Chapter 3 Better to Touch the Heart: Performing Sufi Songs (Suluk) in the Sĕrat Cĕnthini

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Nancy K. Florida
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Abstract

Opening with a discussion of a controversial painting by the contemporary Muslim cleric and artist, Mustofa Bisri, this essay reflects upon the role that artistic expression can play in the spiritual life of Javanese Muslims. The focus of the essay turns upon an exploration of the performance of Sufi poetry (suluk) in song and dance as it is portrayed in the Sĕrat Cĕnthini, an early nineteenth-century masterpiece of Javanese literature that narrates the imagined adventures of several seventeenth-century wandering students of Islamic religion (santris). These poems, activated through their performance by both men and women as a form of devotional practice, disclose the embodiment of spirit that characterized much of the metaphysical life of Javanese Sufis in earlier times and that still reverberates into the present.

In early 2003 the Indonesian Council of Religious Scholars (Majelis Ulama Indonesia)1 condemned the trademark “drilling dance” of the then wildly popular East Javanese dangdut artist2 Inul Darutista (b. 1979). Calling for a ban of her performances in the Javanese heartland city of Yogyakarta, they deemed her dance to be a form of “pornoaksi.” The “drill” (ngĕbor) consisted of a gyrating, grinding movement of the singer-dancer’s hips. In the “Inulmania” that followed the condemnation, her popularity soared, and her erotic dance movements were widely criticized as exemplars of sinful Western decadence that were in violation of Indonesian Islamic standards (Weintraub 2008).

Inul’s body became a lingering focus of discussion in the following years, as conservative, modernist Muslim legislators promoted passage of a national law against pornografi and pornoaksi. In 2006 Inul was called before the Indonesian congressional panel that framed Law 44 on Pornography; she famously left the room in tears after one of her fellow dangdut artists denounced her before the panel.3 The pornography law was ultimately ratified in October 2008. Among the many things banned by the law is the performance of bodily movements (gerak badan), or dance, that exploit sexuality.4

At the time of the controversy, Inul was not without her clerical defenders, however. Among those condemning the 2003 fatwa of the Indonesian Council of Religious Scholars was the late Abdurrahman Wahid (1940–2009), former President of Indonesia and former chairman of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (or NU), which is said to number some 40 million members. Wahid, a self-proclaimed fan of Inul, declared that the fatwa banning her dance had misused religious precepts in order to suppress freedom of expression. Another cleric who entered into the Inul controversy at that time was A. Mustofa Bisri (or Gus Mus) (b. 1944), the head (or kyai) of a prominent traditional Muslim school (or pĕsantren) in Rembang, Central Java. Mustofa Bisri is one of Indonesia’s most distinguished clerics: he has served both as deputy to the chairman and as chairman (Rais Aam Syuriah) of NU. Gus Mus is also a published poet and a painter. At the height of the Inul controversy, he produced a painting that he titled Berdzikir Bersama Inul (Performing Zikir with Inul). Zikir means “remembrance” and denotes devotional practices in remembrance of God, often through the repeated recitation of Islamic devotional utterances.5

Figure 3.1
Figure 3.1

A. Mustofa Bisri, Berdzikir Bersama Inul (Performing Zikir with Inul), 2003 (60 × 70 cm.)

With permission of K.H.A. Mustofa Bisri

The focal point of the painting is an emphatically fleshy Inul, faceless and without any details of body or costume, in deep plié – presumably performing her drilling maneuver; rendered larger than life, she is frozen in the center of a circle of also-faceless ulama (Muslim scholars) that are said to be performing zikir. One of the ulama is the artist himself: we know this because an arrow and the word aku indicate that “this one is me.” In March 2003, the painting was exhibited in the Grand Mosque of Surabaya as part of its Muharram “Making Life Beautiful” exhibition. There were arson threats – to Mustofa Bisri’s home and pĕsantren and to the Grand Mosque itself. Fortunately, nothing came of any of these threats (Tempo, March 10, 2003).

It is reported that Bisri usually refuses to comment on the painting’s meaning. He has, however, on occasion offered his interpretations, at one time noting that the painting was not meant to criticize Inul but rather to expose the empty piety of “the pious” who were attacking her. The painting was, he said, symbolic of their corrupt worldliness:

The painting of Inul symbolizes the flesh. Many Indonesians attach too much importance to the flesh: praying five times a day, making the hajj every year – and yet they remain corrupt. There are some who perform zikir till breaking down in tears – and yet, their behavior never improves.6

Commenting on the painting’s symbolic meaning in another context and at another time, he noted “that Indonesians in fact enjoy the flesh …,” before continuing on, “and please do enjoy the flesh, but remember the spirit as well.”7

I start off with this example, because when I began reading the Javanese poetic descriptions of imagined nights of Sufi zikir performances in a much earlier Java that form the focus of this essay, it was the image of Mustofa Bisri’s painting that flooded my mind. But rather than seeing the picture as a critique of worldliness or of an over-emphasis on the flesh, I imagined it more as a depiction of the interrelationship of body and spirit that is so prominent in “classical” Javanese Sufi discourse and practice – perhaps more in keeping with the artist’s second interpretive comment. I then came to wonder whether Gus Mus had been inspired, in part, by “memory shadows” of these now-erased devotional practices when he composed his painting. The posture of the (absent) woman he pictures in the center of the devotional circle, of which he is a participant, is in some ways more like that of a classical Javanese dancer than that of a raunchy dangdut performer. With her missing face and clothing, she appears ambiguous – both the abstraction of a female dancer and the manifestation of that dancer’s material corporality. Mustofa Bisri’s depiction of this figure is evocative of descriptions of a much earlier form of zikir practice that was performed together with dancing women, descriptions that are found in sung poetry that was composed in early nineteenth-century Java. In these earlier portrayals, intellect and desire, bodies and spirit come together to form the heart of devotional practices that can advance man’s path to God.

1 Suluk (Sufi Songs) and the Cĕnthini

These early-nineteenth century descriptions of zikir give a sense of the earlier reading practices of classical Javanese texts that belong to a literary genre known as suluk.8 Suluk literature is a form of poetry sung in Javanese macapat meters9 for and by travelers along the mystic path. It is a poetic form that concerns the nature of the relationships between God and man, between the One and the many, and that often lingers on extended meditations on tauhid (the Unity of God). Suluk texts are at times composed in a manner that works to provoke the inexplicable experience of those relationships – the wonderment of the One that is not one, the two that are not two.

Having spent much of the past several years reading, contemplating, and translating suluk literature, I more recently turned to the renowned Javanese masterpiece, the Sĕrat Cĕnthini, to see what it might teach me about the genre. The Cĕnthini is an “encyclopedic” work of some 722 cantos of poetry that was composed in 181510 at the royal palace of Surakarta in Central Java by a collective of court poets. Commissioned and overseen by the Crown Prince who would later reign as Pakubuwana V (1785–1823; r. 1820–23), the collective was comprised of Ki Ng. Ronggasutrasna, R.Ng. Yasadipura II (a.k.a. R.T. Sastranagara [1756–1844]), and R.Ng. Sastradipura (a.k.a. Kyai Haji Muhammad Ilhar).11 The Cĕnthini belongs to a larger genre of Javanese texts that concern tales of wandering santris (students of religion) in search of knowledge broadly defined. Recognized as one of the masterpieces of classical Javanese literature, it is an expansive and exuberant work that is noted for, among many other things, its contributions to suluk literature.12

Figure 3.2
Figure 3.2

Kĕntrungan

from Palmer Keen, “Drums of Java, Pt. 2,” Aural Archipelago: Field Recordings from around Indonesia, with permission

For the most part, suluk texts in the Cĕnthini appear in narrative sequences that are set in rural pĕsantren; they often form learned dialogues among its wandering santris and other Sufi sages. A great number of the texts are plucked – and abbreviated – from other earlier exemplars of suluk. It was when I was combing the Cĕnthini for such narrative sequences that I found the specific poetic representations of embodied spiritual practice in artistic performance that brought Mustofa Bisri’s painting to my mind. Towards the very end of this remarkable epic are several distinct narrative sequences that describe, in detail, devotional performances of suluk in song and dance by and for mixed groups of male and female travelers across Java and, at least for some of them, on the path to God. In these poetic depictions, the performance of these Sufi texts, as zikir, are accompanied by ensembles of frame drums called tĕrbang and kĕntrung.13 This essay will explore one of these performances.

2 A Quick Caveat

A caution: you will see that there are elements in the devotional performance depicted in these passages that could lend themselves to the tired old argument that “traditional” Javanese Islam is not real Islam – that it is a deviant form, strangely alien from an imagined central, stable, normative Islam. I am convinced that a historically sensitive, textually dense analysis of the practices depicted as sunna (normative or recommended, in congruence with the practices of the Prophet Muhammad) by this courtly Javanese nineteenth-century poetic collective could – if it were carried out in comparison with other (similar and dissimilar) devotional practices across the Muslim world that have, across time, also been hailed as sunna – effectively dispel that tired old argument which has sought to dismiss “Javanese Islam” as a peculiarly syncretic oddity.14 Such an analysis is, alas, beyond the constraints of this little essay – and beyond my competence. So, the best I can do here is to raise the caution.

3 The Cĕnthini’s Narrative Frames

So, first on the Cĕnthini: the poem, one of Java’s most well-known and little read works of literature, comprises an imaginative narrative of the adventures of the children of the last great Saint of Giri, ruler of an important sixteenth- and seventeenth-century East Javanese polity that was led by a “dynasty” of distinguished clerics. When, in 1636, the Lord of Giri was defeated and captured by the ascendant sultan of the Central Javanese kingdom of Mataram, it is said that three of his children (two sons and a daughter) escaped. It is their stories that are among the most prominent that the poem relates. Having been separated in flight, the three wander across the Javanese landscape in search of one another, having countless adventures along the way while visiting myriad sacred and haunted places across the land, especially the small rural Muslim pĕsantren of a series of ulama and Sufi sheikhs.15

The hero of this epic poem is the eldest of the three, who eventually takes the name Sheikh (Seh) Amongraga (the name means “He who Nurtures the Body”)16 and distinguishes himself in theological, and especially Sufi, discourses with the many ulama and sheikhs that he encounters along the way. His younger siblings, the youth Mangunarsa (Awakening Desire)17 and his little sister Rancangkapti (Shaping the Will), having been separated from their elder brother – their wanderings are, in part, in search of him, are only reunited with him toward the end of this thousands-of pages-long poem. After many adventures and a discipleship to a prominent sheikh, Amongraga comes to marry Tambangraras (Bringing together in Bliss and Forsaking Pleasure),18 who is later known as Selabrangti (Diamond of Love); she is the learned daughter of the respected ulama and Sufi kyai, Ki Bayi Panurta of Wanamarta (Forest of Coolness). Amongraga initiates her into the mysteries both of metaphysical Sufism and of the erotic arts before continuing on his way. When her two brothers Jayengrĕsmi (Master of Beauty)19 and Jayengraga (Master of the Body), and much later Tambangraras and her servant, Cĕnthini,20 go in search of the missing groom, the stories of their wanderings become intertwined with those of the three children of Giri. A third narrative strand, also concerning a wandering santri, is woven together with the previous two. It concerns the adventures of Ki Anggungrimang (Always Longing), formerly known as Mas Cĕbolang (He Who Steals Away), who, aptly, steals away from his father’s pĕsantren of Sokayasa to embark upon his spiritual and amorous journeys, eventually to marry Rancangkapti.21

Towards the end of this many thousands-of-pages-long poem, the protagonist Sheikh Amongraga establishes his own pĕsantren on the south coast of Java. When he retreats into meditation in his newly constructed mosque, his two trusted attendants lead his thousands of followers into wildly antinomian forms of devotional practice.22 Once word of the community’s outrageous transgressions of the Prophet’s law (or sharīʿa) comes to the ears of the Sultan, he, as caliph and protector of the faith, orders their leader’s execution. This has been our hero’s plan all along: Amongraga longs for the separation from the world that comes with death and willingly enters an iron cage that is poised to be swept into the sea. The locked cage is carried into the depths, but presently returns to shore – with Syeikh Amongraga’s salam resounding in the heavens. And the cage is empty.

But the separation from the world of Amongraga (or “He Who Nurtures the Body”) is not final; he is to reappear in the closing portion of the Cĕnthini. Emerging from divine Mystery in bodily form, the spirit-body of Amongraga returns finally to meet his siblings, his wife, her brothers, and the wandering Anggungrimang to offer them his final teachings and guidance in matters of Islamic thought and practice. It is fragments from a passage that belongs to this ascendant stage of the narrative that will be discussed below.

4 A Night of Sufi Devotions in Seventeenth-Century Java as Imagined at the Early Nineteenth-Century Palace of Surakarta

It was in this form of embodied spirit that Amongraga enters into a remarkable narrative passage on suluk performance that I encountered while combing through the Cĕnthini. This passage, which will form the heart of this essay, comprises canto 691 of the 722-canto composition; composed in over 1500 lines of Asmarandana verse,23 the passage constructs a description, in detail, of a single night of devotions performed by a mixed group of men and women travelers along the Sufi path. For a complete cast of characters in this excerpt, see appendix below. Beginning with Qurʾanic interpretation, the night proceeds to readings of sacred tales of Islam in Arabic and the performance of Arabic praise songs (slawatan) – to climax with the singing of Javanese Sufi poetry (that is, suluk) by a series of women and men who, one by one, rise in the circle of Sufi practitioners to recite the allusive poetry of mystical union as their voices soar and bodies move to the musical accompaniment of the tĕrbang and kĕntrung frame drums.

The setting is Ardi Pala (Mount Merit), a small rural pĕsantren, imaginatively located in the East Javanese mountains south of present-day Surabaya. Owing to a series of coincidences, as night falls it comes to pass that almost the entire cast of wanderers has finally come to be gathered together at the home of Malangkarsa (Impeding the Will), the kyai of the pĕsantren. The brothers Jayengrĕsmi and Jayengraga together with their wives have been stopping there on their way to their father’s pĕsantren Wanamarta (Forest of Coolness). Then Amongraga’s younger brother Mangunarsa, now the kyai of the pĕsantren Wanantaka (Forest of Death), arrives. He is accompanied by Anggungrimang and his wife Rancangkapti, along with Cĕnthini and her husband Monthel. Most of the extended family has gathered – all save Amongraga and Tambangraras. The evening opens with Mangunarsa’s interpretive reading of the well-known Qurʾanic verse, so beloved by Sufis, “Everything is annihilated except His Face” (Qurʾan 28: 88).

Then, as the full moon rises, the assembled travelers take up frame drums and begin to play and sing. They join the people of Mt. Merit in a slawatan performance, which, Malangkarsa tells them, is the local custom (adat) and a form of normative Islamic practice (“sunna”).24

As we shall see, slawatan on Mt. Merit consisted of the performance both of joyous Arabic praise songs to the Prophet Muhammad and of Javanese suluk. For the people there the slawatan was the preferred form of zikir – one that should be performed in song (and sometimes dance) to the accompaniment of frame drums. As the rural Sufi Malangkarsa explains to his noble guests, it is through musical performance in the devotional practice of slawatan that the senses of suluk are best brought into both human understanding and human experience:

Our understanding of this stanza, and the one above, rests upon an understanding of the polysemic Javanese term rasa. “Rasa” indicates the place, or better the experience in and through which something outside – say, an idea – is taken inside, incorporated or ensouled by the one who has that rasa. It is meaning and feeling and sense and taste and mystery: through it, ideas and emotions come to touch, transform, and move the heart. Performing suluk in music and dance cultivates that rasa, thereby allowing for an opening to clarity that prepares the self to come into the presence of the divine. Translated as “presencing” above is the word pangojrat. The root ojrat (from the Arabic ujrat) means “recompense, return, requital, price, payment” (Wehr 1976: 5). According to Gericke-Roorda (1901, 1: 148), the Javanese “ojrat” names slawatan performances that tell of the rewards and punishments of the afterlife.26 But in his encyclopedic survey of the Javanese performing arts, Pigeaud (1938: 315) speculated that “ojrat” could, instead, be a Javanized sounding of the Arabic ḥaḍra, the presence or presencing of God through devotional practice.27

When the slawatan on Mt. Merit commences, the sounds of the drums and of the men’s and women’s voices ring out across the countryside in the night air.28 Hearing these voices and the music of the kĕntrungan, scores of villagers stream to the pĕsantren to join in the devotions. They too lift their voices in song. The poem lingers on the description of the arriving village girls – lovely and eager to attract the attentions of the noble young wanderers who have come together at the humble home of the village kyai (691: 55–61).

It is only after this host of singing humanity has assembled at the village mosque that Amongraga makes his appearance, materializing out of Mystery in bodily form. Effused in light, the sight of him is nearly overwhelming, and all fall silent. He is accompanied by his wife Tambangraras and their disciple Ragasmara (Body of Love) (691: 63–71). After exchanging greetings with family and friends, Amongraga charges the company to continue with their devotions, but he specifically requests that the singers of the slawatan texts add dance to their song.

It is Amongraga, then, who determines that the best or most noble (utama) articulation of this sunna is its performance in ecstatic song and dance that is done in worship of God. The rest of the night is spent almost entirely in solo, or sometimes duet or trio, singing performed in turns by members of the assemblage, usually with dance, always to the accompaniment of the tĕrbangs and kĕntrung. What they sing, for the most part, are abbreviated versions of oracular Javanese suluk. Suluk comprise songs that write allusively of the nature of man (body and spirit), often exploring the potential of human perfection in and through God. They frequently pose questions that concern the relationship between, and the paradoxical organic unity of, apparent binaries – among these: inside and outside, body and spirit, death and life, and ultimately, the defining relationship between God and man.

5 Ni Pĕlangi’s Performance

The first to perform is Ni Pĕlangi (Ms. Rainbow), a beautiful young woman who is married to Malangkarsa’s associate Modang. Modang is a kĕntrung performer and ulama – that is, he is a professional dhalang kĕntrung30 whose day job it is to teach in the village pĕsantren. Pĕlangi, an experienced and talented performer, is also an inveterate flirt. Indeed, she is a veritable body of desire: herself nearly consumed by her palpable desire for the one of noble wanderers (Jayengraga), her body and voice in turn become the site where the desires of men are awakened. Pĕlangi is accompanied by an ensemble of four tĕrbang and one kĕntrung; the players are the ulama of Mt. Merit. The frame drums resound; the song is begun, in the sĕkar gadhung style.31

Aside from the onomanapoetic drum notes and the name of the song form, we have no way of knowing precisely what the performance sounded like, even though in the following stanza Pĕlangi’s penetrating voice is likened to the sound of a tuned bamboo “whistle” attached to a kite that is soaring in the wind. But to have a sense of voice and drums in Javanese performance genres related to this now apparently vanished devotional form of suluk recitation, one can access contemporary audio and video recordings of kĕntrungan performances that are available online. For a woman’s vocal performance – perhaps as lovely as that of Pĕlangi – there is a video recording of “Ngentrung Janeng Putri Sejati” in the village of Langse, Pati.35 The ethnomusicologist Palmer Keen has produced a fine audio recording of a performance of the male kĕntrungan ensemble, Grup Slawatan Surya Muda, of Kali Bening, Banyumas, Central Java.36 To view a men’s choral performance, see the charming video recorded in Kalisasak, Banyumas.37

Ni Pĕlangi begins her performance: rising to her feet, she adjusts her breast cloth and sings as she moves to the rhythm of the frame drums (one of which is now wielded by Amongraga himself); her dance is sensual. I imagine her, like the figure in Bisri’s painting, a woman in the middle of a circle of ulama, body inclined, bending low in a deep plié, hips prominent. Her voice, a pure soprano, is clear and sweet and penetrating like “the sound of finely tapered bamboo playing in the wind.” Her word play is excellent (Cĕnthini 691: 79). The first song she sings is an abbreviated version of Suluk Purwaduksina (The Song of Purwaduksina).38 The text comprises the teachings of the old saint Purwaduksina to his young wife. Anticipating his own death, his teachings concern the eight riddles that a woman must pose to any prospective husband. Only if he can successfully answer these riddles should she be willing to give herself to him.

