The Bridge of Ages

 

They say that some things don’t die easy. That’s true of people sometimes, like old Norris Ridgewick’s granddaddy who hung on through three strokes and two bouts of pneumonia before the Reaper finally came collecting. It’s true of certain memories—the ones that surface in those gray-water moments between sleeping and waking. And sometimes, God help us, it’s true of whole cultures.

The ancient Sundanese ways, that golden-age stuff from the Sunda-Galuh Kingdom, got just about wiped clean when Islam rolled through between the 1500s and 1600s. Not that Islam was some monster—it wasn’t—but when something new moves in, something old usually gets pushed out. Like when Walmart comes to a small town and all those mom-and-pop shops along Main Street start putting up “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS” signs within six months. That’s how it was with the old Sundanese traditions. The Javanese-Islamic influence swept through like a nor’easter, changing everything from how people talked to what they wore to the songs they sang while doing the dishes.

(And ain’t that always the way? The big stuff bulldozes the small, and life goes on like nothing ever happened.)

The old ways hung on, though—hung on by the fingernails, you might say—in folktales and stories about Pajajaran Kingdom and some fella named Prabu Siliwangi. Just whispers of what used to be. Ghost stories, almost.

Now there was this writer, Ajip Rosidi—smart guy, no bullshitter—who thought the Sundanese people had gotten caught up in some mystical mumbo-jumbo about their past. In a speech he gave back in 2011, he flat-out said they were living in a dream world, romanticizing history that didn’t exist the way they imagined it. The Sundanese, he figured, were like those folks in Mill Creek who convinced themselves the old water tower had always been there, even when county records clearly showed it wasn’t built until 1890.

But sometimes, in the cracks between what people believe and what actually happened, you find something real. Something that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Enter Kai Raga.

(Christ, even his name has a chill to it, doesn’t it? Like something you’d whisper three times in front of a bathroom mirror at midnight.)

He wasn’t supposed to exist, not really. By the 1700s, when scholars think he was alive, nobody was supposed to be writing in ancient Sundanese script anymore. That’d be like some fella in Boone today suddenly starting to write everything in Old English—not just as a hobby, but because that’s how he honestly communicates best. It doesn’t happen. Except with Kai Raga, it did.

“Kai Raga” wasn’t his real name. It was what you might call a pen name, meaning “my body.” Fitting for a man who spent his days and nights hunched over manuscripts about spirits and the deeper nature of things. The kind of fellow who probably didn’t get invited to many barn dances, if you catch my drift.

A philologist named C.M. Pleyte first dug him up, so to speak, back in 1914. Found mentions of him in the fine print at the end of old manuscripts, like Stephen King scribbling “Bangor, Maine” at the end of his books. For a while, folks thought Kai Raga was supplying ancient texts to some art collector named Raden Saleh around 1856, but the dates didn’t add up. Probably was one of Kai Raga’s kids or grandkids doing the delivery work by then.

Kai Raga made his home in a place called Gunung Larang Sri Manganti—around Mount Cikuray in what’s now Garut Regency. You know the type of place: where the road narrows from two lanes to one, where the power lines eventually stop altogether, where the trees grow a little too close to the path and seem to watch you as you pass. The locals still call it Kabuyutan Ciburuy—a sacred place. They’ve got megalithic stones there, ancient metal tools, and manuscripts that’d make a Harvard librarian’s hands shake with excitement.

Funny thing about remote places like that—they’re like time capsules. The outside world changes, presidents come and go, wars are fought, iPhones get invented, but in those tucked-away corners, time moves different. Slower. So it’s no wonder Kai Raga grew up knowing things most folks had forgotten for centuries.

He left behind quite a collection: Carita Purnawijaya, Carita Ratu Pakuan, Kawih Paningkes, Kawih Pangeuyeukan, and Darmajati. Each one a window into a world that should’ve been dead and buried long before Kai Raga ever picked up a pen. The manuscripts themselves might not look like much to the average Joe—just faded ink on yellowed pages—but to people who study this stuff, they’re like finding Jimmy Hoffa’s body and his personal diary all in one go.

Take Carita Purnawijaya. It’s proof that Javanese and Sundanese writers were swapping stories back in the Majapahit days, like kids trading baseball cards. And Kawih Pangeuyeukan gives us the only detailed look at how ancient Sundanese women did their weaving, mixing poetry into the process like my mother used to hum hymns while making strawberry jam.

Now, about what the man believed—that’s where things get really interesting. Later in life, he wrote something called Wirid Nur Muhammad in Cirebon Javanese but using the ancient Sundanese script. Like writing a modern novel in Shakespearean English—possible, but why the hell would you? Unless, of course, you were straddling two worlds.

The manuscript talks about how everything got created, starting with something called the idhafi spirit that gave birth to everything else—elements, angels, humans, prophets, the whole shebang. Scholars think he pulled some of this from the Quran, specifically Surah Al-Baqara and Ta-Ha, though something got lost (or added) in translation.

So was Kai Raga Muslim? Maybe he converted later in life after growing up with the old ways. Or maybe he was Muslim from the get-go but got tasked with preserving those ancient texts, like how some folks get handed down their granddaddy’s pocket watch even if they’ve gone digital.

But here’s the kicker—even in his Islamic writings, he kept one foot firmly planted in the old world. There’s this spell in there, Jampe Sepi Geni, that goes:

“O Allah, my Lord, the sword of fire, let the fire shine, O Brahma, Allah is the Greatest, become weak and helpless, soft and gentle.”

Allah and Brahma in the same breath. Like a man trying to keep both his ex-wife and his new girlfriend happy at Christmas dinner.

(And don’t we all know someone like that? Hedging their bets, straddling worlds, building bridges between what was and what is now?)

There’s something about Kai Raga that reminds me of old man Dussander from Apt Pupil—a man out of time, carrying knowledge that shouldn’t still exist, writing in a language others had forgotten. The difference is that where Dussander’s knowledge was evil, Kai Raga’s was something else entirely—a lifeline to a drowned world, a suspension bridge made of bamboo stretched over an abyss of forgotten history.

They call him “Sang Rawayan”—the bamboo bridge. And that’s exactly what he was.

Sometimes I wonder if he knew what he was doing, if he understood the weight of it. If he ever sat under the moon on some Garut night, pen in hand, and thought about how he was the last thread connecting his people to who they used to be.

And sometimes, in my less rational moments, I wonder if he’s still out there—not the man himself, but something of him. Some echo. Some whisper in ancient Sundanese that occasionally reaches the ears of a child playing in the shadow of Mount Cikuray, telling stories that shouldn’t still be remembered.

Because some things don’t die easy. Some things hang on. And a good bridge, even one made of bamboo, can last a hell of a lot longer than you’d think.