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Border and Mobility – Kerr Et Al Urban Studies: Border and Mobility – Kerr et al. (Eds) © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-58034-3 Demystifying Nusantara Agung Bahroni Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia ABSTRACT: The territory of Indonesia is inseparable from the historical knowledge of a territorial concept of Nusantara. The concept of Nusantara itself refers to the territory in the reign of the Majapahit Kingdom. The myth saying that the territory of Nusantara is the territory of Indonesia in ancient times continues to grow. In this study, we aimed to reveal what is behind the myth of Nusantara. By utilising the mythology theory of Roland Barthes, this study focused on the following two aspects: (1) how the construction of the myth of Nusantara was formed and (2) the myth demystification and its meaning. This myth emerged in some Javanese manuscripts, particularly Pararaton and Negarakretagama. This myth con- tinued to spread until the period of the Indonesian National Revolution, which represented Nusantara as the historical background of Indonesia. The new meaning emerged from the term Nusantara as the territory of Indonesia to unify the Indonesian society with nationalist ideology. Keywords: Demystification, myth, Nusantara, territory of Indonesia 1 INTRODUCTION Indonesia is a country with an extensive history. Unfortunately, the Indonesian society often forgets some of its history. The extensive history of Indonesia spans from the pre-colonialisation era to the present times, and apparently has a significant impact on the lives of the Indo- nesian people. Nowadays, there is a heated battle over identity contestation in relation to history. The legitimacy of history ownership is an issue, which is politically contested today. When discussing the history of Indonesia, the term “Nusantara”1 should not be ignored, which is very entwined with the lives of people in the Indonesian society. This term has a gen- erally similar meaning in the Indonesian society. The term is also inseparable from the “bor- derline” concept in the history of Indonesia, particularly in the pre-colonial time. The study regarding the borderline in Southeast Asia is highly complicated if the study is in the context of pre-colonial time. The borderline concept itself was, in fact, conceived by the colonials to com- partmentalise the territories of sovereignty. Previously, the borderline did not exist, since the Southeast Asian society was, in fact, a trading community, which had extremely high mobility. If associated with the territory, Nusantara, for Indonesian society, is the territory of Indonesia before the colonial period. The territory, in the minds of the Indonesian people, is closely related to the territory of the Majapahit Kingdom. This meaning, in fact, came from a Java- nese manuscript written in the Majapahit era, i.e., Kakawin Negarakretagama. The statement is strongly rooted in the minds of the Indonesian people since it obtained legitimacy in the form of the insertion of the assertion in history in schools. The term Nusantara, at that time, became an extremely popular term. For example, the term is utilised by an Islamic organization in Indonesia, i.e., Nahdlatul Ulama, which uses the term “Islam Nusantara” as the depiction of the Islamic organization, which adopts a local culture in religious life practice. Moreover, there is also the term “the culture of Nusantara” (Budaya 1. Italicised since it comes from Old Javanese and capitalised since the term describes a cultural area. 41 Nusantara) to describe the culture in Indonesia. The term also often utilizes Indonesian traditional arts as the reference. The numerous studies about the history of Majapahit render the statement about Nusantara more enduring. Before discussing this even further, it is worth noting that the description of terri- tory in this study is not in the domain of history about Nusantara. Yet, it is in the domain of myth about the term Nusantara that is applied and lasts in the Indonesian society. Myth, according to Roland Barthes, is a meaning towards a particular form. The myth itself is part of the study of sign introduced by Saussure 40 years ago with the term semiology (Barthes, 2004: 155). Barthes emphasized that meaning should return to semiology, although semiology was incapable of explaining all the different aspects. Yet, all of them had similar statuses. This is because the whole aspect makes up the science of value. They are not satisfied with the value. They are not satisfied by discovering the facts. They define and explore the facts as a sign of something else. Myth has an imperative yet conflicting character, rooted in the concept of history and directly emerging from things that are coincidental (Barthes, 2004:177). In this study, the term Nusantara and its meaning in terms of the Majapahit territory is a myth supported by some established histories. The myth of Nusantara is viewed from the theory of mythologies by Roland Barthes to reveal the myth about Nusantara. The emerging assumption is that the myth of Nusantara appeared as a form of legitimacy for the territory of Indonesia after its independence, by which, of course, the Indonesian revolutionary fig- ures affected the formation of the myth. Thus, the research questions applied in this study were: (1) How was the myth construction of Nusantara formed? (2) What are the demystifi- cation of the myth and its meaning? 