As one of the most appreciated works in kakawin literature, alongside Rāmāyaṇa and Bhāratayuddha, Arjunawiwāha seems to have been a popular candidate for translation from Old Javanese into Modern Javanese. For example, there is a manuscript of this text entitled Serat Wiwaha Jarwa in macapat verse (MN 474), dated 1842 and attributed to the Dutch scholar C.F. Winter with the help of R. Ng. Ronggawarsita; a manuscript entitled Serat Wiwaha Jarwa Sekar Macapat in macapat verse (KS 423.1), composed in 1778 by Sri Susuhunan Pakubuwana III; and a manuscript entitled Serat Arjuna Wiwaha Kawi-Jarwa (HN25) in which each Old Javanese stanza is translated into Modern Javanese prose by an anonymous translator in the mid-19th century. 

This blog focuses on a manuscript coded KBG 342, preserved in the Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia. It contains Arjunawiwāha as an Old Javanese source text and its Modern Javanese word-for-word translation. The translation adopts the interlinear model which is placed below the source text. This manuscript has three distinctive features. 

Figure 1: Arjunawiwāha in Old Javanese and an interlinear translation in Modern Javanese, Perpustakaan National Republic Indonesia, KBG 342. 

The first point is that each poetry line in the source text is written without any breaks. Although the Modern Javanese translation follows the word order of the Old Javanee source text, each word of the source text and its equivalent are not immediately identifiable because the Old Javanese text is not broken down into words by commas or spaces. This is distinctive from other word-for-word translations from Old Javanese into Modern Javanese. For example, there are manuscripts with a column structure. In these manuscripts, the page is divided vertically into several columns (usually two or three), with the leftmost column containing words or phrases from the source text, while the columns to the right contain the Modern Javanese translations. In this structure, the Old Javanese words or phrases in the left column are written one by one in each line. Also, there are manuscripts with alternating translations, in which each word of the source text and its equivalent are arranged alternately, separated by commas. In this structure the words in the source text are written separately by inserting the translation words between them. Therefore, both structures have the source text broken down into words.  

In KBG 342, however, the source text Arjunawiwāha doesn’t appear word by word, but from one poetry line to another, separated by specific marks. The readers therefore need at least the following: first, they are required to possess the ability to break down an Old Javanese poetry line written continuously into words; then, they are also required to match the Old Javanese words in the divided-up source text with Modern Javanese words in the right order. 

The second feature is the older script used to write the source text. Looking at bitexts in Old and Modern Javanese in the manuscripts written in the 18th and 19th centuries, many Old Javanese texts are corrupted because of sounds that cannot be represented in modern Javanese script, such as the long vowels ā, ī, ū and the consonants ś, ṣ, ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, which are changed to short vowels or dental sounds, respectively. However, in this manuscript, the source text is transcribed relatively faithfully to the Old Javanese phonetics by using an older script. At the same time, this means that the readers of the manuscript are required to be able to read the script that is not used to represent Modern Javanese. 

Both the first and second features indicate that the manuscript is intended for readers who have a certain knowledge of Old Javanese vocabulary and the older script. The third feature, in contrast, gives the reader some background information on Arjunawiwāha. That third feature is the existence of a summary outlining the story and a word list. The summary precedes the source text and translation. It contains sections numbered from 1 to 51, which means the story is divided into 51 parts. The word list is attached at the end of the manuscript, and entitled punika dasanama (“a list of synonymous words”). It has 44 entries accompanied by one synonym for each word, probably for the clarification of words that appear in the translation. 

The manuscript illustrates an interesting example of a kakawin translation specifically intended for advanced readers who have learned the Old Javanese language and phonetics. The additional information may have been attached for preparation and review before and after the study of Old Javanese through reading Arjunawiwāha. If this is the case, the manuscript’s function can be assumed to have been a textbook that provides learning tools for Old Javanese scholars. 

 

References and image credits: 

PNRI KBG 342, Perpustakaan National Republic Indonesia. 

Florida, Nancy K. 1993. Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts: Introduction and manuscripts of the Karaton Surakarta. Ithaka, New York: Cornell University Press. 

———. 2000. Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts: Manuscripts of the Mangkunagaran Palace. Ithaka, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications. 

———. 2012. Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts: Manuscripts of the Radya Pustaka Museum and the Hardjonagaran Library. Ithaka, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications. 

Robson, Stuart. 2008. Arjunawiwāha. The marriage of Arjuna of Mpu Kanwa. Bibliotheca Indonesica, 34. Leiden: KITLV Press. 

