Global Food History

ISSN: 2054-9547 (Print) 2054-9555 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfgf20

Bhoma's Kitchen: Food Culture and Food

Symbolism in Pre-Islamic Java

Jiří Jákl

To cite this article: Jiří Jákl (2015) Bhoma's Kitchen: Food Culture and Food Symbolism in Pre-
Islamic Java, Global Food History, 1:1, 33-57

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20549547.2015.11435411

Published online: 16 Jun 2015.

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Global Food History, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 33–58

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Bhoma’s Kitchen:
Food Culture and
Food Symbolism in
Jiří Jákl Pre-Islamic Java
Abstract

This article discusses the food symbolism in martial scenes of kakavin,

narrative poems composed in Old Javanese between the ninth and
fifteenth centuries ce. Starting from the hypothesis that Javanese con-
ceived of a battle and a preparation of food with a common set of ideas
and concepts, a striking food metaphor, found in the Bhāratayuddha,
has been analyzed. The slaying of Karn.a, an epic hero who sided with
the Pān.d.avas, is likened to the process of steaming rice. Karn.a’s body is
compared to a dish of half-cooked rice stirred before it is put into the
bamboo steamer to be finished over the boiling water. I have argued that
34 Jiří Jákl

this literary vignette represents the earliest Javanese detailed description of the
method of cooking rice by steaming, the method now common in Java and Bali.
In the second part of this article I have analyzed three “literary breakfasts,” using
the rich evidence of the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a and the Bhomāntaka. I have dem-
onstrated that in pre-Islamic period the Javanese already had a well-developed
concept of breakfast, the first meal of the day. In the third part of the article
I have argued that the famous “feasting passage” in Bhomāntaka, 81.34–49,
which describes a meal organized for warriors on the night before their march to
battle and which represents an immensely rich account of dishes prepared from
hearts, lungs, intestines and marrow, is best understood as a participatory animal
sacrifice. The Bhomāntaka thus supports a view that the consumption of meat in
the martial context had a ritual character in pre-Islamic Java.

KEYWORDS: Javanese food, food symbolism, Old Javanese literature

The food history of premodern Indonesia has so far attracted only limited schol-
arly attention, especially food culture before the fifteenth century ce, when Islam
started to influence the cuisine. While this ignorance can be partially explained by
the lack of historical evidence for many regions before the early modern period,
when European sources became available, even the food history of Java, a region
rich in epigraphical record and literary texts, is still little studied. The modern
historiography of early Javanese food begins with insightful passages in Anthony
Reid’s magisterial 1988 survey of early modern South East Asia.1 Since that time
our understanding of the food culture of pre-Islamic Java has advanced only
slowly, and the research remains dispersed in a number of studies on various
aspects of the culture of Hindu–Buddhist Java. The most important research, on
difficult and often ambiguous Old Javanese food terminology, is available in com-
mentaries to textual editions of Old Javanese texts.2 In addition, there are a lim-
ited number of food studies drawing on the Old Javanese epigraphical evidence.3
The two most important contributions are Theodoor Pigeaud’s multivolume
study on the social and cultural history of fourteenth-century Java4 and Petrus
Zoetmulder’s Old Javanese–English Dictionary, a magnum opus in which many
food-related terms excerpted from Old Javanese literature and inscriptions have
been glossed.5 Most of the work done so far, though valuable, remains descrip-
tive, and there has been little effort to analyze the data and to discuss Javanese
pre-Islamic food culture in its social, religious and political context. This study
seeks to provide a corrective by offering insight into one particular aspect of food
symbolism in ancient Java.6
This contribution will discuss food symbolism in the martial scenes of kakavin,
fictive epic poems composed at the Hindu–Buddhist courts in Java between the
ninth and fifteenth centuries in the literary register of Old Javanese, abundant in
Sanskrit loanwords.7 Kakavin court epics represent a rich and until now mostly
untapped source for the study of Indonesian food history in the period before the
fifteenth century, when the process of Islamization started to change the ways
food was prepared, consumed and talked about. Similar to other premodern
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 35

l­iterary traditions, food is used in kakavin as both a real and metaphorical sub-
ject. In her analysis of literary representations of food in Roman literature, Emily
Gowers has argued persuasively that passages elaborating on food in premodern
literatures should not be read simply as lists of dishes but rather as comments
on social and ritual environments.8 Following this line of research, I argue that
careful reading of these passages in Old Javanese poetry helps us not only to com-
prehend the symbolism of food in Hindu–Buddhist Java but also to understand
dishes that have no easily identifiable modern parallels. Finally, the paper aims
to reopen a discussion of the relevance of kakavin as a source of cultural history
of pre-Islamic Java.
The article begins by analyzing three passages in the Bhāratayuddha, a
kakavin composed in the twelfth century in which the author likens slain war-
riors to particular styles of dishes and to the rice cooked in a rice steamer.9 These
textual sequences, as well as a number of related passages found in other texts,
demonstrate that pre-Islamic Javanese conceived of a battle and food prepara-
tion with a common set of words and concepts.10 These striking metaphorical
depictions in the Bhāratayuddha give us the earliest detailed description of an
elaborate cooking method in which rice is half-boiled in one container and then
finished by steaming in another. In the second part of the article, I discuss a
complex food metaphor found in a battlefield harangue delivered by the demon
king Bhoma in the Bhomāntaka, an anonymous kakavin composed in the late
twelfth century.11 The warriors of Kr.s.n.a, Bhoma’s archenemy, are represented
in this metaphor as sacrificial dishes devoured by the demon king, who styles
himself as both a sacrificer and the recipient of the sacrifice. I argue that the pas-
sage should be understood as a version of the Sanskrit literary motif of “battle
sacrifice” reconceptualized in terms of a sacrificial meal, and that it should be
read as a travesty of contemporary norms of food consumption. Finally, I analyze
yet another textual sequence taken from the Bhomāntaka, an episode describ-
ing a feast organized for warriors on the eve of combat. I demonstrate that the
dishes consumed on this occasion consist mainly of meat, and the whole textual
sequence is best understood as evidence of a prebattle sacrifice. In contrast to the
metaphorical consumption of slain warriors by the gods in a battle sacrifice, the
sacrifice of animals before a battle not only propitiated the gods but also resulted
in a communal meal to be shared among the multitude of assembled soldiers.

Karn.a Slain, Cooked Like Rice in a Steamer

Battle descriptions in Old Javanese kakavin often compare slain warriors to

chopped, sliced and otherwise processed food ingredients or, alternatively,
to dishes made from such ingredients. This imagery is well attested already in
the earliest known specimen of the kakavin genre, the Old Javanese version of
the Rāmāyan.a, dated by current scholarly opinion to the mid-ninth century.12
Importantly, the equation of killed warriors with food is never encountered in a
similar context in the Sanskrit Rāmāyan.a and Mahābhārata – classical Indian texts
that influenced the Javanese martial imagination.13 One of the most ­interesting
36 Jiří Jákl

such food ­metaphors in Old Javanese literature is found in the Bhāratayuddha,

an Old Javanese version of the Mahābhārata. In a bragging speech epic hero
Karn.a boasts that he will single-handedly slay all of the Pān.d.ava warriors, giving
vivid details about the way he plans to dispatch the enemy:

Surely, they will be crushed by the arrows, like a dish of gilen,

certainly they will be chopped up like a dish of banana heart.14

This passage is part of a famous dialogue between Karn.a and a rival king Śalya,
who agrees to serve in battle as Karn.a’s charioteer, but only on the condition that
Karn.a will not insult him.
Karn.a, famous for his bragging and narcissism, cannot restrain himself and
likens the Pān.d.ava warriors to two kinds of food, both consisting of finely
chopped ingredients. The second of the dishes is relatively straightforward: “ba-
nana heart” (haryas) is a common Old Javanese designation of the inner part of
the banana pseudo-stem, which consists of numerous layers of banana leaves.15
The dish of finely sliced banana pseudo-stem, boiled and spiced, is known from
modern Bali. Called ares in Balinese, the dish is usually eaten as a relish either
with the ceremonial komoh soup of pig blood or with skewers of grilled vis-
cera called serapah.16 The meaning of the Old Javanese gilen, on the other hand,
is not so easy to define. Zoetmulder renders it as “curry” without providing
any other comments.17 Likewise, Suryo Supomo, in the critical edition of the
Bhāratayuddha, interprets an enigmatic dish of gilen as “curry meat.”18 However,
there is a reasonable possibility that gilen was instead raw meat. It is not at all
clear that curry-style dishes were consumed in Java in the twelfth century at all.19
Moreover, the pairing of gilen with haryas in Karn.a’s speech suggests that both
dishes consisted of ingredients that were finely chopped. There are additional
indications that gilen represented a very special culinary preparation that I will
return to in the third section of this article in discussing the literary motif of a
sacrificial meal.
Resuming the dialogue, Karn.a continues his offensive speech until Śalya re-
bukes him, employing an imagery superficially similar to that encountered in
Karn.a’s own words:

How could I not laugh at your claim to make a [rice] porridge of such a
valiant and terrifying enemy?
It will be impossible! It is actually you who will be boiled as rice by
Bhı̄ma and Pārtha!
I shall see your life [essence] stirred violently by the arrows, as [a dish of]
half-cooked rice, to be savored by the Tongue of Death!
Oh, your body will clearly become [only] the crust of the cauldron of hell!
There is no doubt about that!20

Śalya’s words are clearly meant to question Karn.a’s ability to kill the Pān.d.avas, to
whom Śalya is actually related.21 This passage draws a number of c­ orrespondences
between the slaying of Karn.a and the process of cooking. While Karn.a, fighting
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 37

for the forces of adharma (meaning contrary to the laws of nature), threatens in
the metaphor marked by the symbolism of blood to chop up the Pān.d.avas and
prepare a dish of gilen from their mangled bodies, Śalya, siding with dharma (the
proper order of the universe), employs cooking metaphors based on non-blood
symbolism, foretelling that Karn.a will be “cooked” like rice by the Pān.d.avas. I
have argued elsewhere that the essentially different conceptual frameworks of
these two metaphors reflect disparate, and conflicting, worlds of negative ad-
harma and positive dharma, occupied by Karn.a and Śalya respectively.22 Here I
focus specifically on the importance of the rice-cooking metaphor for the history
of Javanese food and on the religious symbolism of this literary vignette.
Mpu Panuluh, the twelfth-century author of the Bhāratayuddha, describes
the cooking process of “steaming” rice.23 While in the Malay-speaking areas of
Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula rice is simply boiled in water,24 in modern
Java and Bali rice is typically cooked in three distinct steps, a method called
commonly, but imprecisely, “steaming.”25 In this laborious process, rice is first
boiled in the cooking pot until it absorbs all the water. Next, the half-cooked
rice is transferred into a container called in Old Javanese texts pangarvan, and
boiling water is poured over the rice while it is stirred thoroughly. In the last step,
the rice is placed into a bamboo cone (kukusan) to be finished by steaming. In a
method that simply involves boiling, washed rice is put into boiling water and
the water is stirred until it returns to the boil; the rice is then allowed to cook for
another half an hour. From the terminology used in the Bhāratayuddha it is clear
that Śalya draws a parallel between the slaying of Karn.a and the steps entailed in
the process of steaming rice: first, Karn.a is said to be “boiled” (livĕtĕn), a term
referencing the culinary preparation of boiling rice in the pot until it absorbs all
the water. Then, Karn.a “will be stirred” (harvākĕna) by the arrows of Arjuna
and Bhı̄s.ma as the half-cooked rice is stirred before it is put into the steamer to be
.
finished over the boiling water. We recognize that Karn.a’s physical body (anga)
is identified with the cooked rice, transferred in Karn.a’s case into the “cauldron
of hell” (kavah), where it is scorched, ending up as crust (hitip) on the cauldron
similar to the scorched grains of rice stuck to the surface of the cooking vessel.
Karn.a’s life-essence (prān.a), “released” from his physical body, undergoes the
last phase of the “cooking process” during which it is “devoured by the tongue
.
of Death” (bhuktin in mr.tyujihva). The remarkable religious symbolism underly-
ing this cooking metaphor is here at its best: the release of Karna’s life-essence is
compared to the finishing of rice by steaming.
Though the history of rice-cooking methods in Java remains only poorly under-
stood, the process of steaming rice is alluded in the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a. In canto
22 stanzas 10–12 “rice in millions of rice steamers” (ivu-ivu laks.a kot.i kukusan)
is mentioned among the items of a gargantuan breakfast devoured by the giant
Kumbhakarn.a. Though found in the fictive world of kakavin poetry, this literary
vignette may represent the earliest evidence that the process of cooking rice by
steaming was known in Java by the late first millennium of the Common Era. It
is possible that even earlier evidence of the process of steaming rice may be found
in an enigmatic Old Javanese inscription, dated on palaeographical grounds to
the eighth or ninth centuries and discovered at the Dieng plateau, which included
38 Jiří Jákl

the term pasarinasyan, plausibly referencing a rice steamer.26 While this and later
inscriptional records give us no details about the cooking method of steaming,
the literary metaphor in the Bhāratayuddha analyzed above represents the earli-
est detailed account of this culinary preparation from premodern Java. Another
important piece of evidence is found in the Deśavarn.ana, a court poem composed
in 1365.27 In this text a rice cooker and its parts are mentioned by their Old
.
Javanese names: the pot for half-cooked rice (haru d.an), the cone-shaped basket
.
in which rice is steamed (kukusan) and the multifunctional lid (dulan). In this
literary vignette the rice cooker is part of the baggage carried by a cook in the
entourage of King Hayam Wuruk. A clear visual representation of a two-part
rice cooker, consisting of the pot and a woven bamboo steamer, is shown on the
stone base of a house pillar found in Trowulan, which dates most probably to the
fourteenth century.28 The context of Old Javanese literary references to steaming
rice suggests that this method may have been associated in the pre-Islamic period
with the elite environment of Javanese courts. In contrast, though not common in
Java today, cooking rice by simple boiling may have been normal in premodern
rural Java.

Bhoma’s Kitchen, Spices for Demons, and the Concept of

Breakfast in Pre-Islamic Java

One of the most important concepts in the kakavin martial imagination is the ex-
tended metaphor of the “battle sacrifice” (ran.ayajña), which represents the death
of warriors as a form of sacrifice. In the rich imagery of the complex metaphor
of battle sacrifice, numerous correspondences are drawn between the battle and
the sacrifice, most prominently between weapons and sacrificial implements, war-
riors and different classes of ritual officiants, dead bodies and sacrificial dishes.
In a number of passages, the originally Indian concept of ran.ayajña29 has been
explored to articulate a typically Javanese martial symbolism: the killing (“sacri-
fice”) of enemy warriors on the battlefield has been reconceptualized in terms of
cooking and eating, as we have seen in the previous section.
The most complex specimen of restyling of the motif of battle sacrifice in terms
of cooking and eating, and one of the most interesting specimens of the “culinary
violence” in Old Javanese literature is found in Bhomāntaka 80.1–2.30 The two
stanzas are part of a section in which Bhoma, the king of demons, receives a
report from his emissaries that Kr.s.n.a and his Yadu warriors, together with the
soldiers of allied kings, are prepared to attack Prāgjyotis.a, Bhoma’s fortress and
residence.31 Red with anger, Bhoma delivers a bragging speech that is informed by
the symbolism of food. In his speech the demon king threatens to slay all of the
Pān.d.ava warriors single-handedly:

Who is fitting to be an adversary for me? Kr.s.n.a and Baladeva will be as

dangerous as a ball of rice [in my hand].
And in particular the other kings, beginning with Pārtha, I will stir like a
stew.
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 39

I with my two hands will make porridge of his palace, and without help I
will set it on the fire [pit];
My syrup [for the porridge] will be the blood of my enemies, and I will
spice it with my bare hands.
Furthermore, I will pound up the enemies’ heads, so their brains will serve
as the coconut milk –
I deserve to eat my fill of fame – I am obsessed with winning merit on the
field of battle!32

