Willem van der Molen studied Javanese literature at Leiden University (PhD 1983). After thirty years of teaching at the same university he spent another ten years, until his retirement, as a researcher at the Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Carribean Studies (KITLV), also in Leiden. He is professor of Philology and Old Javanese at Universitas Indonesia, and was visiting researcher and visiting professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Osaka University and the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies. His publications include a re-edition of Kern’s edition of the Old Javanese Ramayana.

Willem van der Molen in Jerusalem

From 13 April to 5 May 2023, at the invitation of Ronit I was part of the research group, doing research, participating in the discussions, weekly lunch meetings and daily chats, and making new friends. It was an excellent opportunity to hear about everybody’s work, the more so as Ronit’s perfect timing of my visit allowed me to participate in the yearly workshop of the project. For my research during these three weeks I concentrated on the genre of Javanese texts known as jarwa ‘interpretation’, written in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In three talks I explored – summarily – the views of some famous predecessors on this genre, how the idea of jarwa had worked out in the case of the Old Javanese Ramayana (according to the Central Javanese tradition), and, finally, how the Merapi-Merbabu branch of the Ramayana tradition adds to the picture. The lively discussions after the talks, while laying bare how little has been done in this particular field, were very helpful to take me further.

The Old Javanese enthusiasts, inside and outside the project, set time apart for a short series of reading sessions. Once a week we bent over the Smaradahana, a challenging text that left us with many a question mark as to the correct interpretation (in this we found ourselves in the company of its learned editor, Poerbatjaraka). I have to admit that I did not spend much thought on jarwa literature before I took the bus to Jerusalem. Following others who thought so already I now realize that there are some quite interesting and enjoyable texts tucked away in this corner of Javanese literature. It is my plan to continue paying attention to those texts, in the first place the various manifestations of the Ramayana.