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North Coast districts to the interior of the country. Districts which already in pre- Islamic times had been political centres of some importance, Pajaij and Mataram, now became independent kingdoms. According to eighteenth and nineteenth century Javanese historians the Pajar) and Mataram Kings were legitimate heirs of the Dernak rulers, who in their time had received the Majapahit inheritance. In the beginning of the seventeenth cen tury the Muslim Mataram Kings began a successful series of wars, conquering first the old Pasisir kingdoms on the North Coast of Central Java, and afterwords the other Pasisir states to the East, up to* Grësik, Giri and Surabaya. In many cases these devas tating wars of conquest meant the end of flourishing centres of Pasisir culture. The warlike Mataram conquerors, returning to the interior of the country, brought home with their booty some products of Pasisir culture, objects of art and books. But the development of the Pasisir culture was inter rupted. In the Mataram capital for a long time political struggles and wars of succes sion made life uneasy and existence pre carious. Circumstances were unfavourable for the cultivation of art and literature. In the middle of the eighteenth century, partly in consequence of the Dutch East India Company’s actions, political equi librium was established in Central Java, and the period of the renaissance of Kartasura and Surakarta began. Scholars of the time were acquainted with Pasisir literature, es pecially with books originally written in the Central and Eastern North Coast districts. The idioms did not sound unfamiliar to them. In histories of their own times, written

by scholars of Surakarta, many tales bor rowed from the older Pasisir histories and Sërat Kandas were incorporated (see 25.600 and 27.000). Probably several old texts were completely or in part rewritten in the modem Surakarta literary idiom. There fore in many cases it is difficult to deter mine whether a given historical text origi nally belongs to Pasisir literature or not. As a rule the manuscripts containing these texts are not older than the eighteenth cen tury. Under the present head historical texts of the Sërat Kanda type, Universal Histories of the Central Java Pasisir culture, are col lected. Several codexes are certainly of East Pasisir, Grësik origin. As Central and East Pasisir districts had frequent contacts it is difficult to ascertain whether the original texts were written in Central or in East Java. Dr Hazeu studied the relations between numerous manuscripts of the Leiden and Batavia-Djakarta (KBG) collections (see cod. 6441 and cod. 6505, registered in 49.750). Apparently several codexes are overlapping and many manuscripts have intercalations and additions. Sometimes historical texts were brought up to the times of the last scribe-editor. Lastly it is to be noted that eighteenth and nineteenth century authors of historical works often prefixed a mythical and genea logical introduction beginning with Adam and the gods. In the present Synopsis such books have been listed under the head his tories. The mythological introductions are disregarded. Manuscripts containing texts as discussed in 22.900 ff. and 23.100ff. are