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. 

 

 

 

One of the most prominent forms of interlinear translation in Bali is bebaosan, or pepaosan, where two practitioners—the pengwacen (reader) and peneges (translator)—perform sacred texts by singing and translating them in real-time. This unique oral tradition not only conveys the text’s meaning but also serves as a spiritual offering and an expression of devotion to the Goddess Dewi Saraswati (Reisnour 2018: 213). This method of line-by-line translation, often moving from a source language like Old Javanese or Sanskrit to a local vernacular such as Balinese or Indonesian, is not only a means of linguistic interpretation but a key to preserving cultural and religious identity. The manuscripts translated to modern-day languages orally include various traditional genres, such as Balinese Kidung and Geguritan, Old Javanese Kakawin, and Sanskrit Mantra and sloka, (Schumacher 1995: 497, 500; Creese 2014: 297). Today, bebaosan is practiced by three main groups: traditional village clubs (sekaa santi), Hindu reform schools and organizations, and new spiritual movements like ISKCON (The International Society for Krishna Consciousness) and Sai Baba (Reisnour 2018: 211-214).

 

In this blog post, I aim to offer an ethnographic perspective on bebaosan by sharing my conversation with a practitioner who associates himself with the sekaa santi group. Through his insights, I examine how bebaosan bridges communities and reveals complex intersections between tradition and modernity, highlighting the connections between traditional and reformist groups. By delving into both theoretical aspects of interlinear translation and the lived experiences of Balinese performers, this post explores bebaosan as a vital and evolving practice within Bali's spiritual landscape.

 

I met Bli (pseudonym) at a café not far from his university. He had just finished studying and left the university gates with his friends, chatting and laughing. After saying goodbye to them, he came into the café. We greeted each other and ordered drinks, and he suggested we sit outside so he could smoke. Bli is a friend and former classmate of my Balinese language teacher; they had known each other from their university days, and he was delighted to hear that I already knew some basic phrases in Balinese. He was even more intrigued by my interest in his hobby, bebaosan singing.

Bli explained that each village (desa) in Bali has a temple (pura), and each temple has a sekaa santi group that practices bebaosan. His group includes both men and women, though he, at 25, is the youngest among mostly older, male, members. Members either learn to sing the sacred texts or to translate them, so performances always require at least two people. The choice of text varies by ceremony—weddings, for instance, require different texts than cremations—and audiences can sometimes request specific texts, provided the group has learned them.

Regarding the text I was interested in, the Bhagavad Gita, Bli noted that it is sometimes performed in bebaosan, particularly during odalan (traditional village temple celebrations). In this context, the Old Javanese version is sung, featuring only a brief section in Sanskrit, while most of the text is in Old Javanese translated into Balinese. In these contexts, it is recited without meter and translated interlineally in a theatrical way.

Bli shared that he began with Balinese macapat, which is the traditional Javanese poetry and meters (Marrison 1987: 472-482) singing in primary school, discovering his passion for singing. He later learned to sing and translate kakawin poetry (classical epic poetry which was produced in the Indic courts of Java and Bali between the ninth and twentieth centuries) (Creese, 2001: par. 1). in middle school and started competing in performances throughout high school. After graduation, he continued his singing in his village’s sekaa santi group, as he liked the singing more than competing. Interestingly, he identified both the Hindu-reformist perspective of his schoolyears and the traditional Balinese bebaosan style in his village as the same group, referring to both as “traditional.”

It turned out Bli was a talented performer, and he demonstrated various melodies in the café, his enchanting voice resonating in the small courtyard. He explained that singing is quite complex, requiring attention to long and short syllables (guru laghu), vocal trembling, and the appropriate meter and melody. Even within the reformist schools’ melody, Hreng Sruti, there are various performance styles. However, he noted that Hreng Sruti is typically not performed in temples, where Sanskrit texts are reserved for priests (pendeta sebagai pedanda). If the sekaa santi group were to sing it, it might be seen as imitating the priest. They could perform in Sruti in the priest's absence, but this was quite uncommon.