 

 

 

 

The content is taken from the ancient literary work Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin, which is believed to have been completed no later than the first half of the 10th century AD and is the oldest known Old Javanese work. The Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin contains 26 chapters (sarga) in all, of which the manuscript extracts stanzas 125-154 from sarga  21. The stanzas retell the scene where the sages from heaven sing a hymn to the hero Rāma to encourage him to revive and fight against his enemy after he was fatally damaged.

I would now like to focus on one unique aspect of this manuscript which is the theme of this blogpost: the transcription of sound. The point is that the manuscript’s author adapted the metre used in the Old Javanese text into a more modern metre. The stanzas in the Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin follow a metre consisting of 4 poetic lines that have the same definite number of syllables with fixed positions of long and short vowels. For example, stanza 128 follows the metre called wīralalita which is supposed to have 16 syllables in a line, hence 64 syllables in a stanza. On the other hand, the more modern macapat metre called dhandhanggula that the Old Javanese text in the manuscript adopts contains a stanza consisting of 10 lines. In this case, the final vowel of each line is specified. The number of syllables and the final vowel of each dhandhanggula line are as follows; 10i, 10a, 8e/o, 7u, 9i, 7a, 6u, 8a, 12i, 7a (84 syllables in total).

Therefore, what is needed to adapt wīralalita to dhandhanggula is to increase the number of syllables in a stanza from 64 to around 84 and to change the vowels of the final syllable of each line  as necessary. Let us compare a sample stanza from the Old Javanese text in the manuscript and its counterpart in Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin. As a source for the Romanized edition of Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin, I refer to Kern’s critical edition (published 1900, republished 2015) . A specific example from the manuscript is shown below.

 

Figure 2: Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin, Sarga 21, stanza 128 line 1 to stanza 129 line 1 in Kern’s critical edition (Kern 2015: 447-448) on the left. Old Javanese text in Or. 2174(E) on the right.

 

On the right side, the final syllable of each line according to dhandhanggula is underlined. As you can see, by lengthening the vowel in the last syllable of each line. For the purpose of increasing the number of syllables in a stanza, the scribe takes 5 lines from the Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin as one stanza, and adds syllables after that. Also, note that several underlined vowels are changed from the left-hand column for the purpose of changing the vowels of the final syllable of each line.

Tuning our eyes to the Modern Javanese interlinear text, it follows the metrical pattern of the Old Javanese text above it. However, it is further divided into smaller parts (caesuras). These caesuras are represented by physical spaces whereas the breaks between lines are represented by long vowels without physical spaces in the Old Javanese text. Following the caesuras in an example of a Modern Javanese text in the fifth stanza, the pattern is 10ī 4a 6a 8e 7ū 9ī 6a 6ū 8a 4a 8ī 7a (83 syllables in total). Therefore, it is even more detailed than the pattern of dhandhanggula metre, and attempts to match the rhythm of the Old Javanese text written above with that of the Modern Javanese translation.

The translation from Old Javanese to Modern Javanese does not always appear semantically precise. The word kita, expressing the second person both singular and plural in Old Javanese, is consistently translated as ingwang, representing the first person singular in Modern Javanese. From the point of view of pronunciation, however, kita and ingwang are words with the same number of syllables and the same vowels in the same positions.

To summarise, employing the interlinear model in the manuscript was likely intended to make it easier for the scribe, upon making a translation, to confirm the number of syllables and each final vowel in the Old Javanese text, and to compose a Modern Javanese text, also in dhandhanggula, that was as close to the older version’s sounds as possible. This example is valuable for the following three reasons: (1) it shows that a modernization of the sound of the Old Javanese text was performed (2) it presents in visual form the process in which modernization was first carried out through the Old Javanese text, and then the Modern Javanese translation was made according to the rhythm of the Old Javanese text, and (3) it adopts the interlinear model for this process. Hence, it reveals that the interlinear model was not only used for the general purpose of rendering the meaning of the source language text, which is divided into words or phrases, into words or phrases in the translation language but rather it may have had additional purposes, as in this case.

Becker and Ricci, upon analyzing the translation from an Indian Rāmāyaṇa into the Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin,refer to the ancient Javanese court poets’ adjusting the translation language of Old Javanese to the metres derived from the source language, Sanskrit, as “translating forms along with content” (Becker and Ricci 2008: 20).What then should we call the adjustment of the source language, Old Javanese, to the metre of the translation language, Modern Javanese? Can this also be called a translation of form?

At least for the person who composed the text of this manuscript (not necessarily the scribe), the task of “translation” seems to have also been to transcribe the sounds. The example of this manuscript shows us the broader concept of “translation” and the versatility of the interlinear model.

