Rickleffs - Babad Sangkala Surakarta

Unity and Disunity in Javanese Political and Religious Thought of the Eighteenth CenturyAuthor(s): M. C. RicklefsSource: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), pp. 663-678Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312934 .Accessed: 30/08/2011 08:44

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Moder Asian Studies 26, 4 (I992), pp. 663-678. Printed in Great Britain. Moder Asian Studies 26, 4 (I992), pp. 663-678. Printed in Great Britain. Moder Asian Studies 26, 4 (I992), pp. 663-678. Printed in Great Britain.

Unity and Disunity in Javanese Political and Religious Thought of the Eighteenth Century

M. C. RICKLEFS

Monash University

A central problem in both the political and the intellectual history of Java is the disparity between the ideal of a unified state and the historical reality of fragmented power and authority, between the image and the reality of pre-colonial Javanese political history. An investigation of views held by literati of the kingdom of Mataram before the middle years of the eighteenth century can elucidate this problem. Turning from historical-political to religious literature in Javanese may help to resolve it.

The discussion must begin in the religious sphere and in pre- Islamic times. The Old Javanese phrase bhinneka tunggal ika is familiar to students of Indonesia as the national motto of the Republic. It is known also to Javanists as a passage from the kakawin Sutasoma by Tantular, which Zoetmulder believes to have been written in Majapa- hit between AD 1365 and 1389.1 At one point the text proclaims:

It is said that the well-known Buddha and giwa are different.

They are different, yet how can (that difference) quickly be shared in oneness?

Jina-reality and giwa-reality are one. They are different, but they are one (bhinneka

tunggal ika), as there is no duality in the (Absolute) Truth of Reality.2

This phrase encapsulates the 'yoga of non-duality' analysed by

P. J. Zoetmulder, Kalangwan: A Survey of Old Javanese Literature (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), p. 342. 2 See Soewito Santoso (ed. and transl.), Sutasoma: A Study of Javanese Wajrayana (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, I975), pp. 578-9. I am grateful to Prof. P. J. Zoetmulder for his advice on the English translation of this passage.

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Ensinck.3 One yet not one, two yet not two, different yet the same: such is the nature of Reality in this Mahayana doctrine. This paper will argue that this doctrine remained important in Javanese thought after Islamization and is central to the issues analysed here.

Four centuries after the writing of the Sutasoma, the courtiers ofJava were Muslims whose views of the temporal, rather than the spiritual, order are the first concern in this paper. A central question here is the degree to which legitimate temporal power was seen as centralized or unified in the Mataram state. Regarding this matter there is a rather unhelpful theoretical legacy. From Heine-Geldern4 through Moertono, Selosoemardjan, Anderson and Geertz runs a thread of simplification which may hinder clear analysis.

Moertono-far and away the best of these analysts-presents a subtle view of the order of the Mataram state, but also asserts that 'the king's power was understood as unlimited. He could not be regulated by worldly means, but within himself there was a force reflecting, or higher still, identical with the Divine Soul, which checked his individual will.'5 This is not a view which is likely to have much reassured Amangkurat I as he fled his kraton in I677, his power having been well limited-indeed extinguished-by Trunajaya's rebellion. Nor were powerful princes, local leaders and, in particular, Islamic scholars likely to have endorsed Selosoemardjan's view that 'in the kingdom there is no other law than the royal word.'6 Ander- son's picture of kings as alus figures whose power was not military but spiritual, and for whom resort to warfare was a sign of weakness,7 would not have made much sense to Sultan Agung or Sultan Mangkubumi, to name only the most obviously successful warrior- kings of Mataram. And Geertz's 'doctrines' of 'the exemplary center', of 'graded spirituality' and of the 'theatre state' in which 'the ritual life of the court . . . formed not just the trappings of rule but the

3 J. Ensinck, 'Sutasoma's teaching to Gajavaktra, the snake and the tigress (Tan- tular, Sutasoma kakavin 38.1-42.4)', BKI vol. 130, nos 2-3 (I974), esp. pp. 202-7.

4 Robert Heine-Geldern, Conceptions of State and Kingship in Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program Data Paper no. i8, 1963).

5 Soemarsaid Moertono, State and Statecraft in OldJava: A Study of the Later Mataram Period, i6th to igth Century (Revised edn, Ithaca: Modern Indonesia Project Publica- tion no. 43, 1981), p. 40.

6 Selo Soemardjan, 'The kraton in the Javanese social structure', in Haryati Soebadio and Carine A. du Marchie Sarvaas (eds), Dynamics of Indonesian History (Amsterdam, etc.: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1978), p. 225.

7 Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, 'The idea of power in Javanese culture', in Claire Holt et al. (eds), Culture and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell Univer- sity Press, 1972), pp. 1-69; see esp. p. 32.

















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substance of it. Spectacle was what the state was for . . . '8 would have seemed odd to the kings and courtiers who thought that the state was for getting rich and powerful while avoiding enemy plots and poisons.

