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

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

I will begin this blogpost by answering the question posed in the title. Yes, and thus the translations of the Quran into vernacular languages need to be treated as part of their own local literary traditions. With particular regard to translations in interlinear form, the limited space available to translators has made them more creative in playing with subtleties not found in the Quran’s original language, Arabic.

To make my point clearer, I will take an excerpt from two Javanese interlinear Quran translations from the eighteenth century: a manuscript from Banten, MS A.54 now kept in the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia, and a manuscript from Semarang, MS Or.2097 of Leiden University Library. To be more specific, I will discuss a group of words that are derived from the stem r-w-d (which generally means ‘to desire’) from Q. 12 (Sūrat Yūsuf).

The verses I pick here describe scenes when Zulaykha tried to seduce Yūsuf (v. 23); when  news of the affair  then spread all over the city and the women were gossiping about it (v. 30); and when Zulaykha proved to the women that Yūsuf’s beauty is so very exceptional that everyone will be captivated by it (v. 32). The last verse (v. 51) is depicting a scene where the king (malik) was helped by Yūsuf and, upon Yūsuf’s request, asked Zulaykha and the women of the town to clarify what happened between them and Yūsuf.

In these verses, there is one word in the form of fiʿl muḍāriʿ (present and future tense), turāwidu (v. 30), and three other words in the form of fiʿl māḍī (past tense), i.e., rāwadat (v. 23), rāwadtu (vv. 32 and 51), and rāwadtunna (v. 51). The actor (fāʿil) of the first three words (turāwidu, rāwadat, and rāwadtu) is the wife of Yūsuf’s master identified in the books of tafsīr as Zulaykha, while that of the fourth word (rāwadtunna) is given in female plural form referring to Zulaykha and women of the town.

In translating the above r-w-d derivation, the two Javanese translators used different words. The Banten manuscript (PNRI A.54) uses three words (akarĕp, arĕp, and anĕkani), while the Semarang manuscript (Leiden Or.2097) uses only two (angarĕpi and adhĕmĕn). Angarĕpi is used in the Semarang manuscript to translate all derivations of r-w-d except for the first rāwadtu in verse 32 which it translates as adhĕmĕn. It is interesting that the same rāwadtu in this verse is also treated differently by the Banten manuscript; it is the only word translated with the word arĕp. The second rāwadtu in verse 51 is translated with anĕkani, the same word it uses to translate rāwadtunna in the very verse. The words rāwadat and turāwidu were both translated as akarĕp.

What is the difference between these Javanese words employed in the translations? Why did the two Javanese translators use the same Javanese words to translate different Arabic words (rāwadat and turāwidu) on the one hand, and different Javanese words for the same Arabic word (the two rāwadtus) on the other? Why did the Bantenese translator introduce a totally new word for the two r-w-d derivations in verse 51, while the Semarang translator went back to the words that he/she used in the beginning (verse 23 and 30)?

In order to answer these questions, one cannot merely rely on one’s knowledge of Arabic. The distribution of verb actors (fāʿil) in Arabic I mentioned above, for example, shows a pattern different from that of the translation. The philological analysis of some works of tafsīr specializing in linguistics also cannot give us clear answers—all more so because we do not know whether such tafsīrs were accessible to the two Javanese translators. What helps us more is linguistic and literary analysis of the Javanese.

In two aggregator websites for Javanese dictionaries (www.sealang.net and www.sastra.org), we find that arĕp (also the root of akarĕp and angarĕpi) comes from the Old Javanese language, harĕp. Besides ‘to desire something/someone’ which fits the topic of desire addressed here, arĕp also has the meaning of ‘to want, to wish’ and ‘in front of, fore part’, the latter being quite far from desire. Tĕka also comes from Old Javanese and also has a meaning quite distant from desire, that is ‘to come to’. The addition, the prefix a- and suffix -i for angarĕpi and anĕkani aim to make the verbs transitive. Although not listed in the sealang website as a derivative form of harĕp, akarĕp is recorded in three other sources that I consulted with a meaning not far from its root: ‘to want, wish, desire for’.

