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Review of: Jákl, Jiří. Alcohol in Early Java: Its Social and Cultural Significance / By Jiří Jákl. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2021 (Brill’s Southeast Asian library, 2213–0527; Volume 8). XIII, 392 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-41703-8 (e-book)
 
PIIS086919080029917-5-1
DOI10.31696/S086919080029917-5
Publication type Review
Status Published
Authors
Anton Zakharov 
Occupation: Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Affiliation: Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Journal nameVostok. Afro-Aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost
EditionIssue 3
Pages259-269
Abstract

 

 

 

Keywords
Received08.02.2024
Publication date16.06.2024
Number of characters35565
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1 Cultural history of Java has not been written till nowadays. This is more the case concerning early history of Javanese societies before their Islamization. While architectural developments have long been the focus of scholarly attention, food and drinks of early Java were examined thoroughly but rather shortly, by Hedi Hinzler [Hinzler, 2000, p. 8–11; 2010, p. 1–40].1 She brings together epigraphic and architectural data and examines the Old Javanese Ramayana. But her point is on food and drinks in general. A new monograph by Jiří Jákl [Jákl, 2021; hereafter cited by page in round brackets] goes further as it concerns alcohol, its production and consumption, symbolical and religious significance in early Javanese society since the first written texts, i.e. the eighth-ninth centuries CE, till 1500 when a new epoch began after an advent of European influences.2 Jákl’s monograph is in a line of alcohol studies, even drinkology or dipsology, since the late twentieth and the early twenty first century as evidenced by researches of early Indian alcoholic beverages by James McHugh [McHugh, 2014; 2021]3 and of early alcoholic drinks in general by Patrick McGovern, Michael Dietler and John O’Brien [McGovern, 2009; 2017; 2019; Dietler, 2006; O’Brien, 2018]. 1. Hinzler H.I.R. Food and Drinks in Ancient Central Java. Verre Culturen Delft: Etnografische vereniging. URL: >>>> (accessed 14.03.2023 & 18.05.2023 & 10.06.2023).

2. Another review of Jákl’s monograph is [Leong-Salobir, 2022, p. 516–518].

3. See also [Zakharov, 2022].
2 Jákl’s monograph is a fundamental enquiry consisting of preface, introduction, two parts, conclusion, figures, bibliography, Index of Ancient Sources, and General Index. The Introduction discusses the main sources used, first of all, Old Javanese court poems, or kakawins. The other sources are Middle Javanese texts, Old Javanese inscriptions, Malay and Sanskrit texts and Javanese sculpture and pottery as well as later anthropological and ethnographic data which may clarify certain aspects of ancient references to drinks and their functioning.
3 Jákl’s monograph includes two parts: ‘Drinking Landscape in Ancient Java’ and ‘Alcohol, hospitality, and Identity in Java before 1500 CE’. The first part deals with terminology, technology, drinking paraphernalia and comportment. The second part examines functioning of alcohol in Ancient Javanese societies, its symbolic, religious and social roles as well as alcohol’s fortunes under the Islamization of Java.
4 Part 1 includes eight chapters. The Chapter 1 ‘Twak: Production and Types of Palm Wine’ focuses on four kinds of palms whose sap was used by Javanese for the alcoholic beverages production, on palms’ tapping and on Old Javanese terms for palm wine and its kinds. Javanese made use of ‘the fermented sap of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera), sugar palm (mostly Arenga pinnata), Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelifer) and nipa palm (Nipa fruticans)’ (p. 13). Twak/tok served as ‘the most common term for palm wine in Old Javanese’ but Jákl states that ‘twak would refer to the wine made from the sap of the sugar palm’ instead of the sap of the coconut palm (p. 16–17, 35–36). Jákl supposes that ‘Old Javanese waragaṅ denotes a beverage based on palm wine made from the sap of the coconut palm’ (p. 38) and ‘baḍyag was a type of wine made by the fermentation of the sap of the Palmyra palm’ (p. 40). He shows that ‘Old and Middle Javanese buḍur refers to a drink based on a concentrated palm syrup, a kind of treacle which was fermented, and seems to have been made predominantly, if not exclusively, from the sap of the sugar palm’ (p. 42). The Old Javanese term sajǝṅ was a common name for alcoholic beverages in early Java covering all types of palm wine and other drinks and being synonymous to Sanskrit term madya (pp. 45–46). During the Majapahit epoch, sajǝṅ had a strong connotation of strong types of alcohol, including distilled drinks (p. 48). Another common term for palm wine and sometimes for all alcoholic drinks was sayub frequently used in kakawins, for example, in Sumanasāntaka (p. 48–49).
5 One reference in the Chapter 1 seems inaccurate. Watukura A inscription cited on pp. 30 and 265, is a Majapahit copy of a 902 CE record,4 so it cannot be treated as an evidence of low social status of amahat ‘palm-tappers’ during King Balitung’s reign in the early tenth century. Jákl refers to van Naerssen’s PhD Thesis of 1941 but the Dutch scholar offers a meaning ‘engravers’ in his English translation of the Watukura Charter [Naerssen, 1977, p. 60; 1941]. But Jákl’s interpretation fits to the usual meaning of the term amahat better grasping its contexts in kakawins as well as in inscriptions. 4. Watu Kura I (824 Śaka): Draft, 2023-09-22. Eds. Arlo Griffiths, Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan and Marine Schoettel. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 23.09.2023).
6 The Chapter 2 ‘Beers and Lalasti Inebriating Snacks’ discusses rice beers and their production, preservation and ways of consumption in Ancient Java. There are two terms for rice beer: brǝm/brĕm and tapai which denoted potent and mild beer respectively. Brǝm was drunk by means of a straw. Javanese brǝm was probably produced in tall imported Chinese jars buried in the earth or kept in dark parts of a house. Ceramic vessels for fermenting and/or storing rice beer were named gǝnuk, guci and rombe (p. 62). Gǝnuk was associated by the Javanese with bellies of pregnant women as these jars were used to ferment and therefore produce new creations, beers in their case. Guci and rombe refer to imported stoneware jars. Jákl supposes these vessels may have been imported from China or Vietnam (p. 64). He also stresses that Sanskrit loanword surā tended to mean strong alcoholic beverages in the Old and Middle Javanese context (p. 67). Jákl believes lalasti meant a semi-liquid, alcoholic, inebriating delicacy.

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