S. Robson On translating the Arjunawiwaha

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Old Javanese texts and culture 157 (2001), no: 1, Leiden, 35-50

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access STUART ROBSON On Translating the Arjunawiwaha

Introduction

The name Arjunawiwaha ('Marriage of ') is familiar to all Old Javanists. It is the name of a tale of Arjuna, one of the five Pandawa brothers famous from the , set at the time when the brothers had lost all to their rivals and cousins, the Korawa. Arjuna is practising austerities on Mount Indrakila in order to obtain a boon from the gods in the form of a weapon with which to restore his family's fortunes'. At this time the gods themselves are being threatened by the demon Niwatakawaca, who can only be defeated by a powerful man. They decide to test Arjuna to find out whether he can be relied upon, and to this end sends seven heavenly nymphs to tempt him (a popular scene in later paintings). Having resisted their charms, he is again tested by the god Siwa in order to find out whether Arjuna is willing to devote himself to the welfare of others, or if he only seeks his own deliverance from the world. When he has passed this test and uttered praises of Siwa, he is given the task of defeating Niwatakawaca. To make a long'story short, he succeeds in this and is rewarded with seven days in heaven and marriage to each of the said seven heavenly nymphs in turn. The text ends with the author, Mpu , saying that he is about to accom- pany his king, , into battle. This work is considered one of the great classics, and has long been listed as one of the that have already been 'done', in the sense of having been edited and translated, so that it can be passed over for the time being in favour of something fresh. The edition we all refer to is R.Ng. 's of 1926, with a Dutch translation containing a few regrettable gaps. Much more recently, we have Romo Kuntara's dissertation, containing an extensive discussion of the 'transformations' of the text and including an Indonesian translation (Wiryamartana 1990). It remains a fact, however, that there does not yet exist a complete English translation, but only a partial one (Henry 1981). So the question is, what useful purpose ; would be served by making one? • There is no pressing demand for an English translation of Arjunawiwaha

