Preserving nation's literary past<\/p>\n
Illuminations, The Writing Traditions of Indonesia;
\nEdited by Ann Kumar and John H. McGlynn;
\nThe Lontar Foundation, Jakarta, 1996;
\n298 pages<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Here's an age-old question: If a tree falls in
\nthe forest, does anybody hear?<\/p>\n
The quiet vanishing of the world's natural resources shapes
\nthe battle-cry of environmentalists. But the sentiment pertains
\nnot only to the Green movement. For every century-old tree
\ncleared by loggers, there are timeworn manuscripts, and the
\ncultures they represent, slowly wasting in the humidity. If a
\ntradition perishes in the forest, does anybody hear?<\/p>\n
Some are listening. The Lontar Foundation, a non-profit patron
\nof the arts, is working hard at documenting disappearing
\ntraditions as well as revitalizing ailing ones -- efforts Lontar
\nrefers to as a "race against time".<\/p>\n
Lontar realizes that as Indonesia speeds up its modernization,
\nancient and marginal customs will be increasingly left behind in
\nthe rubble of development. "A poem at one point has to be put
\ninto print, and the same goes with the performing arts. They need
\nour support, or else they will be dead," said Adila Suwarno, a
\ndirector at Lontar. While acknowledging that Indonesia should not
\nstand still and be a living museum of the exotic, Lontar also
\nreminds us that a nation's future is forged through its past, and
\nthat the neglect of history and its legacy serves only to rob the
\nfuture of its identity.<\/p>\n
With this aim of cultural revitalization in mind, Lontar has
\npublished Illuminations: the Writing Traditions of Indonesia, an
\nimposing coffee-table book illustrating Indonesia's wealth of
\nmanuscripts. Edited by historian Ann Kumar and John McGlynn, the
\neditor-in-chief of the Lontar Foundation, this exhausting tome to
\ncultural history is as eye-opening in text as it is in
\nphotographs. Page after page of well-researched historiography
\naccompany the richly illustrated manuscripts, which disprove the
\nmyth that oral communication dominated the cultures of the
\narchipelago.<\/p>\n
The book was formally launched with much fanfare by President
\nSoeharto last June, and launched again in New York City by the
\nFord Foundation, one of its sponsors, and publisher Weatherhill
\nInc. The National Library played a key role in the project:
\nDuring its four years of production, 50 percent of the
\nmanuscripts came from the National Library, which stores almost
\n10,000 original manuscripts.<\/p>\n
But the problem, and the point of the book, was that many of
\nthe library's manuscripts, some hundreds of years old, were in
\nbad condition. Made from organic materials such as paper, bamboo,
\nbark and rattan, the manuscripts have suffered, and are
\nsuffering, from the inconstant temperatures of their storage
\nenvironments and poor handling. Manuscript collections outside
\nthe library are in an even more precarious state, vulnerable to
\nthe average person's disregard for the manuscripts' delicacy.<\/p>\n
Delicate is an apt description for the diverse collection of
\nmanuscripts, whether they are primbon (a family mini-encyclopedia
\nof relevant family information), kakawin (religious or
\nmoralistic-didactic Javanese poems), kitab (student copies of the
\nKoran used as reference works), or jimat (a single sheet often
\ncontaining a blessing and worn on the body as an amulet). As
\nrevered as some manuscripts can be -- in Malay society, the
\narrival of a royal letter was greeted as ceremoniously as the
\nsender -- the text was its most important aspect.<\/p>\n
Hence, most manuscripts were recopied every few generations:
\nOf key importance was preserving the words, not the book. In some
\ncases, the most important thing was the act of writing the words.
\nFor example, making copies of the Koran was compulsory for
\npesantren students.<\/p>\n
But while copying meant a constantly evolving text, a vibrant
\nliving tradition and a high degree of literacy (largely due to
\nthe Moslems' campaign of bringing books and literacy to rural
\nareas), it also meant little care in saving existing manuscripts.<\/p>\n
Raffles<\/p>\n
The practice of copying, however, proved its usefulness. The
\nplunder of cultural treasures was a colonial pastime, and British
\nGovernor Raffles was no exception to the game. In 1808, he began
\nbuying manuscripts from Malacca, eventually amassing more than
\n300 Malay prose works. Raffles then sent the loot off on a ship,
\nwhich later shipwrecked off Sumatra. But the Malays did not
\nbegrudge his negligence -- the lost manuscripts were apparently
\nnot originals, but new copies.<\/p>\n
This tradition of copying defies the fantasy of illiterate,
\nisolated Indonesia. Illuminations documents that Indonesia's
\nwriting traditions date back 2000 years ago, to the findings in
\nBali of pottery shards containing Brahmanic script dated 100 -
\n400 A.D. The discovery infers not only a literate culture, but
\none in active contact with overseas societies.<\/p>\n
An indigenous literary tradition, however, dates back to an
\nOld Javanese script, circa 856 A.D. Many of the transcripts
\nconcerned India's Mahabharata and Ramayana epics, although the
\nJavanese versions were not mere translations but revisions
\naccording to Javanese specifications.<\/p>\n
Antiquity is a key aspect of Javanese literary history;
\nanother is its evolving dynamics with other traditions. As Ann
\nKumar wrote, the evidence shows that the writing traditions were,
\n"constantly evolving, revealing and giving rise to major social
\nand intellectual transformations".<\/p>\n
In time, the interaction between Malay and Arabic literary
\ntraditions intensified, and many Malay works show the influence
\nof the Javanese panji stories. The relationship was two-way: As
\nMalay became the lingua franca of the trade network, Javanese
\nused Malay to communicate outside of their circle. Interestingly,
\nMalay was written in Arabic script (and not the Kawi script of
\nOld Javanese), but in both Arabic and older Malay, the Malay
\nscript was called Jawi (a derivative of "Javanese").<\/p>\n
But the diversity of the archipelago's manuscript traditions
\nwould soon be homogenized by a 19th-century phenomenon: the
\nprinting revolution. The Islamic community began turning to
\nlithography to copy their manuscripts. This copyist tradition is
\nnow all but extinct. What academics mourn are not only the lost
\ntexts, but the traditional method of preserving the texts.<\/p>\n
The printing revolution emptied out not only the pesantren
\n(Islamic school), but also the national libraries, while filling
\nup colonial libraries, whose "manuscript cabinets were filled
\nwith the corpses of dead texts". Printing meant buying a book
\ncosted the same as borrowing a manuscript. Manuscript libraries
\neventually emptied their shelves to European collectors.<\/p>\n
And who should care? The nation should, argues Lontar. Lontar
\nmaintains that despite the high costs of preserving cultural
\nartifacts, it is a vital step in cultural continuation. Lontar
\nadds that taking care of the manuscripts is part of their efforts
\nin taking care of cultural continuation. "We are starting with
\nwritten literature, then we will follow with oral traditions,"
\nsaid Lontar director Adila Suwarno. The oral traditions which
\naccompany the literary traditions are as fragile, if not more so,
\nthan the manuscripts, explained Suwarno.<\/p>\n
Thus, technical efforts to improve manuscript restoration, by
\nkeeping the air-conditioning at an even temperature, upgrading
\narchival materials and training conservators may be futile
\nwithout parallel efforts in promotion and education. As
\nconservationist Alan Feinstein wrote, "If no one cares about
\nreading (the manuscripts), there is little point in conserving
\nthem." What is at stake here are not only pretty pictures on
\nantique books, but the important history and knowledge the texts
\nimpart. It's time to listen to the trees falling in the forest,
\nand not just the clamor of building construction.<\/p>\n
-- Dini S. Djalal<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/preserving-nations-literary-past-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }