Cultural Dynamics in a Globalized World – Budianta et al. (Eds) © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-62664-5 Uttaraśabda in Java and Bali A. Kurniawan & D. Puspitorini Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia ABSTRACT: The aim of this research is to provide access to less well-known Javanese literary text, Uttaraśabda, which can be categorised as a tutur (utterance) text. It contains dialogues on religious speculation, which is also valuable for the study of religions in Indonesia. To make the text readable, textual editions should be arranged. However, the previously-necessary step taken is to explain the cultural background of all material evidence. It also stands as a consequence on the textual analysis. Uttaraśabda is documented in fifteen copied manuscripts: eight from Java and seven from Bali. If it is assumed that a manuscript is as an equal textual variant, then careful observation of each manuscript can be expected to give explanation on cultural-background peculiarities. Particularly, there are two manuscript groups from different cultural loci: Java and Bali; therefore, this research will apply a philological approach based on textology. The approach will provide comprehension about textual problems and the history of textual development. Thus, the understanding on the reception process to a tutur text, at least in two different cultural loci, can be dug up. Hence, this research wishes to contribute generally in the study of tutur which so far still has been polarised only on Balinese or Javanese traditions. 1 INTRODUCTION There is an undeniable fact that we have not obtained a comprehensive portrayal about the history of Javanese literature which has been going on for more than a thousand years. There are a number of literary works which have been discussed before. One of them is Uttaraśabda. The previous scholarly works are just kept silent, except for some catalogues which contain information about its material evidence: manuscripts (Cohen Stuart, 1872; Poerbatjaraka, 1933; Pigeaud, 1967–70; Behrend, 1998; Setyawati et al., 2002). However, every catalogue only provides limited information. To make Uttaraśabda accessible, textual editions need to be prepared. Is it worth making Uttaraśabda accessible? First, it is less known. Other materials which record its text are unfamiliar to the present-time readers. Meanwhile, research about this text will make an important contribution to the study of the religion development in Indonesia. Uttaraśabda is a pre-Islamic work. It can be categorised as tutur: a genre of a philosophical text on theological speculation, and it sometimes contains religious manuals for ritual (see Acri, 2009; Soebadio, 1971, pp. 3–4). Uttaraśabda contains dialogues between Uttaraśabda and his elder brother, Ajñān․aśura, about those subjects. Analyzing Uttaraśabda and its textu- ality will give a comprehensive understanding about the dynamics of thoughts on a religious concept, particularly in the society where its text is produced. Indeed, the efforts to make Uttaraśabda accessible began when a Dutch philologist, A.B. Cohen Stuart, was employed as a manuscript conservator in the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, abbreviated as “BG”) from 1862 to 1871 (Behrend, 1993, p. 423). With the assistance of Radèn Panji Suryawijaya and Radèn Mas Samsi (Suryawijaya’s son), he made a copy of many palm-leaf manuscripts in a Buda script which was brought from Mt. Merbabu, Central Java, in the middle of the 19th century. They transliterated from Buda into the type of script which was used commonly 531 for a Javanese text at that time: Modern Java script. In spite of that, there were no scholars interested. Uttaraśabda was considered as a minor literary work. Pigeaud did a very limited analysis in the first volume of his catalogue that was published in the late 1960s. Uttaraśabda is classified as a Javanese tutur from Bali in this catalogue (Pigeaud, 1967, pp. 69–74). However, he had a reason for his classification because it was based on two copied manuscripts compiled by Proyek Tik (Tik Project) which were kept at Leiden University Library, the Netherlands. Is it true that Uttaraśabda was written in Bali as argued by Pigeuad? From the dating of the manuscripts, the Javanese materials are a few centuries older than the Balinese ones. From this step, we uncovered that Uttaraśabda developed in two sets of traditions: Javanese and Balinese. These two different traditions share similar historical trajectories in literature, specifically pre-Islamic literature. Some colonial orientalists, such as Kern (1900) and Gun- ning (1903), argued that pre-Islamic Javanese literature should be depended on the text of Balinese tradition which has more superior quality than Javanese tradition itself. They posi- tioned Bali as conservation space for Javanese culture before Islam established its domination along Java Island. However, this theory would