2 DISCUSSION 2.1 Nusantara as a myth Many studies on Nusantara have been conducted, particularly in the field of history. The object that is mostly used in those studies is a manuscript from the past (philology). The results of the studies are also the source of past cultural knowledge. This study is not a his- torical study. This is a study regarding the myth of the term Nusantara, although the object of this study also uses manuscripts written in the past, i.e., Kakawin Negarakretagama. To consider Nusantara as a myth, the initial step is examining the denotative and con- notative meanings proposed by Roland Barthes. The denotative meaning of Nusantara can be noted from the meaning possessed by the term. On the basis of the word sequence, Nusantara is split into two words, “nusa” and “antara”. Nusa means “island” and antara means “other”, which are combined to mean other islands outside Java island (Zoetmulder and Robson, 1982). In KBBI (2006:485), Nusantara is the term for Indonesia that means “consisting of many islands”, a land of hundred thousand islands. Meanwhile, the connotative meaning is the emerging cultural meanings or the emerging meanings due to a cultural construction, so there is a shift. Nonetheless, it is still attached to the term Nusantara. Connotatively, Nusantara is interpreted as another term for Indonesia, which refers to a concept of the territory of the Majapahit Kingdom in the past with refer- ence to Kakawin Negarakretagama. In the proposed myth, Roland Barthes offers a new definition that becomes an initial step, which is used to read the myth (inoculation). In this step, the term Nusantara is defined as a term used in a cultural area in the pre-colonial time that is given by the society in colo- nial time. Thus, in the pre-colonial time (Majapahit), the term Nusantara was assumed non- existent in this writing, due to deletion of history, which is the next step that will be proved by re-reading Kakawin Negarakretagama. 2.2 Reading Kakawin Negarakretagama Nagarakretagama means “a country with a sacred tradition (religion)”. The name Naga- rakretagama itself is not contained in the poem Nagarakretagama. In the pupuh 94/2, 42 Prapanca called his work Deçawarnana or explication of villages. However, the name given by the poet has been forgotten by the public. The poem is called Nagarakretagama until now. The name Nagarakretagama is included in colophon published by Dr. J.L.A. Brandes: Iti Nagarakretagama Samapta. The name Nagarakretagama is apparently an additional copyist of Arthapamasah in the month of Kartika in the Saka year of 1662 (October 20, 1740 A.D.). Nagarakretagama is copied in Balinese scripts in Kancana. Desawarnana/Nagarakretagama is written in the form of a poem (kakawin). Each poem consists of four lines, and each line consists of 8–24 syllables. This poem’s manuscript con- sists of 98 pupuh, which are divided into two parts, each of which consists of 49 pupuh. In fact, the term Negarakretagama is never mentioned in the original manuscript. Meanwhile, the adaptation of the manuscript of Arthapamasah has been found; even so, it is yet to be pub- lished. The renaming of the manuscript Desawarnana to Negarakretagama is only based on the unfamiliarity in using the word. According to Prof. M. Yamin (112) in Sapta Parwa, the name Desawarnana is a summary of Wilwatikta-negara-kretagama, which means the history of Majapa- hit: Kretagama = good deeds/event/history and Wilwatikta-negara = the country of Majapahit. In the original manuscript, it is mentioned that the manuscript is entitled Desawarnana or the explication of villages visited by King Hayam Wuruk. rin çakadri gajaryyamaçwayujamasa çubhadiwaça purnnacandrama, nka hingan/ rakawin/pamarnnanakhadigwijayaniranarendra rin praja, kwehnin deça riniñci donikaminustakamanarana deçawarnnana, pangil/panhwatasanmatanrpatimengeta rin alawas atpaden lanö. (XCIV: II) “The year of Sakagununggajahbudi and janma (1287), the month of Aswina, the day of full moon. To be ready a poem of adoration about the journey of traveling around the Country. To be arranged the entire villages in a sequence, worthy to be called Desawarnana. To intend that Your Majesty recall while reading the sentences of wisdom.” (XCIV: 2) The pupuh 94 above explains that in 1287, in the month of Aswina, a poem (kakawin) about the journey of the Great King Hayam Wuruk, who went around villages, was written. Then, the poet named the poem Desawarnana, so that the King remembers that the one who wrote the manuscript was Mpu Prapanca (pseudonym), who accompanied everywhere.
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