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at least from Australian students. Some of them know that Javanese exists, because I have a tendency to mention it from time to time, but they are resist- ant to anything with 'Old' in the name. To students such as these, Old Javanese might seem monumentally irrelevant - what they want is to be able to communicate in Indonesian, and perhaps to use the language for their careers. It is very much to the credit of 'Leiden', therefore, that it can still find the funds for a workshop oh the study of Old Javanese texts. An earlier generation of Old Javanists may have had a tendency to focus on their subject as if it were an isolated phenomenon, detached from any par- ticular cultural or historical setting, in other words, of interest merely for its own sake. A reassessment of its significance may involve trying to see it as part of a wider world, both at the time when the Old Javanese classics were created and later, when they were studied and preserved, including the pres- ent day. So there are several different contexts to consider. Each may have something to contribute. PJ. Zoetmulder made the point in Kalangwan that Old Javanese literature occupies a very special position, in that no comparable literatures are known from the other Indianized countries of Southeast Asia (Zoetmulder 1974:17). For example, there is no Old Khmer literature, although there are many inscriptions in Old Khmer. These contain a number of terms such as kavi 'poet' and kaviSvara 'lord of poets' (Pou 1992:98), suggesting that the practice of poetry must have been known. However, the earliest Khmer literature pre- served is the Reamker, a Cambodian version of the , dating from no earlier than the 17th century. In a certain sense, Thailand was the '' of Cambodia, as Ayuthia (1350-1767) preserved much of the cultural inheritance of Angkor in such areas as music and drama'. Strangely, though, the textual history of the Thai Ramakien has not yet been explored (Wenk 1995:29). If we assume that the Arjunawiwaha was written some time between AD 1028 and 1035, when Airlangga had re-established his position as king in East Java, then the question is what is known about possible literary activities in other parts of Southeast Asia at that time. On the mainland, this was the time of the reign of Suryavarman I in Cambodia and Jayasinghavarman II in Champa. There is evidence of a Cham literature, but it seems to be later (Marrison 1985). Apart from these, what would later become Thailand was occupied by the Mon, of whom no literary work is known from this early time. As far as the Malay world is concerned, in 1025 the kingdom (or confed- eration of kingdoms) of Srivijaya had been attacked and seriously weakened by the Cholas. Srivijaya and Java may have been competitors in the period leading up to this. Although there is considerable archaeological evidence for the existence of Srivijaya, centred at Palembang (Manguin 1993), as was recently pointed out by S. Supomo, there does not seem to be an accom-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access On Translating the Arjunawiwaha 37 panying Malay literature comparable to-the Javanese (Supomo 1995:302-3). Perhaps we can speculate that the literary production in Srivijaya was in Sanskrit, as at a time immediately preceding the Chola raid the Buddhist teachers here were famous, attracting students even from India, and their works have been preserved in Tibetan translations (Schoterman 1986). As a result, when a written literature in Malay arose, this was the product of a new cultural force, Islam, and at a time somewhat later than the one under con- sideration here (Jones 1986). So it does seem that Zoetmulder was right with regard to the 11th century, and probably the following ones too: Old Javanese literature was something quite special. The rise and continuation of this literature for many centuries has to be seen in the context of the Indianization of this part of Southeast Asia. The contacts between India and Java constituted a process that fed the Hindu- Buddhist civilization of early Java, of which literature was one of the prod- ucts. It makes no sense to think of Old Javanese literature outside this setting. The literature is an expression of this particular cultural blend of the Javanese and Indian, and as such occupies a unique place. It shows how the particu- lar cultural and social milieu was a fertile one that could inspire cultural products of lasting interest and value. Although we focus our attention on the literary products, their language and form, we should always have in the back of our minds the civilization that nurtured them, because it is this setting that assists us to make sense of the products: and we are looking for meaning. We want to know what the ideas were that underlay the works, be they of an aesthetic, religious or social organizational nature, for example. Ideas change over time, but we are look- ing at a particular point in history, the one when our specific literary work was created - in this case when the Arjunawiwaha was written by Mpu Kanwa in East Java, namely about the middle of the 11th century. The centre of the Javanese kingdom had moved from Central to East Java a century earl- ier and was now established in the lower valley of the Brantas River. Here it had recently been devastated by an enemy (possibly Srivijaya) but had since been restored by King Airlangga.

The Arjunawiwaha

The act of translation involves an assessment of the significance of the text. While struggling with its words and structures, at the same time we will be wondering 'what it's all about'. Is it just the story as conveyed by the narrat- ive? However, there are so many ways of looking at this, depending on what one chooses to stress, that it could be claimed that there is no single signific- ance. Indeed, at least to some extent the text says what you want it to say.

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In 1971, having a spare six months on my hands, it seemed to me a legit- imate question to ask what the Baliriese heirs to Old Javanese literature did with their texts. Obviously they did not sit down and produce doctoral dis- sertations out of critical text editions, get them printed by Drukkerij Smits, and then push them onto a bookshelf. My approach was somewhat novel at the time. There was an article by Wajan Bhadra from 1937, but this had been largely ignored, and I was informed by no less an authority than the late C. Hooykaas that nobody in Bali knew anything about the t&ngahan metres any more, so that it would be pointless to go and ask. The fieldwork (if it may be glorified with such a term) in Bali was reveal- ing in several ways, and the results were compiled in an article that appeared in Bijdragen in 1972 (Robson 1972). It turned out to be true that Old Javanese texts were still known, read and studied in Bali. In fact, I had the privilege to be invited to attend a mabasan group in the Pura Dalem in Pliatan, led by a man by the name of Ketut Lagas. The text he and his friends were reading and interpreting was the Arjunawiwaha. I still have the tape containing samples of the different metres, and regularly play it for students, although I was asked by the group to explain that they were just practising and were not yet really expert. But it certainly shows that the text was still known and could be performed.' Of the hundreds of texts extant in Balinese collections, only a few were regularly mentioned as important: Ramayana, Arjunawiwaha, Bharata- yuddha, Bhomantaka and Sutasoma. When asked why, people declared that they were valued because of the edifying teaching contained in them. Perhaps this has to be seen in the context of a self-conscious effort to preserve and define the Balinese spiritual heritage led by the Parisadha Hindu Dharma movement, which was very active and produced a number of books intended for study and containing moralistic texts or guides for worship (for example, Kidung-kekawin Pantja Yadnja). Hence it is unclear how far back this stress on the moral teachings of Old Javanese literary works dates: it could be relatively recent, although I suspect that it is quite old. In any case, the Old Javanese classics did seem to provide an underpinning for the Hindu society of Bali, one legitimized by its high antiquity and possessing the authority of Scripture. At the same time, it was discovered that extracts from Old Javanese texts were used for singing in the context of temple rituals. An example of a pas- sage that turned up, and was also quoted in the Parisadha Hindu Dharma books, is the 'hymn to Siwa' from the Arjunawiwaha (10-11), commencing with the words: ' Om sSmbahning anatha tinghalana de trilokaSarana. Hail! May the homage of trie protectorless be seen by the refuge of the three worlds. '