The suluk is a song of riddles, each of which concerns the nature of the maskawin (that is, marriage gold, the token of material wealth that seals the marital union).39 First: wherein or what is the maskawin (the material realization) of Allah and Muhammad, the maskawin of God and man? The answer: this is found in the coming together of God’s light and your life. Second: then wherein is the maskawin of God’s Throne and His Stool? This is realized when the divine emergence bridging the divide between inner and outer (wahya kajatenipun) comes together with your rasa.40 A key term both in Javanese Sufi thought and in Javanese aesthetics, the polysemic “rasa,” we have noted, signifies “feeling; taste; flavor; emotion; sense; meaning; thought; speech; voice; mystery and essence.” The Javanese word “rasa,” not entirely unlike the English word “sense,” challenges the subject-object distinction. Its union in man with divine emergence from inner to outer seals the marriage of God’s Throne and Stool. Third: And wherein is the maskawin of day and night? This is found in the coming together of insight (arip)41 and the eye, and it yields the rasa of grace (rasaning kanugrahan). This rasa is not felt in the heart but instead dwells in dreams. Fourth: What of the maskawin of the stars and knowledge (ngelmu)? This comes in the wedding of vision and mind that moves in the depths of the beating heart of man. Fifth: The maskawin of woman and man? This is found in the union of spirit and body; its place is the marrow of your bones, and its form is eternal prayer (salat daʾim). Sixth: The maskawin of the sun and the moon? (Alas, for this riddle the saint provides no answer to his young wife, possibly to preclude her chance of remarriage upon his death.)42 Seventh: Wherein is the maskawin of the earth and the heavens? This comes with the wedding of generosity and love; it is realized in your brain and God’s mystery (sirollah). And finally, wherein is the maskawin of heaven and hell? This is found in the coming together of desire (nĕpsu) and intellect (budi); its union is yourself (and also Himself, meaning God’s self); the truth of good and evil is in knowing the comings together and the splittings apart (Cĕnthini 691: 80–86, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 9). To conclude, the old saint then oracularly interprets the poetic riddle to his young wife, in a verse that would be suspect of one or another heresy in a number of contemporary quarters:

This short and abbreviated Sufi song composed in metaphors of marriage is one of striking emotional depth. Repeatedly situating the experience of divine union within the materiality of the human body, it is testament to the embodiment of spirit. The suluk is recited by a beautiful young woman in a virtuoso vocal performance. And it is performed in movement, in dance. Both her voice and her movements are delightful – at each point that the vocal melody comes to rest (seleh), she trips lightly around the circle as if flying, and when she stops, she appears, the Cĕnthini tells us, as if she is grooming and ornamenting herself – “just like a gambyung dancer” (Cĕnthini 691: 88, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 10). I will say a bit more about the gambyung (or gambyong) dance below.

As she performs she lets her suggestive glances fall on the noble guests, especially on Jayengraga who had already so inflamed her desire. The poet describes the reactions of each of the noblemen in turn to her advances: by some her desire is answered and by others it is rebuffed. The scene is highly sexually charged. Aside from the nobles who remain aloof, all the men present are maddened by her body and her voice – and, but for the fear of her husband, would take her for themselves (they see in her expression an easy sexual mark). The sensual desires of the women participants, too, are aroused. And it is first of all toward the most enticing of the noblemen (that is Jayengraga, or “the Master of Bodies”) that these women’s bodies intend. The village women press their bodies forward unashamedly seeking his attentions, his touch. The Master of Bodies regards the women with amusement, but, to their dismay, his body remains unmoved (691: 89–96).

Of course, we cannot know precisely what this dance that awakened such desire in this host of bodies would have looked like, but we can imagine. Pĕlangi’s performance is called dhulĕng, possibly derived from dhulang (large circular wooden serving tray) and likely related to the salawat dulang performance of members of the Syattariyah Sufi “order” in West Sumatra. In this West Sumatran form, pairs of performers play large metal serving trays as if they were tĕrbang frame drums while singing Sufi lyrics in turn.48 The dhulĕng form in the Cĕnthini is performed by dancers, either women or men, and is likened in this performance by Ni Pĕlangi to the female-style gambyong dance.

The gambyong dance is associated with professional dancers (ronggeng or taledhek), female or transvestite male-to-female; and the dance movements, in part, depict the actions of a nubile young girl adorning herself for her lover. According to Sĕrat Sastramiruda, a late nineteenth-century treatise on the performing arts, this dance form dates from the early Islamic period and was composed for the zikir of enraptured, ecstatic Sufi practitioners (dul guyĕring birahi). The accompaniment was composed of tĕrbangs and drums, and the singing dance was performed by the appointed male or female santris (pupils of the kyai).49 The Sastramiruda also tells us that this form later evolved into the sensual and sexually permissive tayuban dance performed by professional dancers (ronggeng) considered to be of questionable morals ([Kusumadilaga and Kusumawardaya] 1981: 182). At the same time, the gambyong was also being cultivated into a high art form in Central Java, a status that it enjoys today. A little closer to the end of the Cĕnthini, in another night of suluk performance with many of the same cast members, Pĕlangi’s dhulĕng is likened to the highly-refined courtly dance, the srimpi – or rather like that of a ronggeng gambyong performing a srimpi (narimpi).50 Sometimes a kind of acrobatic fire dance (ngempraki) was performed with the tĕrbangan. The players (emprak) would leap about performing acrobatic tricks while holding burning wicks in their mouths from which they blew streaming fire darts (see, for example, Cĕnthini 691: 144–49, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 16).51 At times, emprak appears to have been a synonym for dhulĕng.

Figure 3.3
Figure 3.3

Gambyong dancer at the Mangkunagaran Palace, Solo, April 13, 2019, performing on the occasion of the 35-day birthday (wĕton) of Mangkunagara IX (r. 1988–2021)

Photo by Donny Danardono, with permission
Figure 3.4
Figure 3.4

Emprak, slawatan performance by youths dancing to the singing of Islamic songs

Drawing by M.Ng. Jagaradana, from Pigeaud 1938, fig. 98, 356a

Following the explosion of desire generated by Ni Pĕlangi’s first performance, the young woman sings a second suluk – Suluk Adat (Song of Custom), whose text appropriately concerns the moderation and control of bodily desires (especially the desires for food and sleep) (Cĕnthini 691: 97–106). The sexually-charged atmosphere is further cooled when Amongraga orders the tĕrbangan to continue, but with the celibate Mangunarsa’s reading of a sacred history of Islam in Arabic language and verse (691: 110–12).

6 The Noblemen Perform Slawatan in Arabic

The atmosphere soon heats up again, however, when the entire company joins in praise songs to the Prophet Muhammad in Arabic followed by a series of virtuoso performances of Arabic songs (in solo, duet, and trio) by the accomplished and handsome young noblemen who sing in turns. When Anggungrimang (Always Longing) and his companion Piturun (The Descendant) perform, they do so beautifully while flirting with Jayengraga, thereby awakening in him his sexual desire for them.52 In this homoerotic interlude, Jayengraga reminisces on the gay old days with his lovers, the boy ronggengs Sĕnu and Surat. Then it is Jayengraga’s turn to sing, and the sound of his voice drives both the women and the men in the audience mad with desire. Finally, in a scene that is not entirely unlike the rowdy Cĕnthini crowd scenes discussed by Tony Day in this volume, this portion of this night of devotions and desires culminates in the coming to blows of two of the village women who had been competing for the attentions of the fabulous Jayengraga (691: 113–32). After this, the master Amongraga, who was, of course, alert to the many dramas transpiring around him, chides the assemblage in a sung evaluation of the various gifts God grants to man: the nobilities of heart, worldly wealth, ability, beauty, intellect, and voice. The problem is that those who are too absorbed in the delights and attractions of these worldly gifts turn their backs on God. It is only those who are able “to temper their passions and abstain from deviance,” intending only to God, who are capable of finding their own perfection in the Lord. His words hit their marks, and “all who heard these words bowed their heads, humbled in their souls” (691: 134–43, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 15–16).

