Introduction

Summary

The Tantu Panggĕlaran (TP) is an Old Javanese prose text. The opening sentence tells us that it contains “tales of the island of Java from ancient times” (kacarita nika nuṣa Jawa ring aśitkala). These tales can be described as “myth and legend”, as an indication of what their varied content covers. In a classic anthropological sense, the TP contains accounts of origins (“charters”) relating to features of the natural world and the social order, culminating in its message of the continuity of religious institutions (maṇḍala), from divine actors to human ones. In this way it moves into quasi-history, conveying important themes for such communities located in the countryside of Java, especially on mountains. However, the TP is not history, and also not fiction, but intends to preserve and transmit aspects of life and belief for its audience, in the form of a literary work, stemming from a specific spiritual tradition, which can only be understood by reference to the geographical, social and historical setting of Java.

The TP was edited and translated into Dutch by Th. Pigeaud in 1924, as his dissertation at the University of Leiden (with Professor G.A.J. Hazeu as promotor). Pigeaud presented a critical edition. There is a large degree of variation among the manuscripts he used. Hence his choice to follow one manuscript in all details, including spelling, namely his A, although it was also necessary to use readings from B, in order to produce a usable text. Pigeaud says that thanks to the helpfulness of the archaeologist P.V. van Stein Callenfels he was in a position to consult these two manuscripts from the latter's collection; these were lontar (palm leaf) manuscripts. He mentions their dimensions, but does not say where Van Stein Callenfels obtained them, or what became of them after he consulted them. They have not yet been identified in the Leiden or Jakarta manuscript collections. This is most unfortunate. Manuscript C is the Leiden Cod. Or 2212, while D and E are from the later Van der Tuuk Collection, also in the Leiden University Library, and are much less reliable, perhaps even representing a different redaction. All variants were faithfully listed in footnotes.