One day in the 1870s in the Mangkunegaran palace, a manuscript was completed: a series of verses with phrases that people in central Java like to quote to this day: the Serat Wedhatama.

The text feels as though it still 'speaks to us' probably because it is like an outburst of our own times: the inner wrestling of a person facing the pressure of Islamization around him. In the 100 verses, we meet someone raised in a local tradition proud of its va