This book represents a sociocultural history of alcohol and its use in Java before 1500 CE, studied in comparative perspective with other parts of the Indo-Malay world and ‘Sanskrit Cosmopolis’. It addresses the topic of production, trade, and consumption of alcohol in pre-Islamic Java (c. 800–1500 CE), and the whole array of meanings the Javanese have attached to its use. Classed among intoxicants – a less ideologically loaded term than ‘drug’ –, alcohol is extremely controversial in contemporary, Islamic, Java and was an ambiguous substance in pre-modern times. Though forbidden to Muslims, alcohol still occasionally functions as a stimulant and depressant, and it is also used as medicine. This book will demonstrate that though representing a relatively marginal intoxicant in modern Java, alcohol was an important substance in pre-Islamic Java. This monograph strives to understand the positive cultural aspects of alcohol consumption while also looking at the cultural roots of the dangerous and damaging aspects of alcohol consumption. It is original in its extensive use of Old and Middle Javanese texts, but also in its reliance on comparative evidence drawn from a variety of cultures. Sources in classical Malay and Sanskrit, in particular, are used extensively. I have also made use of European accounts, and of relatively rich ethnographic and anthropological research pertaining to alcohol. At the same time, I recognize the limitations of this use: synchronic comparisons reveal that in some ways Java was unique, while in others it operated in a regional world with which it shared an appreciation for the ritual and social use of alcohol, and in yet other ways, pre-Islamic Java must be seen as a society that was not different from faraway societies of a completely different cultural disposition.
Scholars have argued that alcohol may be the most ancient stimulant in the world, and it has been a fundamentally important social, religious, economic, and political artefact for millennia.1 Its production, exchange, distribution, and consumption have long structured individual’s relationships with society, the environment and the cosmos throughout the world. From the period of first Javanese states until the late 17th century CE, alcohol has influenced Javanese social, religious, cultural and political life in many ways; from the ordinary to the remarkable and surprising. Old Javanese texts represent alcoholic drinks as forbidden, addictive, and impure. Yet, other sources describe alcohol as nourishing, arousing, and important in the social, political, and ritual contexts. The available evidence indicates that its consumption has substantially diminished only during the 17th century CE, when other intoxicants, in particular tobacco and opium, became more common. In the 18th century CE, when substantial segments of Javanese society became more strictly Islamic, alcohol consumption was limited mostly to elites, some non-Javanese ethnic groups, and medical use.
We are far from a general history of intoxicants in Java: betel quid, alcohol, tobacco, opium, and coffee were all widespread and used vigorously by large segments of Javanese society in the past and present, and to write their history would mean to address the major and a number of minor intoxicants in detail. This book has much lesser ambitions: it is my modest intention that it succeeds in helping to place alcohol in its proper historical context by exploring how alcoholic drinks have been integrated into Javanese society between 800–1500 CE, a period predating European influences. This chronological scope may appear, at least at the first sight, rather arbitrary as it covers also the 14th and 15th centuries CE, a period when Islamic influences were already felt in parts of Java. Yet, the period spanning the 9–15th centuries CE witnessed the flourishing of Javanese society denoted by scholars conveniently, though rather imprecisely, ‘Hindu-Buddhist’ civilization. The term, though falling slowly into disuse among the scholars of Java, is a convenient shorthand for a distinct culture, which was part of the ‘Sanskrit Cosmopolis’, a politico-cultural trans-regional ecumene covering South, Central, and Southeast Asia, a concept developed by Sheldon Pollock.2 We still know too little about the life of peasants, by far the largest segment of Javanese pre-modern society, though Old Javanese epigraphical record indicates that even the inhabitants of small and apparently isolated hamlets may have been ‘Indianized’ more thoroughly than is usually believed.3 Yet, it still remains a matter of controversy how much Śaivism, Vaiṣṇavism, and Buddhism influenced the lower echelons of Javanese society during this period, to justify the term ‘Hindu-Buddhist’ civilization: the label can probably be used more conveniently to denote the culture of Javanese elites, a restricted part of society about which we have a relatively large body of evidence. The ambivalence of the term ‘Hindu-Buddhist’ is the reason why I prefer to call the period under study ‘pre-Islamic’ or simply ‘ancient.’ The reader will see that pre-modern evidence on the use of alcohol in Java, though often very interesting, is limited. It is not my aim to present a narrow account of the history of alcohol but rather to use literary and epigraphic vignettes available to us in capacity of small windows through which to look at the past of the Javanese society before 1500 CE.