We wrapped up our conversation and stepped into the warm sunlight and the bustling streets of Denpasar. Bli's insights illuminated the complexities of bebaosan and its cultural significance. Our discussion emphasized the importance of this renewing tradition in Bali and highlighted the perspectives of a traditional performer on the topic. Bli also pointed out an interesting connection between the traditional sekaa santi bebaosan and the institutional reformist bebaosan, showing how both are viewed nowadays as “tradition”. As we parted ways, I left with a feeling of new understanding of how bebaosan serves as a bridge connecting diverse communities in contemporary Bali.

 

References

Creese, H. (2001). ‘Images of Women and Embodiment in Kakawin Literature’, Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context 5.

Creese, H. (2014). ‘The Utsawa Dharma Gita Competition: The Contemporary Evolution of Hindu Textual Singing in Indonesia’, The Journal of Hindu Studies, 7(2), 296–322.

Marrison, G. E. (1987). ‘Modern Balinese — A Regional Literature of Indinesia. Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde, 143(4), 468–498.

Ricci, R. (2016). ‘Reading between the Lines: A World of Interlinear Translation’, Journal of World Literature, 1(1), pp. 68–80.

Reisnour, N. J. (2018). Voicing Selves: Ethics, Mediation, and the Politics of Religion in Post-Authoritarian Bali (Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University).

Schumacher, R. (1995). ‘Musical Concepts in Oral Performance of Kakawin in Bali’. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, 151: 490-515.

Van der Meij, D. (2017). Indonesian Manuscripts from the Islands of Java, Madura, Bali and Lombok (Vol. 24). Brill.

 

 

Serat Yusup is a Javanese literary work that tells the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, composed in the Javanese poetic form known as macapat. It was originally written in Javanese script and later also in pegon, an Arabic script adapted for writing Javanese. Pigeaud suggested that Serat Yusup dates back to the seventeenth century (Pigeaud 1967, 1:217), yet this should apply only to the versions written in Javanese script. The pegon versions likely emerged about a century later, coinciding with the period of the two earliest translations of the Quran being discussed.

Pigeaud further suggested that the Javanese Serat Yusup was shaped by the Malay model Hikayat Yusuf, with which it interacted alongside the original Arabic texts (Pigeaud 1967, 1:217). According to Majid Daneshgar, who closely examined the oldest version of Hikayat Yusuf in Erpenius’ collection at Cambridge University Library, this text is rooted in a Persian tafsir (Daneshgar 2024). This connection places the Javanese Serat Yusup within the tafsir tradition. In this study, I aim to further extend this lineage by illustrating how the Javanese Serat Yusup has also played a role in the production of Quran translations. To support my argument, I present three instances where Serat Yusup has left its mark on interlinear translations of the Quran. These cases are derived from two manuscripts: A.54, currently housed in the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia, and Or.2097, which is preserved in Leiden University Library. Both manuscripts were written in the 18th century.

The first instance is the spelling of Zulaykha’s name. Zulaykha (spelled زليخا in Arabic), the wife of Potiphar, is a character featured in a Quranic story, but her name is never mentioned. In the Quran, she is only referred to as imraʾat al-ʿAzīz (the wife of al-ʿAzīz). In other words, the Quran doesn’t tell its readers how to spell her name. In order to learn that, Javanese Muslims—who are not native Arabic speakers—have to rely on derivative texts, such as the Serat Yusup. In these Javanese texts, her name is spelled as Jaleka in Javanese script or Zalika/Zaleka in pegon.

Figure 2. MS Dd.5.37 of Cambridge University Library, a 17th-century Malay Hikayat Yusuf, f. 21v. The spelling of Zulaykha’s name.

Figure 3.MS  AW 97 of the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia, undated, original place unknown. The spelling of Zulaykha’s name in a pegon version of Serat Yusup.

Figure 4. MS A.54b of the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia, an 18th-century Bantenese interlinear Quran translation. The spelling of Zulaykha’s name.

Figure 5. MS Or.2097 of the Leiden University Library, an 18th-century Central Javanese interlinear Quran translation. The spelling of Zulaykha’s name. 

Interestingly, this spelling is also found in both of the oldest Quran translation manuscripts (Figure 4 and 5). This is a first signal for the connection between the Serat Yusup and the Quran translations.