 

References:

MS. Or. 2174(E), Leiden University Library.

Becker, A. L. and Ronit Ricci. 2008. “What Happens When You Really Listen: On Translating the Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa: Ramayana Kakawin, Translation and Essay” In Indonesia 85: 1-30.

Kern, H. 2015. Rāmāyaṇa. The story of Rāma and Sītā in Old Javanese. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Romanized edition by Willem van der Molen. Javanese Studies 1.

Pigeaud, Theodore G. Th. 1968. Literature of Java: Catalogue raisonné of Javanese manuscripts in the library of the University of Leiden and other public collections in the Netherlands. Volume II: Descriptive Lists of Javanese Manuscripts. Leiden: Bibliotheca Universitatis Lugduni Batavorum. Codices Manscrupti X.

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the catalogue, the manuscript was written during approximately four months, from the end of April to the end of August 1812, and was owned by the son of Panambehan [Panĕmbahan] of Samanap [Sumĕnĕp] (Ricklefs, P. Voorhoeve† and Annabel Teh Gallop 2014: 61). This indicates that this manuscript was created in Java under British rule. The Panambehan of Samanap, who is called Panambahan of Sumenáp by Raffles in his monumental work The History of Java, was the informant whom Raffles relied on at the time and whom he considered to be a rare Old Javanese scholar in post-Majapahit Java, albeit with limited linguistic abilities. The Panambahan of Sumenáp came from a Javanese family that had specialized in the ancient scripts and in Old Javanese, and Raffles noted that this family had acquired this knowledge through connections with Bali (Raffles 1817: 370).

As Javanese courts had become Islamized, Hindu-Javanese culture and associated traditions of court literature fell into disuse and knowledge of Old Javanese gradually diminished. On the other hand, Bali became, and continued to be, a center of Hindu-Javanese tradition where the manuscripts of Old Javanese literature were copied and preserved in better conditions than on Java.

In his book Raffles writes the following about Bhāratayuddha: “Considering how little was known on Java of the Kawi language, and how likely that little was to be lost for ever, I felt a strong interest in analyzing and translating, as far as practicable, one of the principal compositions in that language; and availing myself of the literary acquisitions of the Panambahan of Sumenáp..." (Raffles 1817: 410). Kawi here refers to Old Javanese.

If we assume that the manuscript MSS Jav 25 was also part of Raffle’s project, then it is most likely a manuscript created on Raffles’ order with the help of the Panambahan of Sumenáp or someone from his family, and its purpose was to attempt to learn Old Javanese and its grammar using stories written in that language.

Another manuscript associated with the Panambahan of Sumenáp is Lor. 2174E which contains the Old Javanese original text of the Rāmāyaṇa with verbatim interlinear glosses below it. What MSS Jav 25 and Lor. 2174E have in common is that Modern Javanese is inserted between the lines of the original Old Javanese text, whether it is word for word or sentence by sentence. Another common feature is that rather than writing the original text in modern Javanese script, the scribes tried to recreate the ancient sounds by using a different script.

The Old Javanese text in MSS Jav 25, written in Balinese script, distinguishes sounds which are not distinguished when writing in modern Javanese script. For example, the long vowel ā is distinguished from the short vowel a by adding the long syllable markers called tedung after a consonant. Also, when writing the long vowel ī, the marker ulu sari is used instead of the marker used for the short vowel i. Also, d in dental and ḍ in palatal, t in dental and ṭ in palatal, s in dental, ś in retroflex, and ṣ in palatal are written in different scripts. These differentiations also occur in Lor. 2174E.

            Such similarities between MSS Jav 25 and Lor. 2174E encourage a hypothesis: the fact that both manuscripts with interlinear glosses are associated with the Panambahan of Sumenáp or his family indicates that he utilized interlinearity as a method of translating Old Javanese in dealing with the tasks commissioned by Raffles. And, if so, the interlinearity in these two manuscripts focuses more on language learning than on conveying the content of the original text because the purpose of the Bhāratayuddha translation as stated by Raffles was the learning of Old Javanese. In addition, reproducing sounds of Old Javanese, which are no longer used in Modern Javanese, by using Balinese script or an ancient Javanese script was an essential option for Raffles, who attempted to preserve the knowledge of the language that he feared was on the verge of being lost at the time. Further research is needed to develop and substantiate this hypothesis.

 

References and image credits:

British Library MSS Jav 25

https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=MSS_Jav_25

Leiden University Library Lor. 2174E

 

Raffles, Thomas Stamford, 1817, The History of Java. Volume One. London (reissued with a new Introduction 1978, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press).