This picture of unchallenged, centralized temporal power resting upon-or at least congruent with-centralized spiritual power is at odds with the historical record as preserved in both Dutch and

Javanese sources.9 There one repeatedly encounters war and its con- comitant contest to gather the fragmented shards of power. The great kings of Mataram (a category with only a few names in it) were great generals, and even their authority was frequently challenged by flight of the populace and rebellion. Within the court, too, the king's auth-

ority to take decisions was limited by custom and the centrifugal realities of power.'? Apparently there was even a distinction between the monarch's personal wealth and that of the state, to which he thus

appears not to have had free access."1 Above all, it needs to be noted that not infrequently there was more than one king, a circumstance

guaranteeing that temporal power could not be centralized. Thus the theories of temporal power presented by scholars such as

Moertono conflict with the realities as they emerge from primary sources. Yet the scholarly views quoted above are not complete non- sense, for one can find indigenous Javanese sources which present similar images. So something complicated is going on in this part of the history of Javanese ideas. It seems clear that the latter half of the

eighteenth century in Central Java posed difficulties for the Javanese elite in defining a legitimate temporal order in a divided kingdom, where the ideal of a single king confronted the reality of two kings in an almost unprecedented period of peace.'2 The preceding Kartasura

period (AD i680-I745) seems a time when the conflict between the ideal--or what might be supposed to be the ideal--and contemporary

8 Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, I968), pp. 36-9; quotation from p. 38. 9 It is worth saying that the scholars quoted in the preceding paragraph are largely ignorant of the primary sources for the Mataram period. I do not think that any of them has ever consulted VOC archival sources and doubt that, except for Moertono, they have much familiarity with babad literature.

10 M. C. Ricklefs, Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi, i749-i792: A History of the Division ofJava (London, etc.: Oxford University Press, I974), pp. 23-4, 4I-2.

" Babad Kraton (British Library Add. MS I2320), f. 504v., referring to the time of Amangkurat II's death in AD 1703, mentions a sum of Sp.Rl. Iooo which was kaskayan ing Nata pribadi/ dudu wetuning praja/ reyal muklis waul saking karinget Sang Nata (the private wealth of the king/ not the product of the kingdom:/ this modest amount of Reals/ was from the sweat of the king). 12 See Ricklefs,Jogjakarta, esp. ch. VII.



























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reality was of still greater potency, for it occurred in the midst of civil wars in which one's view of what was right might be a matter not only of theory, but also of life or death. It is to this period which this discussion now turns.

The court of Kartasura presided over one of the most turbulent and sanguinary periods ofJavanese history. For nearly half a century from the outbreak of the Trunajaya rebellion in 1675 to the end of the Second Javanese War of Succession in the early I72os, Java saw only brief interludes of peace. In 1740 major war again broke out and lasted until 1755-57. The warfare in Java was both civil and international. Javanese fought other Javanese, often on regional lines. They also sometimes allied with and sometimes fought Madurese, Balinese, Makasarese, Bugis, Ambonese, Chinese, Malays and Europeans. Muslims allied with and fought infidels, they allied with and fought other Muslims, and infidels fought with or against each other. This is the quintessential period of political disunity in modern Javanese history, so one naturally asks how the Javanese themselves saw and recorded this disunity.

Javanese accounts of the First Javanese War of Succession ( 704- o8) are particularly interesting as evidence for indigenous views of this Kartasuran disorder. This was a contest between Amangkurat III ( 703-08), who came to the throne upon the death of his father, and Pakubuwana I (1704-19), who usurped it with the support of the VOC.

The earliest datable account of the period is in Babad ing Sangkala, a succinct chronicle account written in AJ 1663 (AD 1738), almost certainly in the kraton of Kartasura.'3 This says that Pangeran Puger, the future Pakubuwana I, 'secretly made off in the night' from Kartasura and sought refuge with the VOC in Semarang. There he succeeded in being named king and gathering pasisir forces to his side. He then marched on Kartasura in 1705. Amangkurat III's comman- der at Ungaran felt unable to resist Pakubuwana I's army, consisting of 'Dutchmen without number and people from abroad of all kinds', so he switched sides. In the face of this betrayal, Amangkurat III abandoned his kraton, which Pakubuwana I occupied the following day without opposition. Amangkurat III fled to East Java, where he received the support of Surapati, Balinese, Makasarese and the people

13 India Office Library MS IOLJav. 36 (B); the text is published and translated in M. C. Ricklefs, Modern Javanese Historical Tradition: A Study of an Original Kartasura Chronicle and Related Materials (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1978). On its date and provenance, see pp. 148-51. The passages discussed here are on pp. I00-5.











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of the outer districts (wong ma[n]canagari). This much of the tale is told in only eleven stanzas. It is a description of chaos but there are no judgements suggesting that either of the royal contenders was more properly or fully a king than the other. Both are given standard Javanese terms for monarchs such as Narpati, Sang Nata and Susunan. It is as if the conflict which ought to have existed between Javanese ideals of unitary kingship and the events of 1704-08 in fact presented no problems to the author of Babad ing Sangkala. He apparently had no difficulty in accepting the simultaneous existence of two kings.

It can be objected that, while Babad ing Sangkala is an early account of the First War of Succession, it is too succinct to offer insights into Javanese judgements of the period. One can instead turn to the leng- thy Yogyakarta court text Babad Kraton, dated AJ I703-04 (AD 1 777- 78).14 Here the period of the First Javanese War of Succession occupies sixty-six folios whereas in Babad ing Sangkala it occupies only four."5 While the Babad Kraton MS is indubitably from the later eighteenth century, it can be shown that some sections of it are recopied passages known in the Kartasura period,16 and one might guess that the First War of Succession episodes had Kartasuran antecedents as well.

Several curious passages in Babad Kraton surround the usurpation by Puger/Pakubuwana I. Probably the oddest takes place at the death of Amangkurat II in 1703, when Puger and the two other surviving brothers of the dead king come to the kraton to pay obeisance to the body. A ritual which chronicles also describe at the time of the death of Panembahan Senapati Ingalaga,17 the kissing of the dead king's penis, then takes place. But on this occasion something odd happens, for the penis stands erect. Puger alone sees on its tip a radiant light the size of a peppercorn-apparently a supernatural symbol of legitimacy-which he quickly sucks up. The text says:

Now it was the wish of God that the light of monarchy should move to the House of Puger.

14 British Library Add. MSS I 2320, ff. 503v.-568v. 15 Because the MS is misbound, the ff. are 367, 357, 355, 356. They are printed in their correct order in Ricklefs, Modem Javanese Historical Tradition, pp. oo-i 9. 16 Some passages are the same as in IOL Jav. 36(A), a Kartasura MS; others are the same as in the Surakarta Major Babad, a congruity likely to go back to shared Kartasura antecedents. See M. C. Ricklefs, 'The evolution of Babad TanahJawi texts: In response to Day', BKIvol. I35 no. 4 (I979), P. 447. 17 See the Surakarta Major Babad: Bale Pustaka, Babad Tanah Jawi (31 vols, Batawi Sentrum: Bale Pustaka, I939-41), vol. VII, p. 47; and IOL Jav. 36(A), f. 135v. This ritual is not described in the Babad Kraton account of Senapati's death on f. I85r.












What the prince did and of the light none knew. Indeed to Pangeran Puger alone would change

the inheritance, the ruling of the land of Java. The Crown prince, if things went so far that he became king, would be only an interregnum ruler.'8

This is clear supernatural legitimation of Puger/Pakubuwana I as king, indeed, as sole king. But then it is Puger himself who publicly proclaims that Amangkurat III is king19 and thereafter the latter has normal royal titles in the Babad Kraton account. This contrasts inter- estingly with the approach of the VOC, which refused to recognize Amangkurat III's accession and continued to call him by the titles of the Crown prince, 'Pangerang Depatty' (Pangeran Adipati Anom).

Babad Kraton proceeds to the tale of a magician hired by the VOC to defeat the Javanese king in a contest of magic and then to kill him. This tenung Welanda so terrifies Amangkurat III that he redirects him to Puger. The latter defeats the tenung with his magic spells and takes this-as no doubt did the readers of the babad-as a sign of his divine election as monarch.20

So far the chronicle has concerned supernatural phenomena, but now the emerging contest between Puger and Amangkurat III takes a moral twist. Amangkurat III rapes the beautiful young wife of the powerful old lord of Madura Cakraningrat II (I68o-i707). Upon learning of this, Cakraningrat II declares that the king's rule is returning to the level of animals (panjenengan Ratu mundur kaya ewan- ewan) and prepares to attack the court.21 But Puger attempts to dis-

18 Babad Kraton, ff. 504r.-v., Canto 130 (Dhandhanggula): 42. ... wus karsaning Ywang Luhurlyen nurbawatira angalihl marang ing Kapugiran/

Pangran ri[ng] karyeku/ tan ana wikan ing cahya/ iya amung Pangran Puger genti waris/ amengku tanahjawa.

43. Putra Kanjeng Pangeran Dipatil lamun kongsiya madeg Narendra/ pan ratu wewela bael ...

19 In Babad Kraton, f. 505v., Puger stands behind Amangkurat III who is seated on the throne (Dhampar Mas) and calls upon the people of all the kingdom to recognize his installation of the new monarch: eh sakeh wong Kartasural pranayaka moncanegara pasisir padha angestrenana/ lamun suteng ulun Ki Dipatil ulun jujung umadeg Narendra/ den padha/ ngastokin kabeh. The Patih Sumabrata objects that this is a redundant act, for Amangkurat III is already king.

20 Babad Kraton, ff. 513v. - 515r. A parallel version with some variations is in the Surakarta Major Babad: Bale Pustaka, Babad TanahJawi, vol. XVI, pp. 52-5.

21 Babad Kraton, f. 517r. This seems to contradict Anderson's idea that 'traditional' Javanese viewed power as 'neither legitimate nor illegitimate.... as something ... without inherent moral implications as such'; see his 'Idea of power', p. 8. See also n.27 below.























