H. Creese The Balinese kakawin tradition; A preliminary description and inventory In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 155 (1999), no: 1, Leiden, 45-96 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 12:55:23PM via free access HELEN CREESE The Balinese Kakawin Tradition A Preliminary Description and Inventory1 Bali has a vast and rich literature that dates back many centuries but which remains largely unknown outside Bali. Many different genres are represent- ed in the Balinese literary corpus, ranging from prose and poetic works writ- ten in Kawi - a name that encompasses a number of related idioms includ- ing Old Javanese, Middle Javanese and Javanese-Balinese - to works in liter- ary Balinese and modern novels, short stories and poetry written in Balinese and Indonesian. Among these literary genres is kakawin literature, one of the oldest written genres in the Indonesian archipelago, with its roots deep in the earliest period of Hindu-Javanese civilization and culture.2 Kakawin are written in Old Javanese (Kawi), in verse form according to a set number of syllables per line, and in fixed metrical patterns of long and short syllables that are based on the principles of Sanskrit poetics. Most are epic tales, although a number are also concerned with didactic and religious themes. The story of kakawin literature is closely bound up with the processes by which Indian, largely Sanskrit-derived, cultural, literary and religious prac- tices were adapted in the Indonesian world. Sanskrit literature in particular had a profound effect on Javanese literature. It provided Javanese authors 1 This article is based on research funded by an Australian Research Council Fellowship (1992-1995) and Australian Research Council Small Grant (1997-1998). I initially presented the ideas in this paper at the Simposium Internasional Kajian Kebudayaan Austronesia held in Bali in August 1994 to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the death of H.N. van der Tuuk. I am grateful to fellow participants in the symposium and to a number of colleagues who have provided comments on earlier drafts, particularly L. Parker, M.C. Ricklefs and R. Rubin- stein. I am indebted to Dr H.I.R. Hinzler of the University of Leiden for allowing me to make use of her Balinese Manuscript Project (HKS) databases when preparing the inventory, and to I Dewa Gede Windhu Sancaya for his assistance in locating and summarizing a number of kaka- win in Balinese collections. 2 For a comprehensive description of kakawin literature, see Zoetmulder 1974. HELEN CREESE is currently Senior Lecturer in Indonesian at the University of Queensland. She obtained her Ph.D. at the Australian National University, specializing in Old Javanese literature. She has published a number of articles on Balinese literature and history. Her most recent pub- lication is Parthayana - The Joumeying of Partha'; An eighteenth-century Balinese kakawin, Leiden 1998. Dr Creese may be contacted at the Department of Asian Languages and Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. BKI155-1 (1999) Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 12:55:23PM via free access 46 Helen Creese with the heroes and stories for their poems, most of which draw on the great Indian epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as with the rules of prosody and ideals of literary form. Even the word kakawin derivès from the Sanskrit kavya, denoting 'epic court literature', a genre that flourished in India from 400 to 1100 A.D. Although the first recorded epigraphic evidence of Sanskrit influence in the Indonesian archipelago dates from the fifth century A.D., the oldest extant Javanese kakawin, the Ramayana, dates only from the ninth century. Apart from a single inscription dated 825 A.D., written in metrical verse, the Ramayana is the only surviving kakawin from the Central Javanese period. However, the poet's artistry is such that it must represent the culmination of a long literary tradition. We can only assume that no other works survived the transition when the centre of political power shifted from Central to East Java in about 930 A.D. Kakawin writing continued in East Java from the tenth century until at least the end of the fifteenth century. Of this centuries-long literary endeav- our only a tiny fragment - fewer than twenty-five kakawin - remains, how- ever. Although there is some evidence of continuing interest in the pre- Islamic literary traditions in Java until at least the early eighteenth century (McDonald 1986; Ricklefs 1993,1998), no Javanese kakawin written after the fall of Majapahit at the end of the fifteenth century have been discovered. Instead, it was on the neighbouring island of Bali that the kakawin genre flourished. Bali's role in the preservation