Writing History in Premodern Java

Premodern Javanese wrote down their history. For at least one and a half millennia, they produced written records to serve as sources of historical knowledge. The earliest history of the island is difficult to trace, because so few written texts have survived for more than a few centuries in its tropical climate. The perishability of written documents in island Southeast Asia is a crucial factor in the development of its history, as Alex West recently discussed. Here I examine the practices of writing in Java and nearby societies, with a particular emphasis on material aspects and consequences for the development of Javanese history.