Construing Traditional Javanese Herbal Medicine of Headache: Transliterating, Translating, and Interpreting Serat Primbon Jampi Jawi

AbstractThis article has been written based on a research seeking to interpret the traditional Javanese medicines found in Java island as represented by Serat Primbon Jampi Jawi, an ancient journal –almanac– concising various traditional Javanese medicines and curing methods printed in 1928 in the Javanese transcription. It is aimed at explaining the importance of rewriting and reinterpreting such ancient documents to provide better access for today's generation despite the barriers in the transliterating, translating and interpreting process. In terms of methodologies, it employed four steps: reading the original text written in the Javanese transcription, rewriting it in Latin letters, translating it into Indonesian, interpreting it by providing the Latin (scientific) name of each type of plant or herb as suggested in the prescription and the common measurement used by today's society, and finally presenting the interpreted data analytically in the Indonesian language based on the original text. The result shows that the Primbon is presented in the following systematics: types of the sickness, identifying the sickness through the symptoms, kinds of natural medicines, dosages of the medicines, and how to compose, present and use the traditional medicines. It is also revealed that in Javanese traditional medical methods, attention is generally focused on maintaining the stable fitness and body health, preventing people from sickness and reducing the pain of incurable diseases