From Cosmogony to Exorcism in a Javavese Genesis

From Cosmogony to Exorcism in a Javavese Genesis
Author: Stephen C. Headley
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2001-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191583812

In 1925 the influential Dutch anthropologist W. H. Rassers posed the question of the relationship of myth to ritual, taking as his case study the Javanese myth of the birth of the man-eating demon, Kala. The light shed by this myth, and its re-enactment, on the social morphology of Java was immediately the subject of debate among students of Javanese culture. Stephen C. Headley translates and studies ritual and myth in their variant forms. He expands illuminatingly upon Rasser's general proposition, that the movement from cosmogony to exorcism founds fundamental social forms within which values circulate in Javanese society. Richly detailed descriptions confirm the permanence of these networks of circulating values in modern-day Java, and their persistence in the face of contemporary individualism.

From Cosmogony to Exorcism in a Javanese Genesis

From Cosmogony to Exorcism in a Javanese Genesis
Author: Stephen Cavana Headley
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2000
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780198234234

'This book gives the reader much food for thought, not only about Javanese mythology, the wayang, and cosmology, but also about what it is to be a Javanese person within a cosmos so construed.' -Moussons'Interesting reading... the author is well equipped to carry out this task, having an unusual and impressive command of the literature. His tour through the mythological background is intriguing and insightful... many suggestive leads and fascinating links between mythology, kinship, and ritual... From Cosmogony to Exorcism offers an analysis in the structuralist mode and it makes a brilliant contribution to this tradition.' -AnthroposStephen Headley translates and studies a Javanese ritual and myth, the birth of the man-eating demon, Kala. He shows that this genesis myth, with its movement from cosmogony to exorcism, constitutes the basis of networks of circulating values in contemporary Javanese society.

Tantric Temples

Tantric Temples
Author: Peter Levenda
Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0892546018

Tantra is one of the most misunderstood of the esoteric disciplines. In order to get a clear idea as to the nature of Tantric ritual and belief it is necessary to go where Tantra is still practiced and from where important Tantric teachings originated a thousand years ago: the island of Java in present-day Indonesia. This book illustrates the history of Tantrism in Java with more than a hundred photographs of temples, statues and iconography dedicated to the system -- some rarely seen before, including the recently-excavated "white temple" of Yogyakarta -- and accounts of contemporary practices in the shrines, cemeteries and secret schools of Java It is this Tantra -- the Tantra of Java -- that has influenced secret societies, mystics, alchemists, Kabbalists and magicians for hundreds if not thousands of years. This book tells the story of how human sexuality became a metaphor and a template for both spiritual transformation and the manipulation of reality/ of how various sexual acts and psycho-biological states became the basis for a comprehensive cosmology that incorporates every aspect of human experience. Sometimes the secrets are buried where you least expect to find them. Sometimes they are hidden in plain sight. Sometimes... they are both. In the largest Muslim country in the world we will discover a path of Tantra so unique, yet so vibrant and alive, that we will be astonished that no one had heard of it until now.

Wong Pinter: The Roles and Significance of Javanese Shaman

Wong Pinter: The Roles and Significance of Javanese Shaman
Author: Agustinus Sutiono
Publisher: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 6024814674

Exploring the phenomenon of socio-religio-magico reality in Java called wong pinter, this study is a pioneering academic work based on a first hand data. By interviewing 108 practitioners within the framework of anthropological and ethnographical approaches and putting the discussions in the context of shamanism study, this work is also a unique inquiry on Javanese culture conducted by a native. Wong Pinter delineates significant connectivity between Javanese shamanism and Asian or Southeast Asian shamanism. It also describes various aspect of shamanism practices in Java and assesses the sustainability and challenges of this phenomenon vis-a-vis the suppression of religious and political establishment. Above all, this book is an outstanding report valuable to those who are interested to delve into the core of Javanese culture and to the deliberation of social science in general.

Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia

Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia
Author: Jan Mrázek
Publisher: U of M Center for South East Asian Studi
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2002
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

Solid and accessible scholarship about a multifaceted form of art.

Durga's Mosque

Durga's Mosque
Author: Stephen Headley
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
Total Pages: 636
Release: 2004
Genre: Durgā (Hindu deity)
ISBN: 9789812302427

Stephen Headley's new book explores contemporary religious change in the Surakarta region of Central Java. In his analysis of the Durga ritual complex, the author sheds light on one of the most unusual court traditions to have survived in an era of deepening Islamisation.