Javanese Mystical and Marxist Dialectics - Paul Stange

would have its own shrine marking the point of interaction. The whole economic andritual process rested on communal religious obligations. The core ritual, theselametan, has been a celebration of neighborhood solidarity and spirit worship.According to GeertzThe whole momentum of the Javanese ritual system is supposed to carry onethrough grief without severe emotional disturbance. 15This emphasis on control over emotions is part of the overall connection betweenelite alus values and peasant society. The main vehicle for the transmission of prijajivalues has been the wajang and the arts generally. 16The central themes of traditional wajang were the alus-kasar tension and the strivingfor rasa, inner control and peace, through the “appropriateness of thoughts asestablished by duties to caste and hierarchy.” 17 Anderson has gone on to probe therelationship between these themes of the wajang and the “tolerance” of the Javanese.The basic sources for wajang tales have been the classic Indian; epics, theMahabharata and Ramayana, but there has always been considerable addition andelaboration of local tales along with reference to current events. The dalang, a manwith a good deal of prestige, served not only as puppeteer and story-teller, but alsoas a source of esoteric mysticism and philosophy. While the wajang eventuallyabsorbed some Islamic ideas, it remained a fundamentally Javanese and Indianventure.The tolerance projected by the drama comes through in the plurality of acceptablemodels for behavior, a plurality contrary to Western and modern dichotomies ofgood and evil. Sanction came through the theater to all types of people at variouspositions of life and not just to a single ideal type. Along with this came the Javanesenotions of existing states of life as an interplay of levels of reality. In the drama itselfthere is an interplay of levels: the Indian epics, local mythology, the dalang'sinterpolations, the leather puppets themselves, and the shadows cast on the screen.While each level had a concrete existence of its own and was independently evidentto the audience, no one level was a final statement on what is “really real”. Neitherthe format nor underlying philosophy suggested an absolute. As a result, theJavanese demonstrate considerable tolerance of ambiguity. As Anderson puts it