Pangolin, Rāma, and the garden in Laṅkā in the 9th century CE : A few notes on a symbolically powerful “anteater”

Abstract

In ancient Java, pangolin was a symbolically loaded animal. Its representations in Old Javanese literature and visual art are, however, rare. The pangolin is mentioned four times in the Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa, composed between the middle of the 9th and the first quarter of the 10th century CE. A pangolin is also represented in a narrative relief of Caṇḍi Śiva, in Prambanan, and a very large skeleton of pangolin was found interred under the Caṇḍi Nandi standing in front of the Śiva temple. This article tries to make sense of this sparse evidence, interpreting the pangolin of the Javanese court imaginaire as a military, apotropaic animal and a demon slayer. The natural characteristics of the pangolin, such as its scaly skin, and especially its diet, based almost exclusively on ants and termites – insects standing for adharma and demonic qualities in pre-Islamic Java – made pangolin a powerful “consumer” of demonic śakti – and hence an apotropaic animal.