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Again, it is impossible to say how long this passage may have been employed for this function, but its appropriateness from a theological point of view cannot be denied. A kidung text called Wargasari was often men- tioned, and seemed to be used at the point where the gods were invited to descend and be present in the temple for the duration of the ceremonies. The Balinese scholars' interest in the texts was selective: they were not making a structural analysis of the literary works, and they were not express- ing an aesthetic judgement about them. This may explain why some works which appeal to us as particularly fine are not very common in collections and do not seem to have been used in the reading clubs. Examples that spring to mind are Ghatotkacairaya and Sumanasantaka, not to mention Krsnayana, which appears to have been preserved only in one defective manuscript, despite belonging to the 'classic' period of kakawin writing. All this says is that the basis of our appreciation may be different from that of other consumers. The prominence of the Arjunawiwaha may well antedate its preservation in Bali (in many manuscripts), as it is one of the texts that survived in Java and was transformed some centuries later, in keeping with the insights of later writers. Thus it finally assumed the form of the Serat Wiwaha Jarwa or Mintaraga, written in macapat verse by Susuhunan Pakubuwana III, and dated AD 1778 (published by J.F.C. Gericke in 1844), and the Serat Wiwaha Jarwa, formerly attributed to Yasadipura I but in fact written by Winter Senior (published by W. Palmer van den Broek in 1868; Wiryamartana 1990:325). Probably performers should be included here as creators of the Lakon Mintaraga. A 'mystical' interpretation of wayang kulit was presented by Mangkunagara VII in 1933 (translated into English by Claire Holt) in terms of 'the practice of semadi', and in this context the Arjunawiwaha was again mentioned. The message is not far to seek, being suggested by the opening stanzas, which praise the one who does not use the opportunity to obtain the highest benefit for himself, in the form of liberation from the world, but chooses to remain in the world and to seek the welfare of others. This is what Arjuna does, and it is a role befitting those in the position of a ruler, whose duty it is to protect the world. Soedarsono provides a lengthy account of the version of Mintaraga, tracing this form back to the reign of Sultan Hamengkubuwana V of Yogyakarta (reigned 1823-55). He quotes Zoetmulder's appreciation for the perfect balance of the text and its originality with regard to the Indian paral- lels, and cites Poerbatjaraka's observation that the structure of the Arjunawiwaha reminds one of a wayang lakon (Soedarsono 1984:111-2). The Yogyakarta wayang wong version is special in that it is a yasan dalem, in other words, was created under the direct supervision of the Sultan. The

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access 40 Stuart Robson three-day performances in the Kraton in the 1920s and 1930s are well-known. Soedarsono has also provided us with the Serat Kandha. Ringgit Tiyang Lampahan Mintaraga and Serat Pocapan Ringgit Tiyang Lampahan Minta- raga (both 1986), based on four volumes preserved in the library Perpusta- kaan Kridha Mardawa Keraton Yogyakarta. Further, Soedarsono draws attention to important similarities and differ- ences between the lakon Mintaraga and the kakawin Arjunawiwaha. These are already indicated by their respective titles. He claims that the emphasis in the Arjunawiwaha lies on the last part of the story, namely the wedding of Arjuna with the seven nymphs as a reward for his success in defeating the demon Niwatakawaca. This seven-fold marriage is described in seven cantos (29 to 36), preceded by Arjuna's installation in heaven for seven days and seven nights as well as festivities. This forms the climax and end of the poem. On the other hand, in the Mintaraga the emphasis lies on Arjuna's penance and meditation, as the connection with the Old Javanese witaraga suggests in AW 4.7d: Sang Wiku Witaraga, 'the sage, who has succeeded in throwing away his human passion' (Soedarsono 1984:122). I. Kuntara Wiryamartana has already advanced some way along the road of discovering the significance of these texts. He took certain themes from texts ranging from Arjunawiwaha to the Serat Wiwaha Jarwa and traced their reception, drawing attention to the ideas of the 'powerful man', the duties of the warrior and yogi, and Arjuna as a model for others (Wiryamar- tana 1990: 455-61). The opening passage of the poem is a logical place to look for a statement of what its author hopes to convey, and we might expect the end also to con- tain some clue regarding his intentions. The closing stanza of the Arjuna- wiwaha contains references to the author, Mpu Kanwa, and the king, Air- langga. This was why C.C. Berg in 1938 saw the poem as a sort of allegory, whereby the story of Arjuna was claimed to be a veiled reference to the career of Airlangga. While such cannot be proved, there is much to recommend the idea (as I have suggested elsewhere and has recently been discussed by Creese (1998:30)). In other words, by observing the conduct of Arjuna in the literary work, we can see the light in which the author wishes his king to be viewed: the king's virtues are to be identified with Arjuna's as depicted on the palm-leaf. But what about all those other parts of the text that do not say anything about religion or philosophy: - the long passages containing rather far- fetched descriptions of nature, and the ones in which Arjuna enjoys himself with the seven heavenly maidens? Can these safely be skipped by the serious reader in search of edification? They actually present the greatest challenge to the translator,.precisely because of their artificiality. The author worked hard to craft them, and at least in his eyes and the eyes of his critics they

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apparently were essential. This suggests that they have to be considered as having some function within the literary work. The same applies to the battle scenes that often fill many pages in kakawin. But no matter how exaggerat- ed we, at the beginning of the 21st century, may find them, we still have to find the patience to translate them and integrate them into an aesthetic assessment of the kakawin as a whole. The poetical requirements of content are discussed by Creese (1998:50-3). The assumption is that all the constituent parts, arranged in the way we find them, have a part to play. The total significance of the poem is generat- ed by their interaction (Riffaterre 1978:2-3). This means that the poem may seem to be telling us about a number of things at the same time, such as the duty of a ksatriya, or the beauties of the hills at the coming of the rain, but the useful and the beautiful in fact combine - they cannot be separated - in order to convey what the author had in mind.

On Translating Old Javanese Poetry

The following remarks have been inspired by reading The translator's art (Radice and Reynolds 1987), a volume of essays in honour of Betty Radice, •who was for many years joint editor of the respected series 'Penguin Classics'. It includes many contributions with examples from Greek and Latin, but also a few from Asian literatures. They help us focus our ideas more sharply on what we attempt to do, and how we plan to do it, when we translate Old Javanese poetry into English. 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. Thomas Hunter has shown one possible way here with his Blossoms of long- ing; Ancient verses of love and lament, in which he takes the innovative step of presenting the text of selected verses in Balinese script and their English translation not as four-line stanzas, but in a form 'closer to that of modern verse', and offers this as a 'possibility for future translators' (Hunter 1998:xii). It remains to be seen whether anybody will follow this up. The situation is that the translator is normally also the person who edits the text (either for the first time or following in the footsteps of an earlier ed- itor and preparing a new version building on the earlier one). On the one hand this means that one has the benefit of close familiarity with the text and its variant readings. On the other, however, this may have a constricting influence, tying the translator too tightly to the text, so that the result cannot fly free to inform and inspire in its own right - we have our noses so close to

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the grindstone that we cannot see beyond it. Why do we translate at all? To be honest, in the first instance I translate for myself. It is a very personal process of exploration, and each time I make a lucky breakthrough and actually grasp the meaning of a word, I need to note it. It is like hacking a path through a forest of tough vines. We make the effort because we love the words and enjoy watching how they work to- gether in creating meaningful images, and we push on in the hope of dis- covering hidden treasures of one sort or another along the way. In other words, we have faith that it is worthwhile work which will bring rewards. Unfortunately, my English translations will probably be irrelevant to the interests or needs of the Balinese, and may even be incomprehensible to most Indonesians. And yet I persist, not out of pure selfishness, but in the hope that some day someone will be able to make use of them. For the process of translation is important in itself. As Walter Hamilton puts it: 'It is impossible to overestimate the contribution made by translation as a civilizing influence on human society' (Hamilton 1987:120). And Brian Stone writes of the '[...] cultural argument that translators serve society at large by bringing the po- etry originally written in strange or unknown languages within the reach of non-specialist readers' (Stone 1987:176). The idea of serving society by making ideas available from strange cul- tures appeals. If the translation brings the Old Javanese work within the reach of general readers, it will have succeeded. After all, there are very few Old Javanists in the world, and they probably can read the original anyway, so that one does not need to translate just for them. Unhappily the Penguin Classics, with their wide circulation, no longer exist, and so can no longer include contributions from Old Javanese, but we do have our own Biblio- theca Indonesica, which has served well. The Translator's Art-contains essays by experts from Greek, Latin, medi- eval Welsh and English, Old English, Hebrew, and one each for Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese. Quite a poor showing for Asian languages: where are the examples from Arabic, Persian, Tamil, or Southeast Asian languages? Old Javanese really is 'strange or unknown'. So it may be interesting to pen some impressions of what it is really like. The Old Javanese kakawin at its best is transparent, not opaque; its forms and constructions are simple, not complex. Although its closest literary antecedent is the Sanskrit kavya, the Old Javanese verse in no way resembles it with its intricate tangle of Sanskrit grammar. So why is it that Old Javanese has the reputation of being so devilishly difficult? It could be that the editions we have are not good - are deficient in their representation of the text - and that, combined with this, our knowledge of the words and their possible range of meanings is inadequate. After all, there are still plenty of question marks in the dictionary, or words glossed too broadly to help in particular

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access On Translating the Arjunawiwaha 43 contexts. And if we are uncertain about the value to assign to individual words in the line, how much less likely are we to find the meaning of the con- struction, let alone understand any deeper allusions. In this respect, we find ourselves in an entirely different position from the translators from Japanese, Chinese or Sanskrit, who have excellent dictionaries and other specialist works at their disposal. In Old Javanese we are still groping about in the dark for most of the time. This is a fact of life. If we are lucky enough to be able to fit the words together, it will be found that a line of kakawin is not a tight structure, nor are there many subordinate clauses. Instead the style is additive, and it is helpful to decide where the pauses within the line fall. There are no signs in the manuscripts to guide us here (the script is one continuous row of letters), so Supomo in his transliter- ation of Arjunawijaya used commas to show how he had grouped the words. At least we could benefit from placing invisible commas - remembering that they could even fall in the middle of a sandhi combining two vowels, for example, -a- (= -a a-). I suggest that the movement of the kakawin line is a stately, measured march, intended to be absorbed step by step, savoured rather than hurriedly swallowed. After all, in the practice of mabasan this is how the text is reproduced, and one can speculate that something similar happened at the time when the classics were being composed and performed in early Java. It is an interesting exercise to try reading a line of kakaw in while observing the sense-groupings of the words. In so doing we can convey an interpretation of the meaning, and also do justice to the element of orality to be found in kakawin (in common.with all other forms of poetry in Indonesia). The translation should also' attempt to do justice to the style of the ori- ginal, as well as record our rendering of the meaning. Brian Stone's remark, relating to Middle English poetry, could equally well apply to Old Javanese kakawin:'[...] the translator's work must be heard as poetry. Openness of tex- ture,, not the impacted syntax and imagery, and the lack of flow> of much modern poetry, must be striven for' (Stone 1987:176). Javanese literature, Old or Modern, is neither purely oral nor purely written: it is written, but intend- ed for performance. Hence the translation should also 'flow', moving gently from focus to focus, and not resemble a journal article or scholarly mono- graph. It is true that all poetry sounds, whether read aloud or silently, and this is one way in which it enhances or heightens meaning and distinguish- es itself from prose. Coincidentally, like the Latin carmen, the Old Javanese kakawin is both sung poetry and magic formula at the same time. This is a consequence of its tightly bound metrical structure, in contrast with the loose structure of prose. It has something of the mantra, but now^the effect.of the incantation covers many pages. On the one hand the kakawin tells of the world of mythic heroes and celestial beings, and on the other its very use of language correlates with

