April 6, 2021
The Serat Damar Wulan discussed here is an old manuscript owned by Bapak Sucipto in Banyuwangi at the tip of East Java. DREASMEA has digitized the manuscript in March 2019 and it has been given the number DS 0038 00001. The manuscript is interesting because, unlike other manuscripts of the Damar Wulan story, it is written in pegon script rather than Javanese script used in most other manuscripts of the poetic and prose versions of this text. Pegon script is Arabic script adapted to the requirements of the Javanese language. The simple fact that a pegon version of the Serat […]
March 22, 2021
In Bali, many palm leaf manuscripts (called lontar) contain texts on medicine, black and white magic and almanac divination, or combinations of any of the three. In Bali the three different subjects are not clearly demarcated and one simply flows over into the other. It is good to bear in mind that in Bali, the boundaries between philosophy, religion, history, divination and sorcery, and medicine are diffuse and not the same as in other cultures. They are moreover intertwined and for that reason not always understandable to outsiders. Mostly, manuscripts on medicine, magic and divination consist of miscellaneous texts each […]
June 22, 2020
Kuningan is a town to the south of the city of Cirebon (at present part of the Province of West Java, Indonesia). In the past Cirebon was known as one of the centers of the dissemination of Islam in Java, including Kuningan. Latifundia (2014: 117-130) proved this by pointing to the discovery of 10 archaeological graves in the area that clearly showed traces of Islamic influence. These graves indicated that the kind of Islam that was practiced in Kuningan was influenced by the Islamic Kingdom of Cirebon and that of Demak which is located on Java’s northcoast more to the east. Not only […]
June 15, 2020
A manuscript in the collection of Iim Abdurrohim from the Lengkong area in Kuningan, West Java has attracted my attention. This manuscript was digitised in the fourth mission of DREAMSEA, and can now be viewed online in the DREAMSEA repository with collection number DS 0012 00001. The text is interesting because one part of the text uses Javanese in Javanese script in addition to Arabic (language and script) and Pegon (Arabic script for Javanese). The Javanese text explains several provisions regarding the Islamic months and includes certain calculations based on the Javanese alphabet “ha-na-ca-ra-a-da-ta-sa-wa-la-pa-dha-ja-ya-nya-ma-ga-ba-tha-nga”. The data at my disposal state […]
June 15, 2020
The names Muḥammad ‘Aydrūs Qā’im al-Dīn ibn Badr al-Dīn al-Buṭūnī, Sultan Muḥammad ʿAydarūs, Sultan Muhammad Idrus Kaimuddin, La Ode Muhammad Idrus Qaimuddin, and La Ode Muhammad Idrus Kaimuddin refer to the same person, the King of Buton, a small island off the coast of Southeast Sulawesi, who ruled from 1824-1851. He will be referred to below as Sultan ‘Aydrūs. The Islamic Kingdom of Buton was a well-known in Nusantara because it adhered to the “Martabat Tujuh (The Seven Dignities)” in the ethical system and state law in force in the kingdom. Adhering to the Martabat Tujuh means the implementation of […]