REVIEW ESSAY DICK VAN DER MEIJ
In Bijdragen, tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 162.2/3, 2006 pp. 397-405
Latest editions of Indonesian classical texts
A. Teeuw, R. Dumas, Muhammad Haji Salleh, R. Tol, and M.J. van Yperen (eds), A merry senhor in the Malay world; Four texts of the Syair Sinyor Kosta. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004, a set of 2 volumes, vol. 1: x + 238 pp., vol. 2: vi + 226 pp. [Bibliotheca Indonesica 30.] ISBN 9067182168. Price: EUR 50.00 (paperback).
Julian Millie, Bidasari; Jewel of Malay Muslim culture. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004, vi + 310 pp. [Bibliotheca Indonesica 31.] ISBN 9067182249. Price: EUR 30.00 (paperback).
A. Teeuw and S.O. Robson (eds), Bhomantaka; The death ofBhoma. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2005, viii + 695 pp. [Bibliotheca Indonesica 32.] ISBN 9067182532. Price: EUR 45.00 (paperback).
J. Noorduyn and A. Teeuw, Three Old Sundanese poems. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2006, xii + 495 pp. [Bibliotheca Indonesica 29.] ISBN 906718182X. Price: EUR 40.00 (paperback).
Anyone who claims that philology is dead, and that ancient texts belong to ancient times and outdated scholarly traditions, is proven seriously wrong by the publications discussed in this review essay. Never before has KITLV published so many philological works in so short a time, and KITLV Press should be warmly applauded for these additions to its Bibliotheca Indonesica series. The works contain six text editions; two are Malay, one is Old Javanese, and three are Old Sundanese.
Two of the authors, A. Teeuw and S. Robson, are old hands in the field. Both have edited and translated numerous Malay and Old Javanese works, often working together, and it is praiseworthy that at his advanced age Teeuw has been willing and able to continue to be involved in five of the text editions presented here. Julian Millie is a comparative newcomer. Former students working with Teeuw on the Syair Sinyor Kosta edition include Roger Tol, who is highly acclaimed in Malay and Bugis studies. Teeuw's other students in the Sinyor Kosta project have unfortunately discontinued their involvement in text and manuscript studies.
The present works show once again that experience gained in editing texts in one language adds to knowledge useful for preparing an edition of a text in another language.
It is impossible to evaluate the entirety of these books in only a few pages; my remarks should be regarded as notes and additions rather than as an attempt to weigh up the content of the works in any comprehensive manner.
Syair Sinyor Kosta and Syair Bidasari
The works by Teeuw et al. and Millie are editions of Malay syair. A syair is a poem that consists of a number (sometimes a large number) of four-lined stanzas, each stanza having (ideally and by no means always) four words and a rhyme scheme of a a a a. When exactly the syair first came into being in the Malay world has been discussed by many and is still a matter of conjecture. Teeuw is one of the scholars who have been involved for a long time in the study of this particular type of Malay verse; he edited the Syair Ken Tambuhan, published forty years ago (Teeuw 1966). Co-authors of the present edition of the Syair Sinyor Kosta include Professor Muhammad Haji Salleh from the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangli, Selangor, himself a poet laureate of Malaysia. He contributed the chapter 'Continuing a tradition; Recreating the Syair Sinyor Kista', and we can profit from his remark that a text edition should not be regarded as the final stage in the fossiliza-tion of the text, but rather as the continuation of traditions. The second work, Bidasari by Julian Millie, was written, according to the back cover text, with the goal of obtaining a master's degree from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. It is his first published work in the field.
Both syair are said to have been popular in nineteenth-century Malay society.1 But how different they are in content! The Syair Sinyor Kosta is set in a rather realistic fantasy world where references to things that (might) actually have existed are frequent. The Syair Bidasari, in contrast, is an 'old-fashioned' fairytale-like story about kings and princesses and their surroundings, also set in an imaginary world, but one totally different from that of the Syair Sinyor Kosta. Yet, the basic romantic themes of both are similar: relations between desiring men and women are never easy and can lead to happiness, but also to disaster. This is the case in the world of foreign traders and exotic ladies at the harbour of Batavia as well as in the realm of imaginary kings and queens. The themes of both stories may answer the question as to why these texts were so popular. It transpires that the stories were not only transmitted in written form, but were also used for theatrical purposes, thus adding to their popularity.
