The Religion of JavaWritten with a rare combination of analysis and speculation, this comprehensive study of Javanese religion is one of the few books on the religion of a non-Western people which emphasizes variation and conflict in belief as well as similarity and harmony. The reader becomes aware of the intricacy and depth of Javanese spiritual life and the problems of political and social integration reflected in the religion. The Religion of Java will interest specialists in Southeast Asia, anthropologists and sociologists concerned with the social analysis of religious belief and ideology, students of comparative religion, and civil servants dealing with governmental policy toward Indonesia and Southeast Asia. |
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Common terms and phrases
abangan alus Arabic Ardjuna asked Budi Setia buwuh called ceremony chanting child circumcision culture curing dalang dance danjang Djakarta Djokjakarta dukun Dutch Fast feeling gamelan girl give guru Hadith Hadji Ilmu Sedjati Indonesian inner Islam Java Javanese Kawruh Bedja kijaji kind kolot Koran Korawas krama langgar leaders living madrasahs marriage Masjumi means meditation Ministry of Religion modern modernist modin Modjo Modjokuto Modjokuto area month Moslem mosque Muhammadijah mystical Nahdatul Ulama naib never ngoko one's organization party pattern peasant Pendawas Permai political pondok prayer prijaji rasa religious rice Rijaja ritual rukun rupiahs santri Sarekat Islam sarong sects secular Semar slametan social society sometimes sorcery spirits styleme subdistrict Sumarah Surabaja Surakarta symbolic talk teachers tend things tingkeban town traditional ummat usually village wajang wedding wife
Popular passages
Page 2 - ... revolution. What remains is a peasantry very used to both money and to foreign goods, tremendous underemployment, both rural and urban, and an overcomplex economic system in which the Chinese minority controls the main streams of trade. The Chinese form the heart of Modjokuto's economic circulatory system, pressing goods, many of them imported, down through its arteries, pulling back goods, the greater part of them agricultural, through its veins and passing them on to the large urban centers...
Page 6 - Abangan, representing a stress on the animistic aspects of the over-all Javanese syncretism and broadly related to the peasant element in the population; santri, representing a stress on the Islamic aspects of the syncretism and generally related to the trading element (and to certain elements in the peasantry as well); andprijaji, stressing the Hinduistic aspects and related to the bureaucratic element (Geertz, 1960:6).
Page 2 - Almost all land holdings are small — under three acres — and although there is, particularly near the town, considerable sharecrop tenancy, the landlords involved are neither absentee nor are their holdings any larger, with one or two not so very dramatic exceptions, than those of the peasants themselves. On the fourth side of Modjokuto, the southwest, lies either forest or dry, broken, largely unirrigable land, on which, in the early part of this century, an extensive plantation system, in coffee,...
Page 1 - Java studied by the writer in 1953-1954,' lies at the extreme eastern edge of a great irrigated rice plain through which a rambling, circular swinging river flows northward towards the Java sea. A half-day's drive from Surabaja, the Republic of Indonesia's second city and best port, Modjokuto marks the point at which the flat, fertile countryside begins to tilt upward toward the cluster of active volcanoes which tower over it to the east and whose periodic eruptions provide much of its fertility....
Page 3 - In the market you can have your hair cut, your bicycle fixed, and your pants mended while you wait. For an Indonesian quarter you can rent a spot under a tree or a wooden shed and sell cigarettes for a penny more than you just paid for them in a Chinese store across the street. You can buy a basket of corn in the morning and sell it at noon, never leaving the market — getting your profit out of the slight rise in price which every day takes place...
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Religion of Java Anthropology/comparative religions Page 658 of Phoenix books |
| Author | Clifford Geertz |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint, revised |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press, 1976 |
| ISBN | 0226285103, 9780226285108 |
| Length | 392 pages |
| Subjects | › Religion / Eastern Religion / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |