- Preface
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- University of Michigan Press
- pp. ix-xviii
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Judith Becker
The last millenium of Javanese civilization was a period of prolific literary activity. In his three-volume annotated catalogue of Javanese literature from 900 to 1900 A.D., Pigeaud has included tens of thousands of entries grouped under four general categories: Religion and Ethics; History and Mythology; Belles Lettres; and the final potpourri category, Science, Arts, Humanities, Law, Folklore, Customs, and Miscellanea. Many of these texts were written in Javanese poetic meters and were intended to be recited, chanted, or sung aloud, for oneself or for an audience. While references to music, to gamelan, to dance, and to song are frequent, texts dealing specifically with the history or craft of music are rare. The most famous of the references to music, from the nineteenth-century manuscripts Panji Semirang, Sastra Miruda, Pustaka Raja, and Serat Centhini, are discussed in volumes 1 and 2 (Poerbatjaraka, Warsodiningrat, Martopangrawit, Sindoesawarno). With the exception of the aforementioned, if an old manuscript includes a section about music, it will most likely give only the titles of gendhing appropriate to accompany particular scenes in a wagang performance (Pigeaud 1967[2]:51, 80, 417, 690). Writing whole treatises exclusively about gamelan, dance, or tembang is a twentiethcentury phenomenon which seems to have been stimulated by the interest of Dutch scholars and more recently by the establishment of Western-style conservatories of music. Books, articles, and manuscripts about karawitan are now plentiful and have become a necessary adjunct study for the Western student of the gamelan tradition. The texts included here were written over a forty-five-year time span (ca. 1930-1975) and were selected by the editor and translators from articles and manuscripts to which we had access during the period 1969-1978.
The men who wrote these texts were well acquainted with the long Javanese tradition of historical, literary, and didactic scholarship in which certain kinds of questions are asked and certain other kinds of questions are not asked. The particular assumptions of their literary tradition mold the ways in which they think, talk, and write about music.
We, the translators, come from a different scholarly tradition with our own presuppositions and criteria of evaluation. The author’s subjectivities are translated and filtered through our own subjectivities, resulting in a body of texts which cannot presume to be objective. We are presenting interpretive scholarship: our interpretations of the interpretations of our authors about gamelan music.
In preparing these.manuscripts for an English-speaking, primarily Western, late-twentieth-century audience, we are removing them from their context, from the intentionality and language of their authors. In so doing, we have “broken their moorings from the psychology of their authors” (Ricoeur 1971:534). But these are old problems, well known to generations of literary critics and translators, which nonetheless continually reveal new facets and new solutions to those undeterred by the awesomeness of the undertaking.
In like manner, we have not hesitated to pursue this utopian task with high enthusiasm and strong confidence in the worthiness of our effort. We have severed the ties of these manuscripts to a particular time and place, enlarging their horizons to include an international scholarly community.
The essential vocation of interpretive anthropology [musicology] is not to answer our deepest questions, but to make available to us answers that others . . . have given, and thus include them in the consultable record of what man has said. (Geertz 1973:30)
“The consultable record of what man has said” often needs to include more than simply the text in focus. A discussion of the manner of the saying, the intention of the author, and the tradition within which he wrote can help to bridge the ravine between distant texts and their readers (Becker, A. L. 1979:211-43). These authors did not all have the same audience in mind, nor did they write at the same time, but in one respect they are similar; they share a particular attitude toward the writing of a text, a presupposition about scholarship itself. The texts are not “original” in the sense that their authors are putting forth ideas and interpretations that are unique or lacking roots in traditional thought. Rather, it is accumulated wisdom that is presented here, the scholarly aspects of karawitan (the combined vocal and instrumental music of the gamelan), which have been preserved and transmitted primarily as oral tradition, but also through manuscripts. Java, until the twentieth century, belonged to a chirographic tradition, that is, a manuscript tradition with its own “noetics,” or the system of shaping, storing, retrieving, and transmitting knowledge (Ong 1977:96). Many of the authors of these texts cite earlier manuscripts, many refer to the teachings and writings of other scholars, and nearly all, at one point or another, pay homage to the ancestors from whom they received the gamelan tradition. The author of a traditional Javanese text is often rewriting a previous text or texts. Sometimes an author will cite his sources (see Sulaiman Gitosaprodjo in this volume); more often they need not be mentioned. It is expected that readers will share the scholarly assumptions of the authors. A comparison of the texts, Noot Gendhing lan Tembang, attributed to Paku Buwana X, and Wedha Pradangga, by Warsodiningrat (see volume 2), underlines the continuity of a manuscript tradition as well as the uniqueness of each author’s treatment of a prior manuscript. Both authors follow the coherence system of the chronograms called candra sangkala and both cite the prior text, Sastra Miruda. But, even within a scholarly tradition in which originality and individuality are not highly valued, and in which practice must find precedence in the past, the particular mind and personality of the author still inevitably surfaces. The contrasting interpretations and styles of three successive teacher-student generations, Warsodiningrat-Martopangrawit-Sumarsam (see volumes 1 and 2), point again to the facet of individuality within the continuation of a tradition.
