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This paper "Durable Traditions: Inspirational Legacies in Stone in the National Museum of Indonesia" was presented at the International Conference on Textiles of Indonesia: Today and In The Future, held at the National Museum, November 21-22, 2007.
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Durable Traditions: Inspirational Textile Legacies in Stone in the National Museum of Indonesia
Jonathan Zilberg, Ph.D.
. . . the measure of an event’s or a person’s importance in the hurly‐burly of history is the time they take to be forgotten. Only those that endure and are identified with an enduring reality really count in the history of civilization (Fernand Braudel A History of Civilizations 1995:27).
Introduction
Some of the specimens of stone sculpture from the pre‐Islamic Hindu‐Buddhist
period that are kept today in the courtyard of the National Museum of Indonesia can
play an important role in stimulating people to gain a deeper appreciation of the history
of textiles in Asia. In fact, the most intricately carved specimens provide an exceptional
if limited record of the most sumptuous cloth worn by royalty in the Indonesian
archipelago from the late 7th through the 14th Century. These records of cloth in stone
provide tantalizing glimpses into the ritual importance of cloth dating back perhaps to
the 4th century and beyond. As limited as the record is, it concerns the Javanese
kingdoms of Mataram between the 9th and 11th century, the cosmopolitan Srivijayan
kingdoms prior to the 13th century, and the classical Majapahit kingdoms of Kediri and
Singasari which reached the height of their power in the 14th Century (see Hall 1985,
Gesick 1983, Kathirithanby‐Wells and Villiers 1990, Tarling 1992 and Wolters 1967,
1970).
The sculptures considered below provide us with a record of the cultural,
religious and political worlds in which the textiles existed as sacred possessions.
Assumedly, the patterns carved in stone provide accurate records of highly valued
textiles worn by royalty in specific ritual contexts. For instance, the Ganesha sculptures
provide us with a focal image for revisiting the spread of Brahmanism in Java during the
4th and 5th centuries when Savaism became the dominant faith. Similarly powerful
sculptures of other Hindu‐Buddhist deities record critical moments in the history of the
Central Javanese kingdoms dating from the 9th to the 14th centuries when Tantric
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Buddhism and other traditions alternatively held sway in different courts and kingdoms
before the coming of Islam (see Abrams 1990, Bernet Kempers 1976, Miksic and
Soekatno 1995). These sculptures have been widely referred to in the literature and the
typical approach has been to consider what they reveal about symbols and ritual and
inter‐Asian relations. However, much less has been written about how they provide
records of the most valued textiles of the day. Not only do these classic examples in the
National Museum provide us with an historical record of textile design and structure but
they also record how the textiles were worn.
Designs in Time
While archaeologists and anthropologists have long noted the fact of the
existence of this record of textiles on stone sculpture (Iskandar 2003:155, Maxwell
2003:1, 72‐74, 2003, van der Hoop1949: 80‐81, 228‐229), except for John Guy’s work on
the antiquity of the Asian textile trade record (1984: 55‐63), no one to my knowledge
has studied this veritable archive of ancient textile information in Indonesia and
elsewhere in a systematic fashion. In beginning such a task, this paper pays special
attention to revisiting Guy’s focus on one particular pattern found on many of these
sculptures – that of the overlapping arrays of circles. It is known in West Sumatra as the
kawung or “split‐peanut” pattern (Guy 1984:62, Jessup 2004:43, van der Hoop 1949:80).
There is also an abundance of other contextually relevant information recorded on
these sculptures such as the jewelry, the depiction of the lotus (van der Hoop 1949:260‐
61), gestural features, the use of skulls and other ritual paraphernalia. In short, these
textiles should be considered as part of a total assemblage worn in specific ritual
contexts and as the historical and archaeological contexts of these sculptures is well
described in the literature, it is possible to place these textiles within both general and
specific cultural histories of the Indianized Hindu‐Buddhist Southeast Asian kingdoms
(see Bernett Kempers 1989, Dhamija 2002, Fontein 1990a and b, Klokke 1993, Maxwell
2003, Miksic 1992. Stutterheim 1961, van Naerssen 1976). The central purpose of this
paper is more simply to introduce the range of patterns found on these specimens in
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the museum and to focus on one key design element which is found on several of these
sculptures, the kawung pattern. In this way, if one considers these design elements in
relation to the archaeological, historical and ethnographic record, one gains a far deeper
appreciation of the antiquity of contemporary textiles traditions than one would
otherwise have without paying attention to such details on these sculptures. From my
observations as a museum ethnographer studying the National Museum, few museum
visitors, even those with a deep interest in Indonesian textiles, are remotely aware of
just how much information is recorded on these sculptures.
The Data: Focusing on Specific Patterns on Particular Sculptures
A number of the finest sculptures in the main courtyard of the National Museum
provide detailed renditions communicating the magnificence of the original textiles
worn in known ceremonial contexts by specific historical figures depicted as deities or
otherwise. I will introduce them in order as one would encounter them after entering
the front vestibule. For the sake of space, I will not analyze in depth any of the textiles
appearing on these sculptures except for introducing some of the range that exists and
for setting up the data on the specimens displaying the kawung pattern for ongoing
analysis. And while there are other examples in the collection and in other collections in
Europe and elsewhere that are useful in such an analysis I have chosen to introduce
here only those examples which represent the finest, that is most carefully carved
instances in this particular collection.
The first textile is to be seen immediately upon entering into the front vestibule
of the sculpture court. As shown below, if one carefully examines the waistcloth on the
seated Ganesha sculpture it appears to be damask floral patterned chintz. As for the
flower depicted, it comes as no surprise that it clearly represents the lotus flower.
