Panji – an icon of cultural heritage in East Java Dr. Lydia Kieven Introduction: Budaya Panji/ Panji Culture Imagine an evening after 6 p.m. in Java when it’s dark and warm. There is a mild wind blowing so that you don’t get sweatened. We are near Trawas on the lower slopes of Mount Penanggungan, 50 km south of Surabaya, the capital of the Indonesian province of East Java. You hear children singing, one of them with a raised voice, sounds like narrating a story. Torches flicker in the darkness. Attracted by the voices and by the light, you get closer and see two children holding and slowly unrolling a paper scroll, with depictions of coloured figures, landscapes, houses, animals. One of the figures wears a helmet-like headdress. Another child sits in front of the paper scroll, points with a little stick on the depicted figures and, like a shadowpuppet player (dalang), narrates the story behind the depictions. About 10 other children with a soft voice sing their songs, accompanying the dalang. Next to the group stands a Javanese man, smiling and obviously being very happy with the event. Suryo Wardhoyo Prawiroatmojo from Trawas has enacted this spectacle. His idea is to initiate a revival of wayang beber, an old traditional way of performing Panji stories. Wayang beber is one of numerous wayang forms in Java, others which are better-known are wayang kulit (the shadow play), wayang golek (wooden puppets), wayang topeng (the mask dance). Wayang beber having its origin in East Java is nearly exstinct. There still exist a few rolls in the region of Pacitan (East Java) and Gunung Kidul (Central Java near Yogyakarta) which for many years have not been performed any more.1 No child in common society would ever hear about wayang beber. But now here in Trawas there are a few children acting as dalang and as singers, obviously being very happy and enjoying themselves. Older people from the village in the audience look touched and smile at each other. They seem to be proud of this old tradition which was part of their youth and ever since seemed to be lost. Another spot in Java: We are at Candi Panataran, near the provincial town of Blitar, located in the southern part of East Java, and better known for the location of the memorial of Indonesia’s first president Soekarno. Candi Panataran is an ancient site built during the pre- Islamic Javanese Hindu-Buddhist period. It was used as the State Temple of Majapahit (14th to 15th centuries), the last great kingdom before Islam took over in Java. It is hot outside. In the pendopo, an open hall, a cooling wind makes the people, who sit in lesehan on carpets on the ground, feel quite comfortable. Mainly older men and a few women listen to a speaker: an enthusiastic man, a historian who talks about performing arts which were enacted in this sacred temple site in the time of Majapahit. Later a woman who is a western archaeologist, 1 See further down in this article for more recent developments in wayang beber performance. 1 speaks about the heroes Panji and Hanuman who are depicted in beautiful reliefs on the temple walls. The audience seems to be inspired by all the specific information, some of them contribute their own knowledge or ask questions, so that a lively discussion is going on. Later in the heat of the day at 12 p.m. a small group, including some people of the audience, the temple guard (juru kunci) and the two speakers, will walk around the entrance part of the temple complex looking at reliefs carved in stone on the Pendopo Terrace, many of the reliefs depicting a man holding a woman on his lap in an affectionate situation. The man’s headgear is a helmet-like cap, same as the figures of wayang beber. This figure, both in the reliefs and in wayang beber, represents Prince Panji who searches for his beloved Princess Candrakirana. The group will walk towards the second courtyard, but they cannot stand the heat to continue up to the most sacred parts of the temple complex in the rear part where they would encounter the hero Hanuman. Still, they are satisfied and happy that two academics, one from the University of Malang and the other coming from Germany, share their knowledge about a place which has made part of their own lives and which the younger generation does not very much care for. The first event, described above, happened in 2007, the second one in 2010. Between these years and continuing until today other events with the theme of Panji have been carried out in East Java. They have been given the label ‘Budaya Panji’ [ ‘Panji Culture’]. Who is Panji? What are Panji stories? What is their significance for East Java? Why has the interest in Panji developed over the last years? What is the potential of the interest? This article discusses these and further questions. Delving into the ‘Panji’ theme Prior to discuss the raised questions, I present my own envolvement and perspective in the process of ‘Budaya Panji’. Starting in the mid-1990s I did research on the topic of Panji in the depictions of narrative reliefs on temple walls of the Majapahit period. This topic was actually embedded in a broader scope looking at stone-carved figures wearing a cap as headgear. Many of these specific figures turned out to depict Prince Panji, the hero of the so-called Panji stories. Eventually my research ended up in my PhD thesis and in my recent publication on the ‘cap-figures'.2 During the time of research I frequently visited sites in East Java which dispose reliefs with the ‘cap-figures’. I got help from Indonesian experts and enthusiasts in the field. In the early 1990s, during my frequent stays in a favorite place of mine on the foot of Mount Penanggungan, the Centre for Environmental Education (PPLH = Pusat Pendidikan 2 Lydia Kieven, Following the cap-figure in Majapahit Temple Reliefs. A New Look at the Religious Function of East Javanese Temples, 14th and 15th centuries. Leiden: Brill 2013. 2 Lingkungan Hidup) in Trawas, regency of Mojokerto about 40 km south of Surabaya, I got to know Suryo Wardhoyo, the founder of this place. In 1996, inspired by a visit to Candi Kendalisodo on Mount Penanggungan, which shows beautiful depictions of a Panji story carved in stone, my very first interest in Panji aroused. It was a happy coincidence that Suryo, who originally was a veterinarian and later worked as an environmentalist, was very enthusiastic about Javanese tradition and culture and especially about Panji. He had ideas of developing educative programs for children to revive the knowledge of Panji and to work against the loss of Javanese traditions. Panji is an element of the Javanese, particularly the East Javanese, culture; Panji stories were told by grannies to their grandchildren, were the topic of performances of wayang topeng, wayang beber and wayang klitik. Nowadays this tradition has been fading away, as do other traditions of Javanese culture. Suryo wanted to use Panji as an examplary and concrete element to be easily applied in educational programs. He was convinced that education of the young generation is an important means for conserving and preserving culture. Suryo had recognized that awareness and respect for the own culture support awareness and respect for the environment, and vice versa. Throughout the two or three last decades, in a time of globalization, young people in Indonesia have become more and more attracted by Western culture and behaviours, and their attitude towards life has been completely differently shaped than that of the previous generation. Suryo’s vision was not to destroy this attitude but to keep alive the own tradition alongside. He inspired me with this vision and kind of ‘infected’ me with the idea to keep going on with Panji. He had a strong impact on me conducting my research on the Panji reliefs, and at the same time he made me join his educative programs. In 2004 he initiated a workshop in Surabaya, housed at the French Cultural Institute. A broad range of people from Java and overseas, artists, performers, historians, people with interest in culture, and others met and discussed possible ways of enacting the Panji tradition. The outcome was the idea of organizing a ‘Panji Festival’, consisting of three parts under one umbrella: academic, art, and education. It took three years to develop and organize this Panji festival. However, in the course of time, the three parts had fallen apart individually. Still, the three parts were carried out at roughly the same time in early September 2007. An international seminar on 'Local Wisdom from Panji Era’ took place at Universitas Merdeka in Malang. Indonesian and international experts of the Panji theme attended the conference and presented a wide range of topics.3 The papers exposed the many facets of the Panji theme in the fields of literature, visual and performing arts, and history. Another part of the festival, the educational program by Suryo, was carried out in a village near Trawas. It was the wayang beber event described above. Suryo told the participating children a Panji story, and the kids painted scenes of the story on a large paper 3 To mention but a few: Josef Prijotomo on 'Nusantara architectur in Panji era', Henricus Supriyanto on 'Panji as the Nusantara Hero', Adrian Vickers on 'Panji: the spread of culture from Jawa to Birma', Karl Mertes on 'Wayang Beber in Pacitan', myself on 'Panji in temple reliefs'.