In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 155 (1999), no: 1, Leiden, 45-96

Transcription

1 H. Creese The Balinese kakawin tradition; A preliminary description and inventory In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 155 (1999), no: 1, Leiden, This PDF-file was downloaded from

2 HELEN CREESE The Balinese Kakawin Tradition A Preliminary Description and Inventory 1 Bali has a vast and rich literature that dates back many centuries but which remains largely unknown outside Bali. Many different genres are represented in the Balinese literary corpus, ranging from prose and poetic works written in Kawi - a name that encompasses a number of related idioms including Old Javanese, Middle Javanese and Javanese-Balinese - to works in literary 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 practices 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 ( ) and Australian Research Council Small Grant ( ). 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. Rubinstein. 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 kakawin in Balinese collections. 2 For a comprehensive description of kakawin literature, see Zoetmulder 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 publication is Parthayana - The Joumeying of Partha'; An eighteenth-century Balinese kakawin, Leiden Dr Creese may be contacted at the Department of Asian Languages and Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. BKI155-1 (1999)

3 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 endeavour only a tiny fragment - fewer than twenty-five kakawin - remains, however. 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 scholars 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). However, 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 corpus comprises over 150 works, including some composed within the last decade - a figure indicative of the continuing development of kakawin literature in Bali and bearing testimony to the creative vitality of the kakawin tradition 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 general 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 transmission of earlier works of Javanese origin to Bali and the continuing develop-

4 The Balinese Kakawin Tradifion 47 ment of the kakawin genre there. The second part of this paper is a preliminary inventory of known Balinese kakawin that draws on a number of published 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 component 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 exclusively, mediated through Java. At the end of the tenth century, following the marriage of the Balinese ruler Dharmodayana Warmadewa to Gunapriyadharmapatnï, 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 administrative 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 political 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 culturally and religiously, and it is probable that Javanese literary forms, including 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

5 48 Helen Creese KAKAWIN Ramayana Arjunawiwaha Hariwangsa Bharatayuddha Ghatotkacasraya Smaradahana Sumanasantaka Krsnayana Bhomakawya Nagarakrtagama Arjunawijaya Sutasoma Kunjarakarna Parthayajna êiwaratrikalpa Wrttasancaya Dharmasünya Dharmaputus Nirarthaprakrta Jinarthiprakrti Nittéastra Nitisara PERIOD 9th century llth century 12th century 1157 A.D. 12th century 13th century 13th century 13th century 13th century (?) th century 14th century 14th century (?) 14th century (?) 15th century 15th century POET - mpu Kahwa mpu Panuluh mpu Sëdah/Panuluh mpu Panuluh mpu Dharmaja mpu Monaguna mpu Triguna - mpu Prapafica mpu Tantular mpu Tantular - - mpu Tanakung mpu Tanakung - Nirartha Nirartha Nirartha Nirartha Nirartha Table 1: The Javanese Kakawin Corpus - PATRON Erlangga Jayabhaya Jayabhaya Jayakrta (= Krtajaya?) Kameswara c Warsajaya (= Jayawarsa?) 1204 Warsajaya Rajasanagara Ranamanggala 1367 Ranamanggala 1367 Depicted in reliëfs on Candi Jago Depicted in reliëfs on Candi Jago Suraprabhawa Suraprabhawa direct Majapahit rule {Nagarakrtagama 49.4). By 1365, the year in which the Nagarakrtagama was composed, Bali was not only numbered amongst Majapahit's tributaries, but was accorded a special place and said 'to conform in every way to the customs of Java' {Nagarakrtagama 79.3)- 3 Balinese traditions record that, following the military conquest of Bali, a Javanese ruler, Krsna Kapakisan, was installed as ruler of Bali and founded the Gelgel dynasty, which was to flourish until the end of the seventeenth century. Dynastie links with Majapahit, particularly descent from these Javanese conquerors, became pivotal in the definition of Balinese identity in later times. The Balinese courts, with all their rituals and their ceremonial Anew translation of the Nagarakrtagama, under its original title Deéawarnana, has recently been published by Stuart Robson (1995).

6 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 49 and cultural life, were modelled on a Javanese 'ideal'. Continued interest in and patronage of kakawin literature appears to have been an integral part of this process, and the continued preservation of Javanese literature in Bali undoubtedly owes much to the cultural influence of Majapahit. 4 The Javanese Kakawin Classics in Bali While little is known with certainty about the process itself, we do know that by the end of the fifteenth century, when the Javanese courts began to embrace Islamic ideologies and practices, a small number of Javanese kakawin had made their way to Bali (see Table 1). These comprise the Javanese kakaw in classics, works which were held in such high esteem that they have been preserved in multiple copies through the centuries, first in Java and later in Bali, until the present. A reliable chronology for the Javanese kakawin tradition has been drawn up largely on the basis of the names of patrons mentioned in the introductory stanzas of these works. These names are also known from epigraphic sources. The surviving works can only represent a tiny fraction of the total number of kakawin that would have been composed in Java. 5 Questions of how and why these particular works came to be accorded such high status are intriguing, but the process of transmission can probably never be fully uncovered. There were clear political aims involved in the patronage of kakawin writing in Java, and most kakawin appear to have been written at least partly as panegyric or allegorical texts glorifying particular Javanese rulers. Royal patronage was no doubt important in ensuring the success and longevity of individual works. It seems probable that many of these works became part of the sacred royal regalia (pusaka) passed down from generation to generation. The stories of a number of them, including the Ramayana, Arjunawiwaha, Krsnayana, Parthayajna and Kunjarakarna, are also depicted on temple reliëfs throughout Central and East Java. This suggests that the kakawin that have survived were works of particular significance in their own time. 4 For a discussion of the importance of Majapahit in the formation of Balinese identity, see Creese 1997a and 1997b. 5 The didactic and religious kakawin listed at the end of Table 1 are generally attributed to the sixteenth-century poet Nirartha in the Balinese tradition. However, most are found also in Javanese manuscripts and thus are presumably of Javanese origin. The Nirarthaprakrta has been edited by Poerbarjaraka (1951). The Jinarthiprakrti is discussed in Schoterman and Teeuw The Dharmaêünya and Dharmaputus are usually found together in the same manuscript. o The Dharmaêünya is currently the focus of the Ph.D. research of I.B.M. Palguna. See also Palguna 1993.

7 50 Helen Creese Sources from more recent historical periods indicate that in both Bali and Java, settlement and resettlement customarily involved the movement not only of people but also of literary texts and other regalia (Behrend 1987; Creese 1996). The same was probably true in earlier times. The religious officials and scholars who, according to the Nagarakrtagama, oversaw the administrative affairs of Bali on behalf of the Majapahit rulers undoubtedly took textual sources with them. For this reason, many Javanese kakawin may even have been known in Bali at the time they were composed. Knowledge of the stories and traditions recorded in them was certainly widespread, as these found a voice not only in texts but also in the dramatic and other performing arts of both Java and Bali. Accounts of a mass flight to Bali of the last of the Hindu-Javanese ruling and scholarly elite, carrying their literary heritage to safety as Islam swept through Java, are undoubtedly apocryphal. Whatever may have been the case, the Javanese kakawin classics were central to the continuance of the kakawin tradition in Bali. Kakawin such as the Ramayana, Arjunawiwaha, Bharatayuddha and Sumanasantaka appear to have enjoyed great popularity. No less than works of a specifically religious or didactic character, kakawin were believed to contain the essence of Balinese religious philosophy and ideas on moral order and were held in reverence for both their antiquity and their continuing social and cultural relevance. Active interest in the Javanese classics is evident from the number of copies that have been made over the centuries, many provided with Balinese glosses, as well as from the frequent writing and rewriting of new versions of older works in the form of prose summaries (paparikan) or in new poetic forms such as geguritan and kidung. Balinese interest in the Javanese classics was also noted by early Western observers. Friederich (1959:14-26), for example, commented that in mid-nineteenth-century Badung the most revered texts were a handful of Javanese classics which comprised the Ramayana, Arjunawiwaha, Bharatayuddha, Hariwangêa, Smaradahana, Sumanasantaka, Bhomakawya, Arjunawijaya and Sutasoma. The same was still very much the case throughout the twentieth century (Robson 1972; Rubinstein 1993). Even the most recent wave of translations and editions of kakawin published in Bali in the 1980s and 1990s largely comprises these classics of Javanese origin (Stuart-Fox 1992:431-75). 6 Selections from well-known and highly regarded Javanese kakawin such as the Ramayana and Arjunawiwaha remain integral to a number of cere- 6 It seems probable that recent moves towards Hindu orthodoxy in Balinese religious thought and practice may have given added impetus to this renewed interest in works closely connected with the Balinese 'Hindu' past. Editions of Indian texts - the Sanskrit rather than Old Javanese versions of the Mahabharata, for example - as well as other Sanskrit religious and philosophical works have also begun to appear in Bali in significant numbers.

8 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 51 monial and ritual functions in Balinese religion, including important rites of passage associated with marriage and death. Kakawin excerpts are also incorporated into wayang and other performing arts genres. The vocalization and interpretation of kakawin in reading groups (mabasan), particularly of the Javanese classics that are believed to encapsulate the nature of Balinese ethics, religion and philosophy, has also continued into the twentieth century. 7 Their continuing viability and the re-creation of their philosophy and themes in ritual practice and dramatic arts all attest to the dynamic and contemporary relevance of Javanese kakawin in Bali. The Balinese Kakawin Tradition A veil of mystery envelops the early history of a specifically Balinese tradition of kakawin composition. If kakawin literature underwent a parallel and independent development in Bali at the time of its heyday in Java, no tracé of this now remains. Although there is a handful of earlier works possibly dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the earliest reliably dated Balinese works, in fact, are only from the eighteenth century, which leaves a hiatus of almost three centuries from the time of writing of the last extant Javanese kakawin, the fifteenth-century êiwaratrikalpa (Teeuw et al. 1969). Although both Balinese historical traditions and the extant textual record seem to suggest that kakawin writing in Bali dates only from the period after political and social links with Java ceased to be of central importance, on balance this seems unlikely to reflect reality, particularly in view of the centuries of close contact. That there is little overlap between the Javanese and the Balinese kakawin corpus proves little in itself. Written as the manuscripts were on fragile palm leaves, no Balinese manuscript could be expected to survive the ravages of the climate and insects longer than about 150 years, and manuscripts dating back earlier than the eighteenth century are few indeed. The laborious and painstaking process of transmission ensured that only those works that were considered particularly significant were copied and recopied, so that many'works that may have been highly regarded or popular in their own time probably eventually slid into obscurity and disappeared forever. The many manuscripts that must have been discarded by earlier generations of scribes and scholars are now irrecoverable. Nevertheless, there are multiple copies of a sufficient number of Balinese works as evid- 7 For a detailed account of the practice and development of mabasan in twentieth-century Bali, see Rubinstein For the study of kakawin in performance contexts, see Zurbuchen 1987,1991.

9 52 Helen Creese ence to suggest that the Balinese were vitally interested in their own literary heritage. The cataclysmic political events of late seventeenth-century Bali, which saw the fall of the Gelgel dynasty, may also have contributed to the destruction and loss of much of the pre-eighteenth-century Balinese textual record, as appears also to have been the case in Java during the turbulent Kartasura period (Ricklefs 1978:156). The gap in the textual record may be directly connected with the turmoil that marked the end of the old political order. The establishment of the new Klungkung dynasty as the successor of Gelgel at the beginning of the eighteenth century coincides with an increase in textual material, and there are a significant number of sources showing that even if kakawin writing had not been part of Balinese court life in an unbroken line since the earliest period, it had undergone a remarkable revival and renaissance in later times. The idea of a renaissance is not entirely improbable. The political upheavals and continuing rivalry between the Balinese kingdoms that characterized the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hint at strong political motives for extending patronage tö 'traditional' cultural activities- like kakawin writing as new rulers sought legitimacy through links to an ancient, Javanese, past. The accumulation of cultural capital through kakawin sponsorship is particularly evident in Klungkung, the traditional centre of the Balinese political world, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and in Lombok in the mid nineteenth century, a time when the Lombok rulers sought to usurp Klungkung's central position. In many cases we simply do not know when particular works were written. As in Java, Balinese kakawin authorship was largely anonymous. Kakawin poets continued to use pseudonyms to hide their identity and only rarely included information on dates. Given this lack of evidence, we will probably never know what kind of literary activity went on in Bali during Majapahit times, or even in the more recent Gelgel period ( ). A few brief references to Bali's literary history are found in the Babad Dalem, the official history of the Balinese Gelgel dynasty (Berg 1927; Creese 1991a). According to the Babad Dalem, Bali experienced its literary golden age in the sixteenth century, during the reign of Baturenggong, the fourth Dalem of Gelgel. It is during his reign that the court priest Nirartha is said to have come to Bali seeking refuge from Islam, settled at court and founded Bali's leading brahmana descent groups. 8 8 For a detailed discussion of the life and work of Nirartha, see Rubinstein Details of Nirartha's creative output are also given in other Balinese works, especially the Dwijendratattwa and the Babad Bhramana. I am grateful to Raechelle Rubinstein for drawing my attention to this point.

10 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 53 Only a handful of Balinese kakawin can be dated to the period bef ore 1700, and each of these only tentatively, relying either on the interpretation of obscure and possibly unreliable chronograms or on references in other more recent works that preclude any certainty about their time of origin. The Hariéraya B appears to be the earliest dated Balinese kakawin. It contains a chronogram that yields a date 1496 saka, equivalent to 1574 A.D. The work was written at Lawanadipura, a name that is probably synonymous with Amlapura, the capital of the east Balinese kingdom of Karangasem (Creese 1998:86-7). It is also possible that the Hariéraya B is of Javanese origin. Supomo (1977:10-4) has argued that Lawanadipura refers to Majapahit, although, since Amlapura is itself a synonym of Majapahit, it is difficult to resolve this problem merely on the basis of the place name Lawanadipura. The sixteenth-century dating, long after kakawin writing was actively practised in Java, argues for a Balinese origin. Similar problems surround the dating of a number of works ascribed to Nirartha, Bali's foremost literary figure in the Gelgel period. Works attributed to him in the Babad Dalem include the êarakusuma, Am-pik, Ewer, Gugutuk Mënur, Lëgarang, Mahisa Langu, Dharmatattwa, Waitisthaéraya, Anang Nirartha, Mahisa Mëgat Kung, Dharmaputus and Usana Bali (Berg 1927:27). Of these works, only the Anang Nirartha, a series of short lyrical poems in kakawin metres, the Ewer, the Dharmaputus and the Usana Bali are still extant. The Usana Bali has been tentatively dated to the period between 1550 and 1600, the Dharmaputus appears to be of Javanese origin (see Table 1), and the other works are undated (Hinzler 1986:134-5). Whether even these extant works actually came from Nirartha's pen is open to question, but this is less important than the significance attached to his role as the source of Bali's literary and religious heritage. Balinese tradition also assigns a number of other works to Nirartha, including the Dharmaprasada, a compilation of didactic religious verses whose author bears the closely synonymous name Nirarthaka, as well as religious moralistic kakawin like the Nirarthaprakrta and Jinarthiprakrti, which appear to be of Javanese origin. While it is difficult to pinpoint any new kakawin compositions that can be dated to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, manuscripts from both Bali and Lombok contain considerable evidence for the uninterrupted copying of literature of all kinds, including kakawin, during the Gelgel period. Hinzler (1993:459) reports two early-seventeenth-century manuscripts ascribed to Nirartha, and Damais (1958:249) suggests that the copy of the Brataéraya from the Van der Tuuk Collection should be dated A number of colophons containing sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dates are also appended to the two major nineteenth-cenrury manuscript collections of the University of Leiden, the Van der Tuuk and Lombok Collections (Pigeaud ).

11 54 Helen Creese From the eighteenth century, the literary history of Bali is more easily retrievable. A number of Balinese kakawin have now been dated to the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, and some attempts at drawing up a chronology are possible. The earliest of these dated texts is the Parthayana, a work written under the patronage of Surawïrya, the second Dewa Agung of Klungkung, who died in 1736 (Creese 1991b; 1998). A second work, the Krsnantaka, must also have been written some time in the first half of the eighteenth century, as the sole extant manuscript was copied in 1769 (Ando 1991). Towards the end of the eighteenth century a 'school' of kakawin writing is in evidence, and a number of stylistically similar works can be ascribed to this period. This school does not appear to have been based in any particular geographical centre, but rather represents a specific poetic style and common thematic concerns. Works belonging to this school include the Abhimanyuwiwaha (written in 1778); the Subhadrawiwaha, a reworking of the earlier Parthayana that was probably created for Dewa Agung Putra I of Klungkung (d. 1809); the Hariwijaya, whpse author was working actively as a scribe and copyist in ; the Narakawijaya; and possibly one or both versions of the Krsnandhaka (Creese 1996). All these kakawin, which were assigned by Zoetmulder (1974) and Pigeaud ( ; 1980) to the late Majapahit period, thus turn out to be fairly recent Balinese creations. It is not always possible to determine if individual works were written in Lombok or in Bali. In discussing a 'Balinese' kakawin tradition, we are, in fact, confronted with the same difficulties that for so long have plagued the discussion of '(Old) Javanese' literary works, the majority of which are no 'older' than the eighteenth or nineteenth century and have only tenuous connections with the geographical entity of Java. From 1740, Western Lombok, which had been defeated by the eastern Balinese kingdom of Karangasem, formed part of the Balinese realm. Following the Dutch military campaigns of , in a turning of the political tables, sovereignty over Karangasem was granted to Lombok. Many works were composed and copied in the Balinese courts of Lombok, and throughout the nineteenth century there appears to have been considerable movement of texts between the two islands. Poets apparently enjoyed some mobility and may have travelled to and worked in a number of different court centres. In Bali and Lombok, literary activity remained centred on the royal courts (puri) and priestly houses igria). Extensive collections were formed and libraries and scriptoria were set up and run by clerics, scribes and members of the court. Kakawin writing, in particular, appears to have flourished at the royal courts of Klungkung in Bali, the home of the Dewa Agung, supreme ruler of Bali and direct descendant of the Gelgel rulers, and in Cakranagara, in Lombok, whose rulers in the nineteenth century persistently sought to challenge the Dewa Agung's suzerainty. This intense literary activity and its