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Figure 1. Floral pattern on the Ganesha sculpture in the front vestibule of the sculpture courtyard. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
Keep in mind that at the other end of the courtyard, the Tantric Ganesha
sculpture in the rear courtyard is decorated with a very different type of textile and
patterns than the above‐illustrated specimen in the front courtyard. Though these are
very different records of textiles of that time, one question might be could the material
in Figure 1 have been a type of chintz fabric? Very differently, one might compare the
fabrics depicted on both Ganeshas and pose the impossible to answer questions: Which
of these may have been locally produced and which may have been imported? Such
questions are worth pondering considering the fascinating literature on Indian‐
Indonesian textile history best represented in From Sari to Sarong (Maxwell 2003).
The second set of textiles worth examining in great detail as one ventures
further into the collection are the two very different specimens which grace the
imposing Bhairava Hindu King Adityavarman from West Sumatra. The sculpture dates to
1347‐1375AD (6470) and represents a demonic form of Siva, being an iconic record of
Tantric Hindu‐Buddhist beliefs of that period (see Figure 2, also see Fontein 1990:162,
and figure 25 p.163). The waist cloth with its skull patterns set in a metric diagonal field
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are clearly Tantric in their imagery (see Figure 3). The hanging lower body cloth is an
extraordinary rendition of what must have been an exceptionally fine textile. The
intricate and yet bold and powerful pattern has been recorded in painstaking detail by
the sculptor (see Figure 4).
Figure 2. King Malayu Adityavarman, #6470, C. 1350. The Last Hindu‐ Buddhist Ruler of West Sumatra. Portrayed as a Bhairava, a Demonic Hindu‐Buddhist Deity. From Rambahan, Padangroco, West Sumatra. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
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Figure 3. Detail from Figure 2. Note skull patterns in the textile on the left. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
Figure 4. Detail from Figure 2. Note diagonal metrically organized songket‐like patterns. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
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Turning to one’s immediate right, if facing into the courtyard, are the three
companions (consorts) of Amithaba ‐ Syamatara (247b), Sudhanakumara (247a) and
Bhrkuti (112a), all from Candi Jago. They each wear identical intricately patterned waist
cloths. These are similarly exceptional records of textiles dating to the Singasari period
of the 13th Century A.D. as shown below in Figure 5a, b and c.
Figure 5a. Bhrkuti, #112a, Amoghapasa’s Attendant. From Candi Jago, Tumpang, Malang, E. Java, 13M. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
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Figure 5b (above)and c (below). Sudhanakamara #247a and Syamatara #247b, Companions of the Bodhisattva Amoghapasa. From Candi Jago, Tumpang, Malang, E. Java, 13 M, Singasari Period. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
At the other end of the courtyard, in the back atrium, there is a sculpture of
Kertaradjasa, the first king of Majapahit and ruler of Java from 1216 to 1231 (see van
der Hoop 1949:80). Some of the fabric on this sculpture is decorated with the kawung
pattern as is the case with several of the other royal sculptures in the atrium (see Figure
6).
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Figure 6 (above). Harihara #256/103a, Siva/Vishnu. From Candi Simping, Sumberjati, Blitar, E. Java. Dating to the 13th Century it is said to be a portrait Sculpture of Krtarajasa, the first King of Majapahit. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
Though the Durga Masiswa sculpture immediately opposite from King
Kertaradjasa (so carefully drawn by Raffles and considered further below) has the most
sumptuous and careful attention given to textile detail, the kawung patterns is not to be
found on that particular statue. It is likely that this is significant and points to the
soundly established fact that only royals wore the kawung pattern to signify their
deified status (see Figure 7a and b below). Moreover, they continued to do so in the
central Javanese courts well into the colonial period.
Figure 7a Detail of the God and Goddess (Dewa dan Dewi), # 5442, Hindu, 13‐14 AD. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia. Figure 7b. Detail of a textile with the kawung pattern represented on this sculpture. Courtesy the National Museum of Indonesia.
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Once again, these instances provide us with an elegant record of early Hindu
Buddhist courtly dress and aesthetics, that is, we know the religious and political
contexts in which these textiles were worn though this is an obvious all to well known
point. Yet, for the non‐specialist, for the ordinary person visiting the national museum, it
will surely be of interest to them to know these sculptures provide us with resplendent
records of the ceremonial dress and jewelry worn by Kings and Queens in those eras. In
this, these designs and forms, though fragile in themselves and thus lost to time, they
have been rendered durable in stone, and to all purposes immortal in being woven and
rewoven through time. We can thus see selections from the royal wardrobes of
Indonesian antiquity on display in the courtyard should we look at these sculptures in
this way!
Discussion
These records of ancient textiles are of great symbolic and aesthetic interest in
that they provide us with significant detail about the history of textiles antedating the
oldest surviving specimens in museum collections. In the case of the floral textile
depicted on the Ganesha sculpture depicted in Figure 1, Wisseman Christie considers it
to represent an imported Indian cloth (1993:17), presumably chintz. Moreover,
Wisseman Christie notes that the existence of these type of textiles and patterns is
confirmed in the Javanese inscriptions of textiles mentioned in gift lists recorded in
stone (ibid.: 19‐23). In the presumably relevant instance here, the Javanese term for the
pattern maramu lawelawe means “ floating flower patterns” and was recorded in East
Java circa 918 AD (ibid.:21). There, speaking to the longevity of such patterns, Wisseman
Christie adds that the term is also “reminiscent of the description found in the 14th
century Sutasoma (105:8) referring to a patterned cloth: cangli mirir lawo ‘Cauli (cloth)
with gently blowing flowers petals’.” Most importantly, the author also notes that the
description of this cloth perhaps from Caul in India could be applied to patterns
depicted on many 9th and 10th century Javanese statues, in which floral patterns are
scattered on a plain ground, and which look more Indian than Javanese (ibid.).”
