47

wayat} and other elements of pre-Islamic culture caused by the rise of Islam and the decline of the ancient Javanese kingdom. In the pre-Islamic period wayarj and its appur tenances still belonged to the sacral sphere, an d way at} art was more o-r less kept secret. Islam, removing the seal of secrecy, secu larized ancient elements of culture which in consequence became better known and more Popular. As, rightly or wrongly, the change of religion was attributed to the walis’ ac tivity, these apostles of Islam were regarded, ln later centuries, as inventors of many elements of culture. They may have been renovators, at most.

In the opinion of some nineteenth century Javanese and Dutch scholars the unnatural proportions of wayarj puppets are to' be explained by the Islamic religious ban on making images of living beings. These scholars imagined that puppets and pictures "’ere made in wayat} style, showing shapes which do not exist in reality, in order to save the feelings of strict Muslim divines. This explanation misses the point by ig noring the pre-Islamic stone reliefs in wayat} style mentioned above. The strange propor tions of wayarj figures belong to an antique st yle of drawing, which represented the divine character of mythic heroes by a sacral rigidity and exaggerated proportions of im portant limbs and parts of the body: arms, e yes and noses. During the four centuries of its existence 111 Java wayat} style in plastic and decorative art has developed several varieties : in East J ava an d Madura, Central Java (Surakarta an d Yogyakarta), and West Java (Cërbon ar, d the Sundanese districts). Connoisseurs are al>le to distinguish also wayarj puppets

made in older and younger periods. Such distinctions, geographical and diachronical, can be made chiefly with respect to products of Court artists. For a considerable time, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, wayarj art was a Court art, though it was imitated in the country. It is to be regretted that the available specimens of drawings and illustrations in manuscripts are insufficient in quantity and quality to make a compara tive study of sub-styles in Javanese wayarj art possible. The collection of Mr Moens who, residing in Surakarta and Yogyakarta between 1920 and 1942, developed into an excellent con noisseur of wayarj, contains interesting illus trated manuscripts showing different schools or traditions of wayarj performers and wayarj makers in Central Java (see 43.000). The General Index contains references to various kinds of illustrated manuscripts un der the catchword illustrations. 60.041, Plate no 13, Ki Gëdé Séséla binding the Lightning, LOr 3186, History of Jipaij, Central North Coast, collection Vreede, 1892, p. 35, see Synopsis 23.310. The original picture, polychrome, in popular wayarj style, is 16 x 16 cm. Boorish Central Pasisir script. Second half of the nineteenth century. The text, in macapat verse, metre asmaran- dana, has: ... sawah kabèh, punika sami tumirjal, pan yaktosan arjsal gëlap, mapan sampun tina- likuij. Kontrak maratj Sultan Dëmak.//. Ki Gëdé dipun timbali, maratj wahu Sultan Dëmak. Ki Gëdé gupuh praptané ... Translation: On all fields, they saw that he really had caught the Lightning, it was even fettered.