STATE AND STATECRAFT IN OLD JAVA:
A Study of the Later Mataram Period,
16th to 19th Century
by
SOEMARSAID MOERTONO
MONOGRAPH SERIES
MODERN INDONESIA PROJECT
Southeast Asia Program
Department of Asian Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1968
Reprinted, 1974
No. 43
Price: $3.00
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640 Stewart AvenueSTATE AND STATECRAFT IN OLD JAVA:
A Study of the Later Mataram Period
16th to 19th CenturySTATE AND STATECRAFT IN OLD JAVA:
A Study of the Later Mataram Period,
16th to 19th Century
by
Soemarsaid Moertono
MONOGRAPH SERIES
Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Department of Asian Studies
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1963
Reprinted, 1974
Price:	$3.001968 CORNELL MODERN INDONESIA PROJECTFOREWORD
Mr. Soemarsaid Moertono was born in East Java in 1922 and
entered the Indonesian Civil Service in 1944. In 1962, before
he came to the United States, he was teaching at Malang in the
Academy of Public Administration under the auspices of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1964 he successfully sub-
mitted this study as a M.A. thesis in the Department of
History, Cornell University.
For some years students at Cornell have benefited from
Mr. Moertono's work, and the Southeast Asia Program has de-
cided that a wider public should have the same advantage. We
are grateful to the author for giving his permission for the
publication of his thesis as a CMIP monograph. We are especially
grateful to Mrs. Arlene Lev, who undertook the responsibility
of editing the manuscript. She did so, in her own words, as
"a labor of love," for Mr. Moertono, during his two years at
Cornell, never failed to put his knowledge at the disposal of
the many who consulted him, always displaying a modesty and
charm which no one who knew him will quickly forget.
Several Indonesian Dutch scholars, as well as contempo-
rary Dutch observers, have examined aspects of Javanese
government during the Later Mataram period, but few studies
are at present available in the English language. The out-
standing exception, to which Mr. Moertono pays tribute, is
the late Professor Schrieke’s Indonesian Sociological Studies,
Volume II, The Hague, 1957, which is a translation of some of
Professor Schrieke’s unpublished manuscripts. In addition to
published Dutch sources, Mr. Moertono has used his own sub-
stantial knowledge of Javanese literature, and, as a result,
the reader of this study has the sensation that he is being
helped to see the situation in Later Mataram from within.
The reader will become aware of the rich contents of the
Javanese sources, for which Dr. Th. G. Th. Pigeaud has re-
cently provided a valuable survey in the first volume of his
Literature of Java, The Hague, 1967. Perhaps students will
be attracted to the study of the almost entirely unexplored
Javanese context of Dutch activities in Java. Students of
contemporary and near-contemporary Java will certainly wish
to take into account the background of political ideas which
Mr. Moertono has reconstructed and analyzed.
Javanese cultural resources, as this study makes clear,
have been concentrated on what may be called the science of
government, with some of its values defined in Indian litera-
ture but with its practice adapted to the scale and exigencies
of life in Java. The prestige of the science of government
was maintained in spite of Dutch rule, and it is appropriate
vthat Mr. Moertono, a teacher of public administration, should
have addressed himself to the subject.
Readers will use this study for a variety of purposes in
addition to its contribution to the history of the Later
Mataram period. For example, some of the technical terms for
describing the attributes of kingship are derived from San-
skrit, and they are also found in Cambodian epigraphy and can
be studied in Professor George Coedbs' Inscriptions du Cam-
bodge . Thus an aid is offered for the comparative study of
government in earlier South East Asia. Another aspect of Mr.
Moertono’s work which may attract attention is his observa-
tions on the education necessary for the cultivation of suit-
able moral and practical qualities in the service of the king.
The reader may ask himself whether he is dealing with
increasingly obsolete features of Javanese culture or with a
culture which possessed the capacity for self-renewal. This
is a question which cannot be broached until scholarship has
advanced sufficiently to permit historical insights to be
used more appropriately in the study of recent Javanese
history. In the meantime, Mr. Moertono has shown that the
piwulang genre of literature exemplifies a critical spirit.
That the tradition was sensitive to contemporary needs is
also suggested by the work of Raden Ngabei Ranggawarsita
(1802-1873), regarded by the Javanese as the last great
pudjangga. Mr. Moertono notes the suggestion that this per-
son was influenced by Dutch scholars and administrators, and
this circumstance may be interpreted as a scholar's facility
for adjusting himself to new needs without deserting estab-
lished values.
The continuing process of Javanese adjustment to so-
called modern conditions lies outside the scope of this study.
The author's achievement has been to illuminate the way Java-
nese political ideas, though assailed by an unfavorable
environment, did not cease to command conviction. Above all,
the sense of the dignity of public service and the attribu-
tion of high qualities to public servants survived. One may
permit oneself the hope that Mr. Moertono will, in spite of
his present heavy responsibilities, find time to continue his
research into more recent times, once again helping his reader
to see the subject from a privileged position inside the
tradition.
0. W. Wolters
London, England
1 May 1968
viTABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter	Page
I.	INTRODUCTION .................................. . .	1
Purpose and Organization of the Study .....	1
Sources ........................................... 8
II.	MAGICAL AND RELIGIOUS IMPLEMENTATION OF
KINGSHIP:	THE PROBLEM OF AUTHORITY ............ 14
The King and His People: The Kawula-
Gusti Relationship............................ 14
The King's Position in the Life of the State .	26
Kingship and Islam ................ .....	26
The King's Task................................. 35
The Ideal King.................................. 39
Legitimation of Kingship: Succession,
Usurpation and the Cult of Glory................ 52
III.	THE TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF KINGSHIP:
THE PROBLEM OF ADMINISTRATION .................... 83
Objectives and Tools of Administration ....	83
The Idea of Self-sufficiency in Government .	83
The Prijaji....................................  93
The Technical Organization of the
Administration ................................ 101
The Lord-Vassal Relationship .................. 101
Territorial Division of the Realm ............. Ill
IV.	CONCLUSION..........................................119
viiBIBLIOGRAPHY
Page
122
APPENDICES
I.	A STANDARD PIJAGEM OF BEKEL-SHIP .................
II.	THE SYSTEMS OF TAXATION AND LABOR LEVY
IN LATER MATARAM ...............................
Tax and Taxation............... ................
The Use of Labor ...............................
III.	ASTA BRATA................ . . . . .. . . . . ...
IV.	GLOSSARY 			
MAPS			
I.	MATARAM.	DECREASE	OF TERRITORY
II.	MATARAM.	NAMES OF	REGIONS
130
134
134
144
152
156
viiiABBREVIATIONS
Bijdragen:	Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (van Nederlandsch Indie)
VBG:	Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen.
Verh. KI:	Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.
ixCHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Purpose and Organization of the Study
Much has been written about Javanese kingship. Its
magico-religious aspect has been of particular interest to
several prominent Dutch scholars (Berg, Stutterheim, Bosch).
Other writers have been concerned with state-administration
(Rouffaer, Winter) and others with judicature (Soeripto,
Jonker). Historical developments have also been the subject
of much study by Krom, Berg, Hoesein Djajadiningrat and de
Casparis, and general descriptions of Java and its people
are to be found in the monumental works of Raffles, Veth and
also in Pigeaud’s latest work on Java in the 14th century. The
sociological aspect of kingship is the subject of many of the
writings of Wertheim and also of some of Burger’s studies. A
noted sociologist, Professor B. Schrieke, wrote on kingship
in early Java, dealing with all aspects of state-life. His
work, much to our regret, was left unfinished by the author’s
death.1
The purpose of this study is to examine kingship in the
Later Mataram Period (16th through the 19th century) and is
greatly inspired by Professor Schrieke’s integrated approach
to the subject. It attempts to present a survey in which the
most relevant factors in state-life are seen in their proper
relationships; each factor is studied from the point of view
of its importance to the functioning of the state, its place
in state organization and its interaction with the other
factors surveyed. Since the emphasis here is on relationships,
the investigation of the individual factors need not be ex-
haustively inclusive or minutely detailed. Such an inte-
grated approach is necessary, because the monarch so thoroughly
dominated all aspects of state-life2 that one cannot study
the factors of kingship--authority, administration and
finance--separately without risking serious distortions of
perspective.
1.	For the works of some of the authors mentioned, see the
bibliography.
2.	The tenability of this premise will be discussed below.
12
Because of the central and dominating position of the
king, the study will begin with an analysis of the basic
problem in state-life of the Later Mataram Period: namely,
how the king could justify and make acceptable his dominating
power. This is the problem of authority. We will
have to probe into the interpretation and use of the magico-
religious concepts which were the primary means of implement-
ing the king's authority and of asserting and preserving the
integrity of the state. In monarchies of extremely sacro-
sanct character, as were the Javanese kingdoms, magico-reli-
gious concepts play the crucial role not only in justifying
and strengthening the power of the monarch but also in ex-
plaining the roles of ruler and ruled as well as the relation-
ship between the king and his subjects.
The second problem to study is the manner in which
authority was applied to practical matters and what tools
the kings had to achieve their ends. We come, then, to two
other implementations of kingship: a technical one, namely
royal administration; and a material one, the king's wealth,
or in more general terms, the financing of the state. These
two determinants of state-life, of course, must be seen as
mere implementations of the king's rule; that is to say, they
were operated only for and on behalf of the king. State-
administration was an extension of kingly authority. Conse-
quently, acquisition of wealth by the state, an important
part of which was manual labor, had as its main purpose
enhancing the authority of the king, and thus the grandeur
of the state. Chapter II of this study tries to analyze the
motives of state organization with the position of the king
as the central theme.
An introductory discussion will be helpful in seeing the
scope and outline of this study. We know that one's
idea of state organization is based on the necessity of estab-
lishing a certain order in his communal life.3 4 In this re-
spect, the Javanese of olden times must have been impressed
by the pattern of regularity which dominates nature. The
coming and going of the seasons, the perpetual change between
night and day, the cycles of life itself, the invariable
trinity of birth, growth and death must have convinced him
that the safest way to live is to attune himself to this
3.	See further: William F. Ogburn and Meyer F. Nimkoff, A
Handbook of Sociology, London, 1953, pp. 430-432; K. A. H.
Hidding, Gebruiken en Godsdiensten der Soendaneezen,
Batavia , 1930, pp. 14-19.
4.	See p. 37 of this study for further discussion of this
point.3
cosmic order. This leads to an attitude of conservative
traditionalism, a clinging to established customs and so to
a distaste for change or for whatever may disturb the regu-
lar and predictable flow of events. In attuning himself to
the Great Order man is led to accept the concept of Harmony,
a cosmic harmony, in which everyone and everything has its
ascribed place. There is no room for a voluntary and mutual
adjustment or a fine conciliation and conformation; rather,
the universe is ordered by hard and stern rules. Deviation
from them would set off a chain of reactions which might reach
calamitous proportions. From here to a belief in the working
of fate is but a very short distance. Harmony as a compelling
need must therefore form the central concept in man’s efforts
toward organization. It is a harmony not only of man's
world, the micro-cosmos, with the greater macro-cosmos, but
also a harmony within his own sphere of life.
