa therefore means "great dynasty of the dragon"

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1185494766240186374?t=0jmH_Dggwwk_Tw40NiRDgg&s=19

Imagine the shock of people who think maha is only for God, and that the Malay royal use of the term is actually a reference to Allah. This lineage was calling their family "maha bangsa". There's no way to God-wash that

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1383546539541340160?t=R6Etl51a9CAgaPA3YWQsaA&s=19

This word is not common in either Malay or Thai today because it's mainly used in reference to the year of the dragon in the Chinese zodiac, also known in Southeast Asia as the "big snake". And what is the snake in our story called again?

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1090875731746246656?t=apRnjHfJwN7ES2KKQq5OJg&s=19

It now seems beyond a doubt that the ular besar of Langkawi is in fact a merong or naga. Rulers making some sort of arrangement with a naga was a popular theme in South and Southeast Asia, occuring in India, Champa, and Burma among others

In Angkor for example, it was said that the kings had to sleep with a female naga who took the form of a beautiful woman each night before seeing his concubines. If he failed to do so, the kingdom would suffer

englishwordplay.com/cambodia7.html

The defeat of a serpent was thus sometimes used to symbolise the fall of a dynasty or the start of a new order, not just in Southeast Asia but even in China. And as shown in the image here, the serpent is interchangeable with a dragon

https://twitter.com/uglyluhan/status/1362855866261626880?t=0nbBUOnN3uwJaim_dGYfMw&s=19

As we can see, even just a short and seemingly straightforward Malay legend like this one can often be multi-layered and eclectic, which is why they can't be fully appreciated by nationalists of either the mono-ethnic or religious kind whose worldview limits their thinking

Despite telling of the triumph of Islam over the old tradition, the story is pluralistic in its inspiration, drawing from both Islamic and pre-Islamic sources, indigenous and foreign, with parallels to other parts of Asia rather than the Middle East specifically