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dated manuscripts only provide dates ante quem with reference to the original com position of the text. It seems probable that in the Pasisir period the custom of exactly dating their copies, prevailing with writers of Arabic books, prompted Javanese scribes to follow them. It is remarkable, however, that as a rule years of the Higra era are not indicated by means of chronograms, but in plain words or in figures. Evidently chronograms, being associated with pre-Islamic mythology and religious lore (the numeral connotations of Sanskrit words), were deemed unsuitable to indicate years of the era of Islam. The Ja vanese calender which, like the Indian Saka era, begins its numbering of solar years in 78 A.D., switched over to lunar years in 1625 A.D., in accordance with Muslim usage. This is a remarkable example of the amalgamation of elements of different origin in Javanese culture (see 00120). Probably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries interest in the tumultuous political history of the time prompted Javanese au thors belonging to- Muslim religious circles to make lists of chronograms referring to memorable events. Several books of notes and compendiums contain such lists. In many cases they contain valuable information on local political history; unfortunately, statements of events which occurred in the indicated years sometimes are so concise as to be almost unintelligible. Many lists of chronograms begin with a paragraph on the Këndëi} hills in the North East Pasisir region and on Aji Saka, as starting-points of Javanese history. In that case relationship with Universal Histories and Books of Tales of the Central and East

Pasisir districts (see 22.900 and 23.100) is most probable. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in Surakarta and in Yogyakarta, saqkala lists continued to- be composed, as sequences to older lists, sometimes provided with am plifications. Great Histories of the Central Javanese Kings, in Javanese called babads, were written in that period; probably the authors of these books had lists of chrono grams at their disposal. Neither the older Universal Histories nor the babads of the Mataram dynasty should be considered merely as results of amplifying statements of san,kala lists. Probably in Javanese litera ture, especially in the Islamic period, but also earlier, a (more exact) tradition of chronograms and a (more elaborate) tra dition of tales on mythology and history coexisted. They exercised influence one upon the other. In the nineteenth century, in the period of the Renaissance of Javanese literature, the last great author, Rat3ga Warsita of Sura karta, composed a new Universal History, called Pustaka Raja, the Book of Kings. With a strong sense of chronologic order, Raijga Warsita worked out a system of mythologie history partly of his own in vention, and composed elaborate lists of chronograms referring to events told in his books. There is no strict concordance be tween Raqga Warsita’s chronograms and tales on the one hand and the older ones, belonging to seventeenth and eighteenth cen tury Books of Tales, on the other. Raqga Warsita’s pseudo historical works will be discussed separately (28.400). In Yogyakarta, also in the middle of the nineteenth century, patjéran Surya Nagara,