The Javanese, therefore, would not consider the state
to have fulfilled its obligations if it did not encourage an
inner psychological order (tentrem, peace and tranquillity of
heart) as well as enforcing the formal order (tata). Only
then is the state of perfect balance, of perfect harmony,
achieved". These two goals form the cardinal points on which
man's organizational activities shall be focused.
One such activity is religious practice: the worship of
the gods with all its rules and ceremonies as well as all
necessary material paraphernalia, most importantly religious
structures and institutions. All of these must be seen as
the efforts of man to lay a bridge of attunement between the
world of man and the world of the gods. The activities of
man within and thus towards the society in which he lives
are mainly directed to maintaining this harmony within his
sphere of life. He must take preventive and repressive
measures against all possible disturbances of his social
order and, because of the assumed mutual dependency between
micro- and macro-cosmos, of the universal order also. In
this sense social organization is not involvement in the
members' daily routine but in maintaining adherence to estab-
lished social patterns, the main manifestation of harmony.
So its agencies primarily enforce such adherence, guarding
against possible deviations and erasing whatever damage has
been done, by magico-religious means as well as with penal
measures of a physical character.
Following this line of reasoning, one can understand
why state-administration in the kingdoms of old seems to have
5. See also: William James, The Varieties of Religious
Experience, New York, 1961, p. 367.4
neglected people's needs, seems to have been detached from
the toils of the common people. In agrarian countries where
man's life depends so much more on the steady flow of season-
al change, where the concept of harmony is viewed more in
terms of regularity and familiarity with the pattern of com-
munity life, any interference in the life of society may
disturb the balance of the universe. Thus, the state will,
as much as possible, refrain from such interference. Such
restraint is feasible too because agrarian life, relatively,
does not need much state-stimulus to work. Furthermore the
narrow "espace-social" of the village does not create many
needs which it cannot itself satisfy. It follows that pro-
gress in the modern sense of deliberate development and
active stimulation could not have been considered a goal of
the state. The role of the king is then more that of a pro-
tector than a developer.6
What is the position of the king in this inevitable
relationship between the two cosmic orders? The state was
the institution in which the king maintained dominance over
all persons and goods. It is not very surprising, therefore,
that the state should have been seen as an image of the Great
Cosmic Order, in which the gods maintain absolute dominion.
This schematic similarity between cosmic order and the state
is seen as identity, and this serves a double purpose. First,
as has been explained, if they are identical, the safety of
the one assures the safety of the other. Second, and politi-
cally the most important, it serves to establish the king's
power over his subjects. Similarity in form of substance
tends to imply identity in character or quality. This is a
train of thought which is familiar to simple correlative
thinking. Thus, the state as a replica of the cosmic order
must also have the propensities and capacities of that higher
order, a power which, as a part of the Great Order, no sub-
ject people dare restrict or disturb. This belief accounts
for the absolute character of the old kingdoms. At the center
and pinnacle of this organizational structure is the monarch.
The central and dominating position of the head of state
can be explained in two ways according to the answer given
to two questions. First, does man reconstruct the realm of
the gods, with its highest divinity, in the image of the or-
ganizational structure of his own communal life where, via
the concept of the primus inter pares, he arrives at the
notion of a head of state with a craving for absolute power
over his fellow beings? In so doing he would then justify
this act of domination. Or, secondly, does the concept of
6. See Chapter II, pp. 35ff and 39ff, for further discussion
of this point.5
the highest divinity as the ultimate source of the whole uni-
verse come from man's need for an explanation of all the
phenomena in his visual as well as emotional world? And, by
projecting an Almighty God, does he feel justified to ordain
the king as the center of the micro-cosmos of man, as the
bearer of absolute power over his worldly realm? Whatever
the answer may be, the concept of the king as the center of
the state from whom all power and authority emanate, around
whom all activities of the state are concentrated, is then
perfectly in harmony with the organizational structure of the
rule of the universe, at least as man thought it to be.
Because of the central position of the king the whole
apparatus of administration was inevitably an extension of
the king's rule. Whatever power his administrators might
have was derived from above.
Another factor important in defining state-life is the
people who, economically speaking, form the most essential
element. In a pre-mechanized world, they provide the power
necessary for the production of wealth as well as for the
defense of the realm. They are the source of physical force
in times of peace as well as in times of war. So the rela-
tionship between the king and the people or between the ruler
and the ruled, especially where the ruler has absolute power,
depends upon what securities the people have against arbitrary
acts of their monarch.7
A powerful check is, of course, rebellion. However, in
a self-sufficient agrarian economy where the people can live
from the produce of their land and where communications have
not been sufficiently developed to attract a subject from his
life in his village, it is not very easy to raise a general
uprising. Rebellion occurs only when the king's reign be-
comes so oppressive or so weak and careless that the people
cannot fulfill their simple needs of life. The stability of
state-life is more likely to be menaced by the many internal
disturbances of wars, feuds, and dynastic conflicts. These
are merely struggles for power between individuals and thus
actually not the concern of the people; but, of course, the
people are not excluded from participation. As the necessary
suppliers of manpower and food and because they need the pro-
tection of their respective lords, they do become involved,
especially when they live near the centers of power or near
communication lines between the territories, whether it be
road or river. To protect themselves from too much involve-
ment in all these hostilities or too much oppression, people
have developed effective devices of lesser resistance; they
7. See p. 73 ff for a discussion of this point.6
"disappear" into the woods or hills and wait until matters
have settled a bit, or they migrate to a more remote and
inaccessible place or to another realm entirely, where they
can receive the protection of a greater lord who can assure
them of a more peaceful life.
In this study, we try to examine both the theory and
practice of kingship. It is evident that a study of the
theory of kingship will put its stress on political thought,
which, in a society where belief and religion play an import-
ant role, is closely connected with magico-religious concepts
Javanese texts on morals and manners, therefore, form a major
source for this study. The practice of kingship will be
studied mainly on the basis of historical evidence.
The study may be thought to cover too long a time-
span, namely, from the reign of the first Mataram potentate,
Panembahan Senapati, around 1585 in an unbroken, although
split, dynastic-line down to the present. However, dealing
with almost four centuries of history has this advantage:
the vast array of facts and data offers a wider basis upon
which to draw justifiable generalizations and conclusions.
Moreover, common factors of place and religion--the same
geographical location (the region south of Mount Merapi) and
the prevalence of Islam throughout the period--make it con-
venient to study the Later Mataram Period as a whole.
Moreover, as will be made evident in the following chap-
ters, during these four hundred years no basic changes seem
to have taken place in the structural organization of the
Mataram state, nor in the ideological bases of state-life.
However, an historical approach presupposes a concept of
change in society, be it slow and almost imperceptible or of
a sweeping dynamism. Awareness of the possibility of change
has to be especially sharpened when studying such a tradi-
tional society as Java because its apparent traditionalism
tends to obscure factors of change. In the case of Mataram
two main causes of change have to be taken into account:
Islam and the existence of the power of V.O.C. (the Dutch
East-India Company), at first side by side, and later
superior to the kingdom of Mataram.
Islam initiated changes in Mataram state-life only in
the apparent influence of Muslim walis on the policies of
rulers, but this influence did not continue beyond the reign
of Sunan Amangkurat II (1677-1703). Afterwards, Islam gave
new impetus to resistance towards foreign rule with the idea
of the perang sabil (holy war). However, we shall see that
there is no real evidence to prove that this idea had great
or widespread influence at least in official state-life
although, amongst the populace, Islam remained the great7
moving force against any political oppression.8 The limited-
ness of the perang sabil1s influence can perhaps be attrib-
uted to the fact that the Kingdoms of Later Mataram had never
been as thoroughly Islamized as the sultanates of Acheh and
Malacca; Old-Javanese elements remained most influential in
state-life.
The effect of Dutch power in Java was quite different
from that of Islam. Its steadily increasing involvement in
the internal affairs of Mataram and moreover its steadily
expanding control of the political situation in Java as a
whole nibbled away at the king's ultimate authority. It can-
not be denied that on many occasions it was the V.O.C. and
later the Netherland-Indies Government which upheld and
restored the king's position as head of state, with due re-
muneration. However, the ever-shrinking boundaries of Mataram
(due to loss of territory to the Dutch) and the consequent
loss of wealth made it very difficult for the Mataram mon-
archs to sustain the policy of aggrandizement--a policy which
was at the crux of state-craft of those times. Moreover, and
perhaps more importantly, loss of territory resulted in loss
of revenues to finance the administration of the state.
Revenue came primarily from the lungguh salary-system, which
made control of land by the monarch a necessity; and the in-
filtrating money-economy in the more recent times did not
help to solve these complex problems.
One is justified in believing, therefore, that the
Mataram state, and increasingly so from the reign of Sunan
Amangkurat II, had undergone a somewhat stunted development
with a touch of artificiality which made it impossible for
Mataram to develop towards such an uninhibited, imperial
confidence as that of its ideal, Madjapahit, or even, perhaps,
towards its own complete destruction.
These impeding factors, particularly as they were backed
by an effective military force of the Dutch, succeeded in
implanting a feeling of impotence which subsequently led to
an attitude of resignation. In the writings of the two royal
literati of the 19th century, the ruler of Surakarta, Paku
Buwana IX (1861-1893), and the head of the Mangkunegaran House,
Mangkunegara IV (1853-1881), we can detect a tone of contem-
plative appeasement and submission to fate quite different
from the elan vital we find in the narration of Sultan Agung's
deeds in the Babad Tanah Djawi or even in the attitude of the
Dutch themselves who described this monarch in terms revealing
the authority and prestige of that ruler.9
8.	See p. 80 ff for further discussion of this point.
9.	See p. 49.8
These changes notwithstanding, ideas about state and
state-policy did not undergo important changes. The challenge
of political as well as economic change was not met with
changing ideas about state-life. Moreover, as will be made
evident in the following chapters, during these four hundred
years no basic changes are to be detected in the structural
organization of the Mataram state, nor in the ideological
concept of state-life. Although Islam, and much more so, the
intrusions of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) and later
of the Netherland-Indies Government formed a real challenge
towards change to the Javanese kingdoms, there was no adequate
reaction. Clinging to tradition, Mataram made only inade-
quate modifications or piecemeal adjustments, undoubtedly
also due to its limited means and very much reduced authority;
for, after the Gianti-pact of 1755 and the Peace of Salatiga
of 1757, Mataram had fallen apart into four small principali-
ties, Surakarta, Jogjakarta, the Mangkunegaran and the Pakualaman.
Although formally retaining their status as the independent
Vorstenlanden (Lands of the Kings--the official name given by
the Netherland-Indies Government), the principalities were
bound by contract to the suzerain. They were, in actual
practice, no more than provinces of the Netherland East-
Indies, although receiving perhaps fewer benefits than was
bestowed on the "directly governed territories."
Mataram’s adherence to traditional concepts, or in other
words, the relatively static attitude towards state-life
which characterizes the period, enables us to look for general
trends and tendencies and detect a pattern in the ideas and
practices of the state and thus come to an integrated study
of this Later Mataram Kingdom, the intention of this study.
Sources
To the knowledge of this writer, there are two Dutch
scholars who have devoted considerable efforts to the study
of the Later Mataram period as an historical entity. They
are Professor H. J. de Graaf and the late Professor B.
Schrieke, a sociologist. The former, an historian, has
written a book on the history of Indonesia,10 the most laud-
able feature of which is that the writer gives it a "human
touch" by relating events of every-day life and giving much
space to first-hand accounts of conditions in a certain place
or time in Indonesian history which are very illustrative for
the correct evaluation and understanding of the course of
historical events. Moreover, de Graaf took up the task of
10. H. J. de Graaf, Geschiedenis van Indonesie, 's-Gravenhage,
1949 .9
writing about the important figures and events in the history
of Later Mataram.11 His work is valuable from the point of
view of historiographic documentation. One might have liked,
however, to see more interpretation in these studies.
Professor Schrieke's major work on kingship in Java,12
which includes a study of the whole "Moslem Mataram" period,
clearly reveals the fact that it was left incomplete at the
death of this prominent scholar. Some subjects were treated
only cursorily, while others--for instance, the question of
the king's position and especially of his realm--are dealt
with at considerable length. Schrieke also succeeded in
determining the inner territories of Madjapahit and the re-
gions of Later Mataram, and, in addition, he paid a good deal
of attention to state-administration, particularly that of
Mataram. Professor Schrieke's book, even in this unfinished
form, is most valuable to the knowledge of Java's cultural
history, primarily because it attempts to present political
life in Java in one integrated study. It covers a period ex-
tending from Airlangga ' s time (1019-1049) to "Muslim Mataram"
(1575-present), truly a very long time-span of approximately
ten centuries; the justification for this lay in his observa-
tion that, after each dynastic break,the new king always con-
sidered himself not an initiator of a new regime but as the per
petuator of the old order, "at any rate in appearance." So
Javanese history was seen as a unified continuity and more
recent history can make a contribution toward an understanding
of a more remote past.13 Most certainly this study is a very
detailed and careful piece of work which has done much in
leading the way towards a better appraisal of Java's cultural
history. Not much has been written on this subject that dis-
plays such an approach of coordination and unification of
historical data. It has formed a most important directive
to this study.
As far as sources and material for this thesis is con-
cerned, major use has been made of Javanese writings from the
period concerned. Contemporary ideas and customary practices
have also been referred to, always with care and always tak-
ing into consideration the possibility of change in the
11. H. J. de Graaf, "De Regering van Panembahan Senapati
Ingalaga," "De Regering van Sultan Agung, Vorst van
Mataram," "De Regering van Sunan Mangku-rat I, Vorst van
Mataram," in Verh. KI, 13, 23 and 33.
12. B. Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies, vol. II,
The Hague, 1957.
13 . Ibid., p. 4.10
course of time. Analogy and comparison with similar circum-
stances and similar practices of other periods in Indonesian
history or of other places should form an incessant check.
As for the written Javanese sources, although ample material
is available, these writings are regrettably very unevenly
spread over the period as well as over the subjects to be
treated. For instance, the question of the king's position,
the ideals of kingship and pri j aj i-ship, their virtues and
vices, are treated in several writings at length. "Histories"
(Babad's) have to be sorted very carefully (although
not with such a degree of suspicious caution as Professor
Berg displays), and one must ask whether they are based on facts
or whether they are deliberately or inadvertently falsified.
Not much can be found about state-administration and the
financial problems of the state except whatever can be ex-
tracted from the position and interrelations of office-holders
mentioned in the "Histories." Beginning only with the 19th
century was codification of legal concepts considered
necessary especially to facilitate relations with the Nether-
land-Indies Government, its functionaries or its subjects.
These codes afford material on state-administration and
state-finance. The Dutch scholars' and officials' growing
interest in all aspects of Javanese society also stimulated
such efforts towards codification. The recentness of these
sources does not, however, form an unsurpassable hindrance
to reconstructing state-life in Mataram because, here again,
adherence to tradition formed a barrier to great changes, and
innovations and adjustments to more modern needs usually are
easy to detect in these sources.1“
Categories of Javanese sources used are:
1. The pakem-literature, the repertory of the waj ang,
the Javanese puppet-play. Each lakon or play is constructed
according to a fixed pattern; only the stories are different.
Pakems merely outline the story, and thus it is only from a
performance that one can appreciate that the waj ang is "the
mirror" of Javanese life. The dalang (puppeteer), within the
frame of the lakon and within the boundaries of technical as
well as ritualistic limitations, has surprisingly great free-
dom to give to the performance the necessary ornamentation
and allusions which enhances its appeal for the contemporary
audience. The fact has to be borne in mind that the lakon
performed is mostly chosen to suit the needs of the moment,
may it be a simple family affair like a wedding or a birth,
or the interest of a community, usually the desa (village)
or even the state, and this because of the suggestive, magical
character of a waj ang-performance. The waj ang lakon paints
14. See pp. 51-52.11
a picture not only of an idealized state-life, but of state-
policy and practice as well. The Hindu accent of the stories
need not discourage their use as source material because they
have become thoroughly assimilated by acceptance or modifica-
tion and also by considerable addition to the repertory with
new, invented lakons.
2.	The babad-literature, the "histories," relate events
and happenings of the past. Some are centered around and
actually written for the benefit of a certain court or dynasty
and may be considered of a "national" character in the sense
that they are concerned with the whole kingdom as, for exam-
ple, the Babad Tanah Djawi (written from the middle of the
16th century on) , the Bab~ad Mataram (last half of the 18th
century), and the Serat Konda. Others are of a local charac-
ter, such as the Babad Patj ina and the Babad Dipanegara
(first half of the 19th century). According to Professor
Berg, the main purpose of a babad1s "literary magic" was to
enhance the august and sacral importance of the king or the
ruling potentate. The choice of subjects and the organiza-
tion of the book is dedicated to the achievement of this
goal, making it less than reliable, although not wholly un-
usable, as historical source material, particularly for the
periods of the earlier past. The necessity for magically
correct interpretation justified the pudjangga, the priestly
court-writer, in indulging himself with omissions or distor-
tions of events of the past.15 However, the first compiler
of the Later Mataram babads may have made absurd mistakes
in the recounting of the periods before the emergence of the
Kingdom of Demak simply because he was ill-informed. Docu-
mented material may have been lost or destroyed when the suc-
cessive kingdoms after Madjapahit changed location or reli-
gion. The Mataram pudj angga had, then, to write a new com-
pilation with material handed on by oral narration.
As source material for this study, these babads do not
offer very much clear, unequivocal information, but they do
reveal the general political situation of the time, especially
the power relations between the different parts of the realm
or the different power-holders; indeed, they mainly relate
conflicts between holders of power. State policy towards the
welfare of the population can scarcely be detected. It is
important to observe that there is considerable "lend-lease"
of material between babads.
3.	Another group of sources are the piwulangs (instruc-
tion) . Under this category the Javanese place a large
15. See C. C. Berg, "Javaansche Geschiedschrijving," in F. W.
Stapel, Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch Indie, part II,
Ams t e r d ain^ 15 3 8 .12
assortment of writings of which the main characteristic is
that they give some or other kind of instruction, mostly of
a moralistic character. They are not written in story form,
although they may contain illustrative short tales often
about persons of virtue from wajang literature or from his-
tory. These writings may have been lifted out of a larger
text and presented separately because of their instructional
merits. Such a piwulang is the Asta Brata taken from the
Serat Rama (± 1750), the Javanese version of the famous Indian
epic, Ramayana, and meant as an instruction in the kingly
attitude. Piwulangs were written in poetic metre and were to
be sung at intimategatherings. There are those intended for
young people, for women, office-holders, soldiers and those
for man in general. Paku Buwana IX (1861-1893) and Mangkune-
gara IV (1853-1881) personally contributed much to this kind
of literature, and piwulang composing was a part of gentle-
manly education and leisure. Older piwulangs, like the
Nitisruti, an adaptation of an originally Indian text, exist
too. The underlying religious basis of these moral poems may
be Hinduistic or Islamic or both. For our purpose, piwulangs
reveal clearly Javanese ideals as to the concept of the ideal
man, woman, king or official, and from the last two we can
draw conclusions as to what are the attributes of a just and
expedient rule.
Not only piwulangs but almost all writings, even those
in story form, had a didactic purpose; words have magic power
and the mere reading of a text bestows beneficial or, if one
is unauthorized, destructive influence. Thus, the meticulous
detailing of the various wewaler (taboos) of the rulers of
Mataram in the Babad Tanah Djawi16 was undoubtedly meant to
be carefully heeded by their descendants,and in the Wulangreh
of Paku Buwana IV (1788-1820) these taboos were summed
up again. The story of Kodja Djadjahan, with its Islamic
character, relates the virtues of the grandvizier Kodja
Djadjahan and is meant to be held up as a mirror for high
officials.17
4. Javanese state-ordinances and decisions of the king
and high dignitaries. These official decrees, called angger
(statute or regulation) or piagem (decisions), were, as xs
explained above, all of recent date, which does not mean that
they were of recent invention. One can be fairly certain,
by checking them against babad and other Javanese writings,
16. Babad Tanah Djawi, ed. Meinsma, ’s-Gravenhage, 1941, pp. 57,
tut
17. R. M. Ng. Poerbatjaraka, Kapustakan Djawi, Djakarta, 1952,
p. 96.13
that these decrees reflect age-old state practice.18 The
study of state administration and taxation is reconstructed
mainly from these materials.
Use has also been made of material found in the narra-
tives of foreigners, usually Dutch envoys and military com-
manders, and accounts of the V.O.C. as additional material
to supplement hiatuses, but more importantly as valuable
means of comparison.
An account of source material for this study of course
cannot be ended without mentioning the studies of the promi-
nent scholars, preponderantly Dutch, which describe, analyze
and interpret Java’s tradition. Krom, Brandes, van Vollenhoven
as well as Berg, Schrieke, Stutterheim, Bosch, Pigeaud,
Wertheim, Hooykaas, van Leur, ter Haar and recently de Casparis
and--among Indonesians--Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Poerbatjaraka,
Soepomo and Yamin are but a few of the great number of men of
science who have given their best efforts to this particular
field of study.
18. See p. 71.CHAPTER II
MAGICAL AND RELIGIOUS IMPLEMENTATION OF KINGSHIP:
THE PROBLEM OF AUTHORITY
The King and His People: The
Kawula-Gusti Relationship
If we see the state as a social institution, where men
through combined effort try to achieve certain goals, and in
so doing have to make use of a certain amount of organization
and coordination, then we must take into account the two im-
portant human elements of organization, the organizer and the
organized, the leader and the follower, or, in the traditional
Javanese terms, the ruler and his subject, kawula-gusti (serv-
ant [and] master).1 In Javanese traditional life the rela-
tionship between servant and master is not impersonal; it is
rather a personal and close tie of mutual respect and respon-
sibility. Ideally, it is modeled after the care and love of
family ties. This was also true in social communication in
general. Such an attitude is revealed by the fact that the
Javanese frequently address a stranger with the title ki-sanak
or saderek, both words meaning "relative,” in general. And
the common saying, tuna satak bati sanak (a loss of some
money [but] a gain of a kin)j indicates that even in the
acceptedly mercenary character of trade a loss of profit is
considered worthwhile if one can instead gain a kin.
