Chronogram, Muslim Southeast Asia - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
Ricklefs, M. C.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Leiden
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Brill
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
(675 words)
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The use of chronogram s in Muslim Southeast Asia is most prominent in Javanese culture. In Modern Javanese, chronograms are called sangkala/sengkala (or candra sengkala ), the word sangkala meaning "chronology" or "chronogram." Pre-Islamic, Old Javanese works use the Sanskrit word śakakāla , referring to the Śaka era and meaning also "chronogram" (Zoetmulder and Robson, 2:1603). In Javanese, chronograms consist of four words, each word-rather than each letter of a word, as in the ḥisāb al-jummal and taʾrīkh systems-having its own numerical value. They are read