Strengthening that signal is the second instance which concerns the translation of the word al-dhiʾb. This word—translated as “wolf” in modern dictionaries—refers to the animal that is said to have killed the Prophet Yusuf while he was playing with his brothers. The Quran again does not provide any further details about this animal. And again, Javanese Muslims have to rely on derivative texts for clarification. In MS. Dd.5.37, the Cambridge manuscript of the oldest Malay Hikayat Yusuf, the animal is always identified as harimau (tiger); in all the Javanese Serat Yusup manuscripts I’ve read, it is presented as macan (tiger), and interestingly, this macan presentation is also used in both Quran translations, A.54 and Or.2097. While it is important to investigate whether the Persian tafsir provides a Persian equivalent for ‘tiger’ in this context, that lies beyond my expertise. Nonetheless, this example further highlights the relationship between Serat Yusup and the interlinear Quran translations.

The third instance, however, shows a more complex relation between Serat Yusup and the interlinear Quran translations. It highlights something more subtle than the previous two, i.e. the levels of Javanese language. Broadly speaking, Javanese has two speech levels: the low one (ngoko) and the high, refined one (krama). The krama level is used when addressing someone respected, be it due to their age, social/political/religious status, or other factors. The shift in speech levels is usually done through word choices or adding specific elements to the root words. All types of words—nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.—may undergo this transformation. What is particularly relevant here is the level of the word used to describe Zulaykha’s actions. When news of her affair with Joseph spread through the city and became the talk of the town, Zulaykha became aware of it and sought to clarify the situation. The story continues with the well-known scene where women, mesmerized by Joseph’s beauty, unwittingly cut their fingers. However, I want to focus on the moment when Zulaykha became aware of the gossip about herself and Yusuf.

In The scene is depicted in Q. 12:31 where, the Quran uses the word samiʿa (fa-lammā samiʿat, “so when she heard”), literally meaning “to hear,” to indicate Zulaykha’s awareness of the gossip. Iand it is this literal meaning meaning that is reflected in the two 18th-century Javanese interlinear translations of the Quran: amiharsa in A.54 and midhanget in Or.2097. Interestin—gly, both terms are considered refined in Javanese. It is also important to point outintriguing that the very verse Q. 12:31 is never translated literally in the Serat Yusup, and Zulaykha is accordingly never associated with the verb for hearing. Where then did the Quran translators get amiharsa and midhanget from? While I haven’t come across the word midhanget in the Serat Yusup, I often find amiharsa, which is associated with highly respected figures (e.g. God [Sang Yang Widi], the king [Sribupati and Srinalendra], the Prophet Jacob, and the Prophet Joseph himself); Zulaykha is never linked to this term. Other words for “hearing” used in Serat Yusup are a refined word pireng attributed to the king (ratu), and a lower one angrungu attributed to figures of lower social status.

By attributing amiharsa and midhanget to Zulaykha, the two interlinear Quran translations seem to place Zulaykha in a position equal or at least close to God, kings, and prophets. This is particularly intriguing, as it suggests an elevation in her rank—in Serat Yusup Instead, she is often only depicted as “speaking,” “dreaming,” and “seeing,” using with words of the low level: sumaur/angucap, angimpi, and tumingal, suggesting her low position. . Given this, the Quran’s use of amiharsa and midhanget in relation to Zulaykha is unique, as it conveys a different nuance from what we see in the Serat Yusup. This raises theone may raise a question of whether the Quran translators intend to show more respect for Zulaykha than the composers of Serat Yusup did. Put theThis question aside, this example illustrates how the interlinear Quran translations not only dreaw from and get were influenced by Serat Yusup but also engaged with it critically.

Through these three instances—highlighting spelling, translation, and more nuanced linguistic features—I aim to demonstrate how the Javanese Serat Yusup has contributed to the production of a Quran translation. In addition to Serat Yusup, there are numerous other literary works to investigate, such as Serat Enoh and Sūrat Nūḥ (Q. 71), as well as Hikayat Israʾ Miʿrāj and Sūrat al-Isrāʾ (Q. 17), to name just two. Examining the connections between these serats and their corresponding sūrat counterparts not only acknowledges the serats’ significance within the tafsir tradition but also, as I mentioned in my earlier post, gives the Javanese Quran translation its due as part of the Javanese literary tradition.

Sources

MS. PNRI A.54a-e, The National Library of the Republic of Indonesia collection.

