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in the tenth century in Central Java in the district of Mataram, in the basin of the rivers Opak and Praga. In the pre-Islamic period Indian culture was a most important factor in the develop ment of Javanese literature. During some centuries, perhaps up to the twelfth century, Indian literary influence was dominant in all respects. Afterwards indigenous Javanese concepts came gradually to the fore (see 30.080). In the fourteenth and fifteenth cen turies Javanese authors wrote some books containing ideas and mythic speculations which seem pre-eminently autochthonous Javanese. At that time an amalgamation of imported elements of Indian culture and native Javanese concepts was effected in literature. B. The second era of the chronological scheme is a Javanese-Balinese period of about four centuries, beginning about 1500 A.D. and lasting up to the present time. Javanese-Balinese literature (era B) is writ ten in the Javanese-Balinese literary idiom (group 2) mentioned in 00030. Since the thirteenth century, or even earlier, the island of Bali seems to have been brought gradually within the sphere of influence of East Javan ese Kings, and in the fourteenth century the dynasty of Majapahit ruled the country. According to Javanese historical tradition, about 1500 A.D. the last Majapahit King, ousted from his Royal residence by Muslim insurgents, fled eastwards and found a refuge in Bali. There may be some truth in this tradition. Anyway the Balinese rulers did not embrace Islam, and in Bali Old Javanese literature was preservel and cherished. In the course of time at the Courts of the sixteenth and seventeenth century South Balinese

Kings of Gèlgèl and KluQkuQ, Old Javanese letters developed into a Javanese-Balinese literature with characteristic features of its own. Indigenous Balinese mythical and his torical traditions were introduced, and a new style of prosody, well suited to the structure of the Balinese and Javanese lan guages, was cultivated. Side by side with Javanese-Balinese litera ture, and stimulated by it, a purely Balinese literature developed. Before the period of Javanese cultural and political domination in Bali, since the thirteenth century, an Old Balinese literary idiom had been in use at the Courts of native Balinese rulers. Like Old Javanese, Old Balinese had developed under the influence of Indian culture. After an interval of about five centuries, the period of Javanese domination, the native Balinese language was used again as a medium of literary activity. Probably this was in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century. Bali nese language and literature of the second flourishing period, which endures up to the present time, are strongly influenced by Old Javanese and Javanese-Balinese. In some cases it is difficult to decide whether a given text should be registered as belonging to Javanese-Balinese or to Balinese literature. As a rule all Javanese texts from Bali have been included in the present Synopsis. Only writings in an idiom which indubitably is native Balinese have been left out (see 30190). Balinese literature deserves to be described in a separate book: it has merits of its own. Is is very difficult to establish any kind of chronological order in the mass of Javan ese-Balinese literature, because scarcely any text is dated. In some cases older texts be-