Doctrines "It
is particularly true that in describing the religion of such a complex
civilisation as the Javanese any simple unitary view is certain to be
inadequate" and there is "much variation in ritual, contrast in
belief, and conflict in values... behind the simple statement that Java is more
than 90 per cent Moslem" (Geertz 1960, 7). There are two types of Javanese
Islam. The most popular is Agami Jawi, "Javanese religion," which
Geertz calls Abangan. The second type is a puritanical Islam known as Agami
Islam Santri, "Santri Islam religion," called Islam Santri by Geertz.
Sufism or mystical Islam has been of great doctrinal importance in Javanese
religion. Agami Jawi is a complex blending of doctrines and practices. It has a
wide range of concepts, views, and values, many being Muslim in origin, such as
the belief in God Almighty (Gusti Allah), the prophet Muhammad (kanjeng nabi
Muhammad), and other prophets (para ambiya). All actions and decisions are done
"in the name of God" (bismillah). The wali sanga, the nine
semihistorical first missionaries of Islam, religious teachers, and some
semihistorical figures have their sacred graves (pepundhen) venerated.
Religious leaders, healers, wayang puppeteers, and village leaders can become saints
while still alive. The most important Javanese work on the nature of God and
man is the seventeenth century Dewaruci, which has a mystical pantheistic view.
God can enter any human heart though he is as wide as the oceans and as endless
as space. This view became interwoven with Islamic concepts by those who wrote
the Serat centhini and the magico-mystical suluk books. Many Hindu-Buddhist
gods called dewata with Sanskrit names are incorporated in Agami Jawi. Dewi Sri
comes from Sri, the consort of Vishnu, and in Java is the goddess of fertility
and rice. There are traditional pre-Hindu elements in the religion. Semar is
the divine trickster acting as an intermediary between the gods and man, and in
the wayang, the shadow-puppet play, he is a clown who is servant and guardian
to the heroes of the Bratayuda, the Javanese version of the Mahabharata.
Spirits are central to traditional Javanese belief and include ancestral
spirits, guardian spirits who are the soul's twin, and guardian spirits of holy
places such as old wells, old banyan trees, and caves. There are also ghosts,
spooks, giants, fairies, and dwarfs. Magic gives magical power to certain
persons and parts of the body, plants, rare animals, and objects. Traditional
concepts of death and the afterlife have been influenced by Islam. At the
centre of Javanese religion is the slametan ritual, a communal feast. Agami
Islam Santri doctrines are determined by dogmatic Islamic concepts. The
shari'ah, Islamic law, is applied and the dominant legal school is that of
al-Shafi'i. Besides the obligatory prayers five times a day, there are
voluntary personal prayers called ndonga which can be at any time.
History Before the
coming of Indian religions the early religion of Java was based on ancestor
worship, spirits, magical power in natural phenomena, and saced objects used by
man. Trade from South India brought Hinduism in about the fourth century CE.
Indian culture and religion was to completely dominate Java for centuries. The
first traces of Hindu-Javanese and Buddhist-Javanese civilisation date from the
eighth century. From the eighth to the early fifteenth century temples (called
candi after a name of the goddess Durga) were built from the Dieng Plateau in
Central Java to Candi Kedaton in East Java. The main concentration is in
Central and East Java. Near Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of Java, is
located the large ninth century Saivite temple of Prambanan as well as the
largest Buddhist stupa in the world, Borobudur, built in the same century. The
proximity of such important religious complexes shows that Javanese Hinduism
and Javanese Buddhism lived peacefully together. Indian civilisation was
developed in these ancient empires of Central Java from the eighth to the tenth
centuries and in the ancient empires of East Java from the eleventh to the
fifteeenth centuries. In East Java this civilisation was more
characteristically Javanese. During the fourteenth century another religion
came from India. This was Islam arriving from Gujarat, first becoming established
on the north coast of Java at Demak and Gresik. Trade was the main factor
involved and a number of powerful Islamic trading cities developed. With a
background of mysticism in Javanese Hinduism, mystical Islam or Sufism proved
attractive and influenced early Javanese literary works. Puritanical Islam came
later with pilgrims returning from the haj, pilgrimage, to Mecca. These
mercantile cities undermined the declining Majapahit empire of East Java.