The nuances of arĕp, angarĕpi, anĕkani, and akarĕp are quite different from adhĕmĕn. This last word also comes from Old Javanese and is included in the four sources above. Compared to the previous words, dhĕmĕn has less variations in meaning, either ‘to like something very much’ or ‘to love, to be pleased with someone/something’ in association to lust.

What can we make of these explanations? I suggest this has to do with the speech contexts of each word. The first two words (rāwadat and turāwidu) appear when the Quran speaks to its readers and women of the town speak to other women. In these two conversations, Zulaykha was referred to in the third person. For Javanese, in this kind of context, the choice of words to attribute to the third person (whether to use formal, polite words or the informal, casual ones) depends on the relation between the third person and both the speaker and interlocutor. In this case, the relation between Zulaykha and the speakers (Quran and the women) and interlocutors (Quran’s readers and other women) is equal, so the Javanese Quran translators did not have to use a formal or polite word.

A different feeling emerges in the first appearance of rāwadtu (verse 32). In this verse, Zulaykha is speaking in the first person to the women of the town. Even though there is no clear explanation regarding the identity of these interlocutory women, the mention of Zulaykha as the wife of al-ʿAzīz (lit. a respected person) in the Quran is enough to give Zulaykha a position higher than the women. Moreover, in this verse Zulaykha has succeeded in convincing these women of Yūsuf’s extraordinary beauty. In such a context, Zulaykha finds a kind of safe space that allows her to speak more openly about what she feels for Yūsuf. The safe space was then lost when Zulaykha and the women of the town had to go before the king (malik) and explain what they had done to Yūsuf (verse 51).

The identification of these three situations may help explain the choice of words to translate derivatives of the Arabic r-w-d. In the first neutral situation, the Javanese translators had no reason to speak very directly about desire, so they chose akarĕp and angarĕpi which hint quite clearly at desire but not as straightforwardly as adhĕmĕn. The safe space and power relations in the second context allow Zulaykha to use the direct word adhĕmĕn to express her feelings. However, she had to quickly change course and speak indirectly when discussing this matter with the king. According to the Banten translator (A.54), Zulaykha even had to resort to innuendo by using a word completely unrelated to desire, anĕkani.

Could we reach this understanding by reading tafsir works? I would rather suggest delving into Javanese literary works to identify and further comprehend its subtleties, as shown above. To put it another way, one should give the Javanese Quran translation its due as part of the Javanese literary tradition.

References:

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

MS. Or. 2097, Leiden University Library.

www.sastra.org

www.sealang.net

 

Who was al-Wangarī? In the beginning of ʿAqīdat al-Wangarī, the author’s name is mentioned as Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Wangarī (see Figure 1). Several manuscripts in the National Library of France in Paris bear his full name (see Figure 2; cf. Figure 3) before the beginning of this work: qāla al-shaykh al-faqīh al-muḥaqqiq al-mudaqqiq al-naḥwī al-uṣūlī Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd b. Abī Bakr Baghyugh. This scholar, known as a jurist, grammarian and theologian, is most likely the descendant of a well-known Timbuktu scholar who originally came from Djenné, in present-day Mali, Muḥammad al-Wangarī al-Timbuktī al-Jinnawī (d. 1594), known as Baghayogho, whose manuscript library was cited by the celebrated Timbuktu historian Aḥmad Baba (d. 1627) (see Jappie & Diagne 2008).

      

Figure 2. Wangarī’s Creed in Maghrebi script. BnF Paris, Arabe 5602 ff. 402b-403a.

 

 Figure 3. Wangarī’s Creed in Maghrebi script. BnF Paris, Arabe 5484 f. 143a.

