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Review of: Jákl, Jiří. Alcohol in Early Java: Its Social and Cultural Significance / By Jiří Jákl. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2021 (Brill’s Southeast Asian library, 2213–0527; Volume 8). XIII, 392 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-41703-8 (e-book)
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Review of: Jákl, Jiří. Alcohol in Early Java: Its Social and Cultural Significance / By Jiří Jákl. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2021 (Brill’s Southeast Asian library, 2213–0527; Volume 8). XIII, 392 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-41703-8 (e-book)
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S086919080029917-5-1
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10.31696/S086919080029917-5
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Review
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Published
Authors
Anton Zakharov 
ORCID: 0000-0002-3654-9551
Occupation: Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Affiliation: Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
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Issue 3
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259-269
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08.02.2024
Date of publication
16.06.2024
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1 Cultural history of Java has not been written till nowadays. This is more the case concerning early history of Javanese societies before their Islamization. While architectural developments have long been the focus of scholarly attention, food and drinks of early Java were examined thoroughly but rather shortly, by Hedi Hinzler [Hinzler, 2000, p. 8–11; 2010, p. 1–40].1 She brings together epigraphic and architectural data and examines the Old Javanese Ramayana. But her point is on food and drinks in general. A new monograph by Jiří Jákl [Jákl, 2021; hereafter cited by page in round brackets] goes further as it concerns alcohol, its production and consumption, symbolical and religious significance in early Javanese society since the first written texts, i.e. the eighth-ninth centuries CE, till 1500 when a new epoch began after an advent of European influences.2 Jákl’s monograph is in a line of alcohol studies, even drinkology or dipsology, since the late twentieth and the early twenty first century as evidenced by researches of early Indian alcoholic beverages by James McHugh [McHugh, 2014; 2021]3 and of early alcoholic drinks in general by Patrick McGovern, Michael Dietler and John O’Brien [McGovern, 2009; 2017; 2019; Dietler, 2006; O’Brien, 2018].
1. Hinzler H.I.R. Food and Drinks in Ancient Central Java. Verre Culturen Delft: Etnografische vereniging. URL: >>>> (accessed 14.03.2023 & 18.05.2023 & 10.06.2023).

2. Another review of Jákl’s monograph is [Leong-Salobir, 2022, p. 516–518].

3. See also [Zakharov, 2022].
2 Jákl’s monograph is a fundamental enquiry consisting of preface, introduction, two parts, conclusion, figures, bibliography, Index of Ancient Sources, and General Index. The Introduction discusses the main sources used, first of all, Old Javanese court poems, or kakawins. The other sources are Middle Javanese texts, Old Javanese inscriptions, Malay and Sanskrit texts and Javanese sculpture and pottery as well as later anthropological and ethnographic data which may clarify certain aspects of ancient references to drinks and their functioning.
3 Jákl’s monograph includes two parts: ‘Drinking Landscape in Ancient Java’ and ‘Alcohol, hospitality, and Identity in Java before 1500 CE’. The first part deals with terminology, technology, drinking paraphernalia and comportment. The second part examines functioning of alcohol in Ancient Javanese societies, its symbolic, religious and social roles as well as alcohol’s fortunes under the Islamization of Java.
4 Part 1 includes eight chapters. The Chapter 1 ‘Twak: Production and Types of Palm Wine’ focuses on four kinds of palms whose sap was used by Javanese for the alcoholic beverages production, on palms’ tapping and on Old Javanese terms for palm wine and its kinds. Javanese made use of ‘the fermented sap of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera), sugar palm (mostly Arenga pinnata), Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelifer) and nipa palm (Nipa fruticans)’ (p. 13). Twak/tok served as ‘the most common term for palm wine in Old Javanese’ but Jákl states that ‘twak would refer to the wine made from the sap of the sugar palm’ instead of the sap of the coconut palm (p. 16–17, 35–36). Jákl supposes that ‘Old Javanese waragaṅ denotes a beverage based on palm wine made from the sap of the coconut palm’ (p. 38) and ‘baḍyag was a type of wine made by the fermentation of the sap of the Palmyra palm’ (p. 40). He shows that ‘Old and Middle Javanese buḍur refers to a drink based on a concentrated palm syrup, a kind of treacle which was fermented, and seems to have been made predominantly, if not exclusively, from the sap of the sugar palm’ (p. 42). The Old Javanese term sajǝṅ was a common name for alcoholic beverages in early Java covering all types of palm wine and other drinks and being synonymous to Sanskrit term madya (pp. 45–46). During the Majapahit epoch, sajǝṅ had a strong connotation of strong types of alcohol, including distilled drinks (p. 48). Another common term for palm wine and sometimes for all alcoholic drinks was sayub frequently used in kakawins, for example, in Sumanasāntaka (p. 48–49).
