Majapahit: Inspiration for the World
by Catrini Kubontubuh and Peter Carey (ed.), Yayasan Arsari Djojohadikusumo, 2014
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Ceremonial Structures during the
Majapahit Era
Made Wijaya
‘The emphasis at Hayam Wuruk’s court was on the ritualistic’.[i]
— Kenneth R. Hall, ‘Ritual
Networks and Royal Power in Majapahit Java’, Archipel 52 (1996):108.
Balinese historians are
often surprised by conclusions reached or suppositions posed by non-Balinese
scholars regarding the possible usage of Majapahit era candi[ii]
and patilasan.
Even the great Theodoor
Paul Galestin (1907-1980), in his seminal 1936 Leiden doctoral thesis, Houtbouw op Oost-Javaansche tempel-reliefs
[Timber Buildings in East Javanese Temple Reliefs], makes a
false assumption regarding the probable usage of buildings depicted on
Majapahit-era bas reliefs. He assumes that curtains on the timber pavilion
suggested that it was for sleeping. In fact, ceremonial sakenam (six-post) pavilions are often used in Bali for the
ceremony of layon or laying out of a
corpse, or for offerings. At these times, curtains (klangsih) are added to keep the chickens off the offerings rather
than for any considerations of privacy. Balinese children who sleep in these
open pavilions never use curtains. It is possible to speculate that the same
may have been the case during the Majapahit era.
Victor M. Fic, in his
controversial book, From Majapahit to
Candi Sukuh (Fic 2003), draws on his vast knowledge of Tantric ritual to bring
to life many of the agama tirta
rituals of Candi Sukuh. He places the ruler’s brahmans (purohita) at the centre of these ceremonies just as they still are
in Bali today, mentioning ritualistic and objects such as the danda staff, the royal lingga and elaborating on their
importance in the rituals.
Patirtan, meru, prasada and gedong — sacred temple buildings popular during the Majapahit era —
are still being built in Bali today and the present author’s research indicates
that these rituals have changed little over the past half millennium (Made
Wijaya 2014:131, 145-6). This comprises the period since the final and perhaps
most influential wave of Majapahit influence was laid over Bali’s extant
Brahmanic rituals, namely, rituals as performed by priests of the Brahmana
caste. Balinese high priests I have interviewed generally agree that the most
complex of Balinese rituals — the Eka Dasa Rudra and Manah Naga Banda
ceremonies — are Majapahit imports.[iii]
Certainly such rituals as the mecaru
(netherworld appeasement rituals) and nyekar
rituals using puspa (spirit effigies)
still in use in Bali today (Made Wijaya 2014:143, 261-2, 301), can be traced directly
back to Majapahit.[iv]
Both Soekmono and Nigel
Bullough (Hadi Sidomulyo)’s researches on the late Majapahit era Mt
Penanggungan temples, have thrown some light on some of the ceremonies
practised in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century (Soekmono 1973:81-6; 1996:52-3;
Sidomulyo 2013). Indeed, both Bullough/Sidomulyo and Damais consider that the
terraced sanctuaries on the slopes of Mt Penanggungan are of the padarman type and principally devoted to
ancestor worship. Sections of the Tantu Panggĕlaran[v] talk of ancestor worship related
ceremonies. Terracotta finds in Trowulan even suggest that ancestor worship
complexes (mrajan) may have been an important
feature of domestic homes in the late Majapahit era (1293-1510s) (Damais
2012:76).
After over forty years of
attending temple ceremonies in Bali, it is evident to the present author that
sometimes shrines are added. For example, the Pelinggih Basukian commemorates the successful completion of the 1979
Eka Dasa Rudra centennial ceremonies at Besakih. Even the spatial and
structural (shrine design) overhauls currently in fashion as part of the
‘andesite revolution’ and accompanying homogenization fit into this pattern for
the ceremonies stay the same, often passed down from brahman house to palace, to
village through the ages. In his Island
of Bali (1937), Covarrubias observed that ‘What is the rule in one village
is the exception in the next’, but the ‘gist’ of the ceremonies, the Panca Yadnya template, stays the same.
