Hagiography
Back in those days, I would listen to my mother’s stories as she lulled the children to sleep. She knew that sleep was investment for a fresh new day. In the 20th century, stories had become ‘technology’.
Goenawan Mohamad
February 24, 2020
WHEN a mother sang fragments of the Javanese poem Wedhatama extolling Panembahan Senapati, she was actually using that story to produce the future, so her child would become someone great:
Nuladha laku utama
Tumraping wong Tanah Jawi
Wong agung ing Ngeksiganda,
Panembahan Senapati
young men should imitate the highest example of behavior
for people in the land of Java—
that of the great man of Mataram,
Panembahan Sena
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