Little trips round Yogya -- 5 -- spiritual places
by prudence on 12-May-2013
This week's New Thing was touring a selection of Yogya's spiritual places under the guidance of ViaVia's highly knowledgeable Vita.
Pictures are here.
Two things really stand out from this trip. One is the fascinating way religions intertwine here. Muslims and Christians, for example, will happily make offerings at the animist shrine of Sendang Kasihan, and Muslims, after offering flowers and incense, and perhaps bathing in the pool overnight, may well go to the adjoining mosque for dawn prayers. The Holy Cross Church on beautiful Gunung Sempu looks like a Javanese pendopo; its cross is flanked by the kind of royal umbrella we have seen in many places in Southeast Asia; and its pieta is backed by a verse about Mary in the Brahmi-derived Javanese script. Hindu sculptures, including an impressive Ganesh, grace another primarily animist shrine at Panepen Jurang Tretes, where intertwined banyan trees shelter a quiet and lovely pool. Outside the nearby mosque are Hindu-style gateposts. And the Chinese temple we visited contained, as so often, a riot of sacred figures. (Of course, many people are horrified by this religious intertwining, but personally I've always seen syncretism as an inescapable part of being human. Nothing is ever "pure".)
The second striking quality of the day's excursion was the tranquil atmosphere these places all share. Up in the airy pendopo of the church on the hill, sounds come in from the outside world as if from a very long way away. Up by the spring above Ganesh, a woman sat quietly burning a block of resin-like incense. She lives 15 km away, but comes here on a regular basis. Having finished her offering, she spread a cloth on the ground at the side of the shrine, and lay down to rest, the quiet surroundings offering physical as well as spiritual respite. At the mosque, a young man was learning Quran recitation by listening to a recording. The quiet chanting drifted over to us and wound its way around our conversation.
I have been moved today by the different ways human beings express their sense of need, and their faith in a power that can meet that need. People mostly go to Sendang Kasihan because of "couples" problems. Maybe they need a partner, or maybe they need their partner to love them again. But students also leave fragments of burnt requests behind, asking for good grades and success in study. The woman by the spring was praying for the safety of her family. She had filled a plastic bottle with spring water, and will pour it into the well at home to spread the blessings further. But the kindly faced man repainting the doors in the Chinese temple could well have been expressing his faith just as cogently.
I have never given any credence to ideas that religion is on the wane. Everywhere I have lived in Southeast Asia, it has been all around me. And elsewhere, while the guises in which it pops up may be unexpected, nothing will ultimately keep it down for long. Just as nothing will stamp out the practices of animism that live alongside, or even underpin, so many of the more conventional religious beliefs. And nothing could obliterate Chinese religious practice even in the repressive years of Suharto.
Faith will always find a way.
Pictures are here.
Two things really stand out from this trip. One is the fascinating way religions intertwine here. Muslims and Christians, for example, will happily make offerings at the animist shrine of Sendang Kasihan, and Muslims, after offering flowers and incense, and perhaps bathing in the pool overnight, may well go to the adjoining mosque for dawn prayers. The Holy Cross Church on beautiful Gunung Sempu looks like a Javanese pendopo; its cross is flanked by the kind of royal umbrella we have seen in many places in Southeast Asia; and its pieta is backed by a verse about Mary in the Brahmi-derived Javanese script. Hindu sculptures, including an impressive Ganesh, grace another primarily animist shrine at Panepen Jurang Tretes, where intertwined banyan trees shelter a quiet and lovely pool. Outside the nearby mosque are Hindu-style gateposts. And the Chinese temple we visited contained, as so often, a riot of sacred figures. (Of course, many people are horrified by this religious intertwining, but personally I've always seen syncretism as an inescapable part of being human. Nothing is ever "pure".)
The second striking quality of the day's excursion was the tranquil atmosphere these places all share. Up in the airy pendopo of the church on the hill, sounds come in from the outside world as if from a very long way away. Up by the spring above Ganesh, a woman sat quietly burning a block of resin-like incense. She lives 15 km away, but comes here on a regular basis. Having finished her offering, she spread a cloth on the ground at the side of the shrine, and lay down to rest, the quiet surroundings offering physical as well as spiritual respite. At the mosque, a young man was learning Quran recitation by listening to a recording. The quiet chanting drifted over to us and wound its way around our conversation.
I have been moved today by the different ways human beings express their sense of need, and their faith in a power that can meet that need. People mostly go to Sendang Kasihan because of "couples" problems. Maybe they need a partner, or maybe they need their partner to love them again. But students also leave fragments of burnt requests behind, asking for good grades and success in study. The woman by the spring was praying for the safety of her family. She had filled a plastic bottle with spring water, and will pour it into the well at home to spread the blessings further. But the kindly faced man repainting the doors in the Chinese temple could well have been expressing his faith just as cogently.
I have never given any credence to ideas that religion is on the wane. Everywhere I have lived in Southeast Asia, it has been all around me. And elsewhere, while the guises in which it pops up may be unexpected, nothing will ultimately keep it down for long. Just as nothing will stamp out the practices of animism that live alongside, or even underpin, so many of the more conventional religious beliefs. And nothing could obliterate Chinese religious practice even in the repressive years of Suharto.
Faith will always find a way.