DENPASAR, BALI, January 29, 2011 (The Jakarta Post): In the Bali Cultural Agency’s office in Denpasar, a team of dedicated experts are working to repair centuries-old lontar palm leaf manuscripts containing precious literary assets.
Bali’s rich literary tradition includes ancient texts composed in Sanskrit and the old Javanese language of Kawi. Many are based on the famous Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. Ranging from the sacred to the ordinary, they include texts on religion, holy formulae, rituals, family genealogies, law codes, treatises on medicine (usadha), arts and architecture, calendars, prose, poems and even magic.
These works were mostly recorded on dried and treated palm leaves, incised in both sides of the leaf with a sharp knife. The script was then blackened with soot. The leaves are held and linked together by a string that passes through the central holes and is knotted at the outer ends. But over the centuries, many of the lontar have become damaged by insects and humidity. Once repaired, the manuscripts will be scanned and uploaded into a digital library accessible to all. The project is set to upload 3,000 lontar stored in the agency’s library and some from Gedong Kirtya lontar library in Singaraja.
Led by Ron Jenkins, a theater professor at Wesleyan University in the US, the team includes Balinese scholars I Nyoman Catra and Dewa Made Dharmawan, both lecturers at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI) Denpasar, Elizabeth Ridolfo from the Internet Archive Foundation and a number of staff from the agency. Jenkins has been studying lontar in order to more fully understand Balinese literature and theater. He and Catra have written a book, Invisible Mirror, which contains Siwaratri Kalpa — a lontar of Siwaratri, the night of God Siva.
Priest Ida Pedanda Ketut Kencana Singarsa has been working hard for five years to pass on the wisdom of lontar to the younger generation and to local and international scholars. Every Sunday evening, he recites lontar scripts containing religious teachings, poems and other subjects and translates them into Balinese.
“Lontar scripts are rich in philosophy and wisdom, which guide people to understand good and bad deeds,” he explained, adding that the lessons contained in lontar can help people neutralize invisible enemies, such as greed, lust and anger, which dwell inside all humans.
The full article at source includes a photograph of lontar.