When L.K. Advani saw a performance of the Ramayana in Delhi in the early 1990s by a touring dance troupe from Indonesia, the world바카라s largest Muslim nation, he inevitably turned the experience into a politically-motivated lament: why can바카라t India바카라s Muslims be more like Indonesia바카라s? After a more recent visit to the archipelago, he did not fail to report another peculiarity of Indonesia바카라s public life 바카라 sculptures of heroes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana adorning traffic roundabouts. But this time Advani did not malign Muslims back home바카라years of propaganda against 바카라Babur ki aulad바카라 had perhaps made that unnecessary. Nevertheless, for an Indian visitor to Indonesia, the juxtaposition of Islamic religiosity with Hindu mythology can be, to say the least, intriguing. For instance, virtually every woman on the streets of Yogyakarta, the nation바카라s cultural capital, is dressed in the traditional hijab. Even women candidates for the recent general elections kept their heads covered. Yet Yogyakarta also has a charmingly intimate street sculpture of Ram and Sita. And Saraswati is the emblem of the city바카라s renowned academy of art.
Even so, I couldn바카라t help but feel surprised바카라and somewhat delighted바카라to come across a graduate of the art academy named Agni Saraswati. The combination of the names of two Vedic deities바카라one symbolising fire, the other knowledge바카라made for a distinctive and evocative name that I had never come across in India. So I googled. Sure enough, the handful of 바카라Agni Saraswatis바카라 on Facebook all seemed to be from Indonesia, led by my acquaintance in Yogyakarta. Despite her double-barelled Vedic name, it turned out that the young artist isn바카라t Hindu at all but belongs to a traditional Muslim family who would like her to give up working and get married. So I quizzed her! She knew what Saraswati signified because of the art academy. But she wasn바카라t so sure about Agni, or the significance and uniqueness of her full name. This unawareness is not uncommon in Indonesia. Outside the small island of Bali, which has remained Hindu for centuries, for most Indonesians, Hindu mythology seems quite divorced from Hindu religion, signifying instead a pre-colonial past devoid of the hated Dutch. So after independence from the Netherlands, Vishnu바카라s carrier Garuda became Indonesia바카라s national emblem, and the national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, signifying 바카라unity in diversity바카라, was adopted from a poem written during the Hindu-Buddhist era. And Indonesia바카라s first president, Sukarno, readily accepted Biju Patnaik바카라s suggestion to give his daughter, born during the monsoon, a Sanskrit name: Megawati.
