The Mirror of the Practice

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the adaptation of Indic poetic models in Java and Bali, where practice (prayoga) took precedence over theory (śāstra), and where Dandin’s Mirror and other cultural grammars left little concrete trace. The chapter’s first part revisits the earliest known work from Java, the Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa, an adaptation of a Sanskrit poem by Bhatti that teaches grammar and poetics by example. Here the work’s “ornamental blocks” are analyzed for modes of imparting and experimenting with ornaments found in manuals such as Dandin’s. The second half explores the later history of kakawin literature by focusing on introductory statements by poets and on manuals such as the Life Breath of Poetry (Bhāṣaprāṇa). The chapter shows that technical knowledge about poetry was continuously taught in classrooms in Java and Bali and suggests that kakawin’s playful internalization of Dandin’s modularity and openness eventually rendered his Mirror superfluous.