Abstract
This contribution presents two 14th-century inscriptions from the northwestern quadrant of Sumatra. Both are engraved on stone and in Indic script. Although both are composed largely of vocabulary borrowed from the Sanskrit language, presence of some specifically Malay words or forms makes it possible to classify them as being formulated in Old Malay. The first text, whose Śaka date is precisely convertible to 29 June 1350 CE, is engraved on a tombstone recovered from a graveyard in Barus, and may well mark the death of a Muslim. If this hypothesis is correct, it will make this epitaph the earliest Islamic inscription in Indic script from Sumatra. The second text comes from a Buddhist cultural context in the very northern extremity of what is today West Sumatra province, and has the particularity of being composed in Sanskrit verse form.
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