be rejected later. Every tradition has potential and rules to grow in each scope. Thus, every textual artifact should be positioned as a variant which has certain functions in a specific historical phase. One manuscript: one variant. Hence, fifteen manuscripts which document Uttaraśabda text should be examined thoroughly. This article will discuss the manuscript distribution in Java and Bali and when those manu- scripts were produced. Those categories will be very useful in reconstructing the genotext (which could be called as cultural context) which encloses the production process of each phenotext (manuscript). The discussion has been limited on the palm-leaf manuscripts from those traditions. The copied manuscripts in Java script and from Proyek Tik are not included because their functions are different from the original function intended by the text. Informa- tion about where and when a manuscript was produced could be identified from the colo- phon or any external sources. This is just a beginning step of the ongoing research. Its aim is to make a crude mapping connected to textual transmission and reception in every historical stadium. The comparison of each manuscript will be discussed in another occasion. We will start the discussion about the textuality of Uttaraśabda from this step. Furthermore, by this discussion, we can decide the most suitable edition model for this text. 2 MANUSCRIPTS FROM JAVA Five palm-leaf manuscripts are of Javanese traditions, and they are included in the manuscript group named Merapi-Merbabu collection. This collection was discovered by authoritative colonials for the first time in 1822 through a survey initiated by Van der Capellen, a Gover- nor-General who ruled from 1816 to1826. In 1852, thirty years after being discovered in the western slope of Mt. Merbabu, there was a report that those manuscripts existed in Batavia and became the first collection of BG library. In total, there were 400 palm-leaf manuscripts in Buda and Java scripts, which covered many genres of texts: kakawin, kidung, tutur, pawukon, and mantra (Van der Molen, 2011, pp. 141–148; Wiryamartana and Van der Molen, 2001, pp. 53–55). Five manuscripts which document Uttaraśabda text are PNRI 6 L 46, PNRI 7 L 49, PNRI 1 L 170, PNRI 1 L 225, and PNRI 86 L 334. Four manuscripts contain the complete text, but PNRI 7 L 49 is in a poor-conditioned bundle of fragments from several manuscripts. There are just five folios (lempir) which contain the text (cf. Setyawati et al., 2002, p. 38). All of them are heavily damaged. PNRI 7 L 49 will not be discussed in this article. 2.1 The origin of the manuscripts Although excavated from Mt. Merbabu, information from the colophon shows that the text was copied (or produced) in several different locations. PNRI 6 L 46 and PNRI 1 L 170 were copied in Rabut Pamrihan, an ancient name for Mt. Merbabu (Noorduyn, 1982, p. 416). 532 More precisely, PNRI 1 L 170 was copied in the northwest slope (imbang bayabya), in the hermitage (panusupan) called Wanakarya. Other manuscripts, i.e. PNRI 1 L 225 and PNRI 86 L 334, were copied in Sang Hyang Giri Mandharagěni (ancient name of Mt. Merapi) and Sang Hyang Giri Karungrungan (ancient name of Mt. Ungaran). Terminologies such as ‘rabut’ and ‘panusupan’ can explain the status of the scriptorium. Both refer to a religious center or a place for spiritual education in the past. We can trace this back to a Middle Javanese prose work, Tantu Panggělaran (Pigeaud, 1924), or from an Old Sundanese poem, Bhujangga Manik (Noorduyn and Teeuw, 2009). In the last text, for example, one part of the story describes a main character named Bhujangga Manik who came back from the east area of Pasundan in West Java, after studying religions in Pamrihan located in Mt. Damalung (Noorduyn and Teeuw, 2009, p. 292). This brief explanation can clarify what kinds of environment in which Uttaraśabda text was produced and what its role was. Of course, it had a relation with religious activities in that society. 2.2 Dating problems Among the four complete manuscripts, only two manuscripts have dating evidence: PNRI 1 L 170 and PNRI 1 L 225. It should be noted that the dating element which will be emphasised is the year. The colophon of PNRI 1 L 170 informs that the text was already written in 1585. Thus, through the chronogram “watu sina(m)bi hoyěging wong” (the stone was accompanied by the trembling man), we know that the text in PNRI 1 L 225 was already written in 1611. Unfortunately, there is no definite conclusion from previous scholars about how to convert the Merapi-Merbabu calendar system to the common system (AD calendar). Van der Molen (2011, pp. 93–108) and Wiryamartana (1984) have tried to convert it by comparing it with the Těnggěr calendar system, especially Pasuruan Těnggěr. However, these efforts are not reach- ing the precise system yet, because the Těnggěr calendar system is also still undecided (see the reconstruction by Proudfoot, 2007).