the scene of a shadow-puppet play.

king, ruler, crown prince, regional overlord.

written letter of the Javanese alphabet.

medieval Islamic theologian (1058–1111) and one of the most influential thinkers in Islamic history. In Javanese Islam, he is best known for his moderate or sharīʿa-minded Sufism.

“prophets,” in Java referring to the “Tales of the Prophets,” a genre depicting the lives of the prophets of Islam, typically from Adam to Muhammad.

Arabic hero of an epic (originating from Persian via Malay) recounted in Javanese texts, oral tale-telling, puppetry, and dance. The historical Amir Hamza was an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. In Javanese the hero (and the genre) is often called Menak “the Nobleman.”

categorical name in Javanese for chronicles.

“The Chronicle of Java,” a narrative poem describing the history of Java, which begins with Adam and continues until the mid-eighteenth century. The so-called “Major Babad,” consisting of over 9,000 pages in manuscript, was inscribed, at Dutch instigation, at the court of Surakarta in 1836.

“battle of the descendants of Barata,” that is, the Pandawas and their cousins the Korawas. It refers to the Great War which ends the conflict at the heart of the Mahabarata. The Mahabarata is one of the two major Indian epics (the other being the Ramayana). In Java, Baratayuda is also the name of a poem in Old Javanese about that battle, written in 1157.

a learned society founded in 1778 in Batavia (today’s Jakarta).

the name of an ancient kingdom at the eastern end of Java, rival of Majapahit. Its king was defeated by Damar Wulan.

An “encyclopedic” narrative poem of epic dimensions (247,766 lines of poetry in 722 cantos). Composed by a group of court poets in 1815 at the Palace of Surakarta (Karaton Surakarta), it is a (if not the) recognized classic of Javanese literature.

one of the drums in a gamelan ensemble, which is played rapidly and expressively in the later sections of a multi-sectional musical composition (gĕndhing).

the eponymous hero of a Javanese romance from East Java, dating from the sixteenth century.

a popular Indonesian musical genre that was created from a mixture of Indian (Bollywood), Malay and Arabic musical forms.

the first Islamic kingdom in Java.

puppeteer or storyteller.

substance or essence, especially God’s essence.

a performance genre, consisting of singing (recitation of suluk) while dancing.

the literary means by which the story in a narrative is expressed and structured.

performers of an acrobatic fire dance; sometimes synonymous with dhulĕng.

the wooden xylophone of a gamelan ensemble.

a climbing shrub, the leaves of which are chewed together with betel nut and other ingredients in social situations or for personal relaxation. Gambir leaves are a sedative.

a female dance form; according to nineteenth-century Javanese sources, gambyong evolved out of a rustic (Islamic) form. In contemporary Java, it is found in both popular and “high-culture” forms.

a Javanese ensemble of musical instruments consisting of metallophones, gongs, drums, wooden flutes, xylophones, zithers, and a two-string bowed fiddle.

the left dynastic line follows the genealogy of the Hindu-Buddhist deities and their descendants, beginning with the supreme God Bathara Guru or Shiva.

the right line of descent follows the Muslim lineage, beginning with the Prophet Muhammad.

a multi-sectional musical composition for gamelan.

see kidung.

title for God or a king; Lord.

a prominent Malay Sufi scholar and poet, active in the sixteenth century, born in Fansur (Barus), in northwest Sumatra, famous in insular Southeast Asia for his use of Malay Sufi poems called syair (A. shiʿr).

lit. “story, tale.” A prose narrative genre in Malay.

medieval Islamic theologian (1165–1240), a controversial but also influential figure best known for his speculative Sufi theology.

residence of the crown prince in the principalities of Surakarta and Yogyakarta.

nonbeliever, infidel.

supernatural power.

servant, subaltern.

large frame drum/performance with this frame drum; in contemporary Java, a vanishing form of narrative performance of orally-composed Islamic histories, hagiographies, and legends accompanied by this frame drum.

The bodily orientation of the person performing ritual prayer (A. ṣalāh) toward the Kaʿba in Mecca.

lit. “song.” Sixteenth- to nineteenth-century term for texts in tĕmbang macapat and related verse forms, including historical narratives, mystical contemplations, and incantations. Synonym: gita.

formal register of Javanese.

names of the two warring clans in the epic Mahabharata. The stories for a popular form of shadow-puppet theater in Java derive from this ancient Indian poem (see Baratayuda).

the leader of a traditional Muslim boarding school, or pĕsantren, and the honorific title of that leader.

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.

a great Hindu-Buddhist maritime empire based on the island of Java (1293~c. 1527).

capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi; in former times (until the mid-seventeenth century) the capital of the Sultanate of Gowa.

knowledge, especially the non-discursive, phenomenological knowledge of the Sufi; gnosis.

lit. marriage gold; dowry paid by the groom to his bride.

name of the Central Javanese region which produced the longest and most powerful of modern Javanese dynasties, which lasted from the sixteenth until the mid-eighteenth century.

the faithful.

prophet.

an official of middle rank in Javanese court hierarchy.

spiritual or esoteric knowledge, wisdom.

informal register of Javanese.

performance genre for recitation of suluk, from the Arabic ujra (cause; recompense) or ḥaḍra (presence, presencing).

the Javanese used prior to 1500 CE. The oldest evidence is datable to before 800 CE.