5 One reference in the Chapter 1 seems inaccurate. Watukura A inscription cited on pp. 30 and 265, is a Majapahit copy of a 902 CE record,4 so it cannot be treated as an evidence of low social status of amahat ‘palm-tappers’ during King Balitung’s reign in the early tenth century. Jákl refers to van Naerssen’s PhD Thesis of 1941 but the Dutch scholar offers a meaning ‘engravers’ in his English translation of the Watukura Charter [Naerssen, 1977, p. 60; 1941]. But Jákl’s interpretation fits to the usual meaning of the term amahat better grasping its contexts in kakawins as well as in inscriptions.
4. Watu Kura I (824 Śaka): Draft, 2023-09-22. Eds. Arlo Griffiths, Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan and Marine Schoettel. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 23.09.2023).
6 The Chapter 2 ‘Beers and Lalasti Inebriating Snacks’ discusses rice beers and their production, preservation and ways of consumption in Ancient Java. There are two terms for rice beer: brǝm/brĕm and tapai which denoted potent and mild beer respectively. Brǝm was drunk by means of a straw. Javanese brǝm was probably produced in tall imported Chinese jars buried in the earth or kept in dark parts of a house. Ceramic vessels for fermenting and/or storing rice beer were named gǝnuk, guci and rombe (p. 62). Gǝnuk was associated by the Javanese with bellies of pregnant women as these jars were used to ferment and therefore produce new creations, beers in their case. Guci and rombe refer to imported stoneware jars. Jákl supposes these vessels may have been imported from China or Vietnam (p. 64). He also stresses that Sanskrit loanword surā tended to mean strong alcoholic beverages in the Old and Middle Javanese context (p. 67). Jákl believes lalasti meant a semi-liquid, alcoholic, inebriating delicacy.
7 The Chapter 3 ‘Fruit Wines and Sugar Cane Wine’ deals with beverages called ciñca/kiñca, kilaṅ, māstawa and sīdhu in Old and Middle Javanese sources. Contrary to scholarly convention, Jákl guesses that kiñca denotes ‘an alcoholic beverage based on fruit syrup mixed with water and herbs added as ferments’ (p. 73). Jákl also believes fruit wines were drunk mostly by women. He interprets kilaṅ as ‘sugar cane wine’ (p. 78). Jákl treats māstawa as ‘a more potent variety of the common kilaṅ’ (p. 85). While scholars usually interpret sīdhu as ‘spirituous liquor distilled from molasses, rum’ [Zoetmulder, 1982, p. 1760], Jákl rejects this meaning for the term before the fourteenth century and supposes it denoted ‘a potent liquor based on fermented juice of sugar cane’ (p. 87).
8 I would support Jákl’s idea about kiñca as an alcoholic beverage while his reference to the Watukura I (p. 73) seems anachronistic (see above). But there are epigraphic lists of drinks offered during the sīma ceremonies, or establishments of a freehold. Thus, the Saṁguran/Sangguran Charter of 928 CE (B43–44) says maṅinum siddhu‚ ciñca, kilaṁ|(tu)ak ‘drank a fruit wine siddhu, a fruit wine ciñca, sugar cane wine and palm wine’ [Sarkar, 1972, p. 234; Zavadskaya, 2004, p. 233; Zakharov, 2023, p. 13].5 The Lintakan Charter of 919 CE (3r12) says Ininum tuAk·siddhu, ciñca ‘drank palm wine, a fruit wine siddhu, a fruit wine ciñca’ [Sarkar, 1972, p. 168].6 The Paṅgumulan/Panggumulan Charter of 902 CE (3r20) says maṅkanaṁ madya Ininuṁ hana tvak·siddhu‚ hana jātirasa ‘drank wine (madya), drank a lot of palm wine and a fruit wine siddhu, a lot of fruit juice’ [Sarkar, 1972, p. 29, 37; Zavadskaya, 2004, p. 216].7 Double usage of the word hana ‘many, a lot’ may reflect a contradistinction of alcoholic drinks, on the one hand, and non-alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, in the Panggumulan Charter. As for the Watukura I Charter which actually dates from the Majapahit times, its text says pāṇa siddhu mastava kiñca kilaṁ tvak·paripūrṇna Ikā kabeḥ ‘drank a fruit wine siddhu, a potent sugar cane wine mastava, a fruit wine kiñca, sugar cane wine kilaṁ, and palm wine, all in abundance’ [Naerssen, 1977, p. 61, with another translation ‘rum, distilled beverages, syrup, mead, wine (fermented drinks)’].8
5. The Sangguran Charter. Draft, 2023-09-22. Eds. Arlo Griffiths & Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 23.09.2023)

6. Lintakan (841 Śaka, 919-07-12). Draft, 2020-09-22. Eds. Tyassanti Kusumo Dewanti, Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan and Arlo Griffiths. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 23.09.2023).

