In Javanese shadow puppet performances (wayang), the dalang, or master puppeteer, acts as the narrator and playwright, as well as conductor, of the event. A gamelan (instrumental group) performs at the same time as the dalang, and the audience sits on either side of a stretched cloth. On one side, they watch the shadows of the puppets, cast on to the cloth by a lamp, or on the other side, they can watch the intricately decorated puppets themselves.

The Hindu epic Mahabharata came from India to Java in the 11th century where it was translated into a Javanese poetic form. The central story involves the rivalry of the Pandawas, the five sons of the king Pandu, and the Korawas, the hundred sons of the blind king Dhritarashtra, for rule of the ancestral Bharata kingdom in north central India. The climax of the epic consists of a great war between the Padawas, who are of godly birth, and the Korawas, of demonic birth. Arjuna, the third Pandawa son, represents the ideal nobleman, who is both refined and a great warrior. He is depicted as beautiful and elegant as a woman, with his golden face directed downward and his hair in a supit urang style that is curled upward in back.