 

The transmission of Sanūsī’s works in Timbuktu can be well understood due to its geographical proximity to North Africa. But how did Timbuktu’s commentary on al-Sanūsī travel to Sumatra? Lebe Bandar, an unknown scholar and scribe in the early eighteenth century in the Sultanate of Aceh, wrote a prose commentary based on ʿAqīdat al-Wangarī, namely Al-Laṭāʾif al-nafsiyyah ʿalā naẓm al-ʿaqīdah al-sanūsiyyah (“The Psychic Subtlety Commenting on the Minor Creed of Sanūsī”). He noted that he learned of Wangarī’s text when he was in Medina at the end of the seventeenth century. This historical note corroborates the fact that the Hijāz was the most important transmission site of intellectual traditions to the Malay world. If we accept Lebe Bandar’s note, ʿAqīdat al-Wangarī very likely came to Aceh at this time, if not earlier, and this milieu encouraged the scholars in the  Sultanate of Aceh to study it closely, leading Muḥammad Zayn to compose his Bidāyat al-hidāyah in ‘the tongue of Jāwī/Malay” (lisān al-Jāwī). Bidāyat al-hidāyah was able to complement or even replace in popularity the theological works of earlier scholars such as Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānirī (d. 1658) and ʿAbd al-Raʾūf al-Jāwī al-Fansūrī (d. 1693).

Despite the popularity of Muḥammad Zayn’s commentary on al-Sānūsī’s work, ʿAqīdat al-Wangari continued to be recited, perhaps because the credal poem possessed a mnemonic function and was memorized up to the first half of the of the nineteenth century when the manuscript EAP329-1-95 was compiled. The single copy of this Arabic text with its Malay interlinear translation does not mean that it was not popular earlier, prior to the Dutch-Aceh War (1873-1904). It nevertheless at least testifies to an intellectual and textual connection between distant corners of the Islamic world at the time: Timbuktu, the Islamic learned culture far to the west, and Southeast Asia, the Islamic region far to the east.

Comparing three manuscripts—one from Aceh and the other two from the Maghreb  - which are currently kept in the National Library of France—the Acehnese manuscript lacks the indication of Wangarī’s full name at the beginning of the text as well as book divisions such as ‘introduction’ (muqaddimah), the ‘absolute attributes of God’ (mā yajib fī haqq mawlānā tabāraka wa taʿālā), and other Ashʿarī theological doctrines. The function of such subdivisions makes it easier for the readers to distinguish between the sections, thus they can skip from one to the other for subsequent perusal. The Acehnese manuscript differs from the two Maghrebi copies in the way in which the scribe copied it from other older manuscripts. Although the three manuscripts date back to ca. 1750-1850, they certainly have different stories. The history of texts and books is always fascinating when one considers their variants and translations. The Malay interlinear translation of ʿAqīdah al-Wangarī, as can be seen in Figure 1, itself attests to two types of interlinear translation: one is literal, word for word, and can be read throughout the text. The second is an irregular translation, which can be recognized already in the first line of the text:

Yaḥmadu rabbahu bi-khayri al-aḥmadi          al-Wangarī ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmadi

Sentiasa memuji oleh Wangari itu akan Tuhannya dengan sebaik-baik puji….

(“Always praised by the Wangari is his Lord with the best of praises”)

At the time when the translator wrote her/his translation, other explanatory elements were added above the words or in marginalia. While the Acehnese manuscript lacks Wangarī’s full name, for instance, the translator/scribe added the meaning of the word ‘al-Wankarī’ in the upper position or copied it from another text in Arabic and Malay: ayy al-mandūb [sic!; al-mansūb] ilā al-Wankarī, artinya dibangsakan negeri Wankari (i.e., “it refers to the territory of Wangarī”). An intriguing question that requires  further study  is how and why some  Arabic theological terms were partly translated  into Malay while others were left untranslated. This text opens a window to the rich tradition of Malay interlinear translation as practiced in Aceh and as found in the EAP Aceh collection, the books of which were used as part of an Islamic curriculum in the region. 

 

References:

Bruckmayr, Philipp. “The šarḥ/ḥāshiya Phenomenon in Southeast Asia: From al-Sanūsī’s Umm al-Barāhīn to Malay Sifat Dua Puluh Literature.” Mélange of IDEO 32 (2017).

Jeppie, Shamil and Souleymane Bachir Diagne (eds.). The Meanings of Timbuktu. Cape Town: South Africa (2008).