7. Panggumulan. Draft, 2023-09-22. Eds. Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan and Arlo Griffiths. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 23.09.2023).

8. Watu Kura I (824 Śaka): Draft, 2023-09-22. Eds. Arlo Griffiths, Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan and Marine Schoettel. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 23.09.2023).
9 The Chapter 4 ‘Drākṣa: Imported Grape Wine or Chinese Rice Beer?’ offers a hypothesis that the Old Javanese word drākṣa being a Sanskrit loanword which means grape wine in South Asia, had a different meaning in Ancient Java denoting Chinese rice beer (p. 91). Unfortunately, this guess is problematic. First, the term drākṣa appears in the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa dated from the ninth or tenth century CE whereas the earliest evidence of Chinese beer imports in Southeast Asia may date from not earlier than the late eleventh century; moreover, the jars which served as containers for alcohol were found in Trowulan—a capital of Majapahit which flourished many years later that the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa was composed. So-called ‘mercury jars’ also found in Trowulan and other places of Southeast Asia, including Angkor, Kota Cina in Sumatra and Fort Canning in Singapore, date from the late eleventh to fourteenth centuries (p. 95). Second, there is a brǝm cina, or ‘Chinese beer’, in the Old Javanese Wratiśāsana (p. 92), therefore, the Javanese denoted imported rice beer by means of their local term in the fourteenth century.
10 Be that as it may, one would ask what drākṣa means in the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa. Jákl compares it with Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa in their description of jars served for Kumbhakarṇa (p. 91–92) but there is an important term madyaṁ in Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa (6.48.81 ) translated as ‘intoxicating drink’ by Goldman et al. [Goldman et al., 2009, p. 268] (p. 92, n. 18). There is a strong need to check terms in Sanskrit text as the Javanese would have adopted Sanskrit terms for their Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa. It does not mean that they knew grape wine and/or vine itself that time but they could make use of loanwords despite their meanings were not known to them. At the same time, Jákl takes the phrase umuṅgw iṅ gǝḍah drākṣa sīdhu sumār māsawātyanta in the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa 26.24c as a reference to grape wine: ‘drinking from glass vessels: grape wine, potent and fragrant sugar cane wine, and crystal-clear sugar cane liquor!’, in the Chapter 7 (p. 142, translation by Willem Van der Molen).
11 Another issue is Sanskrit terms for grape wine. Jákl does refer to James McHugh’s idea [McHugh, 2014, p. 36] that madhu means grape wine in the Arthaśāstra (p. 89, n. 5). I would cite the Arthaśāstra text: mṛdvīkāraso madhu ‘grape juice [is or is used for] madhu.’ Ganapati Sastri cites a commentary: madhu vidhimāhamṛdvīkārasa iti | drākṣārasaḥ pakvadrākṣāphalarasaḥ, madhu bhavati || ‘That said, madhu is a great grape juice. Grape juice is obtained from the grape berries, and it is madhu’ [Arthaśāstra, 1921, p. 294; Arthaśāstra, 1972, p. 171]. Despite one may think madhu is a simple grape juice, it is not the case because this Arthaśāstra citation is a part of the chapter Surādhyakṣa, or ‘Superintendent of the Alcoholic Drinks’ (II.25).
12 The Chapter 5 ‘Tuber Beer and Intoxicating Mushroom Brews’ aims at connecting Old Javanese brǝm gaḍuṅ with beer made from tubers of a plant Dioscorea hispida, or ‘intoxicating yam’, and at tracing betel, cannabis and mushrooms in alcoholic drinks of Ancient Java. Jákl stresses that the Javanese knew hemp well as there is the term maṅguñje, whose root is guñje ‘Cannabis sativa’ (p. 101). Frankly speaking, the term denotes a class of collectors of royal dues and may be translated as ‘collectors of hemp dues’. But Jákl correctly points out that ‘it cannot be taken as a proof that cannabis was used in ancient Java as an intoxicant’ (p. 102). He also compares an enigmatic scene from Prambanan reliefs depicting three mushrooms and a pangolin below trees and a monkey seeing Rāma shooting from Paraśurāma’s bow,9 with Amanita muscaria, or fly agaric, as well as a certain type of mushrooms jamur syuṅ of Old Javanese inscriptions. syuṅ means a mynah, and Jákl admits that ‘the identity of the jamur syuṅ mushroom is unclear’ (p. 104).
