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Creolised Confucianism: Syncretism and Confucian revivalism at the turn of the twentieth century in Java
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2020
Abstract
Confucian revivalism swept over China, the Straits Settlements and the Netherlands East Indies in the late nineteenth century. Rather than perceiving China as the single foundational centre for Confucian ideas, this article argues that pioneering Confucian revivalists who undertook to translate, interpret and spread Confucian knowledge in Java did not simply follow mainstream ideas that prevailed in China, or the lead of the Straits Settlements. Considered as the first Malay language translation of the ‘Great Learning’ and the ‘Doctrine of the Mean’, with accompanying commentaries, Yoe Tjai Siang and Tan Ging Tiong's Kitab Tai Hak–Tiong Iong (1900), contained an eclectic blend of Hokkien/Chinese, Malay, Javanese, Dutch/Christian and Arabic/Islamic concepts and vocabulary. Analysis of the translators’ aims and the work itself, shows that Java's peranakan Chinese initially developed a unique, creolised interpretation of Confucianism, while being connected to other reformers and revivalists in China and the Straits Settlements. As these connections and formal educational exchanges intensified, this creolised interpretation of Confucianism in Java would give way to a more orthodox version.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The National University of Singapore, 2020
Footnotes
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments. This article started with Sherman Cochran's enthusiasm for the Malay translation of the Confucian classics. She would like to thank him for his encouragement and continuing support.
References
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2 Ibid.
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23 In the opening sentence of Daxue Philosopher Cheng states: ‘Daxue is an heirloom that is handed down by Confucius, and is the entry point for those who are just learning about virtue’ (子程子曰:「大學孔氏之遺書, 而初學入德之門也。」).
24 Tan, Kitab, pp. 3–5; Yoe, Kitab, pp. 6–9.
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26 Tan, Kitab, p. 3.
27 Yoe, Kitab, p. 6.
28 Tan, Kitab, p. 3.
29 Kwartanada, Didi, ‘Translations in romanized Malay and the revival of Chineseness among the Peranakan in Java (1880s–1991)’, in Translation in Asia: Theories, practices, histories, ed. Ricci, Ronit and van der Putten, Jan (Kinderhook, NY: St. Jerome, 2011), p. 130Google Scholar.
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32 Tan, Kitab, pp. 3–4.
33 The process of Malay standardisation continued until 1928 when Indonesian (previously called Malay) was declared as the national language. For the role of the Chinese in the formation of the Indonesian language, see Oetomo, ‘The Chinese of Indonesia’, pp. 53–66.
34 Earlier translations of the Confucian texts such as Nio Tjoe Ean's version in 1896 and Lie Kim Hok's ‘Hikayat Khonghucu’ were translated from Dutch. See Tanggok, M. Ikhsan, Jalan keselamatan melalui agama Khonghucu [The road to salvation through Confucianism] (Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2000), p. 96Google Scholar; Salmon, Claudine, Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia: A provisional annotated bibliography (Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 1981), p. 30Google Scholar.
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36 Besides Islam, the term ‘Allah’ was also used in Christianity to refer to God. This practice began in the early seventeenth century when Dutch reformist priests and lexicographers borrowed terms and concepts that were widely used in Islam to disseminate Christian beliefs in the Muslim-dominated Netherlands East Indies. See Thianto, Yudha, ‘Introduction’, The way to heaven: Catechisms and sermons in the establishment of the Dutch Reformed Church in the East Indies (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014)Google Scholar.
37 Cited in Henri Chambert-Loir, ‘Confucius crosses the seas’, Indonesia 99 (Apr. 2015): 69–71.
38 The entire text appears in ibid., pp. 97–107. Wali is a title that Muslims used for Islamic saints.
39 Soleiman, Yusak and Steenbrink, Karel, ‘The Chinese Christian communities in Indonesia’, in A history of Christianity in Indonesia, ed. Aritonang, Jan Sihar and Steenbrink, Karel (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 908–9Google Scholar.
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41 Yoe, Kitab, pp. 6–9.
42 Kitab, p. 127.
43 For instance, the sentences ‘Tjai beng beng tek, Tjai sin bin, Tjai tji i tji sian’ were transliterated from the key sentences of Daxue, namely ‘在明明德; 在新民; 在止於至善’. The author of ‘Thian To’ recomposed these verses with other sentences. For example, instead of introducing steps two, three, and four with 大學之道 [translated as the ‘Daxue teaches’] that appears in the original Chinese text, the author attributed these teachings to Thian (here referred as Tian 天 in Hokkien, but Allah in Malay) by stating ‘Thian To’ as the first step.
44 Kitab, p. 104.
45 Kitab, pp. 119–22.
46 Kitab, p. 121.
47 Kitab, pp. 128–9.
48 Kitab, p. 120.
49 Kitab, p. 116.
50 Kitab, p. 117
51 Kitab, pp. 116–17.
52 Kitab, p. 117.
53 Kitab, p. 127.
54 See Kitab, p. 4.
55 Yoe, Kitab, p. 6.
56 Lim Boon Keng, ‘Our enemies’, Straits Chinese Magazine, 1, 1, Mar. 1897, pp. 57–8.
57 Lim Boon Keng literally referred to Confucianism as ‘our national religion’ in ‘Our enemies’ (ibid.). The Kitab, on the other hand, expressed that regardless of the bangsa one belongs, all teachings eventually become one, because all human beings and things in the universe are created by God. Kitab, ‘Thian To’, pp. 104, 108.
