Java by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore — Read

As the lines of the topeng-players are always delivered in the ancient Kawi, or classic language of Java, one has need to brush up beforehand, and to wish for a libretto, a book of the opera, to keep in hand as the lyric drama progresses. Sir Stamford Raffles's "History of Java" furnishes one a general glimpse of the ancient literature of the island, and by many translations acquaints one with the great epics. This old literature is Hindu in form and origin; and Kawi, the classic or literary language of the past, in which all the history, early records, epic and legendary poems, and the books of religion and the law are written, is closely related to Sanskrit and Pali. The famous myths and legends of India are included in this literature, and the Ramayan and Mahabharata appear, incomplete but unaltered, in the Javanese epics known as the Kandas and the Parvas. Besides these two great works, there is the "Arjuna Vivaya," giving an account of the exploits of the Indian Arjuna, the real hero of the Mahabharata; and there is still another romantic legendary poem, the "Bharata Yuddha," in which many of the incidents and the heroes of the Mahabharata are presented in Javanese settings with Javanese names. All these Kawi books are known to the people by translations in modern Javanese, and by their frequent presentation in the common dramatic entertainments, the wayang-wayang, or shadow-plays, of even the smallest villages.

Many "Books of Wisdom" and of exhortation to pious and righteous living survive in Kawi literature; but with all that Hindu civilization brought, it bequeathed nothing that could be called Buddhist literature, and the bulk of ancient Javanese literature is decidedly secular and profane-sentimental and romantic poems, love-tales in verse, that continue to extreme lengths. The Arab conquest has left almost no impress upon the language. Although schools were established, and a considerable body of Arabic literature came with the Mohammedan conquerors, but little save _bababs_, romantic chronicles of the loves of imaginary princes and heroes, have been added to Javanese literature in the four centuries since Islam's conquest. The spoken language of the Javanese shows few traces of Arabic, and the written language is also unchanged-a neater, more beautiful and graceful system of ornamental characters than either Arabic or Persian.