Java

BY G. VENKATACHALAM ¹

About thousand years ago, a batch of Hindu merchants and missionaries sailed across the seas and colonised two large islands in the Far East, the islands of Sumatra and Java. Subsequent centuries saw a continuous flow of colonists from Kalinga, the Cholamandala and Gujerat, who soon established powerful kingdoms all over the islands and gradually introduced their faiths and arts.

From the fourth to the twelfth century A. D., great Hindu empires flourished and a line of wise and beneficent monarchs ruled over a prosperous and peaceful people. They built great cities and erected beautiful temples to enshrine their gods. The Polynesian and Malayan races that originally inhabited the islands soon became Indianised, and the culture and civilisation of the people for over a thousand years, remained purely Indian.

The earliest reference to Java is in the Ramayana, where it is described as "a land of rich corn and gold mines." Tradition and history aver the arrival of a large number of colonists from Gujerat, under the leadership of one Aji Saka, about the first century A. D. Fa Hian, the intrepid Chinese traveler, who visited India about the beginning of the fourth century, records his meeting ‘Brahmins’ there, and some even sailed with him in his ship to China.

But, over and above these fragmentary records, there are monumental remains of temples, pagodas and stupas, with elaborate carvings and inscriptions, which give a continuous history of the land for over ten centuries. There is now available, thanks to the untiring efforts of the Dutch savants, a complete history of Java for this period; and recent researches in this direction by Indian scholars have thrown additional light on the subject of Greater India; and there is also a growing interest on this subject, not only concerning Java but Siam, Annam, Cambodia and Bali, all of which still bear the hall-mark of Hindu and Buddhist culture.

The visit of Rabindranath Tagore, a few years ago, marked a distinct progress in the relationship between India and Java, and as a result of his visit, a society was formed in India under the name of ‘The Greater India Society,’ to study and to investigate into the history of the maritime enterprise and colonising capacity of the ancient Hindus, and of their distant and far-flung colonies in the east as well as in the west. These places of old Indian civilisation are becoming pilgrim centres for art students, the architectural and sculptural wonders of Java being about the grandest and the most famous of them all.

The island of Java lies in a south-easterly direction to India, roughly about 1800 miles from the coast of Madras, and is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, rich with varieties of flora, unknown in other parts of the world including Ceylon. From its palm-fringed coasts to the cloud-covered peaks, it is one mass of rich evergreen vegetation which makes the island a veritable garden of paradise. Spices, sugarcane, tea, coffee and rubber are the natural results of the fertile volcanic soil and of the abundant rains available all through the year.

The island is one vast estate, owned mostly by the Dutch, and the agricultural wealth is immense. The mountains of Java are full of active volcanoes and are interesting by themselves. Hundreds of miles of good roads run throughout the country, and motoring is a pleasure, though the Malay drivers are a reckless lot, dangerous to person and property. The smooth tarred roads look like giant shiny snakes crawling through dark-green forests.

The Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg, forty miles from Batavia, is the show-place and pride of the island. It is far more beautiful than the famous Peradeniya gardens at Kandy in Ceylon. Tall towering kanari trees, thick shady warringen, sausage and candle trees, intercepted by vivid-leafed bougainvillaea creepers and other flaming flower plants, make the garden eve so fascinating. Buitenzorg is also the summer capital of the Dutch East Indies, the Simla of Java, the seat of the Governor-General and the hill resort for fashionable folk. The modern town of Weltverden or Batavia Centrum, is a garden city of open spaces well laid out paths and parks and neatly built villas. It is one of the cleanest cities in the world and has an ideal town-planning for a tropical climate.

The people are a mixture of Polynesian, Mongolian and Aryan races. They had once seen a great and glorious civilisation and are the inheritors of a wonderful culture. Though today they profess Islam, one can trace in their real life and arts the Hindu origin of their culture. The Balinese, who took shelter in the little island of Bali, east of Java, refusing to be proselytised by the Moors and the Arabs, represent the old stock of Hinduized Javanese. They are a picturesque race, one of the most attractive in the world, and their womenfolk are exceedingly beautiful with a warm, sensuous bronze complexion and smooth, soft skin. They still retain some of the beautiful characteristics of the island races of the Pacific–simplicity, naturalness, fondness for flowers and love of laughter.

