Karawang

Karawang is a city Indonesia N, located at fifty kilometers in the East of the capital Jakarta, in the province of Western Java.

Today one of the attics of the province of Western Java, Karawang was an important religious center and has many archaeological vestiges of temples of the various confessions, buried by the river deposits of the Citarum during the centuries.

The old period

Chronicles going back to 412 - 413 of the buddhist monk Chinese Faxian, only source on the Kingdom of Tarumanagara, report the weak presence of Buddhism on the island of Java. Influence Indian introduced “religion original”, which was accompanied by traditions former to the kingdom, whose advent did not destroy the structure social and cultural of its inhabitants, then animists.

It is thought that Tarumanagara disappears at the 7th century. However the temples of the three religions remained. Their architecture indeed presents traces of enlargings and modifications later.

These brick temples were buried by the rise of the level of the grounds, and were discovered only at the time of historical and archaeological excavations, initially carried out by Western researchers such as Johannes Nicholas Krom, H. Kern and Jean Boisselier. Their first discovered caused the interest of the philologists and archeologists indonésiens Ayatrohaedi, EDI Sedyawati, EDI S. Ekadjati and R. Cecep Eka Permana, which reflect up to date in the years 1950 three statuettes of the Hindu divinity Vishnou.

Thereafter, of the thorough excavations revealed a whole of temples in the Site of Cibuaya, then another in the Site of Batujaya, discovered department of archeology of the Indonesia university in 1984.

The arrival of Islam

The open spirit of the inhabitants of Karawang allowed the reception of the Islam in their area. The first Koranic school was founded in 1416 by a Ouléma originating in the Champa, the sheik Hasanuddin, of which the tomb to lie in the village of Pulo Bata. One of its disciples married the crown prince to the kingdom of Cirebon, Hindu of origin and which converts on the occasion with Islam. His/her two children are famous being at the origin of the diffusion of this religion in the province of Western Java.

The respect of the ancestral traditions facilitated the adoption of the faith and the Moslem practices by the inhabitants. This is why Karawang became the attic with rice of the area when the troops of the Agung Sultan of the kingdom of Mataram in the province of Java Centers, attacked in 1727 the Compagnie of the Indies Dutchwomen to Batavia (today Jakarta).

A refractory area with fundamentalisms

Protestantism was the last religion arrived in the area, brought to the 18th century by Europeans. The pastors, noting the kindness of their reception and their fast integration, started to absorb the religious and cultural values place. Their presence, just like the presence of the other Buddhist religions and hindouists considered as ancestral heritages, is accommodated with a great tolerance although the majority of the inhabitants of Karawang are Moslem.

Thus, in order to support and cultivate the local religious harmony, all the religious personalities founded in the years 1990 the Forum of the communities of Karawang, whose president, K.H. Muhammad Abbas, explains his utility in these terms: “As soon as the least religious problem makes surface, even if it of a water drop, we are not larger speak about it at once to solve it.” It thus refers to the social riots of 1997, where fundamentalist currents had started to infiltrate Karawang to spread their doctrines there, but without success in front of the lever of shield of the Forum.

See also: Islam in Indonesia ~ Sunda

Random links: