To read with care and diligence, to study with utmost loving care, to feel the meaning and intent. Writing The Past, Inscribing The Future by Nancy Florida is one such book. Engaging with one text reserved in Kraton Surakarta, Babad Jaka Tingkir, Florida presents an illuminating work about the text and the history of Javanese “traditional” practice of reading and writing. Responding to a nineteenth-century Javanese scholar’s call, Mas Ronggasasmita, of active reading, she engaged in a reading that is self-consciously interested in the text’s prophetic script of the future. The full English translation of Babad Jaka Tingkir in the book (under Chapter Three) is part of this interplay: her translation is a site of her dialogical production with the text to make meanings and expand historical conversation of the Javanese past.

The result of this interplay is a cohesive book on the meanings, lives, and possibilities of Babad Jaka Tingkir, from its intertextuality to its historicity, from its renditions to the possible dialogues that come out of it. Scholars and philologists of Javanese literature clearly have more to say about whether her translations and study of the text are successful or not. But to me, as someone who is not studying Javanese literature or doing philological work but is interested in learning from the field, this book provides a set of methods on how to work together with written sources I assemble. Through this book, I learn how to weave together the many elements surrounding the text and the corpus of literature in a certain time and place .

Another point of attraction lies in the fact that the book itself provides a proper room for Babad Jaka Tingkir to fully appear and perform in English. The difficulties in writing history in English using non-English sources is the translation and quotation process. The selection process of these translated quotes is often arbitrary, as the rest of the sources often appear in passing as indirect rephrasing and/or lines of explanation. Writing the Past resolves this problem. It allows readers to fully read the text and, together with her and the writer/inscriber of Babad Jaka Tingkir, to converse about Javanese history.

As I read this book, I went back and forth, revisiting Ben Anderson’s translation of Suluk Gatholoco, Henk Maier’s work of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, and Jane Drakard’s Kingdom of Words on Minangkabau texts. I also remind myself of the bulk of Oman Fathurahman’s works with Islamic manuscripts and my friend’s work, Louie Buana, with La Galigo manuscript. All of them share a similar treat: patience and diligence. Philological works, especially of colonial times, have been criticized for its white-heroic attitude of preserving native and indigenous civilization. Edward Said and his contemporaries have warned and reminded us about it. But Said (responded by Sheldon Pollock) also pushes forward an intellectual and political agenda that gives so much attention to philological reading and writing practice to flipping the colonialist script.

Truly, such a satisfying read! I enjoy her translation, although with a bit of irony, because English is the medium that makes me understand Babad Jaka Tingkir. When Florida discusses Javanese curriculum in public school and how it limits students to actually learn, I nodded so hard, reminiscing those years studying Javanese at school but never really grasped something out of it except some playful songs (thanks to my grandparents who accompanied me studying macapat and doing homework of writing Javanese scripts). Also, I really like Mas Ronggasasmita’s prose that Florida put in the Introduction chapter. From what I know, she is currently working on his texts (she already wrote a chapter about Ronggasasmita here).

At last, I’m looking forward to seeing many fruitful readings of old manuscripts and their thoughtful writings!