7 The Noblemen Perform Suluk

Sheikh Amongraga then bids the company to continue singing, but instead of Arabic texts, he requests they sing suluk in Javanese verse, accompanied by dhulĕng and emprak. As prelude to the suluk, all the assembled men and women chant the Muslim confession of faith in sĕkar gadhung song form, while Basariman, the rustic pĕngulu (Muslim religious official) of Mt. Merit, and Mangunarsa’s santri, Monthel, perform the acrobatic emprak fire-dance (691: 144–49). This spectacle is followed by the sung and danced recitation of a series of suluk by the traveling noblemen. While the gentlemen’s dance (dhulĕng) is not described, the enchantment that their voices evoke is.

The suluk chosen by the men are more abstract and esoteric than the suluk sung by the women. Pĕlangi’s first suluk had been couched in the metaphor of marriage, and her second was a moralistic and didactic work.53 The suluk performed by the men are more metaphysical and evocative of spiritual perfection. Jayengraga is the first to sing; his song is Suluk Koja-kasiyan (Song of the Pitiful Foreign Merchant), a song that critiques bodily ascetic practices, noting that the varied ascetic and ritual practices of spiritual teachers (from mountain hermits, through literati, to ulama) are worthless unless the practitioner knows “the end of life and the way of love” (691: 151–54). The suluk closes:

The spiritually advanced among the male audience apprehend the meaning of these words, and their hearts and minds are refined “like paddy rice pounded into flour” (691: 156). The village women, however, are unable to comprehend the powerful words; they are, instead, swept away in rapture by the beauty of Jayengraga’s voice (691: 157–58).

Next to perform is Anggungrimang; he sings from the esoteric Suluk Malangsumirang (The Song of Malangsumirang [the eccentric]). This metaphysical song concerns, among other things, the true nature of body and soul, which the “eccentric” Malangsumirang couches in the metaphor of a wayang shadow puppet play.54

As in the preceding performance, the hearts of the adepts are purified, while the women are thrilled and overwhelmed by the beauty of Anggungrimang’s voice. Forgetting Jayengraga, Anggungrimang alone becomes the object of their passion (691: 167–69).

He is followed by Amongraga and Tambangraras’s student, Ragasmara, who sings Suluk Purbajati (Song of the Origin, or Author, of Truth), a highly abstract Sufi meditation on ecstasy that closes with an erotic metaphor:

Not surprisingly, all present are transported by this song: their reason is shaken. While the effects of this escape from reason upon the adepts is not described, the poet lingers upon the reactions of the village women – especially those of the young widows and old maids, all of whom are wet with desire from the sound of Ragasmara’s shimmering voice (which sounds like a gambang gongsa).58 Now both Jayengraga and Anggungrimang are forgotten – Ragasmara alone is now the object of their love (691: 175–77).

The last of the noblemen to perform suluk is Anggungrimang’s companion, Piturun. He sings the highly abstract, metaphysical Suluk Jatipralena (Song of the True Death). The suluk opens:

The suluk continues with a consideration of the three forms of the Muslim Confession (sahadat): mutanakirah (the last), mutawasitah (the midmost), and muta-awilah (the first). The song turns on an analysis of these three forms as stages, ascending in rank from the last to the first, on man’s path to perfection in God. Mutanakirah (the last) is the confession of the faithful that dwells in their hearts. Filling those hearts are the mutawasitah (the midmost) and the muta-awilah (the first). The mutawasitah confession (the midmost) is the witness without associates (la sarika) that is performed by the angels who are nigh unto God. Finally, the muta-awilah confession (the first) is God’s witnessing of Himself, the worship that is granted to the Perfect Man, the Prophet Muhammad (691: 181–89). The suluk closes with a depiction of the ultimate Confession, the muta-awilah, as the final realization of man’s perfection, body and soul, declaring that with this realization:

Thus ended the kĕntrungan. As before, the women were overcome by love, but now their love was not directed at any one of nobles; instead, their ardor was both fractured and diffused in a proliferation of passion without defined destination.

8 A Conclusion

The night of sung and danced suluk performance depicted in this Cĕnthini passage progresses through oscillations between desire and the control (not suppression) of desire, culminating in this final supra-corporeal proliferation of passion, a kind of rapture. The oscillation is punctuated by the poets’ (sometimes in the voice of Amongraga) dispositions on the nature of this form of suluk practice. He/they speak on voice, body, mind, desire, and the mind’s redirection of erotic desire into a more perfect embodied desire for God. He (or they) also speak on the phenomenology of this form of suluk performance – how, depending upon the level of his or her self-perfection, each of the participants in such ecstatic nights of remembrance realizes a range of experience: from the lowly lust aroused in some of the simple village women, through the aesthetic appreciation of performance art by the more sophisticated audience, and the clear apprehension of the poetry’s metaphysical subtleties by the more advanced travelers on the path, to the divine rapture (body and soul) that is enjoyed by those who, like the wholly perfected Amongraga, have already attained the state of makripat (Ar. maʿrifa), or true knowledge.

Finally, at the close of the night, just before he is to lead the dawn prayers and then vanish back into Mystery, Amongraga pronounces his assessment of their night of devotion. This intoxicated performance of suluk, he says, is the most fitting form to effect the perfected knowledge that is makripat in the hearts of the Javanese faithful, the mukmin of Java:

Sheikh Amongraga, not entirely unlike Gus Mus, recognizes that in artistic performance, in music and dance – or in painting, performed or received as an act of devotion to God (zikir), there is something of the divine that can draw the practitioner, depending upon the development of his or her rasa, further along the path to perfection. For the faithful of Java, he says, it is in the artistic performance and reception of suluk that they can better, or more quickly, come to experience the truth of God’s Word (sabda) revealed in the Holy Qurʾan, than they can from the book of the Qurʾan itself. And with that note, the assembly breakfasts before making for the mosque to purify themselves for their dawn prayers. Amongraga leads the prayers, reciting two Qurʾanic suras61 to the collected worshippers in his fragrant, lovely voice, before stepping out of the mosque and vanishing into Mystery with his wife and their disciple.

Appendix: Cast of Characters

Amongraga (He Who Nurtures the Body), formerly known as Jayengrĕsmi (Master of Love or Beauty). Main protagonist of the Cĕnthini. Son of Sunan Giri by a secondary wife; older brother of Mangunarsa and Rancangkapti; husband of Tambangraras.

Anggungrimang (Always Longing), formerly known as Mas Cĕbolang (He Who Steals Away). Son of the Kyai of Sokayasa (Support of Creation); husband of Rancangkapti.

Basariman. Pĕngulu of Gunung Pala (Mt. Merit).

Cěnthini. Maidservant of Tambangraras; wife of Ki Monthel.

Jayengraga (Master of the Body/of Bodies). Son of Kyai Panurta, leader of the pĕsantren of Wanamarta (Forest of Coolness); younger brother of Tambangraras and Jayengrĕsmi; husband of Rarasati (Delight of the Heart).