Ricklefs, M.C., P. Voorhoeve† and Annabel Teh Gallop, 2014, Indonesian Manuscripts in Great Britain: A Catalogue of Manuscripts in Indonesian Languages in British Public Collection, New Edition with Addenda et Corrigenda. Jakarta: Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, Perpustakaan National Republik Indonesia, Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia. Naskah dan Dokumen Nusantara Seri XXXIII.

 

In the manuscript, the original Old Javanese poetic line is written first, Old Javanese words and their equivalents are then put side by side, and finally a sentence in Modern Javanese is constructed. The marks, pada guru, are used to separate these parts, namely, they are used between the first part and second part and between the second part and third part. Since this manuscript doesn’t have the Modern Javanese translation from the middle of Canto 21 and only the Old Javanese text continued to be written from that point onwards, the marks also disappear from there.

 

Therefore, the marks with arranged circles play an important role in visualizing the stages of translation by creating partitions between the stages that are specific to the method of this manuscript’s translation.

Actually, other manuscripts related to the Bhāratayuddha which are contemporaneous and belong to the same collection do not, at least not frequently, have such marks, with the exception of one manuscript. And this exceptional manuscript is the one with the Old Javanese text and an interlinear Modern Javanese version.

 

Figure 2: A Bhāratayuddha manuscript with Old Javanese in black ink and its Modern Javanese version in red ink, 1812. British Library, MSS Jav 25, f. 6v.

 

The Old Javanese text is written in Balinese script here, and the mark is apparently only used for the Old Javanese. According to Balinese orthography the mark is called pasalinan and is used at the end of a section, namely, a verse etc. (Everson 2005). Therefore, it is likely that the Javanese scribe followed the method employed in the Balinese manuscript to which he was referring. On the other hand, however, these might also have been the marks that were typically employed in manuscripts as a strategy to contrast the Old and Modern Javanese sections in the Javanese literary tradition that was non-Islamic and not written in the pegon script.

 

While the Old and Modern Javanese lines follow the patterns faithfully, the mark has many different variations whose patterns I have not been able to categorize yet.

 

Figure 3: The various kinds of pada guru. British Library, Add MS 12279, f. 92r, 109r, 140v and 34v.

 

These 4 images are just a few examples among the many kinds of marks. How the person who put down these marks differentiated them is not clear. However, there must have been an intention to make the text more attractive or more understandable for people who looked at the manuscript, whether they actually read it or not.

 

Who wrote these marks? This is also one of the main questions about them.

The marks that show up from the opening page suddenly disappear from f. 5r. The marks written until f. 5r give the impression that they were somewhat forced into places where there was not enough space. Also, that the marks were written in a darker ink than the actual text may indicate that they were added later.

 

Figure 4: The first two examples show that the beginning and end of each line on the page are aligned, yet the marks nevertheless are extend beyond the lines. The latter two examples show that the marks are added on the text already written before. British Library, Add MS 12279, 2v-3r.

 

Looking at f. 41r to f. 61v, there are blank spaces without circles in each line as you can see in Figure 5 below. The blank spaces strengthen the impression that the circles inside the mark were added after the text was written.

 

Figure 5: The blank space inside the mark. British Library, Add MS 12279, 41v.

 

Behrend mentions a division of labor in the production of manuscripts in 19th century Yogyakarta. In some cases it is clear that the copying, illumination, and binding were done by different scribes or artists (Behrend 1993: 421). Dick van der Meij, in his analysis of illuminated manuscripts, shows that generally the text was written first and the illumination was provided later (Van der Meij 2017: 81).

 

Going back to the question of who inscribed the marks on the manuscript, it is possible that a scribe initially wrote all of the text and then someone else added the marks. If this is the case, the marks are included in the category of illumination.

 

While the text follows a translation method faithfully, the marks seem to be relatively free and playful and even include elements of illumination. This irregular movement of those marks makes us feel the mystery of the unknown and is a case in point which reminds us that we know only a small part of this subtle and profound “textual microcosm.”

Even a single kind of mark raises a lot of questions. On what basis were different kinds of marks differentiated? What does the number of circles surrounded by double lines represent? Did the content, metres, or the translation of the poetic lines influence the marks? Was a special mark such as the one you see in the last image in Figure 4 used because the content or its translation of the line of special interest, attracting the attention of the person who added the mark?

 

Although these marks seem to speak eloquently about the text to which they are attached, further comparative studies of manuscripts are needed to gain a better understanding of what they speak to and what function they play in a specific manuscript with an interlinear translation.