The literary background of all these manuscripts, the tradition from which they derive and to which all show clear ancestry, is the Javanese-Balinese chirographic tradition, the lontar tradition. “Lontars” are traditional palm-leaf manuscripts produced in Java until the nineteenth century and still produced in Bali. Texts dating back a thousand years have been preserved by repeated “copying,” which also includes editing, borrowing, adding, and rearranging. In contrasting the noetics of “fixed form“ printed books with the chirographic noetics of Bali, Zurbuchen has this to say:
. . . each new copy of a lontar is rather like a new “edition” from the point of view of the copyist, who may make alterations, substitutions, and deletions as his own knowledge and experience dictate. Balinese scholars will sometimes look over a number of manuscripts of a work and engage in “horizontal borrowing” in the creation of a new copy . . . this borrowing, sometimes called “contamination” by critical editors . . . can effect all levels of the text from spelling and word-grouping to large sections of content. In typographic tradition, books are standardized containers of knowledge; the verbal entities within them must be identical between copies, indexable, citable, and referenced when quoted. In the case of Balinese lontars, elements can more or less freely be reshaped, excerpted, expanded, condensed, and otherwise altered. (Zurbuchen 1981:127)
Even though the manuscripts presented here appear with the format of a typographic tradition, the authors are more strongly influenced by their own literary heritage (the lontar tradition), with its copyist perspective, than by Western traditions of scholarship. In Serat Sulukan Sléndro, by Probohardjono, the combination of technical information, religious lore and ritual, linguistics, and history is in no way meant to be original and is, as the author says, “Selections from oral and written knowledge for the student dhalang.” Its sources are multiple, its author a teacher who has compiled his information to facilitate transmission. He is not the “author” of the information.
An organizational device which appears often enough in these texts to suggest a culturally conventional way of writing about karawitan is the use of numbered categories, each followed by a discussion. The categories themselves are fairly consistent, usually including the following:
1.instruments/gamelan
2.laras
3.pathet
4.irama
5.gendhing
The order and contents of these categories are freely “reshaped, excerpted, expanded, condensed and otherwise altered” (Zurbuchen 1981:127). Some authors add other categories such as ethos and notation (Gitosaprodjo), developments (Purbodiningrat), cèngkok and style (Sindoesawarno 1955; see volume 2), instruments and garap (Sindoesawarno 1955) or lagu (Martopangrawit).
Another trait shared by some of these texts, and also shared with the Javanese-Balinese lontar tradition, is organization around various areas of expertise of the author rather than an abstracted, unifying topic.
In many cases, a lontar seems less a replica of one work in its entirety and more a personal collection or compendium of one person’s knowledge and interests. (Zurbuchen 1981:127)
This method of cohesion is particularly striking in the manuscript of Martopangrawit which presents a theory of pathet and laras from the perspective of a gendèr player rather than the more usual theoretical abstractions of both Javanese and Western theory.
In addition to the stylistic and organizational conventions which these texts often share with the lontar tradition, they sometimes include the same formulaic devices. The formal apology and self-deprecation of the author, called pangaksama (from Sanskrit ksam ‘to forgive, be patient’) link these texts to the literary conventions of Old Javanese poetry and present-day rhetorical style as well. In the kakawin tradition, the pangaksama is one of several boundary markers and may occur at either the opening or the closing of the text. Compared to this instance of a fifteenth-century kakawin pangaksama,
But I myself am far from being endowed with the talent of composing sweet-sounding words in verse,
For how could I achieve all that a poet longs for, exceedingly dull as I am?
Thus indeed I cannot but incur the utmost derision of others;
My one hope, however, is that this may succeed in being an aid in my search for the Absolute.
(Teeuw et al. 1969:69, translation of canto 1, v. 3)
the apology of Sindoesawarno is closer to the expectations of twentiethcentury scholars,
Informed readers will freely add and subtract, alter and contest, or completely throw out these theories and replace them with new ones. (Ilmu Karawitan; see volume 2)
But, the spirit of personal modesty and humility is consistent in both.