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suade him, saying that it is treason (duraka) for the people to oppose their lord, for a king is God's representative (werana Yyang Agung). Puger denies that he intends to usurp the throne, saying 'that he wishes only to look after (mamong)the young king.22 The pressure from his supporters intensifies, but Puger only goes over to rebellion (in 1704) after a period of prayer and meditation which culminates in a

sign from God (sasmitaning Hyang) that he is allowed to become king and rule all of Java.23

Thus the ambiguities deepen. Babad Kraton provides a series of

episodes (there are others preceding the central ones described above) which ascribe supernatural legitimacy to Puger. At the same time it does not deny that Amangkurat III remains king. It rehearses the doctrine that a subject owes loyalty to his king even if he is oppressive and makes Puger its exponent. Then Puger rebels. In other words, the text sets up Puger as the rival king, gives him legitimacy without

denying the reality of Amangkurat III's rule, lets Puger say why he should not act upon this legitimacy and then lets him act.

Babad Kraton goes on to describe the warfare down to Amangkurat III's surrender in 1708.24 Throughout this time the text describes two

kings: Puger/Pakubuwana I is the righteous one, but unquestionably both are kings. Indeed, at this time Amangkurat III still had-or at least was generally believed to have-the holy regalia (pusaka) of the

kingdom.25 If the views of some of the theorists of pre-colonial Javanese ideas cited above were correct, then this alone should have made Amangkurat III's power more legitimate or effective than Pakubuwana I's,26 yet Babad Kraton certainly inclines not at all to this view.

One may deduce the complex and rather ambiguous view of right political order which is encapsulated in the Babad Kraton account of

1703-08, and which can be seen to be consistent with that of Babad ing Sangkala, to be as follows. As is implied by the tale of the radiant light sucked up by Puger, there was at least some feeling that there ought to

22 Babad Kraton, if. 5 7v. - 518r. See also Moertono, State and Statecraft, p. 35. 23 Babad Kraton, f. 523r. 24 On ff. 579r.-v. It is interesting to note that in this version, VOC officers address

Amangkurat III as Gusti Sri Narendra, whereas in the Company's own sources he is denied royal titles.

25 See M. C. Ricklefs, 'The missing pusakas of Kartasura, 1705-37', in Sulastin Sutrisno et al. (eds), Bahasa-Sastra-Budaya: Ratna Manikan Untaian Persembahan kepada Prof. Dr. P. J. Zoetmulder (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, I985), pp. 601-30.

26 E.g. Anderson, 'Idea of power', p. I2; Heine-Geldern, Conceptions, p. I0; Selosoemardjan, Social Changes inJogjakarta (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. I8.
































be only one king, or that only one could be legitimate at a time. Rebellion might be legitimate against an unrighteous or illegitimate ruler.27 The legitimation of such resistance was, however, properly supernatural in origin. In the absence of supernatural sanction, the subject owed loyalty to his monarch. But even when a righteous, supernaturally legitimized king such as Pakubuwana I was at war with an unrighteous king like Amangkurat III, the latter was still a king. So while one can find Javanese evidence for the idea that there ought to be only one monarch, and while one might imagine that moral judgement and political expediency would have led a Javanese writer to deny the royal status of one contender in a war of succession (as did the VOC), in fact the scribes quoted here did not do so. This contest between kings was ultimately settled on the field of battle, which also reflected a supernatural judgement.28 Foreshadowing the conclusions of this essay, one might deduce that here was the idea of a unitary supernatural order lying behind temporal disorder, and that war and politics constituted a search for this unity behind diversity, for a political meaning to bhinneka tunggal ika.

The key to understanding such a view of the world lies in Javanese Islamic mysticism. Here one encounters a particular philosophical view of reality which is consistent with the doctrine of non-duality of pre-IslamicJava. P. J. Zoetmulder's Pantheisme en monisme in deJavaan- sche soeloek-litteratuur29 remains the classic study of this subject. Unfortunately none of his sources is as old as the Kartasura period, so historians must feel some reticence about employing them for that period, however great the likelihood that the doctrines of concern here were taught widely in Java and without change over very long periods. Zoetmulder makes much use of Leiden cod. 1795, a Surakarta

27 The classic case of tyranny in Javanese history is the reign of Amangkurat I (I646-77). Note Babad ing Sangkala's comments upon this reign, e.g. 'As if dimmed was the lustre of the kingdom' (Ricklefs, Tradition, pp. 52-3), or 'All were subjected to the tyranny of their lord' (ibid., pp. 70-I). The same text says of Surapati II that 'All his father's women/ ... were dishonoured/ by Ki Adipati;/ therefore his supernatural powers disappeared' (ibid., pp. 112-13). Of Pakubuwana I in 1719 the text says 'The destruction ofJava now began/ with the death of the Sayid, for he was shot/ upon the wish of the king./ There were many who said/ that they were shocked that he was killed' (ibid., pp. I36-7). Such comments reflect moral judgements upon unrighteous rulers, against whom resistance is thereby justified.

28 Cf. Babad ing Sangkala's description of the fall of Mataram to Trunajaya's rebels in 1677: 'The soldiers of Mataram/ all lost their supernatural power; and the princes/ their hearts were like women's,/ having no courage, terrified./ It was the wish of God' (Ricklefs, Tradition, pp. 84-5); or of the fall of Kartasura to Pakubuwana I: 'it was the wish of God/ that Kartasura should fall' (ibid., pp. 104-5).

