HIKAYAT HANG TUAH: MALAY EPIC AND MUSLIM MIRROR

Hikayat Hang Tuah (the epic of Hang Tuah), one of the pinnacles of Malay classica1 literature, described as early as the eighteenth century by F. Valentijn as a 'very rare gem', still remains a largely mysterious work which allows of opposed interpretations. 1 The study of Hikayat Hang Tuah as a work of literature and, hence, as a research object of the science of literature, was launched by A. Teeuw in articles which described the system of its characters in their quite complex interrelationships. More importantly, perhaps, Teeuw has indicated ways of studying this hikayat as a work which, though heterogeneous in terms of its components, possesses a single structure and meaning based on a fundamental conception in medieval Malay culture of the relationship between the ruler and his subjects that is favourable for the state