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access 44 ' Stuart Robson the function of linking us to sources of power. This means of course that the language used in translation may never descend to the colloquial or coarse, although it is also a fact that the author does range over a broad spectrum of emotional effects - Old Javanese seems especially rich in expressions for the states of mind and heart of its heroes and heroines. Possibly the choice of metre can be connected with shifts in topic and mood. At least it is clear that the three-line Wisama of Siwaratrikalpa Canto 17, an unusual type, conveys the pathos of Lubdhaka's soul crying out in desperation as it hangs in the heavens: The cry of the kalangkyang calling in the heavens is like my crying - listen! Look for my tears in the rain from the clouds, And hear my wails in the rumble of the thunder. In bewilderment do I wail for you, wife, while I cry out in the sky. There is no-one at all I can tell Of the depth of my anguish, as Fate is utterly merciless. (Siwaratrikalpa 17, 4-5; Teeuw et al. 1969:99.)

Finally, Old Javanese poetry is artificial. This is a quality it shares with the Sanskrit kavya. This may seem paradoxical when one recalls the very extens- ive and detailed use of natural description found in kakawin, and the obvi- ous appreciation of the natural world of Java that the poet observed. Yet it is a selective use of nature, subordinated to the poetical constraints of the genre, rather than a form of realism. The plants and trees are there to serve; they provide images that tell us about other things, such as the beauty of the nymphs and their feelings, not about botany. Having acknowledged this arti- ficiality, we can revel in it, rather than regret it. This is the nature of kakawin. However, the best, classic, authors are able to bring the landscape of Java, its mountains and shores, to life in a direct, fresh way. A good example is the passage in Ghatotkaca&raya Canto 5, where the royal party sets out on an expedition in the early morning and gather mushrooms and fresh vegetables in the fields. It has been said many times that a translation is an act of interpretation. It is a reading that records that interpretation. Another reader on another occa- sion may well see things differently, and want to set them down in a differ- ent version. The Arjunawiwaha has been reread many times since Mpu Kanwa fin- ished writing it, but readers at the very beginning of the 21st century will make very little of his Old Javanese. So I am forced to 'make it new' (Ezra Pound) - to restore, reconstruct, rephrase it, in my own brand of English. It is one's fervent hope that it will not die during the operation, but will be resurrected in order to be admired and appreciated anew by a new audience. The work is both old, carrying all the authentic baggage of the 11th century,

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access On Translating the Arjunawiwaha 45 and at the same time new. I will not have added or subtracted anything, merely reclothed and revitalized it. That is the ideal. I am convinced that it is possible for a translation to approach the power of the original, provided the translator has a deep knowledge and feeling for the original language, and is at the same time a more-than-competent writer of English, capable of using all its resources effectively. To illustrate this point, I would like to quote some examples from Japanese literature, where the translations of Donald Keene seem to fulfil both these requirements. The first is from the opening lines of Kamo no Chomei's essay Hojoki ('An account of my hut'), written in 1212: The flow of the river is ceaseless and its water is never the same. The bubbles that float in the pools, now vanishing, now forming, are not of long duration: so in the world are man and his dwellings. (Keene 1968:189.)