Bhoma styles himself in this speech as both a sacrificer and recipient of the sacri-
fice. Kr.s.n.a and his warriors are perceived as sacrificial victims – wishful thinking
which will not come true as Bhoma ends up being slain at what turns out to be
his own “sacrifice.” In fact, Bhoma assumes a position occupied by Kr.s.n.a in
the Mahābhārata – that of a receiver of the sacrifice (“I deserve to eat my fill
of fame”).33 At the same time, the demon king is represented in this passage
as the personification of death, the ultimate recipient of the sacrifice: we have
seen before how in the Bhāratayuddha Śalya proclaims that Karn.a would be
“consumed by the tongue of Death.” Bhoma’s speech is similar to the speech of
Karn.a in so far as it takes place before the battle and it is delivered in the state
of extreme wrath. First, Bhoma questions the (insufficient) śakti of the warriors
fighting for Kr.s.n.a (“who is fitting to be an adversary to me?”); then, the demon
king makes a pledge to kill Kr.s.n.a, Baladewa, and “the other kings beginning
.
with Arjuna” (tikan ratu makādi pārtha). The act of killing is entirely styled in
terms of preparation of sacrificial dishes. Particularly interesting are the corre-
spondences drawn between the “standard” oblations of the battle sacrifice (flesh
of dead warriors, blood and brains) and their victual counterparts specified by
Bhoma. The balls of rice, stew, porridge, palm sugar syrup and coconut milk
represent dishes and drinks that were consumed as daily fare in premodern Java.
None of the terms used to designate these dishes and drinks represent Sanskrit
loanwords: the Javanese wording of this section thus accommodates this travesty
of food preparation firmly in a local setting. In what follows I analyze in detail
the correspondences that are drawn in Bhomāntaka 80.1–2 between the sacri-
ficial dishes and slain warriors, exploring especially the interplay between the
sacrificial and non-sacrificial meaning of food in the context of the speech as a
pledge to kill the enemies. I also demonstrate how these two stanzas help us to
understand some poorly known aspects of Javanese food history, especially the
concept of breakfast.
Bhoma’s opponents are envisaged as victims of the battle sacrifice and at the
same time, in an act of conscious inversion of food symbolism, belittled as ri-
diculously easy to overpower and “consumed” as the dishes and drinks listed by
Bhoma. There is an interesting graduation of suggested correspondences in this
sequence, adding to the dramatic effect of this powerfully worded passage. First,
the two most important actors, Kr.s.n.a and his brother Baladewa, both of them in-
carnations of the gods, are likened to mere balls of rice (kĕpĕl). There is a twofold
symbolism in this striking image: while one of the possible ways to eat boiled or
steamed rice is to make a sticky ball of it, kĕpĕl conveys at the same time an idea
40 Jiří Jákl

of a sacrificial rice ball, which is also designated by the Sanskrit loanword pin.d.a.
In the Hindu religious context, the pin.d.a is a ball of cooked rice mixed with other
ingredients such as sesame seeds, milk and honey that is offered to dead ancestors
in the course of the śrāddha funeral ceremony as a transitional food mediating
between death and birth.34 Arguably, Kr.s.n.a and Baladeva are imagined as two
balls of sacrificial rice held by Bhoma in his hands and served as his first meal
in an act alluding to the battle sacrifice. The symbolism of the rice ball offer-
ings found in the Bhomāntaka suggests that the killing of Kr.s.n.a and Baladeva is
styled as a sacrificial act. While the information on Javanese practice is lacking,
we know that in India pin.d.a rice balls were occasionally used in Tantric rituals,
especially those associated with the terrifying form of the goddess Durgā.35
Most interestingly, the Old Javanese word kĕpĕl also designates the first meal
of the day, and it is in the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a that the term clearly denotes
“breakfast.” For the first time we encounter the word kĕpĕl in canto 13 stanza
34, where Rāvan.a’s prime minister (patih), Prahasta, boasting that he is capable
of devouring even the moon, threatens that if Rāma, Laks.man.a and their sim-
.
ian soldiers come to Lĕnkā he will “eat them for breakfast” (kĕpĕl-kĕpĕl tulya
nikā yadin tĕkā).36 The interpretation of kĕpĕl-kĕpĕl in Kakavin Rāmāyan.a 13.34
as “breakfast” goes back to Hendrick Juynboll’s Kawi-Balineesche Glossarium
op het Oudjavaansche Rāmāyan.a (Kawi–Balinese Glossary of the Old Javanese
Rāmāyan.a) published in 1902.37 Soewito Santoso accepts Juynboll’s interpre-
tation, translating the line in question as “When they come, they will merely
become my breakfast.”38 In his commentary to the text, Santoso speculates that
“because for Prahasta, a breakfast is certainly less than lunch or dinner, at least
that seems to have been in the mind of the Javanese writer of the RK [Rāmāyan.a
Kakawin].”39
It is, however, the second occurrence of the word kĕpĕl in the Kakavin
Rāmāyan.a that proves without doubt that the Old Javanese plural form kĕpĕl-
kĕpĕl did convey the concept of breakfast in pre-Islamic Java. In canto 22 stanzas
10–12 the term denotes the gargantuan meal devoured by Rāvan.a’s giant brother
Kumbhakarn.a after being woken up from his deep sleep. Called “breakfast”
(kĕpĕ-kĕpĕl), the meal is described in vivid detail; it consisted of rice “in millions
of rice-steamers” (ivu-ivu laks.a kot.i kukusan) and a “bush-meat” stew prepared
. .
of lions and elephants (kĕla-kĕla mānsa sinha haliman). Tracing the history of the
morning meal and its cultural concepts in different parts of the world, Andrew
Dalby argues that virtually nowhere is the big meal taken in the morning.40 Now,
Kumbhakarn.a’s breakfast is certainly no small meal. Interestingly, the three
breakfasts described in kakavin poetry are “served” to demonic characters. We
may surmise that the association of breakfast with demonic characters, famous in
Old Javanese literature for their unrestrained appetite, refers to their indulgence
in excess. The great appetite of demons is made an object of mockery in relation
to the breakfast, presumably a small meal in premodern Java.41
Returning now to the speech of Bhoma, because they are second in rank and
significance after Kr.s.n.a and Baladewa, Bhoma threatens to stir the allied kings
fighting for the Pān.d.avas like “stew” (kuluban). Bhoma explicitly mentions
Arjuna, who will ultimately kill him in a duel, as the first among these kings. In
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 41

the critical edition of the Bhomāntaka, Andries Teeuw and Stuart Robson trans-
late the word kuluban as “boiled vegetables,” based, as it seems, on the meaning
of this word in Modern Javanese.42 The Old Javanese kuluban, however, conveys
a wider range of meaning than does its modern counterpart. The Old Javanese
kuluban covers several kinds of stews prepared by cooking meat and non-meat
ingredients in a cooking vessel, most often a cauldron, as we gather from the
occurrence of this word in descriptions of demons (rāks.asa) feasting, which is al-
most never associated with the consumption of vegetables in Old Javanese litera-
ture. On the contrary, rāks.asas are conceptualized as prominent meat-eaters; wild
.
beasts such as lions and elephants alongside human flesh (naramānsa) form the
core of their diet. The motif has its origin in Sanskrit literature where it is widely
attested.43 In Old Javanese literature rāks.asas are characterized as exhibiting the
radical antithesis of civilized values, with particular references to the areas of
food and sexuality. Their foodways, though seemingly based on the locally well-
known styles of meat dishes, are characterized by the use of extreme ingredients,
as well as by their liking for spices. Consider a dietary regime of demon warriors
described in a vivid detail in the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a:

A troop of rāks.asa soldiers were holding a market,

Human flesh is what they always eat;
They drank blood that made them wild and elated,
Squabbling with one another, all together.
Rāks.asas were tireless in their drinking;
Whatever they ate was either raw or cooked.
They cut off a thigh [from a human corpse], stripping off the flesh,
Cooking it with spices and vegetables, some made into a stew (kuluban).
They drank wildly from a large cauldron
Full of cooked fat mixed with blood;
They drank it up all, in one swallow,
And when became drunk they would talk noisily.44