12 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 55 inherent association with ancient cultural ideals may have been linked to rival claims for the overlordship of Bali during this period. A period of literary flowering also occurred in the mid nineteenth cenrury under the patronage of the Dewa Agung Istri Kanya of Klungkung. She was renowned for both her patronage of the arts and her skill as a poet. In one kakawin attributed to her, the Astikayana (1.3), written in 1851 A.D. (1773 éaka), specific references to her literary endeavours are made (Zoetmulder 1974:494; Vickers 1982:492; Creese 1996). Vickers (1982:492) remarks that, according to one informant, during her long reign (1815-C.1868) kakawin and kidung were sung every day. To her are ascribed a number of works in addition to the Astikayana, including the êakraprajaya, Parthakarma and the Brahmandapurana or Prthuwijaya (Vickers 1982). In nineteenth-century Lombok, the royal court at Cakranagara was also a major literary centre. Many works were written and copied there under the successive rulers of the Mataram dynasty in the second half of the cenrury. Those that have been dated include the Khandawawanadahana, written in 1854, and Kalayawanantaka, which was probably composed between 1870 and 1894, during the reign of the last ruler of Lombok, Agung Gede Ngurah Karangasem (Creese 1996). The author of the Khandawawanadahana, Sang Anten, described the Mataram capital at Cakranagara as a splendid court where poets flocked and priests of all denominations came at the king's request to debate on philosophy and poetry and to compose kakawin (Khandawawanadahana 1.6). Not surprisingly, epic poetry extolling the ancient Mahabharata heroes and their adventures seems to have flourished especially under royal patronage at court. In part, the popularity of the kakawin genre in court circles is connected with the fact that in Bali, and presumably in earlier times also in Java, kakawin formed part of a rich oral performance tradition. Kakawin were not intended to be read silently, but to be performed. At court, poets were able to find not only the necessary material assistance to have their works performed, but also the audiences to appreciate them. However, not all Balinese kakawin retold epic tales. A significant number of Balinese kakawin have not Indian heroes and their exploits but religious precepts and speculation as their themes. Many are dedicated not to royal patrons but to teachers, suggesting that priestly residences igria) were also major centres of literary activity and priests were patrons of this kind of activity. These moralistic and didactic works are often quite brief in comparison with kakawin on epic themes. The religious yoga that inspired generations of Javanese and Balinese poets in the practice of their craft is perhaps reflected in these thematic concerns (Zoetmulder 1974: Chapter 4). It seems likely that in Java, too, hermitages and priestly residences were traditionally sites of major libraries and scriptoria as well, although surviving didactic

13 56 Helen Creese and religious works from the Javanese kakawin tradition are too few to allow a definite conclusion. There is little evidence of the kinds of literary activity that took place outside the sphere of the puri or gria, so that it is not possible to draw conclusions about the dissemination of texts or the extent of literacy. That texts were widely distributed at all levels of society is hinted at, however, in an edict issued in 1877 by the ruler of Lombok, aimed at regulating literary activity by restricting access to certain categories of text to particular social groups. This edict indicates that poetic works like kakawin and kidung were considered suitable for both the higher castes and commoners and that it was access to works encompassing religious and esoteric knowledge that was restricted (Rubinstein 1988:25-56). The issuing of the edict does indicate, however, that the spread of texts to all levels of society was sufficient, at least in late-nineteenth-century Lombok, to warrant royal intervention. In the twentieth century, the major collections of kakawin manuscripts continue to be preserved in the houses of priestly and noble families. 9 From the wealth of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources it is clear that Balinese interest in kakawin literature was not confined to continuing a scribal tradition aimed solely at preserving earlier Javanese works, no matter how much they were esteemed. It also extended to a creative process responsible for the composition of many new works. During this period, it was the tenth-century Old Javanese parwa, the prose versions of the books of the Mahabharata, particularly the first book, the Adiparwa, which provided the stories from which the majority of Balinese epic kakawin derive. To the bare outlines of the parwa stories, Balinese poets added extensive descriptive detail, expanding minor episodes into lengthy stories and passing on the wisdom garnered from the ancient texts of Java and India to new generations; Later Balinese poets, who presumably no longer had direct access to Indian sources, also appear to have made a considerable effort to gain mastery of the conventions of kakawin writing, including a knowledge of Sanskrit. Facility in the use of poetic conventions was not easily acquired, and successful composition required continued study and application. There exist a considerable number of treatises on metrics and prosody and dictionaries of synonyms, all attesting to the systematic study of kakawin technique and practice. These works include the Canda, Bhasaprana and Swarawyanjana, as well as a number of lexicons, dictionaries and word lists (Rubin- 9 Hinzler (1993:460) notes that of the 227 kakawin transcribed in the Balinese manuscript transcription project between 1979 and 1992, 203 belonged to noble or priestly owners. Hinzler's data cover about half the total number of kakawin manuscripts collected between 1979 and 1992.

