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Sometimes it relates the fortunes of empires; sometimes it degenerates into a mere genealogical tree. Every Javan "prince" has his "babad," in which the names of his ancestors and their deeds are recounted.

The conduct of the war cost the company more than four million florins, but at its termination they had secured the virtual control of the island. Mr. Nieman first gives some particulars about the manuscript. It is entitled, he says, the "Babad Mangku Nagara."

"Let us take, for example, Dhipa Negoro, the chief of the revolt in Java, which lasted until 1830; well, the babad represents him to us as enveloped in the clouds of the supernatural.

Mangku Nagara, who is the subject of the babad discussed by Mr. Nieman, was a Javan prince who played a leading part, first in the Chinese war of 1745, and afterwards in the revolt of the Javan princes against the Dutch and the reigning susunan, known as "the Java war," which lasted from the close of the Chinese war to the year 1758.

A babad or rhythmical ballad of semi-religious character belongs to every province, but though many details of temple worship Buddhist, Hindu, and Mohammedan may be gathered from the lengthy scroll, heroic and princely exploits, myths and traditions, encumber the sacred text, which Eastern imagination transforms into a fairy tale.

Uncertainty about the history of the Hindu kingdoms given by the chronicles Character of the babad, or chronicle Its historical value Brumund's treatment of the babads Account of the babad "Mangku Nagara" Prose works The Niti Praja The Surya Ngalam Romances The Johar Manikam Dramatic works The Panjis Wayang plays Arabic works and influence The theatre The wayang.

That the babad is capable of being approached from two different points of view is apparent from the following extracts, in which I have compared M. Brumund's treatment of a babad of only fifty years ago with Mr. Nieman's account of an earlier babad in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society. M. Brumund says

In the case of the chronicles which relate contemporary events, we are on surer ground. But such is the nature of the Javanese, and such the literary character of the babad, that even here we are by no means certain to meet with actual facts. The babad is a poem composed in a common Javanese measure, which purports to give an account of historical persons and events.

He cannot away with them, and goes near to denying their claims for credence altogether. But surely a distinction should be made between the family babad, which is altered to suit the whims of a single prince, and those babads which relate events affecting the interests of several competing princes, or in which no single prince is especially interested.