the founder of the Mataram kingdom.

tales of the hero of that name, prince of a Javanese kingdom, and his fiancée Candrakirana, princess of a neighboring kingdom. She disappears from the palace but the prince succeeds in finding her again, after many adventures. There are many different Panji tales. Long popular, the tales also found expression in various artforms and in other literatures in Southeast Asia.

lit. “beach, shore.” The northern littoral of Java and, by extension, of other islands around the Java Sea, home to a variety of internationally oriented cultures.

title for a prime minister or regional lord.

a modified form of the Arabic script used to write Javanese.

chief religious officer of a district.

traditional Muslim boarding school; place of the santri.

instruction, teachings.

aristocratic and bureaucratic Javanese elite.

title applied to male royal descendants of middle rank.

the first king of Demak, the first Islamic kingdom in Java.

title of one of the two Indian epics (the other being the Mahabarata). It tells the story of Rama and his wife Sita. Expelled from the court – lest he threaten the claim to the throne of a younger brother – Rama lives in exile in the wilderness together with his wife and another younger brother. There, Sita is kidnapped by Rawana, king of the demons. Rama manages to set her free with the help of the monkey army. In Java, the Ramayana has been told through dance, literature, theater, puppetry, and sculpture.

polysemic Javanese word, meaning “feeling; taste; flavor; emotion; sense; meaning; thought; speech; voice; mystery; essence” (and, sometimes, “gossip”); key word in Javanese psychology and phenomenology.

the two-string bowed fiddle in a gamelan ensemble.

a competitive seizure of food or other items (including the grasping of sexual body parts) by crowds of people during Javanese ritual events.

see wayang.

professional female or transvestite male-to-female dancer.

the Ottoman Empire.

the Muslim profession of faith. The reciter bears witness to God’s oneness and to Muhammad being His messenger.

a companion of the Prophet.

a religious martyr.

ritual prayer in Islam that Muslims are mandated to perform five times a day.

student of the Islamic sciences, pupil of a kyai; Islamic boarding school student.

students of the Islamic sciences who wander (lĕlana) throughout Java in search of knowledge.

Islamic canonical law.

title for a Muslim religious leader or scholar.

genealogy, a genealogical text.

to have supernatural power.

letter, book; often used in titles, e.g., Sĕrat Cĕnthini, Sĕrat Ambiya.

see wayang.

worship of God and the Prophet Muhammad performed in song, usually accompanied by tĕrbang.

Istanbul.

the content or chain of events in a narrative.

Islamic mysticism.

the wooden flute in a gamelan ensemble.

royal title, assigned to Sultan Agung by the Grand Sharīf of Mecca in 1641. Since the reign of Hamĕngku Buwana I (1749–1792), all rulers of Yogyakarta have adopted the title of Sultan.

Sufi discipline; name of a genre of “classical” Javanese poetry (Sufi songs) composed in macapat verse; related to A. sulūk or “pathway” in Sufism.

a genre of songs sung by the puppeteer in wayang to set or change a mood. Its lyrics are evocative and often derive from classical poems.

royal title, meaning “he who is revered”; short for susuhunan (from the root suhun, to hold in great respect; to honour and revere; to hold above one’s head). The title was originally a spiritual title for the Islamic saints (wali) only. From the eighteenth century, it was exclusively used by the supreme rulers of the Mataram dynasty. Since 1755, the prerogative of the rulers of the Surakarta court.

normative or recommended Islamic practice, congruent with the practices of the Prophet Muhammad.

a Sufi lineage of initiation (A. ṭarīqa) that originated in fifteenth-century Persia, often characterized by ecstatic spiritual traditions and speculative Sufi theology.

the unity of God.

a dance party in which a ronggeng takes turns dancing with paying male guests, alcohol is consumed, and sex between the ronggeng and one or more of the guests occurs when the dancing has ended.

Javanese poetic verse form, sung or recited; hence the performative quality of texts written in the macapat metres.

rebana (frame drum) performance with these frame drums.

Muslim religious scholar, often designating a scholar of jurisprudence.

people or community, especially the Muslim community in its entirety.

Islamic reform movement founded by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb in eighteenth-century central Arabia, strongly emphasizing monotheism and hence opposed to various Sufi practices; prevalent in Saudi Arabia.

oneness of being/unity of existence. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s representative doctrine that since everything in the world is an emanation from Allah, the two are fundamentally the same. In contrast, the Indian theologian and mystic Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī (d. 1624) was a leading proponent of waḥdat al-shuhūd (unity of appearance), asserting Allah’s supremacy and that Allah and His creation were not one. Man could only “witness” Allah and experience unity with Him on the mystical path.

saints, friends of God. The men who, according to tradition, introduced and spread Islam on Java. Usually nine walis (wali sanga).

lit. “image(s).” Dramatic genres recounting epic stories. Major examples in Java are shadowplay (wayang kulit), rod puppetry (wayang golek, wayang thĕngul, wayang cĕpak), human theatre (wayang wong), and masked drama (wayang topeng). The term wayang also refers to the puppets.

In Islamic speculative theology, wujūd is simultaneously God’s pure being and the spiritual seeker’s finding thereof.

body hair, feather; term for a diacritic written above a consonant so that it is followed by a short “i” sound.

remembrance (of God); Sufi devotional practice.