Hoesein Djajadiningrat — more fully Raden Hoesein Djajadiningrat — was a Bantenese-Javanese scholar of Indonesian history and letters whose doctoral dissertation Critische Beschouwing van de Sadjarah Banten (1913), defended at the University of Leiden under Snouck Hurgronje and awarded a gold medal, is the principal modern study of the Sadjarah Banten chronicle; and whose article in Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (TBG) 69 (pp. 97 ff.) established the chronology of the Malay works of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī and supplied the principal chronological pegs of Raniri’s Achehnese career. The son of a former regent of Sérang and brother of the then-titular regent, trained under Snouck Hurgronje’s eye, he was — in De Roo de la Faille’s phrase — “by excellence the person to enlighten us” on the Sadjarah Banten, and is the principal authority on whom Voorhoeve relied in the 1955 edition of Raniri’s Malay treatises.
The 1913 Dissertation: Critische Beschouwing van de Sadjarah Banten
Hoesein’s Critische Beschouwing van de Sadjarah Banten (Leiden, 1913) — awarded a gold medal by the University — opens with a paraphrase of the chronicle’s first part and follows it with a commentary on the legendary material, culminating in a “Karakteristiek der Javaansche geschiedschrijving” (characteristic of Javanese historiography). Hoesein treats the legendary material — the Sandimaja prologue, the Tjioeng Wanara legend, the Sjech Djoemadilakbar conversion story, the Kadji Poerwa allegory of the planted doerianpit (durian seed) — as partly fictitious, partly derived from a handboek over Oudjavaansche klankleer (handbook of Old-Javanese phonetics). De Roo de la Faille draws heavily on Hoesein’s paraphrase, but demurs at the conclusion: the legendary material is, in De Roo de la Faille’s reading, not fiction but bedekte taal (veiled language) — forms that hide references to the Sumatran east coast and the Atjehnese sphere.
Hoesein on Faletahan / Sunan Gunung Jati
Hoesein’s identification of the “Moor Faletahan from Pase” with the king of Sunda Tagaril — i.e. with Sunan Gunung Jati — rests on the swagerschap (brother-in-law relation) of both with the lord of Japara and the king of Demak. De Roo de la Faille accepts Hoesein’s identification, and uses it as the foundation for his own conflation of Pati Oenoes of 1513 with Raden Sahid of the Babad Tanah Djawi: “the king of Demak of 1546 was the same as he who around 1524 was king of Japara and later became prince of Demak, the same as the Pate Oenoes of 1513 and the Raden Sahid-Soenan Kalidjaga of the Sadjarah Banten and the BTDj.”.
Hoesein’s Karakteristiek and De Roo de la Faille’s Dissent
Hoesein’s closing “Karakteristiek der Javaansche geschiedschrijving” argues — citing Brandes’s Pararaton — that the Javanese chronicle tradition is “an artful, and an artificial” literature, whose “uniformity of design, the frame of the stories, the conventional language” must be understood as the work of lettered men working within a tradition. He closes, citing Spinoza: “non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere” — “not to laugh, not to mourn, not to detest, but to understand”. De Roo de la Faille takes this as the motto of his own work, but argues that Hoesein’s Karakteristiek did not in fact understand the legendary material: “I confess that, from what was set out on that account, I have not succeeded in such [understanding]; I was rather led astray by it on a false trail. […] Is that not what one calls foppen [to fool]?”
The Chronology of Raniri’s Malay Works
Djajadiningrat’s article in TBG 69, pp. 97 ff. — and especially pp. 109–111 — is the principal authority for the chronology of Raniri’s Malay works. He establishes:
- The year of Raniri’s arrival in Acheh: 1637.
- The presence of Raniri, in 1641, together with a number of high functionaries of the Achehnese court, at the ceremony of erecting the tombstone for Sultan Iskandar II.
- The dates of Raniri’s Malay works, so far as reliably attested, between 1634 and 1644.
- The return of Raniri to Ranir in 1644.
- The terminus ante quem of Raniri’s death: before 1666.
Djajadiningrat also corrected the earlier assumption of Voorhoeve (BKI 107, p. 357) that the *Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm* had been composed before Raniri’s arrival in Acheh. The work was begun in 1634, as Voorhoeve had supposed, but was — as Djajadiningrat showed — only completed ten years later, in 1644. The knowledge of Malay letters displayed in the *Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm* need not, therefore, have been acquired before 1637. Voorhoeve candidly confessed in the introduction to his 1955 edition of Raniri’s two Malay treatises that Djajadiningrat’s article — which he had earlier overlooked in his notes in BKI 107 (p. 353 ff.) — had supplied the chronological pegs on which his later understanding rested.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Hoesein Djajadiningrat matters on two fronts. First, he is the principal modern source on the Sadjarah Banten chronicle — the source on which De Roo de la Faille draws for the Sunan Gunung Jati identification, the Pati Oenoes conflation, and the Sandimaja prologue; his 1913 dissertation is the starting-point for any bedekte taal reading of the chronicle, and his Karakteristiek — even where De Roo de la Faille demurs — sets the standard of scholarly care against which such readings must be measured. Second, he is the principal authority for the chronology of Raniri’s Achehnese career; his TBG 69 article supplies the chronological pegs on which the modern understanding of Raniri’s life and writings rests, and corrects the earlier assumptions of Voorhoeve on the composition of the *Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm*. The fact that an Indonesian scholar — and one of Bantenese descent — should have established the chronology of the principal Malay author of seventeenth-century Acheh is itself a significant moment in the modern study of Acehnese letters.
See Also
- Sadjarah Banten
- Faletahan
- Pati Oenoes
- Soenan Kalidjaga
- Sandimaja
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Dr. J. Brandes
- P. de Roo de la Faille
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
- Nur al-Din al-Raniri
- Iskandar Thani
- P. Voorhoeve
- Sirat al-mustaqim
- Raniri’s arrival in Acheh (1637)
- University of Leiden
Sources
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), chapter “De inleiding van de Sadjarah Banten”, pp. 32–37, and chapter “Over Soenan Kalidjaga”, pp. 43–58. Citing Dr. Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische Beschouwing van de Sadjarah Banten (Leiden: 1913).
H. Djajadiningrat, in Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 69, pp. 97 ff., especially pp. 109–111.
Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §1 (“De auteur”), p. 5, note (2).