THE ACHEHNESE - Acehbooks.org

3°
chapter, adding the requisite explanations, and then makes the pupil
read the text and repeat or write out the commentary; or else the
disciples sit in a circle round the master, who recites both text and
commentary like a professor lecturing his class, allowing each, either
during or after the lesson, to ask any questions he wishes.
Soroganand In Java the first of these two systems is called sorogan and the second
ungan ' bandungan. In Acheh the former method is usually followed by the
reading of one of the Malay manuals mentioned above under the super­
vision of the gampong teacher or of the teungku rangkang, the bandungan
method alone being used for the study of the Arabic books. The
Achehnese have no special names for these methods of instruction ').
Unclean- Besides the system of teaching, the Achehnese rangkangs have in
mess of the common vvith the Javanese pondoks an uncleanliness which is proverbial —
r L
students.
indeed the former surpass the latter in this respect. One might suppose
that in such religious colonies, where the laws of ritual purification are
much more strictly ohserved than elsewhere, we should find an unusually
high degree of personal cleanliness. Experience however shows that a
man who limits himself to the minimum requirements of the law in
this respect can remain extremely dirty without being accused of neglect
of his religious duties. Nor do the laws of purification extend to clothing.
The mere ritual washing of the body (often limited to certain parts
only, since the complete bath is seldom obligatory, especially where
there is no intercourse with women) is of little service, as the clothes
arc seldom washed or changed and the rooms in which the students
live rarely if ever cleaned out.
Such advantage over ordinary gampong folk as the muribs may possess
in regard to cleanliness through their stricter observance of religious
law, they lose through their bachelorhood, since they have to manage
their own cooking, washing etc.
In Java there are to be found in many pesantrens written directions
regulating the sweeping out of the huts, the keeping of watch at night,
the filling of the water-reservoirs etc., and fines are levied on those
who omit their turn of service or enter pondok or chapel with dirty
i) The bandungan method is thus described; '•Teungku khcun, gculanyhi; sima 1 = "the
master speaks and we hearken." Sima.' 1 is the Arabic CLA.AV, and is also used in Malay and
Javanese in the sense of "hearkening" to teaching by word of mouth, or to the hearing by
the guru of his pupils' reading or recitation.