The book follows a thematic approach in the presentation of its material and argument, and it is divided into two parts. In the first part, consisting of eight chapters, alcoholic drinks documented from ancient Java are discussed in detail, and Old Javanese terminology pertaining to alcohol is reviewed and analysed. Various intoxicating drinks carried in pre-Islamic Java different cultural, ritual, and literary associations, and precision of this terminology will help us to understand better meanings ascribed to particular alcoholic drinks. Part of this terminology represent Sanskrit loanwords, and it is studied in comparison with the rich Sanskrit nomenclature of alcohol. One chapter is devoted to drinking vessels and other paraphernalia used to serve, drink, and ritually present alcohol. In the final chapter of the first part, drinking comportment is discussed. In the second part, consisting of ten chapters, the use and abuse of alcohol in various social, religious, and cultural contexts of Javanese pre-Islamic society is studied and analysed. Two chapters are devoted to complex and little studied questions pertaining to inebriation, drunkenness, and habitual drinking (‘alcoholism’) documented in our textual sources. In the final chapter we will see how Islamisation changed Javanese appreciation of alcoholic drinks and attitudes to alcohol after 1500 CE. The book is closed by the substantial Conclusion, where the reader finds a summary of the most important findings and views advanced in this study.
In the course of writing this book I have benefited from the assistance of many individuals and institutions that it is impossible to give them all the credit they are due. They all freely shared of their erudition in their respective specialities, thereby remedying, in part at least, my own shortcomings. Their efforts have made this an infinitely better book, although I am well-aware that too many errors of fact and interpretation no doubt remain, for which I alone am responsible. Patrick McGovern (University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia) was always keen to share his expertise on pre-modern history of alcohol, and drinking culture in ancient societies. James McHugh (University of Southern California, Los Angeles) helped me to tackle complexities of Sanskrit discourse on alcohol and intoxication in South Asia. Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer (Amsterdam) was always ready to answer my, often naïve, questions pertaining to the material evidence and visual representations of drinking vessels on Javanese religious monuments. She has also facilitated the procurement of the image of ‘Drinking Brahmans’ reproduced on the book cover. Arlo Griffiths (BEFEO, Lyon) was very helpful in my effort to understand complexities of Old Javanese epigraphical evidence; reading my previously published article-length contribution on alcohol in pre-Islamic Java, he also gave me a number of valuable comments on several Old Javanese passages discussed in this book. Jaroslav Strnad (Czech Oriental Institute, Prague) was helpful with interpretation of Old Hindī texts. I also wish to thank Anna Graskampf (Baptist University, Hong Kong), who invited me to participate on a seminar ‘Global Jars’, held in May 2017 in Leiden, and later also to the conference ‘Global Jars: Asian Containers as Transcultural Enclosures’ held in September 2018 in Hong Kong. These two occasions gave me a chance to spread some of the preliminary results of my research, and get feedback on the concepts and views presented in this book. My very special thanks go to Tom Hoogervorst (KITLV, Leiden) for his consultation on linguistic aspects pertaining to alcohol and drinking culture, and for sharing with me his views on and understanding of Austronesian comparative material. On top of that, Tom’s untiring help with looking up articles unavailable to me, many of them published in journals of difficult access, helped much to improve my arguments presented in this book. I must also express my sincere appreciation to the institutions which saw fit to support the research for this book. I was fortunate enough to receive support from the Gonda Foundation so that I could spend six months in 2017 at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden, working on several chapters of this book. I thank to Peter Bisschop (Leiden University), and to all members of the IIAS staff, in particular to Philippe Peycam, Willem Vogelsang, as well as Heleen van der Minne, Sandra Dehue, and Sonja Zweegers, who all made my sojourn at the IIAS fruitful and pleasant experience. I also thank Bal Gopal Shrestha, a colleague at the IIAS, who was always willing to help with South Asian, especially Nepalese, comparative material. I am also grateful to the Palacký University, Department of Asian Studies, and in particular to František Kratochvíl, department’s director, for his support. I also wish to thank to the Institute of Anthropology, Heidelberg University, where I had the chance to finalize this book, thanks to the institute’s director Annette Hornbacher. My deepest appreciation also goes to the two anonymous referees who have taken the time to read the manuscript and to provide comments that have substantially helped to improve my arguments advanced in this book. To the institutions and all of the individuals who have assisted or expressed interest in this project over several years it has taken to complete, I am also grateful for their patience.
For the ‘prehistory’ of alcohol and its early uses, see especially Dietler (2006) and McGovern (2009).
Pollock (2006).
See, for example, a revealing article on Javanese pre-Islamic personal names by de Casparis (1986:8–18), in which the author demonstrates persuasively that Sanskrit and Sanskritic names were used even by the inhabitants of very small and isolated settlements in Java. See also de Casparis (1981).