Jayengrĕsmi (Master of Love or Beauty), formerly known as Jayengwesthi (Master of Danger). Son of Kyai Panurta, leader of the pĕsantren of Wanamarta (Forest of Coolness); younger brother of Tambangraras; older brother of Jayengraga; husband of Turida (In Love).

Malangkarsa (Impeding the Will). Kyai of the pĕsantren on Gunung Pala (Mt. Merit).

Mangunarsa (Awakening Desire), formerly known as Jayengsari (Master of Beauty, of Essences). Son of Sunan Giri by a secondary wife; younger brother of Amongraga; older brother of Rancangkapti. Kyai of the hermitage of Wanantaka (Forest of Death); he is celibate.

Modang. Ulama and dhalang kĕntrung in the vicinity of Mt. Merit; husband of Pĕlangi.

Monthel, formerly known as Buras (name of a skin disease). Servant of Mangunarsa and Rancangkapti; husband of Cĕnthini.

Pĕlangi (Rainbow). Female performer of suluk from the vicinity of Mt. Merit; wife of Modang.

Piturun (Descendant), formerly known as Nurwitri (Northwest and/or Light of the Night Prayer). Companion of Anggungrimang.

Ragasmara (Body of Love). Disciple of Tambangraras and Amongraga.

Rancangkapti (Shaping the Will). Daughter of Sunan Giri by a secondary wife; youngest sibling of Amongraga; wife of Anggungrimang.

Tambangraras (Bringing [hearts] together in Bliss and/or Forsaking Pleasure), also known as Selabrangti (Diamond of Love). Daughter and eldest child of Kyai Panurta, leader of the pĕsantren of Wanamarta (Forest of Coolness); elder sibling of Jayengrĕsmi and Jayengraga; wife of Amongraga.

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1

Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) was established by Soeharto’s “New Order” government in 1975. Its primary function was to issue fatwas that would mobilize Muslim support for government policies (van Bruinessen 1990). Since the fall of the Soeharto government in 1998, the MUI has become increasingly conservative and has grown in strength, taking on the role as advocate and adjudicator of Muslim values in Indonesia.

2

Dangdut is a genre of Indonesian pop music that appears to form a synthesis of Bollywood, Arabic, and local folk musics. Dangdut performances often feature provocatively-clad female singer-dancers.

3

It was the “dangdut king,” Rhoma Irama, who defamed her.

4

Undang-undang Republik Indonesia Nomor 44 Tahun 2008 tentang Pornografi, Bab 1, Pasal 1, Lembaran Negara Republik Indonesia No. 181 (2008), https://ngada.org/uu44-2008.htm, accessed December 28, 2020.

5

The recitation of formulae, such as the Islamic Confession (syahadat), is among the devotional practices of travelers along the mystical path, tarekat (Ar. ṭarīqa = path, way). “Tarekat” has come to denote “Sufi brotherhood or order” in modern usage.

6

“Lukisan Inul adalah simbol daging. Banyak orang di Indonesia lebih mengutamakan daging. Salatnya lima kali sehari, naik haji tiap tahun, tapi tetap saja malakukan korupsi. Ada yang berzikir sampai nangis-nangis, tapi perilakunya tidak menjadi lebih baik” (“Berdzikir Bersama Inul, Karya Lukisan KH. Mustofa Bisri (Gus Mus),” Gus Dur Files, Sunday, March 1, 2015), http://www.gusdurfiles.com/2015/03/berdzikir-bersama-inul-karya-lukisan-kh.html, accessed December 14, 2020.

7

“Itu simbol bahwa ternyata manusia Indonesia menyukai daging … Silakan menyukai daging, tapi ingat roh juga” (Tempo, 10 March 2003).

8

The word suluk (Ar. sulūk) also means “pathway,” indicating the mystical path traversed by Sufis and aspirant Sufis.

9

Macapat is the most frequently used form of prosody in “classical” Javanese sung poetry. There are about a dozen different commonly used macapat verse forms. Each is governed by a formal structure that determines the number of lines per stanza and syllables per line (guru wilangan). Each of these verse forms also has a specific pattern of vowel endings for each of the lines (guru lagu). Different melodies, with different moods, are used to recite the different macapat verse forms.

10

The text is dated 26 Mukharam Je 1742 (7 January 1815) by the condrasangkala (chronogram): paksa suci sabda ji [2-4-7-1] (Kamajaya 1985–91, 1: 1).

11

Kamajaya, “Prawacana,” in Kamajaya 1985–91, 1: iii–iv. According to Kamajaya, others involved in the work were Pangeran Jungut Mandurarĕja (pradikan krajan Wangga, Klaten, Surakarta), Kyai Kasan Bĕsari (kyai of the Gĕbangtinatar pĕsantren in Panaraga), and Kyai Muhammad Minhad (ulama agung in Surakarta), Kamajaya 1985–91, 1: iv. See also Sumahatmaka 1981, 149–50.

12

For a sense of the exuberance of the Cĕnthini, a good place to start is Tony Day’s recent work, including his fascinating contribution to this volume. But see also his recent analysis of, among other things, the narrative’s minor characters and its depictions of musical performance (Day 2021). For a work that discusses the theological significance of a number of the suluk passages in the Cĕnthini, see Zoetmulder 1995.

13

The tĕrbang are the smaller frame drums; the kĕntrung, the larger. See Kunst 1949, 1: 216–18. For a description of a kĕntrungan performance in 1980s East Java, see Brakel-Papenhuyzen 2004.

14

For an extended and intelligent recent study of how the Prophet’s sunna is articulated variously over time in different Muslim cultural, political, and historical contexts (including 19th to 21st-century Java), see Alatas 2021. In a forthcoming article I argue that Islam in early modern Java is better construed as “dialogic encounter” than as “syncretism” (Florida, forthcoming).

15

For more on pĕsantren as sites for the cultivation of Islamic knowledges in 19th-century Java, see Ronit Ricci’s contribution to this volume.

16

The names of the characters almost always bear significant discursive meaning, often suggesting the content (or hoped-for content) of the person’s character. As was the case in traditional Java, a person takes a new name as he enters into different station of life. Before being granted the name Amongraga by his teacher Ki Agĕng Karang, the young man was known Raden Jayengrĕsmi (Master of Love).

17

As a younger man, Mangunarsa was known as Raden Jayengsari (Master of Beauty or of Essences).

