There are sufficient extant copies of the BP to provide material for a philological study of the transmission of the text and its various recensions. The custodian of Pamijahan holds two manuscripts. Leiden University Library in the Netherlands holds three manuscripts. I believe that there are other manuscripts preserved by various collectors both in Indonesia and overseas. For instance, at the end of my fieldwork I learned that there are also manuscripts in Garut, Sumedang, Ciamis, Bandung and Sukabumi recounting the history of Shaykh Abdul Muhyi. In this volume, however, I will focus only on the Pamijahan manuscripts, while referring to a number of other manuscripts as further ‘witnesses’ of the Pamijahan collection.

The custodians of Pamijahan have two manuscripts. The first manuscript (listed as ms G in Chapter 3) is in Javanese and the second (ms H) is in Sundanese. It seems that ms. H is derived from G which is written in Pegon, or Arabic-derived script. The two manuscripts show similar structure and contents. However, manuscript ms H is more complete than ms G, since the first two pages of ms G are missing and it is damaged in some parts.

The Pamijahan materials and Ms. SD120, a manuscript concerning Shaykh Abdul Muhyi which is held in the National Library, Jakarta, are close to those of the Brandes' manuscript in Jakarta (Br. 283) and the manuscripts collected by Snouck Hurgronje’s (LOr. 7858, LOr 7708) held in Leiden. The Babad Pamijahan is also similar to the text preserved in the Rinkes' collection (LOr. 8588) which was copied from Snouck Hurgronje’s LOr. 7858. There is an indication that Snouck Hurgronje obtained his manuscript directly from its owner, or perhaps via another collector in Tasikmalaya, whilst touring the religious sites of Java. A religious officer, the Penghulu of Mangunreja, copied LOr. 7858, for example, in about 1890. In LOr 7708, the owner clearly states, “the Penghulu of Tasikmalaya freely submits his manuscript to his master”, evidently Snouck Hurgronje. According to my informants in Pamijahan, the Penghulu of Mangunreja (70 km to the north-west of the village) as well as the Penghulu of Tasikmalaya, were descendants of Shaykh Abdul Muhyi.

One custodian of Panyalahan told me that his ancestors bequeathed to him a Kitab Papakem Kuning, a manuscript probably concerning Shaykh Abdul Muhyi. According to him, the Kitab Papakem Kuning was taken by the Dutch to be held in the Netherlands. The villagers have never seen this manuscript. However, as close relatives of Shaykh Abdul Muhyi, they have inherited various oral narratives from their forebears in a traditional fashion. I tried to reconcile this information with all the catalogues of the Leiden University Library and of the National Library in Jakarta. There is, however, no manuscript corresponding to such a title.

However, I did find that the manuscript given by the Penghulu of Tasikmalaya in 1914 to ‘Kangjeng Tuan Snouck Hurgronje’ (Cod.Or. 7708) entitled Kitab Patorekan Shaykh Abdul Muhyi apears to be close to the Papakem Kuning on several counts. The title Papakem Kuning means ‘the yellow guide’. In the traditional religious teaching of Javanese pesantren schools, we also find a similar term, kitab kuning, to refer to books written and disseminated by traditional means. Often the paper used is old or of low quality and hence yellow in colour. It is probable that the Kitab Patorekan Shaykh Abdul Muhyi is in the same cast as the Kitab Papakem Kuning reported to me by the custodian in Panyalahan. This speculation can be related to my informant’s story. Between 1950 and 1980, he worked in the office of the Penghulu of Tasikmalaya. He had access to certain information relating to his predecessors in the office. Office records show that the Kitab Patorekan (Cod.Or. 7708) is, in fact, the one submitted to Snouck Hurgronje by one of his predecessors. We read on the first page of this text:

For the present discussion however, I will focus on manuscript H of the Babad Pamijahan preserved by a previous custodian, Zainal Mustafa bin Muhammad Jabidi, who passed away couple years before I came to the village. Ajengan Endang, the younger brother of Zainal Mustafa, now has safekeeping of the manuscript because it is the more complete of the two versions held by Pamijahan custodians. I will present here a full translation of the Babad Pamijahan, making annotations to facilitate the discussion.