This is little discussed —
or indeed understood — by non-Balinese scholars of Hindu-Javanese temples, thus
the aforementioned assumptions.
 |
Figure 1. Ida Cokorda Pemecutan XI (r. 1989-present),
Raja of Badung (Denpasar), installs his father, Ida Cokorda Pemecutan X’s,
spirit effigy (puspa) on a decorative float during the climax of the palace’s
mukur ceremonies on 27 April 1986.
Photograph copyright Made Wijaya.
|
A basic knowledge of
Hindu-Dharma (Balinese) temple types — such as, pura persimpangan, taman, bale agung (ancient), subak segara and mrajan types —might help scholars unravel the mysteries of
Majapahit.
Figure 2. Pura taman
(royal gardens)
Were the pelinggih type shrines we find amongst
the Mt Penanggungan temple ruins — and to date found nowhere else — the
inspiration for the padmasanas
introduced to Bali by Dwijendra after 1573? Altars, as opposed to the equally
ancient Sri (spirit house) type, were also common in Bali — for example in the
rice field spirit houses for the rice goddess, Dewi Sri[vi] — and in
pre-Majapahit Java (see Figure 3 left below). Dwijendra is thought to have introduced
the padmasana as a unifying element
to strengthen the Balinese Hindu-Dharma against the threat of Islam. The pedarman[vii] at
Besakih may have even been established by Dwijendra to reinforce this unifying
trend.
Figure 3. Spirit Houses
We know from various
manuscripts — the Pararaton (1481/1600)
and the late-fourteenth-century Deśawarņana
('the depiction of the districts’)[viii] (1365)
in particular — that Shivaite and Buddhist holy men had quarters outside the
Keraton Majapahit in the southernmost part of the royal city in what is now
Bejijong hamlet,[ix]
and that a temple to the ancestors was located in the rulers’ pleasure gardens,
as it is in many Balinese palaces.
From the priestly implements
and vessels which survive from early periods we can assume that today’s
priestly rites in Bali have changed little since the Majapahit era — the
implements are almost identical (see Figures 4 and 5 below). One notes in
particular, the genta (priest's bells),
the dragon brassiere, the tirta (holy
water) receptacles, the ketu
(crowns), the tiered bells for the jangga
(Bujangga) rsi, and the priest's sirih
(betel nut) boxes, called peti
pacanangan in Bali, hence the name Pura Peti Tenget (Indonesian:'angker’) in Seminyak, where Dhang Hyang
Dwijendra left his Majapahit-era peti
pacanangan (sirih box) (Miksic
1995).
Figure 4. Holy water containers
Figure 5. Ketu
(high priest’s headdress)
What is harder to discern,
when one embarks on an investigation of the layers of Balinese ceremonies, is
which ceremonies are ‘archaic’ Bali, and which were laid down by Empu Kuturan
during the eleventh-century ‘Pasekization’ or unification process, and which ceremonies
were imported in the late sixteenth century by Dang Hyang Dwijendra.
Not since 1924, for
example, when Raden Soekotjo did a sketch illustration of his theory, seeking
to prove that Candi Naga at Candi Penataran was most probably the base of a meru, has any serious interpretative
research been undertaken (Figure 6).
 |
Figure 6. Reconstruction of Candi Naga, Penataran Meru, in 1924 by R.
Soekotjo. Photograph Ann Kinney, Worshipping
Siva and Buddha: The Temple Art of East Java Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2003.
|
Are the small shrines on a
single base in the Blitar complex known as Candi Kotes perhaps a relic of mrajan architecture? The scale of the
rest of the complex and the existence of a gedong
suggests that the complex is a smallish pura
rather than a mrajan. But what seem
like tripartite shrines are intriguing. Intriguing also is the simple courtyard
shrine that the Delft-trained architect, Henri Maclaine Pont (1884-1971), built
in the centre of the old field museum at Trowulan (see Figure 7 below). Why were
depictions of these courtyard shrines not carved onto the temple reliefs, depicting
houses and palaces? Is this because they were too small?
 |
Figure 7. This shrine, in the old Majapahit field museum near Trowulan,
Mojokerto, East Java, is a reinvention of a fourteenth-century Hindu courtyard
house-shrine with had been pieced together by famed architect and amateur
archaeologist, Henri Maclaine Pont (1884-1971). The field museum was
established in 1924 with the help of the former Mojokerto Regent, Raden
Adipati Ario Kromodjojo Adinegoro (in office, 1894-1916). Photograph
copyright Made Wijaya.
|
 |
Figure 8. (Left to right) twentieth-century tripartite shrine in East Bali;
and fourteenth-century tripartite shrine at Candi Kotes, Blitar, East Java.
Photograph copyright Made Wijaya.
|
Bas relief panels of meru, pura taman, bale agung, bale lantang,
piyasan, pawedan and kori exist
but only one or two suggestions of pelinggih
(bedugul or sanggah surya) have
been discovered.
 |
Figure 9. Bas relief of
a Majapahit-era Hindu temple: the fourteenth-century Candi Jago, Malang, East
Java. Similarities to Hindu-Balinese temples of today are pronounced.
Photograph copyright Made Wijaya.
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If we assume that the
grand Balinese palace maligia
ceremonies are descended from the classical Majapahit Sraddha[x]
ceremonies — which deified a particular king — then what of all the plethora of
other extravagant Pitra Yadnya
related ceremonies in Bali? How many of these are Majapahit and how many
pre-existing?
Many so-called kejawen rituals in Java — such as Larung Sesaji, known in Bali as the Ngaturang Pekelem, the sacrificing of animals
to the lakes, and the annual ritual of the south-central Javanese courts known
as Labuhan
(from the Javanese ‘labuh’ – ‘to
throw into the water’), namely, the conveying of sacred royal offerings to
the Goddess of the Southern Ocean at Parangkusumo (Bantul) on the South Coast,
of which the Balinese equivalent is melasti,
and the processions of albino water buffalo and the various funerary and
wedding rites[xi]
— are roughly similar in both cultures, but that does not necessarily mean a
common Majapahit ceremonial root, even though this was the last era during
which the cultures were conjoined
As Kenneth Hall observed:
‘The emphasis at Hayam Wuruk's court was on
the ritualistic. The Nāgarakĕrtāgama centres
on the two lavish court rituals that mark the passage of the agricultural
cycle, and the "Royal Progress" to invoke the powerful guardian
deities of the hinterland consumes most of the remaining text. The king's
ritual performance, whether at the court or beyond, dramatized the assumptions
of fact and value in Javanese culture. Local rites mirrored the liturgical
efforts of the kraton; by validating
local ritual the king and his court acknowledged cultural diversity, local
manners, ways, and ancestral sanctifications’ (Hall 1996:108-9).
The
role of the family heads in Bali’s puri
agung royal palaces has changed little since the Majapahit era.
Some dances and gamelan in Bali — such as the Baris
Gede, Selonding, wayang kulit (shadow
play)[xii] and wayang wong (dance drama) — are musical
dance offerings known as wawalen
(from the root of Balinese word, ‘wali’, meaning an offering to the gods). Many
such art forms are still shared between the two cultures of Bali and Java today,
and evidence suggests that this was probably the case during the Majapahit era.
Certainly Baris Gede was popular during the Majapahit era and the love of music
and the arts was a Majapahit trademark.