It could be argued, though, that social values cannot be
judged in terms of words and maxims only, as they do not al-
ways reveal the underlying motivations of the speaker and
furthermore through customary use, or better, abuse, they
have become empty phrases devoid of social reality. But if
we consider the kawula-gusti concept in its mystical garb we
1. Old Javanese: kawula, bhrtya--bondsman, retainer (Th. G.
Th. Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. V, The Hague,
1962.	In modern Javanese it has a broader meaning:
subject in general. Old Jav.: gusti--yeoman, master;
in modern Jav. the meaning of "tne king" and "the lord
God" is included.
1415
can see clearly how genuinely deep-rooted this sense of close
interrelation is in the Javanese mind. Although mysticism
is considered wadi (dangerously secret) and is thought avail-
able only to the selected few, it was and is still immensely
popular with all strata of the population, and any respectable
Javanese must at least know something about the so-called
ngelmu (the sacred knowledge) of which mysticism forms a
dominant part.
In Javanese mysticism, the words djumbuhing kawula gusti
(the merging of servant and master)2 describe the highest goal
of man's life, namely the achievement of the ultimate "one-ness
(manunggal) with God. This is the more dramatic since the
words kawula and gusti denote the very lowest and the very
highest status of man in society. However, and this is
important to our argument, unity of servant and master is
possible only because there are certain ties between and proper
ties common to man and God. These properties lie within the
most indescribable essence or substance of God and man which
the Javanese denote with the word suksma (soul), of Indian
origin, or with the word nur (light), derived from the Arabic.
Since all men possess these properties, one can understand
how decisive close- and personal relations are in determining
social communication in Javanese society, bridging even the
wide gaps of rank and blood. However, despite the common
bond, neither servant nor master is allowed to transgress the
formal dividing lines of the social hierarchy, apparent in
birth or rank and perceptible in the many rules governing
the etiquette of wearing apparel, use of language (krama-inggil
krama, madya and ngoko), the use of color or the paying of
homage. In other words, deep concern about each others' needs
and sorrows or an intense feeling of sympathy towards each
other cannot justify forgetting one's place in society, a
place which fate has allotted. Thus the Javanese commitment
to the kawula-gusti concept makes social communication a fine
and intricate art in itself because one must be careful to
keep one's place while maintaining a familial concern towards
another.
The kawula-gusti concept is deeply colored with
another characteristic of Javanese thinking: an unshakable
belief in fate, in things preordained, expressed in the words
pinesti (determined), tinitah (ordained), or the Arabic loan-
word tekdir (predestined). There were two main strata of
Javanese society, the wong tjilik, the common man, and the
penggede, the ruling class, not so much in terms of economic
2. In the Wulangreh of Paku Buwana IV (1788-1820) the idea
is expressed as pamoring gusti kawula. Paku Buwana IV,
Wulangreh, Kediri, 19297 p. 35716
wealth or superiority of blood, but more in terms of servitude
and masterdom, that of kawula (servant) vis & vis bendara
(master), and one’s place in this social order and thus one's
rights and duties were believed to be predestined, a belief
which unquestionably contributed much towards the smooth
operation of social functions. The Javanese belief does not
seem to be directly related to the Indian principle of Karman,
for evidence of the Indian formulation is scarce in writings
of the Later Mataram period.3 This is not remarkable since
the belief in the inevitability of things is expressed in the
God-ordained tekdir of Islam, which by then had sent its
roots deep into Javanese soil.4 That fate is capricious is
stressed repeatedly in stories and piwulangs and serves to
explain away, to obliterate and erase possible social or
political tensions in events in history. The story of Djaka
Tingkir and that of Ki Ageng Pemanahan from the Babad Tanah
Dj awi will serve as an example. Djaka Tingkir, destined to
become the king of Padjang, when still a young man lived with
Ki Ageng Sela. The wise man saw the sure sign of royalty, a
radiant light, emanate from the sleeping Djaka Tingkir. This
very much saddened Ki Ageng Sela, because he had spent a life
of fervent prayer and rigorous asceticism, hoping to obtain
God's favor so that he himself would father a line of kings.
However, in order to save what he thought to be his right,
he asked Djaka Tingkir to allow him to "continue" his luck.
The youth agreed. So, later, his hope became reality but
through the unpredictable working of fate; his grandson, Ki
Ageng Pemanahan, seemingly by accident, came to drink the
coconut-juice which a certain Ki Ageng Giring had left behind
in order to be able to savour it after a day's hard work.
Drinking this coconut juice, however, was the necessary
prerequisite--as Ki Ageng Giring had been told by "a voice"
in the coconut--to one's descendants ever ruling Java.5
3. That it was known to the Javanese of the time can be
seen in the "Serat Tjabolang." Th. Pigeaud, "De Serat
Tjabolang en de Serat Tjentini. Inhoudsopgaven," in
VBG, Vol. LXXII, part II, 1933, p. 35.
4. Apparently, instead of the inevitability of re-incarnation,
the Javanese strongly believe in a strict and divine law
of reward and reprisal for deeds done which will befall
the person concerned in his present life, or, and this is
more important for Javanese morality, which will affect
the lives of his close kin or descendants. See also
Mangkunegara IV, Dwidja Isjwara, ed. Padmasusastra,
Surakarta, 1899, p^ 43.
Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 36, 65, 67.17
On the political scene, the domination of Mataram over
the mighty princes of East Java and even over the priestly
domain of Giri had been predestined and duly explained long
before by the then ruling Sunan Giri. Undoubtedly this pre-
diction served as a means of making the rulers of Surabaja
comply with their fate. Nevertheless, Surabaja took up arms
against its suzerain again and again; the heaviest fighting,
according to the Babad Tanah Djawi, occurred during the reign
of Amangkurat II (1677-1703), wnen the adipati of Surabaja,
tumenggung Djajapuspita, defended himself against the attacks
of the combined Mataram and Dutch troops for over ten months
because of his faith in Islam. But finally Djajapuspita had
to leave his fortified town in defeat when he began to hesi-
tate and lose his faith and, finally, ask the help of the
Balinese.6
Setting aside the question of historical correctness of
the narrative as not relevant in this connection, these tales
insist that fate and not Mataram had weakened the power of
Djajapuspita’s troops so that they could be overpowered.
Therefore, fate and not its own accomplishments made Mataram
ruler over East Java. Thus, acts and situations were made
legitimate or at least were justified because of their
unavoidability.
Still another and a much more striking example of the
rigidity of destiny is found in the repertory of the wajang,
the Javanese shadow-play, namely in the story (lakon)
Bratajuda, the war between the Pandawas and the Korawas.
The Pandawas’ envoy, Sri Betara Kresna, was so enraged by the
insulting attitude of the Korawas that he took on his
tiwikrama-form as a huge thousand-headed and thousand-1 imbed
giant. He could have crushed the Korawas and even the entire
population of Ngastina at that very moment, if the god Surya,
Suralaja's messenger, had not reminded him that destiny had
to work out its course, that the fearful and destructive
Bratajuda had to be fought and that the fate of the Korawas
was that they would perish in it. Here even a deity (Kresna
is an incarnation of the god Wisnu) was not permitted to change
the course of fate.7
In explaining the working of destiny, one seemingly in-
consistent fact has to be pointed out in the story about Ki
Djaka Tingkir. Ki Ageng Sela’s desire that his descendants
be allowed to continue Djaka Tingkir’s reign actually did
6.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 68, 322.
7.	Jasadipoera, Kyai (ed. Cohen-Stuart), "Serat Bratayuda,"
VBG , Vol. XXVIII (1860), pp. 15, 16.18
come true when his great-grandson Panembahan Senapati founded
the kingdom of Mataram towards the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury, thus giving proof that coming events can be influenced
by man's actions. Such inconsistency is, however, explained
by the law of reward and reprisal. Ki Ageng Sela's wish was
fulfilled only because of his semedi,8 the consistent concen-
tration of his whole being on the goal he expected to reach.
The performance of a semedi releases powers, in Javanese
thought conceived of as a “wave of heat"9 which steadily in-
creases in intensity according to the degree of perseverance
in the execution of the semedi and eventually is felt as a
disturbance in nature. Such reciprocity of action between
the micro-cosmos of man and the macro-cosmos of the gods is
traditionally illustrated by the gara-gara-scene in the
wajang-play, when the hero's ardent semedi~7 because of his
distress or because of his wish to attain a certain goal,
results in a disturbance in nature which, in turn, brings
the hero's wishes to the attention of the gods. Only the
consent of the gods, or at least their interference, will
restore nature to its normal order. Sing sapa gede panjuwune,
bakal katekan sedyane, "he who prays fervently will have
his wishes fulfilled," is therefore thought to be an unfailing
truth, although the result might not necessarily be immediate.
This sense of an exact rendering of reward or punishment
is so strong that it is thought that an ardent wish even for an
evil end when strengthened by abstention and self-chastisement
will be rewarded, but by the demonic goddess Durga, the
female counterpart of Batara Kala, the evil aspect of the god
Guru (Ciwa). However, fulfillment of such a wish, because
of its ill intent, can be only temporary. Moreover, even-
tually it will be fatal and disastrous to the person con-
cerned.10 Illustrations are to be found in many of the stories
of the wajang. For instance,in the lakon Bradjadenta-
Bradjamusti, the giant Bradjadenta buys Batari Durga's help
(black magic) at the cost of his own death at the hands of
8.	Semedi is the yogic technique of establishing contact
between man and God.
9.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 77. Because of Panembahan
Senapati's ascetic practice, the Ocean's "waters became
as hot as boiling water."
10.	K. G. P. A. A. Mangkunegara VII, On the Wayang Kulit
(Purwa) and Its Symbolic and Mystical Elementstrans.
Claire Holt, Southeast Asia Program Data Paper No. 27,
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1957, p. 13 (original
in Djawa, Vol. XIII, 1933).19
his nephew, Gatutkatja, knight of Pringgadani.11 Perhaps
the belief in, if not human, then unfailing divine justice
is reflected in the notion that undeserved wealth acquired
through the help of the spirit Njai Blorong, a beautiful
snake-bodied woman with scales of gold, must always end in
untimely death to serve as her slave forever after; it is
also thought that such wealth demands the sacrifice of one's
child who will encounter a serious and long-lasting mishap.
That such justice is perceived by the Javanese in the even
stronger sense of a self-executing natural law is markedly
expressed in the word kewales. Kewales denotes the working
of repercussion, automatically, without specification of an
agent of action, for the prefix ke- is used in this verb
form.
Apart from obtaining favors from the Gods, which is the
most popular notion of the purpose of semedi, there is a
more basic, a deeper purpose to obtain knowledge of God's
will or, more vulgarly, to see into the future. In the
language of the Babad Tanah Djawi this is described as neges
karsaning hyang ingkang murbeng pandulu (trying to understand
the will of the all-seeing), or, more frequently, as maneges
karsaning Pangeran (trying to understand God's will).T* The
will of God is almost never disclosed in clear, unequivocal
terms but rather in a veiled and intricately indirect form,
available to all but comprehensible to only those worthy of
such an exceptionally high and therefore "dangerous" favor.
