Thomas M. Hunter, Sanskrit in the Archipelago/Tracing Transactions (2010) 1-55, page 1 SANSKRIT IN THE ARCHIPELAGO: TRANSLATION, VERNACULARIZATION AND TRANSLOCAL IDENTITY by Thomas M. Hunter 1) Author’s copy; published in Suchorita Chatopadhyay (ed.) Tracing Transactions: An Anthology of Critical Essays on India and Southeast Asia. [Publications of the Centre for Advanced Study, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India]. New Delhi: Worldview Publications, 2010, pp. 1-55. 2) An Indonesian language translation of this article titled “Bahasa Sanskerta di Nusantara: Terjemahan, Pemribumian, dan Identitas Antardaerah” has been published in Henri Chambert-Loir (ed.) Sadur: Sejarah Terjemahan di Indonesia dan Malaysia. Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia,2009, pp. 23-47. 1.0 Introduction It is more than a truism to say that Sanskrit played an enormous role in the development of the literature of ancient Java. But this does not exhaust the limits of the influence of Sanskrit on the society and culture of the Malay-Indonesian world. Studies like Gonda’s Sanskrit in Indonesia (1952) provide ample proof of its far-reaching effects on the lexicons of languages ranging from Malay to Malagasy, while cultural effects are no less evident in the evolution of the literature, performing arts and ethical philosophy of the courts of central Java than they are in the religious practices of contemporary Bali. 1 While earlier generations of scholars spoke of Southeast Asian societies in terms of ‘Indianization’ or of ‘Greater India’ an understandable reaction to these heavily loaded terms brought with it a focus on ‘indigenization’. However, the latter term has also proven problematical, not least because it simply reverses the focus of the earlier terms without removing the implication that one side or the other was dominant in cultural exchanges. More recently a growing number of analysts have found attractive Wolters’ (1982) description of South and Southeast Asia as sharing a “broadly based community of outlook”. 1 See Zurbuchen (1987) and Wallis (1989) for studies of the ways that Sanskrit influence is mediated in the languages of ritual and performance of Bali. See Ricklefs (1998) for insights into the influence of the literature of ancient Java in the central Javanese courts between 1726-1749 C.E. and the political events that heralded a waning of that influence after 1749 C.E. See Hoadley (1991) for a study of the continuing importance of Sanskrit formulations of legal concepts in Java and Sunda as late as the 18 th Century.