INDONESIAN LITERATURE: EARLY WRITING, EPICS, LACK OF TRANSLATIONS

INDONESIAN LITERATURE

Indonesian storyteller on the island of Maluka

Indonesia has created many celebrated authors. There has also been a long tradition, particularly among ethnically Malay populations, of impromptu, interactive, verbal composition of poetry referred to as the ‘pantun’. There is a long Javanese tradition of the poet as a "voice on the wind," a critic of authority. During the Suharto era, poets and playwrights had works banned, among them W. S. Rendra whose plays were not allowed in Jakarta.Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a well-known author won the Magsaysay Award and was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim” and “The Rescue” were set in the Malay archipelago (Indonesia). Indonesia has a fair number of bookstores, mostly in cities. Books there are often rapped in plastic so customers can't flip through them.

Indonesia's literary legacy includes centuries-old manuscripts written on palm leaves, bamboo and other fibres by literate peoples such as the Malays, Javanese, Balinese, Bugis, Rejang and Batak. The 14th-century poem Nagarakrtagama praises King Hayam Wuruk and describes life in his Majapahit kingdom. The I La Galigo, an epic poem about the adventures of the Bugis culture hero Sawerigading, is one of the longest in the world.[Source: Clark E. Cunningham, Countries and Their Cultures, Gale Group Inc., 2001]

Although the culture of India, largely embodied in insular Southeast Asia with the Sanskrit language and the Hindu and Buddhist religions, was eagerly grasped by the elite of the existing society, typically Indian concepts, such as caste and the inferior status of women, appear to have made little or no headway against existing Indonesian traditions. Nowhere was Indian civilization accepted without change; rather, the more elaborate Indian religious forms and linguistic terminology were used to refine and clothe indigenous concepts. In Java even these external forms of Indian origin were transformed into distinctively Indonesian shapes. The tradition of plays using Javanese shadow puppets (wayang), the origins of which may date to the neolithic age, was brought to a new level of sophistication in portraying complex Hindu dramas (lakon) during the period of Indianization. Even later Islam which forsakes pictorial representations of human brings, brought new developments to the wayang tradition through numerous refinements in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. [Source: Library of Congress]

Early Indonesian Writing

Wukiran/Pereng inscription (AD 785 Śaka/863) from Yogyakarta, Indonesia in plain, early Kawi

Written script first appeared in the Indonesian archipelago in the fourth century A.D., following strong cultural and religious influences from India. One of the earliest scripts to spread through the island courts was Pallava, a writing system from southern India. By the eighth century, this script had developed into a localized form known as Kawi, an “Indonesianized” script used in Java, Sumatra, and Bali. Although its syntax remained Austronesian, scholars note that about 30 percent of its vocabulary was derived from Sanskrit. By the fourteenth century, Kawi—whose name means “poetic”—had diversified across Java, Sumatra, Bali, Madura, and Sumbawa. [Source: “Culture and Customs of Indonesia” by Jill Forshee, Greenwood Press, 2006]

By the sixteenth century, Kawi had largely been replaced by four major script families: Batak, South Sumatran, Javanese-Balinese, and Bugis-Makasar. While all retained early Indic influences, they evolved into distinct regional writing systems shaped by local needs and cultural developments. Much of the earliest written material has not survived because these scripts were typically written on palm leaves and paper rather than carved in stone, making them vulnerable to tropical weather and the passage of time. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that writing spread widely across the islands through trade networks and political alliances.

Literacy in premodern Indonesia appears to have been relatively widespread. A 1930 Dutch census found that the highest literacy rate in the archipelago was in the Lampung region of southern Sumatra, where nearly half the population could read and write in the old South Sumatran ka-ga-nga script despite the absence of formal schooling. The name derives from the first three letters of the alphabet. Literacy was often passed down within the household, especially by mothers and older siblings. Young people commonly used the script to write flirtatious four-line poems known as pantuns, which were exchanged during courtship.