The authors of both editions point to the importance of extra-textual knowledge in order to appreciate and understand the stories in the texts. Millie goes so far as to say that the Leiden Codex Orientalis 1964 manuscript which he used for his edition of the Syair Bidasari is to a large extent a 'theatre text', and should perhaps be viewed as a recording of a performance rather than as a copied version of an earlier manuscript. He points out that most of the knowledge needed for appreciating the manuscript is not contained in it (p. 10). No text in the world stands apart from other texts or from other expressions of the culture it stems from. A cultural interpretation rather than a textual interpretation pur sang leads to greater understanding. Luckily, this is what has been done in the Malay works under discussion here.
The subtitle of Millie's book, 'Jewel of Malay Muslim culture', does not seem to me apt, and I truly wonder where it comes from. The story does not strike me as particularly Islamic, and references to things Islamic in the story are few and far between. Millie does not explain the issue in more detail. It may very well be that for Malays - and, probably, for Millie - the story is Islamic in such an obvious way that explicating its Islamic aspects was considered superfluous. If Millie is able to prove this point in future publications he will gratify all of us who are interested in older stories from the Indonesian area. I think that many stories from Lombok, for instance, are full of references to Malay/Javanese Muslim culture, but much of this escapes the untrained (Western) eye. This may be the case with many Malay literary products, the syair among them. On the other hand, if it is the case that literary conventions from one cultural period have been taken over into another period, then we should not oversimplify things by calling a text 'Islamic' and thus dismissing other layers of cultural meaning.
The Bhomantaka; The death ofBhoma
A kakawin is an Old Javanese verse in Indian or Indian-inspired poetic metres, written in Java or Bali. The kakawin Bhomantaka was the subject of Teeuw's dissertation in 1946. He made a Dutch translation, accompanied by introductory chapters, without however presenting a text edition (Teeuw 1946). Now, almost sixty years later, an edition with English translation has seen the light, prepared by Teeuw in cooperation with Robson. They are two of the few scholars left who are still actively involved in kakawin study.2 Teeuw previously edited the Hariwansa (1950), together with Robson the Kurijarakarna Dharmakathana (1981), and with Robson and others the Siwaratrikalpa (1969). Robson translated the Desawarnana (Nagarakrtagama) (1995). Incidentally, all these works were published by KITLV.
The book can be called an old-fashioned text edition in which six sources were used, one the printed version by Friederich from 1852, and five manuscripts, all in the Leiden University library.3 The text is presented with translation, introductory chapters, and a commentary on the translation, as well as indexes and glossaries. The text edition itself is clear and provided with a critical apparatus in the footnotes. The presentation of the text and translation was quite a task, as the Old Javanese text is very long (about 285 pages in print).
Interestingly, Teeuw and his co-authors mention the popularity of the Syair Sinyor Kosta without considering manuscripts extant among the Malays themselves. Now, this can indeed no longer be checked, as the manuscript culture among the Malay people is virtually dead. In Bali, however, this is not the case; many manuscripts may still be found among the Balinese.
The section 'The reception of the Bhomantaka in Bali' (pp. 60-2) is far too short, perhaps due to time constraints or to keep the book from becoming even more bulky than it already is. However, Bali has been instrumental in the preservation of kakawin, and, that being so, the role of kakawin in Bali must have been prominent and might have given rise to more discussion in this volume. In Bali up to the present day, kakawin are being sung and the contents discussed at pepaosan events. These events have been described at length by Raechelle Rubinstein (1992). She even mentions that kakawin that were produced in ancient Java (but preserved in Bali) are the most popular for these events, the Bhomantaka among them (Rubinstein 1992:87). A simple reference to the works of this important kakawin scholar (Rubinstein 1992, 2000) would have been useful for the reader.
The past tense used by the authors in this section would also seem to imply that we are speaking of matters no longer current, which is not entirely the case, as Robson knows (see his 2001 article). In Bali, kakawin are still being composed today, in addition to being sung. Recent products include the Kakawin Rawana (I Wayan Pamit 2002b), Kakawin Candrabhanu (I Wayan Pamit 2002a), and Kakawin Karnnantaka (I Wayan Sregeg 2000), which have only come to my notice in printed form and of which no manuscripts have been found. In Bali many modern printed text versions in Balinese script of kakawin and thus also of the Bhomantaka have been produced (for example, Kekawin Boma [1989] and Bhomantaka 1990, Kakawin Bhomantaka (I Made Bidja n.d.)) and to this day are for sale in bookshops in Bali, for instance in Denpasar and Tabanan. This attests to the popularity of this kakawin and it may well be that by means of these editions the text has even gained in popularity, as opposed to earlier times when the only copies were on palm-leaf and kept in household repositories of Brahmin priests and Ksatriya rulers.
