More Ayu Utami: Manjali dan Cakrabirawa

After the two books with stories of a engaged and loving priest Saman and Larung, Ayu Utami wrote Bilangan Fu as a literary pamphlet again Military, Monotheist religion and Modernity. Already in Larung the Javanese traditional religion played an important role. It is glorified in her third novel. The following novel was Manjali dan Cakrabirawa (2010). Marja, 19 years, student design and art in Bandung is more prominent as the key person. She has an official lover, Yuda, 24 years, also a student in Bandung, but more busy with mountain climbing, coaching and in this book he spends most of his time instructing military men in West Java. In the previous book Yuda was close to Judas as a traitor, still close to the true holy man. But here he may be also Yudistira, the gambling oldest of five Pandawa brothers who loses his fortune, the kingdom and even the wife to the five brothers, while Marja Manjali perhaps should not be identified with Mary Magdalene (lover of Jesus?), but with Draupadi, exactly, the wife of the five Pandawa brothers. Besides Yuda there is another young man, who becomes a more Platonic lover to Marja. This is Parang Jati (‘the perfect dagger/direction’), the man with six fingers on each hand and so the man with twelve fingers. The numbers twelve or hu is sometimes prominent in this book like the number fu in the previous one.

Central in the story is the archeological expedition to a Hindu-Javanese shrine on the border of Central and East Java, from the 11^th century when there were many more local Javanese elements in the Hindu tradition. A French architect/archaeologist Jacques Cherer (= Jacques Dumarçay?) is quite often present in the book, more or less as an outsider observer and commentator. The ‘old wise man’. The shrine is devoted to Shiwa as Bhairawa, a wild manifestation of this divinity. He is male, macho, violent. There is a 13^th century statue from Sumatra in the national Museum of Jakarta. Utami made her own sexually more explicit drawing.

The shrine Calwanarang is from the time of King Airlangga, a pluralist (accepting both Hinduism and several Buddhist sects, 100). In that time there was a couple Bahula (son of the wise man Barada, who kills the witch Calwanarang) and lady Manjali. The shrine tells their story.

Ayu Utami draws in a less solemn, wilder and more sexual aggressive way her Bhairawa. Below the statue in the National Museum of Jakarta.

This Cakrabirawa (the modern Javanese version of Bhairawa) is also the name for the special military division that had to protect President Soekarno. Its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Untung was the central figure in a coup that killed seven major generals, but then was halted by General Soeharto. In the aftermath if this failed coup more than one million people were killed, accused of leftist or Communist sympathies and the PKI or Communist party was banned while the country was ruled for more than 30 years by a harsh military regime.

While working at the excavations of the shrine, Marja meets a lady who lives secretly in the forest, more or less like a hermit. She was married to a soldier who was a member of the Cakrabirawa brigade, was arrested and killed after the failed coup of 30 September 1965 (G30S). The lady, Murni (= Pure), was pregnant when her husband was arrested. She was also arrested and her child, a boy, was taken away from her. Marja for some time thinks that she is not a common human, but some kind of spirit, perhaps related to the witch Banaspati who is fond of menstruation blood. In reality, she has her period at this moment and some people accuse her that she is impure. Later she realizes that the Gerwani or Communist Women’s Organization was accused of drinking the blood of the generals they had killed at G30S. But Murni proves to be a true human being.

Durga as Banaspati as drawn by Ayu Utami on p. 177, here representing the spouse of the wild Bhairawa, but also spouse of Bahula. Manjali and even resembling Sinta.

While the excavations go on, Yuda is giving climbing lessons to soldiers in West Java. He wants to hide this fact for Parang Jati who hates the army and violence. One of his most industrious students of some Musa who invites him to join to a brothel in the evening. Yuda does not have sex with one of the ladies, but gives as an excuse that he is a traditional Javanese who in now in a 70 days period of fasting to gain power. He will lose this power when he has a sexual ejaculation. This episode (59-64) is a description of the hypocrisy of the soldiers and their brutal use of their power (also when Musa joins Yuda in a tour to his teachers at the university in order to obtain a postponement for his examinations). Musa is fond of all kind of magic and wants to find the powerful Cakrabirawa mantra and therefore comes to the place of the archaeological search.

Parang Jati and archaeologist Jacques decide that they will hand over the valuable finds of the excavations to a government official of the archaeological service. This is not successful because the official is attacked by Musa who steals the valuable golden remains. But in an attempt to find more, Musa falls in a very deep old pit and only through the climbing skill of Yuda he can be rescued, although he is initially still in coma. It turns out, that the pit near the shrine was dug for the burial of the husband of Murni. Musa has a special kind of snake around his neck and so is recognised by Murni as her son who was taken away from her some 30 years ago. This episode seems to be rather accidental and not really easy to believe. It reminded me of some episodes in the novels of Murakami who also has many mysterious powers steering human destiny.

Musa is recognised because he has a symbol of snake around his neck, with some other symbols. These are also drawn by Ayuu Utami.

The novel is announced as a roman misteri dan roman spiritualisme kritis.

It is clear from the quite fragmentary description above that much Javanese spirituality has been put in this nice book. Page 181 has even a deep sentiment about the wonderful atmosphere of peace and spirituality in the period of Airlangga (Betapa damai dan spiritual masa Airlangga). Sex and spirituality are here in many pages, sometimes in contrast like the hypocrisy of Musa the soldier, but often also reinforcing, when control of sex gives spiritual strength. There is a political position against the Soeharto government and its crude suppression of Communism.

            Marja, Yuda and Parang Jati are not particular religious. About the latter it is even explicitly said that he has respect for religious rituals but does not practice them himself. He calls himself a critical spiritualist, whatever it may mean. He does not pray, not the Muslim salat, Bali-Hindunese praisa, food offerings, meditation of some kind of yoga, or whatever ritual there is. (209: Ia menyebut dirinya seorang spiritualis kritis. Marja talk pernah melihat Parang Jati melakukan ritual. Apa pun yang bisa dianggap Marja sebagai ritual: berdoa, sembahyang, sholat, memuja, mempersembahkan sesajen, bermeditasi, sejenis yoga, atau apa saja. Yuda juga tidak. Tapi, berbeda dari Yuda, Parang jati tidak pernah mencemooh hal-hal yang tidak dia lakukan itu.)

            The only outspoken Catholic in this book is the French archaeologist, Jacques. He confesses that he believes in reincarnation, notwithstanding his Catholic faith. Marja says that reincarnation is a Hindu and Buddhist belief, not a Catholic one. ‘Indeed. No. But Catholics know a concept of “cleansing fire”. That is called the Purgatory. The souls of the deceased that are not yet holy must cross a  cleansing fire” before they can enter heaven. The length and intensity depends upon our sins. Well, now it is our duty to define further the character of this “cleansing fire”. Theologians and artists or earlier periods in the European Church have described it as some mild kind of hell that is not so brute. There is fire, and devils, but also angels who are waiting to carry our souls when the sins are already roasted away.’ Jacques laughs in a modest way. ‘But nowadays I like to think about it as some kind of reincarnation. We are born again, in a long series until our soul has been purified and we may attain heaven, that is nirwana like in the Eastern religions. The “cleansing fire” does not work in a realm of souls, but also in this world.’ (41). Marja is happy with this explanation and asks why the Church does not teach it this way. Jacques suggests that that more painful description is more effective to push morality harder. Le mystère.

            Another theological talk is between Jacques and Parang Jati who suggests that we all commit sins but also perform good acts. ‘Sin can be something that we commit. But it may also be something that gives birth to us, creates out weakness. Something at the origin. But human beings are able to choose. Man has a free will, after the original sin.’ ‘Oh, la la, that sounds as if we here Saint Augustin talking.’ (239)  These Catholic theological fragments are just short interludes among many other themes in this book. Some people complain about the complex structure of her books, the many themes that are only touched upon and not elaborated in full length. Other readers estimate that this is the strength and the richness of her work. It is never boring, always full of surprise, asks for an attentive and understanding reader. It always combined daily life in many aspects with spirituality, mysticism, some sense of the mysterious, often in a very unexpected and critical way. Truly roman misteri dan roman spiritualisme kritis as it is announced on the cover text.