Writing was not limited to romantic use. The ka-ga-nga script spread to Bali, South Sulawesi, and Sumbawa, where it was used for genealogies, histories, literature, and books of divination. Kawi, especially in Bali and Java, long served as a prestigious literary language associated with refined speech and poetic expression.

Early Indonesian Literature

The Javanese has a literary history dating back to the 8th century. Many of their folk stories are based on Hindu stories from India. During the Medang or Mataram Kingdom—a Javanese Hindu–Buddhist kingdom that flourished between the 8th and 10th centuries in Central Java, and later in East Java—there was blossoming of art, culture and literature, mainly through the translation of Hindu-Buddhist sacred texts and the transmission and adaptation of Hindu-Buddhist ideas. [Source: metapedia.org]

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Before the spread of Islam, kakawin—Old Javanese romantic poetry—was especially valued in royal courts, where the ability to compose love poems was considered essential. These texts were often written on pandanus leaves or strips of wood and were frequently decorative in style, linking writing with the visual arts. [Source: “Culture and Customs of Indonesia” by Jill Forshee, Greenwood Press, 2006]

Poetry also developed as an important social practice beyond the courts. In many parts of Indonesia, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, poetry became a form of verbal or written contest. The pantun was central to courtship rituals in Sumatra, Java, and Bali. Although later religious influences discouraged certain forms of writing, the poetic tradition remained strong in oral culture.

Before the sixteenth-century spread of Islam and Christianity, literacy was common among communities that were largely animist, and women participated actively in writing. Women used writing for exchanging messages, recording debts, and managing commercial affairs, all of which often fell within their social responsibilities. As a result, literacy was largely transmitted domestically rather than through an exclusive religious class. Some scholars suggest that literacy levels among women in sixteenth-century Indonesia rivaled those of many other parts of the world.

Indonesian Ramayana and Mahabharata

Indian epics also became deeply integrated into Indonesian literary culture. The Ramayana and Mahabharata were translated into Old Javanese and adapted into local cultural settings. In Java and Bali, these stories were treated as part of the distant past and were incorporated into local geography and tradition. They became central themes in wayang shadow theater, dance dramas, oral storytelling, comic books, films, and television. [Source: “Culture and Customs of Indonesia” by Jill Forshee, Greenwood Press, 2006]

The Mahabharata, known in Indonesian as Mahabarata, centers on the five Pandawa brothers and their conflict with the Kaurava family, presenting enduring themes of good and evil. Its many characters became archetypes for human qualities such as heroism, loyalty, pride, lust, and deception. Similarly, the Ramayana focuses on Rama, Sita, Ravana, and Hanuman, emphasizing moral ideals such as loyalty, courage, and fidelity, especially through Sita’s devotion.

The bas-relief narration of the Hindu epic Ramayana was carved on the wall of Prambanan Temple. During this period, the Kakawin Ramayana, an old Javanese rendering was written. This Kakawin Ramayana, also called the Yogesvara Ramayana, is attributed to the scribe Yogesvara circa the 9th century CE, who was employed in the court of the Medang in Central Java. It has 2774 stanzas in the manipravala style, a mixture of Sanskrit and archaic Javanese prose. The most influential version of the Ramayana is the Ravanavadham of Bhatti, popularly known as Bhattikavya. The Javanese Ramayana differs markedly from the original Hindu. [Source: metapedia.org]

Indonesian Literature After Islam Was Introduced

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“When Islam started to spread across the islands of Indonesia in the 12th century, it was also bringing new kinds of cultural influences from the Islamic world, from Arab culture, Persia and Islamic West India. They included literature, types of instruments, forms of music, styles of recitation of holy texts, and also some forms of dance. In many cases these new elements were quickly localised and they intermingled with earlier animistic and Hindu-Buddhist elements. A good example is wayang golek rod puppet theatre, which has its roots firmly in the older wayang kulit shadow theatre that mainly deals with Hindu mythology. Wayang golek, however, takes its main plot material from the Islamic Menak stories. A similar kind of fusion of cultural layers can be recognised in numerous Indonesian traditions. [Source: metapedia.org]

