Did you know about the Javanese Calendar System?
It’s not just an ordinary calendar.
Javanese believe that all humans are created on specific days and months. They believe by knowing the days and months of someone, a human could achieve its best or even avoid bad luck to come. This belief wrapped up in the form of the Javanese calendar system called “weton”.
As an Indonesian, people have often heard the term “weton”. Weton is a very well-known part of Javanese culture. Weton is now also commonly used not only by the Javanese themselves but also by non-Javanese people. This is because the calculations used in Weton are known to be quite accurate.
So, basically, what is Weton?
For Javanese people, weton isn’t just about culture, it’s looking good or bad influence from the nature to an individual that was given by God since someone born. Basically, it’s a Javanese calendar system used to mark someone’s birthday. Then, by knowing “weton”, Javanese are easier to know a person’s personality until his future career. To calculate weton, one must know the concept of weton calculation.
Weton has long been used by the Javanese people. According to its origin, weton is a calendar system used by the Mataram Kingdom which was first coined by Sultan Agung Hanyokrokusuma in 1633. Uniquely, this calendar system combines elements of Hinduism and Islam where at that time the influence of Hinduism was still strong and the entry of Islam was massive throughout the archipelago.
Then, how do the Javanese use weton?
If you have a Javanese partner, surely every important thing you want to do needs to be calculated based on weton. This Weton will be very important for Javanese when they are getting married.
To use weton, one should understand the concept of calculation in Weton. In weton there are seven common days and five Javanese days called pasaran. Seven common days here are Monday to Sunday while the five pasaran are pahing, pon, wage, kliwon, and legi. Each pasaran has a certain number. The number of this pasaran is then added up with the number of each day to determine various objectives.
To calculate weton, you need to know the number of days according to weton. For instance, Sunday has number 5, Monday is 4, Tuesday is 3, Wednesday is 7, Thursday is 8, Friday is 6, and Saturday is 9. After that you need to know the number on pasaran, there are pahing is 9, pon is 7, wage is 4, kliwon is 8, and legi is 5. From here, you can start to add up your weton, for example, a person who had born in monday pahing. Then, he/she will get Monday (4 )plus pahing (9) is thirteen. So, he/she has number 13 as his/her weton.
Moslems view on weton
Although the origin of weton is a combination of Hindu and Islamic teachings, Islam does not allow its followers to count using weton as a basis. This is because, in weton, there is an element of divination and divination is something that is strictly prohibited in Islam. Although some people use the weton to calculate the date of birth or auspicious days to carry out important events and not to predict future events, Islam still prohibits the use of weton in daily life.
Islam believes that all days are good days. Humans make it bad. Believing in good and bad days is feared to shake one’s faith. Therefore, Islam forbids the use of weton. However, it seems there are still people who use this in society.