The ribaldry of unruly rāks.asa warriors stuffing themselves with human meat
and blood assumes a nearly carnival dimension in this passage.45 The association
of the “stew” (kuluban) with an abundant use of spices, indicated by the term
amĕcĕl-mĕcĕl, is also interesting. While parts of Java are today known for spicy
dishes (as are many other parts of modern Indonesia), the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a,
as well as a number of other Old Javanese texts, suggest that in pre-Islamic Java
heavy spicing of food was linked to an un-civilized dietary code. Considering
the well-established literary theme of rāks.asa demons’ fondness for animal and
human meat, as well as the fact that Bhoma himself is a demon, it is plausible
that the kuluban in the Bhomāntaka refers to a meat stew rather than to “boiled
vegetables,” as suggested by Teeuw and Robson.46 The verb form ramĕsĕn used
to describe the method of cooking Bhoma’s kuluban conveys the view that the
bodies of enemies would be dismembered and hacked into small parts, in a pro-
cess similar to the cutting up of ingredients for a stew.
42 Jiří Jákl

Next, in canto 80 stanza 2a, Bhoma threatens to raze Kr.s.n.a’s palace to the
ground without any assistance, as if making it into a dish of porridge. The liter-
ary comparison of a destroyed building to rice porridge (bubur) is common in
Old Javanese literature, testifying to the fact that the Javanese perceived the act
of the physical demolition of a building in terms of cooking porridge (amubur).
At the same time, the symbolism of a demolished palace refers to one of the
figures of the literary trope of battle sacrifice, where destroyed palaces of en-
emies are conceptualized as sacrificial fire pits. Apart from the Bhomāntaka, the
imagery is found in the Bhāratayuddha where we learn that the king Jayabhaya
. .
uses “the burning palaces of his adversaries” (nagara nin musuh gĕsĕn) as his
“[cooking] fire pits” (kun.d.anira). In my view, however, the most important link
in Bhomāntaka 80.2 is that between a destroyed palace, the seat of Kr.s.n.a’s royal
power (śrı̄), turned into porridge that is “consumed” by Bhoma. Porridge figures
among sacrificial dishes in several other kakavin; an oblation of rice porridge
(caru bubur) is mentioned, for example, in the Śivarātrikalpa where it is further
specified as “porridge cooked with syrup” (bubur gula livĕt).47
Next, in canto 80 stanza 2b, Bhoma swears to prepare his “syrup” (gulan)
from the blood of killed enemies. As noticed by the editors of the Bhomāntaka,
the kind of syrup alluded to in this passage was made of “red sugar.”48 The
syrup in question can be plausibly identified with the substance called in several
kakavin “liquid sugar” (gula drava), a sweet, thick treacle made from palm sugar,
occasionally flavored with spices, kept in bamboo tubes.49 The correspondence
drawn between the blood and the syrup made from the sap of sugar palm is very
interesting. In kakavin, blood is often represented as a substance of an intoxicat-
ing quality.50 Mildly alcoholic fermented palm syrup (gula drava) may have been
used in pre-Islamic Java as a sacred stand-in for blood: this association, lost in
modern Java, is still recognizable in the passage in the Bhāratayuddha in which
the poet associates the blood seeping from the wounds of young Abhimanyu’s
dead body with red palm syrup (gula drava).51
Next, in canto 80 stanza 2c, brains spilling out of the crushed heads of Bhoma’s
enemies are likened to coconut milk (santĕn). In this imagery, a correspondence
seems to be drawn between the milk, a traditional ingredient of caru (an obla-
tion prepared by boiling milk and butter with other substances), and “coconut
milk,” which was obtained by pressing coconut meat. In similar imagery found
in Kakavin Rāmāyan.a 22.53, mashed brains are styled, along with blood, as
representing “a perfect offering dish.” Arguably, a literary motif of battle sacrifice
was expanded in the Bhomāntaka to include local food symbolism. A traditional
theme of killed warriors, envisaged as victims of the battle sacrifice, has been
restyled in the Bhomāntaka to encompass symbolic correspondences drawn
between these human victims and regular food items. The blood symbolism of
Bhoma’s speech brings us to the problem of the status of meat and its ritual and
non-ritual consumption, discussed in the next section.
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 43

Participatory Animal Sacrifice before the Battle:

Ritual Context of Meat Consumption

In premodern Java, meat-eating was closely related to festive occasions and was
a marker of social and religious status. Reid has argued that in premodern South
East Asia generally, the consumption of meat always had a ritual character be-
cause of its close association with the sacrifice of animal life.52 Though kakavin
are generally selective in the way they reflect eating habits of the pre-Islamic
Javanese population, they provide evidence that very diverse kinds of meat were
available, even though we know that consumption of some of these meats, such
as frog and bat, popular among the commoners, was not permissible to higher-
ranking members of the court.53 Since the fifteenth century, at the latest, Islamic
dietary rules have substantially limited the range of permissible sources of animal
protein, though until the nineteenth century only a relatively small number of
Javanese Muslims practiced a strictly Islamic diet.54 The problem of meat con-
sumption in premodern Java is complex, and in this contribution I restrict my
attention to the subject of festive meat consumption in the martial context. In a
number of kakavin details are given about the specific dietary habits of soldiers
during the night before a march to battle. In this circumstance an abundant con-
sumption of meat and alcohol stood at the center of what seems to have been a
period of ritual preparation for war. While it may be significant that the dishes
served to soldiers on these occasions are similar to the fare preferred in kakavin
by rāks.asa demons, these accounts can be also read as literary evidence of the
ritual character of meat consumption.
The most detailed account of the sacrificial meal in the martial context is found
in the “feasting passage” of the Bhomāntaka, a textual sequence which is among
the most extensive food discourses constructed around the theme of commensal-
ity in Old Javanese literature. While in most texts the literary diners give us small
snippets discretely dropped here and there, in Bhomāntaka 81.34–49 a scene of
communal prebattle feasting is described in an impressive sequence of sixteen
stanzas. Teeuw and Robson, the editors of the text, consider this part – which is
rich in assonances and puns – to be one of the most interesting, but also obscure,
passages in the whole corpus of Old Javanese literature.55 However, along with
a description of a royal banquet found in Kakavin Rāmāyan.a 26.23–8, it is also
the most detailed extant account of a feast consisting predominantly of meat
dishes, giving us a rare glimpse into the festive food consumed by soldiers in pre-
Islamic Java, as represented by the epic characters of warriors fighting for Kr.s.n.a.
The feast in the Bhomāntaka is a part of prebattle preparations taking place
in Kr.s.n.a’s fortress on the Revataka Mountain. Held on the night preceding the
march against Bhoma, the feast marks the end of a three-day period of military
drilling, displays of martial skills and reviewing of the troops. In fact, there are
two separate feasts: a private banquet (sĕgĕh) organized for the kings and other
high-ranking persons allied with Kr.s.n.a and a communal meal for the soldiers.
About the royal banquet, however, we hear next to nothing except that it took
place inside the palace, although we can look elsewhere for information on the
food produced in palatial kitchens.56 The poet’s attention is fully focused on the
44 Jiří Jákl

communal meal organized for the soldiers “in the fields” where they trained dur-
ing the day.57

When the troops had gone to rest, night approached and the sun set.
It was almost the eighth hour58 when they set about holding a drinking
party.
Nobody failed to do justice to the feast among the champions adorned
with flowers,
And the dishes were piled so high that those who saw them were
repelled.59

Some of the diners seem to have been repelled by the mere sight of the dishes.
Undoubtedly it is not the excessive quantity of food, indicating abundance, which
troubles them, as this is always viewed as positive in Old Javanese literature.
Teeuw and Robson argue that the word “repelled” (apurik) used in this passage
is an indication that the food was intended for lower-class consumption.60 The
matter seems to be more complicated, however, as the core of diners is made up of
.
elite ks.atriya Yadu warriors. The poet calls the feast a “drinking party” (aninum-
inum), suggesting that the food was meant to accompany alcoholic drinks, an
observation further supported by the word tambul used to designate the dishes:
tambul is not a general term for a dish or meal, but it is used in Old Javanese in
a more restricted sense to denote preparations to accompany fermented bever-
ages.61 Furthermore, many of the dishes enumerated in the lengthy list are not
regular, daily fare but, rather, are special delicacies prepared for ceremonial eat-
ing. Contrary to Teeuw and Robson, I argue that the reason some of the diners
were “repelled” by the mere sight of the dishes should be looked for in the inclu-
sion of the gilay-style dishes in the list, as we gather from canto 81 stanza 38:

The various gilay-style dishes were so extraordinary that no one dared

touch them.62

Representing a rare lexical item, gilay is another form of the term gilen we have
encountered in the Bhāratayuddha, in the passage where Karn.a swears to kill
single-handedly all of the Pān.d.ava warriors, cutting them to pieces “like a dish of
gilen.” One could only speculate what kind of flesh went into the dish of gilen,
from which even weathered soldiers abstained, despite partaking of numerous
other meats. In view of the first occurrence of the word in the Bhāratayuddha,
where Karn.a swears to kill the Pān.d.avas, and to cut up their bodies as if he were
preparing a dish of gilen, the term could constitute a taboo word for human flesh.
However removed these “ritual meals” may appear from the warfare practices
of premodern Java, it is important to realize that ritual cannibalism was still an
integral part of Javanese warfare culture as late as the seventeenth century, in a
period when most, if not all, Javanese were at least nominally Muslims. In 1679,
for example, when the rebel Trunajaya was finally tracked and stabbed to death
by King Amangkurat I himself, all high-ranking Javanese officials were required
to take part in a gruesome ritual. Trunajaya’s body was hacked by numerous
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 45

slashes of the kris dagger, and the officials consumed the liver, while the severed
head was placed beneath the king’s throne.63
In the whole “feasting passage,” at least ninety-eight dishes are enumerated. It
is significant there are hardly any vegetable dishes in the list, which may reflect
the martial context of the sequence. Vegetables, tubers and wild fruits were as-
sociated with hermits (tapa) and some religious groups, such as Śaiva ascetics
(r.s.i), and with their specific dietary codes.64 As in other parts of South East Asia,
Indian concepts of food influenced the way Javanese perceived meat. Hindu and
Buddhist dietary codes, numerous food taboos associated with the consumption
of meat and an emphasis on vegetarianism found their reflection in eating habits
of Javanese religious communities described in kakavins. In the Sumanasāntaka,
a kakavin composed around 1200, the poet informs us that to “live upon the
. .
gad.un tubers” (mahārakā gad.un) was identical with the way of life of forest
monks.65 One of the best descriptions of dietary habits associated with ancient
Javanese religious communities is found in Bhomāntaka 11.4. In a number of
passages, the anonymous author describes what may have been a common diet
of a number of religious communities, whose members relied heavily on tubers
as the main source of carbohydrates, and on cultivated as well as wild vegetables
.
and fruits. We learn that ascetics (tapa-tapa) collected gad.un, huvi, sud.a and
. .
hilus tubers, vegetables (ganan), wild mushrooms (jamur syun), young fruits of
.
sugar palm (liran) and shoots of the karavila gourd. Again, we must be careful
not to read this passage as a comprehensive account of the foodstuffs consumed
by communities of hermits: the fact that virtually no fruits are mentioned, for
example, may be easily explained by the close symbolic associations of (round)
fruits with the practice of acquiring head trophies, a literary motif well-known in
Old Javanese literature.66
It seems, however, that dietary regimes of Javanese pre-Islamic religious com-
munities represented an exception to a common pattern in which meat of birds,
small mammals and fish represented a common element of diet, both of peasants
and urban dwellers. It may be wrong to extrapolate modern dietary patterns of
Javanese peasants, with their heavy reliance on rice and vegetables, back on the
conditions of pre-Islamic Java. In relatively sparsely populated premodern Java,
with abundant resources and few documented dietary taboos, peasants may have
generally enjoyed a much more varied diet then their modern descendants. It
seems that predominantly, or purely, vegetarian dietary regimes were a matter of
a conscious choice rather than a necessity.
Canto 81 of the Bhomāntaka, in which an incredibly rich account of dishes
prepared from lungs, hearts, intestines, tripe and marrow is given, may be read
as the testimony of a richness of protein sources available to pre-Islamic Javanese
peasants. Represented here in the martial context, the section provides not only a
rare insight into the cultural concepts of food consumed by warriors in prepara-
tion for battle; as will become clear, it may be taken as evidence of the variety of
avian, mammalian and even insect and arachnid species consumed in pre-Islamic
Java. Moreover, the food is used in this passage as both a real and a metaphori-
cal subject. I argue that the author of the text is actually concerned not with the
commensality aspects of the feast but rather with providing a detailed description
46 Jiří Jákl

of the dishes themselves. It is interesting to observe that many of the named

dishes contain meat chopped into small morsels, in some cases mixed with blood,
fat and marrow.67 This culinary preference is detailed, for example, in canto 81
stanzas 35–6:

The dishes consisted of salted eggs, pork necks in small cuts,

And pabĕkan cooked in hot sauce, licin chopped to small pieces,
… bloody mince of tripe with diverse red salads,
Heart, its drops not cold, and sizzling, drippling of turtle.
.
And their stews consisted of lansuban with marrow and tongue in rolls,
In addition with steamed mushrooms and crisp flakes of jellyfish,
Liver with rump accompanied by roasted lungs,
Breastbone, intestines on skewers, and hot fatty kebabs.68

Along with many dishes made from the meat of domestic animals, preparations
of food described in the “feasting section” include the meat of wild birds (thrush,
.
pĕruk, pupuk, wild pigeon, cuckoo), fish (for example kyan, layur, swordfish),
.
prawns, crabs and shrimps. Still other listed dishes consist of mussels (kran),
. . . 69
snails (salisur, kul, terun) and whip scorpions (katungyan). A closer scrutiny of
the inventory shows that the dishes prepared from wild animals have one impor-
tant characteristic in common: many of the dishes are prepared from the meat of
predators, animals that feed on other animals. Some of them, moreover, feature
prominent “weapons” and they are typically represented as “killers” in kakavin
poetry: swordfish, crabs and whip scorpions are among the best examples.
The textual sequence has its share of obscure culinary terms: unless new evi-
dence surfaces, we will probably never know the referents behind some of these
words. Even the identification of the named dishes that still have their mod-
ern counterparts, either in Muslim Java or Hindu Bali, may have diverged in
their ingredients and methods of preparation. This brings me to the problem
of translation of the food terminology in Old Javanese. So far little reflected by
the scholars of Javanese culture, the rendering of Old Javanese culinary terms
in dictionaries of Old Javanese, as well as in published editions of Old Javanese
texts, is in many cases deficient. Oftentimes, the referent of a named dish attested
in only one or two Old Javanese texts is simply unknown. In other cases, it is
clear that the style of the dish, designated by the same, or similar, name in Old
and Modern Javanese, differed in pre-Islamic and Muslim Java. Take, for exam-
.
ple, the dish called lansuban, listed in the “feasting passage” in the Bhomāntaka
.
quoted above. Zoetmulder, for one, interprets the Old Javanese lansuban using a
modern Balinese usage of the same word, rendered in Tuuk’s Kawi–Balineesch–
Nederlandsch Woordenbook as “a delicacy consisting of ĕmba, limo and santĕn
in a cobek to which the blood of animal being slaughtered is added; eaten raw.”70
The passage from the Bhomāntaka quoted above, however, suggests that mar-
row, an ingredient never used in a Balinese version of the dish, has been a part of
.
the lansuban in pre-Islamic Java, at least in the context of feasting.
When we analyze martial and religious symbolism entailed in the “feasting
passage” of the Bhomāntaka, two important conclusions could be drawn: first, a
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 47

premodern audience would certainly be quick to recognize that feasting implies

the slaughter of numerous animals to procure meat. Second, a correspondence is
drawn between the dishes consisting of chopped and sliced food ingredients and
the well-known literary motif of killed (enemy) warriors, with their bodily parts
hacked to pieces, lungs and hearts spilling out of bodies.71
I propose that the description of the feast and the abundant consumption
of meat dishes is best understood as a participatory sacrifice before a battle.
Practiced in many parts of the premodern world, animal sacrifice represented
a complex ritual aimed to propitiate the divine and demonic forces in order to
obtain their help; at the same time the communal eating of the meat was believed
to protect the men departing for war. In his analysis of prebattle participatory
sacrifice (sphagion) among the ancient Greeks, Robert Parker observes that the
sacrifice, an expression of aggression, is essentially an ambivalent ritual act:

the animal stands for two distinct kinds of human victim. On the one hand
it is the enemy, and this first death is designed to be a harbinger of many.
On the other hand it is us, or rather our substitute. It dies that we may not.
Neither interpretation is explicitly attested, of course. But both are strongly
supported by ritual or mythical analogy, or by the logic of the situation.
Before the battle of Marathon, the Athenians vowed to sacrifice as many
goats to Artemis Agrotera as they might kill Persians.72

While kakavin do not give us any direct evidence about the participatory animal
sacrifice, the Old Javanese epigraphical evidence suggests that animal sacrifice
was a part of the ceremony of the ritual establishment of a tax-free territory
(sı̄ma): the inscription of Taji in the year 901, for example, informs us that six
buffaloes and one hundred cocks were slaughtered and consumed by the 392 par-
ticipants, in addition to numerous other dishes and fermented and non-fermented
beverages.73 Early modern European sources confirm that participatory sacrifice
was common in many parts of Indonesia.74 In my view, the “feasting passage”
in the Bhomāntaka can be read as a testimony that a large-scale animal sacrifice
before a battle was still a phenomenon of Javanese pre-Islamic martial culture.
It is necessary to point out, however, that the complex symbolism of meat con-
sumption is not limited to the theme of ritual and magical manipulations. In my
view, by aggregating as many sorts of dishes as possible in one coherent textual
sequence, the author strives to foreground two other major aspects associated
with the feasting in premodern Java.75 First, the availability of such a wide range
of dishes emphasizes the secular power of the king, the ultimate organizer of a
banquet, over the resources of fields, woods, rivers and oceans, and hence the
economic might of the poet’s own patron – who is allegorically identified in the
Bhomāntaka with the epic character Kr.s.n.a. This literary “display” also partially
helps to explain the liking of Javanese poets for lists, whether related to food
items or not. Second, in the theme of communal consumption of alcoholic drinks
and meat dishes, the text introduces an element of conviviality, which is very
important in forging cohesion among the soldiers who were brought along by the
lords allied with the king waging a war. Third, meat consumption was believed
48 Jiří Jákl

to impart to warriors some desirable qualities ascribed to the animals served at

the feast. For instance, Bhomāntaka 81.38 remarks that consumption of fish guts
results in sharper eyesight. Elements of sympathetic magic, meant to fortify the
warrior’s spirit and senses, are in fact readily discernible throughout the whole
“feasting passage” of canto 81.

Conclusion

Starting from the hypothesis that pre-Islamic Javanese conceived of a battle and
the preparation of food with a common set of ideas and concepts,76 I have ana-
lyzed in detail the food metaphor found in Bhāratayuddha 27.7. In the martial
context of war between the Pān.d.avas and the Koravas, Śalya, an epic hero siding
with the Pān.d.avas, draws a parallel between the slaying of Karn.a, an epic char-
acter fighting for the Koravas, and the process of steaming rice. Among the most
interesting images found in this cooking metaphor is a depiction of Karn.a’s body
“stirred” by the arrows of Arjuna and Bhı̄s.ma: Karn.a’s body is likened to a dish
of half-cooked rice stirred before it is put into the steamer to be finished over the
boiling water. The reference here is to the so-called divine energy that represents an
operational principle of magically charged “divine weapons”: the divine energy,
responsible for the immense destructive power of Arjuna’s and Bhı̄s. ma’s arrows,
is compared to the heat of fire used to cook food, such as, in this case, a serving
of rice. I have argued that this literary vignette represents the earliest Javanese
detailed description of the method of cooking rice by steaming, the method now
common in Java and Bali. On the basis of evidence gathered from other literary
and visual Javanese sources I have tentatively proposed that the laborious and
time-consuming process of steaming rice was limited in pre-Islamic Java to the
social environment of courts, while cooking rice by simple boiling may have been
a norm in rural Java. Production, preparation and consumption of food was
among the everyday activities that carried a deep symbolic meaning in premodern
Javanese society: a key observation of this study is that far from representing only
lists of food items, passages that elaborate on food in Old Javanese literature
suggest that beyond the traditional assessments of these literary references to
food there is an entire interpretative world that predominantly focuses on their
value as a repository of (not-yet written) food history of Java, or Indonesia gener-
ally. This interpretative approach has been adopted also in the second part of
this article, in which, using the rich evidence of the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a and the
Bhomāntaka, I have demonstrated that the Javanese had already in pre-Islamic
period a well-developed concept of breakfast, the first meal of the day. A finding
that all “literary breakfasts” attested in Old Javanese literature are invariably
associated with demonic characters, famous for their unrestrained appetite, is
explained as the reference to the indulgence in excess, pertaining even to what is
typically a small meal. Finally, in the third part of the article I have argued that
the famous “feasting passage” in Bhomāntaka, 81.34– 49 that describes a meal
organized for soldiers on the night before their march to battle, and which repre-
sents an incredibly rich account of dishes ­prepared from lungs, hearts, intestines,
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 49

tripe and marrow, is best understood as a participatory animal sacrifice. The

Bhomāntaka thus supports a view that the consumption of meat in the martial
context had a ritual character in pre-Islamic Java. However, Reid’s influential
thesis that in premodern South East Asia the consumption of meat had always a
ritual character still needs to be verified, or refuted, by future research.77

Jiří Jákl received his Ph.D. at the University of Queensland, Australia. His main
academic interests include the social and cultural history of premodern Indonesia,
especially Java and Bali, and Old Javanese literature. jiri.jakl@uqconnect.edu.au.

Acknowledgment

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Andrea Acri (Singapore), Arlo Griffiths

(Jakarta) and Adam Bowles (Brisbane) during the process of writing this study.

Notes

1. Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce; 1450–1680, vol. 1,

The Lands Below the Winds (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988).
2. Andries Teeuw and Stuart O. Robson, Bhomāntaka: The Death of Bhoma
(Leiden: KITLV Press, 2005); Peter Worsley, et al., Mpu Monagun.a’s
Sumanasāntaka: An Old Javanese Epic Poem, Its Indian Source and Balinese
Illustrations (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
3. T. Surti Nastiti, “Minuman pada Masyarakat Jawa Kuna,” Pertemuan Ilmiah
Arkeologi, VII b (1989): 83–8; Lien Dwiari Ratnawati, “Jenis-jenis Masakan
pada Masa Jawa Kuna menurut Data Prasasti,” PIA, VI (1992): 185–204.
4. Theodoor G.T. Pigeaud, Java in the Fourteenth Century: A Study in Cultural
History: The Nagara-Kertagama by Rakawi, prapanca of Majapahit, 1365
ad, vol. 5 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960–3).
5. Petrus J. Zoetmulder, Old Javanese–English Dictionary, 2 vols. (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1982).
6. Some of the ideas pertaining to the symbolism of food, especially the view that
pre-Islamic Javanese conceived of a battle and a preparation of food with a
common set of ideas and concepts, have been previously discussed in Jiri Jákl,
“Warriors Killed, Sliced as Cucumber: Food Symbolism in the Martial Scenes
of Old Javanese Kakawins,” Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre Series, 13 (2013):
1–29.
7. I transcribe Old Javanese according to the system implemented by Zoetmulder,
.
Old Javanese–English Dictionary, with two deviations: ŋ becomes n, and w
becomes v. The conventions adopted in this article do not differ from the
system of spelling of Old Javanese words proposed by Acri and Griffiths in
their article “The Romanization of Indic script used in Ancient Indonesia,”
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 170, no. 2–3 (2014): 365–78.
In order to avoid any confusion, I have standardized the spelling of quoted
50 Jiří Jákl

