“Hard-Core” Tantric Traditions and the Cult of Bhairava in Java

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys textual, archaeological, and art historical vestiges documenting the existence of hard-core tantric traditions in Java from ca. eleventh to the nineteenth century, especially those revolving around the worship of the demonic manifestation of Śiva known as Bhairava, as well as Goddess-oriented Śākta traditions and tantric Buddhist traditions. These traditions, although by no means unknown in Central Java prior to the tenth century, became more prominent and widespread in East Java from the eleventh century onward, both at the level of the urbanized political elites as well as the religious communities in the countryside. The chapter argues that one of the main factors behind this progressive popularization was a close alliance between the political elites and Bhairava-oriented priesthood, as well as an interest in state-protection magic associated with wrathful deities. It also suggests that, after the rise to dominance of Islam from the late fifteenth century onward, motifs and behaviors associated with hard-core Tantra survived, in a vestigial form, into the nineteenth century and beyond as a radically monistic undercurrent in the doctrines, mythology, and textual sources of modern Javanese mysticism.