Indirect forms of information, such pralambang or pasemon
("covered information") given in perceptible form or in words,
are frequently used, even essential in social communication.
So pralambangs are not used in the communication between
Creator and created only, but also, and very extensively,
between man and man, where crude directness is avoided as
much as possible and veiled and subtle insinuation is pre-
ferred. The expression "a kick for a slave, an insinuation
for a lower official, a smile for a high dignitary" (dupak
budjang, semu mantri, esem bupati) indicates that a rude
reprimand is fit only for the lowest and that a bupati (a
high dignitary, regent) has to be careful in interpreting
the intentions of his lord.
A pralambang from the time of the fall of the Dutch in
1942 under the attacks of the Japanese forces will illustrate the
interpretation of such "covered information." Some two or
three years before, a traffic regulation required that a
11.	J. Kats, Het Javaansche Toneel, Vol. I, Batavia 1973
p. 294.
12.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 245.20
horse-drawn vehicle should have as a turn-signal a white disc with
a round red reflector in the center, mounted on a stick which
the driver had to extend to indicate the direction he intended
to take. The Javanese believed this was a divine sign that
the Japanese would be masters over Java because the white
disc with red dot looked exactly like the insignia of the
Japanese "Navy 0" fighters (a red ball painted on the gleam-
ing white surface of the aeroplane), which were the first seen
in Java’s skies before the invasion. That this interpretation
came after the Dutch surrendered did not in the least lessen
the validity of the pralambang, for the Javanese knew that
interpretation came late simply because nobody had had sense
enough to read the "writing on the wall" earlier.
Semedi is seen as a means of bridging the gap between
the unfathomable depths of God's knowledge and, in terms of
time and clarity, the narrow and dim view of man. If man can
perform semedi, there must be certain essential qualities
which are common to both man and God. This does not make man
God's equal but it does allow him to contact intimately, and
finally merge with God. Thus it is possible for man to be-
come one with his Creator, which is what djumbuhing kawula-
gusti tries to explain.13
Returning again to the relations between ruler and ruled,
the kawula-gusti concept does not merely refer to a relation-
ship between the high and the low, but rather to a close
interdependency between two distinct but nevertheless insepa-
rable elements, two elements which ultimately form two aspects
of the same thing. This syncretism is derived from Indian
theology (e.g., Trimurti and Hari-hara). An early Javanese
expression of the unity of disparate elements is the well-
known statue of Krtanagara of Singhasari as Bhatara Ciwa-
Buddha. True to all mysticism, these syncretic ideas seek
to prove that all things are only aspects, <;akti' s, emana-
tions, only integral parts of the all-embracing One, in
Javanese thought personified in the god Sang Hyang Wenang
(the Omnipotent), or more popularly in his son, Sang Hyang
Tunggal (the One).
The Javanese, with their projective-imaginative think-
ing,1** symbolized this kawula-gusti unity with a strikingly
13.	See above, p. 15.
14.	For the Javanese nothing is without meaning and conse-
quently he is apt to search for meaning in acts, words
or situations, however rationally incomprehensible or
unimportant they may seem. Visible or perceptible
things are thought to be possible projections of more21
appropriate object, namely the keris, a formal dagger-type
weapon. The two parts of the kens, the scabbard (warangka)
and the blade (tjuriga), have been given a singularly mystical
interpretation;T5 the scabbard is likened to the people and
abstract or concealed meanings, expressed in the word
surasa (meaning, inner purpose). Analogies are therefore
also very much used in explanations, and similarities or
supposed similarities in form can lead to identification
in sense or meaning, a train of thought which has led
Professor C. C. Berg to his intricate and elaborate
theory of dynastic change among the rulers of Java. (See
C. C. Berg, "The Islamization of Java," in Studia
Islamica, IV, Oct. 22, 1955, p. Iliff., especially Par.
Ill, IV). If the pralambang illustrates the interpreta-
tion of similarities or the projection of concealed
meanings, the kerata-basa, a kind of folk etymology (see
Ch. F. Hockett, A Course in Modern Linguistics, New York,
1958, p. 288), are, as explained by S. Padmosoekotjo,
words "which are given a meaning taken from the consti-
tuting syllables or pronunciation-parts, by means of
adaptation [of the sound in the syllables] to fit [the
meaning given]." (S. Padmosoekotjo, Ngengrengan Kasu-
sastran Djawa, Jogjakarta, 1958, Vo1. I, p. 43.) Although
kerata-basa i's only a play of words, it does illustrate
the highly imaginative and speculative working of Java-
nese projective-correlative thinking. The word sruwal
for instance, meaning pair of pants, consists of the
first syllable sru- which in kerata-basa is synchronized
to fit to the word saru (shameful) and the second syl-
lable -wal pointing to the fitting word uwal (not to ad-
here to, to loosen from) so that we derive the adapted
meaning "it will be shameful if it ever comes loose,"
which it certainly would be if it ever happened! Even
modern words are given a kerata-basa meaning. "Scooter"
in Javanese pronounced as "sekuter"; the syllable seku-
is adaptable to the word sjdeku (sitting with bent elbow
as support), -ter synchronizes with banter (fast). The
adapted meaning will be then: "sitting with bent elbow
but acquiring a fast pace as well." The importance of
word-play and word-interpretation to seek for a hidden
meaning is sufficiently illustrated by the examples
above.
IS. In Javanese mysticism the djumbuhing kawula-gusti has
been symbolically visualized by "the merging of the
scabbard into the blade" (warangka mandjing tjuriga), the
scabbard being man and the blade God, a reversed view of
actuality, wherein the Javanese find great delight,
especially to illustrate--in such paradoxes--the idea22
the blade to the king, thus describing a necessary relation-
ship, the one incomplete without the presence of the other,
and also an interdependency in the sense that the scabbard
protects the blade from damage and conversely the blade pro-
tects the scabbard (which is usually made of the finest wood
sheathed in ornately chiseled silver or gold) from theft and
loss. The value of a keris is judged by the magical force,
contained in the pamor (meteorite iron inlay on its blade)
and derived from the magical power of its empu (weaponsmith).
But since the blade symbolizes the king as tne core, the
essence, the guiding force of the state, it has to be worthy,
according to whatever standard, of its sheath. The indivisi-
ble link between ruler and subject is also compared to a ring
(sesupe), the king as the sesotya (the precious stone) and
the people as the embanan (the setting). From the prototype
Indian Niti^astra, with its point by point advice and instruc
tive comparisons, is derived the analogy between the lion or
tiger and the forest16 and the king and his people. The
mutual protection of lion and forest and king and people is
not only beneficial but necessary to both parties. This
analogy is found also in the Javanese Panitisastra of 1808,
a translation of an older Old-Javanese version.17
of the mystical "impossible possibilities." (See fur-
ther:	P. J. Zoetmulder, Pantheisme en Monisme in de
Javaansche Soeloek-litteratuur, Nijmegen, 1935,
pp. 236, 320ff.)---------------
16.	Nitigastra, ed. R. M. Ng.Poerbatjaraka, trans. R. M. B.
Djajahendra, Batavia, 1940 , point 10. This comparison
is also used in the very popular Serat Rama, when Rama-
widjaja instructs his younger brother Barata in the art
of ruling:
"the whole populace can be likened to a forest and
the king to a lion
whose security lies in the denseness of the thicket.
Should the forest ever become open
the lion would lose his regard,
and his strength would be of no use;
if he struggles he soon will be overpowered.
So it is agreed
that a king should love his people
like the tiger the woods."
(K. Jasadipura, Serat Rama, Semarang, 1919,
p. 43.)
17.	From the point of view of continuity, it is noteworthy
that the Panitisastra, as a reverence to Islam, is intro
duced with a couplet of homage to the Lord God and His
Prophet, Kandjeng Nabi Mohammad, a tradition in Javanese
Islamic literature, which however is a continuation of23
Another source of information about the king-subject
relationship is of course the waj ang. Although its exact age
has not yet been agreed upon, if one accepts Rassers' theory,18
its origin can be placed far back in history. It can be
shown to have existed at least in the eleventh century A.D.
and thus long before the Later Mataram period. Wajang gives
to everyone in the widely variegated audience attending such
a play something to take advantage of; it is in one sense
entertainment for all, but in a more important sense instruc-
tion for all, for in it are illustrated the multifarious as-
pects of human behavior, from the lowest greed to the highest
morality, from the little weaknesses of men or gods to the
undeniable strength of faith, from the intrigues of diplomacy
to the stern working of fate, from witty pun to mystical
dialogue. Waj ang is thus an important source of informa-
tion on contemporary social attitudes and more so since new
lakons were continuously added to the repertory by court-
sages who were skilled in grasping the mood of the time, or--
and this is not a great except ion--by the ruler himself,
like the poet-prince Mangkunegara IV, whom one may expect
knew the needs, views and ambitions of his time.18 If we
thereby take the sacrosanct character of the waj ang-play into
consideration, we can safely assume that the waj ang actually
reflects the ideals and aspirations of Javanese society.
Therefore, the wajang as the reflection of Javanese ideals
par excellence also tells us something about the ideal ruler-
subject relationship.
In the Javanese shadow play, one can observe the exist-
ence of a group of characters quite distinct from the figures
of the right and those of the left, following the well-known
Javanese cosmological classification. The puppets of this
third group are always pictured with physical deformities and
of a ribald and somewhat uncouth disposition, and they are
thought to represent--and to an extent symbolize--the common
people. They are called panakawan, which does not only mean
that they are servants (abdi) but also the inseparable com-
panions and at times the mentors of their respective masters.
a Hinduistic custom of beginning a literary work with a
word of homage to the god Wisnu.
R. M. Ng. Poerbatjaraka, Kapustakan Djawi, Djakarta,
1952, p. 142.
18. W. H. Rassers, Panii, the Culture Hero, The Hague, 1959,
pp. 98 , 99. For tne historical development of the waj ang
puppets see also: Th. Pigeaud, Javaansche Volksvertoningen
Batavia, 1938, p. 365ff.	----------------------------’
19 . See p. 4 8.24
Of these, one group, Semar and his sons, (Nala)gareng, Petruk
and, in Jogjakarta, Bagong, serve the right or "good" side.
Togog and his companion Sarawita (or Bilung) serve the left
or ’’bad” side. In the wajang-piay they actually are no more
than jesters or jokers who give to the performance the much
appreciated time to relax in laughter. However, one of the
various interpretations about their place in the wajang gives
them a more important role. Semar is actually no less than
the deity Hyang Ismaja, the older brother of Hyang Manikmaja
(more usually called Batara Guru), ruler of the celestial
world and the universe. In the Sundanese-speaking area of
Java, Togog (sometimes Tedjamantri in Sundanese) is thought
of as the equally godly brother of Semar, named Hyang Tedja-
maya, but to the Javanese he is the treacherous servant of
the buta (giants), serving those who will pay the most.20
To Semar and Togog fell the duty to be the guardians of man-
kind, respectively on the ’’good" and "bad" side. Still
another interpretation identified Semar with the formlessness
of eternity,while his sons Gareng, Bagong and Petruk are
thought to personify the past, present and future.21
Such an identification of the most important panakawans
with, on the one hand, the highest deities and with the dif-
ferent aspects of Time--the great defining factor of all
life--and, on the other, with the people may suggest that
the people as a whole are regarded by the Javanese as sacred
and therefore to be taken seriously into account. This con-
clusion is strengthened by the fact that some lakons tell of
the serious consequences which resulted from the unreasonable
treatment of these servants by their masters: the panakawans
go away seeking justice (lakons Dewa Lelana2* and Pandu
Bregola23), and immediately calamities descend upon the
state--a plague spreads through the land and an invasion of
a foreign foe is at hand--well-known ominous signs that the
balance in the universe is in jeopardy. Only after the mas-
ters acknowledge their mistakes is the enemy driven away
(normally by the panakawans themselves in a disguise provided
by the gods) and peace and order is restored to the realm.
The power of the people is also symbolized in the lakon Petruk
dadi Ratu21* (Petruk becomes a King) wherein, again after a
20.	R. Hardjowirogo, Sedjarah Wajang Purwa, Djakarta, 1952,
pp. 97, 98, 99, 100, 131, 132.
21.	J. J. de Hollander (ed.), "Serat Manik Maja," VBG,
vol. XXIV, 1852, p. 5.
22.	Serat Padalangan Ringgit Purwa, Batavia, 1932, Vol. XXII
23.	Ibid., Vol. XV.
24.	Ibid., Vol. XXII.25
controversy with his master, Petruk becomes--in disguise--a
powerful king, defying the strength and skill of his erst-
while masters; at last he is brought into submission but only
by his brother and fellow-panakawan Gareng. One has also to
consider that none of these lakons is among the "basic-
stories" (lakon djedjer or lakon baku) which originate from
the Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata; they are all so-
called "branch-stories" (lakon tfjarangan) created by the
Javanese themselves and thus clearly revealing Javanese ideals
of the ruler-people relationship. Indeed, these lakons empha-
size the potential power of those who are apparently lowly
and insignificant; the moral of these stories seems to be
adja sok njepelekakd, a common adage which warns men never
to look down on what seems insignificant.
Considering the important role of the wajang in Javanese
society (not least as a forum for criticism and com-
ment on current institutions and affairs) one almost certainly
will assume from the above interpretation of the panakawan-
master relationship that the Javanese see the king and the
people as of equal importance, different in terms of function
rather than of value.
Nevertheless, another word denoting this relationship
does give to the relationship a more complicated pattern.
This is the word momongan, used repeatedly in different royal
edicts, among others in article 7 of the law Angger Ageng of
the sixteenth of October 1817,25 a penal code which obviously
had been codified for the specific purpose of regulating the
constant disputes between the subjects of Jogjakarta and
Surakarta after Mataram’s division into the two small king-
doms in 1755. According to Rouffaer, the first dictum was
put down in 1771.26 The question is now whether there are
older editions of this statute, in order to justify the use
of this word momongan as a valid illustration for the whole
Later Mataram period.. Legal rules and regulations may be
drawn for a certain purpose at a certain time, but the under-
lying legal concepts are normally much older. Momongan cer-
tainly refers to a legal concept as--in the penal code men-
tioned earlier--it denotes the subjects under the jurisdic-
tion of a certain administrator, thus indicating a certain
attitude from the administrator's point of view. Momongan
has as its stem the word momong, which means to take of with
G. J. Oudemans, Javaansche Wetten, Jogjakarta, 1897,
Vol. II (Javanese texts) , p. T5~.
G. P. Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden," in Adatrechtbundel,
XXXIV, serie D, No. 81, p. 107.
25
2626
love, to lead;27 an attitude of constant vigilance and subtle
persuasion is implied as well. Generally it is used by the
Javanese to describe careful guidance by a trusted servant of
his master's children or by parents of their children or
again by the husband of his spouse. It expresses a certain
duty and a responsibility which places a greater burden on
the guardian (pamong) than on the guarded, a responsibility
which need not stop when the children have reached adulthood.
The use of momongan as a legal designation for the ruled,
therefore, indicates how close the relationship between
ruler and ruled should be, and also stresses the role of the
ruler in a definitely higher position than the subject, who
is bound into submission by an everlasting feeling of grati-
tude. The subject's subservience is further strengthened by
his belief in the working of fate which has assigned him his
proper place in the social hierarchy.
A summary of Javanese thought on the relationship of the
king to his subjects will reveal three major concepts:
1.	A close, personal relationship accompanied by feel-
ings of mutual love and respect is perceived as the
standard mode of social communication.
2.	Fate determines man's place in society, whether he
will be born a servant or a master. A consequence
is that man has no choice but to do his duty as is
ordained by fate. These two factors result in a
practice of government in which:
3.	the ruler (and his officials), in terms of practical
administrative policy, must care for his subjects
as a parent cares for his children; thus the ruler
assumes in fact an attitude of protective superiority,
the ruled an attitude of acquiescent subservience.
The King's Position in the Life of the State
Kingship and Islam
In the Javanese concept of the state-organism, the king
(radja, ratu) is the exponent of the micro-cosmos, the state.
That the idea of a cosmos divided into a micro-cosmos --the
27. Th. Pigeaud, Javaans-Nederlands Handwoordenboek, Batavia,
1938; and Java in the 14th Century, The Hague, 1962 , Vo 1.
V. The Old-Javanese wwang and mong also mean to take
care of.27
world of man--and a macro-cosmos--the supra-human world--is
central to the Javanese world-view is a fact so well-known
as to demand no further proof.28 Inherent in this idea are
two factors important to the Javanese understanding of state
life:	first, there is a parallelism between macro- and micro
cosmos, and, second, there is a necessary interaction between
macro- and microcosmos. These two factors determine that
social order should be seen as a precise and rigid regulation
patterned after the perpetual and exact seasonal changes in
nature and the coming and going of stellar constellations.
Such a concept of order naturally led to attitudes of tradi-
tionalism and conservatism.
The endeavor to create a correspondence between the
Great Order and that on earth can be detected in the organi-
zational grouping of the villages (desa) into mant japat and
mant jalima,or the four- and five-group. Although now greatly
changed in meaning,29 originally these names seem to have
denoted a four-square arrangement of a village at each car-
dinal point with one desa at the center. The idea of the
mantjanegara, the outer regions, as distinct from the
nagaragung, the "Great-” or core-region of the King's realms,
is also related to a vision of the macro-cosmos. Although
the word mantj a in modern Javanese is usually understood as
"outlying*1 ana thus as "foreign," it is certain that it was
derived from the Sanskrit word pantj a, which means "five,"
putting us in mind of the five-sectional village alliance
mentioned above.30 The grouping of the king's officials into
keparak kiwa and keparak tengen, or gedong kiwa and gedong
tengen, meaning officials of the left and of the right group,
might also be regarded as reflecting conformity with nature's
symmetry. While citing de Jonge, Rouffaer noted the prefer-
ence in Sultan Agung's court in 1623 for the number four,
apparent in the existence of four highest dignitaries, but
then again divided two and two into left and right. The four
main and the four lesser cardinal points plus the center con-
stitute the number nine, which therefore was also considered
holy. Thus, during the Kartasura-period of Later Mataram
(approximately 1700), the "Outer" Grand-vizier (Patih Diaba)
had eight "outer" subordinate bupatis (bupati djaba).3* And
28.	See further, R. Heine-Geldern, "Conceptions of State and
Kingship in Southeast Asia," The Far Eastern Quarterly,
Vol. 2, November 1942, pp. 15-30.
29.	See further, Chapter III, pp. 101-102.
30.	J. Gonda, Sanskrit in Indonesia, Nagpur, 1952, p. 91.
31.	Rouffaer, op. cit. , pp. 56, 57 .28
Rouffaer was quite right in pointing out the significance of
the fact that there were nine walis, the traditional sages
who proselytized Islam in JavaT Tn the Babad Tjirebon they
were further grouped into the four who were born in Java, the
four who came from over the sea, and the central one, Sunan
Gunung Djati, to complete the number nine.32 These prefer-
ences for certain numbers and arrangements show the age-long
persistence of concepts, passing without hindrance through
different culture-periods.
A comparison between the period of Hindu-Java and that
of Later Mataram brings to light the concept of the king as
center of the state microcosmos and the pinnacle of the
state’s status-hierarchy. Since the microcosmos is parallel
to the macrocosmos, the Hindu-Javanese king was identified
with a god, generally Wisnu, and his queen was identified
with the god’s qakti. The question of a connection between
the Hindu Javanese concept of the King and Later Mataram
ideas about the role of the King is clarified by Stutterheim’s
theory about the internment-statues of Old-Javanese kings
and queens of East Java.33 The king-God identification itself
had lost its currency in Islamic Java. Indeed Islamic teach-
ing discouraged such an open identification of man with God,
a view which caused Seh Wali Lanang, better known under his
title Seh Siti Djenar, to be sentenced to death, for he, ac-
cording to the story, made the fatal mistake of disclosing
this secret mystic concept in his preachings.3 ** Islamic
theology placed the King in a less august position than be-
fore, namely as that of the kalipatullah, God’s representa-
tive on earth. Java’s rulers assumed this title at a rela-
tively late date;35 Amangkurat IV (1719-1724) was the first
32.	D. A. Rinkes, ’’Babad Tjirebon," VBG, Vol. LIX, 1911,
p . 13 .
33.	W. F. Stutterheim, ’’The Meaning of the Hindu-Javanese Candi,
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 51, No. 1,
1931, pp. 1-15. The popular idea of the king as Wisnu’s
incarnation is also illustrated in the well-known Ken
Angrok legend.
34.	Zoetmulder, op, cit., p. 415.
35.	What the name "kalifagypan," cited by de Graaff means
is obscure, but it was not the title of Sultan Agung.
(H. J. de Graaf, "De Regering van Sultan Agung, Vorst van
Mataram," Verh. KI, Vol. XXIII, 1958.
p. 103. Also, J. K. J. de Jonge, De Opkomst van het
Nederlandsch Gezag in Post Indie (1595-1610), ’s-Gravenhage,
rm,...Vor: iv, P. ----------------------------29
to use it in the form "Prabu Mangku-Rat Senapati Ingalaga
Ngabdu'-Rahman Sayidin Panatagama Kalipatullah."36 In itself
it is interesting that this title, which was so serviceable
as the Islamic contribution towards enhancing the king’s
greatness--and not in the least because of its foreign ori-
gin--should have been introduced so late. Perhaps this was
because the assumption of this title requires the recognition
and acceptance of the whole Moslem World; thus the envoys
sent by Javanese rulers to Mecca had been able to secure for
their masters only the title of "sultan." Only the rulers
of Jogjakarta, from 1755 onwards, have consistently used the
title of kalipatullah,37 apparently without bothering about
the necessary consensus of all the world's Moslems. Further-
more, this difference of title between the rulers of Sura-
karta and Jogjakarta was obviously more the outcome of stress-
ing the partition of 1755 than that of an active and purpose-
ful policy to assert the king's authority over the entire
Moslem world. Another difference in title is that the Sura-
karta kings are called Susuhunan, those of Jogjakarta, Sultan,
also without any further political implications.
Islam's abrogation of the king-god identification did not,
however, undermine its essential assertion, the all-dominating
and absolute power of the king over his subjects. With the
coming of Islam as a new religion, the king and his regional
officers had to reassert themselves in the new power-hierarchy
in competition with the bearers of Islam, who, in the course
of their religious activities, had acquired political influ-
ence as well. This power struggle which on and off lasted
far into the Later Mataram period usually was decided in
favor of the secular authorities. But there always lingered
the possibility of a controversy between the representatives
of secular power, the pri j aj i, and that of religious leaders,
the kyai, in establishing social leadership in the Javanese
community, and it is noteworthy that in rebellious disturbances
up to the present time the kyai-element3 6 has always been
strongly represented.
According to tradition as recorded in the Babad litera-
ture, at the fall of the Madjapahit monarchy in the first half
36.	C. Lekkerkerker, Land en Volk van Java, Groningen,
1938, p. 339. Babad Tanah Djawi (p. 335) does not
mention this title.
37.	Lekkerkerker, op. cit., p. 340.
38.	Kyai:	1. title of veneration for old people in general;
z. title given by the community to a person well-versed
in religious questions and the secret doctrines.30
of the sixteenth century an important place was accorded in
religious as well as in political life to the Nine Walis
(Wali sanga), described in Lekkerkerker's study of Java’s
land and people.39 Both the Babad Tanah Djawi and the Babad
Mataram, the former written most probably during Sultan
Agung* s reign (1613-1645)40 and the latter definitely during
the rule of Hamengku Buwana V of Jogjakarta (1822-1826, 1828-
1855) , relate the important part that the walis played in the
fall of Madjapahit.41 The Babad Mataram tells the story that
before Raden Patah of Demak launched the attack on Madjapahit,
"bubuka saking agama" (the cause of which was religion), he
went first to the venerated Sunan Ngampel, who lived at
Ngampel, Surabaja, to ask for his advice and blessing for
this important endeavor. Sunan Ngampel told him that the
time had not yet come because the "buda'-king (the Madja-
pahit-king professed the Hindu-religion of course) had
to reign for one more year. Meanwhile Raden Patah was advised
to pray for God’s consent, and to ask the blessings of all
the walis, especially Sunan Kalidjaga and of his stepfather, the
Sultan of Palembang.42 Influence of the walis seems to have
been so strong that their consent was considered essential
before a pretender might ascend the throne. Thus, Sultan
Adiwidjaja of Padjang and later Panembahan Senapati43 in-
directly received Sunan Kalidjaga’s "testimony” before they
ascended the throne. The B ab ad Tan ah Dj aw i narrates Sultan
Adiwidjaja's acknowledgment as follows:
One day Sunan Prapen [the then reigning Sunan of Giri]
came out in audience. The Sultan of Padjang and the
adipatis [regional authorities] were sitting in a row.
Their retainers sat behind their respective lords.
Sultan Padjang was then asked to take a seat close to
the pandita [Sunan Prapen] who asked [the gathering]
for their consensus on his becoming sultan, with the
title Sultan Prabu Adiwidjaja; [he informed them] that
the pandita himself had already given his consent. The
time was 1503 [according to the Javanese Era--1581 A.D.].44
39.	Lekkerkerker, op. cit. , p. 313.
40.	H. J. de Graaf, Over het ontstaan van de Javaanse
Rijkskroniek, Leiden, 19 53.
41.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 28, 29.
42.	Babad Mataram (MS in possession of the Kraton of Jogja-
karta” Indonesia), Microfilm, Wason Collection, Cornell
University Library, Ithaca, N.Y., p. 82.
43.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 62.
44.	Ibid., p. 68.31
Sunan Ngampel’s son, the wali residing at the important Is-
lamic center of Giri near Gresik, and his successors seem to
have played important roles in easing tensions between
Mataram's rulers and their mighty vassals of the East-Java
coastal regions, led by the adipati of Surabaja.1*5 Such a
mediating function had also been performed by Sunan Kalidjaga
and Sunan Kudus of North Central Java, the latter of whom
had even allowed himself to get involved in the intrigues of
the Demak court when he actively supported the Arja of
Djipang's claim to the throne, even going so far as devising
a plot to assassinate the succeeding monarch, Sultan Adi-
widjaja of Padjang.1*6
It is remarkable that all these stories can be placed
between the fall of Madjapahit and the coming to the throne
of Sultan Agung of Mataram, approximately covering the six-
teenth century. Thereafter the power of such Moslem sages
on the political stage dwindled before the secular might of
the king. However, it took Mataram two campaigns to subjugate
the priestly stronghold of Giri, whose fame as a center of
Moslem learning had spread as far as Ternate in the Moluccas
and remained so as late as the end of the seventeenth century.1*7
Although in 1635 Sultan Agung had been able, with the help
of Surabaja, to take Giri after heavy fighting, in 1680 a
second effort had to be made to bring Giri to its knees, now
by his grandson, Amangkurat II (1677-1703). This was achieved
only after the Mataram and Surabaja troops overran the be-
sieged troops who, with all Giri’s material as well as magic
powers, made a last grand stand. Another center of Moslem
power, Tjirebon, became the formal seat of a branch of the
descendants of the wali Sunan Gunung Djati, or under another
name, Faletehan. It came peacefully under the political
supremacy of Mataram by means of a treaty in 1590. This tie
was strengthened later when Sultan Agung married a princess
of Tjirebon. Sultan Agung called the Sultan of Tjirebon his
guru (teacher), indicating the semi-ecclesiastical position
of the otherwise worldly rulers of Tjirebon. Another center
of Islam whose name was respected at the Mataram court was
(K)adilangu in the Demak region, where Sunan Kalidjaga had
lived in the later part of his life and where his descendants'
exceptional position was recognized first by Mataram and
later also by the V.O.C. (Dutch East-India Company). The
Babad Tanah Djawi mentions the presence of Panembahan Widjil
45.	Ibid., p. 99 .
46.	Ibid. , p. 48.
47.	H. J. de Graaf, Geschiedenisvan Indonesie, p. 81.32
of Adilangu at the installation of Pangeran Puger as Paku
Buwana I at Semarang in 1703.48 The Panembahan’s presence
made legitimate Pangeran Puger’s challenge to the rights of
Sunan Amangkurat Mas (1703-1708) who, although rightly on the
throne, had alienated himself from most of his trusted adi-
patis. Nevertheless, the importance of the lords of Adilangu
seems to have been of nominal character only and whatever in-
fluence they had was waning steadily; this was reflected in
the titles they held during the course of time. The title
of Susuhunan Kalidjaga was used by the first five descendants
Later, the title was changed into Panembahan Notto-Prodjo
(Panembahan Natapradja) by the Surakartan kings. The V.O.C.
recognized them as "Pangeran Widjil," while in 1816 the
Netherland Indies Government gave them the title Pangerang
van Kadilangu or the Pangeran of Adilangu. **9 This decline
of titles50 clearly shows the decline of their importance,
which in reality had been more the result of the holiness
emanating from Sunan Kalidjaga’s tomb than that of the reli-
gious activities of the descendants. Paku Buwana I refers to
the tomb’s holiness when reminiscing about the pusakas (holy
inherited objects) of the kraton:
I am very much depressed that all the pusakas have been
taken by my son the king [Amangkurat Mas], but I know
that, even if all the other pusakas should be taken
away, if only the Demak-mosque and the tomb of Adilangu
remain, this will suffice. Only these two are the true
pusakas of Java.51
In examining the important Moslem centers of power we
cannot overlook the role of the panembahans of Kadjoran, a
locality in the Klaten area of Surakarta, whose lords were
related to the founder of the Tembajat-sanctuary, the wali
48.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 277.
49.	Selection of important documents belonging to the Collec
tion Kern and Gobee (in the possession of the Koninklijk
Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, The Hague),
Microfilm, Wason Collection, Cornell University Library,
Ithaca, N.Y., Film I, no. 24.
50.	According to the Babad Mataram, the next five successors
of Sunan Kalidjaga were: Sunan Adi, Panembahan Pangulu,
Panembahan Ketib, Panembahan Agung, Panembahan Sabrang,
followed by a succession of Pangerans with the same name
Widjil. Thus, only two bore the title "sunan." Babad
Mataram, p. 10.
51.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 301.33
Sunan Bajat.52 These lords of Kadjoran had repeatedly been
a great nuisance to Mataram because of their reluctant atti-
tude toward their overlord. Although bound by ties of mar-
riage to the Mataram dynasty,53 they were not reluctant to
take up a rebellious cause, in which Trunadjaja, son-in-law
of Raden Kadjoran or Panembahan Rama,had played the principal
role. An open breach in 1677 between Mataram and Kadjoran
led finally to the extermination of the latter (1679). To
this uprising Professor de Graaf has given his attention in
an article of some length.5“
With the elimination of these centers of religious power
one can say that secular Mataram's dominance had become a
fact. But the controversy between religion and the state
has never been permanently settled and, in Java, religious
motives have frequently been used to justify political oppo-
sition. This was so in the Java War of 1825-30, for instance,
when the distinctly religious title Ngabdulkamid Eroetjakra
Sajidin Panatagama Chalifat Rasulu'llah Sain was taken by-
Pangeran Dipanegara. The important position of Kyai Madja,
the prince's spiritual tutor, and the distinctly Arabic, thus
Moslem, garb55 worn by the prince (the djubah or robe and
the s e rb an or turban) also emphasized the religious banner
under which the war was fought.
It is therefore easy to understand that the rulers of
Later Mataram very early tried to recapture undivided sacro-
political power,56 which,in the period of transition to Islam,
was slipping out of their hands. These efforts to restore
the unity of authority can be detected in the rank-denoting
52.	The fact that at one time the great Sultan Agung had
gone to the extent of building a gate and a pendapa at
the site of the holy graves of Tembajat (16335 confirms
its importance..
53.	H. J. de Graaf, "Het Kadjoran Vraagstuk," Djawa,
Vol. 20 (1940), nos. 4-5, pp. 274, 276.
54.	Ibid.
55.	H. J. de Graaf, Geschiedenis van Indonesia. See the
picture opposite p. 304.
