In its eighth installment this year, the Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival (BWCF) 2019 will gather writers and cultural enthusiasts to revisit the ancient beliefs that existed in the archipelago.

Themed “God and the Universe: Re-read Pantheism-Tantrayana in Kakawin and the Ancient Manuscripts of the Archipelago”, the festival will invite the public to retrace the works of Dutch pastor Petrus Josephus Zoetmulder, who was an expert in Old Javanese language.

“Pantheism, as a doctrine in philosophy and theology, sees that God and the universe are inseparable. It is the subject often appearing in Romo Zoetmulder’s works,” said organizing committee chairman Seno Joko Suyono at the event’s media briefing in Jakarta on Nov. 7.

Zoetmulder, who spent most of his life in Yogyakarta and died there in 1995, wrote a dissertation on an aspect of traditional Javanese belief Kejawen and analyzed old Javanese literature.

As for the festival’s theme, Tantrayana or the transformation path in Buddhism, entails a deep understanding of the interconnectedness between the body and mind. Its practitioners use this philosophy to access their innate wisdom and to come closer to their true nature.

According to Seno, the festival chose the theme to raise discourse that such beliefs not only existed in the school of thoughts of Hindu-Buddhism practitioners in ancient Java but also appeared in tasawwuf or Sufism teachings in Islam that are rooted in the archipelago.

Also a speaker at the media briefing, poet and cultural expert Toety Heraty Noerhadi Roosseno said that pantheism could be an effective school of thought to fight radicalization in religions as opposed to anthropomorphic thinking that projected an image of a person onto God.

“Religious practitioners believe that God is a supreme being that could punish and give rewards, and even in our prayers, we ask for God’s intervention in our life. But if we change our way of thinking, we could worship God and express our gratitude in another way without fearing God’s wrath,” Toety said. “We should start to question whether we can live as human beings without being threatened with going to hell or without being tantalized with entering heaven.”

Seno said that although the theme of the festival was considered “heavy”, he was surprised that 80 of the 100 writers invited to live around the temple during the festival were young people.

“Young people are unexpectedly interested in heritage themes such as temples, myths and old manuscripts. There is a community in Yogyakarta whose members are housewives, architects, and office workers who regularly take tours to visit temples or artifacts in Yogyakarta and its surroundings. These people, who see that history and heritage sites are not something sacred but instead a part of their heritage, are our target audience,” he said.

The annual festival is a place for fiction and non-fiction writers, creative people and cultural and interreligious activists to share their thoughts and works on a selected theme to encourage the audience to learn about the uniqueness and the richness of literature, arts and religions in the archipelago.

BWCF 2019 curator Imam Muhtarom said experts were invited to analyze Pantheism and Tantrayana in the archipelago.

Among them are Toru Aoyama from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies; Peter Worsley from the University of Sidney, Australia; Abdul Kadir Riyadi from Sunan Ampel State Islamic University in Surabaya; Tommy Christomy from the University of Indonesia; and Lydia Kieven from Friedrich Wilhelm Universitat in Bonn, Germany.

Besides the seminar, there will be poetry readings, monologues, dance and theater at the Bukit Rhema Praying House, familiarly known as Gereja Ayam (Rooster Church) and at the Borobudur temple’s compound.

BWCF 2019 will take place in and around Borobudur temple in Yogyakarta from Nov. 21 to 23.

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