Within recent history (ca.1750-1875 A.D.), Surakarta was the scene of a literary renaissance under the rulers Paku Buwana III-VII and Mangku Negara IV-V (Drewes 1973-1974:199-215). Descendants of the great literary figures of the nineteenth century still reside in that city. Given the circumstance that the Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia (ASKI) is situated in Surakarta, it is perhaps not surprising that the preponderance of contemporary musical texts were written there. Two of these texts, Noot Gendhing lan Tembang and Wédha Pradangga (a history of gamelan traditions and compositions from the perspective of the Surakarta court), reiterate the chronological framework found in the nineteenth-century text Pustaka Raja, by the poet R. Ng. Ranggawarsita, in which he “fills in” the history of Java from the end of the Mahābhārata (whose heroes are considered ancestors of Javanese kings) to the time of the rise of the East Javanese kingdoms in the twelfth century A.D. Each date given, in the form of a candra sangkala, provided a story with key words and numbers which themselves could be used as objects of contemplation and from which insights into hidden realities might be extracted (Becker, J. 1980:231). By the use of candra sangkala, these authors evoked a period of Javanese history when sacred knowledge, literature, and history were transmitted through private study and the oral recitation of lontars.
Another manuscript whose antecedents are deeply rooted in pre-Islamic Java is the Wédha Pradangga Kawedhar by Sastrapustaka. The association of the names of the first three keys of the gamelan instruments with parts of the body suggests the Tantric doctrine of the subtle body and its important cakra points located in the head, the neck, and the chest. Assigning names associated with the five sense faculties and six perceptions (rasa) to the remaining two keys also relates to earlier Buddhist traditions in Java (Campbell 1974:330-31; Zoetmulder 1974:180-81).
Most of the manuscripts were written for the purpose of communicating to students. Those of Gitosaprodjo were written for his students in Malang, East Java, during the 1960’s and early 1970’s (before the advent of cassette recordings and television and far from the centers of Central Javanese traditions), and for students (like many Western students of gamelan) with no direct access to the performance and scholarly traditions of Surakarta and Yogyakarta. Others, such as the texts by Warsodiningrat and Martopangrawit, were written for students at KOKAR (Konservatori Karawitan Indonesia, now Sekolah Menengah Karawitan Indonesia—SMKI) and ASKI, the secondary- and college-level institutes for the study of Central Javanese music, whose students are often very knowledgeable as well as proficient musicians. Gitosaprodjo conveys basic information (derived from his teachers at KOKAR), while Martopangrawit sometimes explores the limits of the knowable in karawitan. The manuscript closest in style of presentation to the expectations of a late-twentieth-century audience is Inner Melody in Javanese Gamelan, by Sumarsam, originally written in English. A comparison of the style of this manuscript with the one attributed to Paku Buwana X illuminates the different assumptions that inform scholarship from different traditions.
Two basic transformations have been performed on these texts by the consultants, translators, and editors: the process of translating itself (see “Preface,” by A. L. Becker, volume 2); and the process of changing the format of the texts from a chirographic tradition to a printed-book tradition. As editor, I have imposed standardization of spelling and word division, and a system of capitalization not present in the originals. Though providing clarity and conforming to one of the most rigid constraints of printed-book technology, this standardization also eliminates certain features that associate the texts with a particular time and give them a tone of elegance or old-fashioned quaintness. Javanese script, derived from the Pallava script that spread from South India throughout Southeast Asia, has no word division. When Javanese script is transcribed into Romanized script, word divisions are added. While all the texts here were originally written in either Romanized Javanese or Indonesian, the names of places, mythological or historical people, and names of gendhing and sekar do not have an official Romanized form. Different authors will choose different alternatives. For example, the name of the gendhing Gambir Sawit in Javanese script looks like this:
Modern writers using Romanized script may choose any of the following alternatives: Gambirsawit, Gambir-sawit, Gambir-Sawit, or Gambir Sawit. No one form is more “correct” than another, but they do differ in “archaicness,” that is, closeness to Javanese script.
In our translations, word boundaries are marked with a space even if they were not marked in the original or were marked with a hyphen. The reason for this choice is to help those with only a little knowledge of Sanskrit, Old Javanese, or modern Javanese to decipher the component parts of names of gendhing, names of gamelan, and technical terms. However, compound words joined by sandhi (letter fusion) are not separated, e.g., a lokananta (from loka plus ananta, or loka plus nata); nor are compound words joined by an epinthetic nasal, e.g., asmarandana (from asmara plus dana). Hyphens are retained only for reduplicated words, e.g., abon-abon, and for complementary pairs such as padhang-ulihan.