29 Nijmegen: J.J. Berkhout, 1935.











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compendium of suluks dated AJ I763 (AD I835), and cod. 1796, a companion MS.30 In these MSS one finds a description of the relation-

ship between worshipper and God which concludes,

we are one yet not one, certainly, two yet not two. It looks like (the relationship) of soul and body: they look like one yet appear like two. Such is my being with that of my Lord.31

Or again, If you wish to reach God, know your body, for this is His substitute.

One yet not one is the true meaning of life.

The truth of oneness is to be without duality.

It is like Wisnu and Kresna, like the echo and the sound: one yet not one in truth, one yet not able to be one.32

A version of this latter passage also occurs in British Library Add. MS

I2305, which was written in Yogyakarta, probably c. i792-i8I2.33 A more relevant source for this discussion is India Office Library

MSJav. 83 (IO 3102) (B), Kitab Fatahurrahman, published by G. W.J. Drewes. This is a Kartasura MS erroneously dated Jimakir AJ I663. That was actually a Dal year, and it is clear that this date is a mistake for Jimakir AJ 1666 (AD 1741-42), for it is said to have been written at the time of the rusake Walonda-Jawa, 'the Dutch-Javanese destruction', a clear reference to the Javanese attack on the VOC garrison at

30 See Theodore G. Th. Pigeaud, Literature of Java: Catalogue raisonne of Javanese Manuscripts in the Library of the University of Leiden and other Public Collections in the Netherlands (4 vols; The Hague: Martinus Nyhoff; Leiden: Bibliotheca Universitatis Lugduni Batavorum; Leiden University Press, 1967-80), vol. II, pp. 27-8. Although it is undated, cod. 1796 is clearly a companion volume to cod. 1795: they are both written on Dutch paper and employ the same paleography and binding. 31 Text in Zoetmulder, Pantheisme, p. 102; my translation differs only slightly from Zoetmulder's on p. Io5.

32 Text in ibid., p. I I; Zoetmulder's translation is on pp. I 6-17. 33 A. H. Johns (ed. and transl.), The Gift Addressed to the Spirit of the Prophet (Can-

berra: The Australian National University, 1965), pp. 74-7. On the provenance of the MS, see M. C. Ricklefs, 'A note on ProfessorJohns's "Gift addressed to the spirit of the Prophet"', BKIvol. 129, nos 2-3 (I973), pp. 347-9.






























Kartasura in July 1741. The text contains an orthodox dualistic doctrine of being going back to the teachings of the Sufi master Abi'l- Qasim Muhammad al-Junayd (d.9io):

Being is twofold: first the Real one, the Absolute Essence,

secondly the metaphorical one, named limited being.34

To this the writer has attached the quite different doctrine of the seven grades of being. He also posits the idea that 'if you want to know the Lord, you must know your self,'35 and finds room for the rejection of dualities36 and the negation of opposites as means to describing mystical truths:

Essentially there is no difference between the seer and the seen; subject and object of the vision are the same; the seer is none other [than the seen].37

So again one encounters doctrines of non-difference, of non-duality, reflecting concepts of an eternal unity veiled by temporal plurality.

Thus there are parallels between the Old Javanese and the Modern Javanese usage of paradox in philosophical speculation to convey the nature of truth, being or reality. One no longer finds the Old Javanese bhinneka tunggal ika, but rather its Modern Javanese versions tunggal tan tunggal (one but not one), roro tan roro (two but not two) and suchlike.

These parallels are probably neither mere coincidence nor the result of enduring influence after centuries of cultural change. It is

34 G. W. J. Drewes (ed. and transl.), Directions for Travellers on the Mystic Path: Zaskariyya' al-Ansrin's Kitab Fath al-Rahmdn and its Indonesian Adaptations (VKI vol. 8i; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977), pp. 78-9. On al-Junayd's doctrines, see ibid., pp. 35-6; Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975), pp. 57-9. See also Zoetmulder's discussion of al-Ghazzali's doctrine of being in Pantheisme, pp. 28-9. 35 Drewes, Directions, pp. 6o-i.

36 Ibid., pp. 54-5. 37 Ibid., pp. 6o-i. One finds this idea widely in Javanese mystical literature. Museum Pusat BG i94, a MS from Panaraga (see Poerbatjaraka, 'Lijst derJavaan- sche handschriften in de boekerij van het Kon. Bat. Genootschap', Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en WetenschappenJaarboek 1933 [Bandoeng: A.C. Nix & Co., I933], p. 358), contains a nice statement of this doctrine: 'For there is no difference/ between worshipper and worship:/ both are he alone,/ as the being of the universe/ cannot be divided ...'; G. W. J. Drewes, 'Javanese poems dealing with or attributed to the saint of Bonai', BKI vol. I24, no. 2 (1968), p. 225. See also G. W.J. Drewes (ed. and transl.), The Admonitions of Seh Bari: A s6th Century Javanese Muslim Text Attributed to the Saint of Bonah (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), pp. 82-3.





















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likely that if the older ideas influenced the newer, they did so directly, through the simultaneous study of both traditions within the court of Kartasura. A particularly important piece of evidence in this regard is the MS NBS 95, Darma Sunya Keling, a text of the Old Javanese kakawin Dharmasuinya. This is a treatise of giva-Buddhist mysticism copied at the court of Kartasura in November I716 by Pangeran Adipati Dipanagara,38 a son of Susuhunan Pakubuwana I who rebelled in 1718 and was eventually exiled from Java in I723.

Dipanagara seems to have had a reputation as a connoisseur of such older texts. This is suggested by a passage in Serat Cabolek, a story which is set in Kartasura, probably in the early 173os. Some Cabolek texts say that copies of Bima Suci (Dewa Ruci), a work of esoteric knowledge going back to an Old Javanese prototype, were rare in Kartasura because few people liked it. Neither the late Cakraningrat III of West Madura (I707-18), who much loved Old Javanese literature (kawi), nor Pangeran Erucakra (i.e. Dipanagara) had pos- sessed an original text (babon, presumably meaning the Old Javanese version), although they knew the story's mystical message through Modern Javanese paraphrases (kawi-kawijarwa). This clearly implies that Dipanagara was among those who might be expected to own such a work. But obviously he was not the only such collector. According to Cabolek, the work was then sought from Pangeran Mangkubumi, the later Sultan Hamengkubuwana I of Yogyakarta.39

38 The text is discussed in Ricklefs, Tradition, pp. 153-4. 39 The Cabolek text is somewhat obscure about why Bima Suci was not often kept.

Leiden cod. 6373, p. 80, says 'Awis-awis senadyan rumiyin/ awis wonten babon/ abdi-dalem pun paman tan darbe/ Cakraningrat bapakipun ngunil langkung remen kawi/ Panembahan sepuh/ (Canto XII:) Panembahan seda kapall prandene boten nyimpenil namung Rama Bratayuda/ tan asimpen Bimasuci/ awis kang renmn sangking/ Bima Suci sampenipun/ Pangeran Erucakra/ boten darbe Bima Suci/ mung rahsane ngelmu dumeh tan mawi prang/ sami kawi-kawi jarwa/ nenggih Serat Bima Sucil amung raose kewala .. .'. See also cod. 2325, p.2 6. The parallel passage is found at pp. 75-6 of the printed text: [Serat Cabolek] . . . anggitanipun adbi-dalem bujongga Kraton ing nagari Surakarta Adiningrat ... katurun Kangleng Raden Adipati Panji Suryakusuma . .. kadamel leres dening Wedana Undersetan Magetan Raden PanjiJayasubrata (Semawis: Ge Se Te van Dorep [G. C. T. van Dorp], i885); this reveals, incidentally, that Jayasubrata's 'corrections' were not always accurate, for Panenbahan seda kapal, an unequivocal reference to Panembahan Cakraningrat III who was killed on a VOC ship in 1718, is altered erroneously in the printed text to Sri Nata Seda Karapyak, i.e. Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak (d. 6I3). A brief summary of the Cabolek text is available in A. C. Vreede, Catalogus van de Javaansche en Madoereesche handschriften der Leidsche Universiteits-bibliotheek (Leiden: EJ. Brill, I892), p. 32I. The edition of Cabolek in S. Soebardi (ed. and transl.), The Book of Cabolek: A Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation and Notes; A Contribution to the Study of the Javanese Mystical Tradition (Biblio- theca Indonesica o0; The Hague: Martinus Nyhoff, r975), omits the passage discussed here. For a detailed discussion of Dewa Ruci and its antecedents, see Poerbatjaraka, 'Dewa-roetji', Djdwa vol. 20, no. I (Jan. I940), pp. 5-55, which also contains references to other relevant publications.












There is other evidence pointing also to the continued study of Old

Javanese literature in Kartasura.40 All of this demonstrates the prob- ability of direct and contemporaneous influence by Old Javanese Hindu-Buddhist philosophy upon Modern Javanese Islamic

speculations. It is likely that Kartasura literati were quite aware of the influence

of older religious speculation and approved it. At any rate, in Serat Cabolek, which concerns a religious controversy at the court, Ketib Anom Kudus, who appears as the defender of orthodoxy, makes this remarkable statement to his opponent:

'Don't give up, Mutamakin. If you haven't yet exhausted all your tricks in debate with me, I'll wait for you to return to Arabia and ship all the kitabs from there.

But in fact the essence of kawi works such as Bima Suci and Wiwaha is expressed in many metaphors which achieve the essence of the mystical sciences if the interpreter is precise. And these, just like the Rama in kawi, are books of tasawwuf [Islamic mysticism]'.41

The paradox of 'one yet not one' necessarily meant not only that behind distinctions and dualities lay a higher unity but also, and more

40 E.g. the author of Babad ing Sangkala of AD 1738 claims to have worked with kidung and kakawin texts (Ricklefs, Tradition, pp. I6-17, 152-3); and another Kartasura MS, Berlin Staatsbibliothek Or. fol.402, dated AJ I66I [AD 1736-37] contains (pp. 15-53) the Old Javanese Paniti Sastra with Modern Javanese paraphrases and explanations. This MS was owned by a particularly important courtier named Png. Arya Purbaya. Until 1737 he had been known as R. Dm. Urawan, under which name he plays a central role in Serat Cabolek; it is he who tries to find a copy of Bima Suci. He was named second patih in 1737 but was exiled in 1738 at the urging of the VOC for his anti-VOC activities. The scribe of the MS was Ki Asmaradana, a mantri lebet of some consequence whose career can be reconstructed at least in part from references in otherJavanese and Dutch sources. He was killed in the Javanese assault on the VOC garrison at Kartasura in July 1741. This MS is described in Theodore G. Th. Pigeaud, Javanese and Balinese Manuscripts and Some Codices Written in Related Idioms Spoken in Java and Bali: Descriptive Catalogue (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, vol. XXXI; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, I975), pp. 226-7.

41 Soebardi, The Book of Caboltk, p. II4. My translation differs slightly from Soebardi's. The extant MSS of Cabolek are apparently no older than the nineteenth century, so the possibility that this passage reflects views held only after the Kartasura period must be acknowledged.



















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JAVANESE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT JAVANESE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT JAVANESE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

importantly for the discussion here, that the very existence of multiformity (as posited by the doctrine) constituted, paradoxically, proof of the existence of unity. In Leiden cod. I796 occurs the following passage:

For all that is visible conceals their sight. All that is obvious becomes hidden from sight. Their way of doing and seeing is thus. The manifestation of God is the cause of His obscurity, because they concentrate on the external.42

Zoetmulder observes that in this teaching 'the manifestation becomes a screen for that which is manifest, clarity becomes a cause of blind- ness, because one does not see the relative as relative, but is obsessed by it as if it were something absolute.'43 If a sceptic were to approach an adherent of this philosophy and object to it on the grounds that the visible multiformity of the phenomenal world disproves the idea of the non-duality of all reality, the adherent would reply that this multiformity, indeed the very objection, is consistent with the philosophy. For the multiformity and the objection reflect both the plurality of the temporal order and the extent to which it obscures from humanity the true, non-dualistic eternal order: the philosophy is thereby confirmed rather than undermined. The circle of tautology is thus complete: the doctrine of unity cannot be disproved by multiplicity, for the existence of multiplicity constitutes evidence of the truth of the doctrine.

Javanese sources provided a direct link between philosophical theories of unity-in-diversity and the realm of politics in the doctrine ofpanunggal (orjumbuh) ing kawula-gusti (the unity of servant and lord). This was a doctrine applied both to the temporal and to the supernatural orders. A temporal subject and his earthly lord were certainly readily distinguished, yet at a higher level of meaning they were one. And all of mankind, all servants of God, were ultimately one with their eternal Lord.44 Bound with the Kartasura MS Kitab Fatah- urrahman, and certainly contemporaneous with it, is another text cal- led Kitab Daka. Here one finds Islamic mystical speculation with kawula-gusti teachings included. For example:

Look not upon two, the being of servant and lord,

42 Zoetmulder, Pantheisme, p. I64. 43 Ibid., p. I67. 44 See the discussion in Moertono, State and Statecraft, pp. 14-26. For further

references see the index in Zoetmulder, Pantheisme, under 'kaoela-goesti'.















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for the servant exists no more; his being is negated and he possesses it not. Indeed truly is he void, for he is replaced by God. Know the Almighty: [your] actions are the doings of Allah the Creator.45

Moertono and Selosoemardjan imply that in the political sphere kawula-gusti ideas constituted a sort of social contract,46 but this was only partly true. Monarchs were expected to exercise paternal concern for their subjects and the latter were expected to render loyal service and taxes to their earthly lord. Yet the temporal realm remained characterized by distinctions and multiplicity while the unity of servant and lord was a mystic one, a matter of the eternal order. Thus the doctrine of the unity of kawula and gusti need not disturb a hierarchical social order in this world or, as Javanese history amply demonstrates, sometimes extravagant degrees of oppression and injustice. There were genuine checks on tyranny, but they were

imposed more by the facts of geography, population patterns, military technology and poor communications, than by the speculations of philosophers, whether religious or political.

A consistency should now be clear between the babad view of unity and disunity in Javanese politics and the religious literature's view of the unity and plurality of being. The temporal realm was in both cases characterized by duality, disunity, or disorder. It was a realm of flux and of distinctions. It was a screen behind which lay an eternal, supernatural realm characterized by non-duality. In both politics and religion the seeker after wisdom worked to attain this higher realm. For the mystic, there were texts to study, ascetic practices to follow and God's grace to pray for. For the Javanese aristocratic politician, there were wars to fight.

