KUALA LUMPUR: Records on legendary Malay hero Hang Tuah may be hidden away in an archive in New Delhi and in other archives around the world, but no Malaysian researcher is going out to study these manuscripts.
Historian Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dr Khoo Kay Kim said Malaysian researchers need to step up their game to uncover these historical artifacts.
"Sometime back, at a seminar in Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka, a participant from India said that in New Delhi, there were also records about Hang Tuah," said Khoo.
However, he said, to the best of this knowledge, no one had actually followed up on that claim.
"They should send somebody to New Delhi to follow up on this. There is simply not enough research being done in Malaysia," he said.
Khoo added that vast repositories of information about Hang Tuah and other parts of Malaysian history were held in numerous archives and libraries around the world.
But the unwillingness of Malaysian researchers to learn new languages has limited the rediscovery of this knowledge.
"Malaysian history has data in so many languages. However, our people don't learn languages. In order to do research, our people must learn other languages. Our records are in other countries," said Khoo.
Over the years, there has been much debate as to whether Hang Tuah was a real historical figure, or mythical hero.
Recently, it was reported that Universiti Putra Malaysia researchers had found three primary sources in Japan that definitively proved Hang Tuah's existence.
Three letters, written by Hang Tuah on behalf of the Sultan of Malacca to Okinawa, which at that time was known as Ryukyu from 1480 to 1481 were discovered.
"In the case of Japan, we need to send somebody who knows Japanese to go there and look at the records, to have a better idea of the findings," said Khoo.
Khoo said that elsewhere, records were languishing in repositories but no one was doing anything about it.
"The records of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya are in Taiwan. This is because the Japanese ruled Malaysia from Taiwan.
"Elsewhere, the Tamil Nadu archives have a lot of information about the Malay peninsula dating back to the 19th century," he said.
Khoo said not enough was being done to learn about Malaysia's history. He urged companies and the government to step up to give sponsorship to unearth these lost documents. He added that there might be a time when Malaysians would lose their own history.
"Because people think it's not important. They think history is just stories. They don't realise that we must rely on empirical evidence," he said.