The Dutch Nagara-Kertagama translation on which Professor Kern worked, at intervals, during eleven years, deserves our utmost admir ation and respect. It is the last important piece of work he finished before his death. It has enriched in an extraordinarily high degree our knowledge of the history and antiquities of the Majapahit period. Moreover, its dignified and courtly style established the reputation of Old Javanese letters as a literature of considerable interest. The con tents of the Nagara-Kertiigama, as interpreted by Professor Kern, gave 14th century Majapahit a nimbus, making it...

Essentially the following commentary on the contents of the Nagara-Kertagama has been made up from notes by former editors of the text together with remarks, criticisms and digressions by the present author. As Kern, Krom and their contemporaries were especially interested in dynastie history and archeology their notes on those subjects are legion, and as a result of their studies on many points a communis opinio has been reached. The argumentations which led up to this end are not reproduced in the present edition. The interested reader is referred to Krom's great books: Oud-Javaansche Kunst...

The present second volume of the Nagara-Kertagama edition contains those notes on the tex.t and the translation of the major poem and the appended minor writings and charters that may be of interest to students of the J avanese language. Perusal of these notes on idiom and linguistics will be found the more fruitful if the glossary ( volume V of the present edition) is consulted continuously. No lengthy discussions of linguistic subjects are to be found in the present volume. They would be out of place in this new Nagara Kertagama edition, for its tenor is primarily sociological. Exceptions...