Wayang is a kind of puppet theater with a long history in Java. The following excerpt is from a book written in Indonesian by Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Jesuit philosopher from Germany who in 1977 became an Indonesian citizen. I was surprised to find the book in a public library on the island of Kyushu, southern Japan. My translation:
When Arjuna arrived at the battlefield to enter the war of Baratayuda, he lost morale. His heart was overwhelmed with sadness. He did not feel strong enough to attack his brothers, nor his teachers, who had taught him from childhood to maturity. However, Krishna reminded him that a warrior cannot retreat from the battlefield, that he must fight with a face of wrath, that his adversaries are not to be seen as friends or brothers. Thus Arjuna understood and then recovered his will to fight.
This tense scene at the beginning of the war of Baratayuda makes a deep impression on each viewer: what if Arjuna refuses to fight? What if the war of Baratayuda—with it’s horror of countless deaths, and in which all of the Kaurava are killed—could at the last moment be prevented? Of what wrong could Arjuna be accused if he decided that control of a country was not worth such an enormous number of victims? What is conspicuous in this scene is that those questions are not given a theoretical answer. We only hear that Arjuna—without engaging in discussion—rises again and continues to fight. The problem has not been answered. So we will never know if it would it be better if that great war did not happen. But is not that the nature of real life: we are faced with a situation in which we must make a decision, we feel uncertain, we do not know what is right or what is wrong, and finally we are forced to decide, perhaps on the advice of a friend, so we make a choice, and then we will never know what would happen if we had taken an alternative.
And for precisely that reason wayang is so close to our real life. In wayang we are not presented general theories, but rather models of life and human action. Those models clearly present the problems of our existence, but never give us total certainty, and thus will never altogether take away our uncertainties. What is shown in wayang can impact us, without forcing us in a certain direction. We are offered possibilities of human life, but there is nothing for us to simply imitate. Wayang performances allow us to consider the infinite consequences of our decisions, but still allow us the freedom to take responsibility, so we must always take a position and make decisions by ourselves. If, for example, today I was put in the situation of Arjuna, would I have to follow the advice of Krishna? And would Krishna give the same advice? Wayang does not answer those questions, but draws our attention to the results and consequences of our decisions, whatever they might be.