Other spatial concepts can be found in the text. Historically, the Sundanese have been categorised by Dutch colonial and Indonesian governments as orang Jawa Barat or ‘people of West Java’. Some Sundanese have realised that this label simplifies far too much the complexity of the term ‘Sunda’ as a label marking cultural identity (see also Ekadjati 1995:12-13). For them ‘Sunda’ is more mythical than the geographical term ‘West Java’. It is important first to outline how the term ‘Sunda’ has developed and is understood. After that, we will return to the references of space made in the Babad Pamijahan.
Dutch administrators, in their first contact with the Sundanese, tended to classify them as people residing in the heartland of West Java. Sometimes, they simply called them ‘people from the mountains’ because they perceived the Sundanese at that time as the people inhabiting the central part of the region, which is hilly and mountainous. (Stibbe 1929)
From the perspective of the Sundanese themselves, this view is naive and humiliating. There are serious implications when politicians and researchers try to use the term without being aware of the dimension of internal perspectives. As Wessing has correctly observed: ”West Java has, for most of recorded history, been considered a cultural backwater” (Wessing 1978: 22). From Sundanese myth and legends, the word Sunda can be traced back to the period of 1030—1333 AD, when the kings of Sunda, such as Jayabhupati, held control of the ports on the north coast. (Wessing 1978) (Wessing 1974; Fruit-Mess 1920) Stibbe speculates further that Sunda existed between the two larger kingdoms of Singasari in East Java and Sriwijaya around Palembang. (Stibbe 1929) Sunda, he says, has existed as a single cultural and political entity in contradistinction to the Javanese or the people of Palembang. It is also not appropriate to call the Sundanese urang gunung (mountain people) since the Sundanese king also controlled ports such as Sunda Kalapa or Jayakarta (later Jakarta).
Sundanese historian Edi Ekadjati (1995:12-13) has given an important historical outline of West Java and the Sundanese. According to Ekadjati, the term Jawa Barat (West Java) was popularised in 1925 when the colonial government proposed the division of the area into a province. Under the Dutch policy, the boundaries of the province of West Java were close to the map imagined by Mataram and the VOC in 1706. The Province of West Java included Banten, Batavia (Jakarta), Priangan, and Cirebon (Staatsblad no. 235 and 278, 1925; Ekadjati).[11] For some Sundanese, the term ‘West Java’ suggests a subordinate position to Java. Indeed, the Sundanese were reluctant to use the terms ‘West Java’ preferring instead 'Sunda or 'Pasoendan' as may be seen in a petition proposed by the Pagoejoeban Pasoendan (The Sunda League) in 1924-1925. Furthermore, the Sundanese also proposed a Negara Pasundan (State of Pasundan) when Indonesia operated as a federation in 1948-1949 (Ekadjati 1995:13). Similarly, the Youth Congress of Sunda also suggested Sunda as the name of the province instead of Jawa Barat. As we know, none of these petitions were accepted. The word Sunda or tatar Sunda (the realm of Sunda) then, remains a term for cultural usage rather than political affairs.
Sundanese antipathy to their Javanese neighbours can be traced back to the Bubat tragedy of 1357 when the king of Sunda along with his daughter and followers were slaughtered on the orders of minister Gajah Mada of Majapahit at the very gate of the capital of Majapahit. Gajah Mada’s agenda was to prevent the Sundanese princess from marrying his ruler. (Atja 1984/1985) For the Sundanese, this tragedy etched the differences between Java and Sunda deeply in their minds.
However, the kingdom of Sunda was not to endure for long. It was defeated by Banten in 1579 and most Sundanese embraced Islam. Relations between Java in the East and Sunda in the West developed new dimensions. If Sundanese myth and legend tell of the glories of Sunda and stress their differences from Java, both oral and written works dating from the 17th century indicate a new type of imagery of their ancestors. Sundanese ancestral myths became connected with Javanese kings or with the Nine Saints of Java, the Wali Sanga. Of course, there was a need to provide cultural foundations regarding these phenomena. Traditional narratives tend to reconcile the two identities of Sunda and Java in a peaceful manner. We find numerous stories describing marriages between the families of the Sundanese kings with Muslim rulers of Javanese or Arabic extraction, or accounts of the conversion of the King of Sunda to Islam. In the Priangan, this motif is found, for example, in the story of Kiansantang. Kiansantang was the son of a Sundanese king. He converted to Islam and tried to persuade his father to convert with him. According to the local narratives of Garut, the king himself was not swayed to adopt Islam, but he allowed his son to follow the new religion. This is a popular motif in West Java by which the Sundanese try to ease the relations between their previous identity (in this case, religion) and the influence of Islam which, to a large extent, was brought by the Javanese to the highlands of Sunda. The last king of Sunda then retreated to the forest on the south coast and built his own kingdom there with his faithful followers. Sundanese legend says that he is not dead and appears from time to time in the form of a tiger (maung). The tiger has become an important icon for the Sundanese and the associated narrative a face-saving device.
In this regard, the author of the Babad Pamijahan depicts Shaykh Abdul Muhyi as a ‘man from the East’, that is, a Javanese. It is also common for Sundanese to refer to their Javanese counterparts as people from the East, urang wetan rather than Javanese, urang Jawa. Urang Jawa is a ritualised term used by the Sundanese of the Priangan to help them indentify and understand the conspicuous elements of Sunda and Java in their culture. This very same atmosphere is found in the Babad Pamijahan.