45 IOLJav. 83 (IO 3102) (A), p. 8: aja angroro tingal/jenenge kawula gustil pan kawula norananal kawula je'nenge napi/ mapan boyandarbenil mapan sajatine suwung/ pan kaganten Yang Sukmal weruhe maring Yang Widil polah tingkah tingkahe Allah kang murba. The text is taken from a transcription done by Mr Soegiarto, the India Office copy of which is numbered IOR MSS Eur. D.5i8, 'Manuscript uit Londen van India Office Library no.3102 Shattariya tracts'.

46 See State and Statecraft, pp. 14-15, 26; Selo Soemardjan, 'Kraton', p. 226. Ander- son, 'Idea of power', p. 47, however, takes the view that 'traditional thought' did not allow for 'any form of social contract'. Neither of these viewpoints is quite consistent with the historical evidence as I see it, both being too theoretical in character. There was in fact a form of social contract, but kawula-gusti ideas were merely an ideological frosting on it.















War as the dharma (duty) of the warrior is a well-known doctrine in Hindu literature.47 The classic example of this, Krsna's teaching to Arjuna on the eve of the great battle of the Mahdbharata, is found also in an Old Javanese version.48 It does not seem to exist in Modern Javanese Bratayuda texts, although it must be said that this writer has not had an opportunity to search for such passages.49 Given that Old Javanese literature seems to have been studied at Kartasura, however, the establishment of an Old Javanese version is perhaps sufficient to suggest the possibility that the teaching was known to the war-weary literati of Kartasura.50 The heart of Krsna's teaching is the unreality of the phenomenal world:

There is no existence of that which is unreal, there is no non-existence of that which is real; the men that know the truth perceive the limit between them both.... He who thinks that it (the Soul) is the killer and he who thinks that it (the Soul) is killed, both do not have knowledge about it. It neither kills nor is killed ... 51

Here one encounters again a combination of political and religious messages. Krsna's teachings are grounded in a definition of the Real which essentially equates it with the permanent. This transitory world is, by definition, unreal: it is maya, an illusion veiling the Reality behind it. Hence warfare, with its killing and being killed, is unreal, a screen before an eternal Reality. For the Ksatriya, fulfilment of dharma will be found on the field of battle. And for the knights (satriya) of Kartasura, too, warfare was their natural milieu, where they also must fulfil their duty and seek understanding, seek that world beyond this temporal realm.

This excursion into Javanese philosophy may explain why it is that in the Kartasura chronicle stories, if there ought to be a single king, there was nevertheless no evident difficulty in describing periods when there were more. The existence of a plurality of kings would merely confirm the multiplicity and multiformity of this disordered temporal realm. Behind this lay a higher order characterized by unity which the Javanese satriya pursued in politics and war. The disunity of

47 See the discussion in A. L. Basham, The Wonder that was India: A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Subcontinent before the Coming of the Muslims (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1959), p. 126.

48 J. Gonda, 'The Javanese version of the Bhagavadgit5', TBG vol. 75 (1935), pp. 36-82.

49 I am grateful for the advice of Dr S. O. Robson on this point. 50 Note the comment in Sirat Cabolek cited in n.39 above, saying that Cakraningrat III owned MSS (by implication in Old Javanese) of Rdmayana and Bharatayuddha. 51 Gonda, 'Bhagavadgita', pp. 57-8.

















Javanese political history served to demonstrate the truth of the basic philosophy and thus confirmed that behind the distinctions of the phenomenal world, behind this veil of illusion, lay an eternal unity. So while there was properly a unity in politics, it was, like the identity of kawula and gusti, a unity which one might only perceive on a supernatural plane. Although state politics aspired to mirror this unity, it was a natural reflection of the nature of the temporal realm that unity should only be temporary and should frequently collapse into disunity and war.52

Thus there is an analytical link between Javanese ideas and Javanese political life in the eighteenth century. But study of the primary sources for the history of the period, particularly of the babads and religious literature, shows the link to be more complicated and subtle than has been supposed by some earlier writers.53 Clearly Javanese political and religious theories do not tell us what happened in Javanese history, but they do tell us a great deal about Javanese perceptions. It would presumably not have been difficult to find Kartasura literati who would assert that the political order was characterized by unity under the rule of a single benign monarch. The same people would have agreed, however, that this was rarely true. Simultaneously holding both views would have been no problem. For their philosophy posited both unity and order in the eternal realm and disunity and disorder in the temporal. Anything which confirmed the temporal facet of this philosophy would serve to confirm it all. As for the two kings of the First Javanese War of Succession, whose simultaneous existence exemplified the problem which is the focus of discussion here, cross-questioning a learned Javanese observer of the time might have led to the comment that there was no problem because they were 'one but not one, two but not two'. If his Old Javanese were up to scratch, he might even have conveyed this view with the words bhinneka tunggal ika.

52 This argument also sheds further light upon the crisis of legitimation in the later eighteenth century, when the partition of the kingdom between Surakarta and Yogyakarta became rigid and institutionalized. This meant not merely that there were two kings, but also that there were permanently two. So the temporal realm was characterized by duality as it should have been, but no longer by its properly con- comitant state of flux. This suggests further subtleties of analysis not adequately reflected in myJogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi (see especially pp. 33-5).

53 See the sources cited in notes 4-8 above.










Rickleffs - Babad Sangkala Surakarta

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