Table of Contents
On a Thursday evening in mid-July 1972, close to the time of the maghrib or sunset prayers, my grandmother ordered me to go and pick seven different kinds of flower buds from the gardens in people’s backyards in our village. She also told me to go to the small shop on the edge of the village to buy a fine cigar, or surutu. When I returned with the flower buds and the cigar she led me to a room located in the farthermost back part of our house where our paddy was stored between seasons. She asked me to put the buds in a bowl filled with the spring water that spouted from from a bamboo pipe, or pancuran, in the back yard. She then burned incense, menyan. For a minute, we remained silent as the smoke and the aroma of the incense wafted out through narrow spaces in the bamboo walls and roof. Meanwhile the call to prayer, the adzan, had sounded. The boys of my village, in their checked sarongs and black caps (pecis) made their way to a small mosque for the shalat prayers. The whole village was enveloped in serenity as we prayed, the women at home and the men and boys at the mosque.
Times moved on. Grandma, who in her daily activities was a small batik cloth trader, or tukang batik, in the Tasikmalaya market, was faced with financial difficulties. Her partner had asked her to give him a certificate of land title to be deposited in the bank as surety for a loan. Then, instead of acquiring additional capital to develop the business, she experienced the most horrible episode of her life. She was summoned to court by the bank. It turned out that her partner had been unable to return the money he had borrowed and that Grandma, as the guarantor, had to pay it back herself.
All the members of my family were in a panic because the land comprised 90% of their assets. Grandma came to me and asked me to accompany her in her ancient car, a 1948 Morris. We travelled to various sacred sites and visited some prominent clerics, or kiai, of West Java. The purpose was clear: to find a way, neangan tarekah. Tarekah [1] is a Sundanese word which is close to the term turuq or the ‘way of the orders’ in Sufism. Grandma’s tarekah was simply to find a way to solve her problem, not to perform any mystical practices. Visiting holy sites, spending a night in vigil in a sacred tomb and in the boarding house nearby were the main items in our itinerary.
We returned home to the village with lists of mystical chants written in Arabic, which were considered to be amulets. We were in a slightly more optimistic mood. Having travelled through the interior of the southern part of West Java, which in the 1970s had not yet been touched by paved hot-mix roads, or even a single concrete path, Grandma returned with her spirit refreshed. Several months later, the court found that Grandma’s partner had falsified the lease documents from the bank. After a year of struggling in court, Grandma won the case and got her titles to the family land back.
Ten years after the court case, as a young man, I went to the University of Indonesia in Jakarta to study Indonesian literature. During holidays, I frequently spent my days in the village where Grandma had retired from being a tukang batik. Most of her life was now dedicated to reading the Qur’an in study sessions (pengajian) in the village. I often asked her about the seven kinds of flower buds, the bowl of water and the cigar in the rice store. Her answers never satisfied me. She replied that she “just followed the tali paranti.” In Sundanese, tali means a rope made from bamboo or the bark of a tree, paranti means a device, a tool, or custom. Thus, tali paranti is the string or rope taken from culture which is used to tie everything that is scattered: it is custom. I myself had an upbringing in the same culture as my grandmother, the customs of the traditional Sundanese Islam of Tasikmalaya.
Grandma also used to perform an old ritual to purify the rice harvested in a season. Some Sundanese still retain ritual practices related to the myth of Dewi Sri, the female deity who introduced the cultivation of rice to the people of Sunda (Wessing 1974: 207). From the point of view of the anthropology of Islam, as demonstrated by Geertz (1960/1976), Grandma’s narratives could be see as examples of the syncretic incorporation of Islam into the local environment. With respect to Sundanese society, Newland (2001) and Muhaimin (Muhaimin 1995:4-7) have taken the discussion further on the consequences of Geertz’s concepts (1976). Exploring the three famous cultural categories proposed by Geertz of priyayi, santri, and abangan (Geertz 1976: 121, 227), Newland (2001) sees local Islam in West Java, particularly in the area around Garut, about 70 km from Pamijahan, as mainly syncretic.
However, the term ‘syncretism’ is in fact not as clear as crystal, at least not for Muhaimin, who studied Islamic practices in Cirebon, about 200 km to the North of Pamijahan (1995). Muhaimin (1995: 109) tries to comprehend the issue from a different angle, that of the concept of ibadah, or serving God. Instead of identifying a particular ritual action in Islam as syncretic or as part of abangan or santri practice, he uses two terms of exegesis: ibadah or not ibadah. A local custom can be transformed semiotically into a religiously acceptable act of Islamic ibadah. Thus various local practices may be identified as heretical and syncretic, but from the devotee’s point of view this may not necessarily be the case. Often the devotee’s intention may be overlooked. In Islam, particularly in the Syafe’i school of jurisprudence, intention (niat) should initiate a ritual, and the intention should even be pronounced clearly in the heart and on the lips. There is no ibadah without intention.
In the case of my story, some parts of Granmda’s tali paranti were capable of being transformed into ibadah when she intended them to serve God. The demarcation of sacred and profane is fine because a particular act may be recognised as ibadah in certain circumstances but in others as non-ibadah. The contrast between tali paranti and ‘religion’, as stated in my grandmother’s narratives then still leaves room for debate. Such narratives are easily found among the Sundanese, and even throughout the islands of Java. This phenomenon reflects the intersection between tali paranti and religion, and between these two poles there are people who create and produce narratives in order to comprehend the scattered ‘signs’ (Parmentier 1994 and 1997) around them.
Throughout this volume, I will discuss the nature and function of narratives at the sacred sites of Pamijahan or Safarwadi near Tasikmalaya in West Java. The wali in the title of my study, Shaykh Abdul Muhyi (1640-1715), was a holy man who still today mediates the wishes of the people of Pamijahan, as well as those of the pilgrims who come to the site from other areas. A negotiation occurs there between an ideal and reality, and this perpetuates the existence of Pamijahan as an important sacred site. To a large extent, this significance is found in the narratives relating to the site. By narrative, I mean a mode of communication in which people make an attempt to comprehend their various experiences within a framework of represented time. Narratives, predominantly the narratives of the wali, tow the past into the present.
This volume is a study of traditional narratives which are recited and received both by villagers and pilgrims in regard to the local pilgrimage (ziarah) tradition in Pamijahan, particularly at Shaykh Abdul Muhyi's sacred site. The narratives will be examined as part of the popular beliefs of Priangan Timur or the eastern part of West Java. Locating them in the wider context of Sundanese oral and written traditions, my investigation will illuminate the nature and function of such traditions in the particular case of Pamijahan.
The research will elucidate the role of the kuncen, the custodians of sacred sites, as guides and spiritual brokers who maintain the narratives. It will also be important to investigate the villagers' as well as visitors' view of the kuncen in regard to local pilgrimage. The study will also enhance comparative studies concerned with networks of holy men or saints (wali) on the island of Java (Pemberton 1994; Fox 1991: 20). I want to argue that people respond to, and participate in, saint veneration on pragmatic grounds. However, these grounds are subject to interpretation and contestation in time and space. In redefining their narratives, various individuals, such as custodians, Sufis, and even to some extent government functionaries, are considered to be authoritative persons by virtue of their capacity to conduct and manipulate narratives. As this argument develops, it will be important to understand the modes of signification in the village.