Comparing
Balinese-Javanese relations is sometimes confusing: the holy day Sugian Jawa, for example, is celebrated
in Bali by all the Balinese of Majapahit ‘descent’ — and even some Paseks (Empu Kuturan’s pre-Majapahit
clan), which seems odd when the day is supposed to commemorate the arrival of
the ‘wong Majapahit’ (people from
Majapahit).
Majapahit style ceremonial
costumes are still used in ceremonies in temples in the Badung (Denpasar) regency;
and in temples such as Pura Patilan (Pengerebongan), Pura Dalem Kepala, Kepaon
and Pura Tambang Badung, the Istana
(palace) of Dalem Majapahit. These are ceremonies which commemorate an
historical link or revere founding deities or forefathers/ ancestors such as
the various ceremonies devoted to Dewa Gede (Arya Kangin?) in East Bali
(Bebandem area).
Kenneth Hall in his essay
on ‘Ritual Networks and Royal Power in Majapahit Java’ mentions the small
sanctuaries and shrines (caitya) and stone
temple pagoda (prasada)[xiii] that
were normally located on the estates of individuals of status, and at rural lingga (pura subak?) and he elaborates on the caru ceremonies performed to placate the negative influences during
the Majapahit era.
Figure 10. Miniature
Temple
Height :
78cm
Width :
25cm
Thickness :
26cm
(Catalogue No. AD 0003)
According to the antique dealers, many of these miniature temples
were found on the slope of the Semeru volcano. They are all either in the
shape of the Candi Jawi temple with its lingam
pinnacle or square, like the ‘dated temple’ of the Candi Penataran temple
complex — two temples that were renowned across Majapahit, and often
mentioned in its literature and inscriptions. Many of the miniature are
simplified, almost cubistic version of the original, although some are carved
in greater detail. The late archaeologist Prof. Boechari[1]
suggested that these miniature replicas were places inside the house temples
to represent those famous sanctuaries, in the same way that the Balinese
still furnish their mrajan (family
temple) with shrines representing major temples today. Photograph Soedarmadji
J.H. Damais 2012:76.
|
 |
The author of the Desawarnana, Empu Prapañca, states that
he was a devout Buddhist, so it is to the Pararaton
and earlier texts that we must turn for detail on Shivaite and Vishnuite ceremonies.
Sadly, in all of the texts there is little or no mention of the actual shrines
and temples in ordinary house compounds (but see above Figure 10).
It is possible that a comparison of the Hindu-era
ceremonies still performed in the Javanese palaces and royal cities with those
current in Bali, might shed light on Majapahit precedents. Further research is
clearly required, research which needs to start from a detailed study of the
relevant Old Javanese and Balinese texts and of temple carvings by scholars
familiar with Balinese Hindu-dharma rites
and customs.
______________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Covarrubias, Miguel (1937). Island
of Bali. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Damais, Soedarmadji J. H. (2012). Majapahit
Terracotta: The Soedarmadji Jean Henry Damais collection. Jakarta: BAB
Publishing Indonesia.
Fic, Victor M. (2003). From Majapahit
and Sukuh to Megawati Sukarnoputri: Continuity and Change in Pluralism of
Religion, Culture and Politics of Indonesia from the XV to the XXI Century.
New Delhi: Abhinav Publication.
Galestin, Th. P. (1936). Houtbouw
op Oost-Javaansche tempelreliëfs. Doctoral thesis, University
of Leiden. ‘s-Gravenhage: privately published.
Gomperts, Amrit, Arnoud Haag, and Peter Carey, ‘Stutterheim’s Enigma; The Mystery of
his Mapping of the Majapahit Kraton at Trowulan in 1941’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Leiden), 164, 4:411-30
______________ ‘The Archaeological
Identification of the Majapahit Royal Palace: Prapañca’s 1365 Description
Projected onto Satellite Imagery’, Journal
of the Siam Society (Bangkok), 102:67-118
Hall, Kenneth R. (1996). ‘Ritual Networks and Royal Power in Majapahit
Java’, Archipel 52:95-118.
