Recovering Chinese Religious Printed Materials in Central Java

This project will digitize Chinese religious materials printed in Malay and Indonesian, dating from the early 1900s to 1998. Since the Dutch colonial period, Chinese communities have used magazines and periodicals to promote their religions, including Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism or the syncretic form of the three religions, which is commonly called Tridharma (Three Teachings). The publications continued in early post-colonial Indonesia (1945-1965). During the New Order regime (1966-1998), Soeharto suppressed Chinese cultural and religious expressions in the public sphere to accelerate Indonesian nationalism. During this period, Chinese religious communities continued to maintain and circulate periodicals amongst themselves. When the oppression grew stronger, many temples concealed or abandoned their collections, which damaged existing periodicals.