In search of La Galigo

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Longer than the Mahabharata, La Galigo is a monumental literary work that has spanned the ages. It is an epic story of past centuries, once held as a sacred belief of the Buginese community in South Sulawesi. Unfortunately, prejudice, modernization and the movement aimed at purifying religious teachings, have conspired to deal a blow to the supernatural invincibility of this cultural legacy. As a result, this literary work is now familiar only to academics. In fact, La Galigo is a powerful tale. A grand festival was held last March in Barru Regency to resurrect the spirit of La Galigo, also known as Sureq Galigo. Read the report filed by TEMPO reporter Yusi A. Pareanom directly from Sulawesi, the Land of Celebes, which traces the exploits of Sawerigading.

. tempo : 173236317986.

So it happened that in the 15th century, the world was already familiar with La Galigo. This 300,000-line epic story is believed to have been written in the early centuries of the last millennium. It is said to be the longest epic story in the world, longer even than the Mahabharata, which comprises 150,000200,000 lines, or the Illiad and the Odyssey , which contain only 16,000 lines each. Thats why, last March dozens of international researche

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