Lord Siva and Buddha (In the Golden Isles in Search of Classical Indonesia)

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This volume narrates the shared culture of India and Indonesia for fifteen centuries in the domains of polity and societal norms, language and literature, architectonies and aesthetics. This inter-flow began in the first century but is documented by the inscriptions of Mülavarman and Pürņavarman around 400 AC. Indonesia shared with India words and kävyas, Mahabharata and Rāmāyaņa, Šaiva and Buddhist philosophy, wayang and lakons, sculptures and paintings, dance and music. From the Classical centuries down to the hymn to Merdeka 'Freedom' from Sanskrit Maharddika, to the architectural wonders of Prambanan and Borobudur, or the jottings and sketch of President Sukarno in the diary of Prof. Raghuvira are a panoramic view. In the words of Toynbee "Borobudur holds my heart: it is a holy of holies for me". A new interpretation of the reliefs of the Borobudur enriches the chapter on 'Buddhist monuments, texts and icons. Continuation of the Kawi- Sanskrit heritage in modern names and in Bahasa Indonesia in general, 'Sanskrit in Indonesia' by Prof. Jan Gonda and its translation in Bahasa by Prof. Harimurti Kridalaksana, the letters of the alphabet as auspiciousness - recall the rich intensity of the Hindu-Javanese tradition. Rāmāyaņa Kakawin in its Zen-like simplicity, as reliefs at Prambanan, as a guide to good governance in the advice of President Suharto, in the wayang ballet which moved Charles Chaplin to say "dying at such a moment could only mean one thing: happiness", or in the comparative study of the OJ and Sanskrit versions - all create the mindscape of valorisation, Mahābhārata in the literary and per- forming arts, or new treatises like "The Pious Bhima' (Bīma Suci), cleaning the village and Mahābhārata are presented here as the multiple aspects of what Prof. Supomo termed "Javanisation of the Bharata and the Sanskritisation of Java". Chapters on 'Exploring Old Javanese literature' (poetry, didactics, grammar, purāņa, Chandahkaraņa: the art of writing poetry), 'Bali: the Isle of Temples', historic and linguistic heritage of Malaysia and Philippines, illumine the thought of the Golden Isles.

The book is a homage to the extensive field-work and intensive researches of Prof. Raghuvira, his children, disciples and friends: Indian, Indonesians and Europeans. It investigates the diverse vicissitudes of cultural history as a unique phenomenon of two cousin cultures. The sky-kissing candis, kakawins, parwas, wayangs are melodies that resonate in the carnival of Time and in the kiss of the Eternal. Here you may hear the conch shell resounding on the coconut leaves on the shores of the seas sanctified by the Temple of Varuna, the only one in the world.

The heart and mind, the cosmology of embodiment of new sensitivities and creativities, the dynamism and vitality of two peoples, remote in ethnicity and language, is the millenarian quest narrated in the following pages. What Indonesia shared with India for fifteen centuries in her aesthetic structure is her ascent on bold wings high above the times it commenced, down to the centuries that Indonesian kings, poets, architects and artists saw dawning in the mirror of centuries to come: all is a reflection of an all-embracing perfection. The cultural interflow between us has been harmonised to form a more sublime whole, as in the Borobudur or in the Candi Loro Jongran. or in Candi Sambisari which I and sister Sudarshana saw just when it was being laid bare, with every limb of its structure fresh and young as if sculpted yesterday. This book begins with a recount of the cultural roots and ethos of Indonesia as the reality of her identity, in which art and language were a fundamental cultural context. Culture has been the movement of the spirit of Indonesia and the values which materialise within it will be the ascent of the future: wayang purwa is the dignity of the Indonesian mind and an encounter with their depths. Cassirer (Philosophie der symbolischen Formen) says that symbolic forms like myth, art, etc are acts of creative achievement, and the most elemental symbolic form is language that shapes reality. The potency of the Classical Kawi-Sanskrit inheritance has been giving shape to Bahasa Indonesia: "Language is the house of Being. In its abode dwells Man" (Heidegger, Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit, Berne. 1947:53)