Handling ecological problems in gaga rice cultivating through mantra darmawarsa of Merapi-Merbabu

Darmawarsa text (L 329) is one of Merapi-Merbabu manuscripts tradition which currently is stored in The National Library, Jakarta. The text is written in "Buddha" script with an Old Javanese language. Darmawarsa has its meaning of goodness or virtue of the rain, which comes from two words namely dharma for obligation or virtue, and warsa for the year of the rain. The content of Darmawarsa text is about the mantra (spell) to summon and stop the rain that's related to irrigating gaga rice cultivation which is known in the agricultural culture of Java. The methods applied to examine the text is textual criticism and ecological-religious approach. The results of the research are: (1) Gaga rice cultivation is an ancient method of planting rice that can be done in hilly land contour such as the slope of Merbabu mountains, (2) the peasant community has solved problems on the unstable of ecological conditions based on mantra (rain summoning spells) which theologically as part of their religious-cultural life, and (3) philologically, Darmawarsa text is a documentation of agricultural tradition of the past in dealing with environmental (ecological) problems by including local wisdom.