Sensuality in the Margins: Translation a Balinese Maarti Manuscript

August 2025

keiko kamiishi

Among the many interlinear translation traditions across the Indonesian archipelago, Balinese maarti manuscripts stand out for their distinctive visual format and interpretive approach.
These manuscripts are typically written on lontar—a traditional writing material made from dried and processed palm leaves—and contain Old Javanese kakawin (court epics) accompanied by Balinese translations.

Figure 1: Example of a Balinese lontar manuscript from the Lontar Library of Udayana University.

The term maarti derives from the Balinese word arti (“meaning”) and refers to a format in which translation equivalents are placed directly above or below the source text, with dotted lines connecting corresponding segments.

Figure 2: A page from Kekawin Arjuna Wiwaha Maarti (here “Kekawin” reflects the Balinese form of the Old Javanese kakawin), showing the Balinese translation aligned with the Old Javanese source text by dotted lines. Courtesy of Balai Bahasa Provinsi Bali.

This layout allows the source and target texts to correspond at the word or phrase level, enabling readers to engage with both simultaneously.
In essence, maarti represents a uniquely Balinese form of interpretation, providing access to the meaning and poetic sensibility of kakawin, originally written in Old Javanese, through the local language of Balinese.
Old Javanese, a classical literary language that developed in Central and East Java between the 9th and 15th centuries, declined in Java after the 15th century but was preserved, transmitted, and further developed in Bali—especially by way of its manuscript culture, poetic theory, and recitation practices.

While maarti differs from the narrow definition of interlinear translation—where are the translation is inserted between lines—it shares essential features such as the visual proximity to the source text and word- or phrase-level alignment.
Its primary function is to communicate the poetic and semantic content of the original text directly, in a localized and more modern language. Despite these differences in physical layout and textual arrangement, the purpose of maarti remains closely tied to the source: to stay near to it, both visually and interpretively

This post focuses on a particular maarti manuscript housed at the Balai Bahasa Provinsi Bali: the Kekawin Arjuna Wiwaha Maarti. This palm-leaf manuscript consists of 174 folios and contains the Old Javanese text of Arjuna Wiwaha (The Marriage of Arjuna) up to Canto 36, accompanied by a Balinese translation arranged in the maarti format. In this format, the translation is positioned directly above or below the source text and connected to it by dotted lines, enabling the reader to follow the semantic correspondence between the two languages in a visually immediate and structured way.

Arjuna Wiwaha is a classic work of Old Javanese court poetry, or kakawin, composed in the 11th century by the poet Mpu Kanwa. Drawing inspiration from the Sanskrit Mahābhārata, the poem recounts the spiritual and heroic journey of Arjuna, a noble warrior who engages in deep meditation and ascetic practice in order to receive divine support. With the gods’ blessing, Arjuna succeeds in defeating the powerful demon Niwātakawaca. As a reward for his service, he is granted marriage to seven celestial nymphs. The narrative thus moves between the realms of self-denial and sensual pleasure, juxtaposing seemingly contradictory themes—asceticism and eroticism—within a coherent vision of spiritual refinement.

One particularly striking feature of maarti manuscripts such as this one lies in their subtle and culturally sensitive approach to the translation of erotic passages. In Cantos 31 and 32, the Arjuna Wiwaha portrays Arjuna’s intimate relationship with the heavenly nymph Tilottamā. These episodes are among the most richly poetic and emotionally charged in the entire poem. The translator of the maarti manuscript demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how to convey the sensuality of these scenes while maintaining appropriate tone and decorum aligned with Balinese literary norms.

A central technique that enables this delicate balance is what is known as register shift—the deliberate use of varying levels of linguistic formality, intimacy, and poetic refinement depending on the context. In linguistic terms, “register” refers to stylistic variation shaped by social, literary, or ritual conventions. Notably, such register variation does not exist in Old Javanese but is richly developed in Balinese. By adjusting the register—a feature inherent to the Balinese language—the translator is able to shape the narrative voice with great sensitivity and skillfully guide the reader’s emotional engagement with the scene.

In the opening stanzas of the scene, the Balinese translation adopts a high register, echoing the solemn and elevated tone of the original kakawin. For example, when describing Tilottamā’s breasts (payodhara in the source text), the translator uses the word sari, which originally means “essence,” “pollen,” or “flower.” This poetic and euphemistic term, drawn from the Old Javanese lexicon, implies delicacy, refinement, and symbolic indirection. However, when her breasts are described again as susu in the following stanza, the tone shifts. The translator replaces the high-register term with nyonyo, a more physical and everyday Balinese word that conveys a stronger sense of embodied presence. This shift marks a narrative movement from formal distance toward emotional and sensory intimacy.

Such a shift is neither abrupt nor crude; rather, it is part of a carefully crafted progression. The translator stages eroticism gradually, allowing the reader to approach the scene step by step. By doing so, the translator demonstrates sensitivity to cultural values as well as to the rhythm of emotional experience. This reflects a shared view—present in both the Old Javanese source and the Balinese translation—of sexuality as sacred and beautiful, rather than something to be treated as vulgar. The view also appears in the following translation choices. For instance, the Old Javanese word smarāgama—literally “the art of love”—is rendered as smaran tantranne, which can be translated as “the doctrine of love,” reframing erotic experience as ritual knowledge. Likewise, kĕtĕ-kĕtĕg, meaning “signs of heightened emotion or desire,” is translated as raras, a term that evokes beauty, charm, and emotional resonance in both Old Javanese and Balinese usage.

These lexical decisions transform the tone and affect of the scene. Rather than merely translating words, the maarti translator interprets, reshapes, and recontextualizes the narrative. The resulting text offers not only access to the meaning of the original but also insight into Balinese cultural aesthetics and ethical sensibilities, demonstrating how literary translation becomes an act of creative negotiation across languages and worlds.

 

Sources and Image Credits

• Kekawin Arjuna Wiwaha Maarti (007/BPB/Vb/91), Balai Bahasa Provinsi Bali
• Barber, C. Clyde. (1979). Dictionary of Balinese-English. Aberdeen University Library, Occasional Publications No. 2.
• Robson, S. (2008). Arjunawiwāha: The Marriage of Arjuna of Mpu Kanwa. Leiden: KITLV Press.
• Zoetmulder, P. J. (1982). Old Javanese-English Dictionary. With the collaboration of S. O. Robson. The Hague: Nijhoff.