It has been said that "a modern arrogance has blocked our access to the history of the Muslim calendar in Southeast Asia". Without at least the outlines of that history, we simply do not understand the basis of dates found in Malay sources. Also, without a history of Malay calendars we are denied an understanding of the context from which the Javanese Muslim calendar arose.
This volume, the result of combining empirical evidence with a sound understanding of the structural requirements of calendar-making, and of the mechanisms through which these needs could be met, for the first time explains how these old octaval calendars actually worked. It traces the history of Muslim calendars in Southeast Asia, and attempts to put them into their historical and cultural context. Understanding the old calendars will at last throw light on a number of essential aspects of older Malay science and culture.
An accompanying interactive CD-ROM presents the reader with a tool for converting Malay and Javanese dates, with access to the range of variant calendars.
Author(s): I. Proudfoot
Series: Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch Der Orientalistik
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 135
City: Leiden
OLD MUSLIM CALENDARS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
CONTENTS
Tables and Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One The Muslim calendar
Normalised calendars
Trigesimal calendars
Octaval calendars
Attractiveness of the octaval calendar in Southeast Asia
Circular time
Chapter Two Octaval calendars in operation
Remodulation (changing the signature)
Recalibration (changing the reckoning)
Chapter Three Case studies of divergence
Bima
Johor — Riau
Aceh
Dimensions of variety
Chapter Four Mapping calendar styles
Early stages
Drawing the map
Chapter Five The Javanese branch
Variants of the Javanese calendar
Chapter Six Dates that do not conform
Non-calculating signatures
Non-octaval signatures
Disjunction of signature and calendar
Portentous signatures
Summary conclusions
Chapter Seven Currency of the octaval calendar
Epilogue
Appendix One Abjad values
Appendix Two Proleptic modulations and calibrations
Appendix Three Malay accounts of the octaval calendar
A court text
A soothsayers' notebook
Appendix Four Octaval calendars outside Southeast Asia
Central Asia
Turkey
Appendix Five Converting dates
Strategies
Using the software tool
The interface
The calendars displayed
Ancillary elements
Bibliography
Index
HANDBOOK OF ORIENTAL STUDIES HANDBUCH DER ORIENTALISTIK
