Pawukon: From incest, calendar, to horoscope

Abstract

Javanese calendar has several cycles, i.e. 5 days (pasaran), 6 days (paringkelan), 7 days (week), 8 days (padangon and padewan), 30 days (month), and 365 days (year). There is another 210- day cycle caled pawukon which divided into 30 part caled wuku. This cycle originated from an incest tale about a king named Prabu Watugunung which married his mother named Dewi Sinta and his aunt named Dewi Landep. In this marriage they had 27 sons and all of them are called wukus. In this tale it was told that this incestuous relationship caused some havoc in the world and the gods decided to kill this family. After some struggle, all of them are killed and then the gods brought them up to paradise one by one starting from Dewi Sinta and ended with Prabu Watugunung. This ascencion needs 30 weeks (210 days) because to be ascended one wuku had to wait for 7 days, and after one cycle is finished the cycle starts all over again. The establishment of a cycle of pawukon is regarded as an effort to create a cosmos out of chaos (incestuous relationship), and furthermore pawukon is used as a kind of horoscope to determine one's fate in the future. It is because the cosmos is regarded as a clockwork in which each element of this clockwork works in a predetermined fashion.