Olson, Caitlyn. “Beyond the Avicennian Turn: The Creeds of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Sanūsī (d. 895/1490).” Studia Islamica 115, no. 1 (2020): 101-140.

Zacky Khairul Umam was a postdoctoral researcher at “Mapping Sumatra’s Manuscript Cultures” project, SOAS University of London and is currently a lecturer at Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia.

I will explore the section appearing in the manuscript’s initial pages that speaks to the benefits of engaging with the stories of Muhammad’s prophethood and his attributes, benefits that extend to the textual community which encompasses those who wrote the texts, listen to, carry, keep or borrow them, or connect with them in various other ways. Such depictions are common in Javanese Islamic literature but here I wish to draw attention to the way reading this particular, small section in both Arabic and Javanese raises questions about the relationship between these two intertwined Islamic traditions. Due to the brevity of this blogpost and the need for further research my major aim here is to highlight such questions, not answer them.

 

First, a caveat: the manuscript seems to be missing several pages, as stated also on the DREAMSEA website, and unfortunately one or two pages are apparently missing at the start, after the opening page, so the section discussed is incomplete.

 

What is clear, however, is that those engaging with the stories related in the manuscript will be protected from various threats and harm. I’d like to suggest that the list of perils and the vocabulary used to name them in the Javanese interlinear translation of the Arabic text is reminiscent of one of Java’s famous poems, the Kidung Rumeksa ing Wengi (“A song Guarding in the Night”) attributed to Sunan Kalijaga, one of the nine apostles of Islam (J. wali) who is said to have lived in Java between the mid 15^th to mid-16^th centuries.

 

The Kidung, which has been classified as an invocation, a supplication, a mystical poem and a magic incantation (Arps 1996), was recited in the past not only in Java but also in Javanese exilic communities living as far away as colonial Ceylon (Ricci 2012) in order to ward off forces and beings lurking in the night, and it remains known and popular in some parts of Java in the present.

The protective role of the text (rumeksa) is phrased in similar terms in the Hikayat, also employing the verb reksa (to guard, protect, watch over), and nighttime is central to both: in the Kidung it is mentioned exclusively while the Hikayat mentions protection during both night and day.

 

A partial list of threats that reciting the Kidung and reading the Prophet’s stories will ward off includes the following: (the first word in each example appears in the Kidung, the second in the Hikayat, if the vocabulary is identical in both a single word is listed): fire (geni/ kobar), thieves (maling/begalan), harmful spells (guna/sihir), unlucky places (lemah sangar/enggon kang sangar), wild beasts (sato galak), jinn and devils (jim setan), all sorts of calamities (bilahi).

Even if the manuscript did not specifically evoke the Kidung for its audience (only speculation is possible here), the opening section of the Hikayat and the famous poem draw on a shared repository of images of looming dangers that need to be avoided, harnessed or overcome, and both offer protection from harm.

 

The Kidung Rumeksa ing Wengi has been studied and appraised repeatedly as a quintessential product of Javanese culture. Reading the interlinear text of the Hikayat with its tantalizing hints raises questions about potential inspirations for the Kidung: was it based in part on tropes from Arabic texts that were brought to Java from elsewhere? Or, conversely, perhaps the Arabic text appearing in the Cirebon manuscript was written locally rather than imported or copied from a foreign text in which case the Arabic telling would have been shaped by Javanese sensibilities about the natural and supernatural environments. I am not implying that “Javanese” and “Arabic” existed in separate, isolated spheres – far from it – and yet reading the Javanese between the Arabic lines powerfully resonates with the Kidung and other texts like it and invites us to think about possible relationships between the two manifestations of “the same text” we find on the page.

 

And perhaps we witness here not just a window to the well-known and oft-cited Kidung and its history but to the vast language of chants, spells and charms, to questions about the desired circumstances for employing them and their various intended forms of protection. Is this language related to, or rooted in Arabic textual sources and if so, how? Or was Arabic writing in Java shaped by old, perhaps pre-Islamic Javanese notions of reality and did these notions in turn affect the reading and interpretation of non-Javanese (especially Middle Eastern) Arabic texts? And, finally for now, how can the in-depth study of interlinear translation help us re-visit these questions?