18

The name Tambangraras has a number of possible glosses with widely divergent meanings. Tambangraras can be understood as “Tying [hearts] together in Love,” “Bringing together in Bliss,” and/or as “Forsaking Beauty/Pleasure.” One meaning of the word tambang (ng. tali) is “cord” or “rope;” in compounds, tambang (or tali) can indicate the sometimes-reciprocal tying together of two or more things (for example, talirasa, “the thing, or energy, or person that ties hearts together” and tambangaksi, “gazing into each other’s eyes, as lovers”). At the same time, the verbal form of the word tambang (i.e., nambang) also denotes almost the converse, that is “to abandon one’s wife without divorcing her.” The word raras glosses as “bliss,” as “beauty,” as “the experience of love,” and as “the experience of beauty/pleasure.” The name Tambangraras, then, can mean either “Bringing or tying [hearts] together in Love or in Bliss” or “Forsaking Beauty/Pleasure” – or all of these in unstable alternation. These alternative understandings of the name perhaps signify the change of status that the character Tambangraras undergoes – from beloved wife and daughter in the earlier portions of the epic to forsaken woman after Amongraga does indeed abandon her almost directly after consummating their marriage. In her new status, Tambangraras treads an ascetic path forsaking the experience of pleasure when she takes off in search of her husband. I am grateful to Tony Day for engaging in the discussions that led to my appreciation of this proliferation of meanings.

19

As a younger man, Jayengrĕsmi was known as Jayengwesthi (Master of Danger).

20

Unlike many of the other proper names in the Cĕnthini, the name “Cĕnthini” does not appear to have a discursive meaning. It is notable that the title of the entire work is named for her (or sometimes for her mistress, Tambangraras). Perhaps the title reflects the position of the character Cĕnthini (and Tambangraras) as audience for Amongraga’s teachings – like the audience of the book itself. Tony Day has drawn my attention to an article by P.J. Zoetmulder (1939) that reinforces my supposition.

21

I am reading cĕbolang as an intensification of the word cĕblang.

22

The followers of these antinomian practices were called santri dul. For more on these practices, including their use of song and dance, see Sumarsam 1995: 35–38, and Cohen 2011. Cohen, in addition to discussing the santri dul in the Cĕnthini episode, also provides an extended description and analysis of contemporary brai performance in Cirebon.

23

The metrical form of the seven-line Asmarandana verse is: 8i, 8a, 8é/o, 8a, 7a, 8u, 8a. The dominant “mood” of Asmarandana verse is plaintive, suggestive of sorrow or longing, including romantic or erotic longing. All the passages presented and translated in this essay are from canto 691.

24

A practice that is sunna is a normative or recommended Islamic practice, one that is considered congruent with the practices of the Prophet Muhammad. In Javanese, the Arabic sunna is rendered as sunat.

25

Rarasan can, and I think does here, indicate the articulation and experience of supra- discursive meaning (from the root rasa and referring back to the discussion [rarasan] of the Qurʾanic verse) and experienced delight of the articulation of that meaning in song (from the root raras).

26

Willem van der Molen has pointed out to me that kojrat is also an alternative form of kojat (story) and ojat (fame).

27

Pigeaud provides a fine description of a similar night of slawatan from a different passage of the Cĕnthini that narrates the wedding festivities of Amongraga and Tambangraras (1938: 309–11). Many, but not all, of the same characters present in this passage are also present in the passage we discuss. All the slawatan performers at the wedding feast are male.

28

It is of course notable that all the performances discussed in this chapter are done by men and women together – and that prominent among the reciters of suluk are women. All this would be foreign in most of today’s Java, where most slawatan are performed by men – with some “girl groups,” especially in the context of contests. Nevertheless Matthew Cohen (2011) demonstates that mixed performance – with women dominant – is consistent with contemporary brai performance of tĕrbangan/slawatan in Ceribon.

29

Dhulĕng is a form of worship characterized by men and women, in solo or duet, performing the mystical poetry of Java in song and dance in a company of worshippers. The form will be discussed further below. The word dhulĕng does not appear in any dictionary that I have consulted.

30

The word dhalang usually denotes the puppeteer in an all-night Javanese wayang shadow-play. A dhalang kĕntrung is the lead performer of a kĕntrungan group or, in contemporary East Java, the one who relates the tale while performing on a kĕntrung drum.

31

The sĕkar gadhung form here appears to indicate a vocal cengkok (phrasing); it also names a style or form of tĕrbangan, a melody (lagu) or musical piece (gĕndhing), and a drum style. On gĕndhing tĕrbangan, see Cĕnthini canto 231: 2–5 (Kamajaya 1985–91, 3: 236–37). The poets tell us that many of the forty-four “gĕndhing slawatan” that they name in this passage had already been forgotten at the time that the Cĕnthini was composed; sĕkar gadhung was among the few remaining gĕndhing. It is almost (?) always lagu sĕkar gadhung that is mentioned as the selected melodic style in Cĕnthini slawatan performances. See also Padmasusastra’s Bauwarna, where sĕkar gadhung is identified as a form of kĕndhangan (drumming) (Sĕrat Bauwarna Jawa Vol. 1, Ha dumugi Ka [Surakarta, 1898–1910]; MS RP 305, 319). A transliteration of this MS is available on Sastra.org, accessed February 25, 2021: https://www.sastra.org/bahasa-dan-budaya/adat-dan-tradisi/592-bauwarna-padmasusastra-1898-205-jilid-15-ka. Several gĕndhing Sĕkar Gadhung or cengkok Sĕkar Gadhung are to be found in Warsapradongga’s 1915 Buku Santiswara, available on Sastra.org, accessed February 25, 2021, https://www.sastra.org/bahasa-dan-budaya/karawitan/2778-santiswara-warsapradonggo-1915-629-bagian-1. For notes on the revival of the Santi Swara/Laras Madya tĕrbangan form at the turn of the 20th century on the order of Surakartan patih Sasradiningrat IV and the direction of R.M.H. Sumaningrat and Ki Dĕmang Warsapradongga, see Karyarujita (b. 1867), Lapuran Gĕndhing Santiswara: Wulangan saking Sumaningratan (Surakarta 1907–08); MS. Radya Pustaka (RP) 386. We learn in this codex that this was the second revival of the form: the original form, attributed to the 17th-century ruler Sultan Agung, fell into disuse and was first revived in the early 19th century by Pakubuwana V, one of the authors (and the patron) of the Sĕrat Cĕnthini that was composed in 1815 under his commission.

32

Technically the bawa is the sung introduction to a musical piece, but often in the Cĕnthini it appears to mean simply “to sing” or “song.”

33

The first two of the final three lines of the stanza form a variant of the Muslim confession of faith, “There is no god, but God / Muhammad is his beloved.” The Javanized Arabic of the third line is more difficult to decipher; a possible reading could be “praise and God’s blessings be upon him” (for suggestions on the possible meanings of this third line, my thanks to Verena Meyer and to an anonymous reviewer). In a manuscript witness of the Cĕnthini stored in the library of the Mangkunagaran Palace that was inscribed by the Mangkunagaran courtier and Cĕnthini scholar R.M.Ng. Sumahatmaka, the final line reads, “pan Mukhamad salalaha” (for God’s blessing are upon Muhammad) (Ronggasutrasna et al. (1815). Suluk Tambangraras Jilid XII: Selamaya, Jatiswara, Telamaya [Sĕrat Cĕnthini], inscribed by R.M.Ng. Sumahatmaka, Surakarta, ca. 1931, MS. Rĕksa Pustaka P 23 l, MN 342, 5). The same line in a third manuscript witness, this one stored in the Radya Pustaka Museum, reads, “madun Mukamad salalah” (blessed Lord Muhammad) (Ronggasutrasna et al. (1815). Sĕrat Cĕnthini Wanantaka – Jurang Jangkung), inscribed Surakarta, [late 19th century], MS Radya Pustaka ((RP) 323B, 346).

