Text Analysis of an Old Javanese Poem: an Annotated Translation of Mpu Kanwa's Arjuna Wiwaaha, "The Marriage of Arjuna," Sargas I - Xiii.

Abstract

The literature of Java is part of a tradition going back to the 9th century A.D., but very few of the ancient works have been translated into English. These works are of interest both because of their literary value, and as examples of the oldest existing member of the Austronesian language family. Therefore one of the aims of this dissertation is to make part of this literature more accessible to speakers of English. The first third (Sargas I - XIII) of the Arjuna Wiwaaha ("The Wedding of Arjuna"), an 11th century Javanese kakawin (poem in Sanskrit meters) by Mpu KaNwa, has been translated into English, both with a word-for-word interlinear translation and with a smooth translation. Accompanying the text and translation are notes which discuss (a) problems of translation; (b) contextualizing material which helps to explicate the translation; and (c) the implications of parts of the text for underst and ing the world which produced it. Different levels of structure (poetic, stanzaic and discourse) are discussed in the Introduction, as are features of both the past and the present context of the poem. Particular attention is given to a comparison of the poem's structure with that of Javanese wayang shadow theatre, to the uses to which texts of this nature were and are put in Java and Bali, and to the nature of Old Javanese as a literary language. The semantic of spatial orientation underlying several features of the language is congruent with the concern for balancing close and distant perspectives at other structural levels, and with the way in which the plot of the poem as a whole evidences balance around a central location. In the conclusion I discuss the implications the concept of balance has for interpreting the religious and philosophical background of the Arjuna Wiwaaha, especially with regard to Tantric Hinduism and Buddhism. The dissertation includes two Appendices, one which lists the items discussed in the Notes as an index with references to sarga and stanza numbers, and one which lists the meters used in the entire poem.