The spread of Islam brought significant changes to writing practices. Islamic texts were written in Arabic script, which was not ideally suited to Austronesian languages. This led to the development of localized adaptations of Arabic script across the archipelago. Because the curved forms and dotted letters of Arabic were difficult to inscribe on palm leaves, paper became increasingly important. As paper proved more durable, many more manuscripts from the Islamic period have survived than from earlier centuries.[Source: “Culture and Customs of Indonesia” by Jill Forshee, Greenwood Press, 2006]

Among the major literary forms of the Islamic period were hikayat, Malay-language chronicles written in Arabic-based Jawi script. One important example is the Sejarah Melayu (History of the Malay World), written in 1612, which recounts the histories of various sultanates and their connections to the Srivijaya Empire and Majapahit Empire. Such texts helped create an Islamic literary network stretching from Aceh to Ternate.

Another important literary form was the babad, a chronicle written in Old Javanese and often sung aloud. These works usually focused on Muslim saints, rulers, and their divine legitimacy, though the form was also widely used in Hindu Bali and performed as dance drama. Like the hikayat, babad literature recorded political history while also conveying symbolic and layered meanings characteristic of Javanese artistic traditions.

Majapahit Literature and the Nagarakertagama

During the Majapahit period, in the 13th–15th centuries, the East Javanese culture reached its zenith. The second half of the 14th century in particular saw the flourishing of both literature and architecture. Majapahit’s writers continued the developments in literature and “wayang”(shadow puppetry) begun in the Kediri period. The best-known work today, Mpu Prapañca’s “Desawarnaña”, often referred to as “Nāgarakertāgama”, composed in 1365, which provides us with an unusually detailed view of daily life in the kingdom’s central provinces. Many other classic works also date from this period, including the famous Panji tales, popular romances based on the history of eastern Java that were loved and borrowed by storytellers as far away as Thailand and Cambodia. Many of Majapahit’s administrative practices and laws governing trade were admired and later imitated elsewhere, even by fledgling powers seeking independence from Javanese imperial control. [Source: Library of Congress]

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"Negara Kertagama," by the famous Javanese author Prapancha (1335-1380) was written during this golden period of Majapahit, when many literary works were produced. Parts of the book described the diplomatic and economic ties between Majapahit and numerous Southeast Asian countries including Myanmar, Thailand, Tonkin, Annam, Kampuchea and even India and China. Other works in Kawi, the old Javanese language, were "Pararaton," "Arjuna Wiwaha," "Ramayana," and "Sarasa Muschaya." In modern times, these works were later translated into modern European languages for educational purposes. [Source: ancientworlds.net]

A description of the Majapahit capital from the Old Javanese epic poem Nagarakertagama goes: "Of all the buildings, none lack pillars, bearing fine carvings and coloured" [Within the wall compounds] "there were elegant pavilions roofed with aren fibre, like the scene in a painting... The petals of the katangga were sprinkled over the roofs for they had fallen in the wind. The roofs were like maidens with flowers arranged in their hair, delighting those who saw them".

Local literary traditions also flourished. The tales of Prince Panji originated in fourteenth-century Java, in settings that predate the Majapahit Empire. These stories follow a prince who travels incognito, proves his valor, and ultimately succeeds in war and romance. While rooted in Javanese culture, Panji stories spread widely, particularly to Bali, where they became important dance dramas. Themes of kingship, military success, romance, and personal potency made them especially influential in Indonesian cultural history.

Sureq Galigo

Running to thousands of pages, the Bugis epic Sureq Galigo is the most extensive repository of pre-Islamic mythology shared by the peoples of South Sulawesi, including the Sa’dan Toraja, though it is most closely associated with the Bugis. Also known as La Galigo, the work is an epic creation myth originating in South Sulawesi that was written down in Bugis between the 18th and 20th centuries, based on a much older oral tradition. In recent times it has reached a wider international audience largely through Robert Wilson’s theatrical adaptation, I La Galigo. [Source: A. J. Abalahin, “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life,” Cengage Learning, 2009, Wikipedia]

Sureq Galigo recounts the deeds of the tomanurung, divine beings descended from heaven from whom the rulers of South Sulawesi claimed ancestry. The epic opens with Batara Guru, the eldest son of the supreme god of the upper world, descending to eastern Luwu through a bamboo tube. There he creates the earth’s flora and fauna and, after a fifteen-day fast, is joined by other heavenly beings who help cultivate the world. His cousin, a princess from the underworld, then emerges from the sea to become his wife. The narrative continues through six generations of descendants, beginning with their son Sawérigading, whose unfulfilled love for his twin sister drives him to undertake journeys through the upper, middle, and lower worlds before marrying the princess We Cudai’. Their son, La Galigo, becomes the central figure of the later sections, with his adventures in love and war occupying much of the epic.

Composed in pentameter verse, the poem not only recounts the origins of humanity but also functions as a practical almanac guiding everyday life. It developed primarily through oral transmission and is still sung on important ceremonial occasions. The earliest surviving written manuscripts date from the 18th century; earlier versions were lost to insects, climate, and deliberate destruction. As a result, no single complete or authoritative version exists. The surviving fragments, however, amount to roughly 6,000 pages or about 300,000 lines, making I La Galigo one of the longest literary works in the world.

Literature from the Dutch Period in Indonesia

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During the colonial period, literature was published in various regional languages, primarily Javanese, but this practice ceased after Indonesian independence. Balai Pustaka, the earliest official publishing house for Indonesian literature, was founded in Batavia in 1917. National culture was expressed and formed through spoken Malay-Indonesian, which was understood by many people, as well as through newspapers, pamphlets, poetry, novels and short stories for literate individuals. [Source: Clark E. Cunningham, Countries and Their Cultures, Gale Group Inc., 2001]

The literature on Dutch expansion and the Netherlands East Indies is extensive. The most comprehensive work on the Cultivation System is perhaps Robert E. Elson’s Village Java under the Cultivation System. The 1860 novel Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company by Multatuli, penname of Eduard Douwes Dekker, is still captivating reading. It w as polemic against injustice by Dutch colonist in Java in the 1850s. A History of Modern Indonesia by Adrian Vickers begins its coverage with the late nineteenth century, and the collection of papers edited by Robert B. Cribb in The Late Colonial State in Indonesia is very useful. [Source: Library of Congress]

Lack of English Translations and Interest in Indonesian Literature

Michael J. Ybarra wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “In 1986 the king of Thailand gave an award to Indonesian poet Sapardi Djoko Damono for his contributions to Indonesia's literature. Damono, in turn, wanted to hand out some of his verse when he accepted the award in Bangkok. The only problem was Damono's work had never been translated into another language. So the poet asked his friend John McGlynn to prepare a selection in English, the lingua franca of Southeast Asia. For McGlynn, an American translator living in Jakarta, it was a flashback to when he started studying the Indonesian language in college a decade earlier. "It was ridiculous," he says. "I had studied Japanese and Chinese literature in translation, but for Indonesian there were less than five books in translation." [Source: Michael J. Ybarra, Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2004 |]

“Indonesia’s great writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer said, "A translated book is more important than a diplomat." McGlynn concurs. "Before Lontar there was no possibility of teaching Indonesia literature abroad, of finding out aspects of Indonesian culture beyond politics or economics," he says. "I want people to understand the Indonesia I care about. My passion is for Indonesia more than Indonesian literature, but I do feel that only through arts and culture can you understand another culture." |

“It was puppets, not books, that first brought McGlynn to Indonesia. A theater major from the University of Wisconsin, McGlynn came to Indonesia in 1976 to study wayang kulit, the famous shadow puppet theater. He had begun studying the language in Wisconsin and continued at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. His interest in puppets waned as he began to learn about the country's literature. "At first, literature was only a tool to learn the language," he says. "I asked my professor to set up a course to study Indonesian literature. I was the only student. I wasn't truly viewing it as literature. I wanted a greater understanding of the culture. Then I found a lot of gems. It was only after a few years that I got a calling, a mission." |