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Naturally one might then approach all of the instances of textiles represented on
such sculptures with this in mind. They may well have been imported trade cloths from
India. It is of‐course not possible to know or even hypothesize which examples discussed
in this paper might have been produced locally. Future research on textile patterns in
sculptures in other parts of Asia may or may not add significantly to such speculation
but the one fundamental fact that we know is for certain is that trade cloths from India
were highly valued presumably for centuries before and indeed, ever since (see Guy
2003). For instance, recently the influence and heritage of Indian patola cloth has even
been documented in West Timor contrary to the assertions in the earlier literature
(Barrkman 2007). The likelyhood then is that all of these cloths were Indian imports
though the following examples in the figures 8a and b below may complicate this.
Figure 8 a and b (below) are details of demonic related cloth represented on the
Ganesha sculpture from the Singasari, Kadiri Period lasting from 1403 through 1681. As
with the case of the Bharaiva Shivaistic tantric specimens on the Bharaiva it is possible
that some of these designs and cloths were local in contrast to the Indian imports. I
hypothesize that this may be the case as this particular form of demonic Buddhism has
been reported as a local invention which spread from Indonesia to Tibet. Nevertheless
the heart shaped belt does seem distinctly Indian and as far as I know is rarely
represented in Indonesian textiles.
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Figure 8 a and b. Details on a demonic Savaist related cloth represented on the Ganesha sculpture from the Singasari, Kadiri Period lasting from 1403 through 1681 in the rear courtyard. Courtesy National Museum of Indonesia.
Revisiting Raffles and Mohendro Daro
Of all the sculptures in the courtyard of the National Museum of Indonesia,
perhaps the most lyrical and most well known sculpture is Durga Slaying the Demon
Mahisa from Singasari in East Java circa 1300 (see Figure 9, also see Fontein 1990:159,
Raffles 1965:65).
.
Figure 9. Durga Slaying the Demon Mahisa, C. 1300. East Java, Candi Singasari. Courtesy National Museum of Indonesia.
The textiles intricately recorded on this and the other sculptures introduced earlier
sculpture must have been spectacular if one imagines what they may have looked like
based on our appreciation of the finest textiles produced today in India, Thailand and
Indonesia. Take for instance the silken fabrics by Baron so finely woven as to be
essentially objects of wonder or Josephine Komara’s (Obin) sumptuously colorful,
meticulous and innovative batik. Keeping such living quality in mind, we can easily
imagine how stunning the Singasari specimens must have been so as not to lament the
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fragility of tradition lest we miss out on the degree to which local genius and the spirit of
creativity endures.
In concluding this first part of the paper then, two basic points have been made.
First, these sculptures provide us with an extraordinary record of ancient textiles in
specific historical contexts. Second, these designs and traditions are in fact highly
durable and not fragile. What we have here is an extraordinary record of design. Take
the pattern on the bodice and outer waist cloth made up of non‐overlapping arrays of
circles in the above sculpture of Durga as illustrated in Raffles’ History of Java, Figure 10
(overpage), perhaps the most famous of all of his illustrations. Such sculptures and
illustrations allow us to place these very finely detailed representations of textiles within
relatively precise historical contexts.
What is so interesting about these textile depictions on the sculptures
considered so far is that they may assumedly have been depictions of the type of actual
textiles worn for instance in rituals during the time of the fall of the kingdom of
Singasari in a coup in which King Kretanagara was assassinated in 1292 during a Tantric
ritual. In addition, the fact that both the Goddess Durga and Prajnaparamita, the
Goddess of Transcendental Wisdom, wear this particular type of cloth decorated with
non‐overlapping circles in Figure 9 and 10 adds further contextual significance
considering that they are considered perfect counterparts from the same unfinished
shrine (Fontein 1990:158). Some of these designs depicted of these sculptures have
continued to be worn and produced for the intervening centuries throughout the
archipelago. Lastly, it goes without saying that many of these designs particular the
overlapping circles of the kawung pattern were widely used throughout the Hindu‐
Buddhist world and in many other cultures and times.
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Figure 10. “Durga, called Lara Jong’grang by the Modern Javans. From a Subject in Stone brought from Brambanan London, Published by Black Parbury and Allen, Leadenhall Stree. 1817.” Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Published in Plates to History of Java. 1988. Singapore: Oxford University Press
In the instance, of the non‐overlapping circles on patola cloth with internal
jilamprang motifs (eight pointed stars or flowers which have been symbolically
identified with the Wali Songo within the circles and mandalas within the diamonds)
have been either the prerogative of either royalty or the elite associated with royalty.
This particular design is well documented as being one of the most sacred and expensive
heirloom textiles. In this, the archaeological record considered in this paper merely
confirms the well documented situation in which particular patterns and textile types
have an enduring status and value in Indonesia. In fact, as we will see further below, the
documented use of the related pattern of the overlapping circles which generates the
dynamic four petalled metric pattern, popularly known in Indonesia today as the
kawung (split‐pea) design has been found on textiles and ceramics goes back to 3000
B.C. in Mohendro Daro northern India and elsewhere. Before doing so, further comment
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on the non‐overlapping circular pattern is useful as there has been specific discussion on
the topic in the literature.
