Monday, February 9, 2015

Ramayana in Indonesia, found a couple of fascinating links.

Chandramouli suggested I check on words Bahasa and Kakawin! Good to be reminded about the deep cultural influence of Sanskrit literature. However, my aim was to see the changes in the personalities of Rama and Sita, in an Indonesian setting,

Bahasa is the Malay and Indonesian word for "language", derived from the Sanskrit word भाषा bhāṣā "spoken language".  (In Thailand it is Phasa Thai! )  Linguistic history and cultural history are clearly linked. The Sanskrit influence came from India since ancient times...... The loanwords from Arabic are mainly concerned with religion, in particular with Islam.  The Chinese loanwords are usually concerned with cuisine, trade or often just things exclusively Chinese...  The former colonial power, the Netherlands, left a sizable amount of vocabulary.

Kakawin are long narrative poems composed in Old Javanese, also called "Kawi", written in verse form with rhythms and metres derived from Sanskrit literature. Although the poems depict events and characters from Hindu mythology, the narratives are set in the local landscapes of the islands. They are rich sources of information about courtly society in Java and Bali.

While the synopsis indicates that the main story is the same. Kakawin Ramayana, the Javanese Ramayana differs markedly from the original Hindu prototype. The first half of this Ramayana Jawa is similar to the original Sanskrit version, while the latter half is divergent to the point of being unrecognisable by Indian scholars of the original Ramayana. ..This latter, altered half of the original tale is the most popular, and is included in  wayang performances.

A few links are fascinating. Presented at the Third International Ramayana Conference 2010  at NIU, the paper describes a unique situation. In the predominantly Christian Philippines, Muslims in the southern islands have preserved the Hindu Ramayana.  The Indian epic is deeply embedded in the Darangen epic, the Maha Radia Rawana story, and the Singkil. The preservation of Ramayana in the Philippines show that Muslims, Christians, Hindus and people of no faith and people of all other faiths can engage in intercultural dialogue that enhances goodwill and mutual understanding.

In another study, Images of Women and Embodiment in Kakavin Literature,  Helen Creese begins,          I quote extensively from her article,

 The Intersections, 'Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context,  with western academic views that women, past and present enjoyed high status, economically, ritually and were sexually autonomous. While in fact, the cultural ideal has been that of a refined Javanese aristocratic girl whose grace and modesty are imbued with an inherent fragility and dependence. The same ideal prevails in Bali, of beautiful and submissive girl,... stretching back to kakawin poetry.

 An increasing number of cross-cultural studies of gender have now attested to the complex and multi-faceted roles of women in contemporary Indonesia. A number of studies have revealed that in Java and Bali, prestige and status are conferred as much by inner spiritual strength and tranquillity as by the concepts of economic and political autonomy lauded in Western society.

Kakawin were produced at the royal courts that flourished in Java from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, and in Bali from the ninth until the early twentieth century. From at least the fifteenth century, Javanese court culture was influenced by Islamic religious thought but in Bali, as in parts of mainland Southeast Asia, there was no obvious hiatus or change in religious, economic and political conditions until the mid nineteenth century. There is therefore an unbroken indigenous cultural tradition spanning more than one thousand years.

....The limitations of kakawin sources are in many ways similar to those presented by sources for the study of the ancient world. Both sets of sources are products of patriarchal social systems, representing the interests and ideas of educated male elites. Most are written by men. Like the women of every age and place there is 'a profusion of discourse and imagery' about kakawin heroines, and they too are 'more likely to be "represented" than to be described or to have their stories told – much less be allowed to tell their own stories.

Kakawin are most certainly not about the reality of women's lives. Individual kakawin works provide images of fictionalised noble women who served as models in the construction of idealised images of women in general. More importantly, kakawin 'affirm what ought to be known and believed [about women]; ... impose a set of exemplary images; [and] ... describe what society wished and what it ought to be'. There can be no doubt that this role is one of the primary functions of kakawin literature.

Nearly all kakawin heroines are noble, and even where female commoners, servants and retainers enter the story, they do not represent the lives of ordinary women, but of those who belong to the world of the court. It is difficult to gauge the extent to which ordinary Javanese and Balinese men and women actually embraced or typified the images that pervade the literary and performing arts......