A debate about Merry Christmas

During the last two weeks there was a debate among various people who sent me messages about Christmas Greetings. All my friends like to wish me peace, health and everything best at the occasion of Christmas. But there was some Muslim who did not like to receive Christmas greetings, because he was not a Christian himself. It would be odd or even improper to send good wishes at the occasion of Maulid, the celebration of the Birthday of the Prophet, to people are 'member' of another religion.

This is a complicated question. I made it quite simple and wrote as a comment about two personal anecdotes:

Above is a picture of myself, while living in the Pesantren of Gontor in early 1971

 

In 1987 I was working at the Islamic University of Yogyakarta (then still IAIN) as an international visiting professor. One morning I received a visit from an English young man, a musician who held a similar position at the Arts Academy of Yogyakarta. He told me that he was in love with a nice Sundanese, West-Javanese lady and wanted to marry her. One condition of the family (and his fiancée) was that he should embrace Islam first. He told me that he was born in a religiously indifferent British family, formally member of the Anglican Church. He had read some good books on Islam, learned how to pray and said that he wanted to accept Islam. To me, a non-Muslim specialist in Islamic Studies, he asked advice how to do this. And, when possible, within the time limit of one week!  I gave him advice to address the imam of the campus mosque, brought him in contact with this man and a few days later there was a conversion ceremony. I was invited and attended the ceremony. After a speech by the imam, this mosque leader invited this young man to renounce Christianity and repeat the Shahadat as a confession of his new faith. As usual there were some sambutan after the formal conversion. I had seen already in the beginning, that I was also on the list of sambutan.

When I was given the opportunity to give my talk, I first criticized the imam. According to the best of my knowledge, there is no need for someone who once had formally embraced Christianity, albeit in a modest and not really active way, to renounce Christianity as a whole. Christianity is accepted as a religion, sent by God to mankind, preached by Jesus, son of Mary. But, I still praised this young man for his step to take religion serious in his marriage and to become more active religiously. From a sleeping believer he had become a more practising faithful and so I could happily attend this ceremony.

A report of this ceremony was included in the magazine Suara Muhammadiyah and several priests of Kota Baru, the eminent Jesuit library, criticized me for having accepted the invitation to speak at this ‘Islamisation’, but I repeated my argument that I could be happy with someone becoming religious active, also in a Muslim tradition.

There is a nice story in the Gospel of Jesus about a shepherd who misses one sheep and leave 99 unattended to seek that one sheep. And it concluded with the saying: ‘there will be more rejoicing in heaven about one sinner who repents than over 99 who do not need to repent’ (Luke 15:7)

During a ceremony, probably an examination, at IAIN Sunan Yogyakarta, about 1987. Left of me is Dr. Simuh
 

The second anecdote I want to tell is about a much earlier period. As a Ph.D. student I applied for a stay of three months in the pesantren of Gontor, for participant observation of daily life in the school. I was accepted to live there and follow classes. Finally I asked that I also could join the prayers. I told them that I was a Catholic but did like the style of Muslim prayers. I was questioned about the most common rituals, washing and ablutions, the quick style of praying Al-Fatiha (also Catholics say the prayers in the rosary very fast, like Muslim say al-Fatiha at great speed). Then I was asked to read Surat al-Ikhlas and to comment on it. Allahu ahad .. Lam yalid wa lam yulad:  I could convince them that the Christian Creed starts with the confession that God is One and that there is no compromise to this statement. Then I was asked about the second sentence of al-Fatiha  (ashhadtu an la ilaha illah Allah). I had to confess that many Christians do not really feel love for Muhammad, known little about him and that he has a bad reputation sometimes, but that I personally love the Qur’an and feel in the Qur’an also the religious and social drive of Muhammad as a great inspirator for 1/5 of mankind. That I consider him a gift of God to mankind and therefore happily join the confession that he is a Servant and Prophet of God. Pak Zarkasji accepted my comments and allowed me to join the Muslim prayers. Although he later prayerd that I should become a ‘full Muslim’ and I said inshallah, may God turn me into a good Muslim in the sense of Muslim with a capital as explained by Nurcholis Madjid, as someone who surrenders to God.

So far, some comments about joy at religious festivals, over the boundaries.

Season's Greetings: the turn of 2012 to 2013

Dear Friends, the first greetings have arrived and many more will follow: we are happy to see these contacts renewed through the easy electronic media we may use now.
 In the 1950s, when we were still very young (!) the older members of the Steenbrink family, working in the accountancy business were occupied with stocktaking: all shops had to register all their belongings. So, we are now also looking at the balance of this year. Two members of our family died: brother in law Nic Tesselaar and Karel's sister Anneke. At a blessed age: 86 and 75. Nevertheless dying is not an easy and not a happy stage in our life. As a student of theology I once read an article by learned scholar Karl Rahner: when the physical body declines in health and strength, the spirit rises to its summit! That is too easy and not based on reality. Life is often very beautiful, but death is seldom a nice and harmonious ending!

But there is also an other side. Two grandchildren were born.
Diemer (right) was born in Amsterdam to Floris and Inge on 1 juni  and Maud on 28 september in the house of Stijn and Irene in The Hague.Also this transition was not without pain and trouble, but that is forgotten now. Parents and grandparents are proud and happy.

Paule reached the age of 70 years last 15 december 70 jaar while Karel  had celebrated his 70th anniversary already in January. We were married for 40 years and in various respect 2012 was a crown year.
We have celebrated this every day, several times in smaller circles. Last Sunday, 16 December we had a nice walk with children and grandchildren near Utrecht. Floris and Stijn carry their children on their hearts!

Some short notes, more about this year of grace: we travlled during two weeks through Portugal. Much glory of their colonial period, sometimes even too much gold and other decoration. In spring we had a nice trip to southern France, Provence with its capital of Avignon, temporary abode of the Popes of the 14th century.
Karel was still busy with the writing of the 3d volume to Catholics in Indonesia. 12 out of the planned 15 chapters are written and even corrected through the gentle help of Simon Rae in New Zealand. We hope that this will be finished in early 2013.
Besides, we were still quite busy with past and present of Catholics in our own country, singing in St. Johns Church, in fact a free ecumenical church, living outside a broader framework of Catholics now: still continuing the ecumenical dream of the 1960s and early 1970s.
We wish you all blessed celebrations of Christmas and a good start of the new year!
Karel Steenbrink and Paule Maas

Enrico": the Spiritual Playground of Ayu Utami

I am still busy with writing the third volume Catholics in Indonesia. Chapter seven is about theologians, columnists, artists. It ends with a section on Rendra and Ayu Utami. For this I read the book Cerita Cinta Enrico and below you may find my summary and special interest in this very fine book.

In chapter 3 we have already discussed two novels (Saman; Larung) by Ayu Utami. In chapter 6 we mentioned her biography of the first Archbishop of Semarang, Soegijapranata. Still, we want to talk here about another novel by this prominent author, Cerita Cinta Enrico (Enrico’s Love Story, published in 2012). Utami is not less controversial than Rendra was in the 1950s and 1960s  as a ‘Catholic author’. In chapter 3 we also made some remarks about her novel Bilangan Fu as an attack on all kind of Monotheism (besides the other two bad M: Military and Modernity). This is continued in some sense in Cerita Cinta Enrico. In this novel the narrator is Enrico, son of a low to middle level military man from a more or less Muslim family in Madura. He married in Java to a Protestant lady, Syrnie Masmirah, who was from the Muslim stronghold of Kudus. Syrnie’s mother had converted to Protestantism after her Muslim husband had taken a second wife. This conversion had been more or less out of revenge. The couple moved to West Sumatra, Bukittingi where two children were born, first a girl and two years later a boy. The boy is called Enrico after the famous Italian tenor Caruso who really cared for his wife and his mother. After the daughter had died suddenly at young age, Syrnie converted to the Jehovah Witnesses, in fact a forbidden sect in Indonesia and definitely in strong Muslim Minangkabau. Syrnie converted to the Jehovah Witnesses because they talked with so much certainty about the End of the World and a New World. Then she would meet her daughter again. Enrico wanted to study in Java, Bandung, at a technical university. His mother only would let him go, if he converted to the Jehovah Witnesses. So, in order ‘to earn a ticket for Java’ he was baptised by the Witnesses and followed for some the meetings. Enrico was born in 1958. His mother died in 1983 and was buried in a Muslim cemetery, because the father had to arrange this ceremony. But when the father himself died in January 2000 (the novel is quite precise in all these dates), the son Enrico arranged a burial for him at the Christian cemetery:

My father finally was baptised as a Jehovah Witness, long time after my mother had died. This had happened only a few years before he did not wake up again, after he was happy to have seen the beginning of the year 2000. My father had been very cynical about religion. I think that my father was the prototype of a Javanese (although he himself was born in Madura): someone who believes in some supreme power beyond this visible world, something that they often call Lord, who needs no clear definition, already long before the arrival of these import religions. When the import religions practiced their obsessive preaching, my father considered them as just one out of many ways towards goodness. There is no single or exclusive road in this world. There are always many roads. They have a more liberal attitude than many Muslims or Christians, among them my mother. I never saw my father performing the ritual prayers. If I understand my father well, I do not believe that he truly believed in the doctrines of the Jehovah Witnesses. But when he had done this conversion, in order to please my mother, why did he not do so during her lifetime? Strange, I never ask my father about this.[1]

The two first sections of the Enrico-book are about the serial conversion of father and mother. In the third part the further social and spiritual journey of Enrico himself is told. Enrico wants to be free. He does not like to be like the broiler chicken, raised by his mother who earned much money from her farm. He wants to be free. Initially Enrico studied engineering in Bandung, but after some time he decided to become a professional photographer. He had numerous love affairs but did not pursue a permanent and stable relation. However, immediately after the death of his father, at the age of 41, he felt the need of a permanent partner in love and he also soon found a nice and gentle lady, the artist and painter A (the reader easily identifies this woman as Ayo Utami in person, because the final note of the novel is also signed by A). Enrico and A both do not want to have children and do not want to marry. The relation develops for both in a very positive way. They feel free in the presence of the other, even when one of them is talking during the sleep, or wants to masturbate. They talk much about sex. For A sex is not sacred (sacral). ‘I never met a woman who was so down-to-earth about sex. She said that sex is not the same as love, although there is a link between the two … Sex gives us joy, but we can be in a better condition of satisfaction and happiness when we do not need to have sex.’[2] Their talk about sexuality also involves criticism on the (Catholic) Church by A:

I no longer attend church services for various reasons. I am angry about the sermons of the priests who are patriarchal and condescending. And I cannot receive communion, which is the eating of bread that is blessed and considered as the Body of Christ, because I live adulterously and do not feel it as a sin.[3]

This is even developed in a quite intellectual discourse about Saint Augustine as the inventor of original sin and his condemnation of sexuality as wrong in itself. But Augustine is not the only male who has unsound ideas about sex. He found his modern equivalent in Sigmund Freud who defined libido as a dark and negative power in mankind. Nevertheless A wants a marriage in a Catholic church after a relation of eight years, in 2008. She has criticism towards the Indonesian marriage law, because it does not give equal rights to women, but according to Catholic doctrine male and female are equal. Therefore A wants to formally marry Enrico in a Catholic ceremony and this finally happens on 17 August 2011. This event had a relation with the story of the Good Shepherd of the Gospel who was seeking one lost sheep, while leaving the 99 orderly sheep.[4] ‒ This is definitely not the pious Catholic novel as is found in the series of stories in the weekly Hidup. Utami is in many ways a sharp critic of the Catholic reality in modern Indonesia. However, she was in that same year also asked to write a biography of the venerated Archbishop Soegijapranata. This shows the flexibility and dynamic, one would say modern characteristic, of the modern Catholics of Indonesia.

