The Application of Malay Indigenous Scientific and Technical Knowledge in the Production of Malay Manuscripts

People in the past found their own ways to record their history and ideas. This also forms their local knowledge using indigenous science and technology. As information is important for survival and progress, they have to constantly explore, create, collect and improve on them. To help them remembered this valuable information, they have to keep them “refreshed” in a format that can be easily migrated to a newer format. In this paper, Malay manuscript is any document written by hand, as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way, including digitization. Before the arrival of printing, Malay documents may be in tree barks, palm leaves, animal hides, metals, stones and paper. In this paper, Malay manuscripts are not only the sole written information that survived from the past, but also the best surviving specimens of Malay hand writing preserved. Over the centuries, these materials are the valuable reference sources to study the evolution and history of Malay writing – Jawi and other scripts before that. This paper is not on the development of Jawi writing system. It is on the application of Malay science and technology on the development of Malay writing accessories – pen, ink and colors. This is only a preliminary report as further research is needed to solve the many mysteries and unknowns