Dr. J. P. van der Stok was a Dutch scientist and astronomer, working at Batavia in the late nineteenth century, who — together with Dr. S. Figee — assisted Snouck Hurgronje in elucidating the astronomical data underlying the Achehnese keunong system. He is named in The Achehnese in a footnote acknowledging the help that “both Dr. J. P. van der Stok and Dr. S. Figee have frequently been so good as to give me in elucidating my data as regards the Achehnese astronomical system”.
The Achehnese keunong system
The Achehnese seasons are regulated, as Snouck Hurgronje explains, by the conjunctions of the constellation Kala (Scorpion) with the moon. These conjunctions they call keunong (Malay kena), i.e. “hit” or “come into contact with”. The Achehnese have found a certain guiding principle in the number of days that always separates the new moon from the succeeding keunong — that is (since the Mohammedan months begin with the new moon), in the sequence of the dates on which these keunongs take place. The system is, in fact, an ingenious empirical method of fitting a lunar calendar to the solar year, by observing the periodic reappearance of the moon in the constellation of the Scorpion.
Van der Stok’s contribution, together with that of Figee, lay in helping Snouck Hurgronje reduce the Achehnese empirical data to a form in which their underlying astronomical basis could be made out. Figee’s calculations — based on data supplied at Batavia — were used by Snouck Hurgronje as a check on the Achehnese observations; and van der Stok’s help is acknowledged as having been similarly given “frequently”. Without such assistance, the technical details of the keunong reckoning — and in particular the explanation of the long interval called keunong tanggile, and of the periodic corrections required to keep the Achehnese series in step with the solar year — could not have been set out with the precision Snouck Hurgronje attained.
Place in the comparative study of Achehnese time-reckoning
The acknowledgement of van der Stok and Figee is one of several places in The Achehnese where Snouck Hurgronje records his debts to fellow Dutch scholars. The same comparative method governs his citation of Dr. Brandes on the etymology of the month-name Meuapet, and of Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart on the Javanese eight-year cycle and the doctrine of the ruya (moon-sighting). Together, these scholars provided the technical apparatus by means of which the Achehnese calendar — at once Mohammedan in its framework and indigenous Indonesian in much of its content — could be accurately described.
See Also
- Dr. S. Figee
- Dr. Brandes
- Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart
- Keunong
- Eight-year cycle (Achehnese calendar)
- Batavia
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Dr. J. P. van der Stok was a Dutch scientist and astronomer, working at Batavia in the late nineteenth century, who — together with Dr. S. Figee — assisted Snouck Hurgronje in elucidating the astronomical data underlying the Achehnese keunong system. He is named in The Achehnese in a footnote acknowledging the help that “both Dr. J. P. van der Stok and Dr. S. Figee have frequently been so good as to give me in elucidating my data as regards the Achehnese astronomical system”.
The Achehnese keunong system
The Achehnese seasons are regulated, as Snouck Hurgronje explains, by the conjunctions of the constellation Kala (Scorpion) with the moon. These conjunctions they call keunong (Malay kena), i.e. “hit” or “come into contact with”. The Achehnese have found a certain guiding principle in the number of days that always separates the new moon from the succeeding keunong — that is (since the Mohammedan months begin with the new moon), in the sequence of the dates on which these keunongs take place. The system is, in fact, an ingenious empirical method of fitting a lunar calendar to the solar year, by observing the periodic reappearance of the moon in the constellation of the Scorpion.
Van der Stok’s contribution, together with that of Figee, lay in helping Snouck Hurgronje reduce the Achehnese empirical data to a form in which their underlying astronomical basis could be made out. Figee’s calculations — based on data supplied at Batavia — were used by Snouck Hurgronje as a check on the Achehnese observations; and van der Stok’s help is acknowledged as having been similarly given “frequently”. Without such assistance, the technical details of the keunong reckoning — and in particular the explanation of the long interval called keunong tanggile, and of the periodic corrections required to keep the Achehnese series in step with the solar year — could not have been set out with the precision Snouck Hurgronje attained.
Place in the comparative study of Achehnese time-reckoning
The acknowledgement of van der Stok and Figee is one of several places in The Achehnese where Snouck Hurgronje records his debts to fellow Dutch scholars. The same comparative method governs his citation of Dr. Brandes on the etymology of the month-name Meuapet, and of Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart on the Javanese eight-year cycle and the doctrine of the ruya (moon-sighting). Together, these scholars provided the technical apparatus by means of which the Achehnese calendar — at once Mohammedan in its framework and indigenous Indonesian in much of its content — could be accurately described.
See Also
- Dr. S. Figee
- Dr. Brandes
- Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart
- Keunong
- Eight-year cycle (Achehnese calendar)
- Batavia
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.