Art. II.– Notes on the Kawi Language and Literature
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42 ART. II.—Notes on the Kawi Language and Literature. By Dr. H. N. VAN DER TUUK, Boeleleng, Bali. [Communicated by Dr. HOST, from letters received in 1878 and 1879. The author's system of transliteration has been retained.] ONE of the chief difficulties which I have to encounter in the study of Old-Javanese manuscripts consists in the faulty spelling introduced by the Balinese transcribers. The Balinese language is not closely related to Javanese, the latter being a foreign language in Bali. Only a few words are identical in both languages, while many others have in each case a more or less different form. Thus, the Old-Jav. nyu, cocoanut, is nyuh in Balinese; hence, the Balinese transcribers, finding the word nyu in a Kawi composition, change it into nyuh. Again, being unable in their own language to distinguish between u, wu and hu, all three being pronounced u, they write promiscuously ugindra, hugin&ra, wugindra, as well as hupndra or wugin&ra, so that it is difficult to say which is really the Kawi form of this name. The metre sometimes helps us in settling the spelling of a word, but this can only be in the poems called Kekawin (from Kawi, poet), the metre of which is essentially Indian and is regulated by long and short syllables; but, clearly, not in the poems called Kidung, wherein the metre is regulated by rhyme and the number of syllables. The Kidung are of far greater interest than the Kekawin, the latter being simply imitations from the Sanskrit, containing nothing about ancient Javanese life, whereas the Kidung, on the other hand, supply us with valuable particulars in this respect. It is, therefore, a matter of regret that the manuscripts are so faulty. The existing free translations of Kawi poems into modern Javanese are of little avail to the student of Kawi. In Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of West London, on 19 Oct 2018 at 02:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0001772X KAWI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 43 their own poems, the Javanese introduce Kawi words, whether they understand them or not. Thus the word kreterta, victorious, the Kawi kretdrtha, occurs with almost the same meaning as the Sanskrit kritartha. Again, for Maithili the Javanese say Mantili; while long vowels are often represented by their corresponding short ones followed by a nasal, as nirbinta for nirbhita. Still, the Indian elements of Kawi are not so difficult to make out as the Malayan, modern Javanese having suffered too much wear and tear to afford a safe clue to Kawi, especially in words appearing in an abbreviated form in the modern language. Thus I found out, by a mere accident, that the Old-Javanese laketan is the modern word ketan (a kind of glutinous rice for cakes, etc.), on learning that, in the Malay dialect of Kutay (E. coast of Borneo), the old form laketan is still preserved. The Javanese dialects, of which we know as yet but little, will be of great assistance towards the unravelling of Kawi words. For the identification of names of animals and plants in Kawi, little help can be derived from the Javanese dictionary of Gericke and Roorda, in which, e.g., manyar, the name of the tailor-bird (tempuwa in Malay), is omitted, and ijoan, the name of a green variety of wood-dove (from ijo, green), is given under Joan, an abbreviation of ijoan. A poetical name of the same bird, manuk wills, green-bird, is not given at all. For a long time I took the word atat, the Balinese name of a small green variety of parrot of the size of a pigeon, for an original Balinese word, till I came across it in a modern Javanese poem, whence I concluded that the word must be one of the many Javanese words imported into Balinese. Complete copies of the Balinese interlineary translations of the larger Kawi poems, such as the Bhaumakawya (relating Naraka's exploits and his death by Wisnu), and the Eamayana, are very rare, inasmuch as, generally, only the more attractive passages are translated. The language of these translations is not the spoken tongue, but rather that of poetical com- position, and is more or less mixed with ancient and modern Javanese. Moreover, these documents generally Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of West London, on 19 Oct 2018 at 02:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0001772X 44 KAWI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. explain one Kawi word by another. Most of them appear to have been made in Karahasem, an independent State, where many natives of Lombok who speak Sasak are settled. The language of Karanasem is accordingly much influenced by the Sasak. The same applies also to the Kawi-Balinese-Javanese dictionaries called Krgtabasa (Kr8ta =Sanskreta ?), which likewise appear to have been com- posed in that locality. About these I refer you to the " Bijdragen van het Instituut," iii. 6, 80. The study of Kawi is calculated to throw light on a number of modern Javanese words which owe their origin to a mistake. Thus, teroh (brinjal, aubergine, solanum melongena) is the Malay terun; in ancient Javanese it is tyuh, Lampong tiyuh, Batak thin or tuyun ; in • the Javanese medical books and the Malay dialect of Pelembang it is chun, in modern Balinese tuiin, ancient Bal. tehuh, the Malay r being often represented in the kindred languages by A or a vowel. I am unable to trace the origin of two Kawi words for the tailor-bird, kuyaka and hiji or hijin. They occur frequently in the Tantri, a kind of Panchatantra, but derived from other sources. The Tantri that I have read is a kidung, and not a kekawin, and accordingly more modern. It must be derived from some Indian fable book, but the greater part of the fables are unlike those in the Panchatantra or the Hitopadeca. The lion is called chandapingala, the jackal as personating the lion's first minister is called Sambada, which according to the KrStabasa means a dog. The names of jackals and dogs occurring in the poem are partly Sanskrit (Srigala, Sambuka, Swana), partly Malayan. The poem is most interesting, and its influence on the language has been great. The word tantri in Balinese has come to mean any fable or tale in which animals are the chief actors. There - are three recensions of the Tantri, one in prose and two in poetry. The prose version goes by the name of Kamandaka, and is the least complete of the three. The two poetical versions are written in a kind of Kawi which is anything but pure, as the spelling is bad, and many words, properly Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of West London, on 19 Oct 2018 at 02:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0001772X KAWI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 45 distinguished in the more ancient language, are confounded one with the other. I have consulted several manuscripts of these two versions, and have found that the few tales bearing some resemblance in the plot to fables in the Pancha- tantra and Hitopadeca differ from them in almost every detail. They slightly differ from one another as to the number of tales they contain. The one (A) commences in the metre dimun, and is the more popular of the two; the other (B) is rarely met with, and begins with the metre kadiri. The latter is the more modern version of the two and contains even Portuguese words {minu, e.g., a kind of beverage, is evidently=vinho). This version has but few tales, such as that of the deer, the mouse, the crow, and the pigeon king, in common with the Hitopadeca and Pancha- tantra. But the pigeon king is here called Kan-daguna, the crow Hugata, the deer Tungapa, and the mouse Hiranyakta ; the tortoise has no special name. The hunter is called Hastakrama. In the tale of the three fishes, B. gives their names as Anangawiduta (for Anagatawidhata), Pradyumna- mati, and Yadbhawishyati. One would be inclined to read Pradyutpannamati for the second name but for the occur- rence of the synonymous terms Kusumastrantaka and Pra- dyumnantaka. The substitution of antaka for mati is ex- plained by the Malayan word mati (dead). The Tantri contain a great many synonymous terms, and are therefore of importance to the compiler of a Kawi dictionary. Thus, we have tuhutuhu, as the name of a black bird which lays its eggs in the nest of a crow and is considered to be ominous. In the Tantri it is represented as a clever songster, and much sought after on that account. The story runs that it obtained admittance to a large tree where a great many fish-eating birds were living. Being fond of the fruits of the wunut (Balinese bunut), a kind of fig-tree, it occasioned the death of the other birds by its excrements causing such a fig-tree to grow, by which means men got access to the high tree and possessed themselves of the young birds. This tale occurs also in the Malay version of the Tuti-nameh, where the part of the tuhutuhu is given to the pirlin or champerlih, also Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of West London, on 19 Oct 2018 at 02:53:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.