190

30.135 Old Javanese kakawins, minor poems (group B, 30.020).

The number of minor kakawins written in the Old Javanese poetic idiom is con siderable (see 30.020). On account of the absence of indications of the poet’s or the Royal patron’s names and dates, it is very difficult to class them. Probably some of them were still written by Javanese authors living in the reigns of the last Majapahit Kings, in the fifteenth century. Other kaka- zvins seem to' be the work of Javanese-Bali- nese poets who lived at the Courts of Kings of Bali where the literary tradition was con tinued after the collapse of Old Javanese culture in Java. As a rule they have for subjects well- known tales taken from older Javanese literature, in the first place the Old Javanese prose versions of Mahabharata books, Adiparwa etc. In minor points the kakazvin poets sometimes deviated from the original texts. The divergences never were so con siderable, however, as in the case of the wayarptheatre plays which were made in Java in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries out of elements of ancient epic tales (see 31.080). Under the following heads (30.136— 30.169) some kakawins which may still date from the Majapahit period are registered (group B). In some cases the tales were used as the subject-matter of reliefs in stone on the walls of temples built for members of the Royal Family of Majapahit. In his book on “Hindoe-Javaanse Kunst” professor Krom indicated several epic tales which were used to that end. Though the possibility of the reliefs being older than the now available kakazvin texts is undeniable, the relief-scripts

anyway are so many proofs of the existence of the tales in Majapahit literature. The Partha Yajna contains an ac count of Arjuna’s wanderings on the way to mount Indrakila, in order to find weapons for the struggle with the Korawas, after the game at dice. It is a poetical version of part of the third Mahabharata book, Wana Parwa. Poerbatjaraka made an extensive Dutch epitome of the poem (TBG vol. 58, 1919), which appears on the stone reliefs of candi Jago, in East Java. The nineteenth century Parta Yagna poem (see 31.231) seems but remotely related to the kakazvin. 30.136 Partha Yajna: cod. 5024. 30.140 The Kalayawanantaka (mi nor kakazvin, group B) is also called Krësna Wijaya. It contains the tale of Kalayawana who ousted Krsna from his Royal residence, in the end he was vanquished. Brandes sup posed that some stone reliefs of candi Jago were meant to> be illustrations of the tale of Kalayawana’s death On account of this identification the Kalayawanantaka might be considered as belonging to the same period as the Partha Yajna. 30.141 Kalayawanantaka kakawin: cod. 5104 (= BCB prtf 23). 30.145 Hari sraya and Hari Wij ay a (minor kakazvins, group B) are epic poems on Wisnu’s victories over the enemies of the gods, The tale of the Hari Sraya is borrowed from Uttara Kanda, the last Ramayana book. Wisnu vanquishes Maly- awan and his brothers; only Sumali makes