A careful text edition alongside a detailed description of the literary and cultural-historical context was published by the Dutch philologist Hans Ras in 1968.
The first story details the origin of the Hindu kingdom in southeast Borneo.
The function of this story is clearly to give a model for the political organisation or the realm and to set the standards for court ceremony and etiquette.
Then there follow eight sections giving in succession the story of: The text of the Hikayat Banjar was written and rewritten several times.
Of several that have been preserved; the "Recension II" version derives from an older version derived from oral tradition, whereas another variant at the Leiden University Library MS. Or.