Life is simple here as in rural India. Steamed rice is their staple food, with hot chutneys and ripe bananas. Betel and tobacco chewing is common as in Malabar. The native dress consists of hand-patterned cotton or silk sarongs, worn by men and women alike, and they are tied round the waist in the fashion of the South Indian dhoti. Women wear a jacket, made of lovely batik, and men tie round their heads a piece of coloured cloth, often a big bright flower stuck rakishly above the ear. Cock fights are their favourite pastime, and idleness their chief national characteristic. Literacy is very low, and their Dutch masters have taken good care that the educational system introduced by them results in the mass production of loyal and efficient clerks to help them in their administration.

Though Java is known to the outside world for its sugar, rubber and spices, it is now becoming more widely known for the marvelous old-world monuments of Hindu and Buddhist temples which abound there. The great stupa at Borobudur, an epic in architecture, is now as widely known as the Pyramids of Egypt, as Ajanta in India, as Persepolis in Persia, or the Partheon in Greece. The Siva and Vishnu temples at Prambanam are a rival, in their beauty and grandeur, to Ellora or Madura, and are no less famous. In a word, the monuments of Java are the culmination and perfection of the art of the stone-builders and carvers of ancient India.

Borobudur is the crowning achievement of Indian art, the noblest creation of man in praise of the Buddha, a supreme embodiment of man’s devotion, industry, patience and genius and India–lands of mighty monuments–possess nothing to equal it in sheer beauty and perfection. Borobudur is a saga in stone, a purana in pictures, a song in sculpture. It is the full flowering of the creative genius of a race; the results of thousands of years of ceaseless artistic effort and expression.

Ajanta and Ellora, in India, exemplify the super-human energy and patience of ancient builders; Borobudur reveals their sensitive aesthetic nature and subtle technical skill. Ellora and Ajanta are mighty, grand and awe-inspiring; Borobudur is beautiful, elegant and refined. From Bharhut to Borobudur is a story of over a thousand years of India’s art history and while the greatness of Bharhut monuments is primitive, vital, strong and compelling, the beauty of Borobudur is classic, sweet, gentle and pleasing. In the friezes of Borobudur we see the perfection of art-forms evolved in the bas-reliefs of Bharhur railings and Sanchi tornas.

Java is rich in monumental arts. From the vigorously carved stone figures in Western Java to the delightfully designed temples of the Middle and East plateaus, the island is full of old monuments. The oldest remains, so far traced, are temples slightly resembling the monolithic raths of Mahabalipuram and of an ancient temple at Kunjarakunja near Badami in Bijapur District. Tradition traces the Hindu colonists to Gujerat and Kalinga, but there is no doubt whatsoever that part of the migration was from the Coromandel coast. The temples in the Deiyang plateau resemble closely the Hoysala architecture of Karnataka; and even one of its earliest kings bore the name of Vishnuvardhana, the friend and devotee of Sri Ramanuja the great Vaishhava philosopher and reformer.

The worship of Siva seems to have been the prevailing creed of the Hindus who colonised the island, and the cult of Agastya seems to have been a striking feature of ancient Java. The stone images of Agastya, seen in such large numbers and varieties, are some of the finest pieces of sculptural art anywhere to be seen. Buddhism came into prominence and power somewhere about the eighth century, and the overthrowing of the Hindu Power by the Sailendra kings of Sumatra resulted in the establishment of that faith throughout the island. The greatest monument built during this period of Buddhist supremacy was Borobudur, said to have been designed by one Gunadharman.

The Hindus came again into power in Central Java a century later, and raised a group of temples at Prambanam to rival in beauty and splendour the Buddhist Borobudur. The Hindu empire gradually declined, and with the inroad of the Arabs it completely disappeared from the island. The Muslim rule followed by the Portuguese and then the British and the Dutch, and today Java is the greatest Dutch colony and their main exploiting ground.

