This beautiful scaled puppet is Antareja (from the Mahabharata), the eldest son of Bima and an exceptionally powerful figure from the underworld. He possesses deadly poisonous powers and is virtually invincible. His role in the Bharatayuda is so crucial that, before the great war, he dies through one of Kresna's schemes so as not to disrupt fate. He is known as an honest yet dangerously powerful warrior endowed with supernatural abilities.

West Java, Indonesia, early 1980s.