58 Lim Boon Keng was interested in comparing Confucianism with Christianity, but did not include Indigenous traditions and Islam-inspired terms in his interpretation of Confucianism. Moreover, the comparisons between Confucianism and Christianity that he established seem to have emerged after the publication of Kitab. See for instance his essay ‘Confucian cosmogony and theism’, first published in the Straits Chinese Magazine in June 1904. See Yan, Essays of Lim Boon Keng on Confucianism, pp. 41–51.
59 ‘De verschillende Zendelinggenootschappen in N.I.’ [Various missionary associations in the Netherlands Indies], Indische Gids (1887), vol. II, p. 1922, states that NZV had been active in Java since 1858, when it sent seven Dutch missionaries to Java who were assisted by eight Indigenous inhabitants.
60 Coolsma, Sierk, Zendingseeuw voor Neederlandsch Oost-Indië [The century of missionary work in the Netherlands East Indies] (Utrecht: C.H.E. Breijer, 1901), p. 95Google Scholar.
61 Ibid., p. 97.
62 Yoe, Kitab, p. 6.
63 Ahmat, Adam B., The vernacular press and the emergence of modern Indonesian consciousness (1855–1913) (Ithaca, NY: SEAP, 1995), p. 65Google Scholar.
64 Coolsma, Zendingseeuw voor Neederlandsch Oost-Indië, p. 89.
65 Moriyama, Mikihiro, Sundanese print culture and modernity in 19th-century West Java (Singapore: NUS Press, 2005), pp. 23–4Google Scholar.
66 Morning classes were taught in Sundanese, and students had to learn the Bible and the history of Christianity. The afternoon classes were taught in Dutch. Students were obliged to take Dutch language courses and follow the curricula set by the Dutch state. Coolsma, Zendingseeuw voor Neederlandsch Oost-Indië, p. 89.
67 Coppel, Studying ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, p. 280.
68 In 1901, the church community in Patekwan under Geissler's leadership counted 40 members, of whom two-thirds were Chinese, and one-third were Indigenous. See Coolsma, Zendingseeuw voor Neederlandsch Oost-Indië, p. 71.
69 Ibid.
70 Coppel, Studying ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, p. 281.
71 For biographical details about Lie Kim Hok and Phao Keng Hek, see Suryadinata, ed., Southeast Asian personalities, pp. 567–9, 892–5.
72 Yoe, Kitab, p. 6; Salmon, Literature in Malay, p. 28.
73 Most Chinese traditional schools in Java taught the Hokkien dialect at the time. See Setiono, Benny, Tionghoa dalam pusaran politik [Zhonghua in a political maelstrom] (Jakarta: Elkasa, 2003), p. 449Google Scholar; Salmon, Literature in Malay, p. 28.
74 Ham, Ong Hok, ‘Modernisasi dalam pelajaran’ [The modernisation of education], in Riwayat Tionghoa Peranakan di Jawa [The history of Peranakan Chinese in Java] (Depok: Komunitas Bambu, 2005), pp. 96–103Google Scholar; Sai Siew-Min, ‘Mandarin lessons’, pp. 378–9.
75 Ong Hok Ham, ‘Pengajaran Tionghoa kuno’ [Traditional Chinese teaching], in Riwayat Tionghoa Peranakan di Jawa, pp. 92–5.
76 Salmon, Literature in Malay, pp. 28, 30. Salmon considered the period from 1887 to 1910 as one in which many Chinese works were translated from Chinese into Malay.
77 Setiono, Tionghoa dalam pusaran politik, p. 430; Williams, Overseas Chinese nationalism, p. 57.
78 Salmon, Literature in Malay, p. 30.
79 Tan, Kitab, p. 4.
80 Coppel, Studying ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, pp. 303–4.
81 Ibid., pp. 233–4.
82 Ibid., p. 305.
83 Sai, ‘Mandarin lessons’, p. 384.
84 Ibid., p. 376.
85 Ibid., pp. 379–89.
86 See Kwee Tek Hoay, The origins of the modern Chinese Movement.
87 The number of students from Java going to China to continue their studies at Jinan Xuetang rapidly increased: 21 students in 1906, 100 students in 1908, and 148 students in 1909. See Williams, Overseas Chinese nationalism, p. 92.
88 Sin Po matched the Western calendar with the Confucian calendar. The editors also used the Confucian calendar to date events. For instance the editors of Sin Po, 28 Jan. 1911 used ‘2461’ and ‘2462’ to refer to the Chinese nationalist movement (Gerakan bangsa Tionghoa).
89 ‘Khong Hoe Tjoe’ [Confucius], Sin Po, 1 Oct. 1910.
90 ‘Kabar dari redactie’ [News from the editorial team], Sin Po, 29 Oct. 1910.
91 ‘Asal moelanja agama Islam’ [The origins of Islam], Sin Po, 18 Mar. 1911.
92 An advocate of ‘religious purity’, Tiemersma launched a series of polemics in Li Po. He rejected perceiving Confucianism as a religion, especially as practised by the Chinese in Java. By examining Confucian thought by Chinese intellectuals and visiting Chinese temples in Java, Tiemersma claimed that Confucianism was a moral ideology and not a religion. He concluded that Confucianism in Java was not identical to that in China. Confucianism in China was often mixed with Buddhist and Taoist aspects; Confucianism in Java, on the contrary, was often blended with local traditions and Indigenous religion. See Tiemersma, L., ‘Zendingsarbeid onder de Chineezen op Java en Madoera’ [Missionary work concerning the Chinese in Java and Madura], De Macedoniër: Zendingstijdschrift 23 (1919): 38–9Google Scholar.
93 L. Tiemersma, ‘Zendingsarbeid onder de Chineezen’, pp. 102–13.
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