Nancy K. Florida, Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts. Volume 3

Book Reviews 151

Nancy K. Florida, Javanese literature in Surakarta manuscripts. Volume 3. Manuscripts of the Radya Pustaka Museum and the Hardjonagaran Library. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Cornell University, 2012, 360 pp. ISBN 9780877276098. Price: USD 45.95 (paperback).

The present volume completes the catalogues of the Javanese manuscripts from Surakarta in Central Java. It catalogues the collections of the Radya Pustaka Museum and the private collection of the late Panembahan K.R.T. Hardjonagara. It was preceded by Volume 1, Introduction and manuscripts of the Karaton Surakarta (1993) and Volume 2 Manuscripts of the Mangku- nagaran Palace (2000). Compiled by Nancy Florida, the expert on Javanese manuscripts from Surakarta, the present volume evidences the same excel- lent quality as the preceding volumes. The book starts with acknowledgements that can also be read as a con- cise history of the Surakarta Manuscript Project which came into existence in 1980. Rather than microfĳilming the anticipated 700 manuscripts esti- mated to be housed in the city, the program ended up fĳilming no less than 5396 titles in 2118 volumes funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities and Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program. In the end, an astonishing number of over 700,000 manuscript pages were fĳilmed. Having been instrumental to the program’s continuing fĳinancial and administrative existence, the book is dedicated to the memory of the late David K. Wyatt. In the early 1980s at the time of fĳilming, the Radya Pustaka Museum housed 448 manuscripts dating from the early eighteenth through the mid- twentieth centuries. The collection was developed under the auspices of the grand vizier of Surakarta, K.R.A. Sasradiningrat IV (1847-1925), who founded the Radya Pustaka Museum in 1890 and whose photographic por- trait appears in the book (p. 20). The history of its founder and of the museum, its collection and its ups and downs through history may be read in the catalogue pp. 18-30. The Radya Pustaka Museum is the second-oldest museum in Indonesia. Apart from the manuscripts, it houses many historical artifacts like shadow puppets, masks, musical instruments, krisses and other weaponry, ceram- ics and glassware and what was until recently a priceless collection of ancient Javanese bronze and stone sculptures. In 2009 the museum gained notoriety when many of its artifacts appeared to have been stolen, and up

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Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:48:40AM via free access 152 Book Reviews to the moment the present catalogue was published, no one knows exactly what is irrecoverable. More details on these thefts have been included in the introduction. 31 manuscripts were stolen as well (indicated as ‘missing’ in the catalogue), including RP 86 Gambar Songsong Karaton Surakarta which is an illustrated manuscript in color and gold leaf describing the various ceremonial sunshades for specifĳic ranks used within the Surakarta royal family. Also no longer available is RP 89, which is a descriptive catalogue of the Surakartan Contributions to the Amsterdam International Colonial Exhibition of 1883. An important fully illustrated four volume set entitled Conto Warni-Warninipun Sinjang Bathik (Examples of various Bathik Motifs, RP 223 A-D) is also gone, as is RP 234 Pawukon Mawi Gam- bar, a fully illustrated work on calendrical divination in fĳine wayang style also in color and gold leaf. Luckily, thanks to the microfĳilming effforts, the contents of these manuscripts may still be consulted. In my view it would be too easy to claim that all 31 manuscripts were stolen and the indication ‘missing’ is therefore appropriate. The beautifully illustrated ones are probably indeed stolen. However, the nature of some of the others that are only small and contain only text and no illustrations would make the claim harder to understand. More proof would be needed to decipher what happened to these manuscripts. It may be that some were taken in order to aid one of the two contenders for the position of ruler of the Karaton Surakarta but this is conjecture and needs to be proven fĳirst. Miraculously, the illustrated Pawukon mentioned above was replaced by another illustrated one which was not available during the fĳilming in 1982. It is also fĳinely made and illustrated with full color wayang-style illustrations with gold leaf. This would also make the claim of theft somewhat less plausible, or more difffĳicult to explain. Another issue is whether or not the exposition of the theft should have been included in the catalogue. The catalogue is put together in a straightforward and clear way. For each entry it presents the project number, repository shelf number, and alternative repository codes if available, reel numbers of the microfĳilms, titles, names of authors and scribes (when applicable), time of composi- tion, inscription, collations, illuminations (if applicable), and sizes. All entries are provided with short synopses of contents and information on paper, watermarks, colophons and other data deemed necessary for better understanding of the manuscript, the text or its manuscript/textual history and script. All the sangkala (expertly explained as ‘aphoristic phrases,

