Naskah Serat Sastra Gendhing karya Sultan Agung merupakan salah satu naskah Jawa yang berisi ajaran panduan moral agar manusia mengenal sang pencipta dan mengerjakan perbuatan yang bermanfaat terhadap sesama umat manusia yang didasari dengan ilmu pengetahuan. Secara substantif serat ini merupakan karya monumental Sultan Agung yang menerangkan dua disiplin dalam ilmu keislaman, yakni ilmu teologi dan ilmu mistik. Ilmu teologi merupakan disiplin ilmu yang menerangkan tentang ke-esaan Tuhan, sedangkan ilmu mistik adalah disiplin ilmu yang menjelaskan tentang pola komunikasi manusia dengan Tuhannya bahkan sampai menguraikan bagaimana manusia dapat menyatu denganNya.
Dalam ajaran Islam, mistik Islam dikenal dengan nama ilmu tashawwuf. Corak mistik yang diuraikan dalam serat ini meliputi tashawwuf amali dan tashawwuf falsafi. Tashawwuf amali bersentuhan dengan ajaran tentang bagaimana manusia berhubungan dengan Tuhan tanpa meninggalkan ilmu syari’at dengan mengerjakan amal kebajikan yang bermanfaat baik bagi dirinya maupun terhadap orang lain. Sedangkan tasawuf falsafi berkaitan dengan penjelasan Tuhan dalam konsep ahadiyah dan wahidiyah sebagaimana penjelasan Ibnu Arabi.
Serat Sastra Gendhing berbentuk tembang macapat dan ditulis dalam bahasa Jawa baru dengan menggunakan huruf Jawa menarik untuk diteliti. Daya tarik ini khususnya terletak pada bagaimana dan mengapa seorang raja bisa membuat karya sastra yang diperuntukkan bagi rakyatnya. Di samping itu, serat ini juga menarik karena ia mencoba mengasimilasikan ajaran Islam ke dalam budaya Jawa sehingga isinya merupakan ajaran Islam dalam versi Jawa.
Penelitian ini memiliki tujuan untuk mengetahui makna ajaran mistisisme yang terkandung dalam naskah Serat Sastra Gendhing serta untuk mengetahui corak tashawwuf yang hendak dikembangkan oleh penulisnya. Adapun pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penelitian naskah ini adalah hermenuetika yang dikembangkan Gadamer. Kajian hermeneutika model Gadamer yang menekankan pada telaah mengenai tiga aspek yaitu dunia teks, dunia penulis, dan dunia pembaca. Dalam penelitian ini, konsep Gadamer diterapkan melalui: (1) kajian pada teks untuk menemukan isi dan makna yang terkandung di dalamnya, (2) kajian pada aspek penulis teks untuk menemukan latar belakang corak ajaran pada teks, dan (3) kajian pada aspek pembaca teks untuk mengetahui relevansi teks dengan keadaan pembaca saat penelitian ini dibuat.
Temuan penelitian ini bahwa Serat Satra Gendhing mengajarkan tentang panintheisme, dimana dua hal saling berkaitan dan saling membutuhkan yang tergambar dalam hubungan antara pencipta dan yang dicipta. Adapun corak mistik Sultan Agung dalam Serat Sastra Gendhing cenderung pada mistik tashawwuf falsafi Ibnu Arabi. Sedangkan dalam konteks pembaca pada era sekarang, Serat Sastra Gendhing ini merupakan serat panduan moral agar manusia dalam hidupnya mengerjakan kebajikan.

ABSTRACT: The text Serat Sastra Gendhing written by Sultan Agung is one of Javanese writing consist of moral guidance for the people to get to know the Creator of this universe and to do good deed that will be beneficial to the others, based on the knowledge they have. In principle, this text can be said as to become Sultan Agung’s master piece that explains two major disciplines in Islamic studies, namely theology and mysticism. Theology is the discipline explaining about the one-ness of the God, whereas mysticism is the discipline that explains about the communication patterns between the people and their God as well as about how the people are supposed to be united with their God.
According to Islamic teaching, the terminology of the word mysticism is also known as tashawwuf. Accordingly, the forms of mystic that embodied in this writing are tashawwuf amali (mystic of doing) and tashawwuf falsafi (mystic of philosophy). Tasawuf amali is related to the teaching of how the people are supposed to have good relationships with their Gods by doing good deeds that will be beneficial, not only to themselves, but also to the others without neglecting the shari’at (the given law). Meanwhile, tasawuf falsafi is related to the explanation about God using the concepts of ahadiyah (the secrecy of God) and wahidiyah (the union with God) as such that was explained by Ibnu Arabi.
It is relatively interesting to study the text Serat Sastra Gendhing which is written in the form of tembang macapat (The Javanese ballad) using the Javanese script ha na ca ra ka. The things that make this text becomes an interesting object lies on an intellectual curious as to how a king such as Sultan Agung could make such e text dedicated to his people. Furthermore, there is also an interesting fact that the writer of the text had made an attempt to assimilate Islamic teaching with the Javanese culture so that both of them had dissolved into such a teaching consisting Islamic teaching in Javanese form.
The aims of this research are to understand as well as to explore the meaning of the whole contents about mysticism embodies in the text of Serat Sastra Gendhing in order to identify the form of tashawwuf in which it’s writer is trying to develop. In completing this research, the researcher employed an approach called hermeneutics introduced by Gadamer. Hermeneutics developed by Gadamer has the main focus on three areas of study, namely the world of the text, the world of the author, and the world of the reader. In this research, the concept by Gadamer is applied in such ways: (1) the study on the text is used in order to find out the contents as well as the meaning embodied in the text, (2) the study on writer is use on purpose to find out the his social background so that the form of his teaching can be identified, (3) the study on the reader of the text is used to find out the relevance of the text with it’s reader in contemporary time.
This research has found out that the text of Serat Satra Gendhing consisted the teaching spread out by Sultan Agung about the concept of panintheisme. In this concept, there are two things that are always interconnected and always in each other’s needs. The interconnection between these two things is depicted such as the relationships between the creatures and their creator. Meanwhile, the research also found out that the form of mystic developed by Sultan Agung in his Serat Sastra Gendhing tends to follow the concept developed by Ibnu Arabi, that is tashawwuf falsafi (mystic of philosophy). In relation to the reader, the text Serat Sastra Gendhing has a function as the moral guidance in this contemporary time, so that the people will live in peaceful lives by doing all the good deeds.