9. Rāma’s Story at Prambanan. Photodharma.net. >>>> (accessed 26.09.2023). >>>> .
13 The Chapter 6 ‘Distilled Beverages’ examines one of the most complicated issues of Javanese history concerning the origins of distillation and its products in Java. Jákl rejects a strong conviction of scholarship that distilled beverages were known to the Javanese at least since the ninth century CE and distillation technology was brought to Java from South Asia (p. 105, 107). He states that these drinks ‘have only become part of the Javanese drinking landscape in the Majapahit period in the 14th century CE’ and became popular in the next two centuries (p. 107). Jákl is inclined to believe that the technology of distillation reached Java from China. The most common word for a distilled beverage in Old and Middle Javanese is arak ‘arrack’ which occurs as arak hano ‘arrack made from the sap of the sugar palm’ (p. 109) or ‘arrack from sugar cane’ in the Deśawarṇana, or Nāgarakṛtāgama 90.3. Jákl refers to the Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai as an evidence that the Malays did knew distilled drinks in the thirteenth century (p. 110). He supposes that the Javanese would become acquainted with distillation from the Mongols in the late thirteenth century or they obtained this knowledge through the Chinese who ‘settled in Sumatra or other parts of the Malay world,’ including Temasek/Tumasik—the island and polity of Singapore in the late thirteenth–fifteenth centuries (p. 110–111). In Malay texts, however, there was a shift of meaning for the term arak which became ‘a common name for any type of alcohol’ (p. 112, italics by Jákl).
14 Jákl discusses other terms for distilled beverages—tampo, pǝṭar, paṅasih, awis, srǝbat and brahma. These words appeared in Old and Middle Javanese texts after 1300 CE. Jákl points out that there is a confusion between tampo as a kind of distilled drink and tampoi as ‘a fruit wine’ (p. 116). He considers tampo a loanword from Chinese where it denoted a stage of distillation process called tánpo, if Thomas Raffles’ description of Chinese distilleries in Batavia in his History of Java is correct (p. 117). The term paṅasih is an enigma. Jákl refers to the Middle Javanese text Kiduṅ Harṣa Wijaya which mentions brǝm tampo kilaṅ arak paṅasih (5.34ab), or ‘rice beer, tampo, sugar cane wine, arrack [and] paṅasih’, according to Berg (p. 118). Jákl supposes that arak paṅasih “mean[s] something along the line ‘the arrack of the arak paṅasih type’” (p. 118). The term pǝṭar denotes a drink distilled from the fermented sap of the Palmyra palm because the Arjunawijaya mentions pǝṭar tal (p. 118), and tal is ‘a kind of palm-tree’ Borassus flabelifer, or, as Zoetmulder spells its name, Borassus flabelliformis [Zoetmulder, 1982, p. 1906]. According to Jákl, awis ‘denoted mainly a red-coloured liquor’ but its original meaning remains unknown (p. 119). The Middle Javanese word srǝbat goes back to Persian sharbat and may have denoted ‘some type of fruit wine’ or ‘a more potent distilled liquor made from fruit wine or mashed fruits’ (p. 120). As for Middle Javanese brahma, it seemingly was a distilled beverage used in the ritual but it is still a question whether it was a new kind of drink or a local name for arrack (p. 120).
15 The Chapter 7 ‘Cups That Cheered: Drinking Paraphernalia’ provides a careful reconstruction of multiple types of vessels which were used by the Javanese to serve and drink alcohol. These types were made from palm leaves, coconut shells, wood, bamboo, clay, glass and metals, including bronze, silver, and gold. Jákl stresses that the Old Javanese words for vessels made from plant leaves were limas and takih (p. 124). A gold water bucket from the Wonoboyo hoard ‘realistically imitates a simple plaited-leaf bucket’ (p. 124). Bamboo containers called wuluh and sujan were used ‘to store, present, and dispense palm wine’ (p. 127). Palm wine was also served in earthenware vessels (p. 130). The Javanese imported stoneware and porcelain, for example, the Changsha bowls and kendis, or spouted jars, from China or later, in the fifteenth century, from Thailand and Vietnam (p. 131). Chinese porcelain, probably, served as a sign of royal favour, at least, during the Majapahit times of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Jákl supposes that ‘porcelain bowls were used for drinking rice beer: they are too large to serve distilled beverages, and probably too luxurious to hold palm wine’ (p. 134). The Javanese also knew bottles which they called kupi, perhaps, a Sanskrit load kūpa ‘flask, bottle’ (p. 135). The Cirebon wreck dated from about 970 CE sailed to Java and loaded glass vessels. There were two Old Javanese words for glass objects—kaca and gǝḍah (p. 140). Jákl follows Daniel Perret’s observation that glass vessels thrived in Southeast Asia between the ninth and thirteenth centuries but they were replaced by Chinese porcelain in the fourteenth century (p. 141). Metallic small bowls for liquors were termed saragi in Old Javanese (p. 146).