---

[1] Utami 2012b:162.

[2] Utami 2012b:197.

[3] Utami 2012b:200.

[4] Utami 2012b:235.

The Pilgrimages of Albertus Laksana

Albertus Bagus Laksana SJ, Journeying to God in Communion with the Other. A comparative theological study of the Muslim and Catholic pilgrimage traditions in South Central Java and their contributions to the Catholic theology of communion sanctorum, Doctoral Dissertation, Boston College, 2011, 663 pages. UMI Dissertation Publishing no 3499300.

Indonesian Muslims, especially in the Central Javanese plains, cherish a large number of shrines. Some are small, but there are also elaborate monuments that attract thousands of pilgrims once in 35 days, at the concurrence of a Muslim day in the schedule of the 7-days week and a traditional Javanese day within a week of five days. This calendar already shows the characteristic of these Muslim shrines: they are also related to pre-Islamic traditions and important figures. Laksana gives detailed historical and modern descriptions of three Muslim shrines in his first part. They were created over a long period of time: the shrine of Tembayat is centred on the grave of the first preacher of Islam in the region, around 1550, while the shrine of Turgo Hill is a quite recent ‘invention’ of the 1980s. The second part (187-426) is a substantial description of three Catholic shrines, all created between the 1930s and the 1990s. 

Architecture in Sendang Sono by Yusuf Bilyarta Mangunwijaya: no big cathedral, but many small places to talk, chat, pray in the pleasant cool mountains close to the big Sono-tree where water is pouring down.

The first is a Catholic place of pilgrimage, called Sendang Sono (Pond of the Sono Tree). This is an adaptation of an existing well, high in the central mountains not far from the ancient Buddhist Borobudur temple. In this well the first larger group of Javanese Catholics were baptized by Father Frans van Lith in 1904 and already in the 1930s a stream of pilgrims started. 

Like a small Prambanan temple, built in the late 1920s as a Sacred Heart shrine: Ganjuran.

In Ganjuran, not far from the southern beach of Java (traditionally a sacred place where the Goddess of the Southern Ocean is venerated), a shrine was built in 1930 for the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a style that was more or less a copy of the Hindu shrines near Prambanan. The initiator was a pious and rich Dutch owner of a sugar plantation. After 1950 this place was more or less neglected, but in 1988 the Indonesian priest Gregorius Utomo started a revival of the shrine that was very successful and since then the celebration of the procession in June (Sunday of the Feast of Holy Heart of Jesus) has become one of the big events among Catholics of Indonesia. Water was found at the place of the shrine and some miracles took place. 

