Hello again~
In this time’s post, I want to talk about Aksara Jawa, which is a set of traditional letters used by the Javanese. Even now, these letters are still used, particularly in Central Java area. For example, if you G**gle ‘Malioboro’, some pictures will show the street sign for said street name followed by a string of Aksara Jawa.
Aksara Jawa itself consist of 20 basic letters which can be added with some other symbols that changed the way it read and, consequently, its meaning. It has a mythology associated with its origin too.
I’ll post the whole story some other time, but according to the story about Ajisaka, who ended up as a king of Medhangkamulan, the point that lead to the making of Aksara Jawa was that Ajisaka left one of his two loyal servants in the woods with his magical weapon and the instruction to never give that weapon to anyone other than Ajisaka himself. Afterwards, Ajisaka defeated the corrupt king of Medhangkamulan and became its king before remembering his weapon and subsequent loyal servant. Ajisaka then told the other loyal servant to pick up the two from the woods, apparently forgetting his own instructions. Meanwhile, the two servants fought each other because both are very keen to follow what Ajisaka told each them to do to the letter: the one left in the woods won’t give the weapon to anyone other than Ajisaka himself, while the one sent to retrieve them won’t go back empty handed. The fight was so great that both of them died. To respect his two loyal servants, Ajisaka made a poem which letters later became Aksara Jawa.
The 20 basic letters of Aksara Jawa are as follow:
The meaning of these four lines actually described this incident.
Ha Na Ca Ra Ka means ‘there are two aides’
Da Ta Sa Wa La means ‘they both fought’
Pa Dha Ja Ya Nya means ‘as strong as each other’
Ma Ga Ba Tha Nga means ‘and so they both died’
More precisely, these are the words in said poem and their meaning:
Hana or ana = ‘ada’ = ‘there is/are’
Caraka = ‘utusan’ or ‘orang kepercayaan’ = ‘messenger’ or ‘trusted aide’
Data = ‘punya’ = ‘has/have’
Sawala = ‘perbedaan’ or ‘perselisihan’ = ‘difference’ or ‘conflict’
Padha = ‘sama’ = ‘equal’ or ‘same as’
Jayanya = ‘kekuatannya’ or ‘kehebatannya’ = ‘their/his/her/its power’ or ‘their/his/her/its might’
Maga = ‘inilah’ = ‘this is/these are’
Bathanga = ‘mayatnya’ = ‘their/his/her/its (dead) body’
I personally feel Ajisaka is either a bit clumsy, forgetful, or irresponsible (or maybe all three with a dash of male protagonist halo)….
Well, no one knows the real truth behind the creation of Aksara Jawa. Also, don’t ask me what letters Javanese used before this, as I also don’t know (LOL) but most probably Sanskrit thus the letters might actually be derived from there.
Anyway, enough about the story behind it, let us take a look at the letters itself. You might realize a few things while looking at how the letters are read. For the vowels, they all consist of only ‘a’ sound. Now this is where the other symbols come in.
Admittedly, it has been more than a decade since I last use these letters and even back then, I only learned the 20 basic letters. At this point, I can’t really say I can read it anymore. In reality, Aksara Jawa is not that widely practiced anymore outside of certain societies or jobs. One of the reason, I think, is that Aksara Jawa does not offer any use other than as another knowledge. It is rarely practiced anymore, so parents, and subsequently schools, shift their children’s language education to more ‘practical’ languages, such as English or Mandarin (Chinese).
On another note, a friend of mine showed me a manhwa (dunno which manhwa though) which made-up scripture bear a resemblance to Aksara Jawa.
The smaller note (sign?) at the bottom can be roughly read as ‘kawahanarakawaha’
Which either has no meaning or is a Korean sentence written in Aksara Jawa, in which case I still have no way of knowing what it meant.
Anyway, that’s all for today’s post. Hopefully I can gather enough motivation to compile the story of Ajisaka.
See you next time~
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