Contextualizing Ancient Textiles and Inferring Information about Technique from the Sculptural Record
For myself as an anthropologist interested in religion and symbolism, and in this
particular case study gender, cloth and archaeology, the statue of Prajnapramita is
especially significant (see Farrer‐Halls 2002, and Fontein 1990:161, Figure 24). This
sculpture is from the same site and period as the Durga sculpture discussed immediately
above and as such adds to the special density of this contextualized textile design
record. Prajnaparamita’s waist cloth’s star pattern is also produced between the non‐
overlapping circles in this case rather than between the ellipses. However, this is a
particularly advanced form in that it has very different in fill elements, bold and yet
delicate geometric designs. The geometric design within the star is, as in the Durga, also
a stylized flower pattern and the overall effect, particularly of the outer and inner
lowermost waist cloths are reminiscent of design elements and the pattern field in
contemporary and historic Minangkabau songket.
These last two sculptures are important not only as the textiles represented here
were in all likelihood actually worn in the court of King Kretanagara but that they may
well have been some of the most valued textiles owned by the Queen of Singasari
posthumously identified with Prajnaparamita whether it was Queen Rajapatni, a
daughter of King Kretanagara and the Queen of King Kretarajasa who reigned from
1293‐1309 or Putri Dedes wife of King Angrok who had became the first King of
Singasari in 1222 and was a daughter of a Buddhist priest of a Mahayana sect (Fontein
1990:160). Though we cannot reliably infer a great deal of information about technique,
at least at this point in scholarly research as it stands, we can certainly reconstruct and
recreate these cloths from the parts that are represented and analyze them in terms of
how they were worn and in combination with what other cloth and jewelry and even on
what occasions and in what courts.
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For the moment, the issue of attempting to determine textile technique is
important but as of yet not clearly enough debated for any real consensus to have
emerged. As one author writes:
Some attempts have been made to use patterns on stone and metal antiquities from these early periods as evidence in dating, but they are not detailed enough to indicate textile technique. For instance, ninth and tenth‐century temple wall carvings in Indonesia have been identified as batik patterns, but because such patterns may also be done in a supplementary weft technique, there is no assurance that batik is represented here, Indeed, the precise vertical and horizontal alignment and the complexity of the metrically repeated motifs argue for a source in weaving rather than in the dyer’s art.
Van der Peet concurs that this stepwise metrical treatment of repeated motifs is
technically determined by weaving. Indeed, all the authorities on the subject relate that
it is “highly probable” that such luxury textiles whether it be in Burma or Indonesia
represent imported Indian cloth (see for instance Guy 1998:56, 62 and Green 2004:17).
As Guy writes about the interlocking (overlapping) circle pattern represented on
many of these sculptures:
The earliest surviving Indian textiles to display it were found in Egypt and may be dated to around the mid‐thirteenth century, contemporary with a Javanese Ganesa sculpture which is inscribed with a date equivalent to AD 1239 . . . . It is highly probably that that the Ganesa was represented wearing a prestigious imported Indian cloth. This design became and important pattern in the later Javanese batik repertoire, where it was known as kawung (1998:62).
Though the history of the origin of resist died cloth and batik is still not firmly
established, the references that do exist for Java do push back the evidence for batik in
the Hindu‐Buddhist context to the late 12th Century and in India from at least the late 9th
Century (ibid) as will be briefly explored further below.
John Guy and others have documented the earliest examples of the kawung
design in surviving textiles as the Fostat specimens (see Barnes 1990, Guy 1984:62, Van
der Hoop 1949:81, Wisseman Christie 1993:17). Though we have actual remnants of
these textiles traded from India to Egypt, and thus are certain about their exact nature
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of how the mordant dyed patterns were produced, technically speaking we still do not
know exactly what types of textiles are depicted on the Javanese statuary. This is an
enduring and important issue. For instance, Wisseman Christie writes that the textiles
recorded on the Indonesian Hindu‐Buddhist sculptures show that significant change
took place in the later 13th and 14th centuries in terms of the designs on the fabrics. They
became increasingly dense, elaborate and finely drawn. She notes that it seems unlikely
that these were produced by double ikat techniques as the earliest references to double
ikat (gringsing) in the Javanese literature do not occur until the mid fourteenth century
(1993:17, Pigeaud 1960:1, 16). However Christie also adds that it appears that not all of
the textiles represented on the statuary were intended to depict Indian imports and
that some of them appear to be Javanese interpretations.
Unfortunately Wisseman Christie does not specify which sculptures and which
particular textiles, he is referring to but he does provide us with clues as to how to
proceed. Specifically, he proposed that the Javanese patterns are denser, have narrower
borders which lack the Indian border motifs and more realistically and frequently use
floral and vegetal elements. The intriguing task now before us is to study the textiles
depicted on these sculptures in more depth so as to illustrate these differences while at
the same time reflecting upon the assertion that these divergent aesthetic distinctions
in themselves are indeed proof of Javanese as opposed to Indian origin or rather more a
reasonable and educated speculation. Perhaps the strongest case for a local textile is
the waist cloth decorated by skulls on the Bhairava sculpture. This may have been the
case as it was from Indonesia, according to some accounts, that the Tantric Buddhism of
Tibet with its skull imagery and related rituals received some of its strongest symbolic
impulses. Certainly some of the most powerful sculptures in the collection in the
National Museum referred to in this paper are replete with both the sexual and demonic
imagery typical of Tantrism as well as the associated inscriptions making these
references explicit.
To return to the issue at hand however, Guy very specifically argues that the
cloths under discussion here could not have been patola. He bases this on the logic that
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the historical records show that Indian silk patolas only became available centuries later
(1993:18) when they became important royal tribute gifts in the 18th and 19th centuries
(Guy 1984:72). However Maxwell writes in Sari to Sarong that high status silk and gold
textiles had been “intimately tied to the rise of royal court centers throughout the
Indonesian region from as early as the first millennium AD” (2003:72). My preference is
to concur with Maxwell. Indeed, Maxwell adds significant detail to the difficulty of
distinguishing between imported fabrics and those produced locally stating that the
textiles depicted on this statuary are Malay brocades, specifically kain songket lima
produced in an “international textile form that transcended the border of principalities
and echoed the trans‐Indonesian penchant for imported luxury fabrics (op. cit, 73, 75).
As Maxwell writes:
The designs displayed on these silk and gold textiles demonstrate many international influences . . . . Malay brocades are filled with schematic patterns and floral nuances more attune with the much admired decorative arts of Mughal India. Framed within decorative border meanders and enclosed at each end by elaborate designs, often incorporating triangular patterns, the field patterns are a reflection of the cosmopolitan sources available for designers of luxury textiles and the multicultural flavour of Indonesian city states. The elaborate end designs are a decorative feature when the long rectangular textile is wrapped around the lower torso, falling in ornamental folds down the front of the body. This is the most prominent garment to be observed on the sculpture of classical Hindu and Buddhist Indonesia. The garments of, and the way they are worn by, male and female deities, and also royal couples, are indistinguishable and often precisely matching in design and patterns (2003:73, itals. mine).
These garments “were not just the preferred fabric for state ceremonials: they provided
a means for visualizing the complex status systems that supported court ritual” (ibid.).
And as I have emphasized through italicizing the last sentences of Maxwell’s discussion,
the very same type of garments, with matching designs and patterns, are found on royal
couples and deities. No doubt, if one examines sculptures from these periods which
have found their way into European collections, the record will augment and confirm or
complicate this observation.
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Maxwell writes that songket was introduced into the region early in the 14th
Century by Arab traders from Gujarat (Dhamija 2002:82, Kartiwa 1991/2:61‐62) and still
today, Sumatran songkets are woven with very similar designs and assumedly
techniques. Considering the shifts discussed by Wisseman Christie above and which took
place in sumptuary rules in Javanese courts earlier in the 11th Century it is possible that
some of these garments depicted on these sculptures particularly on the Bhairava
sculpture were indeed songkets though Wisseman Christie proposes that prior to
songket reaching back three hundred years previously to the early second millennium,
the only technique mentioned in the charters and literature was tulis warna meaning
drawing in color (1991:18). It would seem however to be definitively the case that the
textiles on these sculptures are not songket because of they way they are worn, because
of the way they follow the intimately follow the contours of the body and they way they
fold and hang, as well as in some instances the nature of the borders.
Aside from these important basic questions such as what kind of textiles are
represented on these sculptures, the ancient prerogative of royal elites to use cloths
with particular designs is of‐course a well described phenomenon in the literature
whether or not one can discern a patola from a batik inspired by a patola. Both certainly
coexisted in the Javanese courts in the 19th century and they are again understood to
have been continually inspired by Indian imports though more recent authors critique
the Indi‐centric view arguing for Chinese and other influences (Heringa 1996).
Nevertheless, as Wisseman Christie writes:
It is surely significant that some of the batik patterns of central Java which were restricted to members of the royal family can be recognized as being borrowed or adapted from Indian textile: for example, those called kawang picus, jajakusama and cakar melik are all patola‐inspired while sembagen huk is based on resist‐dyed Indian imports . . . (1991:119).
The question then is this: How far back we can trace this type of phenomenon? Can we
ever make any real progress towards identifying which cloths on the Hindu‐Buddhist
sculptures were made of what, where and how? In all likelihood we will never know but
it nevertheless remains an interesting issue to ponder as anthropologists and art
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historians continue to study the history of Indonesian and Southeast Asian textiles in
ever increasing detail.
It is essentially certain that patola was an important elite trade good in the late
Hindu‐Buddhist period. A 15th Century Javanese text Wangbang Wideya specifically
recorded that some of the cloth worn by royalty was ‘patawala’, namely patola from
Gujarati origin (Guy 1984:63, Robson 1971). Further speaking to the cloths longevity, or
durability, the Portuguese records show that it was imported from the 16th Century and
especially in the 17th and 18th Centuries (van der Peet 1964:21) and today patola
heirlooms continue to be used in rituals across the archipelago (Barnes 1991, Maxwell
2003, Anas 2007). Nevertheless it remains a matter of debate whether or which of these
particular cloths represented on these sculptures were imported as opposed to made
locally. Moreover the intertwined history of all textile forms including songket and batik,
cindhe (chintz) and geringsing also continues to remain a matter of lively debate and
research.
For instance, Van der Peet in making a critical distinction between warp ikat in
cotton and weft ikat in silk proposes that the ikat imports could have begun as early as
the 14th Century while adding that “it is impossible to say for certain whether the cloths
traded in those days were the same as the silken cloths decorated in double ikat that
are still known today by the name of patola” (1964:19). Though other authors have
assumed that they are certainly not batik and that batik was introduced much later, van
der Peet provides a very broad possibility of batik as having been produced locally
between the 7th and 15th Centuries (ibid.:26) and quotes Alfred Steinman (1958) that “it
is conceivable that already in the 11th or 12th Century the Cinglaese had brought it from
the South East Deccan to Eastern India and thus to Java (ibid.). In any event, it is
generally acknowledged that Indian patola cloth had a significant influence on local
textiles, particularly on batik. This is especially significant considering the distinct
resemblances in the patterns and the “strictly metrical” and geometrically disciplined”
arrangement of motifs in which “the ornamentation is produced by dividing up the area
to be decorated into geometrical figures such as squares, rhomboids, polygons, etc.,
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which may or may not be subdivided into other geometrical figures . . . . (van der Peet
1964:29).
In time, other researchers, particularly Gittinger (1989), Barnes (1994), Hamilton
(1994), Maxwell (2003) and have delved into the history and complexity of the way in
which this basic structure and others have been developed in Indonesian textiles,
whether it be in patola or batik or other forms. Yet Maxwell emphasizes that the
development of batik would seem more closely connected to Indian chintz. Regardless
of these difficult issues surrounding what amount to durable “memory banks” this much
is certain:
[T]he exclusivity of the designs, however, is firmly located routed in a history of the control of luxury trade items. Hence these patterns, like others derived from Indian treasures, are worn only by members of the Javanese aristocracy. In the central principalities in particular, it was the silk patola that had been conspicuously worn in the royal court – as skirts and sashes by princes and princesses alike. The same applied to locally made batik exhibiting trade cloth patterns (ibid.:145).
There Maxwell concludes that the most effective way of securing “the power and
majesty of trade cloth imagery was to transfer symbols and motifs onto local textiles”
and that these local transformations were so successful that in the end they eclipsed the
Indian textiles even in the international trade (ibid.: 116). This argument runs counter
to the idea dominating the first part of this paper in which Indian imports were assumed
to have perhaps been considered more powerful prestige items than local cloths.
The Overlapping Circle or Kawung Pattern
The overlapping circular array patterned textile can be seen on the Harihara
sculpture (256/103a) simultaneously representing the Hindu God Siva‐Vishnu and King
Krtarajasa the first king of Majapahit in East Java (Figure 5), and the Goddess Parvati
(256/103b), wife of Siva as Queen Tribhuwanottunggadewi Queen of Majapahit who
ruled at Candi Rimbi in East Java in the 14th Century A.D. from 1328‐1350. The same
patterns are also to be found on the Hindu God and Goddess (5442) dating similarly or
earlier to the 13th or 14th Century. This pattern is historically of particular significance as
22
textiles with these patterns were prestigious trade goods exported from India to
markets as far afield from Fustat in Egypt in this period (as noted earlier in this paper), in
Japan in the Edo Period and in the Byzantine era.
The earliest documentation of the design in Asia dates back four thousand years
to the Indus Valley on a ceramic pot excavated at Mohendro Daro (Green 2004:15). John
Guy notes that the pattern has been found across Asia and finds evidence for its later
antecedents in first century North India (1998:62). Fragments of Gujarati cloth with this
design dating to the mid‐thirteenth century have been found in archaeological sites in
Fustat (Old Cairo), Egypt (ibid.:63). As Guy notes, the earliest record of it in Indonesia is
to be found on the back of a Ganesha sculpture from the Singasari period found at Bara,
near Blitar in eastern Java. This sculpture thus arguably has a luxury Indian export cloth
dating to the same period as the Fustat specimen of the same design though it has the
slightly earlier date of AD 1239 (ibid.:62). In addition, the same pattern can be found on
the back of another sculpture of a temple guardian at Pantaran also near Blitar dating
over a century later to 1347.
Van der Peet makes particular reference to the ancestral kawung pattern found
in Fostat. As he writes:
These denser axial patterns began to appear on Javanese statuary in the late tenth or eleventh centuries, at least some of them bearing a resemblance to some of the Indian textiles found amongst the remains of Old Cairo. One of the most striking parallels is found between the pattern of interlocking circles with floral infill dated to the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Middle Eastern archaeological contexts (Barnes 1991) and that illustrated on a number of statues of the same centuries in East Java. This particular patter is a clear ancestor of the kawung design so important in the traditional Javanese batik repertoire.
The overlapping circle pattern is conceptually interesting in terms of how it can
be seen as distinctly different of different elements but yet simultaneously achieving the
same pattern of a flower composed of four petals or overlapping circles with ellipses
and a central star pattern. Cognitively one cannot see both patterns at the same time
such that eye either sees one or the other or shifts back between them and this creates
a unique dynamic.
23
In addition, Van der Peet provides a succinct and yet detailed description in
terms of the kawung pattern as being composed as an ellipse with two focal points. As
he writes:
These ellipses are placed crosswise opposite one another; repetition of this placing at regular intervals forms the decorative filling of the whole area. Between the ellipses, four pointed star figures are formed, which in turn are provided with as a rule a very plain, stylized flower motif. This pattern, which is easily recognizable, allows only limited possibilities for variation” (1964:30).
Continuing with this description, this author describes how the “most important
variation is limited to grouping together four ellipses inside one large, encircling ellipse,
as a result of which the pattern obtains a more coherent character” which has become a
sacred pattern in batik art and even by the 1960s a source of scholarly debate. For
example, he cites G. P. Rauffaer and H. H. Juyunboll who argue that the design dates
back the Hindu‐Javanese pattern “appearing in a picture (sic?) from Kediri dating from
1239, which itself was originally a simplified – i.e. four‐petalled . . . lotus bud motif”
(ibid.). Lastly, Van der Peeet is explicit that the original textiles in which these patterns
were executed were probably not batik but that they would have been gold leaf applied
to cloth (ibid.).
