Interlinear Translations from the Indonesian-Malay World

Annual workshop #2
May 2-4, 2023
Room 4121 Humanities Bldg., Mt. Scopus Campus
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Program and Abstracts

Day 1: May 2, 2023

8:30 Coffee and opening remarks: Ronit Ricci

Session 1: 9:00-10:30, Chair Keiko Kamiishi

9:00-9:45 Words in praise of Rama
Willem van der Molen, Emeritus, KITLV, Leiden

9:45-10:30 Javanizing God: Mpu Dharmaja’s Smaradahana

Danielle Chen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

10:30-11:00 Coffee

Session 2: 11:00-12:30, Chair Willem van der Molen

11:00-11:45 Literature Transcending Generations: The Old Javanese Epic Poem
Bhāratayuddha Translated into Modern Javanese
Keiko Kamiishi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

11:45-12:30: Sukasrana in Old Javanese and Modern Javanese Literary Works

Yosephin Apriastuti Rahayu

12:30-13:30 Lunch

14:00-17:30 Jerusalem Tour

18:00 Dinner

Day 2: May 3, 2023

Session 3: 9:00-10:30, Chair Jesse Grayman

9:00-9:45 Translating for this Life and the Next: Sex, Medicine, and Understandings of
Creation and the Afterlife in Eighteenth-Century Ambon
Genie Yoo, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

9:45-10:30 Letters on Liberty: the Quran and its Sundanese Translations

Taufiq Hanafi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

10:30-11:00 Coffee

Session 4: 11:00-12:30, Chair Genie Yoo

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11:00-11:45 Interlinear translations from the Indonesian-Malay World: A Visual Perspective
Ronit Ricci, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

11:45-12:30 Reading Arabic in Sumatra. Interlinear Translation in Didactic Contexts

Aglaia Iankovskaia, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

13:00 Lunch at Beit Maiersdorf

Free afternoon

Day 3: May 4, 2023

9:00 coffee

Session 5: 9:30-11:00, Chair Aglaia Iankovskaia

9:30-10:15 Understanding the Behaviour of Ulema: Devising Typologies for Clerical Conduct
in Social and Political Contexts
Greg Fealy, Australian National University

10:15-11:00 Historiography and Ethnography in the Indonesian Novel The Bearded Turtle
by Azhari Aiyub
Jesse Grayman, University of Auckland

11:00 – 11:30 Concluding Discussion

Abstracts

Words in praise of Rama

Willem van der Molen, Emeritus, KITLV, Leiden

Written versions of Rama and Sita’s story in the 18th century cover a variety of renderings,
from Old Javanese to translation and adaptation in Modern Javanese. Scholars usually focus on one
version at the time, either the Old Javanese text, or the modern adaptation, without worrying about
relations (the translation was neglected).
I am interested to know what the translation looks like, and also (if possible) how the three
versions relate to each other. I will be helped to identify relevant aspects, apart from the input of the
participants, by the outcome of previous research on different texts by others (the topic of one of
my talks while in Jerusalem). What does not help is that for reasons of time I have to limit myself to
a tiny part of the story. Completeness remains the ideal, though. For our meeting I take the hymn to
Rama, sung when he is caught by Indrajit’s snake-arrow and is about to give up.
Another complicating but highly interesting problem is that there exist two different
branches of transmission of the Old Javanese text in Java. If time allows, I would love to pay
attention also to this problem.

Javanizing God: Mpu Dharmaja’s Smaradahana

Danielle Chen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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 Since the early stages of kakawin research, scholars have identified the vast inspiration the
Javanese genre draws from literature in terms of both content and style, conceptualizing it according
to the scholarly trends and cultural zeitgeist of their times. Influenced by Sheldon Pollock’s recent
scholarship considers pre-Islamic Java an effective locality in the Sanskrit cosmopolis and explores
the kakawin genre as a literary product of the “vernacular millennium” by examining the processes of
localization and cultural negotiation underlining it.
In my talk, I will focus on Mpu Dharmaja’s kakawin Smaradahana (12th CE) as an act of
Javanization. The poem tells a well-known story from Hindu mythology about the burning of the
Love God (Kāmadeva) by the god Śiva. It has numerous written narrations in Sanskrit, appearing in
various purāṇas and the seminal kāvya of Kālidāsa, Kumārasaṃbhava (c. 5th CE). The main protagonist
of the South Asian variants is Śiva, and the plot revolves around his yogic powers and relationship
with his wife, Pārvatī. In the Javanese version, however, the hero is the God of Love, whom Mpu
Dharmaja identifies as the previous incarnation of his patron, king Kamadeva of Kĕḍiri. Utilizing the
story to glorify his patron, the poet rewrites the battle between the two gods to portray Śiva’s
anthropomorphic characteristics as resulting from the Love God’s attack, thus reestablishing their
power relations. Moreover, since the Love God is the chosen tutelary deity (iṣṭadevatā) of
the kakawin poets, he redefines his character to reflect the norms and preferences of the Javanese
genre.