Holt, Claire (1967). Art in
Indonesia. Continuities and Change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kinney, Ann R., Klokke, Marijke J., and Kieven, Lydia (2003). Worshipping Siva and Buddha, The Temple Art
of East Java. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Miksic, John N. (ed) (1995). The
Legacy of Majapahit. Majapahit Sunburst with Guardian Gods of the Nine
Directions. Singapore: National Heritage Board.
Pigeaud, Th.G.Th. (1960-1963). Java
in the Fourteenth Century: A Study in Cultural History: The Nāgara-kěrtāgama by
Rakawi Prapañca of Majapahit, 1365 A.D. 3rd ed. Illustrated with
drawings by Professor Th.P. Galestin. Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal=, Land- en
Volkenkunde. Translation Series 4, 1-5. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Sidomulyo, Hadi (2013). Mengenal
Situs Purbakala di Gunung Penanggungan. Surabaya: Ubaya Press.
Soekmono, R. (1973). Pengantar
Sejarah Kebudayaan Indonesia. Volume 2. Yogyakarta: Kanisius.
Soekmono, R. (1995). The Javanese Candi: Function and Meaning.
Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Soekmono, R. (1996). ‘Candi: Symbol of the Universe’, in John Miksic (ed), Ancient History, Volume 1 ( Indonesian Heritage
Series), pp.58-9. Singapore: Archipelago Press.
Wijaya, Made (2014). Majapahit Styles.
Volume 1. Jakarta: Wijaya Words.
END NOTES
[i] By
the Majapahit era, dharma-based
ritual still addressed celestial and ancestral deities; but the kraton was clearly the centre of
specific types of ritual, especially those celebrating the Majapahit monarch as
the source of secular unity and subsequent generalized prosperity.
[ii] The word ‘candi’ is generally considered to have
been derived from the term candikagrha
denoting the dwelling place of Candika, Goddess of Death, and consort of Lord
Shiva, see Soekmono 1996:58-9. Candi
generally exist as stone or redbrick structures, which, in the past, functioned
as temples or mausoleums of a king. See further Soekmono 1995.
[iii] Personal
communication: Professor Dr Litt I Gusti Putu Palgunadi, M.A., Puri Gerenceng,
Denpasar, 2012; Pedanda Geria Telabah, Sanur, July 2013; Drs Wayan Surpha
(former National Sec-Gen Parisadha Hindu Dharma), Denpasar, September 2013;
Pedanda Geria Toko, Sanur, September 2013.
[iv] Flower
offerings assume central importance in the celebration of the Majapahit's
seven-day Rājapatnī şrāddha
(post-cremation rites that initiated the final liberation of the soul from
earthly bonds) that deified King Hayam Wuruk (reigned, 1350-89)'s grandmother
in 1362, by similarly neutralizing the spiritual forces of the ‘netherworld’
prior to the invocation of celestial deities (Nāgarakĕrtāgama, 65.2.1; 67.2.4). In the Rājapatnī
chthonic-celestial ritual, the spirits of this ‘netherworld’ are initially
invoked and invited to take up temporary residence in a puspa flower figurine (sang
hyang puşpasarira), which is an image of the deceased Rājapatnī. This
effigy was then placed on a throne, the centerpiece of this veneration and the
place to which the soul (swah) of the
Rājapatnī was to enter. The lion denoted the demonical chthonic spirits subdued
by the representatives of the middle world (Buddhist monks and a purohita, the chief court Brahmin who
was versed in the ‘Three Tantras’) during the course of the ritual. The essence
of the Rājapatnī assumed temporary residence in the flower effigy, and was
ultimately freed from these ‘netherworld’ spirits. See further Hall 1996:106.
