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Professor Vreede’s “Catalogus der Ja- “vaansche en Madoereesche handschriften” (1892) contains Dutch summaries of the contents of many Islamic romances. As a rule the plots are complicated and some standard motives return several times. Affin ity with indigenous Javanese tales (of the Pahji cycle), which was noticed in Ménak Amir Hamza and Yusup romances, is scar cely apparent in the present Islamic romances. Perhaps that is the reason why their popu larity never was very great. The popularity of the Ménak and Yusup tales has been as cribed to affinity with autochthonous myths. The present Javanese Pasisir romances are comparable with the Javanese-Balinese Islamic romances, mostly from Lombok, which have been discussed in 30.440. Under the following heads first those Islamic Pasisir romances which are of East Javanese and Madurese origin are discussed (30.560—30.660). The subsequent groups are the Central Pasisir Islamic romances (30.670—30.720) and the West Javanese Islamic romances (30.730—30.770). The distinction made between East, Central and West Javanese literature implies in many cases, on the part of the Javanese public, unfamiliarity with texts belonging to another region of Java than their own. Some ro mantic tales, however, in the first place the Ménak Amir Hamza romances, were known all over Java, especially in religious circles. Stories about warlike adventures and fabulous travels, of the kind of the tales of Sindbad the Sailor, suited the taste of the rising Muslim mercantile and ruling classes of sixteenth and seventeenth Pasisir towns. The interrelationship of adventure stories and Islamic rejuvenescence of Javanese

society has been pointed out in 30.460. Several romances belonging to seven teenth and eighteenth century Pasisir litera ture have wandering students of Islamic lore for heroes. The Cëntini romance is the best known of this kind (see 30.780). It is true, in pre-Islamic literature vagrant students on a quest for wisdom sometimes appear in tales (e.g. Pararaten, first part, Tantu Paqgëlaran, Warga Sari). But then, in the beginning of the period of Islam, the roving spirit seems to be very much in the as cendant. Perhaps the disappearance of strict social tenets based on ancient religious clas sification, which was brought about by equalitarian Islam, gave an opportunity to brave men to- go- roaming about the country in search of adventures. Amorous alliances with girls of all classes, even princesses, in the pre-Islamic period banned by social ta boos, were freely indulged in by vagrants who were pleasure-seeking adventurers. Per haps a kind of Persian-Arabic picaresque novels, having wandering dervishes for prin cipal actors, were orally transmitted and so influenced the development of Islamic ro mances in South East Asia. The Johar Manikam (or-Manikan, or -Manikaj}, or -Manik) romance was rather popular in its time. It seems to have been written in the eastern Pasisir region, Grësik, and it found many readers among the Madu rese. It was published by a local printer in Semarat3 in 1886. Johar Manikam is a heroic princess of Bagdad who after many adven tures marries the Sultan of IJesam (Syria). In Malay literature Jawhar Manikam texts are well-known (see the catalogues of Malay manuscripts by Juynboll (Leiden 1899) and van Ronkel (Batavia 1909, and Leiden 1921.)