53

FACSIMILES OF PAGES OF HAND-WRITTEN TEXTS

Introductory Remarks. The examples of various kinds of Javanese script which are discussed in the following Paragraphs have been provided with romanized transliterations, translations and notes. The Javanese cecak (the Sanskrit anuswara) is transliterated 13. It occurs frequently 111 Javanese words. The corresponding Javanese aksara, the last of the Javanese alphabet, ’ s transliterated n. See also the foot-note which is appended to § 60.000.

60.070 Old Javanese script and Buda or Gunut} script.

The art of writing was introduced into the Archipelago by Indians in an early period history. The first specimens of written texts from Java known to us are Sanskrit ‘ascriptions on stone. In the course of time lri Central and East Java the Indian script developed into Old Javanese script, which ^ its turn was the prototype of the modern a “rese and Javanese forms of script (see j and professor Gonda’s “Sanskrit in ndonesia”, Nagpur 1952, on Pallawa script). l,r ' n £ the approximately one thousand Vt:ars of its being used for writing Java- ese ’ the script of Indian origin underwent fa nian ^ ni0( hfications as to render the older ) . rnis com plctely unintelligible for unschooled ' een th and twentieth century Javanese readers. a Manuscripts written in Old Javanese script Scar ce. Most texts written in Old Java- script are charters engraved on stone s or brass plates. In the last decades of

the nineteenth century Dutch scholars de ciphered the Old Javanese script by collating it with well-known Indian types of script. The result was published in K. F. Holle’s “Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw Indische Al- phabetten”. In the present book on Literature of Java the charters are not discussed at length. The number of original Javanese charters in col lections in The Netherlands is small. Uhlen- beck (“Languages of Java and Madura”, 1964, p. 117-120) has interesting notes on editions of charter texts (see § 20.000). Attention is drawn to a few manuscripts written in an Old Javanese script which are preserved in collections in Java and The Netherlands (see § 10.800, § 14.200, § 40.260, § 41.960). Nineteenth century Javanese scholars called the script buda or gunut} script. In the Islamic period Buda (Sanskrit Buddha) became an indication of the previous period (see the present author’s “Java in the