Indian poet impressed by Javanese dance

Indian poet impressed by Javanese dance

By Jai Singh Yadav

JAKARTA (JP): Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the great
Indian poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913,
was the first intellectual freedom fighter from India to visit
the islands of Indonesia. Tagore, the composer of India's
national anthem, is the most fascinating personality in India-
Indonesia cultural relations because it was his visit to
Indonesia in 1927 which revived the age-old relationship between
the two nations.

Tagore's visit to the islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali, which
included visits to the palaces of Yogyakarta and Mangkunegaran,
the Borobudur temple and the temples of Bali, carried a deep
impression, particularly when he was received by Sultan Hamengku
Buwana VIII and presented with some royal Javanese dances.

"...The dance was performed by four girls from the Sultan's
own family, two of them his daughters. This was the best of all
dances I have yet seen here. It is impossible to describe in
words the impression I received. I have never beheld such perfect
creations of charming forms. One aspect of these dances is the
natural elegance of outward form; the other of technical
significance of different attitudes and movements."

This was his expression --later published in The Viswa-Bharati
Quarterly, October 1928 -- of his admiration for the Javanese
dance which was so famous, fine, complex and advanced.

So advanced that Tagore wrote: "...only those who know this
language can allow satisfaction to be derived from the graceful
combination of attitude and idea."

Having enjoyed the dances in the sultan's company, Tagore also
visited the dance training center in Ngayogjakarta Hadiningrat
Palace. Perhaps he was tempted by the mysteries of the dancers
language.

Rabindranath Tagore was also invited to attend the ceremony of
the 24th anniversary of the 7th Mangkunegara's coronation.
According to Hilmiyah Darmawan, a grandchild of the 7th
Mangkunegara, -- in an exclusive interview with me -- Tagore made
some notes on his impression of the ceremony. These were later
published in Dutch in 1939/1940. In Surakarta, he was warmly
welcomed and a street was named after him.

His impressions and feelings on the relationship between
Indian and Javanese cultures which he gained during his visit
were described in his poem To Java. The journey had profoundly
influenced him.

The poem, originally written in Bengali, reads:

When we tied golden threads of kinship

Round each other's wrist

That ancient token, grown pale,

has not yet slipped off thy right arm,

And our wayfaring path of old

lies strewn with the remnants of my speech

They help me to retrace my way to the inner chamber of thy

life

where still the light is burning that we kindled together

on the forgotten evening of our union.

Remember me, even as I remember thy face,

and recognize me as thine own,

The old that has been lost, to be regained and made new

After returning from Java, he urged one of his pupils in
Santiniketan, H.B. Sarkar, to study and research the relationship
between Indian and Southeast Asian cultures, especially Javanese
(Indonesian) culture.

This suggestion encouraged people to write valuable books on
cultural links between Indonesia and India. The books were the
results of the research of Indian scholars, especially the
students of Tagore in Santiniketan. It is a pity that this
positive creativity only lasted for H.B. Sarkar's generation. It
stopped partly because of the political conditions of both
countries during their struggle for freedom.

Santiniketan, which means Abode of Peace, later became the
Viswa Bharati University; an ideal and idyllic place for
learning, away from the hustle of noisy cities, where education
meant more than books and crass technology.

At Santiniketan, Tagore directed that there should be a great
educational movement to teach the highest expressions of human
spirit, especially the practice and recognition of universal
brotherhood. The center really supported a humanist and
universalist movement.

It was these movements which impressed the great Indonesian
educationalist, Ki Hadjar Dewantara, who founded an educational
experiment using Tagore's systems. He established the Taman Siswa
movement and its institutions throughout Indonesia.

Recently, the 17th congress of Taman Siswa was held in
Yogyakarta from July 15 to July 21. It was opened by Minister of
Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro. It is worth saying
that the new generation of Indonesians and Indians should ponder
over Tagore's word: "Remember me, even as I remember you", and to
emphasize the words, "The old that has been lost, to be regained
and made new".

I must say without a doubt that Rabindranath Tagore showed all
the signs of an historical literary genius.

The writer is a visiting associate professor at the School of
Letters, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.