Reading Old Javanese inscriptions

Abstract

Among the editions of Old Javanese inscriptions that are at present available, those prepared by W. F. Stutterheim deserve special praise. In general they are more accurate than any of the other editions and, owing to the author's unparalleled knowledge of ancient and modern Javanese civilization, of great interest to Indonesian studies. Yet, even Stutter heim sometimes made mistranslations or incorrect interpretations due to his probably exaggerated view of the continuity between old and modern Java. His transcriptions, however, are nearly always completely reliable nearly always, as there are a few exceptions. It is true that any transcription involves an element of interpretation, for instance in the separation of the words of the original text, but this is hardly a problem, since every reader knows that the original inscriptions do not separate the individual words.1 In a few cases Stutterheim went too far, however, for example when he transcribed rame in some inscriptions as rama /, 'village elder of, followed by the name of a village. This no doubt is the correct interpretation, but it is not an accurate representation of the original. There are, however, cases where a given interpretation is not beyond doubt. Thus, Stutterheim occasionally transcribed rake of the original as raka /, as he thought that this title should be interpreted as 'Raka of (some place over which the dignitary concerned exercised some form of authority). Such an interpretation would be plausible if the inscriptions sometimes give rake and at other times raka i (just as they usually give rama i but occasionally rame), but this is by no means the case; I have never found raka i in an original inscription. Once Stutterheim even admitted that he tacitly ('stilzwijgend') corrected any clerical errors he found in an inscription!2 Unfortunately even Stutterheim sometimes made mistakes in his transcriptions. In his otherwise exemplary edition of a copper-plate inscription of Balitung, rightly described by him as 'an important inscrip tion of the K?du' (Stutterheim 1927:173-216), one reads just after the beginning of line B-16 the words: mati tanpa kasangk?n mati tanpa wacu bratan. The passage occurs in the middle of the imprecation against all those venturing to violate the integrity of the foundation with its numerous privileges. In this case, the text of the imprecation is particu larly elaborate, as also the king's ancestors are invoked as protectors of the foundation. In this connection the text gives us the famous list of the early kings of Mataram prior to Balitung, starting with Rakai Matar?m sang ratu Sa?jaya. Stutterheim fully translated and discussed this im