225

30.730 Islamic romances from West Java.

The western part of the Javanese Pasisir districts had two cultural centres : Cërbon and Bantën. Cërbon was the oldest and the most important. In the sixteenth, seven teenth and eighteenth centuries, from the Court of the Sultans, descendants of Sunan Gunut) Jati, Islam and Muslim literature spread in West Java, and the originally Sundanese country was almost entirely won for Javanese culture. Afterwards, in the nineteenth century, Sundanese literature revived, and Javanese culture was on the retreat. As centres of distribution of Javanese literature in West Java and South Sumatra (Lampur;), Carbon and Bantën are com parable with Grësik and Surabaya, the cen tres from where in the Pasisir period East Javanese cultural influence radiated to the eastern islands, Bali and Lombok. The radiation of Javanese culture in the eastern parts was older, stronger and more enduring than that which went westwards. But even in Madura, Bali and Lombok the indigenous languages and literatures were not altogether superseded by Javanese. In the western part of the North Coast districts, just as in the centre and in the east, seventeenth and eighteenth century Ja vanese culture had connections with inter- insular Malay literature, and through this medium with international Indian-Persian- Arabic Islam. In the western Pasisir the Ménak Amir Hamza tales were well-known. In Cërbon the wayaq golèk theatre, using round wooden puppets instead of the flat leather ones of the wayarj purwa theatre, flourished in the eighteenth and the nine

teenth century. It was especially adapted to plays made from episodes of the Ménak Amir Hamza cycle of tales. Moreover in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century authors from western Pasisir districts wrote some remarkable romances which partly re mained unknown in other regions of Java. In several cases parallel texts in Malay and Sundanese literatures are known. Under the present head A h m a d-M u- hammad manuscripts are collected. The tale, turning on the jealousy and strife of a pair of brothers, was known also in other parts of the North Coast districts, and in the Tëtjgër highlands. In West Java and in Bali and Lombok it was read very much. Van der Tuuk’s notes on the Javanese- Balinese Amad romance (in Brandes’s Cata logue of the Van der Tuuk collection, vol. I, 1901, p. 29) are most interesting. There is no evidence that it ever was popular in the interior of Central Java. A Malay Hikayat of the same name is also known. Manuscripts containing tales turning on jealousy of brothers have been registered in the General Index under the catchword brothers. The motive is found in several texts. Some relationship with mythology seems probable (see 30.570). 30.731 Ahmad-Muhammad romance, East Javanese text: cod. 1985 (= 10.623 = BCB prtf 74). 30.732 Ahmad-Muhammad romance, Cen tral North Coast, illustrated: cod. 8655. 30.733 Ahmad-Muhammad romance, West Javanese text: cod. 6627, 6956, 7513, 7779, 8611.