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:48:40AM via free access Book Reviews 153 whose words when read backwards, signify—by a logical system of associa- tive conventions—diffferent numerical values’ [p. 37]) have been explained and all other dating information equated with the Georgian Calendar. That these sangkala carry meaning in themselves is revealed, for instance, in the one provided in RP 31.4: ‘buta [5], mantri [3], pandhita [7] ratu [1]’ (‘demonic minister, priestly king’) to indicate the time of Willem Daendels’s visit to the Surakarta Court. The descriptions of the manuscripts in the present catalogue have also been provided with information about similar manuscripts in other Sura- karta collections for instance when transliterations have been made by the stafff of another Surakarta library. Copies of copies have luckily also been indicated. Information on bindings and impressionistic information on quality and the present condition of the manuscript are provided as well. Reading through the catalogue the conclusion should be that many manuscripts are in danger, especially due to iron gall ink bleed through, of becom- ing unreadable in the near future, and one wonders about the preservation conditions in the Radya Pustaka and Hardjonagara collections. Before the microfĳilming project started, not all manuscripts had been provided with shelf mark numbers, which therefore were provided prior to the microfĳilming process. In the interest of ordering the manuscripts (which is ‘debatable’ when one manuscript contains many texts, as Florida herself says) they were grouped as follows: Histories of Java, Genealogies, Court Life & Administration, Piwulang (didactic literature), Juridical Liter- ature & Treaties, other Histories, Hippology, Calendrical divination and Primbon, Wayang and other performing arts, and literary works and Reli- gion, and so on. The collection of the expert in Javanese culture and batik, K.R.T. Hard- jonagara (also known as Go Tik Swan [1931-2008]) comprises 30 manuscripts. They are of exceptional quality and happily no major accidents happened to them although HN 20 Serat Suluk tuwin Wulang appeared to have disappeared from the collection as it was no longer there in 2010. The manuscripts were likewise microfĳilmed by the same team that did the work in the Radya Pustaka collection in the 1980s. The catalogue mentions a critical danger that befell the Radya Pustaka manuscript collection. The manuscripts were renumbered in 1991 after they had been microfĳilmed a decade earlier. Manuscripts designated as non- coded at the time have now gone missing (p. 34). More dangerous still, all

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:48:40AM via free access 154 Book Reviews traces of the original shelf numbers were removed from the manuscripts by the Universitas Negeri Surakarta librarian team while no cross-referencing had taken place. More devastating still, many manuscripts, sometimes as many as 11 came to be catalogued under the same code. In short, all this meant that Nancy Florida in efffect had to start all over again in order to decipher which manuscript was what in order to check her earlier notes and to fĳigure out if and if yes, what manuscripts had gone missing. The fact that Florida saw fĳit to do this is to be applauded. This is no mean task and redoing what one has already done is not something everyone would have attempted. In short, the three catalogues on the Surakarta manuscript collections have now been made available. Florida has proven again that she is one of the outstanding experts in Javanese literature. Let us hope and pray that her effforts have not been in vain in view of the global waning interests in Javanese texts, manuscripts and textual studies. The next step to take for the Endowment of the Humanities and other international foundations is to ensure that money is made available for the study of these documents, an elegant start of which might be to provide Florida with funds to set up such a program.

Dick van der Meij Center for the Study of Religion and Culture Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta [email protected]

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