14 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 57 stein 1988). A long period of apprenticeship was probably served under the watchful eye of more experienced poets; many Balinese poets in fact acknowledge their indebtedness to their teachers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Balinese authors turned for guidance in acquiring mastery of the poetic conventions to earlier Javanese kakawin. The Javanese classics served Balinese poets as 'textbooks' and models for their own works. Not only did their content serve to inspire poets, but they were also practical manuals. In one undated Balinese kidung, the Anacaraka, a father exhorts his son to study the holy writings carefully and remarks that 'the best texts are from ancient Java and are written by famous authors. Copy these texts, learn how to write and spell...' (Hinzler 1993:461). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the ninth-century Ramayana and twelfth-century Sumanasantaka stand out as works that were used as 'textbooks', and there are remarkable stylistic similarities between the earliest Javanese examples of the genre and their later Balinese counterparts (Creese 1998:42-5). This use of earlier Javanese kakawin as textbooks points to a concentrated, systematic study of the formal aspects of the kakawin literary form at this time. 10 It is also worth noting that in the transition from Java to Bali, the Old Javanese language itself did not become fossilized. Although Balinese poets seem to have been generally confined to the range of semantic items that came to them from earlier kakawin written in Java, and although little influence from the Balinese language is discernible, they continued to extend the range of usages and to create new lexical items by means of the kawi system of affixation. Another characteristic of the Balinese kakawin tradition appears to be the writing of new versions of some existing works. There is no record of a similar practice in the Javanese kakawin tradition, in which scribal input and later variation appear to have been proscribed. Only one detailed study of such variant versions has so far been undertaken, namely of the rewritten version of the Parthayana - the Subhadrawiwaha - from the end of the eighteenth century. This appears to represent a deliberate attempt to rewrite an earlier work for a new political and social situation (Creese 1998). Similar kinds of change are evident between the two versions of the Krsnandhaka. The Hariéraya A and B, on the other hand, appear to be different versions of the same story rather than interdependent reworkings of a single original. There are also a number of other variant kakawin that differ from each other in minor ways, including the long and short versions of the Ambaêraya, Astikaéraya and Kamalawimala and the Kangéa (Krsnandhaka). These differing versions may have arisen in the process of transmission, or may I have discussed these aspects in detail in Creese 1996 and Creese 1998.

15 58 Helen Creese instead be first drafts, perhaps made to impress or please a teacher or discarded as the poet refined his technique. It is probably their relatively recent dating that has ensured their preservation in the textual record. Further research into these variant versions may shed more light on this puzzle. Although kakawin writing in Bali was intimately linked to traditional court society, the Balinese kakawin story did not end with the collapse of the last of the Balinese courts, namely that of Badung in 1906 and Klungkung in The continuing interest in studying and reading Javanese kakawin in mabasan groups has been noted above. Although there appears to be no parallel interest in the study of Balinese kakawin, kakawin composition has continued well into the twentieth cenrury. Research in this area has scarcely begun, but it is nevertheless possible to say that a shift in thematic interest away from the epic heroes of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works to episodes from more recent Balinese history or religious and didactic subjects is discernible. Recent kakawin include works such as the Këbo Tarunantaka, written in 1987 by I Nyoman Singgin (Supartha 1991); the Gajah Mada, written between 1952 and 1958 by Ida Cokorda Ngurah of Puri Saren Kauh, Ubud (Pradotokusumo 1986); the Kusumawicitra, written in 1930 by Ida Bagus Gede Tegeg; and the works of Ida Pedanda Made Sidemen, a leading twentieth-cenrury Balinese kakawin poet and scholar, which include the Cayadijaya (1941), Candrabherawa (1942), Kalpasanghara (1944) and Singhalanggyala (1963). 11 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition and Kakawin Studies In view of the richness of the kakawin tradition, both historically and in contemporary Bali, it is interesting to consider.the reasons why so little research has been done in this area. The neglect of the Balinese kakawin tradition is, in fact, intimately connected with the development of Old Javanese studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Balinese ties with Java's ancient past have tended to obscure the dynamism of Bali's poetic and literary life, and the consequence of an early scholarly focus on Javanese kakawin has been a marked lack of interest in its Balinese counterpart. 12 The study of kakawin literature by Western scholars dates back to the 11 I am grateful to Raechelle Rubinstein, who provided, me with information conceming Ida Pedanda Made Sidemen. For a further discussion of his life and work, see Rubinstein Even in recent general surveys of Balinese literature, kakawin continue to be depicted only as remnants of earlier Javanese culture. See, for example, Hooykaas 1979a, Marrison 1986, 1994.

