Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, en Volkenkunde – serie

The Dutch Nagara-Kertagama translation on which Professor Kern worked, at intervals, during eleven years, deserves our utmost admir­ ation and respect. It is the last important piece of work he finished before his death. It has enriched in an extraordinarily high degree our knowledge of the history and antiquities of the Majapahit period. Moreover, its dignified and courtly style established the reputation of Old Javanese letters as a literature of considerable interest. The con­ tents of the Nagara-Kertiigama, as interpreted by Professor Kern, gave 14th century Majapahit a nimbus, making it appear to the uncritical public as a most powerful and highly cultured Empire, organized on 18th or 19th century West-European lines. The notes of Krom, Poerbatjaraka and others do not contain com­ plete translations of the texts. These scholars made valuable contribu­ tions to a better understanding of several passages. They did not make it easy for the general reader to consult their notes, though. Professor Kern's appreciation of the contents of the Nagara-Kertagama remained fundamentally unshaken. Up to the present time Professor Kern's Nagara-Kertagama trans­ lation has been generally used and highly appreciated by students of Indonesian cultures and by the public interested in Old Javanese his­ tory, both in Indonesia and elsewhere. In 1953 a modern Malay trans­ lation by Slametmuljana was published in Djakarta (Negarakretagama, diperbaharui kedalam bahasa Indonesia). But then, since Professor Kern's days research has made progress. It is clear, nowadays, that his translation has the defects of its good qualities.

The present second volume of the Nägara-Kertägama edition contains those notes on the tex.t and the translation of the major poem and the appended minor writings and charters that may be of interest to students of the J avanese language. Perusal of these notes on idiom and linguistics will be found the more fruitful if the glossary ( volume V of the present edition) is consulted continuously. No lengthy discussions of linguistic subjects are to be found in the present volume. They would be out of place in this new Nägara­ Kertägama edition, for its tenor is primarily sociological. Exceptions have been made only for some places where short grammatical discus­ sions seemed in place in order to elucidate points of the translation. In the notes on the contemporaneous minor writings and charters differences between the scholarly idiom of Court Iiterature (Nägara­ Kertägama and Royal charters) on the one side and the popular ver­ nacular idiom of daily life on the other have been pointed out repeatedly. The close relationship of the 14th century Majapahit vemacular with modern J avanese is apparent. Occasional remarks on words betonging to regional idioms, either Eastem Javanese Majapahit or Ka

Essentially the following commentary on the contents of the Nagara-Kertagama has been made up from notes by former editors of the text together with remarks, criticisms and digressions by the present author. As Kern, Krom and their contemporaries were especially interested in dynastie history and archeology their notes on those subjects are legion, and as a result of their studies on many points a communis opinio has been reached. The argumentations which led up to this end are not reproduced in the present edition. The interested reader is referred to Krom's great books: Oud-Javaansche Kunst and Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis. It is to be expected that before long the results of Krom's life-work will be made accessible for English readers by De Casparis. On the other hand cultural history, religion, economics and sociology have been rather neglected by the first editors of the Nagara-Kerta- gama. The present author has done his best to remedy that omission. The reader will find that the greater part of the following commen- taries is concerned with those subjects.The contemporaneous minor texts and the charters that are published, translated and annotated in the present book in the same manner as the Nagara-Kertagama have been chosen almost exc1usively for the valuable information on social, economic and religious conditions in the 14th century Majapahit realm that is afforded by them.