MS. Or. 2097, Leiden University Library.

Daneshgar, Majid. 2024. “Translating Persian Tafsir in Aceh: The Oldest Malay ‘Story of Joseph’ at Cambridge University Library.” Cambridge University Library Special Collections (blog). 14 Oktober 2024. https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=26005.

Pigeaud, Theodore G. Th. 1967. Literature of Java. Vol. 1. The Hague: Nijhoff.

One interesting aspect of early Islamic print in the region is that books were made in a way that sought to reproduce the graphic form of the manuscript. As regards our topic of interlinear texts, Proudfoot notes that “for kitab in particular, lithography reproduced interlinear glosses, commentary and the like, using customary devices of text layout and script size to express hierarchies of textual authority.” (Proudfoot 1993: 45). Nico Kaptein (1993: 357), in his discussion of a 1853 printed copy of the Mawlid Sharaf al-Anām from Surabaya with a Malay interlinear translation, also very much resembling a manuscript, suggested that this was the oldest known printed book from the Dutch East Indies to be produced outside European-controlled circles. The fact that this pioneering book was interlinear could point to the importance of interlinear translations in manuscript form at the time, especially within the Islamic religious-pedagogical sphere, and the need to include, from an early stage, those same translations with their particular format in the evolving realm of the new print media.

As an example of this genre, and as a step towards considering interlinear translation in print, this blogpost briefly introduces a small printed book containing an Arabic to Malay interlinear translation, while a followup blogpost will delve into its content. The book is a kitab titled Maslaku al-akhyāri fī al-ad‘iyati wa al-athkār al-wāridatu ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār (“The Path of the Righteous  regarding the Supplications and Remembrances Received from the Chosen Prophet”). As its title implies, it contains supplications (doa), chants of remembrance (dikir) and additional prayers attributed to the Prophet. The book carries no date, however on its final page appears a call to those “wishing to acquire books that are cheap and neatly printed to please get books from the book shop of Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co. Surabaya, as all book shops across Indonesia acquire their books from Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co. book shop in Surabaya-Java.” This appeal, which includes the designation “Indonesia,” indicates that the state had already been founded at the time of print, likely in the early 1950s.

Who was the book’s publisher? Sulaymān Mar‘ī, an Arab, was initially based in Surabaya and later (around the mid-1920s) moved to Singapore. He was a bookseller who for the most part carried out his printing offshore, much of it in Egypt. His offshore printing was “an immense technical advance” over the old Singapore lithographs (Proudfoot 1993: 45) and he also had an advantage over competitors in the Indies as the colonial government at the time levied import taxes on paper but not on printed books (van Bruinessen 1990: 233). Among the books he commissioned for sale in the Indies was the Qur’an, printed not in Egypt but in Bombay in 1928 (Hakim Syukrie 2023). Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co. closed down in the early 1980s (van Bruinessen 1990: 233).

 

Figure 1. Title page of the kitab Maslaku al-akhyāri fī al-ad‘iyati wa al-athkār al-wāridatu ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār

 

The title page of the kitab is written mostly in Malay, with two exceptions: the title is in Arabic, as is the note at the bottom of the page stating that the book was “printed at the expense of Sulaymān Mar‘i and Co. Surabaya with the permission of Sayyīd Muḥammad bin ‘Aqīl bin Yaḥyā.” The writing, excluding the note about the publisher, is surrounded by a double-lined thin black frame and a large X shaped sign made up of four thin lines divides the page into four parts, two of which “face” the reader while a third “faces” the right side of the page and the fourth its left side (see Figure 1). This type of multi-directional writing on the page is reminiscent of many interlinear manuscripts in which the translation is written upside down or facing a different direction than the main text, or to which various notes are added on various parts of the page. The bi-lingual nature of the book is evident on this opening page in two ways. First, in the top section, the title itself is appended with an interlinear translation into Malay. Second, in the bottom and largest section there is an explanation about how many of the reward-bearing doa and dikir are often written in Malay mixed with Arabic that does not indicate correct pronunciation (unvocalized Arabic?), perhaps implicitly pointing to the main reason why a full interlinear translation of such texts was necessary, and presented in the kitab.