16 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 59 beginrüng of the nineteenth century. In 1817, Raffles brought the attention of the Western world to the existence of Javanese literature with the publication of a long extract from the twelfth-century Bharatayuddha, telling of the war between the Pandawas and Korawas. Raffles' excerpt was based on two manuscripts, one Javanese and the other a Balinese manuscript presented to him by the ruler of the northern Balinese kingdom of Buleleng (Raffles 1817:410-68). From then on, Bali's role was defined in Javanese rather than Balinese terms in kakawin studies. Like the majority of his scholarly successors, Raffles saw in Balinese culture the vestiges of a once great Javanese culture that had fallen into decline. This early, nineteenth-century assessment was to have a considerable influence on the subsequent study of kakawin literature. Even now our knowledge of the Javanese and Balinese literary corpus is based largely on the nineteenth-century manuscript collections that found their way into European libraries and catalogues, and thence to the attention of generations of scholars. None of these scholars was specifically interested in Balinese literary activity, let alone in the Balinese kakawin tradition. Thus, a considerable part of what was collected, and therefore much of what has survived until the late twentieth century, is a reflection less of the totality of the Balinese literary corpus at any given historical point than of the acquisition policies and idiosyncrasies of Europeans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whether independent collectors or Dutch government officials. Even the Gedong Kirtya collection, the first major Balinese collection, set up in 1928 in Singaraja (MKLVT 1, 1929), throws more light on European textual concerns than on Balinese ones,, as it, too, was started under Dutch control and sponsorship. The equation of literary merit with antiquity became the hallmark of early kakawin scholarship. Pioneering collectors of Balinese manuscripts like Friederich, Van der Tuuk, Kern, Gunning and Brandes sought out works for specific scholarly, largely philological and lexicographic, purposes. Steeped as they were in the methods of European classical philology, their main interest lay in the establishment of the earliest possible original text. For this reason, the early Dutch or Dutch-trained scholars worked systematically through the extant Javanese kakawin corpus in more or less chronological order. The first printed edition of a complete kakawin text, that by Friederich of the Wrttasancaya, appeared in 1849, closely followed by his editions of the Arjunawiwaha (1850) and Bhomakawya (1852). Prior to the Second World War a considerable number of the extant Javanese kakawin were edited and translated into Dutch. Post-war kakawin studies then saw a number of later Javanese Majapahit works published in English, including the Nagarakrtagama (Pigeaud ; Robson 1995), èiwaratrikalpa (Teeuw et al. 1969), Sutasoma (Soewito Santoso 1975), Arjunawijaya (Supomo 1977)

17 60 Helen Creese and Kunjarakarna (Teeuw and Robson 1981). 13 It should also be borne in mind that from the mid nineteenth century, Western interest in Balinese texts has shaped Balinese perceptions of their own works. From the Dutch, the Balinese absorbed classifications of textual genres that cut across their own categories (most notably the opposition between 'religious' and 'secular' works), together with notions of the relative merits of these texts, and new 'scientific' (philological) ways of approaching their literary heritage. The loss of many earlier Balinese works may have occurred relatively recently and been accelerated by this Western academie discourse, which has consistently placed far greater value on Javanese examples than their later, Balinese 'imitations'. The active study and use of kakawin texts in ritual and religious contexts by the Balinese themselves only rarely overlapped with the academie discourse surrounding Balinese literary activity and its products. In post-independence Indonesia, the Balinese have also been profoundly influenced by decades of nationalist cultural politics whereby the search for authentic, ancient cultural forms has been juxtaposed with efforts töwards modernization and the influence of new electronic media. The lack of interest in Balinese kakawin amongst members of mabasan groups may also reflect these more recent twentiethcentury influences and may in fact mask the interest in or popularity of Balinese works in earlier historical periods. In his major study of Old Javanese literature, Kalangwan (1974), Zoetmulder too focused on the kakawin classics that had been written in Java between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, confining his discussion of the entire Balinese kakawin tradition to a single chapter, entitled 'Minor Kakawins of Later Times'. Of the numerous Balinese kakawin, Zoetmulder (1974) considers only works dealing with epic subjects and categorized as 'belleslettres' that had found their way into public collections prior to In many cases, he makes no more than a passing reference to the title of a work. However, he does include the introductory stanzas and epilogues of thirtyfive of these Balinese kakawin in Appendix IV (Zoetmulder 1974: ). Although Zoetmulder's somewhat perfunctory treatment of the Balinese kakawin corpus may have been unavoidable given the lack of research into this 'offshoot of kakawin literature' (Zoetmulder 1974:383) at the time, his remarks indicate that it was also partly motivated by the same sense of the greater intrinsic value of the Javanese examples of the genre. He did not entirely dismiss the possibility that some of the works belonging to this 'mot- 13 Zoetmulder (1974) deals exhaustively with kakawin scholarship prior to the 1970s. Recently new editions and translations of several Javanese kakawin in English, Indonesian and Balinese have begun to appear, including new editions of the Arjunawiwaha (Wiryamartana 1990) and Bharatayuddha (Supomo 1993). See also Stuart-Fox (1992:443-9).

