Bibliotheca Indonesica - Böcker

Mpu Monaguṇa's early thirteenth century epic poem Sumanasāntaka is a vernacular rendering of Kālidāsa's story of Prince Aja and Princess Indumatī told in the Raghuvaṃśa. In it the poet exploits his source narrative to describe and comment on the Javanese world of his times.In Mpu Monaguṇa's Sumanasāntaka the authors offer an edited text and translation of Mpu Monaguṇa's epic kakawin and extensive commentary on the editing of the manuscripts and history of the poem and its story, the relationship between the Old Javanese poem and Kālidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa, the way in which the poem imagines the lived environment of ancient Java in the early thirteenth century and Balinese painted representations of the story of Prince Aja and Princess Indumatī.

Texts about the nocturnal journey of the Prophet Muḥammad (Mi‘rāj) abound in the Muslim world and outside. International attention has never been afforded to any version of text in any language of the Indonesian archipelago. One old version of the text from the area, the Malay Hikayat Mir’āj Nabi Muḥammad is presented here in Malay and English translation. The introductory chapters place the text in a wider context in Indonesian literatures while the manuscript of the text (Cod.Or. Leiden 1713) is described in detail. The text and translation purport to enhance interest in this important text in the Muslim world as seen from the Malay/Indonesian perspective.

Javanese, a major language of Southeast Asia, possesses a little-known literature, occurring in various phases, Old, Middle and Modern. This publication presents a remarkable example, from the poetical literature of Middle Javanese, in an edited text with English translation and an extensive commentary. The aim is to acquaint a wider audience with this literature, in the hope of drawing attention to its fascinating qualities. Set principally in the Singhasari area of East Java, the narrative follows the journey of the lovers, Pañji Margasmara and Ken Candrasari, offering a glimpse of the beauty of the Javanese landscape in the 15th century. The cultural, historical and archaeological details preserved in the text help to shed light on the closing years of Majapahit, a largely unexplored period in Javanese history, before the age of Islam.

Bujangga Manik is a narrative poem in Old Sundanese which opens a window onto the world of late-15th-century maritime Southeast Asia. The poem describes the spiritual development of a young man from Pakañcilan, in what is now West Java, as he walks and sails across and around Java and Bali, culminating with his death in a mountainside hermitage and ascension to heaven. This volume is an exemplary edition of Bujangga Manik, complete with a revised transliteration; a new English translation; detailed descriptions of the manuscript, script, and language; and an extensive commentary on the poem’s contents, from its setting and characters to its descriptions of ocean-going ships, houses, furniture, perfumes, and much else.

This book presents for the first time the oldest surviving example of universal history to be produced in the Malay-Indonesian World. In the process it challenges previous scholarly assumptions about pioneering works in this genre. The study is based on a document contained in Cambridge University Library manuscript Or Gg.6.40 dating from the turn of the 17th century. The initial chapters in this book situate the manuscript within its historical, social and religious context in the Sultanate of Aceh. This is followed by a transliteration of the Jawi text and translation into English, as well as the original Jawi text of the work.

Like many works of Old Javanese literature, the kakawin Arjunawijaya (Arj. ) was first introduced to the wor1d of Western scholarship in 1849 through the well-known report of Friederich, Voorloopig Verslag van het Eiland Baii. In this report Friederich (1959: 25) says: 'The Arjuna Vijaya ("the Triumph of Arjuna") is fonned after the Uttarak??l4a ...It contains the combat of Arjuna with R?vat]. a and his victory. R?vat]. a is here bound, but not yet killed, because his time has not yet arrived. Re is to be destroyed by R?ma ...' Written in 1849, when the study of Old Javanese had barely taken the first step in its slow progress on a long and arduous road, Friederich's report was a promising start. It is therefore disheartening to discover how, 120 years later, the Arj. is still little more than a closed book. To the best of my knowledge there is not one article exclusive1y devoted to any aspect of the poem, let alone a major publication. It would be an exaggeration, however, to say that the Arj. is completely unknown to students of Old Javanese.Short descriptions of the manuscripts of this kakawin, and even outlines of their contents, have been given in the Catalogues of the Old Javanese manuscripts in the possession of the Library of the University of Leiden, and in the few articles and books treating Old Javanese literature in general. Occasionally a reference to the Arj.

