authority, the late Mr. R. J. Wilkinson:²⁴ “If we ask a Peninsular Malay what he calls a were-tiger he will tell us kemering or (Upper Perak) chenaku; he will insist also that all Korinchi Malays were were-tigers and can assume tiger-shape whenever they like and for as long as they like. A Sumatran (Minangkabau) Malay calls a weretiger chindaku. Now it is a curious fact that Kemering (or Komering), Korinchi and Chenaku (or Chindaku) are all Sumatran districts and are the part of Sumatra linked most closely with the megalithic civilization that produced these slab-graves. The Han bronze weapons which help to date this culture were found in the Komering or Kemering valley; the finest slab-grave of all is in the Pasemah country to which the Kemering gives access; the Han-dated vase was found on the borders of the Korinchi country; and the bronze gong and many other relics found on the Danau Gadang tea-estate are all from the Korinchi country. About Chindaku I know less."

With the Trikuta nilaya identified as Gunong Dempo and the Pasemah plateau, the Malaya Mountain will be the southern two-thirds of the Sumatran mountain chain which is called the Barisan Range, and Mahamalaya will be Korinchi, 12,484 ft., the highest mountain in Sumatra.²⁵ Where then will the Mandara Mountain be located? The holy place of Malay and Minankabau tradition is Bukit Seguntang, called Siguntang-guntang locally, a hill near Palembang, with which the Kings of Srivijaya were closely associated as their inscriptions of the seventh century A.D. show, and which was the cause of these kings being known to the Arabs as the Maharajahs of the Mountain. Adoration of the mountain was as strongly imbedded in the 'Indonesian civilization' as was the megalithic cult; and the mountain still plays its part in Malay thought. ²⁶ The antiquity of Bukit Seguntang as a holy place is attested by the Buddhist statuary found upon it, of which the huge granite figure of Buddha is the most ancient. This figure is made unique by its size and, because of that unique size, seems to emphasize the peculiar veneration of the people for the hill upon which they erected it. This hill appears in the Sejarah Malayu as Bukit Si-Guntang Mahameru and is the scene of the appearance of three Indian princes, one of whom becomes Raja of Palembang with the consent of the local 'Indonesian' chieftain Broad Leaf, who abdicates in his favour. There cannot be the slightest doubt that this tradition is in reality that of

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²⁴ "The Bernam Slab-Graves", JMBRAS., vol. 17, pt. 1 (1939), pp. 136-7.

²⁵ Kurinci is an ancient Tamil word for mountain-Compiler.

²⁶ W. Linehan, "Tin Emblems of Mountain-Temples (Gunong-Gunong)", JMBRAS., vol. 24, pt. 3 (1951), pp. 99-103; R. Winstedt, The Malays (London, 1950), pp. 66-69.