18 The Balinese Kakawin Tradition 61 ley collection of kakawins' might have been written in Java, since some were 'still close to the kakawins of the East Javanese tradition' (Zoetmulder 1974:383). A number of these have subsequently been shown to be Balinese, written three or four centuries after the last of their Javanese counterparts. Despite Zoetmulder's rather gloomy prognosis 'that the poor quality of many of the Balinese kakawin can hardly be said to stimulate the interest of prospective editors' (Zoetmulder 1974:383), research on the Balinese kakawin tradition has made considerable progress in recent years. Rubinstein's work on the craft of kakawin composition in Bali (1988) and on mabasan (1993) has provided new insights into the importance of the kakawin genre in Balinese literary life down through the centuries until the present. Several editions and translations of Balinese kakawin have now also been completed, including those of the Dimbhiwicitra (Suastika 1985,1986), Candrabherawa (Suastika et al ), Kakawin Gajah Mada (Pradotokusumo 1986), Subhadrawiwaha (Creese 1981), Krsnantaka (Ando 1991), Këbo Tarunantaka (Supartha 1991), and Parthayana (Creese 1998). This new research has done much to enrich our knowledge of the social, historical and intellectual context of Balinese literature. The Balinese Kakawin Corpus There is still no overview of the Balinese kakawin corpus in any of the secondary literature, whether in Dutch, Indonesian or English. Nor is there a single source which shows at a glance just what this literary category encompasses, in terms of either content or scope. In fact, the extent of indigenous Balinese literary activity has only recently begun to be realized. In compiling the following inventory of the Balinese kakawin corpus, my purpose is both to highlight the depth of the Balinese kakawin tradition and to demonstrate that the traditional view of kakawin literature as a largely Javanese tradition is somewhat distorted. The main source of iniormation about the Balinese kakawin corpus is the Balinese Manuscript Project, or Hooykaas - Këtut Sangka (HKS) Project, set up by Professor Hooykaas in the early 1970s for the purpose of producing Romanized transliterations of Balinese manuscripts. 14 Copies of the transliterations were sent to several libraries around the world, including the University of Leiden, Cornell, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, the University of Sydney, Universitas Udayana, Denpasar, and the Perpustakaan Museum Nasional, Jakarta. The project, which was conceived by Pigeaud (1980:94-6) provides a general description of the project. See also Hinzler 1983.

19 62 Helen Creese Hooykaas (1979b) as a way to preserve the Balinese literary heritage before it was irretrievably lost, is still continuing. It has made clear the vast extent and wide dispersion of religious, epic and secular literature throughout the Balinese world. To date, 6475 individual manuscripts from all over Bali have been transliterated and many previously unknown kakawin have come to light. The kakawin corpus, of course, comprises only a tiny part (7%) of the overall transliteration project. Of the 467 kakawin copies that have been made, 358 (76%) are Balinese. Each of the major Javanese kakawin is also represented, but as the Balinese Manuscript Project is primarily concerned with Balinese rather than Javanese literature, these figures are unlikely to reflect the overall provenance of the manuscripts or the ratio between Balinese and Javanese works. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that most extant Balinese kakawin have been included, though not necessarily every copy of each. The kakawin that have been copied under the auspices of the Balinese Manuscript Project come from collections all over Bali. Every district is represented and the manuscripts have been collected from dozens of different owners. The majority of kakawin are from collections belonging to noble or brahmana households. Most collections contain both Javanese and Balinese kakawin. The provenance and distribution of Balinese kakawin is narrower than this large number of collections would seem to imply, however. 15 The eight collections with the largest concentrations of Balinese kakawin are listed in Table 2. These account for over half the total number of kakawin copies that have been made since the Balinese Manuscript Project began. No other collection includes more than six Balinese kakawin. Four collections stand out as major sources of Balinese kakawin. These are the collections from Gria Gede in Blayu in Tabanan and those of Puri Kawan, Puri Gobraja and the Kirtya in Singaraja. These four collections account for over thirty-five per cent of all the kakawin copies. It is perhaps no coincidence that each of these four collections has links with the early documentation of Balinese literature in the 1920s. Three of them - the Puri Kawan, Puri Gobraja and Kirtya collections - are connected with a single individual, I Gusti Putu Jlantik, regent of Buleleng, whose family home was Puri Kawan. I Gusti Putu Jlantik was a close adviser to the Dutch in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, travelling with the Dutch army during its conquest of the Balinese kingdoms and collecting and acquiring manuscripts from the royal collections of Lombok, Tabanan, Badung and Klungkung. The places of origin of the many manuscripts in 15 There is still a great deal of research to be done on the provenance and the use of the manuscripts collected in the Balinese Manuscript Project. For practical reasons of space, I have not included iniormation on the collections from which the individual manuscripts come in my inventory.