... those involved in the study of contemporary societies in Indonesia, may find the material presented here broadly supportive of their own ethnographic case studies. At the very least it may serve to provide evidence for how deeply culturally embedded are the gender stereotypes in contemporary societies in Indonesia. ...

Those familiar with Indian literary traditions will undoubtedly recognise the broad parallels with classical Sanskrit tropes and metaphors, but in Java and Bali these parallels were mediated by many centuries of indigenous cultural adaptation and evolution.....kakawin literature abounds in female characters, many of whom have no counterparts in other sources, either Sanskrit or Old Javanese. Their main purpose seems to be to allow poets to incorporate scenes that centre on women.

Women in kakawin are depicted in three main contexts. First, as the embodiment of all beauty, they form the core metaphor of the many descriptive passages of the natural world through which the characters move. Secondly, they are partners in sexual relationships, usually within marriage. Finally, they are portrayed as loyal wives making the ultimate sacrifice by choosing to follow a husband or lover to the afterlife following his death in battle. In each of these contexts, the poet is concerned with the physical description of the women – the imagery of the female form, the seduction and rape of the virgin bride and the bloody, ritual deaths of the widow.

If war and the glorious deeds of heroes are the dominant narrative themes of kakawin poetry, its core aesthetic is undeniably feminine beauty. Metaphorically women's bodies and the natural world are reflections of each other. Women's bodies evoke the natural environment: their eyes, teeth and gums mirror particular kinds of flowers, their limbs and waists are slender vines and creepers, their shapely calves are reminiscent of pandanus flowers, their breasts are ivory coconuts. Poets and wandering lovers enraptured by the beauty of the world around them see nature as a representation of ideal womanhood, and in turn beautiful women represent all the glories of the natural world....

The female characters in kakawin reflect the dichotomy between controlled and uncontrolled emotions and by extension controlled and uncontrolled bodies. The essential divide is between the behaviour of noble princesses on the one hand and the hazy, often nameless female companions and servants on the other. The arrival of a hero at court typically provokes a startling reaction in most of the palace women. They stream from their homes, half-dressed, in order to cast themselves before him, hair hanging loose, clothes in disarray. Grandmothers forget their age and even maidens who have never before been aware of such feelings find themselves overcome by unexplained yearning.

....the princess or queen. In contrast to their companions, kakawin princesses never join in this frenzy. Wan-faced and silent, they become withdrawn and pensive, troubled but not controlled by emotional turmoil. In a society in which self-control and restraint are prized, the ideal kakawin noblewoman is again upheld...... Control of desire is even more idealised for the heroes of kakawin. Only men of true spiritual power and moral virtue are fitting to rule the world. Within kakawin this is demonstrated most often by the ability of the hero to withstand sensual and sexual temptation.

For kakawin lovers the ultimate separation is death and this is the second major dramatic context in which kakawin women are portrayed, namely as faithful and loyal wives, those who are willing to follow their husbands into the next world. ..... Kakawin depict two kinds of widow sacrifice. The first involves death by fire, a possible reflection of the Indian practice of sati. ... The second method depicts death by stabbing with a dagger (kris) while leaping into the fire. This is the form most commonly depicted in kakawin, and appears to be a specifically Javanese and Balinese form of sati. There is sufficient historical further evidence to indicate that the forms of widow-sacrifice depicted in kakawin reflect actual social practice.

 It was practised in Bali until the early twentieth century.Some of the most poignant scenes in kakawin are the laments of newly-widowed women. In the Bharatayuddha, in which so many heroes die and so many widows and mothers are left alone, there are a number of scenes in which women express their desire to follow a loved one in death. When Arjuna's son Abhimanyu is killed in battle only his younger wife, Ksitisundari, can follow him in death because his other wife, Uttari, is pregnant and thus must wait behind. In the Arjunawijaya, Queen Citrawati, tricked by Rawana into believing that her husband Arjuna Sahasrabahu has died in battle stabs herself with her kris without a moment's hesitation.

..... So powerful is the ideal of the proper conduct for the wife of a hero that even Queen Marmmawati, a character in the Sutasoma ('The Tale of Sutasoma') who has been cast out by her husband, takes her life when he is slain in battle.

It is not only wives who choose to display their love and loyalty in this graphic way. Mothers too are unable to live without sons, daughters without their parents. Hidimbi follows Ghatotkaca into the fire in the Bharatayuddha, while in the Sumanasantaka, Indumati, although still a child, wishes to follow her parents in death until her brother Bhoja dissuades her.