 

References:

Anonymous. Maslaku al-akhyāri fī al-ad‘iyati wa al-athkār al-wāridatu ‘an al-nabī al-mukhtār.

            Surabaya: Sulaymān Mar‘ī and Co., no date.

van Bruinessen, M. “Kitab Kuning; Books in Arabic script used in the pesantren milieu;

Comments on a new collection in the KITLV Library.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en

            Volkenkunde 146, 2/3 (1990): 226-269.

Kaptein, Nico. “An Arab Printer in Surabaya in 1853.” BKI 149.2 (1993): 356-362.

Proudfoot, Ian. Early Malay Printed Books. A provisional account of materials published in the

Singapore-Malaysia area up to 1920, noting holdings in major public collections.

Kuala Lumpur: Academy of Malay Studies and The Library, University of Malays, 1993.

Syukrie, A. Hakim. “Pencetakan kitab-kitab Jawi di Bombay India Abad ke-19M.” Indonesia LivingQuran (7 April 2023).

https://hakiemsyukrie.wordpress.com/2023/04/07/pencetakan-kitab-kitab-jawi-di-bombay-india-abad-ke-19-m/

Accessed 8 September 2024.

 

 

This text fits the basic visual characterisation of interlinear translation, namely that the translation is written between the lines of the source (Ricci 2014; 2016). Figure 1 shows that the line is spaced out to allow the translation to hang diagonally below the original Arabic text. However, when seen closely, not every translation hangs below the particular Arabic word that it renders. This line is the opening sentence of the text, which includes a reference to God with a few of His names or attributes. The translation for al-bārī (“the Creator”) is written in two diagonal lines “lagi menjadikan” (“who creates”) and “segala makhluk” (“all creatures”), with the latter positioned beneath the next word, al-mu‘min (“who provides security”). Furthermore, the translation for al-mu‘min (“who provides security”) itself, which is “lagi menyentosakan(?)” (“who bestows tranquillity”), is moved further left below the next word, al-muhaymin (“final authority, guardian”), and is combined with the translation of that word, namely “lagi memelihara” (“who cares for”). The text, thus, displays a ‘distant-interlinear translation’, being an interlinear translation that does not hang directly beneath its corresponding word.

Aglaia Iankovskaia (2023) observed this distant-interlinear feature in another copy of the same text (Leiden MS. Or. 7075). MS. Or. 7075 is a copy from MS. ML 341 kept in the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia. Additionally, there is one other digitised copy with Aceh provenance available on the EAP platform. Each of these manuscripts displays this ‘distant-interlinear translation’ at some point. Could it be that this feature is quite common in Malay manuscripts?

Another important observation from this manuscript is that it demonstrates that the translator did not consistently pursue the smallest detail of Arabic grammar and syntax in translation. Such meticulous attention to the details is what makes interlinear translation associated with word-for-word translation and literalism. This manuscript, however, shows that the words of the translation are organised into a coherent sentence that can be comprehended on its own. Even without the original text, the translated version, although it may not sound entirely natural and idiomatic to modern readers, is still understandable. It is tempting to assume that the interlinear translation in this text works at the level of the phrase, but combined with the aforementioned distant-interlinear feature, I would say that the translation works at the sentence level instead.

With the distant and sentence-level translation, the text might be taught to students at the elementary level of their surau education, while they had not yet learned to read an Arabic text. The provided example clearly demonstrates that translation in this text is not only put at a distance from the specific word it renders, but that it is also frequently placed beneath a different word. This format may not be suitable if students were expected to connect each word of the original text with its corresponding translation. Additionally, with the translation that works at the sentence level, students were invited to understand the text in its Malay version. We can imagine the translation and original text standing alone, but they are stitched together on paper because they were read in the classroom.

This way, this text is comparable to the layout of the printed Qur'an translation in early twentieth-century Indonesia (see Fig. 2), where the Arabic text occupies the half-right side of the page, while the Malay/Indonesian translation occupies the other half. The audience for this Qur'an translation was the new growing Muslim intellectual class who had a Western education and was unfamiliar with Arabic (Pink, 2017). The inclusion of the Arabic text—and thus the Arabic recitation—in both layout formats apparently serves as an indication that the text's authority lies in its original form rather than in any translated versions. The distinction between the readers of our manuscript and those of the printed Qur'an translation lies in the fact that the surau students who read this manuscript would go on to read and translate the actual Arabic text later in their education.

