Visual Characteristics of Sajarah Banten Manuscript Illustrations

Banten Sultanate was an Islamic kingdom in the western part of Java island, and one of important international port in the 15 th through 19 th century. There were different cultures interacted in Banten, such as from the European, Chinese, Indians, and merchant from Muslim-dominant areas such as Middle East. As a cosmopolitan, the illustrations of one of its historical manuscripts, Sajarah Banten KBG 183 would have distinct visual characteristics. This paper would try to find those characteristics by applying compositional analysis to observe their compositional, technological, and productional modalities. Later, semiotic method would be applied to scrutinize the signs used in the visualization of Sajarah Banten illustrations. The result showed that the illustrations characteristically used firm technical lines and minimalistic colors. The story characters were not drawn and only represented by objects alluding to their positions or activities. These visual characteristics were likely influenced by Islamic art aesthetics of aniconism and European technical drawings of 19 th century.


Introduction
The Sultanate of Banten was one of the Islamic kingdoms on the western part of Java, founded by Syarif Hidayatullah or Sunan Gunung Jati (1448-1568) and his son Hasanudin. Sunan Gunung Jati was one of Wali Sanga, a group of Islamic preachers who utilized acculturation in visual artifacts as a medium of da'wah (Islamic teaching). The form of acculturation between traditional and Islamic art by the Wali Sanga on the island of Java contains the old Hindu-Buddhist cultural values as well as traditional beliefs and achieved its classical form in the Islamic period. In addition to the Banten Sultanate, Sunan Gunung Jati also related to the Sultanate of Demak in central Java and the Sultanate of Cirebon on the north coast of Java.
Before the emergence of Banten Sultanate, the area belonged to the Hindu-Buddhist Tarumanegara Kingdom and later Sunda Kingdom. The archaeological findings in Banten Girang showed the presence of 10 th century Shivaite temple with Hindu iconographies, and several inscriptions written in Javanese (Guillot, 2011). There are also a group of people called Baduy with the indigenous animistic belief of Sunda Wiwitan which still exist in Banten area until present time.
During its reign, the Banten Sultanate was known as an international trading harbor visited by Chinese, Arabic, Indian, and European merchants. This coastal, seafaring cosmopolitan nature combined with the predominance of Islamic principles and Javanese court influence seemingly left no room for traces of the indigenous field-based culture. However, during 1651-1682 Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa campaigned his "food production" policy through developments of inland fields near the border with Batavia, which was the stronghold of Dutch military force (Guillot, 2011). Although this policy was mainly as a deterrent and a way to watch out for the foreign force, it also revived Banten's indigenous field culture.
Banten Sultanate's unique mixtures of both coastal-cosmopolitan and indigenous culture, blanketed by Islamic teachings gave birth to distinct visual characteristics found in one of the manuscripts depicting the history of the sultanate, Sajarah Banten. The name Sajarah Banten ("History of Banten") itself is collectively used to refer to a group of 29 manuscripts detailing the legend and history surrounding the founding, rise and decline of Banten Sultanate from 15 th century to 19 th century. Among those 29 manuscripts only one of them containing illustrations, which is Sajarah Banten in Indonesian National Library collection coded KBG 183.
The Sajarah Banten KBG 183 manuscript was written in Pegon alphabets, which were Arabic alphabets adapted for Javanese language, with total 87 pages (Pudjiastuti, 2010). The first part of the manuscript told of the founding of Banten Sultanate and the genealogy of Banten rulers traced all the way back to Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, to establish their sovereignty as Islamic kingdom. The next part, also the central story of the manuscript, was the reign of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa during 1651-1683 and the succession war between him and his son, Sultan Haji. The manuscript described that the Sultan Haji who conspired with Dutch army to take over Banten from Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa was a fake one while the real Sultan Haji was detained in a faraway island. The rest of the manuscript told of the consequences of the succession war, and the next rulers of Banten up to Sultan Ishaq (Muhammad Ishaq Zainulmuttaqin) in 1801.
Based on the text, it is assumed that it was written at the very least at the end of Sultan Ishaq's reign in 1803 Figure 1. Samples of Sajarah Banten KBG 183 illustrations and the corresponding pages The visual semiotic analysis of Sajarah Banten KBG 183 illustrations thus could be garnered from the compositional analysis. In iconic phase, the illustrations presented objects in semi-realistic manner even though there were no visible usage of perspective, such as the ship illustrations in page 37 and 71a ("hal.37" and "hal.71a" in Figure 1). The lines were crisp and technical. There was no depiction of living beings even though the text alluded to some characters in the story where the corresponding illustrations were placed in the pages.
In indexical phase, the characters' presences were represented by the usage of objects to refer to which personage was implied in the illustration. For example, in page 27 and 31 ("hal.27" and "hal.31" in Figure 1) the text narrated a meeting between Sultan Haji and the Dutch general in Batavia (nowadays Jakarta, Indonesia) to form an alliance to usurp the reigning Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa. The illustration however only depicted two chairs positioned face-to-face with a table between them, and a purple, white, and black-colored flag from top to bottom, presumably alluded to the color value of Dutch flag, which was red, white, and blue. Under each chair was caption on who sat there. For example, in page 31 on the left side under the flag, the caption was tuan jenderal ("sir general"), marking it as where the Dutch general sat. Caption on the right side was raja pandhita ("pious king/lord"), referred to Sultan Haji who just finished his Hajj pilgrimage before coming back to Banten. The caption in page 27 only marked the location, which was kantor jenderal ("General's office"), but the text mentioned the characters which were Sultan Haji and the Dutch general.
In symbolic phase, Sajarah Banten utilized flags to refer to specific places or community. For example, in page 1 ("hal.01" in Figure 1) there was an illustration of greyish/faded black, purple, and yellow colored flag with the caption Keraton Makuwan Banten ("Banten Makuwan Palace") underneath it. The flag symbolized the royal palace of Banten Sultanate without depicting the building in its entirety. In page 12-13 and page 62 ("hal.12-13" and "hal.62" in Figure 1) the captions also referred to places such as makuwan (referring to royal palace) in page 12-13 and Pulo Manjati ("Manjati Island") in page 62. Interestingly, there were also pages where both the flags to symbolizes places and the buildings itself were depicted together, such as the case in page 27 and page 61-61a ("hal.27" and "hal.61-61a" in Figure 1) where the caption was kantor jenderal ("General's office") in page 27 and Keraton Sulthan nuli Kenari ("Sultan's palace in Kenari") in page 61-61a.

Conclusion
The illustrations of Sajarah Banten KBG 183 were characterized by minimalist usage of three ink colors, which were black, mainly for text, objects outline, and to substitute for blue color value in Dutch flag illustrations; purple, especially to replace the value of red color for Dutch flag illustrations; and yellow, which provided ISSN 2224-6061 (Paper) ISSN 2225-059X (Online) Vol.89, 2021 30 contrasting combination visually with the black and purple. Objects such as chairs and flags were used to indicate characters mentioned in the text with outright depicting them.
The tendency to avoid depiction of living beings in Sajarah Banten likely influenced by the Islamic art aesthetics of aniconism (Al-Faruqi, 2000). In some Islamic teachings, it was preferred not to portray living beings to avoid idolatry. The technical drawing style with firm and even lines such as the ship and building illustrations reminded to scientific illustrations of 19 th century, and of Banten position as the international maritime port. Further research would be needed to ascertain these influences in Sajarah Banten manuscript illustrations, and this research could be used as the starting point.