34

There is a scribal omission in line 6 of verse 77 of the Kamajaya edition; the inserted pong-pĕg is from the Sumahatmaka Cĕnthini manuscript (Sumahatmaka ca. 1931, 5).

35

“Ngentrung Janeng Putri Sejati desa Langse,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqNq8ngdtME, accessed February 10, 2021.

36

This 2016 recording, which is provided with informative liner notes and photographs, is to be found in Keen’s “Drums of Java, Pt. 2,” Aural Archipelago: Field Recordings from around Indonesia, accessed February 10, 2021, https://www.auralarchipelago.com/auralarchipelago/slawatan.

37

“Solawatan Jawa: Kaliontong, Kalisalak, Kebasen, Banyumas,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u2ZjSW6LMQ, accessed February 10, 2021.

38

A much more extensive version of Suluk Purwaduksina, this one attributed to Pakubuwana IV (r. 1788–1820), is found in Sĕrat Suluk: Jaman Karaton-dalĕm ing Surakarta, compiled by Ng. Hawikrama, 1870 (MS. Sasana Pustaka 220 Na; Karaton Surakarta [KS] 481), 43–65. The word purwaduksina is a compound of purwa (east) and duksina (south) and indicates “the beginning and the end.”

39

According to Theodoor Willem Juynboll (1930: 183), the Javanese kawin in maskawin is derived from the Persian kāwīn (dower). In Java, the maskawin, which was paid by the groom to his bride, was rarely worth more than a few guilders, and was often in the form of gold (mas). I am grateful to Edwin Wieringa for this reference.

40

In the Sumahatmaka and the Museum Radya Pustaka Cĕnthini manuscript witnesses, it is cahya kajaten (light of divine manifestation) rather that wahya kajaten (divine emergence [bridging inner and outer]). So in these renditions the maskawin of the Throne and Stool is found in the coming together of the light of divine manifestation with your rasa (Sumahatmaka ca. 1931, 5; Ronggasutrasna, et al. (1815) late 19th century, 347).

41

I understand the Javanese arip here as a Javanization of the Arabic ʿarīf (insight, knowing), but arip also, and the same time, means sleepiness. We find shades of that meaning in the dreams of the following sentence.

42

Note that the answer to the sixth riddle is similarly missing in Pakubuwana IV’s extended version of the suluk mentioned above in note 38.

43

This line, missing in the Kamajaya edition, is from Sumahatmaka’s Mangkunagaran manuscript and the late 19th century Radya Pustaka witness (Sumahatmaka ca. 1931, 6; Cĕnthini Wanantaka-Jurang Jangkung, 347–48).

44

Or: “as for you and the Lord.”

45

This is an ambiguous line. An equally plausible translation of the line is, “in fact, all that remains is soul/life (jiwa) and being (wujud).”

46

The last three lines of the stanza in the late 19th century Radya Pustaka manuscript are different from both the Kamajaya edition and the Sumahatmaka manuscript witness; they read: “amung sira pangeran/ nyata tunggal jiwa wujud/ maujuding ing ethekira” (there is but you and the Lord / truly of one spirit and being / realized in your vision) (Ronggasutrasna, et al. (1815) late 19th century, 348).

47

The final line could also, at the same time, be translated, “the Realization of the Self (God’s Self, realized in yours)” or “comes to realization in you” or “becoming existent in yourself.”

48

For a full description of salawatan dulang in contemporary West Sumatra, including transcribed lyrics, see Fathurahman 2008: 132–40. On the Syattariyah in nineteenth-century Central Java, see Florida 2019.

49

That there were female santri (students of Islamic knowledges) at that time is a little recognized fact; they do, however, surface not only in the Sastramiruda, but also repeatedly in the Cĕnthini, often mentioned together with the male santri (santri jalu estri).

50

“dennya dhulĕngi baut/kadya ronggeng gambyong narimpi” (Cĕnthini canto 694: 96, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 58). Or perhaps it should be translated, “like the ronggeng Gambyong performing the srimpi.” Sri Rochana Widyastutieningrum (2011 [1993]: 3) reports that during the reign of Pakubuwana IV (1788–1820) there was indeed a talented singer-dancer whose name was Nyai Lurah Gambyong. Just as the gambyong dance form could have been named for her (or, more likely, she for it), this poetic line might refer specifically to her.

51

For a fuller description of such fire dancing as depicted in the Cĕnthini, see Pigeaud 1938: 309–11.

52

The poet reminds us here that in their youth Anggungrimang (then called Mas Cĕbolang) and Piturun (then called Nurwitri) had formed a traveling tĕrbang troupe, and that they had been “stars” (pilalan) back in the day (Cĕnthini 691: 119–21). For more on Cĕbolang and Nurwitri as performers in their younger days, see Tony Day’s contribution to this volume. Benedict Anderson (1990) also provides a spirited description and analysis of some of the homoerotic exploits of the youthful Anggungrimang and Piturun when they were at the height of their popularity as transvestite male-to-female boy ronggengs.

53

In subsequent nights of devotion by many members of this company, the suluk are all performed by women, Ni Pĕlangi again along with the comically fat wife of a village kyai. The suluk that they sing are Suluk Bathik, a Sufi text couched in the metaphor of a girl preparing a batiked cloth (Cĕnthini 694: 70–88, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 54–57); Suluk Tani, a Sufi song couched in the metaphor of farming practices (Cĕnthini 694: 97–104, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 58–59); Suluk Bĕthak, Sufi teachings delivered through metaphors of cooking (Cĕnthini 701: 24–44, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 105–08); and, finally a suluk of unknown title that describes the four levels of Sufi practice through metaphors of everyday experience, while warning against being carried away by those same metaphors (Cĕnthini 702: 3–12, Kamajaya 1985–91, 12: 109–11).

54

It is worth noting that in his recitation of the suluk here, Anggungrimang “censors” the self-consciously antinomian portions of the text.

55

The line is short one syllable: better anyana or nyana-a.

56

Alternative translation: “battles and jokes, beauty.” In classical Javanese the word rĕsmi can be glossed either “beauty” or “love making, the erotic.” Thanks to Ben Arps for pointing out to me that the rĕsmi (the erotic), jokes, and battles form three essential components of wayang performance.

57

An alternative (and, I think, equally plausible) translation of the last two lines: “that brings the play to life – / truly unto the depths of your life.”

58

The gambang gongsa is an archaic metallophone of 16–19 bronze keys. With its sparkling, shimmering sound, it is played in the Karaton Surakarta for the piece gĕndhing Undur-undur Kajongan, which is struck the moment the ruler rises from his throne to retire from audience.

59

This would be the two parts of the Confession: the napi (negation), “There is no god” and the isbat (affirmation), “but God.”

60

Alternatively translated, “through the meaning, the Mystery of suluk alone.”

61

The suras were al-Sajdah (Prostration), the 32nd sura, and al-Kawthar (Abundant Good), the 108th.

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