 

 

References and image credits:

British Library Add. MS. 12279

https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_12279

British Library MSS Jav 25

https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=MSS_Jav_25

 

Behrend, T.E. 1993. “Manuscript Production in Nineteenth-Century Java; Codicology and the Writing

of Javanese Literary History”, In Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 149(3): 407-

437.

Dick van der Meij. 2017. Indonesian Manuscripts from the Islands of Java, Madura, Bali and Lombok.

Leiden: Brill.

Everson, M. 2005. “Proposal for encoding the Balinese script in the UCS”, UC Berkeley: Department

of Linguistics.

Everson, M. 2007. “Proposal for encoding the Javanese script in the UCS”, UC Berkeley: Department

of Linguistics.

 

The manuscript in Figure 1 was copied by pun Sastrawijaya in A.D. 1814. It includes the original Old Javanese texts from Bhāratayuddha, but between its poetry lines there is also a word-by-word translation into Modern Javanese inserted between the Old Javanese words, and a line-by-line Modern Javanese prose translation as well.

 

To be specific, the text is divided into three parts in each line of kakawin. In the first part, the Old Javanese poetic line appears. In the second part, Old Javanese words are repeated and their translation into Modern Javanese follows after each Old Javanese word. In the third part, Modern Javanese words employed in the second part are rearranged and a sentence in Modern Javanese is created.

Each part is separated with a special mark that consists of vertically arranged circles.

These procedures are repeated for every poetic line.

 

There is a huge gap of about 650 years between the original work and the year this manuscript was written. The original was composed in A.D. 1157 during the period of the Kediri Kingdom which was a Hindu-Buddhist Javanese Kingdom in East Java. On the other hand, in A.D. 1814, the Javanese court had already been Islamized.

In the 18th and 19th centuries a revival movement of classical Javanese literature arose in the royal court in the Mataram Sultanate in the south of Central Java. In the process of these retroactive literary activities, many Old Javanese literary works were re-edited into Modern Javanese versions. To attain a better understanding of Old Javanese literature and be able to create new works inspired by it, Modern Javanese authors and scribes had to translate Old Javanese—no longer in use at the time―into Modern Javanese.

 

The Brata Yuda manuscript is viewed as reflecting such activity. From the text, we can see that the agents (translators and adaptors) involved in it made various endeavors in the text-building. For example, in Modern Javanese translation, (1) characters are shown respect by using a script which Old Javanese doesn’t have and (2) there are attempts to grasp the pronunciation which is no longer in use in Modern Javanese literature.

 

(1) One of the major differences between Old Javanese and Modern Javanese is the honorific language represented by speech levels such as ngoko and krama, which Old Javanese does not have. In Modern Javanese, not only words but also scripts possess such a hierarchy.

In the manuscript consonant scripts called aksara murda, used for honorific purposes, appear in various ways, for example in personal pronouns, in personal names and in honorifics (see the image below). Moreover, when honorifics are omitted in the Old Javanese source text, they are often added in Modern Javanese translations.

Modern Javanese tends to be more conscious of hierarchical relationships and power structure than Old Javanese. Therefore, when translating Old Javanese into Modern Javanese, the agent had to compensate for such functions (in this case a murda form and honorific title) that do not appear in Old Javanese.

Figure 2: aksara murda in a personal pronoun. The s in sira which means “he/she” is changed into aksara murda. British Library, Add MS 12279, f. 96r.

 

(2) On the contrary, in terms of sound, while Old Javanese distinguishes between long vowels and short vowels due to the influence of Sanskrit, Modern Javanese does not distinguish between them.

In the manuscript, there are attempts to overcome this, through a method to express long vowels in Old Javanese by using Modern Javanese scripts. Frequently, the Old Javanese long vowel ā is represented by adding a comma called pada lingsa, or by adding an h after the short vowel a. That is to say, ā is represented by a, and ah.

 

To summarize, the rigid rule of verbatim translation helps the translator work mechanically with less creativity and flexibility. Also, the efforts to fill the gaps in both the source and target languages enable the audience or readers to grasp the venerable characters and to perceive Old Javanese long vowels. I believe that these are the manifestation of an attitude of trying to read as faithfully as possible to the source language and source text. The manuscript presents translation as a “process” from which readers can derive further interpretations, explanations, or free translation.

 

 

References and image credits:

British Library Add. MS. 12279

https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_12279

Supomo, S. Bharātayuddha : an old Javanese poem and its Indian sources (International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 1993)