Panji stories are a set of narratives that have their origins in East Java, probably around the thirteenth century. Panji narratives can be found, inter alia, in various forms of the Javanese language, Balinese, Malay, Thai, Lao, Khmer and Burmese. These narratives typically concern wandering princes searching for wandering princesses.
I have already written extensively on the major Panji narrative found on Bali, the Kidung Malat Rasmi, in my Journeys of Desire: The Balinese Malat in Text and History. Leiden: KITLV, 2005, see http://www.kitlv.nl/cgi-bin/kitlv/web_store/web_store.cgi?page=asia-journeyofdesire.html&cart_id=2516950_2360. In Bali Panji stories are performed in the gambuh dance drama.
This blog is intended to keep track of the latest research on Panji stories, as well as serving to provide notice about the forthcoming Panji conference planned for September 2007. All contributions and comments are very welcome.
Comments
I had been searching about panji stories for last one week or so. But now here I got what i wanted. Thanks for the informative post.
Posted by: Marriot | February 22, 2009 12:35 AM
Dear Mr. Vickers,
We are a couple of artists who are interested to make a comic based on the Panji cycle. We feel obliged to do this because we feel that it's such a shame that most Indonesians has no knowledge about the great cycle, while it's actually quite well known in other countries.
We believe that we could actually do something about popularizing the story. My friend Li Julian is a well known comic artist in Indonesia, he already had some of his works published. If you would like to see some of his works, you can do so by visiting his page at: http://adipatijulian.deviantart.com/
Unfortunately, both of us are only simple artists with no prior education whatsoever in art of literature. We would really appreciate it if you could lend us your helping hands with your vast knowledge on the matter.
Thank you so much for the attention, we'd love to hear from you, hopefully good news.
Sincerely yours,
Ari and Julian Sutisnawinata
Posted by: Ari | February 4, 2008 05:56 PM