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60.150 Javanese script from Central Java, Quadratic, Pasisir and Surakarta standard.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Courts of the Mataram Kings became the centres of Javanese culture, superseding the older centres in East Java and the Pasisir districts. Especially since the beginning of the renaissance of classical letters in the last decades of the eighteenth century the Sura karta literary idiom and Surakarta script spread all over the country. The Courts of Surakarta and Yogyakarta were rivals since the division of the Mataram realm in 1755. In literature the Surakarta tradition predominated over Yogyakarta, and Surakarta retained its predominance through out the nineteenth century. In the matter of script Surakarta and Yogyakarta hands can be distinguished, though the differences are small. In both cities two kinds of writing were used: cursive and perpendicular. The cur sive Surakarta writing, called Pasar Kliwon script after the ward of the town where the scribes lived, became the standard of manu script writing all over Java, especially so since it was taught in the newly established schools. The perpendicular Surakarta script, and its Yogyakarta counterpart, were often called Kraton script, because this quadratic script was used in official letters and docu ments issued by the secretariat of the Royal residence. In the first half of the nineteenth century Surakarta Kraton script was much used by the Dutch scholars who were stu dying Javanese in Surakarta at the time, and it was taken as an example by professor Roorda, of Delft and Leiden, in making designs for Javanese printing types.

Professor Roorda’s “Facsimile’s van Ja- vaansche Brieven, in gebruik bij het onder wijs in het Javaansch”, and professor Vreede en Dr Gunning’s “Fac-Similé’s van Javaan- sche Brieven, ten gebruike bij het onderwijs in het Javaansch”, Leiden, 1906, contain lithographic copies of letters written by Javanese residing in various districts of Java. They are dated in the nineteenth century. The facsimiles of Javanese script which are registered in the following paragraphs and the lithographic copies are in several respects comparable. 60.151, Plate no 34, Islamic Mysticism, LOr 1928, treatise called “Het Boek van Bo nary”, in prose, manuscript on treebark paper, writ ten in the sixteenth century, probably in one of the North Coast districts of Central or East Java. Ancient quadratic script, very neatly written. The three dots put above or under a Javanese letter (for instance 13a) which is used as a transliteration of an Arabic one ( c ain) are seldom omitted. The first page, which is reproduced, is originally 9 x 10 cm; it is smaller than the other pages, which are 10,5 x 17 cm. See Synopsis 14.010. Text: (p. 1, line 1) bismillahi rahmani ra (2) himi // x // wa bihi nastatyinu // al hamdu lilla (3) hi rabbil ijalamin // wassalatu ijala rasü (4) lihi Muhammadin wa as/habiki hajma- ryin // x // (5) nyan piunika caritanira sèk kul barii} // tat kalanira