primary sources according to these conventions. All translations from Old

Javanese are my own, except if otherwise indicated in the text.
 8. Emily Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman
Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1993), 35.
  9. Petrus J. Zoetmulder, Kalangwan: A Survey of Old Javanese Literature (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974).
10. Jákl, “Warriors Killed, Sliced as Cucumber.”
11. Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 48.
.
12. Andrea Acri, “Introduction,” in From Lankā Eastwards: The Rāmāyan.a in
the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia, ed. Andrea Acri, Helen Creese
and Arlo Griffiths (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011), xv.
13. The only similar example of this literary motif is attested in Vālmı̄ki’s
Rāmāyan.a 3.54.22, in Sheldon I. Pollock, The Rāmāyan.a of Vālmı̄ki: An
Epic of Ancient India, vol 3, Aran.yakān.d.a, ed. R.P. Goldman (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 23. n, 37, which aptly glosses as “a
scarcely figurative threat” the words addressed by Rāvan.a to Sı̄tā: “Listen to
what I have to say, my lovely Maithilı̄: If within the space of twelve months
you do not yield to me with a sweet smile, the cooks shall chop you into
minced meat to my breakfast [sic].” Both the context and the meaning of this
interesting passage is, however, quite different from that found in the Old
Javanese literary examples. The passage from Vālmı̄ki’s Sanskrit Rāmāyan.a
just quoted testifies to the fact that Rāvan.a, being of demonic descent, is an
eater of humans. Dietary habits of the king of rāks.asas are detailed in several
other passages; for example in Rāmāyan.a 5.11.11, where Hanumān, looking
unsuccessfully for Sı̄tā in Rāvan.a’s palace, expresses his fears that “perhaps
poor Sı̄tā, cut off from her kin, was eaten by cruel Rāvan.a as she attempted
to defend her virtue.” On the contrary, Javanese poets use the motif of sliced
food ingredients processed into a dish exclusively in the martial context, and
as will be seen, they ascribe a completely different meaning to this motif to
that given by Vālmı̄ki in his Rāmāyan.a.
14. Bhāratayuddha 27.5. Old Javanese text, taken from Suryo Supomo,
Bhāratayuddha: An Old Javanese Poem and Its Indian Sources (New Delhi:
International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 1993), 118,
.
reads, byaktan syuh lvir gilen de nin is.u niyata yāpin.d.a haryas rinĕñcĕm.
15. Fred B. Eiseman, Bali: Sekala and Niskala, vol. 2, Essays on Society,
Tradition, and Craft (Singapore: Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., 1990), 325.
16. Eiseman, Bali, 313.
17. Zoetmulder, Old Javanese–English Dictionary, 525.
18. Supomo, Bhāratayuddha, 216.
19. The method of dry-currying was certainly known in Sumatra by the sixteenth
century, when the Hikayat Amir Hamzah mentions the rendang-style curry.
The method of wet-currying may have been known in Java as early as the
ninth century, when one or two curry-style dishes seem to be mentioned in
the Old Javanese Kakavin Rāmāyan.a. I intend to discuss these references in
an article on the food culture represented in this early textual source.
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 51

20. Bhāratayuddha 27.7. The Old Javanese text, taken from Supomo,
Bhāratayuddha, 216, reads as follows:
. . . .
ndin nwan tan guyva denta n panucap amubura n śatru
śūrātirodra
. . .
ndin tuhvāpan hivag nhin juga kita livĕtĕn de nikan bhı̄ma pārtha
. .
ndak ton prān.anta harvākĕna rin is.u mĕnen bhuktin in mr.tyujihva
. . .
döhdöh byaktekun angan patĕmahana hitip nin kavah dlāha
vasvas.

Compare also Supomo’s rather free translation of this passage:

How could I not laugh at your boast to destroy such a valiant and
fearsome enemy! How can that be true, for such an outcome is absurd.
Indeed, it is you who will be cooked by Bhı̄ma and Pārtha … And I
will see them stirring [the soup of] your heart with their arrows, to be
consumed by the tongue of the Death. O yes! Your body will surely
become the crust of hell’s cauldron later. There is no doubt about that.

21. The topic of kin relationship between Śalya and Nakula is further elaborated
in the Bhāratayuddha in the passage in which Kr.s.n.a sends Nakula to
persuade Śalya not to fight against the Pān.d.avas, an action without a parallel
in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata. See Supomo, Bhāratayuddha, 35.
22. Jákl, “Warriors Killed, Sliced as Cucumber.”
23. The Bhāratayuddha is, interestingly, the product of two authors. The
first part was composed by Mpu Sĕd.ah, while the second part of the text,
including the two passages quoted above, was authored by Mpu Panuluh.
See Zoetmulder, Kalangwan; Supomo, Bhāratayuddha.
24. Vivienne Krüger, Balinese Food: The Traditional Cuisine & Food Culture of
Bali (North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2014).
25. Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1976), 43. “Steaming,” however, is not the only method of rice cooking
used in Java and Bali. Alternatively, rice may be simply boiled, especially
when used as an ingredient in cakes or porridges. See Krüger, Balinese Food.
26. Willem F. Stutterheim, “Oude gewigten in het Museum,” Tijdschrift voor
Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 79 (1938): 119. I wish to express
my thanks for this early reference to Arlo Griffiths, mail communication,
October 2014.
27. Zoetmulder, Kalangwan.
28. Pigeaud, Java in the Fourteenth Century, 4: x, 250.
29. Alf Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahābhārata (New York:
New York University Press, 1990); Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahābhārata:
A Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma King (Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 2001); Laurie L. Patton, “Trita’s Tumble
and Agastya’s Ancestors: On the Narrative Construction of Dharma,” in
Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia,
ed. Frederico Squarcini (Firenze: Firenze University Press & Munshiram
Manoharlal, 2005), 133–57.
52 Jiří Jákl

30. I am grateful for the suggestion of the term “culinary violence” to Thomas
Hunter, mail communication, June 2014.
31. Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka.
32. My translation of this passage is based on the translation advanced by Teeuw
and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 431. It differs, however, in rendering a number of
culinary terms. Compare:

Who is fitting to be an adversary to me? Krĕs.n.a and Baladewa will be

as dangerous as a ball of rice in my hand, And in particular the other
kings, beginning with Pārtha, I will stir like boiled vegetables. I with
my two hands will make porridge of his palace, and without help I
will set it on the stove; My syrup will be the blood of my enemies, and
I will spice it with my bare hands. And I will be the one to pound up
the enemies’ heads, so their brains will be the coconut milk. I deserve
to eat my fill of fame – I am obsessed with winning merit on the field
of battle!

The Old Javanese text, taken from Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 430,
reads

syapa teka yogya lavanan.kva

krĕs.n.a baladeva vis..tya kĕpĕla
n.univeh tikan. ratu makādi pārtha
ramĕsĕn.kva tulya kuluban
aku kārva hasta mubure puranya tak arovan.ān.hapuyana
gulanan.ku rāhnya ripu ni n.hulun rahatanan.kva rin. karatala
kalavan ya den.ku śirah in. musuh rĕmĕk utĕknya santĕna nikā
saphalanya ku n kı̄rtya moha maharĕp yaśen. pabharatan.