Some discussion about other manuscripts in public collections in Indonesia and elsewhere, and those owned by private individuals in Bali and among the Balinese people living in western Lombok, might have given the reader an opportunity to judge the quantitative position of the material used for this edition.4 The Balinese of western Lombok often possess large collections of manuscripts, the kakawin under discussion among them, and pepaosan groups also exist in that area.5 As it stands, the small section devoted to Lombok is completely insufficient, and reference to Marrison's work (1999a, 1999b) on Sasak and Javanese literature on Lombok is superfluous since he does not discuss the Balinese part of Lombok at all.
Occasional puzzling remarks in this section may stem from an old bias against kakawin composed in Bali in favour of those produced in ancient Java. The distinction between the 'major' kakawin (those originating from ancient Java) and the 'minor' kakawin (composed in Bali), as made by Zoetmulder (1974), still lingers on without any purpose. Even the latest book on kakawin by Helen Creese does not escape spreading this curious notion, as if the kakawin originating from Java are superior to those composed in Bali (Creese 2004). This leads to curious ideas such as the following. There seems to be an Old Javanese sequence to the Bhomantaka made in Bali, the Narakawijaya, which, according to Teeuw and Robson (p. 61), 'is a curious text, first of all because it describes the victory of the demon king Naraka, a theme which in the framework of Javanese literary conventions is exceptional, if not unacceptable. Another remarkable point is the very large number of Cantos (173) of the text and its great variety of metres.' This quotation gives rise to questions. What literary Javanese conventions are we talking about? Are these conventions Javanese, as opposed to Balinese interpretations of these conventions? Would not one assume that if the theme of the text was unacceptable, the text would never have been written? Perhaps 173 cantos is a lot, but the text of the Bhomantaka has 118 cantos, which also might be called many. The plot is said to be 'unusual' (p. 61), but the reasons why it is unusual I do not find convincing. It is as if the authors assume there is an established notion of what the conventions in this literature are and that we have the tools necessary to evaluate texts in the light of these conventions, but I cannot agree with this standpoint.
The Old Sundanese poems
Never before have Old Sundanese poems been edited and translated into English. The texts presented are: 1. The sons of Rama and Rahwana; 2. The ascension of Sri Ajnyana; and 3. The story of Bujangga Manik: a pilgrim's progress. The work necessary for producing these editions and translations, and the wealth of other information contained in this volume, was started by J. Noorduyn. Just before his death, Noorduyn asked Teeuw to continue the work on these texts, and luckily Teeuw did so. The book is a virtual manual for Old Sundanese literary study; the texts are well presented and the translations are highly readable.
The history of Old Sundanese studies is presented, with due attention to the role of Sundanese scholars. This is as it should be and stands in sharp contrast with the Bhomantaka edition, where indigenous scholars on kakawin texts are afforded far less space.
The extensive glossary (which might more aptly be called a small dictionary), the appendices on Sundanese script, and the notes on the texts and translations are invaluable as they offer the interested scholar indispensable tools in English which are not available elsewhere.
Translations
All the texts edited in the works under discussion have been provided with an English translation. Quite rightly, the book on the Sinyor Kosta discusses at great length the problems of translating such texts. Indeed, translations of older texts in languages of the Indonesian archipelago are extremely difficult to make, and problems of correct understanding and interpretation lurk at every syllable and every comma. Often basic tools, such as dictionaries or cultural information about matters presented in texts, are unavailable or ill understood. However, one thing is clear: a translation should be an enjoyable and readable text in its own right. If we wish to see these texts included in the canon of world literature (as implied by Teeuw and Robson, p. 9), the quality of the translations is of key importance.
The syair translations, especially the one made by Millie, are highly readable. At times I do not agree with translational choices made, but that is often a matter of personal preference. The translations of the Sundanese texts are very readable as well. Parts of the Bhomantaka - especially the beginning
- were particularly difficult to translate and resulted at times in curious and unnecessarily difficult choices. This is of course due to the constraints mentioned above. Nevertheless, I fear that Robson's statement still holds true:
In the field of Old Javanese we seem to have established our own way of doing things, and this has been moderately productive. However, I suggest that the results are not yet such that they can appeal to a wider audience, and may benefit from our reflecting on our aims and methods once more. (Robson 2001:41.)
