Multicentric Cosmology of Transcendental Agency: Ritual Language, Islamization, and Agency Reconfiguration in Javanese Mantras
DOI: https://doi.org/10.65840/jllcd.v2i3.45
transcendental agency, Javanese mantras, ritual language, Islamization, religious syncretism, performativity, linguistic anthropology
Abstract
This study investigates how transcendental agency is constructed, distributed, and activated within Javanese mantras associated with the Islamization tradition attributed to Sunan Kalijaga. While previous studies have primarily examined Javanese mantras as expressions of cultural heritage, religious syncretism, or local wisdom, limited attention has been devoted to the mechanisms through which ritual efficacy is generated through language and agency. Employing a qualitative interpretive design, the study analyzes a corpus of Javanese mantra texts using a three-stage coding procedure consisting of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The analysis identifies four interconnected domains of agency—divine, prophetic, mythological, and cosmological—which collectively form a Layered Transcendental Agency Architecture. The findings further reveal processes of Mythological Agency Reconfiguration and Hierarchical Syncretic Integration, through which indigenous cosmological entities are preserved while being repositioned within an Islamic framework of sacred legitimacy. In addition, language functions as a Performative Technology of Transcendental Activation, enabling the invocation, coordination, and authorization of multiple transcendental actors. Building upon these findings, the study proposes the concept of Multicentric Cosmology of Transcendental Agency, a theoretical model explaining how ritual efficacy emerges from the interaction of divine authority, prophetic mediation, mythological intervention, cosmological participation, linguistic activation, and human ritual practice. The study contributes to scholarship on ritual language, agency, religious transformation, and Islamic vernacularization by offering a new framework for understanding the relationship between language, belief, and cosmology in Javanese Islamic textual traditions.
References
Ahearn, L. M. (2001). Language and agency. Annual Review of Anthropology, 30(1), 109–137. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.109
Akhtabi, P. M. (2022). The Javanese philosophy of Manunggaling Kawula Gusti in Kidung Rumeksa Ing Wengi. In Proceedings of the International Seminar on Language, Education, and Culture (ISOLEC 2022).
Anam, S. (2025). Islamization of Javanese ritual: Ruwat Santri as symbolic transformation of local tradition. Harmoni.
Asad, T. (1993). Genealogies of religion: Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press.
Azizah, A. U., & Hidayat, A. (2021). Teologi dalam Kidung Rumeksa Ing Wengi. Mediakita: Jurnal Komunikasi dan Penyiaran Islam, 5(2).
Bauman, R., & Briggs, C. L. (1990). Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 59–88. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.000423
Beatty, A. (1999). Varieties of Javanese religion: An anthropological account. Cambridge University Press.
Bell, C. (1992). Ritual theory, ritual practice. Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Harvard University Press.
Bowen, J. R. (1993). Muslims through discourse: Religion and ritual in Gayo society. Princeton University Press.
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Sage.
Duranti, A. (2004). A companion to linguistic anthropology. Blackwell Publishing.
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023. https://doi.org/10.1086/231294
Florida, N. K. (2019). Writing the past, inscribing the future: History as prophecy in colonial Java. Duke University Press.
Fox, J. J. (1988). To speak in pairs: Essays on the ritual languages of eastern Indonesia. Cambridge University Press.
Geertz, C. (1960). The religion of Java. University of Chicago Press.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.
Hanks, W. F. (1990). Referential practice: Language and lived space among the Maya. University of Chicago Press.
Hanks, W. F. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Westview Press.
Hefner, R. W. (2011). Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in Indonesia. Princeton University Press.
Irvine, J. T., & Gal, S. (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language (pp. 35–83). School of American Research Press.
Jakobson, R. (1960). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in language (pp. 350–377). MIT Press.
Keane, W. (1997). Signs of recognition: Powers and hazards of representation in an Indonesian society. University of California Press.
Keane, W. (2007). Christian moderns: Freedom and fetish in the mission encounter. University of California Press.
Kurniawan, A. (2024). Nyāsa in the Javanese-Islamic world: A study on Kidung Rumĕksa Ing Wĕngi. AAS-in-Asia Conference Proceedings.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
Magnis-Suseno, F. (1997). Javanese ethics and worldview. Gramedia.
Mahdaniar, F. (2025). Hypnotherapy in Sunan Kalijaga’s da'wah: Schleiermacher’s hermeneutic analysis of Kidung Rumeksa Ing Wengi. Qaulan: Journal of Islamic Communication, 6(2), 193–210.
Meyer, B. (2021). Sensational movies: Video, vision, and Christianity in Ghana. University of California Press.
Mittermaier, A. (2011). Dreams that matter: Egyptian landscapes of the imagination. University of California Press.
Ortner, S. B. (1984). Theory in anthropology since the sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26(1), 126–166. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500010811
Ortner, S. B. (2006). Anthropology and social theory: Culture, power, and the acting subject. Duke University Press.
Pamungkas, O. Y. (2023). The spirit of Islam in Javanese mantra: Syncretism and local wisdom in Sunan Kalijaga’s mantra. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 79(1), Article 8407. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v79i1.8407
Puspita, E. (2024). Mantra Kidung Rumeksa Ing Wengi: Theology, protection, and prophetic symbolism in Javanese literature. Jurnal Ilmiah Wahana Pendidikan.
Ricklefs, M. C. (2006). Mystic synthesis in Java: A history of Islamization from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. EastBridge.
Rohmadi, M., Wibowo, P. A. W., Sudaryanto, M., & Saddhono, K. (2025). Religiousness in Javanese language and culture communication: A sociopragmatic study in Java Island, Indonesia.
Saddhono, K. (2016). Dialectics of Islam in Javanese mantras as local wisdom. Akademika, 21(1), 1–18.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press.
Sewell, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1086/229967
Shofwan, A. M. (2021). Fadilah Kidung Rumeksa Ing Wengi dalam tinjauan hizib wali tarekat Nusantara. Panangkaran: Jurnal Penelitian Agama dan Masyarakat, 5(2), 186–206.
Silverstein, M. (1976). Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In K. H. Basso & H. A. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in anthropology (pp. 11–55). University of New Mexico Press.
Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication, 23(3–4), 193–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Sage.
Suroso, E., Sumarlam, Rohmadi, M., & Sumarwati. (2023). Mystical implicature of Javanese mantras: From lingual to transcendental. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 13(9), 2384–2391. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1309.26
Tambiah, S. J. (1968). The magical power of words. Man, 3(2), 175–208. https://doi.org/10.2307/2798500
Tambiah, S. J. (1985). Culture, thought, and social action: An anthropological perspective. Harvard University Press.
Tavárez, D. E. (2014). Rethinking Zapotec time: Cosmology, ritual, and resistance. University Press of Colorado.
Woodward, M. R. (1989). Islam in Java: Normative piety and mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. University of Arizona Press.
Yelle, R. A. (2003). Explaining mantras: Rhetoric, the dream of a natural language, and the efficacy of ritual. Routledge.
Zuhri, Z. (2022). Beyond syncretism: Evidence of the vernacularization of Islamic theological terms in Javanese literature in the nineteenth century. Al-Jami'ah: Journal of Islamic Studies, 60(2), 373–398. https://doi.org/10.14421/ajis.2022.602.373-398
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Eko Suroso, Akhmad Fauzan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Journal of Language, Literature, and Cultural Dynamics is licensed under a 