Muslim wali or holy men spread Islam into the interior of East and Central
Java. The Mataram empire of Central Java resisted Islam, which reached there by
force in the second half of the eighteenth century. Hindu-Buddhist centres in
Central Java only superficially accepted Islam, and developed the syncretistic
Agami Jawi. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries the Javanese
mystical and pantheistic view of God was mixed with Islamic elements. There
have always been numerous kebatinan kejawen, spiritual movements. Kebatinan
means the search for truth from the Arabic batin, truth. From the late 1960's
there has been a considerable increase in the kebatinan movements.
Symbols Buddhist and
Hindu symbols are found all over Java, reflecting centuries of Indian
civilisation. Many of the ancient temples are built in the form of Mount Meru,
the cosmic mountain of Indian mythology which is the axis of the world.
Borobudur is the supreme example of this. This stone mountain with its
thousands of carvings in galleries stretching over five kilometres is a micocosm
of life with the different levels of the monument representing the different
levels of existence. The central stupa at the top is the symbol of heaven. Many
of the deities in Agami Jawi are of Hindu-Buddhist origin. The puppet figures
in the wayang are based on the Mahabharata, though the wayang predates Hinduism
coming to Java. The puppets perhaps once represented deceased ancestors. The
clown Semar is a survival of early times. Islam banned the human form, causing
the puppets to become ugly and grotesque and unlike humans. They became so
stylised that they are symbols rather than actual human figures. Nearly every
town on Java has a mosque and minaret, together with the traditional use of
Islamic symbols. Those who have been on the haj to Mecca wear a white peci on
their head. The very important slametan ritual is a communal feast which
symbolises the mystic and social unity of all taking part, and besides friends,
relatives, neighbours, and colleagues, this includes spirits, ancestors, and
gods. Batik may have come from Turkey or Egypt in the twelth century. For seven
centuries it was the preserve of women in royal families, who regarded it as a
spiritual discipline and form of meditation. The symbols used in batik designs
are endless and include ancient stylised symbols as well as traditional,
Indian, Chinese, and European motifs, which vary from region to region.
Adherents Java has a
population of 110 million. 97.3 per cent of these are officially Muslim. The
remainder are Roman Catholics, Protestants, or Buddhists. In South Central Java
there are recent converts to Hinduism (Koentjaraningrat in Eliade 1987, Vol. 7,
559). Only 5-10 per cent follow Agami Islam Santri with 30 per cent following
Agami Jawi. The rest are only nominal Muslims called abangan, whose religion is
based more on animism, mysticism, Javanese Hinduism and Javanese Buddhism. In
Central Java there are large areas that are still Hindu-Buddhist (Dalton 1988,
155). In 1982 the province of Central Java had 93 kebatinan movements with a total
of 123,570 adherents. Nineteen of the most important ones are in Surakarta with
about 7,500 adherents. The four largest movements are Susila Sudi Darma
(SUBUD), Paguyuban Ngasti Tunggal (PANGESTU), Paguyuban Sumarah, and Sapta
Darma. Kebatinan movements can be found all over Java, though, and are divided
into aliran kecil, small movements of not more than two hundred adherents, and
aliran besar, large movements with thousands of adherents (Koentjaraningrat in
Eliade 1987, Vol. 7, 562). There are estimated to be 148 religious sects on
Java, mainly in Central and East Java (Dalton 1988, 155) The Sultan of
Yogyakarta is looked upon as a god by his followers.
Headquarters/Main centre Islam: Jakarta; the Muhammadiyah movement of
Agami Islam Santri: Yogyakarta; Kebatinan movements: Surakarta; Buddhism:
Borobudur; Hinduism: South Central Java.