Transliteration from Javanese script also involves the choice of a spelling. The open-sided, square, pillared, audience hall of traditional Javanese nobility may be spelled pendapa, penḍapa, pendhapa, pendopo, penḍopo, or pendhopo, depending upon whether the palatalized d is marked by dh, by ḍ or not marked at all, and whether the sound 
A few variants have been retained, in some cases because both are common and in others because the variations in spelling may partially determine their meaning. For the vast majority of untranslated technical terms, and for spellings of names and places, we have eliminated all variations but one. The spelling conventions followed here conform to the decisions of the Indonesian government spelling reform of 1972 and the unofficial Javanese spelling standardization used in Javanese-language newspapers. The sound formerly written ḍ is now dh, (palatalized d); ṭ is now th (palatalized t); oe is now u; dj is now j (as in judge); tj is now c (as in church); and the sound [
The policy concerning capitalization is to try to indicate to the reader for whom all these terms are new the degree of their specificity or generality. For example, when a category of gamelan is referred to, lowercase letters are used, e.g., “gamelan kodhok ngorèk.” When a particular set of instruments is meant, capitalized words and italics are used, e.g., “Gamelan Guntur Sari.” Sometimes a string of generalized category-terms precede a specific name, in which case only the specific name is capitalized, e.g., “sekar” (song), “macapat” (metric-melodic category), “dhandhang gula” (more specific meter-melody), and “Lik Suling” (name of song). A special problem presents itself with the terms ayak-ayakan, srepegan, and sampak, which are used as terms for generalized categories and also as specific pieces. Usually it is clear from the context which is meant and we have indicated our judgement by lower- or upper-case letters, e.g., “the gendhing ayak-ayakan, srepegan, and sampak are used for the accompaniment of wayang. . . ,” or “Srepegan, sléndro pathet nem is used in the first part of a wayang performance.” One could argue that even “Srepegan, sléndro pathet nem” represents a category rather than a specific piece, but that is true only from an abstracted overview, looking at all the variants of “Srepegan, sléndro pathet nem.” Each author generally has a specific srepegan in mind when he speaks of “Srepegan, sléndro pathet nem.”
Many terms in Indonesian and Javanese may be unmarked for singular or plural. Rather than add the English plural marker s, we have decided to retain the original form of the word as both the singular and the plural form, for example, “the many gamelan found in the kraton. . . .” as well as “a gamelan may consist of as many as thirty instruments.”
Any term, phrase, or sentence enclosed within brackets has been added for clarification by the translator and is not part of the original manuscript. Any term, phrase, or sentence enclosed within parentheses is part of the original manuscript. If the word in parentheses is English, the author enclosed the equivalent passage or word within parentheses. If the word in parentheses is Indonesian or Javanese, the translator has added the original passage immediately following the English translation; when a passage is ambiguous or a word has multiple meanings, the original has been added for the benefit of those who can read it.
For the convenience of the reader, Javanese cipher notation appearing within the texts has been standardized. Unless otherwise indicated, G = gong and kenong struck simultaneously, N = kenong, and t = kethuk. Cyclic units are enclosed within brackets.
The translation and preparation of these materials for publication has been a cooperative effort in which several individuals were involved with every text—the translator, the editors, at least two consultants, and sometimes the author as well. Often, one or several of these persons made significant interpretive comments in the form of footnotes. Thus, we may have four or more sources for footnotes in a single manuscript.
The important role played by our assistant editor, Alan Feinstein, and our consultants, A. L. Becker, Sumarsam, and Hardja Susilo, is not discernible from a scrutiny of the table of contents. Either Sumarsam or Hardja Susilo examined each translation, line by line, checking it against the original. Alan Feinstein painstakingly rechecked the original against each translation. As a result, passages in every manuscript were rewritten. A. L. Becker provided decisions, counsel, suggestions, warnings, and encouragement at every stage in the preparation of these texts. Without the efforts and patience of these fine scholars we would have far less confidence in the work we have produced.
By applying her considerable editorial talents to these manuscripts, Janet Opdyke, publications editor at the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, transformed the ragged efforts of scholars into professionally formatted volumes. R. Anderson Sutton and Susan Pratt Walton contributed unstintingly of their expertise in the final editing of several sections of these volumes. Appreciation is due to René Lysloff, Carole Moody, and Dwight Thomas for typing and laying out the final version of the manuscripts. We are also grateful to Martha King for preparing drawings and diagrams that called for her considerable artistic skills.
We have received funding from various sources during ten years of work on these translations. The National Endowment for the Humanities has been the major source of support, awarding a Research Materials, Translations grant to the project (1979) and a publications subvention to the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies (1982-1985). Contributions also were received from the Southeast Asia Regional Council of the Association for Asian Studies (1976) and the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan (1974, 1975, 1983-1984). Finally, the School of Music, University of Michigan, has been generous in providing additional support.
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