The Kawi script or the Old Javanese script (, aksara carakan kuna) is a Brahmic script found primarily in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia between the 8th century and the 16th century.[Aditya Bayu Perdana and Ilham Nurwansah 2020. Proposal to encode Kawi] The script is an abugida, meaning that characters are read with an inherent vowel. are used, either to suppress the vowel and represent a pure consonant, or to represent other vowels.[De Casparis, J. G. Indonesian Palaeography: A History of Writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to c. AD 1500, Leiden/Koln, 1975, pp. 35-42 with footnotes][
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History
The Kawi script is related to the Nagari or old-Devanagari script in India. Also called the Prae-Nagari in Dutch publications after the classic work of F.D.K. Bosch on early Indonesian scripts, the early-Nagari form of script was primarily used in the Kawi script form to write southeast Asian Sanskrit and Old Javanese language in central and eastern Java.[Anshuman Pandey 2012. Preliminary Proposal to Encode the Kawi Script] The strongest evidence of Nagari influence is found on the Belanjong pillar in Sanur in southern Bali, which consists of texts in two scripts: one in Early Nagari and the other in Early Kawi script. Further, the Sanur inscription overlaps into two languages – Sanskrit and Old Balinese. Of these, the Old Balinese language portion of the text is expressed in both Early Nagari and Early Kawi script. This inscription is likely from 914 CE, and its features are similar to the earliest forms of Kawi script found in the central and eastern regions of the Bali's neighboring island of Java.[De Casparis, J. G. Indonesian Palaeography: A History of Writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to c. AD 1500, Leiden/Koln, 1975, pp. 36-37 with footnotes]
According to de Casparis, the early Nagari-inspired Kawi script thrived for over three centuries between the 7th- and 10th-century, and after 910 CE, the later Kawi script emerged incorporating regional innovations and South Indian influence (which in itself is influenced in part by Brahmi-Nandinagari). The four stages of Kawi script evolution are 910–950 CE (east Javanese Kawi I), 1019-1042 (east Javanese Kawi II), 1100–1220 (east Javanese Kawi III), 1050–1220 (square script of the Kediri Kingdom).[De Casparis, J. G. Indonesian Palaeography: A History of Writing in Indonesia from the beginnings to c. AD 1500, Leiden/Koln, 1975, pp. 38-43 with footnotes]
The earliest known texts in Kawi date from the Singhasari kingdom in eastern Java. The more recent scripts were extant in the Majapahit kingdom, also in eastern Java, Bali, Borneo and Sumatra. The Kawi script has attracted scholarly interest both in terms of the history of language and script diffusion, as well as the possible routes for the migration of Buddhism and Hinduism to southeast Asian region because many of the major scripts of southeast Asia show South Indian Pallava script influence.
The modern Javanese script, state George Campbell and Christopher Moseley, emerged in part through the modification of the Kawi script over the medieval era. This modification occurred in part via secondary forms called pasangan in Javanese, and also from changes in shape.
Examples
The Kawi script was used in official documents or declarations inscribed in stone or copper tablets primarily in Java but also in other medieval kingdoms in archipelagic Southeast Asia. The following are some examples categorized using present-day states.
Philippines
Lord Namvaran's debt clearance certificate from the Duke of Tondo (900)
An official document written using the Kawi script records the acquittal of Namvaran's debt to the Duke (senapati) of Tondo in April 900. It is also known as the Laguna Copperplate Inscription.
It records the date of granting of the document being on the 4th of Krishna Paksha (black lunar side), month of Vaishakha, Shaka era 822, corresponding to 21 April 900,[Postma, Antoon. (1992). "The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary." Philippine Studies vol. 40, no. 2: 183-203.]
It was found in 1989
Butuan seal
The Kawi lettering reads "Butban". The three square seal style characters are BA, TA and NA; the leftward curl underneath BA is the /u/ vowel diacritic, changing the syllable to BU; the small heart-shaped character under TA is the subscript conjunct form of BA which also removes the default /a/ vowel from TA; the large curl to the upper right is the Kawi virama, which indicates the default /a/ vowel on NA is not pronounced. The three blocks of characters together read "BuTbaN-. In both Balinese script and Javanese script, which are descended from Kawi, the word is spelled in a very similar pattern, using a similar /u/ diacritic, conjunct form for B, and virama.
Unicode
The Kawi script was added to the Unicode Standard 15.0 in September 2022 based on a proposal by Aditya Bayu Perdana and Ilham Nurwansah.[Unicode Technical Committee 2021. Approved Minutes of UTC Meeting 166][ An earlier preliminary proposal was submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee by Anshuman Pandey in 2012.][
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The Unicode block for the Kawi script is U+11F00–U+11F5F and contains 86 characters:
Numerals
Kawi has its own set of Numerals:
Child systems
Consonants
| Basic Aksara (consonant)
!
!ka
!kha
!ga
!gha
!nga
!ca
!cha
!ja
!jha
!nya
!ṭa
!ṭha
!ḍa
!ḍha
!ṇa
!ta
!tha
!da
!dha
!na
!pa
!pha
!ba
!bha
!ma
!ya
!ra
!la
!wa
!śa
!ṣa
!sa
!ha/a |
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Contemporary Use of Kawi script
The Kawi script still sees minor use in the 21st century. It can be seen in music videos
Gallery
File:Kawi inscription.jpg
File:Copy of a stone stele written in Kawi script.jpg|Copy of a stone stele written in Kawi script
File:Javanese compared to other Indic scripts.jpg|Javanese compared to other Indic scripts
The above is a comparison of the development of Devanagari characters in Kawi, Old Mon of the kingdom of Ava, and Thai script.
See also
Notes
External links
