Indonesia. While looking for Ramayana, I found another classic !

I guess I could have shortened my last blog by saying, 'Balinese Kakawin depicted a Sita in every noblewoman and sought a Rama in every nobleman'. What the westerners saw depended on who they met when they landed!  The society surely had many layers and all of them would be real. 

 I found another absorbing classic, The Centhini Story - The Javanese Journey of life. This book is translated and condensed to English by the joint efforts of  Soewito Santoso, the translator, Fendi Siregar, the photographer, and Kestity Pringgoharjono who conceived the project.

Kesty has written a very refreshing foreword and is described as young, professional, passionate and hands-on. I can well believe it. She speaks of the Javanese heirarchy, bibit, bebet and bobot, -lineage, rank and wealth which helped her to contact the translator. Similarly her mother knew the Photographer socially and made it easy for her to get started.

Soewito was in his late seventies when he was approached by Kesty and again he says it was something he was asked to be ready to do almost forty years ago by his teacher. His teacher wanted him to write Kekavin Ramayana and another book Sutasoma Kekawin, which he did. Now his task was to condense an epic of 3500 pages to one-tenth its size into both Bahasa and English.

His introduction to the book should interest us Indians. By early 19th century the Dutch had consolidated their power by playing one Sultan against the other. But the dutch did not interefere in the field of culture. The traditions were maintained. He defines them as 'Magnificent legacy of forefahters'. He says Borobuder is a magnifiecient heritage, so are wayang, Mahabharata and Ramayana and with time, due to lack of contact, these became hidden mysteries.

He goes back in history and about the guidance people received as they worshipped at these temples. Then Islam came from India and Arabia. The transition to Islam was not easy as Hinduism and Buddhism as he says, were well embraced. Not surprisingly the Moslem missonary faced great difficulties.

The author mentions that a meeting was held and solutions found to overcome this reluctance of the people to embrace Islam. The solution they found makes interesting reading!