Monday, February 18, 2013

Rabindranath in Java and Bali

Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia, roughly be described as geographically situated east of east of the Indian subcontinent, south of China and north of Australia, between the Indian Ocean (in west) and the Pacific Ocean (in east).

It consists of two distinctive different geographic regions, one is mainland Southeast Asia, also known as Indochina, on the Indochinese peninsula; it comprises the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam and West Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia), the other is the Malay Archipelago, or Maritime Southeast Asia, which comprises the countries of: Brunei (on the island of Borneo), East Malaysia (with the Malayan states of Sabah and Sarawak on the northern part of Borneo), all the islands of Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Timor-Leste (East Timor)
From Malay Rabindranath came to bali via java. The detail description of visit to Bali is available in " Letters of the passenger of Java", written by Tagore. Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay also wrote a book, " Dwipamay Bharat" to express detial of their journey in South East Asia. Once bali was a seat of  Hindu religion and culture. Still there are some remnants of the religion and culture in Bali. Once this part of the world Malay and Indonesia was part of the Greater India. This was the only thinking in the minds of the poet that how to regain India's lost jurisdiction.Maly and Indonesia are the link islands to the world abroad. It was only Rabindranath who have come to these islands to establish a fresh contact with Maly and Indonesia and he was the pioneer linkman of India. Then they had come to the Capital Batavia of Jakarta. He came here this time to visit this country thoroughly .He stayed in Bali for two weeks.
They started from Surabaya, a city of Jakarta. Here Rabindranth inaugurated a road earmarked by his name. He visited a school run in the ideals of Shantiniketan. The biggest King's family used to live here.Though his wealth were all stolen but his prestge could not be removed. They were Muslims but expert in dancing of the tales of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Religion did not stand in their way maintaining their own culture..Simultaneously, they maintain all their rituals and customs of Muslim religion.
On 9 Sept. Rabinranath visited a Bodha Temple at Borobudur. Stayed in Bundung for three days. Rabindranath returned to Jakarta on 27th Sept, 1927.
Borobudur

Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist Temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia.
Rabindranath returned to Calcutta via Bankak on 27th Oct,1927