16 The Chapter 8 ‘Drinking Comportment’ focuses on the styles of drinking among the Javanese. According to Jákl, ‘drinks were either poured from large containers for drinkers who used cups or bowls; alternatively, people were drinking from one common vessel, such as a spouted jar or bamboo tube, which was circulated among the participants’ (p. 147). There are ladles to dispense liquids, including alcoholic drinks. During festivities or common meals, drinks were served by waiters or by a lower ranking persons, for example, young soldiers who served drinks for mature warriors. But there are examples of self-served drinking in the Bhomāntaka (p. 154). Seating order was a point at issue among the Javanese as evidenced by the Kṛṣṇāyana, a kakawin composed by Mpu Triguṇa in the thirteenth century (p. 156–158). Jákl emphasizes that ‘palm wine was typically imbibed in sips, unlike strong liquors which were drunk in shots’ (p. 159).
17 Part 2 ‘Alcohol, Hospitality and Identity in Java before 1500 CE’ consists of an introduction and ten chapters. In Introduction, Jákl states that palm wine “was the only alcoholic drink consumed in a ‘secular’ context, outside of festive and ritual events” whereas drinking alcohol was closely associated with cockfights and gambling (p. 167).
18 Chapter 9 ‘Drinking Ascetics and the Status of Alcohol before 1500 CE’ again stresses that palm wine twak/tok and sugar cane wine kilaṅ were common drinks among the Javanese ascetics, be they itinerant mendicants or forest hermits, Hindus or (Tantric) Buddhists. These alcoholic drinks were not forbidden or ritually unsuitable for ascetics.
19 Chapter 10 ‘Palm Wine for Sale: Ambulant Vendors and Market Stalls’ hypothesizes that the term paməli sayub denotes vendors of palm wine in the Old Javanese epigraphy (p. 180). Ambulant vendors ‘circulated villages and frequented religious and festive events’ selling palm wine on these occasions. Sellers were both male and female as the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa clearly shows: ‘And the young females came over, selling and serving them drinks: Sugar cane wine, as well as rice beer, sugar cane liquor, grape wine, and fruit wines’ (maṅsödwaldwal saṅ rarānori pāna | sīdhu mwaṅ brǝm māstawa drākṣa kiñca, 8.64) (p. 183). Jákl points out that there is a reference to port-based prostitution in the twelfth century Bhomāntaka describing a rest of warriors among women who sold palm wine as well as their love (p. 184, 187). There were booths (racana) and stalls (tǝpas) for selling alcohol in early Java, the former being a ‘substantial, solid, and permanent structure’, while the latter ‘smaller semi-permanent’ (p. 185). While there are evidence of rest-houses keeping and offering alcoholic drinks for the poor, pilgrims, and guests, there is no evidence of commercially operated taverns in pre-Islamic Java.
20 Chapter 11 ‘Alcohol, Intoxication, and the Court Society’ gives a detailed survey of excessive court drinking as an encouraged practice favouring its organizer and showing reciprocal rituals of affirming power, as evidences by the royal feasts described in Mpu Prapañca’s Deśawarṇana 89.4–90.6, Mpu Tantular’s Arjunawijaya 31.30 and Sutasoma 91.14–15. Jákl stresses that Old Javanese Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa ‘is – unlike other kakawins – mostly negative towards intoxicants’ showing decadent demons and simian warriors like bibulous drinkers (p. 202–203). Jákl coins a term ‘drinking bouts’ as a description of festivities and parties where drinking alcohol was the main purpose (p. 204). There are three Old Javanese terms which mean ‘drinking party’: pāna, drawina, and sayuban. The first word is a Sanskrit loan which occurs in the ninth century Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa 8.65 and tenth century Wirāṭaparwa 96.19 (p. 205). Jákl again makes a reference to the Watukura inscription as dated from 902 CE (p. 205) but, as I have noticed earlier, it is not a good choice. The second word drawina is another Sanskrit loan which Jákl treats as ‘intoxicated at the drinking bout’ and connects it with a ‘literary image of copious serving of alcohol likened to the flow of a river’ (p. 206). The word sayuban is ‘obviously most ancient term denoting the drinking bout in Old Javanese’ (p. 207). Once again, Jákl’s epigraphical references to the Kañcana inscription which mentions sayuban (p. 207, 209, 259, 263) are anachronistic because this record dates from 1367 CE being a Majapahit-time copy of the inscription of 860 CE (Jákl dates it to 820 CE two times, on pp. 259, n. 4, and 263); its language is much later than that of the authentic Mataram inscriptions (Sarkar 1971: 133). But Jákl correctly connects sayuban with palm wine consuming and emphasizes its ‘strong connotations with the intoxicating quality of fermented drinks’ (p. 207, italics by Jákl). There were ‘pleasure trips’ which included pānotsava, or ‘drinking feast’ (p. 208). Their descriptions are influenced by Sanskrit narratives of Vasantotsava, or ‘Spring Festival’ (p. 209). Court women drank wine during these pleasure trips as evidenced by the Ghaṭotkacāśraya (p. 210). Jákl connects these trips with a worship of Kāma, the God of Love, in his various forms (p. 211–212).
21 Chapter 12 ‘Alcohol in Marriage Festivities and Conjugal Rituals’ actually covers two topics. The first one is alcohol consumption during wedding ceremonies, including sexual intercourse as consummation of marriage. Drinking was often treated as a worship of the god of love Kāma while one cannot reject a more secular character of alcohol consumption in the Javanese context. While wedding implied drinking in Ancient Java, there was no persecution or condemnation of those who abstained from alcohol even during wedding ceremonies. The second topic is female dancers who also were prostitutes. Jákl interprets an enigmatic figure of strī niṅ śaiwa from Sumanasāntaka as ‘a mistress of a Śaiva’, following Andrea Acri’s hypothesis but rejecting Acri’s idea about a Tantric character of the mistress’ behavior who simply drank too much (p. 221). An interesting fact is that sugar cane wine (kilaṅ) and rice beer (brǝm) were drunk during wedding ceremonies and lovers’ communication, according to Sumanasāntaka 129.2ab, instead of a more common palm wine (p. 218). Jákl supposes that another mysterious figure from Deśawarṇana 91.1–2 ‘Mistress of the Wind’ (juru iṅ aṅin), was a female dancer who invited highest nobles of Majapahit to join her in dancing by the order of the buyut, or ‘Master of ceremonies’; the Mistress was neither a servant who served drinks in front of the king, nor a character representing a woman or having a Tantric origin (p. 229–230).
22 Chapter 13 ‘Alcohol and Its Importance in Javanese Warfare’ brings together Old Javanese evidence of alcohol consumption and its material and symbolic meanings in feasts dealing with battles and wars. Old Javanese soldiers were to drink palm wine during pre-battle communal feasts and rituals, and during after-battle and peace-making banquets. Jákl shows that the word tambul ‘refers to dishes and refreshments taking to accompany palm wine and other alcoholic drinks’ (p. 239). He also supposes that the term gilen refers to human flesh and is a taboo word (p. 241). Jákl traces cannibal warfare practice as well as headhunting in Ancient Java (p. 241–242). He states that ‘the communal meal implies the slaughter of numerous animals to procure meat’ and ‘a correspondence is drawn between the dishes consisting of chopped and sliced food ingredients and the well-known literary motif of killed (enemy) warriors’ (p. 244). Jákl equates ‘wine-attendants’ (wwaṅ alarih) and waragaṅ ‘young warriors’ who were to serve the senior soldiers as wine-attendants during the feasts (p. 245). These young warriors ‘were particularly closely associated with the practice of head-taking, as trophy heads of slain enemies’ (p. 246). It is worthy of note that there were unions of young men in Ancient Java called wĕrĕḥ kidul ‘young men of North’ and wĕrĕḥ lor ‘young men of South’ mentioned in the Kamalagi inscription of 821 CE [Kullanda, 1992, p. 65]. Sergei Kullanda mentions ‘young men’ wĕrĕḥ and their leader tuha wĕrĕḥ in the Lintakan inscription of 919 CE and in the Jurungan inscription of 876 CE; he also refers to ‘young warriors’ wadwa rarai with their commander tuhān ning wadwa rarai in the Panggumulan I inscription of 902 CE [Kullanda, 1992, p. 63].10 Jákl emphasizes the diminishing of alcoholic consumption in Java in military context because of Islamization while the Javanese elite continued to drink liquors still in the eighteenth centuries (p. 251).
10. Another term for the ‘overseer of junior troops’ juru vadvā rarai named Sang/Saṁ Tumapǝl occurs in the Sindoro–Pu Bahut inscription of 906 CE (1r9) whereas this official is called saṅ Rumakət of the village of Lalar, district of Tilimpik (saṁ rumakət·vanu|A I lalar vatək·tilimpik) in the Sindoro–Pu Mamruk inscription of 906 CE. See: Sindoro–Pu Bahut. Ed. Arlo Griffiths. ERC-Dharma. Draft, 2023-10-25. >>>> ; Sindoro–Pu Mamruk. Ed. Arlo Griffiths. ERC-Dharma. Draft, 2023-10-25. >>>> (accessed 22.11.2023).
23 Chapter 14 ‘Ancestor Worship, Alcohol, and sīma Ceremonies’ traces alcohol consumption during the feasts accompanying the foundation of an immunity—sīma—in ancient Java, as these communal and highly ritualized meals are shown in the Old Javanese epigraphy. The Chapter also focuses on feasts as parts of ancestor worship, or śrāddha ceremonies, in the Deśawarṇana 65–67 describing a worship of the deceased queen Rājapatnī in 1362 CE. Jákl outlines ethnographic data about ancestor worship and shows regular consumption of alcoholic beverages as a part of funeral and commemoration feasts.
24 There are several anachronistic references in the Chapter. The Kuṭi inscription which is dated to 840 CE by Jákl (p. 260) is an obvious later copy dated from the Majapahit times. Jákl again refers to the Kañcana plates (p. 259, 263) and to the Watukura A inscription as the Mataram time texts (p. 265) but it is not the case (see above).
25 Chapter 15 ‘Alcohol in Javanese Bhairavism and Its Use among the Buddhists’ includes two sections ‘Javanese Tantric Systems and Alcohol’ and ‘Alcohol and Its Use and Significance among the Buddhists and Siddha Alchemists’. The first section reveals ritualistic and daily alcoholic consumption among Javanese Tantric practitioners, including the Kāpālikas and the followers of Bhairawa. Jákl supports Andrea Acri’s statement that Tantric cults can be traced in Java since the ninth century CE (p. 279) [Acri, 2014, p. 48]. The king Kṛtanagara of Singhasari who ruled in 1268–1292 CE was a follower of Bhairawism in Java but he was not ‘a common drunk’, contrary to scholarly opinion: Jákl shows that he just died in ‘ceremonial/ritual drinking-hall’ (riṅ panaḍahan sajǝṅ) as the Javanese chronicle Pararaton says in its Canto 104 (p. 284). The Tantric ritual gaṇacakra implies huge alcohol drinking. The second section of the Chapter points out that contrary to common Buddhist ban of drinking11 the Javanese Buddhist were tolerating alcohol which was a ritual means used, for example, in the śrāddha ceremony conducted for a Buddhist deceased queen Rājapatnī by Hayam Wuruk. Alcoholic drinks served as a reception drink and a sign of hospitality. Siddha yogins and alchemists who lived in Java in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, made use of alcohol in their practice. Jákl supposes that the heroes of the Bhomāntaka—Sāmba and Yajñawatī—make a sanctified copulation as a yogin and a non-human woman whereas alcohol symbolizes a nectarous essence while alcoholic intoxication equals with inebriation from copulation (p. 294).
11. Unfortunately, Jákl gives only four of the five precepts to Buddhists in his list: ‘not to kill, not to steal, not to partake on illicit sex, and not to drink intoxicating beverages’ (p. 189), missing the fifth—not to lie.
26 Chapter 16 ‘Inebriated Men and Intoxicated rākṣasas: Drunkenness’ focuses on Old Javanese terminology for various kinds of inebriation. The most common term for ‘intoxication’ was wərö (p. 298). The phrase wǝrö dawā stands for ‘long intoxication’ (p. 301) as well as mada malwā madaləm refers to ‘intoxication, broad and deep’ in the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa (p. 302). The Javanese of the pre-modern times were tolerating alcohol seeing no difference between alcoholic inebriation, sea-sickness or ‘inordinate chewing of betel quid’ (p. 297). Jákl stresses that ‘alcohol intoxication is viewed as one of the marking characteristics of demonic beings’ (p. 306). These demonic beings are depicted as sometimes ‘vigorously intoxicated’ by blood drinking (wija-wijah mawǝrö) and human flesh devouring (p. 308). Jákl translates the phrase bǝtah maṅinum relating to the rākṣasas in the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa 8.34 as ‘habitual drinkers’ (p. 308–309) but he rejects this connotation in the next chapter: “In my view, neither bətah aṅinum nor jənək aṅinum had in pre-Islamic Java quite the same connotations of pathological drinking as pānasakta had in medieval India’ (p. 318). There are the two Old Javanese verbs which mean ‘to drink’—inum/aṅinum and (m)aṅlaṅgā/aṅlaṅga (p. 309). The latter occurs in epigraphic curses to persons who violates the bestowals of the immunity. The Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa 8.67 mentions demons who ‘slurp palm wine’ (maṅlaṅga twak, p. 312).
