Arok of Java, a novel of early Indonesia
28 February 2008 | www.blogberita.net | Pelanggan RSS gratis»
In his final critical hours, Pramoedya was rushed to a hospital. Lying in bed struggling for his life, he surprised everyone at his bedside with a request for his favorite kretek cigarette.
When told he was not allowed to smoke in hospital, he asked to be immediately removed back to his house. His last wish finally granted, he took a few puffs at his kretek cigarette and passed away. Those final moments could very well sum up Pramoedya’s life as a man and a writer: an undaunted man who fought unflinchingly against any forms of injustice, repression and inhumanity.
Arok of Java, translated by Max Lane, is a much-anticipated addition to the collection of Pramoedya’s works that have been made available to English-speaking readers. The originally titled Arok Dedes was published in 1999. Compared to the preeminent Buru Quartet, it is not much known abroad, except for a handful of Pramoedya’s scholars. It is nonetheless an important work that eerily foretells the political state we are in today.
Pramoedya showed that greed, intrigues, betrayals, racial and religious conflicts brought on by those in power often result in the loss of the lives of common people and are as recurrent in the past as in present day Indonesia.
Set in the year 1140 Saka (1220 A.D), in a Gubernatorial State of Tumapel under the reign of King Sri Kretajaya in Kediri, is a tale about the rise of a sudra (the lowest Hindu caste) young man with unknown parentage named Arok who learns from a Budhist monk and a Vishnu Bramin to become a ksatria, a worrior, to lead a band of commoners just like himself to topple the rule of the ruthless brigand-turned Governor of Tumapel, Tunggul Ametung.
What makes the novel especially intriguing is the way Pramoedya details Arok’s rise through his clever maneuvering rather than his skills as a warrior to penetrate into Tunggul Ametung’s inner-circle and with the help of Ken Dedes, the beautiful but reluctant consort of the Governor, for she was kidnapped from her village and forced to marry the villain, finally trumps the evil ruler. For Pramoedya, the kstarias, the military, are basically untutored brutes manipulated by lure of greed and power, just as Tunggul Ametung by the King of Kediri.
The Brahmins, the educated elite, are also scathingly criticized for being uselessly inert in their wisdom. Arok, being of the lower caste, educated by a Budhist teacher and A Brahmin master to read Sanskrit and the lontars, historical tracts, is the perfect amalgamation of a scholar-warrior approved by the Brahmins to take on the task of taking down the corrupt ruler of Tumapel. In the end, Arok wins the admiration and the heart of the Brahmini Ken Dedes, but there is a hint that she, too, cannot stand having to share power of a man not of Hindu blood. One gets a sense in the end that the prolonged conflicts involving race and religion can never be truly resolved unless one makes a real effort to be respect another human being despite his/her creed or race.
Arok’s triumphant address to his supporters clearly points this out: “Look now. Here I am a worshipper of Shiva, my wife Umang, worshipper of Vishnu, my adopted father Bango Samparan and also Ki Lembung are Vishnuites. My teacher, respected Tantripala is a Buddhist, my master teacher His Holiness Dang Hyang Lohgawe is a Shivaite. The good laws that have lasted now for two hundred years were the blessed gift of a Vishnu king, Sri Erlangga. The goodness of a person cannot be judged by how he worships the gods but by his behavior towards his fellow human beings.” [Richard Oh/ JavaKini]
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