Servants and confidantes are equally involved in the kakawin concern with loyalty and devotion, for just as princesses are prepared to follow their husbands in death, faithful companions do the same for their mistresses, choosing to remain in their service in heaven rather than remain alone on earth.

For a true kakawin heroine there can only one solution, that is to follow her husband in death. The author, Panuluh, describes Satyawati's suicide at length in the Bharatayuddha.


... Within this male-dominated realm, kakawin women have little agency. Instead they are depicted as fragile, weak and dependent on men for their emotional, material and spiritual welfare. They enact passive roles, their destinies are guided by husband, father or brother.

 Protests voiced at the regulation of their lives are little more than opportunities for poets to elaborate the duties of daughters, sisters and wives, namely absolute adherence to dharma or duty, a powerful force that regulates social and personal relationships but which allows little freedom to women. Even within the wedding night scenes, the bride's change from aversion to pleasure is underpinned by the notion that once married her main duty is to serve her husband.

There is, in fact, little trace of the autonomous women of Western descriptions, nor of the powerful female rulers and leaders of the Javanese and Balinese pasts. Unlike their male counterparts, kakawin women are free to act only within the social realm. They occupy the palaces, usually the innermost chambers, a secluded and self-contained world. Rarely do they venture out. At most they are found in company with other women, suitably chaperoned and guarded at recognised public events, such as life-rituals, picnics and festivals.

 Only an occasional magically-powerful woman – a holy nun, a demon, an incarnation of a deity – may belong to the world beyond the confines of the palace or city walls. Kakawin heroes on the other hand, who are engaged in the quintessential pursuits of heroes, namely war and the search for spiritual well-being through asceticism, are able to roam at will in the liminal zone between the social and the divine realms, traversing dangerous ravines, mountains and desolate areas where human affairs are ordered by forces beyond the control of mortals.

Kakawin representations of women lend little support to the received notion of gender complementarity in Southeast Asia. From a feminist perspective, the central question may well be whether the lack of agency granted to women in kakawin should be read as evidence for the universal subordination of women.

The dominant image of women in kakawin poetry, that of the beautiful woman, is a somewhat abstract ideal of feminine beauty and decorum. At the same time love is always sensual and the descriptions of love, women and the natural world which they inhabit are caught up in a metaphorical discourse that focuses almost exclusively on women's bodies....

 Poets are also concerned with the acquisition of spiritual power by kakawin heroes through asceticism and self-control. The emphasis is on moral issues and right conduct, but these are not exclusively the prerogative of men. Women too, in the responses they display to their life experiences as daughters and wives, are portrayed as equally capable of participating in the spiritual and moral dimensions of their society. Women in kakawin are never reduced to mere physical beings. Striking in this context also is the almost complete disinterest in reproduction in kakawin discourse.

Kakawin represent a 'practice (of power)'. .... Every kakawin condoned the idealised construction of a politically powerful, predominantly male, court elite, one with close links to the institutional forces of religion and kingship. ....


The scarcity of data may serve to mask these differences and give a misleading impression of continuity. Thus it is impossible to ask 'to what degree [kakawin] texts successfully impose[d] themselves on real people ... in real time.' The resilience of similar images and ideals in contemporary Java certainly suggests kakawin encapsulate 'a formulaic representation of a dominant and normative world view, one that constitutes a reality if not the reality ... a prescription for rather than of reality'.

Whatever its history, the image of the shy, self-effacing Javanese girl nevertheless, has remained a powerful force even in modern Indonesian society. Perhaps one of the most significant benefits of making use of kakawin sources is that they reflect indigenous discourses of power.

 Because they predate European contact, they are on the whole 'untainted' by later, Western notions of sexuality and gender. Nonetheless, in viewing gender through kakawin literature, there is a very real risk of presenting a generic and ahistorical view of women in the courts, simply because the sources are too fragmentary to allow historical specificity.

Ultimately, then, it is important, not to ask too much from kakawin as sources. At best, the handful of extant works bears witness to certain resilient cultural practices concerned with gender. The intersections of the idealised images and historical reality have yet to be fully explored, and the historical and cultural processes through which these images of women have been constructed may always remain irretrievable.

A bit too long for a blog, but worth reading! Especially for us Indians who are forever at crossroads!
We can also relate to many of the observations made by the author.

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