Adrian Vickers' Indonesia blog

Last week the Panji festival was held successfully in East Java. Major activities took place at the PPLH environmental centre at Seloliman, and the tourism campus at Universitas Merdeka Malang. The latter was the site for the first conference on Panji narratives and Panji culture, and many thanks are owed both to Lydia Kieven for initiating the whole event, and to our hosts at UnMer, especially Gunawan Wibisono and all the other committee members, for their marvellous organisation.

My own paper was on the spread of Panji stories, from their origins in East Java in the pre-Majapahit period, to the various versions found as far away as Thailand and Burma. I included some great comparative illustrations from the C19th frescoes at Wat Samanat Wihan, in Bangkok, which has scenes from the Inao story that are very close to Balinese depictions of the Malat. There is a lot more to be done in this area, following on the lead set by Stuart Robson in his work on Javanese, Balinese, Malay and Thai Panji stories.

Lydia's paper was on her work on the depictions of 'cap figures', some of whom are clearly Panji, in East Javanese temple reliefs of the C12-C15th era. Lydia's new insights into the roles of these stories and the light they shed on the nature of ancient Javanese temples is exciting a lot of interest. Also speaking on East Javanese temples was Dr Josef Proyotomo, who is dramatically re-interpreting East Javanese temples as examples of elaborated indigenous menhirs, rather than imported Indian religious buildings.