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Panji, the Culture Hero PANJI, THE CULTURE HERO A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF RELIGION IN JAVA KONINKUJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE TRANSLATION SERIES 3 W.H. RASSERS PANJI, THE CULTURE HERO A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF RELIGION IN JAVA SECOND EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY P.E. DEJOSSEUN DEJONG Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 1982 First edition 1959 e Copyright 1982 by Springer Science+ Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, the Netherlands in 1982. AII rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereofin any form. ISBN 978-94-017-6496-4 ISBN 978-94-017-6657-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6657-9 WH. RASSERS AND HIS CRITICS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION OF HIS COLLECTED ESSAYS The first edition of Paiiji, the Culture Hero has been out of print for several years now, and the Koninklijk Instituut has frequently been asked whether a reprint was envisaged. In the light of critical comments on the volume we should, nevertheless, con­ sider whether this is sufficient reason for re-issuing essays dating from the years between 1925 and 1940. In other words, we should enquire what is the value of Rassers' articles by the standards of present-day anthropology. When we do so, we should make a distinction between the first three, which original­ ly appeared before, and the fourth, of a few years after 1935. The year 1935 was an important one in the history of Indo­ nesianist studies carried out in the Netherlands, particularly at Leiden University: in May 1935 J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, appointed to the Chair of "Indonesian and General Anthro­ pology" pronounced his inaugural address, in which he outlined a programme for comparative studies within the "Indonesian Field of Ethnological Study" (1935/1977); a few months earlier, F.A.E. van Wouden's Ph.D. thesis, written under his supervision, was published. In this work van Wouden applied the principles being formulated by his supervisor to his study of "types of social structure in eastern Indonesia" (1935/1968). Van Wouden's book was, therefore, one step -many were to follow - towards fulfilling de J osselin de J ong's programme, which can be summarized as follows. Given the established fact that the Indonesian languages are related to one another, it is a reasonable assumption that the anthropologist may study Indo­ nesia as a "field of ethnological study", i.e. an area "with a popu­ lation which appears to be sufficiently homogeneous and unique to form a separate object of ethnological study, and which at the same time apparently reveals sufficient local shades of differences to make internal comparative research worth while". The anthro­ pologist who undertakes this work should pay special attention to the phenomena which are to be considered "the structural VI core of numerous ancient Indonesian cultures in many parts of the Archipelago" U.P.B. de Josselin de Jong 1977:167, 168). The two "structural core" elements particularly relevant for our present discussion are double descent and asymmetrical con­ nubium. It will be clear that Rassers' article of 1940 (the fourth chapter in this volume) adopts the same point of view. Referring to van Wouden's book, Rassers considers it a valuable aid "in the recon­ struction of the type of society in which we must locate" the Javanese material culture and the associated myths which he is investigating (see pp. 274-279 in particular). In the earlier articles, of the period before 1935, no such elaborate reconstruction of early Javanese society is attempted: they interpret the belief and classification systems in terms of a simple moiety structure- what J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong (1977: 172) was later to include among the "structural core" elements, under the name of "socio-cosmic dualism". It is to the three earlier articles that we shall first turn our attention. The critical comments on "The meaning of Javanese drama", "Siva and Buddha", and "The origin of the Javanese theatre", taken together, are as was to be expected from scholars writing thirty to forty years after these essays were originally published. The main objection is to Rassers' historicism: in the words of A.H. Johns (1964:91), "Rassers' propagation of the concept of a primeval dualism as determining the structure of virtually every expression of Javanese cui ture has been particularly harmful". Here, the critic is surely overstating his case. Rassers' demon­ stration that "dualism" is the principal structuring feature of the culture elements he studied (e.g. the house, the kris, the theatre) can hardly be refuted, although one can entirely agree with Johns when he rejects the notion of a primeval dualism in a "hypothe­ tical indigenous Ur-society". This is also the thrust of the long, perceptive review of the first edition of Paiiji, the Culture Hero by Rodney Needham, who first gives due praise to Rassers' "minute knowledge of Javanese institutions" and "considerable skill in internal analysis", but then criticizes the basic weakness of Rassers' approach as follows: "He thinks that the 'only' model for a dualistic sym­ bolism is dual organization (more precisely, in fact, a two-section system), but this does not exist on Java, and cannot be shown historically to have existed there, so that it becomes necessary to reconstruct for the remote past a proto-J avanese society of which VII the classification is a faint and dispersed reflection" (Needham 1960: 175; italics added). Every present-day anthropologist and philologist will agree that Rassers adhered too strictly to the tenet of the Annee Sociologi­ que group, that social classification, i.e. the division of society into distinct groups, is not one type of classification among others, but the basic type, the fons et origo of all others. A typi­ cal phrase of Rassers' is to be found on p. 42 in this volume: "Wherever [such] a tribal division is found it has been possible to establish that the classification based on it extends to everything that exists ... " (italics added), with a footnote reference to Durkheim and Mauss's article "De quelques formes primitives de classification". However, one need not accept Needham's criticism on the grounds that the dual organization assumed by Rassers "cannot be shown historically to have existed" in Java, for this may be due to his, and our, lack of sufficient historical data. This brings us to a point of considerable interest, not only for an evaluation of Rassers' work, but for the logic of scholarly discourse in general. Between 1960 and 1963 the five volumes were published of Th. Pigeaud's java in the Fourteenth Century: in effect, a new edition and translation, with notes and commentaries, of the famous Old Javanese poem Nagara-kertagama. This work, of 1365 A.D., gives information on the lands and institutions of the kingdom of Majapahit by describing the ceremonial royal pro­ gresses of the king through parts of his realm in 1359, 1360, 1361 and 1363. "Orderliness and classification are the marks of the poem" (Pigeaud 1962:3). In his commentary, Pigeaud repeatedly specified the basic clas­ sificatory principle, namely "the fundamental duality idea" (1962:146). This idea becomes manifest in many ways, a few of which should be mentioned here. 1. In the composition of the poem itself, e.g.: "The [chapter describing the royal chase] is placed just about the middle of the poem. The Javanese conception of duality, by division into equal moieties, no doubt was an important factor in the composition" (1962:146). 2. In court etiquette: "As to the food and the manner of its being served two groups are distinguished. The first group, con­ sisting of the Royal Family and the courtiers, were served with ritually pure food on gold plate ... The second group eating im­ pure food from silver plate probably was formed by the country people" ( 1962: 309). VIII 3. In the structure of the kingdom as such. In Canto 1 7, "Janggala and Kadiri are mentioned together as name of the whole realm" (1962:41). This is elaborated on p. 122: "The reunion of Janggala (the districts on the lower course of the river Brantas) and Kadiri (on the upper Brantas ... ) that is mentioned in [Canto 40, stanza 4] ... was considered the crown of any great King's life-work". Pigeaud comments on "the Janggala­ Kadiri antithesis" that it "probably was much older than the 11th century. The 14th century Majapahit view of it as a dynas­ tic disintegration which came about in historical times was a late development of the primeval tribal conception of human society as forever splitting up into moieties" (1962:202). This is more happily phrased on p. 521, where the unfortunate term "tribal" is avoided: "Kahuripan (or Janggala) and Kadiri were the most important [provinces], probably more on account of an ancient division of the realm into moieties founded on primeval native belief than on economic grounds". In brief, the "dualism of the realm" (1962:524), basic to the Javanese perception of the state in the 14th century, was "prob­ ably much older than the 11th century". If we finally pass from the state as a whole to the humbler level of the rural com­ munities and the representatives of the outlying districts, the situation, as described, is enlightening enough to be recounted in some detail. 4. The commoners' organization and the administration of the kingdom. Canto 63 deals with the commoners' contribution to the expenses of court ceremonies. Two representatives of the contributing "rural communities" are mentioned, and "the tendency to have pairs is connected with the fundamental idea of cosmic and social duality" so frequently mentioned in the com­ mentary.
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