Literature Transcending Generations: Old Javanese Epic Poem Bhāratayuddha Translated

into Modern Javanese
Keiko Kamiishi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a revival movement of classical Javanese literature arose in
the royal court in the Mataram Sultanate in the south of Central Java. In the process of this
retroactive literary activities, many Old Javanese literary works were re-edited into modern Javanese
versions. For better undesrstanding for creating new works inspired by Old Javanese literature,
modern Javanese authors and scribes had to translate Old Javanese—no longer in use at the
time―into modern Javanese.
This presentation deals with such modern Javanese translation/paraphrases inserted between
Old Javanese words in an epic titled Bhāratayuddha as interlinear translation in the broader sense.
From the text, we can see that the agents (translators and adaptors) involved in it made various
endeavors and actively participated in the text-building. The main question is how they developed
their translation strategies through the challenges to exercise ingenuity between the transmission of
meaning and its localization/modernization.
Considering this, the research analyzes the structure and contents of the text, focusing on
the contrivance and exploring how the elements of the different languages (Old Javanese and
Modern Javanese), different religions (Hindu and Islam), and the different times (ancient and
modern) are interwoven in the textual microcosms.

Sukasrana in Old Javanese and Modern Javanese Literary Works

Yosephin Apriastuti Rahayu, Leiden University and Universitas Gadjah Mada

The tale of Arjuna Sasrabahu can be found in some Javanese literary works, both in Old
Javanese and Modern Javanese. Apparently, this tale is of great interest among the Javanese, as evident
in many literary works telling the story of Arjuna Sasrabahu, among them Uttarakāṇḍa (Utt), Kakawin
Arjunawijaya (Awj), and Sindusastra’s work Serat Arjuna Sasrabau (SAS). In SAS Sukasrana, or now

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better known as Sukrasana, is used as the name of Sumantri's younger brother, as well as the name of
the giant Ravana's envoy who also served as a spy. This paper is attempting to trace the name Sukasrana
from Old Javanese to Modern Javanese together with its version of the story and its ‘deviation’ in
meaning (if any), particularly in the three literary works mentioned above.
Sukasrana whom people know today is not the character that existed in Utt or in Awj. It is
possible that the name Sukasrana was derived from Śuka (Sukha) and Sārana (Śārana) mentioned in Utt
and Awj. From time to time its meaning, however, has deviated. The name Sukasrana which was
understood incorrectly became a great character in Sindusastra’s description. A bad-looking figure
with a noble heart. A man who surrendered himself to be used by his older sibling to reach his wish.

Translating for this Life and the Next: Sex, Medicine, and Understandings of Creation and
the Afterlife in Eighteenth-Century Ambon
Genie Yoo, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This presentation explores how translations influenced understandings of sex, piety, and
regeneration, in this life and the next, among Muslims in eighteenth-century Ambon. By comparing
a sentence-by-sentence and interlinear translation from one manuscript, I examine how the island's
male writers vernacularized the virtues of sexual acts, understood marital relations, and attempted to
resolve tensions of bodily purity and impurity through tropes about creation and the afterlife. By
linking these translations to sexual prescriptions and medical recipes from the same manuscript, I
demonstrate how such intertextual readings can illuminate a history of everyday material practice in
relation to the body and the natural world. While these religious and medicinal contents―including
teachings and figurations of 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Fāṭima al-Zahrā'―are found in many parts of the
archipelago, I suggest that they had particular valence for the island's minority Muslim population
under Dutch East India Company rule in the eighteenth century.

Letters on Liberty: the Quran and its Sundanese Translations

Taufiq Hanafi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Sundanese, the ethnic group native to the western part of Java, Indonesia, have adopted
Islam as their religious identity and continue to constitute the region’s overwhelming majority. This
identity runs deep, as evidenced by the widely held adage, ‘to be Sunda is to be Muslim.’ Scholars
contend that this was due to the purest form of altruism, namely the translation of religious texts,
particularly the Quran, which bridges Islam and Sunda. Similar to Lutheran approach to translation,
it appears that Sundanese Quran translators have literally set themselves free from communication
constraints and translated against their habitual language limits, living up to Islamic theology of
liberation. This paper investigates Quran translation as both praxis and product, and its societal
impact on the Sundanese people throughout the history of the religious text in the region.

Interlinear translations from the Indonesian-Malay world: a visual perspective

Ronit Ricci, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In the world of philology, and the study of sacred texts and religious doctrine, does the
visual matter?
This paper takes a preliminary look at the visual aspects of interlinear translations from
Arabic into Javanese and Malay in manuscripts inscribed in the 18th-19th centuries. Trained to
examine texts for their content and literary dimensions, I will attempt to momentarily put these

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dimensions aside and ask what might visual aspects tell us about the roles, significance, and
production of interlinear translations. Ultimately form and content cannot be entirely separated in
the study of this genre, yet in order to better understand various relationships between the two I
suggest that the visual must be given serious consideration.
Interlinear translations from the Indonesian-Malay world have not been studied
systematically. I begin with a presentation of a sample of interlinear pages (opening, closing and
“typical” pages) in an attempt to describe possible patterns and rules that shape what one sees on
the page. Such patterns lead to further questions and hypotheses about the interlinear model. Finally,
I will consider visual aspects of the manuscript pages in tandem with different terminologies for
“interlinear translation.” How do the written pages and terms relate to one another? How does each
illuminate the other?

Reading Arabic in Sumatra. Interlinear Translation in Didactic Contexts

Aglaia Iankovskaia, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The paper discusses the involvement of bilingual texts comprising a source and its interlinear
translation in Islamic educational practices in nineteenth and twentieth-century Sumatra, Indonesia.
Such texts occur among the so-called kitab kuning, materials dealing primarily with the principles of
Islamic faith, jurisprudence, and ethics that have been traditionally used for teaching in Indonesia’s
Islamic schools. Written in classical Arabic, these texts are sometimes provided with translations to
Malay or other local languages between the lines. The paper addresses two manuscripts demonstrating
occurrence of this practice in texts on tauhīd that were often used for teaching beginners: a versified
aqīdah originating from the late nineteenth-century Aceh and found in the collection of Snouck
Hurgronje in Leiden; and a copy of Umm al-barāhīn by al-Sanusi (d. 1490), from Palembang of around
the same period. The two manuscripts under discussion appear to demonstrate two different types of
interlinear translation, i.e. phrase-by-phrase and word-by-word, respectively.

Understanding the Behaviour of Ulema: Devising Typologies for Clerical Conduct in Social
and Political Contexts
Greg Fealy, Australian National University

In the extensive literature on the role of ulema in Muslim societies and states,
characterisations of their behaviour vary widely. Most commonly, ulema are cast as complicit in, or
subservient to, rulers and governments. Quietist religious interpretations were developed and
popularised by ulema in order to legitimate non-confrontational strategies in dealing with those who
held political power. Often, ulema benefited from such approaches, receiving high status
appointments and financial resources from the state, in return for their support. Ahmet Kuru’s
recent book (2019) on the historical role of ulema as enablers of authoritarian regimes is a good
example of this. But other scholars point to the function of ulema as sources of dissent towards and
mobilisation against the state as well as being advocates for communal concerns and interests.
I am currently exploring how we might generalise, and indeed, typologise, the behaviour of
ulema as a clerical class. Under what circumstances might ulema be expected to be conform to and
serve state interests and in what contexts might they become voices for the Muslim community as
well as upholders of independent interpretation of Islamic law? I will take as my case study,
Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest Muslim organisation. Its leaders have frequently been accused
of opportunism, self-interest and timidity but at various periods in its history it has also played
boldly oppositional and pro-reform functions. I argue that the starting point for analysis of ulema

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roles is their interests as a distinct, though often atomised, class of religious actors. While socio-
economic factors are paramount, doctrine and religious identity are also important elements.

Historiography and Ethnography in the Indonesian Novel The Bearded Turtle by Azhari
Aiyub
Jesse Grayman, University of Auckland

More than half-way through The Bearded Turtle (Kura-Kura Berjanggut), an epic 960-page
Indonesian novel by Azhari Aiyub set in a place that reminds readers of Aceh, we learn that the early
17th-century Sultan of Lamuri keeps in his royal library a copy of the recently published and prized
European novel A Castilian Hero Rides a Donkey, an invented title that nonetheless reminds readers of
Don Quixote. This remix of Cervantes’ book title provides an efficient clue to Azhari’s literary
approach to history. In his reflections in one forum after another, Azhari insists The Bearded Turtle is
not historical fiction, but rather a kind of historical dissimulation. Other Acehnese cultural critics
have described The Bearded Turtle not as a deconstruction of Acehnese history, but rather a
destruction of history altogether. The Bearded Turtle escorts the reader through familiar pre-colonial
and colonial ruins of Aceh’s history (and wider Indian Ocean and South China Sea regional
histories), but never quite in the manner that archives would report. Instead, Azhari reimagines and
remixes the ruins of history in a manner that not only confuses, but refuses allegory.
In this presentation, Dr Jesse Hession Grayman will share preliminary thoughts on how
Azhari achieves this following a close reading of The Bearded Turtle, winner of the 2018 Kusala Sastra
Khatulistiwa prize in the prose category. As an anthropologist, but not a historian or literary critic,
Dr Grayman will also speculate on the possibilities and limits for using such an unwieldy text in
contemporary ethnographic analyses of Aceh and Indonesia more broadly.