 

References:

Arps, Bernard. “A Song Guarding at Night. Grounds for Cogency in a Javanese Incantation.”

In Stephen C. Headley (ed.), Towards an Anthropology of Prayer: Javanese ethnolinguistic studies (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 1996) 47–113.

Ricci, Ronit. “The Discovery of Javanese Writing in a Sri Lankan Malay Manuscript.” BKI 168.4

(2012): 511-518.

 

DREAMSEA project no. 0058_00010

https://www.hmmlcloud.org/dreamsea/detail.php?msid=2018

 

 

 

When a word is translated into Malay, there are numerous occasions where the Malay word serves a similar purpose as the first category mentioned above, i.e. to provide linguistic clarification, particularly when a word can have multiple linguistic functions. In an anonymous Adab al-mutaʿallim (“Ethics for the learners,” coded DS 0043 00014), for instance, at one point the word mā is translated below the line as تياد "tiada" (“no/none”). There are several functions of mā in Arabic, including as an interrogative word, a relative pronoun, a negative word, and more. The translation “tiada” in this text is intended to indicate its function as a negative particle rather than any of the other options.

In terms of translation model, Adab al-mutaʿallim (Fig. 2) is different from the other examples that we have discussed. Unlike the previous ones which contain occasional interlinear content, Adab al-mutaʿallim provides not only detailed translations of almost every Arabic word but also a relatively complete and meaningful sentence. The opening line of the text states: al-ḥamd lillāh al-ʿaliyy al-bārī, translated as “segala puji-pujian bagi Allah yang amat tinggi lagi menjadikan segala makhluk” (“All praise be to Allah the Most High, who created all creatures”)

 

Figure 2 Adab al-mutaʿallim, DREAMSEA DS 0043 00014 p. 5r

These various interlinear materials may have a connection to the visual and oral aspects of the texts and their teaching moments. Texts containing elaborate interlinear material like ʿAwāmil and Adab al-mutaʿallim, suggest that these texts are used for beginner learners. On the other hand, texts that contain a lesser amount of interlinear material are used for more advanced education. The presence of both Arabic and Malay inserts between the lines indicates that the actual teaching process was likely to incorporate a blend of Malay and Arabic. However, an intermediate learner would not need every word translated and glossed for them, thus producing a scarce interlinear text.

 

Figure 3 Sharḥ Khulāṣat al-alfiyya, DREAMSEA DS 0043 00017 p. 10v.

Having said that, it's crucial to avoid falling for visual impressions. A gloss to Khulāṣat al-alfiyya (DS 0043 00017), a popular treatise on Arabic grammar, displays highly dense interlinear contents and sidenotes (Fig. 3), but is certainly not intended for beginners. The copyist or reader of this text does not seem to be interested in translating the text but rather in gathering relevant opinions about certain words in the Arabic text from different sources. For example, upon explaining the opening word of the text, qāla (“he said”), it offers two similar glosses but with different wordings, most probably originating from two different sources. The sources in question are not named, thus warranting further research, but it is a case in point to see that the text is read at an advanced level.

In conclusion, the different kinds of material provided between the lines are, in some respects, pointers to the actual pedagogical setting in which these texts were used. A first glance at the visual aspects of a manuscript enables us to discern the levels of Islamic education that transpired within the community that used it, but only with a closer look at the interlinear contents can we gain a better idea about the learning process. The density of the interlinear inserts, the different materials offered between the lines, and the mixed use of Arabic and Malay point to the degree of readers’ familiarity with all the means that were necessary for understanding the texts and offer hints for gauging the reader’s educational level.

 

References

Azra, Azyumardi. 2003. Surau: Pendidikan Islam Tradisi dalam Transisi dan Modernisasi. Jakarta: PT. Logos Wacana Ilmu.

Bruinessen, Martin van. 1990. “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): 226–69.

Hadler, Jeffrey. 2008. Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism. Itacha: Cornell University Press.

