MAN AND HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE
(a) Creation of Man
A common feature in Malay romances and legends is a description of the
supernatural development of a young child in the interior of some vegetable
production, usually a bamboo.
Sir W. E. Maxwell has pointed out the fact of the existence, both in Malay and
Japanese legends, of the main features of this story, to which he assigns a
Buddhistic origin. He tells the story as follows:—
“The Raja of the Bamboo.—Some years ago I collected a number of legends
current among Malayan tribes having as their principal incident the supernatural
development of a prince, princess, or demi-god in the stem of a bamboo, or tree,
or the interior of some closed receptacle.^1 I omitted, however, to mention that
this very characteristic Malay myth occurs in the “Sri Rama,” a Malay prose
hikayat,^2 which, as its name betokens, professes to describe the adventures of the
hero of the Râmâyana.
“Roorda van Eysinga’s edition of the Sri Rama opens with an account of how
Maharaja Dasaratha sent his Chief Mantri,^3 Puspa Jaya Karma, to search for a
suitable place at which to found a settlement. The site having been found and
cleared, the narrative proceeds as follows:—
“‘Now there was a clump of the bĕtong^4 bamboo (sa’rumpun buluh bĕtong), the