“McGlynn returned to the U.S. long enough to earn a master's at the University of Michigan in 1981. "I think it was the first degree in Indonesian literature in the U.S.," he says. Over the last two decades some 20 American universities have added the teaching of Indonesian literature, usually under the auspices of Southeast Asian studies (the topic is more popular in Australia). |

“Even in Indonesia the country's literature is not exactly a priority. "English is a mandatory subject in school," McGlynn says. "Indonesian literature is not." Lontar Executive Director Adila Suwarno said, "I'm Indonesian, but I'm disappointed there are not many Indonesians that realize how important it is to preserve our culture. But I understand that. A country like ours has to feed and house people first. It's easier to collect funding for poverty. This is too sophisticated."” |

Effort to Get Indonesian Literature Translated to English

Michael J. Ybarra wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “McGlynn, along with Damono and several other Indonesian writers, McGlynn formed an organization to translate and promote the largely unknown literature from the world's fourth most populous nation. In 1988 the Lontar Foundation was born; its first publication was a collection of Damono's work called "Suddenly the Night." Since then the foundation has published scores of books and branched out into documenting some of the archipelago's cultural traditions, such as regional theater and dance, which are threatened by the irresistible pull of globalization. "Until Lontar was established, people abroad didn't look at Indonesian literature as literature," McGlynn says. "Whenever Indonesia appears in a newspaper it's because of a disaster. I wanted to create a more accurate picture. Not necessarily a better picture but a more balanced one." [Source: Michael J. Ybarra, Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2004 |]

“Professor Hendrik Maier, an expert on Malay literature who teaches in the new Southeast Asian studies program at UC Riverside, agrees that the foundation has made the study of Indonesian writing possible in the English-speaking world. "Lontar made a lot of things accessible in good translations," he says. "At last we have these books in English. It's also good for the self-confidence of the Indonesians; they're proud that they get their place in the world." |

“The idea for Lontar, McGlynn says, came from an Indian organization called the Seagull Foundation that was formed in 1987 to promote South Asian arts. The name Lontar refers to the palm-leaf manuscripts that record the archipelago's oldest writing. For the first several years, McGlynn and the other staff worked for free. McGlynn earned his living by translating Indonesian economic journals into English. Today, Lontar employs 25 people, has its own website (www.lontar.org) and operates on an annual budget of about $100,000. McGlynn is the director of publications. About a third of the foundation's revenue comes from publishing, another third from the sale of note cards and calendar reproductions of beautiful illustrated manuscripts. The rest comes from donors such as the Ford Foundation and the Luce Foundation. |

“Lontar has published 40 books. The titles don't exactly have bestseller written all over them: There's a four-volume history of Indonesian theater, a six-volume collection of Javanese literature, an oral history from survivors of the bloody anti-communist purge of the 1960s, the first history of Indonesian cinema and a boxed set of bilingual theater texts. After Sept. 11, Lontar put out a volume called "Manhattan Sonnet," which featured prose and poetry by 24 Indonesian writers who had lived in New York or traveled in the U.S. "We want to distribute more aggressively to schools around the world," Suwarno says. "Our educational system is terrible. In our small world we need information for Indonesian students." |

“Lontar is also preserving other aspects of the country's culture with a series of films, ranging from interviews with writers such as Toer and Damono to Balinese shadow puppet performances. The foundation also houses a library stuffed with rare books, old photographs, slides of manuscripts and performances. "Our mission is to promote Indonesia through literature," Suwarno says. "I really hope we become one of the biggest libraries of information in Indonesia that everyone will be able to access. It's a long-term project." |

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993; “Culture and Customs of Indonesia” by Jill Forshee, Greenwood Press, 2006; National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Library of Congress, Indonesia Tourism website (indonesia.travel), Indonesia government websites, Live Science, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Google AI, Wikipedia, The Guardian and various websites, books and other publications.

Last updated April 2026