Bendahara
The word bendahara, related to the Sanskrit word for "treasurer," denoted a job title held by senior officials in Sumatra and Java, whereas in the Malay Peninsula the word denoted the chief minister. Perhaps because of its association with the word bandar (a Persian loanword meaning "harbor"), the title could also imply responsibility for the coastal regions; in the Kaba Cinduo Mato, an undated Minangkabau text presenting a model of the ideal state, the bendahara has responsibility for the coast. In the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals)—a Malay historiographical text that was probably commissioned by a Malacca bendahara and depicts the world of Malacca in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries—an ideal picture is presented of powerful bendaharas who always play a prominent role and come off better than the other courtiers and even better than most sultans.
Controlled by one lineage, and marrying into Malacca's ruling house, the bendahara family came to wield great power, and the bendahara frequently acted as kingmaker. Because a Malay ruler tended not to be involved in the day-to-day running of government, the position of bendahara offered considerable scope for the exercise of executive power. Sometimes a bendahara could assume so much honor and authority that they challenged those of the king. The last Malacca ruler was so convinced that the bendahara intended to usurp the throne that he sentenced the bendahara to death. Due to the role of the laksamana (admiral) as the defender of Johor, Malacca's direct heir, against Acehnese and Portuguese invasions, the laksamana family eclipsed the bendahara family in importance by the early seventeenth century. The great offices of state of the former Malacca sultanate became the titles of regional chieftainship in the nineteenth-century Malay states, with the Malacca bendahara becoming ruler of Pahang, on the peninsula's east coast.
By 1853 Bendahara Ali (reigned 1806–1857), who already acted as an independent ruler, felt sufficiently confident to declare his autonomy, and in 1881 his son Ahmad assumed the title of sultan. The eighteenth-century Malay state of Perak, however, was a radical deviation from common political practices. In Perak the office of bendahara had become a post that the ruler awarded to friends, relatives, or supporters, and finally the title of bendahara was regarded as a prerogative of the royal family.
Laksamana
Further Reading
Drakard, Jane. (1999) A Kingdom of Words: Language and Power in Sumatra. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gonda, Jan. (1973) Sanskrit in Indonesia. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture.
Watson Andaya, Barbara. (1979) Perak: The Abode of Grace: A Study of an Eighteenth Century Malay State. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press.
Watson Andaya, Barbara, and Leonard Y. Andaya. (1982) A History of Malaysia. London: Macmillan Education.
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