Java: A Self-Critical Examination of the Nation and its History

Abstract

Previous studies have tended to focus on the religious and mythic dimension of Java’s intellectual life, often emphasizing the reception and transmission of foreign myths (or theologies) and the esoteric and otherworldly nature of Javanese thought. But Javanese intellectual life was not just a myth-making factory nor was it divorced from the more or less universal concern of mankind for the regulation of human behaviour. It was heir to a long tradition of moral and socio-political discourse (the two are difficult to separate) reflecting distinctively (but not exclusively) Javanese values. A notable example is the highly king-centric nature of discussion of the polity, which focused on the qualities required by kings and their ministers, and emphasized service of the king [ngawula] as the supreme moral end of human life. Along with kingship went an all-pervasive hierarchy, with the blood royal conferring on those who possessed it the highest status, and the priyayi, next below them, subdivided into precisely differentiated ranks clearly marked by such devices as sumptuary laws. Another enduring value was the emphasis on the subduing of the natural man through very demanding forms of asceticism, leading to the acquisition of the virtues and qualities and high degree of self-discipline needed by the governing elite.