The Thing About Bhima

 

Look, I’m going to tell you something about Java that’ll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and it’s got nothing to do with earthquakes or volcanoes or any of that National Geographic stuff. It’s about something older. Something that came crawling across the ocean from India back when Christ was still a rumor in Rome, bringing gods and demons and ideas that would twist and change in the tropical heat like metal in a forge.

The dharma religions—Buddhism, Hinduism, all that—they didn’t just arrive in Java. They seeped in, constant reader, like water through limestone, drip by drip, century by century, carrying with them every sect and splinter group and half-mad holy man’s fever dream you could imagine.

Now, according to this woman Jessy Oey-Bloem—and she knew her stuff, wrote about it back in ‘85—the earliest proof we’ve got are these Buddha statues. Dipangkara Buddha, to be specific. They found them in southern Jember, way out in East Java, and in Sempaga over in West Sulawesi, and down in Palembang. Second century, they figure. Maybe earlier.

Here’s the thing that gets me: those statues looked wrong. Oh, they were Buddha alright, but the ones from Sempaga and Palembang had this Amaravati style—Hellenistic-Indian, all Greek-meets-East kind of thing. The Jember ones, though, they looked Sri Lankan. Different recipes for the same cosmic soup, you might say. And they’d all washed up on these Indonesian shores like messages in bottles, each one whispering a different version of enlightenment.

The Books That Remember

Fast forward a thousand years or so—and yeah, a thousand years is nothing in this story, time moves different when you’re talking about gods—and you start finding texts. Real literature, not just the usual “King So-and-So Built This Temple” inscription nonsense. P.J. Zoetmulder, who spent his whole life digging through Old Javanese manuscripts (probably went a little crazy doing it, if you ask me), he found that by the 11th century, the locals were already messing with Hindu-Buddhist epics, making them their own.

But it was during the Majapahit period—14th, 15th century—when things got really interesting. That’s when the Java part of Hindu-Buddhism started showing its teeth. The texts from that era, they’re not just translations anymore. They’re transformations. Mutations. The old Indian gods and heroes, they’d been living in Java so long they’d started speaking the local dialect, thinking local thoughts, wearing local clothes.

And that’s when our boy Bhima enters the picture.

The Strongman

Now, if you know your Mahabharata—and even if you don’t—Bhima’s the one you remember. The muscle. The enforcer. Second of the five Pandawa brothers, built like a brick shithouse, strong enough to rip a man in half. In the original Indian version, he’s basically the guy you want on your side in a bar fight, but that’s about it.

But in Java? In Majapahit-era Java?

Bhima became something else entirely.

Archaeologists started noticing these statues popping up everywhere, especially on Mount Lawu—Sukuh Temple, Cetho Temple, all through that region. A woman named Rr. Triwurjani wrote her whole thesis about them in ‘87, and what she found would make you think twice about dismissing folk religion as superstition.

These Bhima statues, they’re not your garden-variety deity sculptures. First off, the guy’s hung. I’m talking full-on erect genitals, no fig leaf, no Victorian modesty. Bulging eyes that look like they’re going to pop right out of his skull. Mustache. Muscles that would make a bodybuilder weep. And he’s wearing this checkered cloth—poleng they call it—that’s got more magical significance than I’ve got time to explain.

But here’s where it gets weird. (You were waiting for that, weren’t you?)

The Relief That Tells the Truth

At Sukuh Temple, there’s this relief. Guy named Andi Wicaksono and his team studied it, published their findings in 2025. The relief shows Bhima fighting a giant called Kalajaya—and brother, this isn’t your Marvel Comics fight scene. Bhima’s got this giant hoisted up with one hand, and with the other hand he’s yanking out the poor bastard’s intestines like he’s pulling rope out of a well. The guts are spilling out, coiling on the ground, and Bhima’s face in that carving—it’s not angry. It’s not even particularly excited. It’s workmanlike. He’s doing a job.

Above the scene, there’s a date stamp in the old Javanese chronogram system: 1361 Saka. That’s 1439 in our calendar. While Europe was busy with the Renaissance, Java was carving gods ripping out entrails on temple walls.

But there’s another relief, and this one’s different. Calmer. They call it Bhima Bungkus, and it shows our boy Werkudara (another name for Bhima) facing some radiant deity, both of them riding a two-headed serpent, surrounded by this horseshoe-shaped naga called kala-mrga. It’s got this dreamy quality to it, like the difference between a meth high and a morphine nod.

What It All Means (And Why You Should Care)

Now here’s where we get into the heavy stuff, the stuff that kept those old priests up at night, chanting mantras and staring into temple fires.

A scholar named Hariani Santiko figured it out in 2017. The Bhima worship—the whole cult, really—it comes from this doctrine called Saiwasiddhanta, which started percolating through Java around the 10th century, during King Sindok’s reign. It’s Shaivite teaching, Shiva-worship, but with a Javanese twist.

There’s this manuscript, Tutur Bhuwanakosa, that lays it all out. The goal of this path is to reach a state where you’re “without form, without smell, without sound, untouchable, free from pain, unthinkable, without beginning, middle, or end.” You’re trying to merge with Sang Parameshwara—Lord Shiva himself. Become one with the Big Guy.

And Bhima? Bhima’s the poster child. The success story. The guy who made it all the way to union with Shiva, who dissolved his self into the cosmic everything and came out the other side as something more than human.

So when you worship Bhima, you’re not really worshiping a character from an old story. You’re worshiping the achievement. The transformation. The thing that every seeker on this path is trying to become.

The Exam From Hell

There’s another manuscript, this one called Bhimaswarga, and let me tell you, it reads like the theological equivalent of a doctoral defense. Aditia Gunawan wrote his whole thesis about it in 2019, and what he found was this dialogue—this argument, really—between Bhima and Batara Guru (that’s Shiva in his teacher aspect).

It’s written in Old Sundanese script but Old Javanese language—already you can tell something’s weird about it—and it’s structured like a test. Shiva’s grilling Bhima on everything from the alphabet to the true nature of mantras, from basic cosmology to the secret names of God. And Bhima doesn’t just meekly accept whatever his teacher tells him. They debate. Sometimes they flat-out argue.

It’s not the kind of religious text you’d expect, which is probably why it survived. It’s too human, too real, too much like an actual conversation between two people who know too much and care too deeply about getting it right.

And It’s Still Alive

Here’s the kicker, the thing that’ll keep you up at night if you think about it too hard:

It’s not dead.

The Bhima cult, I mean. It’s still going. Down in Sundanese territory, the Baduy people—they still believe in Bhatara Bhima. Second Pandawa brother, mediator between human prayers and divine ears. He’s still doing his job, still standing between this world and whatever comes next, just like he did in those 2nd-century statues, just like he did in those 15th-century reliefs.

Fifteen hundred years, give or take, and he’s still there. Still waiting. Still listening.

Still watching with those bulging stone eyes.

Now you tell me that’s not the kind of staying power that means something. You tell me there’s not something real lurking behind all those statues and manuscripts and temple carvings, something that found fertile ground in Java and put down roots so deep they’ll never come out.

Go ahead. Tell me.

But maybe do it in daylight, with all the lights on.

Just to be safe.