Panji Stories as a Form of Cultural Diplomacy

The Panji story is included in the UNESCO Memory of the World list. In its description, UNESCO establishes the origin of this literary genre from Indonesia. Interestingly, UNESCO even places Andrian Vickers’ hypothesis as the historical basis for the process of spreading Javanese literature to the Southeast Asian region. Placing this perspective clearly has consequences for the reading of Southeast Asian historiography.

31 October 2017, UNESCO designated the Panji Story Manuscript as ‘Memory of the World’. Interestingly, UNESCO has not only determined Indonesia as the locus of the origin of the Panji Story Manuscript, but also determined four other countries, namely Cambodia, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and England.

Initially there were six countries collaborating to submit the Manuscript Story of the Banner to UNESCO. Thailand is also one of the supporting countries. But unfortunately, the land of the White Elephant – which actually has a large collection of Panji Story manuscripts – for some reason then resigned.

UNESCO describes the Tales of the Banner as a tale from the 13th century. Contains the adventure story of Prince Panji, a Javanese hero who is looking for his lover, Princess Candra Kirana. This search process is carried out under various disguises and various different names, before finally the lovers are reunited.

According to UNESCO, the Panji Story marks a development of Javanese literature that is no longer overshadowed by India, where the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are known in Java since the 12th century. During the Majapahit Kingdom, which was around the 14th-15th centuries, the Panji story was very popular. By sea, this story was spread by traders, from Java to Bali, Malay, then to Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and possibly also to the Philippines.

Furthermore, UNESCO even acknowledges the strong influence of Javanese literature as Adrian Vickers has described it as the “Panji Civilization in Southeast Asia”. A broader literary and cultural tradition of the Panji Stories soon spread beyond Java to Southeast Asia, and remains a unique regional cultural and literary treasure.

Meanwhile, the stipulation of the Netherlands and England by UNESCO, of course, is not because the culture of this nation has a cultural closeness to the Panji Story, like countries in Southeast Asia, but rather because the libraries in these two countries store many ancient manuscripts. If the Netherlands contributes by attaching 252 Banner texts, then the UK supports it by sending a Letter of Support .

Interesting to watch together. When UNESCO convened and determined that the Panji Story Manuscript was included in the Memory of the World list, this meant that UNESCO had recognized and determined the origin of this literary genre from Indonesia. That is, talking about the origin of the Panji story has almost no longer caused polemics or even rejection from other supporting countries. This also means that a consensus on historical interpretation has been built in historigraphical studies that the Panji story is actually from Indonesia.

Moreover, it is interesting that UNESCO even took Andrian Vickers’ conception as the historical basis for the process of spreading Javanese literature to the Southeast Asian region. Placing Vickers’ historiographical perspective, however, has its own consequences for the historiographical study of Southeast Asia.

A New Reading of Southeast Asian History

As is known, so far the historical ties of Southeast Asia have often been simplified by the dominance of Indian and Chinese cultural influences in the past over this region. In addition, it is often interpreted that the development of ties among the island-dwelling communities in Southeast Asia has been built up in line with the flourishing of maritime trade.

E-Naung Dance Drama – E-Naung Zattaw (Myanmar) Drama.

That is, in line with the acceptance of Andrian Vickers’ hypothesis on the history of the spread of the Panji Story from Java to Southeast Asia, this means that a historiographical reading model for the Southeast Asian region has been added and at the same time recognized by the world community through UNESCO.

Andrian Vickers through his work ‘Coastal Civilization: Towards a Cultural History of Southeast Asia’ adds or provides another perspective. He proposed two entities as a binding cultural identity node in the Southeast Asian region, namely the Panji Story and the Coastal Civilization.

According to Vickers, the Panji Story and Coastal Civilization not only represent the locality of the Southeast Asian region, but also become the main characteristics of this region. According to Vickers, it was during this pre-colonial period in Southeast Asia that the Panji story, even though it originated in Java, had developed into a narrative model that was widespread, developed, modified, and recontextualized in the repertoire of folklore and traditional arts in various kingdoms in Southeast Asia.

The Panji story, therefore, is unique because it has many authors. As it spread from Java to Southeast Asia, many different versions and stories developed that contribute to the diversity and potential of today’s Panji culture. Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and others all have their own interpretations of the stories. Even the uniqueness and popularity of the Panji story later became the inspiration for the emergence of other traditional art forms such as dance, puppets, masks, carving and fine arts.

