Sanskrit Legacy, The National Armed Forces, and Modern Political Culture of Indonesia

Abstract

Despite seventy years of studying, the functioning of Sanskrit and Old Javanese loanwords in modern Indonesian remain understudied. There are a lot of Sanskrit loans in various spheres of modern Indonesian. Many Indonesian military units have Sanskrit names. There are famous Sanskrit loans for Indonesian official ideology Pancasila and for the Indonesian national emblem Garuda Pancasila. Many Indonesian orders, decorations and medals also have Sanskrit names, for example, the military orders Bintang Sakti, or the Sacred Star, and Bintang Dharma, or the Army Distinguished Service Star, instituted in 1958. The word for medal in Indonesian is satyalancana which is a Sanskrit loan compound. Military regional commands may have names of ancient polities or kings which are of Sanskrit origin. Perhaps, the most noteworthy examples are Military Regional Command II Sriwijaya in South Sumatra and Military Regional Command VI Mulawarman in Kalimantan/Borneo. Sriwijaya was a powerful Old Malay kingdom in the seventh–thirteenth centuries; its name means ‘Great or Glorious Victory’ in Sanskrit. Mulawarman was a ruler of an East Kalimantan kingdom in the area of modern Kutai in the fifth century. The paper examines the usage of Sanskrit loans in the National Armed Forces of Indonesia and in the Indonesian award system. Multiple examples of Sanskrit loans in these fields may reflect an emphasis of ancient common cultural heritage in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. At the same time, there is a flexible naming practice which is not restricted by Sanskrit loans. These words are used frequently but not exclusively.