However, Douwes Dekker did not want this aggressive connotation, so he defined Nusantara as all the Indonesian regions from Sabang as far as Merauke. Although Douwes Dekker's proposal did not succeed, and the name "Indonesia" remained in use for the nation's name, the name "Nusantara" has been widely used in literature, printed and broadcast news materials and popular publications, thus it has become the synonym for Indonesia. Some literature works and poems describe Indonesia in eloquent poetic names, such as "Zamrud Khatulistiwa" ("Emerald of the Equator"), which refers to Indonesian green and lush tropical rainforest as the emeralds, as well as the geographic position of Indonesia, along the equator. It was coined by Multatuli (a pen name used by Eduard Douwes Dekker, Ernest Douwes Dekker's granduncle), a 19th-century Dutch writer, who described Dutch East Indies as ""'t prachtig ryk van Insulinde dat zich daar slingert om den evenaar, als een gordel van smaragd"" ("the beautiful empire of Insulinde that girdles the equator like a belt of emerald"). Other epithets such as "Bumi Pertiwi" ("Land of Pertiwi or Mother Earth"), refer to Indonesia through its national personification, Ibu Pertiwi, and "Tanah Air" (Indonesian lit: "soil and water"), an Indonesian word for "homeland".