The kawung pattern has been localized differently if it is an imported design
element. While in Van der Hoop’s analysis kawung refers to the sugar palm fruit in
Sundanese and Javanese (1949:78), for Jessup it refers to the split peanut amongst the
Minangkabau in West Sumatra (ibid.:43). And while the modified form in songket cloth
in West Sumatra is known as balah kacang (Bart 2006:35), in Java the design appears
not to refer to a split peanut but to a star fruit divided across the middle. Two other
contemporary variants of this design can also be seen in Kartiwa (1991/1992:50, 52)
wherein she refers to the pattern in Madurese batik (as recorded by Judi Triani, 1983) as
kembang kopi (ibid.:96). Finally, in Japan, the pattern is said to refer to rice and all
things fertile and good (pers. com. Sally Jennie). Across Indonesia, the most basic
standard version which recapitulates the design on the sculptures can be seen on
24
copper batik stamps (see Kartiwa 1095/86:88 and Mylius 1964: n.p. fig. 26). Of‐course,
those familiar with the Javanese wayang tradition will know that the wise clown Semar
always wears a sarong with a kawung pattern.
Further Historical Context: Actual Accounts of Ancient Textile Fashion
Woro Aryandini Sumaryoto (1993) has translated and discussed the records of
actual textiles worn in particular historical contexts and preserved across time in
Javanese literature. The details provided in these texts such as the contexts and the
colors, the materials and uses of the textiles are so precise as to be somewhat shocking
considering how one would otherwise have assumed that such descriptions would have
escaped us. These texts thus add yet another dimension to the durability of the
historical record pertaining to textiles and the continuing significance of such materials,
including their mystical relevance and ritual function in Indonesia today.
The Javanese literature is especially relevant to the focus on particular sculptures
and designs chosen in this paper as recorded in a description of King Kartanegara
accepting Raden Wijaya as his son‐in‐law. In Sumaryoto’s translations we can read
exquisite detail about the clothes various participants wore on these ritual occasions
such as geringsing kawung depicted on the sculpture of Raden Wijaya as King
Kartarajasa in the National Museum. In this remarkable account, Sumaryoto condenses
the relevant information from the Kidung Harsawijaya adapted in the 16th through 18th
Centuries to memorialize the history of the Majapahit and Kediri kingdoms by those
Javanese who had refused Islam and fled to Bali. As he relates:
Once upon a time, King Kartanegara from Singhasari came to a royal assembly, dressed in a choice sinjang ornamented with gold threads, and a belt made of textile with excquisite ornamentation (Song 1, Verse 34b). In this assembly the king expressed his will to take Raden Wijaya as his son‐in‐law, and therefore Raden Wijaya was called to attend it. Raden Wijaya dressed himself in a red silk sinjang ornamented with a tumpal (‘triangle ornament’) decorated with a floral design made of a beautiful gold thread sewn on it, and a fabric belt with a special floral design which was painted using liquid gold (Song 1, verse 40b).
25
Raden Wijaya appeared with all the courtly regalia, with a yellow fabric umbrella above him, followed by his young followers. . . . . Dangdi wore a red sinjang ornamented with white tumpal and golden drawing, and a cloth belt of geringsing kawung design (Song 1, verse 40b) . . . . Thus, Raden Wijaya presented himself to the queen who dressed in geringsing wayang design and decorated with floral patterns in liquid gold, and a pink kampuh with gold threads, the upper side of which was made of green silk (Song 1, verse 59b). There he was met by the two princesses of the king who wore a sinjang geringsing kawung made of selected find cloth with tumpal ornament, red at the bottom and green on top (Song 1, verse 62a‐62b). And then the king presented him a royal dress . . . (Song 1, verse 75a, 76a).
In addition to this type of rare detail on the royal use of the kawung pattern in double
ikat (geringsing), these texts record all manner of other details.
This is so much so the case that a fine grained analysis of pattern, color, textile
type and origin of textiles and much else of the Hindu‐Buddhist period could be
reconstructed in a manner which would have been inconceivable without them. We
learn here that the royals clothes were made of patawala (patola, “gaily coloured
cloth”) and geringsing (“a particular type of textile, with double ikat technique), and
randi (“a ribbed silk fabric of Chinese or Siamese origin”) as well as other forms of cloth
made from satin and silk as given in the above poetic descriptions of the betrothal
ceremony. It is also interesting that the author refers to the kawung pattern as “a
geometrical cube with diagonal ornament” and that they were painted with liquid gold
(1993:33). If we accept this as the final word because of the historical specificity of this
period of the record of these designs on this type of textile, then the discussion over
technique in some part would seem to have been laid to rest in a most unexpected
fashion. Prada! Yet the designs endure and it is to this durability of form that I turn to in
conclusion, specifically the kawung motif yet again. It is a particularly fertile and
enduring motif. Being a simple motif to create, and being ubiquitous across Asia and
Africa across the millennia, there are probably as many instances of local invention as
diffusion by trade.
26
Fragility or Durability?
For the subjects of conservation, appreciation and acculturation addressed in
this conference, the pattern of overlapping circles, known by some as the kawung
pattern, is important as it has remained a constant in the vocabulary of wide ranging use
of this design across the millennia. It is a simple solution to creating a complex pattern
by repeatedly overlapping a basic geometric form. The overlapping pattern creates two
sets of patterns constituting a dynamic field producing a very specific form of cognitive
agitation in which the eye can focus either on the petal shapes or the overlapping circles
but not both at the same time. It has retained its aesthetic hold over the decorative
imagination across time – having been the prerogative of the royal elite in pre‐Islamic
times. The pattern endured through the rise and the fall of the great Hindu‐Buddhist
courts, the expansion of Islam in the 16th century and then Dutch colonialism and the
VOC cloth trade. It survived through independence and to this day it has proven to be
one of the most durable motifs and design structures in Indonesia textile history.
Despite the caveat given at the end of the last section, it seems from the
archaeological and historical record that this design came to Indonesia as part of the
larger trade in patola cloth and that over time it became incorporated into local
traditional repertoires. The logic for making such an argument is that kawung design
does not occur in the Dongson Bronze Age period and does not appear to predate the
Hindu‐Buddhist period in Indonesian as far as I am aware. Very differently however, the
all important triangular tumpal patterns do appear to have greater local depth being so
simple a pattern as to be universal. Either way the tumpal has become so closely
associated with the patola cloths as to be structurally almost linguistically connected if
we consider textile styles as synonymous in the most simplistic sense to languages. It
has become connected to the kawung design as border elements and both have been
transposed as co‐evolved design elements across time (Heine Geldern 1966:179, Fig.
16). For some, both elements speak to the adaptation of foreign influences, selecting,
modifying and localizing them. It is this penchant is that has been termed the
27
“Indonesian genius” though it is of‐course basic to all art forms and technologies in all
times and places.
This selection of sculptures in the collection in the National Museum is therefore
of particular previously un‐detailed importance as regards the detailed depictions of
textiles they provide. They allow us to locate specific textile designs and patterns in the
exact historical context in which they were worn as described above. Thus when
combined with the unexpected richness of the local literary sources, the record provides
us with remarkable insight into the history of textiles in Indonesia. And though we
would do well to pay attention to the as of yet unexplored Chinese and Arabic literary
and archival record, Sumaryoto has provided us with all we need to know about the
penultimate meaning of the kawung pattern in the Javanese context at that time.
Moreover, he even details how the design was applied and not woven into the fabric.
This is not to say that this was the case in the textiles under analysis in this sample at
the National Museum.
Consider this remarkable Javanese explication about the kawung pattern and
why King Kartarajasa as representative of God and founder of the Majapahit Kingdom
wore a sinang kawung to symbolize that he was the protector of the world while he
ruled from 1294 to 1309. Herein Sumaryoto provides the most detailed explanation
about the design as understood in Javanese aesthetics. This evinces a durability of
meaning in time which runs contrary to Western art historical understandings of the life
of forms in time (see Focillon 1934/89, Reese 1985).
This symbolizes the relationship between the upper and the lower powers of the universe. The pattern refers to the cosmic magical classification of the old Javanese concept of life. According to this concept, man has a magical relation with the universe. The universe is divided into two opposing parts but at the same time each part complements the other; therefore one part cannot be thrown away since it symbolizes the human character. Such a concept may have been known since prehistoric times, and it was continued as tradition by the Javanese Hindu kingdoms, as shown by the statue of King Kartarajasa (1993:36).
28
In addition, further speaking to the longevity and durability of tradition in Indonesian, to
this day, the Javanese wayang figure of Semar wears a kawung patterned waist cloth
symbolizing protection, supernatural power and magical relations.
Conclusion
An important component of my research on the textiles depicted on the
sculptures in the National Museum has been to recreate the designs as faithfully as
possible so as to get a better sense of what they may have looked like and to bring them
alive in a technical and sensory way. To do so I worked with Bernhard Bart on two of
these designs, one from the Sudhnakamara and the other from the Bhairawa as
reproduced here below. Studio Erika Rianti created a single songket version of the
Sudhnakamara design in green silk with fine silver thread so as to create a soft wearable
songket which was presented to the audience at the conclusion of this paper’s
presentation. Towards the future, my vision was to one day have a fashion show in the
courtyard of the National Museum in which these elaborately dressed gods and
goddesses of the past would emerge from the front vestibule into the courtyard as if
magically come alive.
29
Figures 11 a and b (above page). Computer generated textile patterns from the Sudhanakamara and Bharaiwa sculpture in the National Museum of Indonesia readied for production by Bernhard Bart.
To end then, how much more durable can a tradition be? As regards the patola
and kawung patterns which have been the main focus of this study, if the pattern had
indeed originated in the patola tradition, which all extant evidence points to, then the
life of this design and technique in time goes far back far and wide in time and space.
Not just for 700 years in Java, that is to the Majapahit era and the Chinese Ming period
and to Fustat in Egypt in the same times and eralier but all the way back to Mohendro
Daro in the 4th Century B.C. as the Indian literary sources relate. Naturally, though there
may be no connections at all between these traditions, but in some cases there could
be. Thus it is interesting to ponder how in ceramics in northern India there are
depictions of full length outfits worn by men in the 3rd millennium B.C. and how today
we continue to use the same designs. Even if there are no connections, these patterns
and range of techniques present thus the very definition of durability of forms but not
meanings in time.
So to end one might ask this final question: Does all this richness of design and
technique in time not call into question our assumptions about the fragility of
traditions? Just as inspirational cloths have been either treasured in Indonesia as sacred
heirlooms and woven and rewoven generations after generations in India, so have
particular designs and techniques been reworked in context after context, century after
century.
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