have in this particular a foreign air. In its composition
it abounds in Sanskrit words to a degree
unknown in any other language of the Archipelago,
and these in a degree of purity also beyond the
rest, an advantage secured to it by a more copious
alphabet. At the same time, it contains many
essential words of the modern language of-Java.
The opinion I am inclined to form of this singular
language is, that it is no foreign tongue introduced
into the island, but the written language of
the priesthood, to whom it is probable, in early times,
the use of letters was confined. What would be the
effect of confining the litérature of a people to a
cast or order, máy in some measure be judged from
the effect which a similar state of things produced
in literary composition in our own country, at a
time when professed writers adopted an affected
and obscure language, hardly intelligible to us at
present, and which even then differed so widely
from the language of business and the world. If
we advert to the fact, that that particular order was
the priesthood, of the Hindu religion,—of a religion
which loves to veil its doctrines and precepts
in the darkest and absurdest language, and of which
a foreign and dead tongue is the sacred text,—
we may be prepared to explain the singular fact
of the Kawi differing so widely from the present
Javanese, or even from the most ancient specimens
of the ordinary speech of which we are possessed.
All K awi composition is in verse, and this verse
formed on the principle of Sanskrit prosody, that
is to say, not rhyming measures, such as belong to
all languages simple in their grammatical form, but
such as is found to belong to original languages
of complex, structure. This will appear to the
European reader something like the attempt to
impose the fetters of Latin prosody upon the modern
language of Europe, in the shape of blank
verse. The only compositions in the Kawi which
it is worth while adverting to in this place, are
epitomes of the Makabarat and Ramay ana; the latter
preserving its name unaltered, and the forming
recognized under that of the Brata-yuda, or war
of Barat. These works, which in India are not
only the first of literary compositions, but have also
the authority of scripture, are the sources of the
principal mythological knowledge of the Indian
islanders, as conneqted with the literature, religion,
and superstitions of Hindustan.
Absurd as these two works generally are, a
brighter passage may now and then be selected j and
they display a comparative vigour of fancy and
force of intellect, which places them, as poetical
compositions, far above the utter inanity and childishness
of more modern works.
Javanese poetry, contrary to Kawi verse, is in a
peculiar rhyming stanza, of which there are a great
many varieties. No language, I believe, affords a