The economy and dignity of the original are matched perfectly by the eleg- ance and polish of the English, providing a striking opening to the work, one that begs you to read on. The second example is from the opening lines of Matsuo Basho's Oku no Hosomichi, the diary of his journey to the north in 1689: The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on boats or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind, to ceaseless thoughts of roaming. (Keene 1968:347.)

Reading this paragraph aloud reveals the beauty of its rhythms and its asson- ances and alliterations. Compare it with the clumsy, overdone and heavy style of the following version (by a Japanese translator), which loses the poet- ical qualities of the original: . • Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind - filled with a strong desire to wander. (Yuasa 1966:97.)

A third example is taken from the play Sonezaki Shinju (Love suicides at Sonezaki), written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon in 1703. The Japanese text is provided on the left.

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Kono yo no nagori Farewell to this world Yo mo nagori .And to the night, farewell. Shini ni yuku mi wo We who walk the way to death Tatoreba To what should we be likened? Adashi ga hara no To the dew on the road Michi no shimo By the fields of Adashi Hitoashi zutsu ni Vanishing with each Kiete yuku Step ahead? Yume no yume koso This dream of a dream Aware nare Is sorrowful. Are kazoreba Ah, did you count the bell? Akatsukino Of the seven strokes Nanatsu no toki ga That mark the dawn • • Mutsu narite Six have sounded; Nokoru hitotsu ga . The remaining one Konjo no . Will be for this existence Kane no hibiki no The last echo Kikiosame , We shall hear. Jakumetsu iraku to It will echo ; Hibiku nari The bliss of nothingness. (Keene 1953:3-4.)

Placing the Japanese and English alongside each other makes it possible for us to observe how the translation is just as sparing with words as the ori- ginal, without needing extra verbiage to convey the effect. By inspecting the lines we can also see that Keene did not feel obliged to translate line-for-line, but has taken the 'liberty' of rearranging the words according to the require- ments of the English, without losing any of the impact of the original, and even preserving the repetition of the Japanese. These examples introduce us to what I would like to call the 'principle of proportionality'. This means that, where the author has chosen to be eco- nomical, spare, gaunt in his expression purposely in order not to disperse the effect in a flood of words - the sharper the point the harder the impact -, the translator should also be sparing in order to achieve the same effect. It is not so that to cover all the associations of the original we need to use twice the number of words. I do not agree with Nobuyuki Yuasa that the famous 'Sound of water' hokku of Basho needs four lines of English to coyer the three of the Japanese. Precisely through his overkill he has ruined the poem. A poem of this sort has to be stark and direct, framed in silence at beginning and end. Again Donald Keene's effort is better:

Furuike ya The ancient pond kawazu tobikomu A frog jumps in mizu no oto The sound of the water (Yuasa 1987:232.)

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Yuasa compares no fewer than 12 versions, including his own: Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond A frog jumped into water - . , A deep resonance . • • • . (Yuasa 1987:231.) .

Similarly, if the original is ponderous and aims to depict the majestic for- ward-rolling movement of a great army, then the English must match it. To alter the balance of the words means altering the author's sense of the rela- tive weight of the elements composing his intended message. Our English translations of kakawin may have the appearance of prose, except that they imitate poetry in the way we set out the text, namely as four- line stanzas, which is of course not the way it occurs on the lontar leaf. However, our convention does have a lot to recommend it, because it allows us to makea clearly visible separation between stanzas and between the lines of each stanza (a, b, c, d).'This does accord with the commonest grammatical patterns, • and makes the occasional overrun (enjambement) all the more unusual and meaningful. However, because of the Sanskrit ancestry of our metrical system, what we term a 'stanza' is originally one pada, so that it is likely that the first, two quarters of the stanza combine, and the second two likewise (ab; cd). Our techniques of translation should bear this in mind. Any arrangement of the text that obscures these structures is detrimental to the nature of a kakawin as such, and detracts from its poeticality. The form is also part of the message. A further point relating to the shape of the text concerns its integrity. If we adhere to a structuralist approach, we will believe that the text is an organic whole, in which all the parts and aspects play a part in creating significance. This implies that a mere 'sample' is likely to fail to give an impression of its meaning within the whole, as it is bereft of its context. Similarly, a translation which is 'censored', in the way Poerbatjaraka did his Arjunawiwaha transla- tion, has been mutilated. A mere-ninety percent of the work is not enough: either do all of it, or do nothing.

Conclusion

Trevor J. Saunders, writing about his work translating the.Laws of Plato, says that it cannot be assumed that the educated reader will have any background in Greek, so that an effort to present the text cannot be restricted to the trans- lation but must include an introduction as well. If that is true for Classical Greek, then how much more does it apply to Old Javanese. But what do we

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access 48 Stuart Robson mean by an introduction? It can be argued that more is needed than the cus- tomary description of the manuscripts and of the method of editing, if we are to 'hook' the reader. As Saunders puts it: The broad difference between an ancient and a modern reader is that the ancient already possesses a 'conceptual framework' in which he may read the work, whereas the modern does not. The aim of an introduction is to supply the lack, to give that frame to the modern reader, so that he can read the translation with something like the outlook and reactions of an ancient; and it should give him some sort of indication of how he might assess the work from a modern point of view. All this, I am aware, is an impossibly tall order; but it has to be attempted. (Saunders 1987:154.)

The readership to which we direct our work has to be wider than the privil- eged circle of Old Javanists. The aim should be a general educational one, whereby the specimen of Old Javanese literature, in the form of a text, trans- lation, and so on, is made available as part of the range of materials at the dis- posal of students of Southeast Asia. It would be unfortunate if, at the outset, we disqualified ourselves.through precisely an excess of scholarship, a pre- ciousness or an obscurantism, that will condemn our efforts to being con- signed to the shelf, and perhaps oblivion. If we intend our work of translation to attract Old Javanese-less readers and to hold their attention, then something along the lines of the 'conceptual framework' alluded to above will need to receive a prominent place in the introduction. Here we will see the Old Javanese work in its rightful setting, namely those ideas that inspired its creation and that were alive in Java in the 11th century. The sources for such an undertaking are thin enough - quite a different situation from that for Ancient Greece. We will be. seeking to elucid- ate such matters as: - . • 1. the closeness and interpenetrable nature of the visible and invisible worlds, whereby the highest god can suddenly appear before one, or a man can visit the abode of the gods, for example; 2. the nature of power, which can be obtained or accessed by means of asceticism and can be used to achieve certain aims; 3. the concept of duty or morality as it applies to the warrior class; or 4. the views of beauty and pleasure and the role they play in the world. If these are the questions (and one may be able to formulate more), then the method of answering them is by a close study of the text - its words and structures - in fact, old-style Leiden philology. This methodology has been effective in the past, and should continue to be used, until all the major texts of Old Javanese literature have been edited and published in full. .. The answers to the questions posed then will contribute to a larger, pic- ture, that of the history of ideas, so that the conclusions can be,placed in a

Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:06:57PM via free access On Translating the Arjunawiwaha 49 context, firstly that of early Hindu Java, secondly that of Indianized South- east Asia, and thence further afield. The twin tasks of presenting and interpreting will bring the product of that distant culture and the modern reader closer, so close that they can meet. Thus they will contribute in a substantial way to the intelligent and sym- pathetic understanding of the past of a country which forms an important part of Southeast Asia and the study of which has to be deepened and broad- ened, not to mention the implications for international scholarship. So, in answer to my opening question, I suggest that a complete English translation of the Arjunawiwaha, if tackled in the right way, would indeed serve a use- ful purpose.

REFERENCES

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