The Hikayat Banjar is the Malay chronicle of Banjarmasin. This text, also called the History of Lembu Mangkurat, contains the history of the kings of Banjar and of Kota Waringin in South-east and South Borneo respectively.

The final part of the text dates in its present form from 1663 or slightly later. The first part is older. The text is 4787 lines long (120 pages quarto).

A careful text edition alongside with a detailed description of the literary and cultural-historical context was published by the Dutch philologist Hans Ras in 1968.

Structure

Structurally the Hikayat Banjar may be divided in nine sections. It opens with the story about the origin of the Malay settlement in South-east Borneo. The function of this story is clearly to give the model for the political organisation or the realm and to set the standards for court ceremony and etiquette. Then there follow eight sections giving in succession the story of:

• the 1st king and queen of the dynasty, followed by a piece of genealogy (kraton I)
• the 1st king of Negara Daha , followed by a piece of genealogy (kraton II)
• the 1st king of Banjarmasin, followed by a piece of genealogy (kraton III)
• the 1st king of Matapura , followed by a piece of genealogy (kraton IV)

Different versions

The text of the Hikayat Banjar was written and rewritten several times and several of these versions have actually been preserved. One is the so called Recension II, which derives from an older version preserved in oral tradition. Another variant is the one contained in the Leiden University Library MS. Or. 1701, which on the contrary presents a more modern version.