By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

The ceremony included such antique touches as a procession complete with dwarfs and albinos, courtiers who carried statues of sacred animals and a 150-year-old carriage topped with gilded dragons. Thus, in the first coronation since 1940, Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, 40, this month became King of Yogyakarta, center of Java's Hindu-Islamic culture and site of the 8th century Buddhist Borobudur temple. Though Indonesia was once a string of island sultanates, Hamengku Buwono is the only ruling sultan left. His coronation was also the first public anointing of a sultan's wife -- or permaisuri -- in a century. But one very modern idea crept in: corporate sponsorship. The official coronation soft drink was Pepsi.