Suluk Wragul 'The Otter'

I am preparing a lecture summarizing the teaching work I did in Indonesia in the 1980s, in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. One aspect was, in the Yogyakarta period, the project of research about suluk religious poetry in Javanese. There is a small booklet of ten poems, published by the staff of the project. The first is Suluk Wragul, with a number of animals. The leading figure is despised by the others, like in Suluk Abesi the 'nigger' also here the hero, although initially despised by the others, finally gives the basic truth to the others. The black monkey hates the otter because he is only involved in seeking food. The religious leader or penghulu and the wayang players are seen as ideal, and praised.

 But the otter also criticises the religious functionaries (who are often criticised in suluk poetry): this man only seeks money by selling his knowledge of mantras, religious formulas. And also the hermits have hidden motivations of richness and power. In stanza 20 the monkeys are threatened that the 'Lord of the river' may come to punish them and they disappear. A cuckoo  comes and some kind of heron, finally also a crow (stanza 26). But the poem does not change to a syair burung, a debate of birds, like the ones written in Malay by Raja Ali Haji in the period 1850-1870 in Penyengat.In stanza 27 a dalang enters the poem as someone who could be able to explain the object of religious veneration. Arjuna is mentioned in stanza 30 as someone who may be able to explain the threefold question: who is venerated, how can we see who is venerated, and finally how can we enter the presence of who is venerated? It is suggested that the dalang, who is sitting behind the screen may explain us about the truth of the relation between the servant and the divinity.
Many aspects of Islam are mentioned here in passing: from amulets to formal prayer, often in a critical way: in stanza 24 even the kalimat tauhid or the confession of faith is said to been made divine in such a way that it prevents the believer from reaching truly to God! - But I am also aware that my source is the free Indonesian rendering by Emha Ainun Nadjib, so there should be more comparison with the suluk literature in general. And here the problem remains that so little research had been done to this genre, although there is a great amount of poems in the greater collections.