 

 

 

 

The Rama Jarwa is an eighteenth-century rendering in Modern Javanese of the Old Javanese original of the ninth century, known as the Ramayana Kakawin. In addition to differences of time and language there is also a difference of religious context, Hindu for the old text, Muslim for the modern one. How did these and other factors influence the creative process: is the modern text a translation of the old one, or is it rather an adaptation, or even a remake in one way or the other?

 As a first step to find out I made a comparison of the religious aspect of the two renderings. In the ninth-century text the religious aspect is part of the core message. The text  tells a romantic story about a happy couple and their vicissitudes. At the same time the story is about good and evil: Rama, the namesake of the poem, is an incarnation of the Hindu god Wisnu, come to the earth to liberate the world from evil. The setting of the text is thoroughly Hindu: we read about Hindu gods, Hindu concepts of good and evil, incarnations, Hindu patterns and prescriptions regulating life, etcetera. Fine tuning the above question one wonders what remains of this Hindu aspect in the modern version, created in an Islamic environment.

 For my pilot I picked one small passage of the story, the so-called ‘hymn in praise of Rama’. This hymn is embedded in both texts in the episode of the battle waged by Rama and his allies against the villainous king who kidnapped his wife. A serious setback for Rama occurs when a magic weapon is applied by the enemy: he is paralyzed on the spot. Unable to move he loses his fighting spirit and gives up. At that moment a divine group appears in sky, singing his praise. As a result the effect of the magic weapon is undone. Soon Rama gains the upper hand.

Figure 2. Hanuman, one of Rama’s allies, immobilized by the magic weapon of the enemy. Relief at Panataran. Source: Jasadipoera, Serat Rama, 1925.

 

What interested me was the miracle that happens to Rama: what is the secret of the hymn? An analysis of such hymns in general in Old Javanese literature carried out by Stuart Robson suggests that three elements are crucial for the hymn to have effect: it is uttered by one of the protagonists of the story, it is uttered at a moment of crisis, and it contains a plea for help, persuading the deity addressed by underlining that deity’s supreme power and the worshipper’s humility and helplessness.

These three elements are all present in the old hymn. How about the modern version? This shows many similarities compared to the old version: the context is the same, and so is the content, even up to and including some of the wording and imagery. However, next to the many similarities there are also dissimilarities, quite a few in fact, in wording, in imagery. I found dissimilarity especially in two respects. To begin with, there is a difference of tone. While the Old Javanese hymn is a reverent prayer to the god, the modern version is rather an encouragement in a familial, even homely tone.

Next, besides the difference in tone, there is also a difference of perception on who Rama is. The Old Javanese text stresses the oneness of Rama and Wisnu, whereas in the modern version there is no oneness at all – at least, it is not mentioned explicitly. The godlike Rama of the Old Javanese in the modern version is reduced to a brave hero.

The conclusion from this small comparison must be that the modern version of the Ramayana replaces views no longer acceptable by modern standards. At the same time it appears that, although the translation can by no means be called interlinear, still the principle underlying interlinear translation, of faithfulness to the original at the level of the word, is adhered to within the limits set by religious doctrine.

 

References:

Jasadipoera. Serat Rama. Kawewahan beboeka lan sesorah déning toewan J. Kats. Djilid III (Weltevreden: Balé Poestaka, 1925. Mawi gambar tjorèk 33 idji. BP 696b).

Kern. H. Rāmāyaṇa. The Story of Rāmā and Sītā in Old Javanese. Romanized edition by Willem van der Molen (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 2015. Javanese Studies 1).

Pigeaud, Th.G.Th. Literature of Java. Catalogue raisonné of Javanese Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Leiden and Other Public Collections in the Netherlands. Volume I (The Hague: Nyhoff, 1967. Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde).

Rama Jarwa Leiden University Library Or. 1791.

