A Malay-English dictionary,

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trusted statesman of Alexander's empire, Marong Mahawangsa, " vizier of Rum." This humility
may have been due to the fear of offending the powerful rulers of Acheen.
The Sassanian kings never themselves claimed descent from the Macedonian conqueror.
To them, he was " the accursed Alexander the Roman," who did his best to destroy the Magian
religion. The legend that Alexander was descended from the Kaianian kings (Achaemenides)
and the Sassanian line from Alexander, was the invention of a later time and was grafted upon
that version of his life which has come to be known as the " Pseudo-Callisthenes " story.
This story first appeared (so far as we know) in Egypt about the year 200 B.C. It was
written in Greek and was, at one time, believed to be the work of Callisthenes, one of the Conqueror's companions. It is the least reliable of the extant lives of Alexander, but its very fault-a
fondness for the miraculous-ensured its popularity and made it play a great part in almost
every European and West-Asiatic literature. The Greek version [followed by the Early
English, Romance, Latin, Byzantine, Syriac, Aethiopic, and (possibly) Armenian versions]
begins by representing Alexander to have been the son of Nectanebo, last king of Egypt, by
Olympias whom he deceived in the disguise of the Egyptian deity Amen-ra (Jupiter Ammon).
The Persians altered this part of the story to one more pleasing to their national pride.
According to them Alexander was the grandson and not the son of Philip of Macedon.
Alexander's father, they said, was an elder Darius (Dara), who divorced his wife, Philip's
daughter, in ignorance that she was pregnant. In this way, the Macedonian conqueror-and
not Darius Codomannus (Darab)-was the true heir to the Persian crown, and his success did
not place Persia under the rule of an alien. The Persian story is followed by the Malay
Hikayat Iskandar dzu'l-Karnain, while the account of the birth of Aristun Shah, without his
father's knowledge, is merely transferring to Alexander's son (in the Sejarah Melayu) the story
which Firdausi tells of Alexander himself. The legend of the journey of King Suran into the
depths of the sea is also an exaggerated version of the adventures of Alexander who is represented as having undergone a similar experience. The name "Aristun Shah" is one of the
Persian equivalents of Aristotle, who plays a considerable part in the Pseudo-Callisthenes
legends. The name Shahru'l-bariyah is an Arabic equivalent for the Persian Raushanak,
Roxana. There are however two points which show that the Malay version comes from a very
late Persian account. The simple and early form of the story, as given in the Epic of Kings,
only mentions one Indian prince, Porus (Fiur), and does not allude to " Andalus."' The later
and longer stories mention two Indian kings, Porus and " Kaid the Indian," the Malay " Raja
Kidahindi," whose daughter (both in the Persian and in the Malay accounts) Alexander is
represented as having married. The later versions also mention Andalus (Andalusia) and

identify it with the Kingdom of Queen Candace.
I Usually pronounced Endelas by modern Malays.

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2 In this term I include Persian accounts written in Arabic. Kaid's daughter was not Raushanak (Roxana).