In Thailand, for example, this story is recognized as originating from Indonesia. Called ‘Inao’ , which obviously comes from the word Inu Kertapati, one of Raden Panji’s aliases. Just so you know, the story of Panji in Thailand is even more popular in the community than in Indonesia. Not only is this story the subject of literature in school, more than that, the Panji story itself was even written by the king of Thailand during the reign of King Rama I (1782-1809). Not only that, Panji’s story also inspired the emergence of ballet entitled ‘Lakorn Deuk Damban’ and ‘Lakon Nai’ .

The Journey of Kirana – Hijarah Kirana (Malaysia). 

Another example is in the nearest neighboring country, Malaysia. Panji’s story has inspired the writing of the texts ‘History of Melayu’ (1612) and ‘Hikayat Hang Tuah’ (1641). In the Malay History text , the character of the Majapahit princess is narrated named Raden Galuh Candera Kirana. The beauty of this princess’s face has captured the heart of Sultan Mansur Shah. The name of the princess is clearly the same as the name of the princess of the Panji story. Hikayat Hang Tuah also mentions Ratu Daha. Told to have two daughters, where the eldest child has the name Tuan Puteri Galuh Candera Kirana, a name similar to the name of the daughter of Story Panji.

From the realm of Malay literature, it is recorded that many Panji stories have been translated into Malay, including: Hikayat Jinatur Jayeng Kusuma , Hikayat Misa Taman Jayeng Kusuma , Hikayat Cekel Wanengpati , Hikayat Jaran Kulina , Hikayat Misa Prabu Jaya , Hikayat Panji Kuda Semirang , and so on. .

E-Naung Dance Drama – E-Naung Zattaw (Myanmar) Drama.

Unfortunately, according to Vickers, the people of the Southeast Asian region seem to experience historical amnesia after becoming a colonial area. Instead of fostering a distinctive and local perspective from the Southeast Asian region itself, what is commonly observed is the opposite. In the post-colonial era, the narrative that was developed to build nation-state identity in new countries in the Southeast Asian region was instead based on a cultural history perspective that was shaped by, and at the same time sourced from, the main idea of ​​the product of colonialism.

Vickers, following and at the same time strengthening the historical arguments that have been formulated by Th Pegeaud and Drewes, then builds his hypothesis adequately. According to him, the kinship of the Panji story as ‘coastal literature’ does not merely reflect ‘coastal culture’, it is through coastal culture that the coastal literary tradition becomes easily disseminated far to Southeast Asia.

Khmer Classical Dance – Yarann ​​Chasing a Peacock (Cambodia).

Interestingly, Vickers’ conception is built from a review of the definition of culture or coastal civilization. According to him, coastal culture is not based on a single identity based on a particular ethnicity or religion as it is believed so far, namely Islam and Malay. Coastal culture is actually very open minded and pluralistic, and is able to develop a framework of symbiotic mutualism, thus enriching each other.

Vickers argues that in coastal culture, Hinduism in Bali or Java, for example, is not considered an ‘outside’ entity as opposed to Islamic tradition in Malay. On the other hand, Islamism in Malay is not an ‘outside’ entity that is opposed to Hindu traditions in Java or Bali. Likewise with other areas.

As a result, even though the story of Panji can be said to have a narrative structure based on myths or legends of ancient marriages between the ancestors of the Javanese-Hindu people, at that time it did not necessarily prevent other nations in Southeast Asia who incidentally had ethnic and religious diversity from adopting the text.

The spread of Panji Stories to various cultural areas in Southeast Asia clearly shows that at that time a good process of cultural communication had been built between the Indonesian people and various communities in the region. One of the keys to the success of this communication process is because of the universalism values ​​contained in the Panji story.

That is, speaking of the main wisdom of the spread of the Panji story, is to photograph the success of the Indonesian people in the past when building communication through cultural diplomacy and offering universalist ideas to the people of the Southeast Asian region at that time.

Now, from the point of view of international politics, it is not an exaggeration to say that the designation of the Panji Story as a Memory of the World is the first step to develop a common identity in Southeast Asia. An idea that had actually been initiated in the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community project, where since 1967 Indonesia together with Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand through the ‘Bangkok Declaration’ then established ASEAN.

Of course, there is a need for a lot of historiographical studies of Southeast Asia here. Since the first, each ethnic group in the Southeast Asian region is certainly not a separate, independent and immune entity from the surrounding environment. There is mutual influence with each other in a symbiotic mutualism to enrich each other’s colors is not foreign to the people in this region. Panji’s story is at least one of the factual evidence.