Carita Parahyangan

Carita Parahyangan (English: Tale of Parahyangan) is a text contained in a single manuscript written around the late 16th century, registered as kropak 406 from the former collection of the Bataviaasch Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences), now in the Perpustakaan National (National Library) in Jakarta. It was identified as early as 1882 by Holle as the "Carita Parahyangan", the name derived from Parahyangan highlands in West Java, originated from Sundanese words which means "the abode of hyangs (gods)". The manuscript ever since that time it has received much scholarly attention.

The Carita Parahyangan tell the history of Sunda Kingdom, spanned from early Galuh period in the early 8th century during the era of Wretikandayun and King Sanjaya until the fall of Pakuan Pajajaran in the 16th century, the capital of Sunda kingdom under invasion of Banten Sultanate assisted by Cirebon and Demak Sultanate.

The manuscript consists of 47 leaves of lontar palm leaf manuscript measured 21 x 3 cm; each leaf contains four lines, written in Sundanese script in archaic Sundanese language.

This manuscript consists of two parts. The larges part, the Carita Parahyangan proper, is a text on Sundanese kings and kingdoms from the pre-Islamic period. After earlier publication by Holle (1882a) and Pleyte (1914a) it was Poerbatjaraka /91919-21) who gave a complete transliteration of the manuscript; later on Noorduyn (1962a, 1962b) devoted two important papers to this texts; in the first he managed to restore the order of the folio of the manuscript which were in disarray; in the second he gave an annotated transliteration and translation of the first part of the text. In a third paper Noorduyn (1966) published a number of additions and corrections to the earlier text edition, which were based on a careful rereading of the original manuscript. Based on Noorduyn’s restoration of the order of the leaves in the major part of the manuscript, a new transliteration, with a translation in Indonesian and notes, was published by Atja and Danasasmita (1981c). in 1995 Darsa and Ekadjati presented a new edition and translation of the manuscript. In this work the other part of the manuscript, called by the editors Fragmen Carita Parahyangan, was published for the first time. This is a text found on 13 leaves (lempir) or 25 “pages”; graphically the two texts are different insofar as the Fragmen has an irregular number of lines (3-6) per page, unlike the Carita Parahyangan proper which consistently has four lines writing per page. Moreover, there are minor scriptural differences between the two parts of the manuscript. The Fragment contains “three main stories of rulers of Sunda kingdom with capital city of Pakuan Pajajaran”. Especially its second, largest part is quite interesting from the viewpoint of social and economic history (Darsa and Ekadjati 1995:6). In a more recent paper Darsa (1999) has discussed in some more detail the relation between the two text in kropak 406; it is clear that at an early stage the two text must have been brought together in a single manuscript.

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