Some remarks on Javanese chronogram words; A case of localization

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The Javanese tradition of expressing dates in candrasengkalas or chronograms, i.e. by representing the numbers in dates by words having a fixed numerical value, has several times been recorded, and occasionally commented upon. However, so far no one has offered an exhaustive explanation of the origin and development of this tradition. This paper does not attempt to discuss all the aspects of this tradition either. It is hoped, however, that the following observations will show that an overall explanation of this remarkable phenomenon may be possible, at the same time indicating the lines along which this could be undertaken. In order to show how chronograms were used in Javanese historical texts, an example will be quoted from an eighteenth-century chronicle written in metrical form which contains many such dates. This text was edited and translated by M.C. Ricklefs in 1978. On p. 20 of this edition the following verse line is found (with the meaning of each word and the figure denoting its numerical value being added): Teeuw pointed out that the mnemonic poems quoted by Korn and Ricklefs most probably go back to the text in the Old Javanese kakawin metre Turagagati (Zoetmulder 1974:456); in due time Teeuw hopes to return to this problem of the original version of the poem.