Java has other interesting things, especially for an Indian visitor, showing the extent and character of the Indian culture that had taken such deep roots there. Not only do their great mountains, rivers and cities still bear Indian names, but their heroes and gods are Hindu in their origin and nomenclature. And nowhere is that better illustrated than in their dance- drams, known as ‘Wayang-Wong. Also the characters of their shadow play, called, ‘Wayang’, are the popular Hindu heroes of Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

The origin of the drama in Java, like the origin of the drama in India, is lost in the mists of antiquity. The original inhabitants, like all ancient races the world over, must have been worshippers of the dead ancestors and heroes, and this pitri worship elaborated itself into weird rituals and ceremonies, one of which was the attempt at the visualisation of these spirits in fanciful and fantastic forms and the exhibition of them as shadows on the screen to attract the popular and superstitious fancy of the masses so as to hold them in some sort of reverence and fear.

Thus came to be born the Shadow Play, ‘Wayang,’ the oldest of Javanese dramatic representations. When Hindu culture reached the shores of Java and completely Indianised the native civillisation, in the early years of the first century A.D., the two great epics of the conquerors–the Ramayana and the Mahabharata rendered into shadow plays, and from that time these two themes have been the most popular of their entertainments. There are several kinds of ‘Wayangs.’ Some are sacred and performed only during certain ceremonial occasions, and others are merely for the amusement of the general public.

These plays are usually shown in open-air theatres erected for the purpose. They consist of a raised platform in the middle of which is hung a white curtain. Behind the curtain are the musicians, with different kinds of instruments, each playing certain soft notes, and the ‘Dalang’ or the story-teller goes on narrating his story in a sing-song tone and manipulating the shadow-figures at the same time. These figures, queer, loong-armed, thin-bodied, with funny-shaped eyes and long-drawn noses, representing characters of the play, are cut out of leather, painted and gilded. Figures of Krishna and Arjuna, especially, are extremely intriguing with their strikingly suggestive moods and passions. The whole drama is enacted in this fashion for a whole night, and often, for several consecutive nights.

In. ‘Wayang-Wong,’ which is a dance-drama like Kathakali or Krishna-Attam, human characters are introduced, and these living actors interpret the story through movement, pse and gesture, accompanied by instrumental music called ‘Gamelon.’ The Javanese are born dancers, and their costumes and head-dresses are exceedingly beautiful and artistic. The stage-setting for these plays is simple and dignified. There are no crudely painted curtains, as in Indian theatres, but plain grounds with either a richly carved wooden design of Kirtimukha or Makara Torana or coloured batik cloths hung tastefully. At times, levels are used which add to the beauty of the stage and help to get good grouping effects. The colour scheme is warm, chaste and pure, with nothing loud or vulgar anywhere. The dresses of the actors harmonise with the settings, and the whole scene is natural and effective. The soft melodies played by the ‘Gamelons’ enhance the beauty of the play and the whole atmosphere is soothing to the nerves. A play is better appreciated under those conditions than when there are glaring lights, crude colours and sickening sights shrieking at one as on the Indian stage. What valuable lessons our film producers and theatre managers can learn from these our neighbours, the Javanese actors!

Java is rich in art-crafts too. The Javanese craftsmen can and do excel other craftsmen of the world in the decorative designing and intricate patterning of their art-crafts. Their batik work is world famous; so are their silver filigrees and woodcarvings. These beautiful handcrafts have now been more or less cheapened and commercialised by their Dutch masters, and as in India, though not so completely crushed out, still linger and thrive in remote corners waiting for the dawn of a better day.

Java is indeed well worth a visit, not only for its attractive scenes and magnificent monuments, but also for a proper study and understanding of the nature and extent of the ancient culture and civilisation of India, and the only way to appreciate them at their best is to visit the country and see for oneself the glory and beauty of this old ‘island-India.’

Truly, what do they know of India who only India know?

1 A recent Broadcast Talk from the Madras Station of the All India Radio.