 

Fig. 2. The Quran translation of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (1965) that follows the popular parallel layout of Quran translation since the early 20th century. 

The available descriptions of interlinear translation provided by scholars, combined with the traditional pesantren or surau model of oral translation of Arabic texts that still exists today, have led me to believe that interlinear translation is a highly complex enterprise. A further consequence of this perception is the notion that interlinear translation bridges the language of the original text, Arabic, to the language of the translated text, in this case Malay, in a way that is intended for learning the original Arabic text, and hence, learning Arabic. It is therefore not surprising that Iankovskaia, in her analysis of MS. Or. 7075 and MS. ML 341 concluded that these texts combine moral education for students as well as an Arabic language education. However, the text discussed in this blogpost does not fully attest to this complexity, leaving us to consider a more nuanced description of this tradition, including its role in Arabic language learning.

 

References:

Iankovskaia, A. (2023) ‘Between translation and commentary: an interlinear text from the collection of Snouck Hurgronje’, Archipel, 106, pp. 89–124. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4000/11wu6.

Pink, J. (2017) ‘Form Follows Function: Notes on the Arrangement of Texts in Printed Qur’an Translations’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, 19(1), pp. 143–154. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2017.0274.

Ricci, R. (2014) ‘Story, Sentence, Single Word: Translation Paradigms in Javanese and Malay Islamic Literature’, in Bermann, S. and Porter, C., A companion to translation studies. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell (Blackwell companions to literature and culture, 86), pp. 543–556.

Ricci, R. (2016) ‘Reading between the Lines: A World of Interlinear Translation’, Journal of World Literature, 1(1), pp. 68–80. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00101008.

 

 

EAP329/1/11 contains two different texts, the ‘Poem of the Student’ being the second in order and occupying five pages of the manuscript (pp. 7–11). The first page is missing, so that the poem starts abruptly with what is line 8 in the later copies. At least a century older than ML 341 and its Leiden copy, EAP329/1/11 proves that the poem was already in circulation in the 18^th century. Same as ML 341, it originates from Aceh where it is found in Teungku Mukhlis private collection in Calue, Pidie Regency. Also same as in the other known handwritten copies of the poem the Arabic text is provided with interlinear translation to Malay. This translation is traditionally placed under the line, but demonstrates casual inconsistency in the organisation of the interlinear space: most of the Malay text floats horizontally between the lines of the main text, but translations for four random lines are for some reason placed diagonally at an angle to the source. On the first page translation even finds itself above the line as a result of inattention on the part of the scribe, who apparently missed the translation for the previous line and later inserted it in the margin as a footnote. Appearing as an imperfection to a modern reader, this sloppiness of the interlinear translation embodies its dynamic and inconclusive nature as opposed to the more static and thoroughly reproduced matn (main text).

Juxtaposing the interlinear translations in ML 341 and EAP329/1/11 reveals an interesting correlation between the two versions of the Malay text: they are too different and too similar at the same time— too similar to be unrelated and, at the same time, too different for the differences to result from corruption in the process of recopying. This ambiguity brings up questions around the practices of transmitting interlinear translations, which appear to have differed from those of reproducing the matn. How can two texts be this much different but still related? A possible explanation is that the interlinear text might have gone through multiple stages of both written and oral transmission, which involved a teacher dictating the translation looking into a written copy, but feeling free to slightly modify or complement the text during the dictation—adjusting to the students’ level and anticipated need for additional elucidation. Frozen on the page of a manuscript, this interlinear text captures the translation as it was performed in the classroom, demonstrating one of the many ways in which orality and literacy were entangled within Malay manuscript culture and Islamic educational practices.

 

 

References:

Collective volume with two texts in Arabic with interlinear translation in Malay, Leiden University Libraries, Or. 7075, http://hdl.handle.net/1887.1/item:3128072

DS 0043 00014, DREAMSEA Repository, https://www.hmmlcloud.org/dreamsea/detail.php?msid=1403

Mau'izah and Adab al-Muta'allim, British Library, EAP329/1/11, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP329-1-11

Mawaiz al-Badiah Waghairiha, ML 341, National Library of Indonesia