Soemitro, Herminie (Indonesia)

Soemitro, Herminie (Indonesia). “Is Javanese Philosophy Philosophy?”

Javanese is a word in refer to an ethnic group in Indonesia. Indonesian archipelago could be seen as if seperated island to island by the sea, but actually the islands are connected each other. This geographical condition generates variety in Indonesian culture. There are various of ethnic groups with their own local languages. Although Javanese people are majority in the number of population and they are spreading through out Indonesian archipelago because of their proffessions, the national language of Indonesian is not Javanese – but bahasa Indonesia. This phenomenon has some beneficiaries. Firstly, bahasa Indonesia facilitates communication amongst ethnic groups. Secondly, bahasa Melayu as the origin of bahasa Indonesia had been very popular (lingua-franka) amongst merchands (members of various ethnic groups) before the Dutch colonialisation. When bahasa Melayu was developed into bahasa Indonesia, other ethnic groups did not envy Javanese. Thirdly, it is by fortune that national communication do not need some adaptation because bahasa Melayu put some respect to equallity and this value is needed in developing bahasa Indonesia. On the contrary, Javanese social strata and its hierarchical order is inherent in the Javanese language. However, Javanese culture has a very srong influence in developing Indonesian-national culture. When Indonesian culture is still in progress and developing, it is relevan to study Javanese culture in order to understand developing Indonesian. Culture is a system of values, to study Javanese means to understand its system of values. According to Kuntjaraningrat, the central-core of the system of values is philosophy. In this paper, I pick up Wayang performing art to study Javanese culture.

Wayang performing art has been very popular among Javanese people since the era of Dynamism and Animism, Hindu’s tradition and Buddhism up to now. In the influence of Hindu’s tradition, Wayang performing art - or we just call it Wayang – was developed well and started its variety. Moreover, when Islam was introduced to Javanese people, the new religion had been successfully socialized in the performing art. Several stories were created and intended to lead to spiritual thinking.

Javanese philosophy could be hidden in many aspects of Wayang performing art; in the lay out of the stage, the stage itself, in Gamelan or Javanese orchestra, in ritual ceremony, in the story and in the characterization of the puppets. Since Wayang is performed before the public and it is very popular among Javanese people, Wayang is an effective media to educate people whilst it is entertaining. However, Wayang could be explicitly understood by some groups in Javanese community. This is made possible because of the cultural and historical context. In parallel with Javanese language, there are many folds of Javanese society. To some groups of the community, Wayang is an interest of them to explore Javanese philosophy. Yet, Javanese philosophy bumps into several problems, namely; the challenge to universality or to abide a unique identity, the tendency to analytical or to synthetical method, the tendency for inward or for outward looking. When professional philosophers demand some criteria to draw a sharp demarcation-line between academic philosophy and hidden philosophy in Javanese culture, there would be some interesting critique to Cartesian rationality. Inventing such problems in concern to Javanese philosophy, Philosophy department at the University of Indonesia encourages a study on Ethno- philosophy.