Bhima's Mystical Quest

Bhima's mystical experience has become a reference model in achieving a perfect life. How Bhima's mystical experience as presented in the Sêrat Déwaruci and in the Déwaruci play articulates the dynamics of the Javanese spiritual growth is the focus of this study. The basis of this research is the Jasadipoeran Sêrat Déwaruci which has its sources in the Sêrat Déwaruci from the Mêrbabu collection, oral tradition and/or the so-called Kakawin version, the Ki Nartosabdan Déwaruci play and the dhalangs' interpretation of the Déwaruci play they performed. The representations of Bhima in these written sources show many similarities with the reliefs found on mountain sanctuaries in East and Central Java, dated in the second half of the fifteenth century. Using the three divisions of the horizontal tripartite of the Déwaruci play, and of the vertical tripartite of the wayang kulit cosmology, and with the aid of spiritual theology, the examination of Bhima's mystical experience reveals three stages of the Javanese spiritual growth, which can be systematically summarized as the purification of the senses, the purification of the soul, and the union with God, the so-called manunggaling kawula-Gusti.