In the fifteenth century the ritual called the Night af siwa was well-known in South India, more specifically in the Empire of Vijayanagara, which was flourishing at that time. A Javanese poet of those days, Mpu Tanakun by name, who had become acquainted with the ritual, wrote a didactic poem which aimed to make it known and have it accepted in his own country. For this religious message he employed the form of the kakawin, the court poem or kävya of Java, and in imitation of Indian nxxlels he clad his message in the tale of the hunter, Lubdhaka, who despite his sinful existence was able to share the bliss af heaven through the simple fact that - by accident and unawares- he fulfilled the essential elements af the ritual. It is not known whether the poet's efforts met with success in Java itself; his poem did, however, remain known in Bali, the preserver of so many items af medieval Javanese culture. Not only have Balinese priests laid down and elaborated in religions works the ritual which he proclaimed, but the poem has also inspired Balinese artists to make paintings, in former centuries as well as this. And so the story with its religious message from India, by way of the inspiration of a Java­ nese poet, has beoome part af the Indonesian cultural heritage. Five centuries after Ta.

Life is stranger than fiction. Considerably so. Judge from this: The Javanese develop a feeling towards their afterbirth, wbich is not thrown away at birth in the heathenish Western way, but which gets a decent burial and has the name: ari-ari, younger brother (- sister) . I know of a Javanese schoolgirl who wTote in an essay: "How couldn't I have tender feelings towards the spot where my ari-ari lies buried?" The Balinese are in the happy position of having no less than four elder brothers (sisters). The 'concomitants of physical birth', being the amniotic fluid, the blood, the vernix caseosa and the afterbirth together are the baby's kanda mpat, bis four elder brothers, or her elder ~isters in the case of a girl. Though the first three, due to their liquid state, mostly disappear and receive little care, the ari-ari is carefully buried under a round riverstone of about one foot in diameter, for a boy at the one side of the steps leading to the sleeping house, for a girl at the other side. The innumerable writipgs, partially or completely dealing with the kanda mpat, do not weary from inculcating their readers that the four are helpful as long as one gives them the (material) food and reverential thoughts they are entitled to, in which case they from their side behave as true eIder brothers. U. however, one neglects and ignores them, they punish their younger brother.

The Javanese text being published here is not appearing in print for the first time: more than half Cli century ago it was published by B. J. O. Schrieke in his doctQr's thesis Ret Boek van Bonang ("The Book of Bonang") (1916). In Schrieke's work, however, the emphasis fell O'n the historical introductiQn to the text rather than on the text itself, the edition of which is nQt free of shortcomings. MoreQver, the analysis of the contents of the text appended to it could not make up Qf a complete translation. for the lack That a new edition and complete translation of this Qld and important text has nQt been made before now is due to the small number of scholars of Javanese - and the even smaller number of those amQng them who concern themselves with the Muslim works of Javanese literature. In short, it is the piQneering character which the study of Indonesian literatures still largely PQssesses that has caused people to be contented with preliminary surveys Qf this extensive field of study j it is true that a number of welcQme milestones have been erected, but it can in no way be said that the cha:rting Qf the whole field is yet complete.After the first publication of a text and summary of its contents people are only too readily inclined to proceed to other projects, mOore attractive because of their novelty.

This book may be considered to be Volume II of the Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyyah, the text edition which appeared in 1975 as number 12 in the same series. When mention is made of "Volume I", it is the latter which is referred to. The present publication contains first and foremost an abbreviated translation of the Malay text. With regard to the rather repetitious and cliche-ridden character of the latter, it was believed that little was to be gained by a literal word-for-word translation. I hope that little essential has been left out and that the flavour of the original has percolated through to the English rendering ! For this purpose I have especially endeavoured to render many dia­ logues as 'verbatim' as feasible. The translation has been accompanied by notes whose main purpose it is to enable a running comparison with the Persian original. Copious quotations of the Malay and Persian texts should enable the expert reader to reach his own conclusions. Another feature of this second volume is the commentaries that follow some of the chapters trans­ lated. Their purpose is to determine the position of the account of the H. M. H.

The Scope of the Work The main purpose of this work is to give a critical edition of a Javanese text - the Serat Cabolek - together with an Introduction, an English trans­ lation of the text, and Notes. The present publication is a slighdy revised version of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Australian National Univer­ sity in 1967. The Introduction to the text begins with a brief description of each of the extant MSS of the Serat Cabolek to be found in the Manuscript Sections of the Jakarta Museum Library and the Lembaga Kebudayaan Indonesia and in the Griental Manuscripts Section of the Leiden University Library. In addition, a description is given of a printed version of the Serat Cabolek. The eleven MSS and the printed text are compared with one another on the points of form, structure and content, in order to discover their mutual relationship. From this comparison it becomes clear that no matter how much these eleven MSS and the printed text of theSerat Cabolek may differ the one from the other, they all share a common core and all ultimately derive from a single source. The kernel of the Serat Cabolek in all probability comprised only the following sections: (1) the story dealing with the trial of Haji Mutamakin by the Kartasura tribunal; (2) the teaching of Dewa Ruci to Bhima; and (3) a commentary on Dewa Ruds counsel to Bhima.