The third Catholic shrine is in the town of Muntilan where the first missionary Frans van Lith, the first martyr, diocesan priest Sanjaya, and some other ‘ancestors’ for Catholicism in Java have been buried in graves that resemble the Javanese Muslim graves. In 1935 it was forbidden by the Church authorities to pay visits to these graves, but after the 1960s they were gradually opened for pilgrims and in the 1990s a museum for the early beginnings of Catholicism in Java was built, a monument for the pioneering missionary and for the martyr of 1948 (who died amidst the war of independence against Dutch colonialism). Laksana pays much attention to the hybridity between Javanese-Muslim traditions and Catholicism. This is not only found in the architecture and some rituals (burning of incense and offerings of flowers on the graves, holy water to be taken home, pilgrimage as a method to seek material gain, marriage partners, pregnancy, healing from diseases), but also in the uttermost purpose of pilgrimage that he defines as a quest for tentrem (peacefulness) and slamet (integral wellbeing). I found it striking that these are all this-worldly goals. The Virgin Mary plays an important role in the shrine of Sendang Sono, also called ‘the Lourdes of Indonesia’, but the person of Jesus remains quite vague and not elaborated even in the Sacred Heart shrine of Ganjuran. Is this a reflection of the Muslim environment where an emphasis on Jesus as son of God is not really appreciated?  The third part of the dissertation wants to apply the proposal of Francis Clooney for a comparative theology to the two series of places of pilgrimage. This is done in two concluding chapters: chapter 8 elaborates the conflicts (Catholics as a remnants of colonialism and as traditionally anti-Islamic) but also the possibilities of sharing a spiritual milieu, a common culture of devotion. Laksana considers a true Indonesian Christianity as the result of ‘religio-cultural negotiations and interactions between different entities such as Islam and Christianity’ (440). From the first foreign missionaries this acceptance of Javanese elements has been a consistent strategy, but during the last decades it developed bottom up, slowly and in a natural way. The places of pilgrimage are also the places to remember the pioneers and saints in Javanese Catholic history. Laksana notes with some regret and envy that ‘in a rather stark contrast to Roman Catholicism, Sunni Islam has no official list of saints’ (490). Therefore the role of saints can develop more easily. In a very long last chapter 9 (504-596) this comparative theology is further developed in the idea of communio sanctorum. Already on p. 468 Laksana compared the Muslim idea of isnād (some kind of ‘apostolic tradition’ in preserving the memory of the Prophet and the first generation of faithful) to the concept of the more general communion of the faithful. In the last chapter we are no longer in Indonesia, but in a broad group of Christian theologians (especially Elizabeth Johnson, but also Louis Massignon, Yves Congar, Jürgen Moltmann, Henri Corbin) and Muslim mystics like the great master ‘Ibn ‘Arabī, besides Al-Hallāj, Al-Ghazzālī and others. There is still an echo of Pope Benedict XVI about his visit to the Great Mosque of Amman, Jordan, where he stated that all places of worship ‘from the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty’ (438). 

In the concluding chapter Laksana again and again stresses that ‘double visiting’ (pilgrimage to a sacred place of another religion) will enrich and deepen the understanding of one’s identity, will produce peace of heart, but a Catholic will always pray as a Catholic. Here I had two basic questions that I like to illustrate with two personal anecdotes about these shrines. The first question is about the anti-pilgrimage tradition in both religions. Protestant Christians, but also quite many Catholics as well as many Muslims have fundamental problems with this practice of popular religion. In the mid-1980s I was teaching at an Islamic University in Yogyakarta. With a Muslim colleague I visited the grave of Tembayat. Below the hill where the saint is buried, a row of women sold incense and flowers. I bought a sachet. My Muslim colleague, a modernist, reproached me: ‘We come here for observation, not for participation.’ I replied that I was brought up in a Catholic tradition and loved pilgrimages with all the folklore. He smiled, but could not understand this mixture with a Western Catholic. This opposition to pilgrimages and to popular religion in general in many circles of Christians and Muslims is fully absent here. Is comparative theology some kind of ‘seek and you will find?’ but only after seeking your favourites also with others? The second and even more basic question is about the sometimes quite artificial division between the major religions. There is perhaps no other country in the world where this division has become so strict. The Indonesian constitution has the formula that the nation is built ‘upon the belief in the One and Almighty Divinity’. This means in practice that atheists and heretics are illegal in the country. For acts like marriage, but also to get an identity card or a drivers’ licence one most declare one’s religion with a choice out of six recognised religions (Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Confucian). There is some protest in the country about this simplistic reduction of religion to six big players only, but I have the feeling that some churches and the Council of Muslim Scholars love this state protection of their monopoly. I once received in Yogyakarta the request of a parish priest to support a good Catholic and jobless carpenter. The man did some reparations in our house and built a fine miniature Javanese house for our Christmas nativity scene. Later I met this ‘pious Catholic’ again among many thousands in the Muslim shrine of Tembayat. He felt ashamed and only said to me: ‘Oh sir, I still have no job!’ Shrines, sacred wells, healers, often are not restricted to one major and official religion, but escape these too simple categories. The fine book and thorough and sophisticated description by Laksana is also the starting point for further questions about religious identity and loyalty. – Karel Steenbrink, IIMO, Utrecht University.  (This review was originally written for the journal Exchange and you are invited to read the whole issue of this academic journal of our institute).