Robson, Stuart. "Hymns of Praise in Kakawins. H.M. Creese and A. Griffiths (eds.) From Laṅkā Eastwards. Rāmāyaṇa in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 247) 1-10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004253766_002

 

 

The handwriting in this vocabulary is finer than in Or. 3231(8); unlike in the latter, Arabic words are not diacritisised, and the untitled faṣl (sections) are highlighted with red ink. Juxtaposing some of these sections reveals that the Arabic wordlists are identical to those in Or. 3231(8)—however, the spellings of words differ. Both vocabularies appear to contain considerable number of misspellings, which sometimes make Arabic words hardly recognisable. What is interesting is that these misspellings are distributed between the two manuscripts relatively equally: some words are spelled correctly in Or. 3233(2) and misspelled in Or. 3231(8), and vice versa. Indeed, the two versions of the vocabulary help a modern reader to decipher each other. Most of the misspellings appear to be of a graphical nature, e.g. letters of similar shapes are confused or dots misplaced, which apparently indicates that the manuscripts are not directly related and the wordlists in them have travelled different paths of corruption in the process of recopying. But it might have been not only recopying that contributed to this corruption.

For instance, in the section dealing with clothes and textiles, there appears a confusing word spelled as dāl-ḥā’-rā’-yā’-ḍād (in 3231(8)) or dāl-ḥā’-rā’-ṣād (in 3233(2)), which can be read as daḥrīḍ or possibly daḥriṣ (3233(2) provides no diacritics). Such a word does not seem to be found in dictionaries, but its interlinear Malay translation appears to give a clue to what it might have originally been. Below the line, this word is translated as suji baju (‘shirt embroidery’). There is an Arabic word for embroidery that could have sounded similarly to daḥriṣ to a non-native Arabic speaker, that is taṭrīz, as well as another word, takhrīm, that could have possibly transformed into daḥriṣ as a result of two stages of corruption, phonetical and graphical (the final mīm having been misinterpreted by a copyist as ṣād). If any of the two is the case, this seems to suggest that the history of reproduction of the text included both written and oral transmission, i.e. at different points in time it might have been copied from a manuscript and written down by dictation.

In the Arabic lines of the vocabulary, such possible traces of oral transmission still appear to be rather scarce. The majority of misspellings are those a copyist could produce due to inattention or unclear handwriting in the earlier manuscript, while the scribe’s own relatively fine hand suggests that the wordlist was copied without much haste from a written source—which seems to not be the case for the Malay translation. This translation is scribbled between the lines in a less accurate manner and might not have been copied at the same time with the Arabic text. Besides the sloppiness of the handwriting, there is another feature pointing to the different life paths of the Arabic and Malay parts of the vocabulary. The Malay translations of the Arabic words in the two manuscripts are largely identical, but not entirely, and the differences do not seem to result from recopying. For example, the Arabic word al-sundus (‘taffeta,’ thin silk textile) is translated in 3231(8) as kain sutra yang nipis (‘thin silk fabric’) and in 3233(2) as just kain (‘cloth, fabric’); and al-biṭānah (‘lining’) as lapis baju (‘shirt lining’) and luar baju (‘outer layer of a shirt’), respectively. Might these differences be due to a teacher’s reinterpretation in the classroom, or a student’s hastiness in writing the translations down?

Corrupted as it is, the Arabic wordlist in the vocabulary still appears to be a more stable part of the text than the Malay translations. The spelling differences between the two manuscripts seem to be not intentional, but rather result from the multiple stages of thorough but not flawless recopying by non-native Arabic speakers. The variety in translations, on the other hand, appears to be more voluntary, which might reflect the fluid character of interlinear translation and the role of an oral element in its transmission.

But how typical were texts for and about women written in the form of interlinear translations? What was the place of women within the system of studying such texts? What were they taught, threatened with and promised? These are questions worth exploring further. Here I offer a preliminary and brief engagement with one such text.

After its opening sentence the Kitab moves on to the formulaic “thus spoke the Prophet SAW,” with Muhammad speaking to his daughter Fatima but in fact turning to all women, reminding them of the duty to be devoted to God, His Messenger and their husbands. The Kitab then continues with a series of prohibitions on women: they should not be sinful towards their husbands, neither speak with anger nor make the husband sick at heart – all these behaviors being the distinguishing signs (A. ‘alāmah; J. tĕtĕngĕr) of a wicked woman.  The opposite characteristics are also enumerated. For example, the Prophet highlights God’s love for devoted and obedient wives who will gain all the fruit, clothes and palaces of paradise. 