[v] The Tantu
Panggĕlaran specifically attributes Mount Penanggungan to be ‘the abode of
the gods’. Immediately below the mountain, above the Majapahit kraton, there is a concentration of
tenth through fifteenth century ritual sites, including Majapahit's Salakĕlir
complex. See
further Hall 1996:106
[vi] jangga,
‘rural shamans’, who are distinguished separately from ‘respectable’ rësi, officiated in ceremonies
associated with the worship of the rice goddess, see Nāgarakĕrtāgama, canto 78 (Pigeaud 1960-1963: 4, 14, 211 and 482).
See further Hall
1996:107.
[vii] Pedarman
is a clan-based worshipping temple. Large scale pedarman temples can be found in Besakih. Smaller scale temples are
called pura dadia.
[viii] This
was also more commonly known under its Javano-Sanskrit title of Nāgarakŗtāgama, which freely translates
as 'Precept of Past Statecraft’.
[ix] On the layout of the Majapahit
royal capital and the location of the residence of the Buddhist and Sivaite
clergy, see further Amrit Gomperts, Arnoud
Haag, and Peter Carey, ‘Stutterheim’s
Enigma; The Mystery of his Mapping of the Majapahit Kraton at Trowulan in 1941’,
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en
Volkenkunde (Leiden), 164, 4:428; and ‘The Archaeological Identification of the Majapahit Royal Palace:
Prapañca’s 1365 Description Projected onto Satellite Imagery’, Journal of the Siam Society (Bangkok),
102:67-118.
[x] This Majapahit śrāddha is a public ritual, which was shared by members of the
extended royal family, high officials, servants and their wives, priests and
monks of the various religious sects, dancers, musicians, and others who were
associated with the court. The ritual was performed by Buddhist monks and a purohita (‘chief court brahmin’), ‘who
was versed in the Three Tantras’ (Nāgarakĕrtāgama,
64.3). See
further Hall 1996:106.
[xi] The record of the Royal Progress of 1359,
the central chapter of the Nāgarakĕrtāgama,
links the king to both the celestial and the ‘netherworld’. During this
‘Progress’, the king offered sequential worship at the dharma of his deified
ancestors and other former monarchs as well as at the shrines of prominent
mountain deities when his royal entourage journeyed to Jajawa (at the foot of Mount Welirang), Palah (Panataran, at the
base of Mount Kelud), and Bureng (the source of the Brantas river), Nāgarakĕrtāgama, 57.5 (Pigeaud
1960-1963:17, 38). Through the ritual initiatives and personal outreach of
Hayam Wuruk's court (1350-89) the king was no longer perceived as isolated from
his subjects. Performance of and participation in sacred ritual, whether at the
court or among the rural populations, allowed the Majapahit king to be in
regular communication with his realm in ways that were previously uncommon. See further Hall 1996:108.
[xii] This world of the spirits is also the setting
for the Javanese shadow puppet theatre (wayang
kulit) that figures prominently in Majapahit court entertainment and also
in Majapahit era temple iconography, which highlights this connection between
the cosmic and the secular world, between the chthonic and the celestial (Holt
1967:123-50). In all of these, the Kadiri kraton
is associated with the ‘netherworld’ realm of the spirits. See further Hall 1996:107.
[xiii] Beyond the royal temple
compounds (dharma), these three
communities (the tripaksa,
or ‘three domains’) as well as the less-favored Vaisnava priests performed
ritual connected with ancestral and local spirits at small sanctuaries and
shrines (caitya) and temple towers (prasada), which were normally located on
the estates of individuals of status, and at rural lingga, which were especially associated with rĕşi (Nāgarakĕrtāgama, 63.2, 69.3, 77, 78.1,
81.1, 82.3). Each of these ‘domains’ was subject to the king's donative efforts
at daņa, kīŗti, and puņya. The
king was said to ‘protect’ the tripaksa
clergy, who were collectively referenced as sira
(‘illustrious’), a term reserved for divine beings and royalty (Nāgarakĕrtāgama, 80.4). See further Hall 1996:102.
