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Nevertheless they studied the text assidu ously. Their method of making Javanese paraphrases was similar to that practised by the Javanese-Balinese scholars in Bali, who explained the Old Javanese epic poems by means of interlinear glosses. In a way the study of the Niti Sastra text by seventeenth and eighteenth century Court scholars can be put on a parallel with the study of Arabic religious books by Muslim divines of the same period. In the nineteenth century the study of the Niti Sastra maxims was taken up again by the Court scholars who initiated the renais sance of classical Javanese literature in Sura karta. A version in so-called kawi mirit}, i.e. in Indian metres, but using a modernized poetical idiom, is known. Poerbatjaraka (“Kapusitakan Djawi”, 1952) has interesting notes on Paniti Sastra versions, made by the Surakarta Court poets Yasadipura I and Yasadipura II. In Poerbatjaraka’s opin ion several more well-known Javanese books (Darma Sunya, Déwa Ruci, Ménak, Anbiya and Taju Salatin) were given their present form by the gifted Surakarta Court poets. The Old Javanese Niti Sastra was edited, translated into Dutch and annotated by Poerbatjaraka (KBG, Bibliotheca Javanica vol. 4, 1933). The text has been discussed under a previous head (13.710). A modern Javanese prose paraphrase was published in Batavia in 1871. Under the present head manuscripts con taining Niti Sastra texts belonging to the Islamic period have been collected. Com pendiums often contain Niti Sastra texts in combination with comparable moralistic texts such as Niti Sruti and Papali. Relevant manuscripts have been listed in the General

Index under the catchwords Niti Sastra, Paniti Sastra and kawi mirit}.. 17.010 Paniti Sastra, Old Javanese version according to the eighteenth century Central Javanese tradition, with paraphrase, kawi mirit}: cod. 1853, 1863, 2031, NBS 130. 17.020 Paniti Sastra, modern versions in macapat metres: cod. 1851, 3176, NBS 77, NBS 78. 17.030 Paniti Sastra, modern version in prose: cod. NBS 73. 17.040 Paniti Sastra, old Dutch translation, Surakarta, 1815: cod. DFT S 240/280-28. 17.100 Didactic poetry, seven teenth century (still group F, 14.000). The study of the Paniti Sastra text, dis cussed under the preceding head, required a thorough knowledge of the Old Javanese literary idiom. Some authors of the Pasisir period who did not possess such knowledge composed didactic-moralistic poems, con taining both reminiscences of pre-Islamic books and references to the international literature of Islam. In writing those poems they used the Javanese metres which origi nally belonged i.a. to ancient native incan tations or religious songs, the so-called macapat-metres (see 00070, 14.600 and 15.600). They turned away from the metres of Indian origin, which until that time had been used in (pre-Islamic) didactic-moralistic poetry (see 13.700). Perhaps they deliberately made a distinction between pre-Islamic and Muslim literature by propagating the use of another kind of metre in their didactic poetry. The didactic and moralistic poems which