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people in the field of religion with any chance of success. In the eighteenth century Dutch officials possessed enough practical knowledge of the Javanese language to serve them in political and legal affairs and business, but that was all. In consequence of the renewed interest in religion apparent in The Netherlands in the first decades of the nineteenth century, a Netherlands Bible Society (Nederlands Bijbel Genootschap) was founded at Amster dam. Beside other matters it took to heart the publication of a Javanese translation of the Bible. The Society was fortunate in finding in Dr Gericke a competent scholar who was willing to live in Surakarta in Central Java in order to study the literary idiom and so to prepare himself for his task of making a translation of the Bible. In his twenty years’ residence in Java Dr Gericke succeeded in laying the foundation of Java nese linguistic studies. His Javanese trans lation of the Bible was printed in The Netherlands in 1848 (the New Testament) and in 1854 (the Old Testament). Uhlen- beck’s “The Languages of Java and Ma- “dura” (1964) contains information on Gericke’s activities. Under ithe present head some manuscripts pertaining to Javanese translations of books of the Bible have been collected. Gericke and his successors were prolific writers. Most of their works were published, and the manu scripts were destroyed. So the number of codexes containing Javanese Bible trans lations and paraphrases is small. 19.010 Gospel of St. John, translation in Javanese verse: cod. 5770.

19.020 Old Testament tales, prose para phrases : cod. NBS 100. 19.030 Life of Christ, from the Gospels, in prose (i}oko): cod. 3174. 19.100 Christian texts, trans lated from Dutch originals. In the middle of the nineteenth century a com munity of Javanese converts was established in a rural district of East Java, Maja Warna. In the course of time Christianity spread in many districts of Java, but numerically the Javanese Christians never were more than a very small minority. Dutch missionaries, sent by various mis sionary societies in The Netherlands, be longing to the “Nederlandse Hervormde “Kerk”, the “Gereformeerde Kerken”, both presbyterian, and the “Doopsgezinde Broe derschap” (Mennonites), were leaders of the Christian communities. They exerted themselves to provide suitable Christian reading matter for their congregations. At first, for obvious reasons, Dutch texts were translated into Javanese. The resulting Javanese books were not idiomatic as to style and vocabulary, but still for many years they served the missionaries’ ends. Under the present head some manuscripts containing Javanese translations of Dutch prayers and hymns have been collected. Just like the translations of the Bible mentioned under the preceding head, translations of Christian religious books in manuscripts are scarce, because in most cases the originals were destroyed after they had been pub lished. Manuscripts containing relevant texts