of the Javanese literary heritage has always been acknowledged, for it was in Bali rather than Java that most of the Javanese kakawin were preserved, and it was to Bali that early Dutch schol- ars turned in search of manuscripts for their studies of the kakawin genre. Balinese copyists soon came to be characterized as preservers of the Javanese classics, to whom was owed 'a debt of gratitude' (Zoetmulder 1974:41). How- ever, the preservation of Javanese kakawin tells only a small, though by no means insignificant, part of the kakawin story, and the Balinese contribution to kakawin literature has in fact been crucial. For the Balinese kakawin cor- pus comprises over 150 works, including some composed within the last decade - a figure indicative of the continuing development of kakawin liter- ature in Bali and bearing testimony to the creative vitality of the kakawin tra- dition in Bali long after it had been marginalized in Java itself. My own interest, and the focus of the present article, is in the study of this Balinese kakawin tradition. The paper has two sections. It begins with a gen- eral description of the evolution of Bali's own kakawin literature, including its links with Java, and details some of the major characteristics of the works belonging to the Balinese tradition. The discussion covers both the transmis- sion of earlier works of Javanese origin to Bali and the continuing develop- Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 12:55:23PM via free access The Balinese Kakawin Tradifion 47 ment of the kakawin genre there. The second part of this paper is a prelim- inary inventory of known Balinese kakawin that draws on a number of pub- lished and unpublished sources and incorporates all currently available data on the provenance and dating of individual works. Bali and Java - Intersections Balinese literary history has always been intertwined with that of Java, and the long-standing relationship between the two islands is an essential com- ponent of the kakawin story. There is some evidence of independent and early contact between India and Bali in the second century A.D., predating the earliest known contacts elsewhere in the archipelago (Ardika 1990; Ardika and Bellwood 1991). Epigraphic records from the early ninth century onwards show that the Balinese were literate in both Sanskrit and Old Balinese in the period before the forging of close political and dynastie ties with Java. Nevertheless, the spread of Indianized culture to the island of Bali, particularly its literary concerns, appears to have been largely, perhaps ex- clusively, mediated through Java. At the end of the tenth century, following the marriage of the Balinese ruler Dharmodayana Warmadewa to Gunapri- yadharmapatnï, a direct descendant of the founder of the East Javanese dynasty, mpu Sindok, the chancellery language changed from Old Balinese to Old Javanese, indicating that fundamental changes in political and admin- istrative institutions had taken place. The historical record does not reveal the extent to which the East Javanese kings were involved in Bali, and there is, in fact, little evidence of direct polit- ical intervention before the Majapahit period. However, it is inconceivable that such long-term political and administrative links were not accompanied by parallel artistic and intellectual interactions. Throughout the period when kakawin writing flourished in Java, that is, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, the two islands appear to have belonged to the same world cul- turally and religiously, and it is probable that Javanese literary forms, includ- ing kakawin literature, were adapted and fully incorporated into Balinese cultural life. Nevertheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the Javanese literary heritage may have found its way to Bali only as recently as the fourteenth century. With the Majapahit period came an intensification of political, cultural and religious links with Bali. The Nagarakrtagama, the famous kakawin account of Majapahit, records two military expeditions against Bali, one in 1284, during the reign of Krtanagara (Nagarakrtagama 42.1), and a second expedition nearly sixty years later, when the renowned Majapahit prime minister, Gajah Mada, finally conquered Bali in 1343 and brought it under Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 12:55:23PM via free access 48 Helen Creese KAKAWIN PERIOD POET PATRON Ramayana 9th century - - Arjunawiwaha llth century mpu Kahwa Erlangga 1028-1042 Hariwangsa 12th century mpu Panuluh Jayabhaya 1135-1157 Bharatayuddha 1157 A.D. mpu Sëdah/Panuluh Jayabhaya 1135-1157 Ghatotkacasraya 12th century mpu Panuluh Jayakrta (= Krtajaya?) 1194-1205 Smaradahana 13th century mpu Dharmaja Kameswara c.1182-1185 Sumanasantaka 13th century mpu