27 Chapter 17 ‘Habitual Drinkers: Alcoholism in Pre-Islamic Java?’ offers a hypothesis that ‘the concept of alcoholism was known in Java around 1200 CE, if not earlier’ (p. 318). The Sumanasāntaka 100.1 mentions a certain madyasakta ‘an alcoholic’ (p. 318) which means ‘addicted to strong drinks’ (p. 319) [Zoetmulder, 1982, p. 1077]. The phrase sakta riṅ madya in the Old Javanese Sārasamuccaya 331.3 means actually the same: ‘addicted to liquor’ (p. 319). Jákl supposes the simile of alcoholic drinks with sweetness in Old Javanese poems means that potent drinks had to be produced much sweeter than usual palm wine was (p. 319). But a metaphoric interpretation of sweetness of potent drinks is also possible. The excesses of alcohol drinking, such as vomiting, during religious and/or ceremonial feasts in Early Java described in the kakawins may also be a result of consumption of sweet alcoholic beverages because of pharmacological effects of alcohol and sugar on the gastrointestinal tract and liver. Jákl explains significant levels of alcoholism in Java in the fifteenth century CE by the import of Chinese rice beer, availability of local matured sugar cane wine and of distilled drinks (p. 320). While there were habitual drinkers at the Majapahit royal court in the fourteenth century CE, the Javanese did not medicalized alcohol intoxication and did not ‘treat alcoholism as an illness or form of disorder’ (pp. 320–321). The documented prohibition of alcoholic drinking can be found after 1500 CE because of increasing Islamization (p. 321).
28 Chapter 18 ‘Islamization and Alcohol after 1500 CE’ makes a glimpse at complex changes in consumption, trade and production of alcohol during the Early Modern times in Java and, broader, in Southeast Asia in general. While there was no ban of alcohol in the sixteenth century Javanese law codes, small Muslim minorities of cities on the northern coast of Java abstained from alcohol. The eighteenth century was a turning point in the history of alcohol in Java as there was a time of growing Islamization of rural areas. At the same time, the Javanese courts continued drinking following long-term local festive traditions and keeping relations with the Dutch who settled in Java since the early seventeenth century and made use of alcohol. Despite the Javanese in general were abstinent from alcohol in the early nineteenth century, there were those who liked the Dutch wine, like Prince Diponegoro and other royal and noble persons did. There are new intoxicants, like tobacco, tea and opium which became popular in Java in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries respectively (p. 331).
29 Conclusion offers an overview of the monograph. Colour and black-and-white Figures include a Borobudur relief depicting Palmyra palm (p. 345, fig. 1), photos of kinds of palms growing in Java (p. 346–347, figs. 2–4), a palm-tapping (p. 348, fig. 5), a Prambanan relief depicting drinking vessels and Brahmanic feast from the Candi Brahmā (p. 348, p. 6), a Batak tube for palm wine from Sumatra (p. 349, fig. 7), wooden stoppers for tubes (p. 350, fig. 8a–c), a phallus and vulva in a form of the stem-cup (p. 350, fig. 9), photos of ambulant vendors of liquors in Bali and Java in the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries (p. 351–352, figs. 10–11). Jákl’s book has Bibliography, Index of Ancient Sources and General Index. Cecilia Leong-Salobir (2022: 518) in her review makes criticisms about the quality of the General Index and she supposes that the book needs a glossary.
30 I would add there are some problems with Old Javanese inscriptional evidence as Jákl treats several later copies made in the Majapahit times as authentic Early Mataram epoch texts. I think their references to alcoholic beverages do reflect Majapahit consumption as well or even better than that of the Mataram age.
31 Be that as it may, Jákl’s fundamental monograph is a testimony of a well-drinking culture of Pre-Islamic Java. Perhaps, archaeological findings will give other glimpses to alcohol history of Java. New online catalogues of Old Javanese inscriptions12 open new possibilities to enlarge scholarly knowledge of Old Javanese terminology for various types of alcohol drinks and the contexts of their usage.
12. Nusantara Inscriptions. ERC-Dharma. >>>> (accessed 19.11.2023); Inventaris Daring Epigrafi Nusantara Kuno / Online Inventory of Ancient Nusantara Epigraphy (IDENK). >>>> (accessed 19.11.2023).

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