A Mythological Creature

[A. G. Maisey]

That is very interesting information Gustav.

May I ask your source?

Regrettably, I do not have a published source for the name I have used, I was given this name for the carriage by an abdi dalem of the kraton when I visited in about 1976.

My informant could well have been wrong, but if he was, there are a lot of people in Cirebon who were & are wrong along with him.

Your information could well be correct, but photos of the carriages you mention, and your information sources would do a lot help us form some sort of solid opinion.

When I look at the name "Singhabarwang Penambahan Pakuwati" and I break it into its component parts:- singha bar-wang Penambahan Pakuwati, this sort of seems to be a name that can be understood in a couple of ways, "singha" = "lion", "bar" as a prefix indicates "pouring out" or maybe "ceaselessly pouring out", "wang" = "money", "Panembahan" is a royal title, the root is "sembah" = a gesture of high respect, so somebody with the title "Panembahan" is somebody worthy of high respect, usually understood as a prince, "Pakuwati" in this Cirebon context would i think refer to Dalem Agung Pakuwati (or Pakungwati).

If we look closely at this "Singhabarwang" carriage, what we find is that an alternate name for it in Cirebon is "Kereta Singho Barong" (kereta = carriage) (singho+barong = a male lion).

I cannot help but feel that the name "singhobarwang" is a play on words.

EDIT

Probably something else I should add to this post.

I was told that the wings in this figure were representative of Garuda, but not long ago, certainly within the last ten years, I was talking about things Cirebon with a gentleman I bumped into in Bali, and who was the brother-in-law of somebody I knew very well indeed many years ago, this gentleman in Bali was Muslim and according to him, the wings on this carriage figure were not representative of Garuda at all, but rather the body was representative of the Buraq and of course, the Buraq has wings.

This would make more sense than Garuda I think, since this kraton is Islamic.