33. This status of an enjoyer of the sacrifice is most graphically demonstrated in

Mahābhārata 11.26–9, where Kr.s.n.a shows himself to Arjuna in his terrible
cosmic form devouring the warriors of both the armies Danielle Feller, The
Sanskrit Epics’ Representations of Vedic Myths (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
2004), 280.
34. Wendy O’Flaherty Doniger, “The Karma and Rebirth in the Vedas and
Purān. as,” in The Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1980), 6.
35. O’Flaherty Doniger, “The Karma and Rebirth,” 9, gives a striking example
how in India the funeral pin.d.a has been adapted in a Tantric pūjā to the
goddess Kālı̄:

In this ceremony, the male and female participants take in their left
hands balls of food (mixed with the four Tantric “m”s) called pin.d.as,
and they eat them in an action referred to as tarpan.a (‘satisfaction,’ the
term also used to refer to the offerings of pin.d.as to the ancestors). This
inversion is introduced not in order to change re-death into re-birth
but in order to reverse death altogether, to change it into immortality
through the secret ritual.
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 53

36. Kakavin Rāmāyan.a 13.34.

37. Hendrick H. Juynboll, Kawi–Balineesche–Nederlandsche Glossarium op het
Oudjavaansche Rāmāyan.a (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1902).
38. Soewito Santoso. Ramayana Kakawin (New Delhi: Mrs. Sharada Rani,
Hauzkhas Enclave, 1980), 338.
39. Ibid., 758.
40. Andrew Dalby, The Breakfast Book (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), 14.
41. For an interesting parallel of the motif of breakfast explicitly associated with
demonic characters in Sanskrit literature, see Vālmı̄ki’s Rāmāyan.a 3.54.22,
where Rāvan.a proclaims that his cooks shall chop unyielding Sı̄tā into minced
meat to his breakfast. See also n. 3 in this article.
42. Tiew and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 431. Robson and Wibisono, Javanese–
English Dictionary, 409, render kuluban as “briefly boiled green vegetables.”
43. Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, The Rāmāyan.a of
Vālmı̄ki: An Epic of Ancient India, vol. 5, Sundarakān.d. a (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1996), 243.
44. Kakawin Rāmāyan.a 8.32–4. The Old Javanese text, taken from Santoso,
Ramayana Kakawin, 207–8, reads as follows:

hana len sagulma ya vatĕk mapĕkĕn

naramān.sa yeka pinan.anya lanā
ininumnya rāh vija-vijah mavĕrö
patukar-tukarnya inucapnya kabeh
hana teka rāks.asa bĕtah man.inum
aman.an tasak-mĕtah asin. sahanā
manĕvĕr pupū ya manisig ya dagin.
amĕcĕl-mĕcĕl hana kulub-kuluban
ininumnya rodra sakavah ya magön.
ibĕkan vuduk kinĕla len rudhira
ininum hĕlĕd pisan ikan. sakavah
mavĕrö kabeh ya pad.a vāk prakat.a.

45. C. Hooykaas, “The Paradise on Earth in Lĕn.kā (OJR XXIV. 87–126),”

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 114, no. 3 (1958): 265–91.
46. Demons, consuming kuluban prepared from the meat of boar, are described
in Abhimanyuvivāha 8.6. For the specifically vegetarian kuluban, see
Kuñjarakarn.a 5.8, where it is represented as a dish consumed by hermits
(tapar.s.i). See Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 431.
47. In Śivarātrikalpa 37.4 Śiwa himself orders to prepare a kind of porridge as
an oblation used during the “Night of Śiva”: “And as offering milk porridge
and molasses porridge, mixed with green peas.” See Andries Teeuw, et al.,
Śiwarātrikalpa of Mpu Tanakun.: An Old Javanese Poem, Its Indian Sources
and Balinese Illustrations (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff [KITLV], 1969),
141.
48. Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 645.
49. For spiced syrup see, for example, Sumanasāntaka 49.5; for the palm syrup
kept in bamboo tubes see Pārthayajña 18.7.
54 Jiří Jákl

50. Blood drinking and its powers of intoxication are associated in Old Javanese
literature with the drinking habits of demonic characters, used sometimes in
a moralizing context, as in Kuñjarakarn.a 8.3. In a vivid description, servants
of Yama, who are likened to Bhairava, get drunk on the blood of tormented
sinners: “like Bhairawa they roared with a terrible noise, intoxicated and
daubed with bright blood they danced fast and furious.” See Andries Teeuw
and Stuart O. Robson, Kuñjarakarn.a Dharmakathana: Liberation Through
the Law of the Buddha. An Old Javanese Poem by Mpu D . usun, 2 vols. (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), 95. On the worship of Bhairava in pre-
Islamic Java, especially in the martial context, see T.M. Hunter, “The Body of
the King: Reappraising Singhasari Period Syncretism,” Journal of Southeast
Asian Studies, 38, no. 1 (2007): 35–6.
51. Bhāratayuddha 13.33.
52. Reid, Southeast Asia, 32.
53. Robson 1995: 126.
54. Geertz, The Religion of Java.
55. Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 647.
56. Such food is described, for example, in Kakavin Rāmāyan.a 26.28.
57. Bhomāntaka 81.25.
58. The “eighth hour” in pre-Islamic Java corresponded to 6:00 p.m. in modern
Western time calculation. This would mean that the feast commenced at the
dawn, which occurs in a tropical latitude of Java at around 6:00 p.m, with
slight differences throughout the year. For details on Javanese time reckoning
see Zoetmulder, Kalangwan.
59. The translation is taken from Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 443. The
Old Javanese text, taken from ibid., 442, reads,

sampun ad.en. tikan. bala tĕkan. vĕn.i ravi sumurup

Meh tumibān. d.avuh vvalu pad.ālĕkas an.inum-inum
Tan hana tan pan.in.vani rikan. juru-juru masĕkar
tambul ikān.ulumpuk apurik tan. umulat iriya //

60. Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 647.

61. Zoetmulder, Old Javanese–English Dictionary, 1920.
62. Bhomāntaka 81.38. The Old Javanese text, taken from Teeuw and Robson,
Bhomāntaka, 444, reads, endah ikan. gilay-gilayan olih inilag-ilagan.
63. Merle C. Ricklefs, War, Culture and Economy in Java, 1677–1726: Asian
and European Imperialism in the Early Kartasura Period (St. Leonards:
Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, 1993), 57.
64. See, for example, Kakavin Rāmāyan.a 25.46, and Arjunavijaya 10.21.
65. Sumanasāntaka 65.11.
66. Jákl, “Warriors Killed, Sliced as Cucumber.”
67. This is in clear opposition to meat dishes served at post-battle or other
“peaceful” festive occasions, which consist mainly of large joints of meat,
or entire animals, often spit-roasted. See, for example, Kakavin Rāmāyan.a
26.24.
 Bhoma’s Kitchen 55

68. The Old Javanese text, taken from Teeuw and Robson, Bhomāntaka, 443,
reads,

tambul ikāntigāgarĕm ikan. katupan. ayun.-ayun.

mvan. pabĕkan pĕcĕl-pĕcĕl ikan. licin acĕka-cĕkah
rumbah abān. babat saha lalab nikana mira-mirah
twas tan atis titisnya pĕlĕm in. barabas an.ĕn.ĕsi
len kulubanya lan.suban asumsum ilat asuhunan
membuh atumtumañ jamu-jamur kurupuk uvur-uvur
limpa lavan lamun.sir adulur paru-paru sinan.a
tan.kas usus tinunduk avuduk jata-jatahan an.öt.

69. Though scholars commonly translate the Old Javanese term katun.gyan.
as “scorpion” or “wood scorpion,” the word is actually an early form of
ketonggèng, a term which designates “whip scorpion” in Modern Javanese.
These imposing, robust tropical predators are also arachnids, forming
their own biological order Uropygi. Having no venom gland and no sting,
the most characteristic features of the whip scorpions are their impressive
raptorial pedipalps and a thin caudal appendage (“whip”).
70. Zoetmulder, Old Javanese–English Dictionary, 983.
71. Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle; Jákl, “Warriors Killed, Sliced as Cucumber.”
72. Robert Parker, “Sacrifice and Battle,” in War and Violence in Ancient Greece,
ed. Hans Van Wees (London: Classical Press of Wales, 2000), 308.
73. Rahardjo Supratikno. Peradaban Jawa; Dari Mataram Kuno sampai
Majapahit Akhir, 2nd edn (Jakarta: Komunitas Bambu, 2011), 306.
74. See, for example, Hans Hägerdal, Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea:
Conflict and Adaptation in Early Colonial Timor, 1600–1800 (Leiden:
KITLV Press, 2012).
75. Parallel cases of this strategy of enumerating dish items in one long list are
found in the descriptions of royal feasts in the Kakavin Rāmāyan.a and the
Deśavarn.ana.
76. Jákl, “Warriors Killed, Sliced as Cucumber.”
77. Reid, Southeast Asia, 32.

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