Varieties of Javanese Religion: An Anthropological Account

Java is famous for its combination of diverse cultural forms and religious beliefs. Andrew Beatty considers Javanese solutions to the problem of cultural difference, and explores the ways in which Javanese villages make sense of their complex and multi-layered culture. Pantheist mystics, supernaturalists, orthodox Muslims and Hindu converts at once construct contrasting faiths and create a common ground through syncretist ritual. Vividly evoking the religious life of Javanese villagers, its controversies and reconciliations, its humour and irony, its philosophical seriousness, and its formal beauty, Dr Beatty probes beyond the finished surfaces of ritual and cosmology to show the debate and compromise inherent in practical religion. This is the most comprehensive study of Javanese religion since Clifford Geertz's classic study of 1960.