The Kitab concludes with a tradition attributed to the Prophet’s wife Aishah about how a woman carrying her husband’s child will receive the rewards of one who fasts, prays day and night or fights a holy war. It is noteworthy that this text about and for women ends with a carrot, not a stick. We may also consider that it ends with mention of holy war: perhaps women’s lives are an ongoing holy war or holy struggle of sorts to live correctly, constantly facing the temptations and challenges that the authors of such texts expected them to overcome.

In considering the Kitab’s interlinear translation I will here highlight briefly a single aspect: voice.

Voices in the Kitab
On the surface the Kitab can be read as a long series of “dos” and “don’ts” addressed to women. Total dedication to one’s husband is portrayed as a religious obligation and an indication of faith in God and the Prophet. A closer look reveals that although this is indeed the general framework, and although the dominant figure whose words are cited is Muhammad, there is a variety of voices speaking throughout the Kitab’s pages. Whose voices are they and how were they mediated through translation? Here are two examples.
            After Muhammad states that women who obey their husbands will be welcome in paradise, paradise itself speaks, asking (Arabic followed by the Javanese translation that appears in between the lines):
Faqāla aljannatu ayna ḥabībī wa ayna dākhilī
Maka matur sawarga pundi ka2sih amba lan pundi kang amanjing ing amba
Paradise spoke: where is my beloved and where is the one to enter me?

The Javanese translation expresses a hierarchy not present in any form in the Arabic. Paradise is speaking to God using the verb matur (to speak) and referring to itself with the humble first person pronoun amba (“I,” literally slave, servant). As a site, paradise bears no title. When God responds His speech is depicted as follows:

Faqāla Allah ta‘āla                
Maka nagandika gusti Allah ta‘āla

For God, the verb ngandika (“speak” in a high register of Javanese) rather than matur is employed and He receives the royal Javanese title gusti. In this example the same verb for speech is employed in Arabic (qāl) for paradise and for God. Javanese, with its hierarchical structure and emphasis on honorifics, conveys nuance that emphasizes the difference between the two speakers through the verb, a self-deprecating pronoun and the addition of a title (Ricci 2023). The voice of paradise in Javanese is speaking from a lower status, conveying humility and deference.

Hell’s voice too is heard through direct speech in the Kitab, cited by Muhammad:

Alnnāru jahannama nādin                    min makānin ba‘īdin    
Naraka jahanam iku angundang2        saking anggon kang adoh
Hell beckons                                         from a place far away 

Ta‘ālū yā                                     nisā’  al‘āṣiyati         
Padha mareneha sira wadon     hai sakehe wadon kang padha duraka ing lakine
Come O                                      rebellious women

Wa ana juw‘un      wa ‘aṭshun          
Lan isun iku luwe  lan dahga isun        
As I am hungry and thirsty

Here is found another characteristic of Javanese interlinear translation: expansion. Various elements that are “built-in” to Arabic verbs or nouns, for example the plural form, need clarification in Javanese (e.g. ta‘ālu - “come!” - is translated as padha marenehe). The Arabic ‘āṣiyati, “disobedient, rebellious” in the feminine form is translated by wadon kang padha duraka ing lakine, highlighting that the women mentioned are rebellious in a specific realm – towards their husbands. This suggests that Javanese women reading the Kitab or listening to it being read and translated had access to a set of clarifications that didn’t leave much room for speculation or misunderstanding.

Additional voices speak out in the Kitab. The interlinear translation helps us assess how, through particular translation strategies, the translator understood these voices, differentiated among them and characterized them. Furthermore, the Kitab offers us a chance to consider, on a small scale, the gendered dimensions of Islamic interlinear manuscripts. Considering the centrality of the stories and messages offered in such didactic texts, and of the pedagogical settings in which they were read, the gendered aspects of interlinear translations are worthy of further research.

 

References:

https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP211-1-4-37

 

 

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.