Finally, a word about the cover designs of the books, all made by Crea Ontwerpen in Leiderdorp. Some supervision might have been in order to aid the designer and ensure that the covers had some significant bearing on the content of the books. The cover of the Sinyor Kosta shows a text - probably a manuscript, but this is not indicated - and the text is clearly in Chinese. The text of the Syair Sinyor Kosta is in Malay; there is no mention in the book of any extant Chinese versions of the text, so that the cover seems to be at odds with the content of the book itself.
The front cover of the Bidasari is also curious. It shows a voluptuous lady in a modern version of Malay-Indonesian dress, and behind her we see some figures wearing turbans. As in the case of the Sinyor Kosta book, there is no reference in this book to where the picture comes from. It may be from one of the Malaysian motion pictures that were made of the story. Also unclear is whether the picture of the girl and that of the old men are indeed one picture, or rather two or more pictures superimposed. Whatever the case, this lady - clearly not a princess - ill matches the impression we get from the story of the demure and lovely princess Bidasari. If there is any relation between the book and the picture, the reader should have been told.
The cover of the Bhomantaka does indeed, as mentioned, portray a Balinese illustrated (prasi) manuscript of the Bhomantaka. However, the information that the sequence of the manuscript pages shown should be bottom to top would have been useful. The picture was copied from Illuminations, but it shows a manuscript preserved in the National Library of Indonesia which probably originates from the Gedong Kirtya in Singaraja where I first saw it in the 1980s. It was frequently copied, and this would have been worth mentioning as well. It may be hoped that in the future the editorial board will pay more attention to these matters to avoid misunderstandings.
Conclusion
Six texts in three languages have been made accessible to scholars and the general public. The authors and KITLV have done the world of international literature an enormous favour, and my remarks do not lessen my admiration for what has been achieved. It is to be hoped that at least one of these texts will be taken up by people involved not in Indonesian studies but in the discipline of comparative literature. Two final remarks for KITLV. First, the language editors and copy editors of the institute have done a marvellous job. These books are hard to produce and the level of accuracy here is to be lauded. Second, please present text editions in hard cover. They will most likely not be repeated for a considerable time to come, and will need to survive for decades. These soft cover books will likely not survive that long.
Notes
1 In the case of the Sinyor Kosta it is even said that it was 'extremely' popular (p. 1). Millie likewise points to the popularity of the Bidasari. However, since so little is really known about readership and dissemination of texts in the Malay world, some caution is called for here. Moreover, basing ourselves on collections in libraries in order to say something about actual availability of manuscripts is tricky. The case of the Puspakrema which I edited is a case in point (Van der Meij 2002). Initially very little material was found in public libraries, but it became apparent that the text was ubiquitous in Lombok in private hands and that hundreds of manuscripts could be found in the island itself. Apart from all this, the authors seem to imply that 'unpopular' texts would not merit our attention.
2 The number of scholars interested in working on kakawin texts is becoming dangerously small. There seems to be no money available for this craft. Both Teeuw and Robson are no longer employed in academia and devote their spare time to this work. Raechelle Rubinstein has fallen out of the trade because employment is unavailable. Helen Creese is nowadays spending her professional time teaching students the basics of modern Indonesian. If we take this matter seriously, something should be done to address this situation, otherwise the kakawin will soon be dead in the modern Western world. In Bali the people remain interested, but their knowledge and efforts hardly ever reach the general public in the West, in part because they write in Indonesian. Incidentally, the situation with regard to Malay texts is hardly more promising.
3 For unknown reasons the seven (at least) typed copies of manuscripts in Bali belonging to the so-called Hooykaas-I Gusti Ngurah Ketut Sangka/Hedi Hinzler 'Proyek Tik' collection, also available in the library, were not deemed worth mentioning and have not been used.
4 The mailing lists of the Proyek Tik may be consulted to discover the provenance in Bali of the original manuscripts used for the typescript copies in Leiden University Library.
5 The 1993 project Pemetaan Naskah Lombok funded by the Ford Foundation found the following owners of Kakawin Bhomantaka in the Mataram area in western Lombok alone: Sekehe Papaosan 'Satya Dharmasanti', Pagesangan (kept by Ida Made Gianyar); Cede Mantri, Pagesan-gan; and I Ketut Gede Marda, Karang Tulamben, Monjok.
References
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