56.	According to Islamic theology, temporal and spiritual
authority is never divided. There is only the overall
authority of the Shari'a, the prophetically revealed law
of Islam. See E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in
Medieval Islam, Cambridge, 1962 , pp"; 22 , 23 .34
titles which the first rulers of Mataram had assumed. As
indicated in Pigeaud’s study, Java in the 14th Century, the
usual title of local lords and chiefs of some prominence was
adipati (chief, governor). Bhupati, during the latter half
of the Later Mataram period, came to be the functional title
of the higher group of dignitaries in the king's administra-
tion. Pati,translated by "ruler," could denote the king him-
self as well as other dignitaries.57 In Javanese literature
we can find these words in shorter form: dipati5 8 or pati,
titles under which Dipati Ukur and Pati (J)unus appear. Cit-
ing Pigeaud, Senapati is "a title name of prominent chieftains
of rural estates given by the 15th and 16th Century kings of
Demak and Pajang" to, among others, the lord of Pasir in
the western Banjumas area and also to the chief of Mataram.59
But in the quest for the highest place in the social hierarchy
of homage and reverence, the secular rulers did not seem con-
tent with these titles or even the title sultan, with its
aura of foreign superiority, for which Sultan Agung had ex-
erted considerable effort (1641). On the other hand, the
popularity of the great Moslem Walis had become a political
factor with which they had to deal seriously. In 1624 Sultan
Agung therefore took the title of "Susuhunan Ngalaga Mataram";
this new title, sunan, had been a title of the Walis or their
successors and this only for Giri for three generations and
apparently for Kadilangu for five generations. The word it-
self is of Javanese origin and simply means "he who is honored
and comes from the stem suwun (to bear on one's head), similar
to the also frequently used title panembahan which is derived
from sembah, the act of doing reverence by lifting joined
hands to one's nose or forehead. Nevertheless the title of
susuhunan, its honorific character heightened above that of
the simpler sunan by reduplication of the first syllable su-
and by interpolation of the syllable -hu-, had become so much
more magnificent than the title of sultan that Amangkurat I,
the immediate successor of Sultan Agung, no longer used the
latter title. Susuhunan and its variant sinuwun have been
used consistently ever since. With the assumption of this
important--from the point of view of cosmological absolute-
ness--title, sacral and temporal power was gathered into one
hand never to be released again, and the clergy returned to
being only a part of the king's administration. The import-
ance of the title susuhunan is expressed by de Graaf in the
following words:
57.	Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. V, Glossary and
Index.
58.	J. Gonda, Sanskrit in Indonesia, p. 34.
59.	Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV, p. 375.35
This [title] susuhunan unmistakably conveyed that its
bearer, decorated with the highest imaginable sacred
title, must himself be God’s envoy also, and moreover a
daily present one. His descendants,--and this would be
proven by custom--would also be called susuhunan and
their [beneficent] influence would spread over the
realm. With this, the divinity of the Hindu-Javanese
kings was revived, although under a new name and in a
different form. Even the sacrosanct tomb of the king,
the tj andi, received a successor in the holy pasare j an
[grave] on top of the Ima Giri.*°
The King's Task
It is obvious that such an accumulation of powers in
one hand for political reasons would nourish the ideology of
monarchical absolutism.
The Javanese believed that the king was the one and only
medium linking the micro-cosmos of man with the macro-cosmos
of the gods. This was expressed in Pangeran Puger's words
when Pangeran Tjakraningrat urged him to rise against his
nephew, the arrogant Amangkurat III (1703-1708):
. . . if a man should dare to rise against his king,
misfortune will overcome him, because the king is
Allah's warana.61
In literary language, warana means "deputy" or "representa-
tive," but its literal meaning is "screen"; thus, in this
context, the king is the screen through which man must pass
to reach God and, conversely, through which God must pass to
reach man. Since the king was seen as the sole intermediary
between man and God, it was not strange that his decisions
were thought to be unchallengeable and his powers without
limitation; his decisions were God's will and his actions
were God's management.
The idea of absolute and supreme power is expressed in
the phrase wenang murba wisesa which was applied both to God's
omnipotence and to the king's power,62 thus again showing
60.	H. J. de Graaf, "Titels en Namen van Javaanse Vorsten en
Groten uit de 16e en de 17e Eeuw," Bijdragen, Vol. 109,
1953, p. 77.
61.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 266.
62.	Zoetmulder, op. cit., p. 343; and Gonda, op. cit., pp.
305, 424.36
that the king’s position was seen as a reflection of that of
God. God is titled Sang Murba-wisesa, the Supreme Ruler.
The use of the words purba [rule) and wisesa (highest author-
ity) is not restricted to modern Javanese alone; it is found
in older texts with the same meaning. For instance, in the
Nawaruci o f 1613 A. D. , wenang wisesa ing sanagari63 expresses
the king’s supreme authority in his whole realm and,in the
Kidung Pamancangah, sang amtirwa bhumi is the title of the
king. Thus the king is placed at the pinnacle of the social
order, far beyond the reach of the common people. This point
of view at one time gave rise to the idea of the king as a
politically inactive power, the ratu pinandita (the sage king)
from whom emanated beneficent influences, permeating his
whole realm. Active participation in the affairs of the state
was left to his dignitaries, especially the patih (the grand
vizier) whose usually non-royal descent conformed with his
special technical task. In the wajang literature such an
attitude towards the king is illustrated in the figure of
King Judistira, the eldest of the Pandawas, who had "white
blood," never gave vent to anger and dressed very simply.64
He was so truthful--except once during the Bratajuda (the
war between Pandawa and Korawa)--that the gods made him the
only human being whose feet never touched the earth. In a
work of 1883 by the monarch Paku Buwana IX (1861-1893) en-
titled Wulang Radjaputra,the idea of the king's beneficence
radiating over the kingdom comes to the fore.
God's rahmat (mercy) is in [the king's] heart, from
whence it overflows, covering the whole country, which,
if in ardent love ]of God], will be under the protect-
ing shade of the king. The common people, humble, all
want to work their fields in order to prevent shortage
of food; thus is the king's mercy: the welfare of the
village lies in the density of its population.65
The question of what role the king should play in the
organizational structure of the worldly order (the negara--
the state) will be discussed next. In the gara-gara scene
of a wajang play nature is in a state of upheaval, a sign
that a hero is in distress. Here one can see clearly, first,
the interaction between the two cosmic orders and, second,
the gods' cardinal function of restoring the cosmic order,
which in this case has been thrown into a state of imbalance
63.	Cited in Gonda, op. cit. , pp. 203, 318.
64.	Hardjowirogo, op. cit. , pp. 76, 77 .
65.	Paku Buwana IX, Serat Wara Isjwara, ed. Padmasusastra,
Surakarta, 1898, p. 36.37
by the acts of man. The main task of a king parallels that
of his celestial prototypes; he must maintain or restore
order to his world, the state, so that not only in structure
but also in function the micro-cosmos would mirror the macro
cosmos. The king's powers as restorer of order are thought
to be so great that he can even overcome epidemics of truly
macro-cosmic magnitude. Processions carrying the sacred
pusaka Kandjeng Kyai Tunggul Wulung (a holy relic of the
kraton of Jogjakarta in the form of a standard) were organized
in Jogjakarta during the plague epidemics of 1932 and 1948.66
They were an expression of confidence in the king's power to
restore order rather than in that of the pusaka; indeed, the
relic, though certainly powerful, was thought of as a tool
in the hands of the lord of the worldly order. Selosoemardjan
explains the pusaka's contributory role in these words:
. . . certain pusakas in the palace of the Sultan,
(spears, Javanese daggers called krises, or flags)
have magical powers which support any Sultan who is
legally and cosmologically entitled to rule over the
country.67
For that matter, the names of the kings of Jogjakarta
and Surakarta and of several princes of rank usually refer
to firmness and stability. For instance, Paku (of Paku
Buwana) means "nail" and Hamengku (from Hamengku Buwana) means
"to have on one's lap" or to care for.
Two ideas seemed to dominate the Javanese view of order
(tata or less commonly, krama). They are, first, the idea of
fixed regularity and, second, the idea of non-interference.
This view, of course, was the result of an agrarian nation's
special awareness of pattern in nature's behavior. Clinging
to the security of the known, the Javanese thought that
interfering with the regular, the fixed, might disturb the
Order, the results of which--because of the principle of
interaction--might be of calamitous proportions. This idea
of non-interference will be reflected in state administration
too.68
66.	See for the upat jaras also: J. P. H. Duyvendak, Inleiding
tot de Ethnologie van de Indonesische Archipel, Groningen,
1954, pp. 136 -138.	~
67.	Selosoemardjan, Social Changes in Jogjakarta, Ithaca,
N.Y., 1962, pp. 17“' 18.
68.	See Chapter I, p. 2ff. and Chapter III, p. 90.38
The king's primary duties in the political sphere are
to guard against disturbances and to restore the order if
any such disturbance should occur. This stress on guarding
against discrepancies and evil is also expressed in the words
ndjaga tata-tentreming pradja (guarding the order and tran-
quillity of the state) whicn is the main duty of the pangreh
pradj a or body of royal officials for the "outer"-service.
During the introductory kanda (narrative) to a waj ang play,
the puppeteer (dalang) describes the welfare of the country,
praising the luxuriance of all things planted and the inex-
pensiveness of all things one buys. He also tells the audi-
ence that trade flourishes in the country because there are
no "disturbances on the roads," that the cattle and poultry
roam through the countryside unattended because of the "non-
existence of evil-doers," and that "marauding enemies" are
far away. There are "no disagreements between the king's
officials," and therefore the state stands high in the regard
of other countries even those on the "outer islands.” Thus,
the dalang describes the order and peace of the state (tata-
tentreming pradj a) in terms of an absence of disturbance.
In describing the royal virtues the dalang says that the
king
. . . is generous in giving alms, gives clothes to those
who have none, gives a cane to those who slip, shelter
to those scorched by the sun, food to those in hunger,
consolation to the heavy of heart, a torch to those in
darkness; he clears the thicket where it grows
dense. . . .69
Thus, one can see that the king's intervention is thought
necessary only if circumstances are out of balance, abnormal.
Originating changes in the "normal" order is regarded as
unthinkable, for innovation is fundamentally incompatible
with the view that order is an undisturbed system, a pattern
fixed by tradition and custom.
Any unavoidable Change then must be justified with analo
gies or other devices which will fit it into the fixed pat-
tern of unchanging regularity. The semblance of continuity
is in this way preserved and explained.70 The well-known
story of the.death of the virtuous king Puntadewa (Judistira)
69. Ch. te Mechelen (ed.), "Drie Teksten van Toneelstukken
uit de Wajang-Poerwa'; yBG, Vol. XLIII, 1882 , p. 1.
70. About this idea of continuity see also: C. C. Berg,
"The Islamization of Java," Studia Islamica, IV,
1955, part II.39
of Ngamarta may be taken as a clear example of such justi-
fication by analogy--here by similarity of sounds. One day,
the most important wali, Sunan Kalidjaga, met a very ancient
man who claimed to be King Puntadewa. The latter, already
many centuries old, explained to the wali that he could not
die because no one could read the Serat Kalimasada which he
possessed. The old king asked the sage "the way to death."
The wali then examined the letter and discovered that it was
none other than the Kalimah Sahadat, the Islamic confession
of faith. Sunan Kalidjaga read it for the eldest of the
Pandawa, and Judistira then died in peace, freed from the ties
of ignorance.71 A grave, exceptionally long, behind the
holy mosque of Demak, is still popularly thought to be
Judistira's final resting place. With this ingenious device,
the similarity between the sound of the Sanskrit "kalimasada"
and the Arabic "kalimah sahadat," the Javanese thus laid a tie
of continuity between two seemingly contrasting, but for them,
intrinsically equal historical periods.
The Ideal King
Burdened with the temptations of unlimited power and
with the immense and singular responsibility of preserving
order in his world, the king had to be of extraordinary ex-
cellence and quality. The Javanese assume that such excel-
lence must be evident in the physical countenance of the
ruler, and a bad monarch is usually identified as afflicted
with a deformity. In the Indian Mahabharata, the blind king,
Destarata of Ngastina, is always pictured as a just man who
opposes the evil intentions of his hundred sons, the Kaurawas.
In the Javanese waj ang, however, he is pictured as an unre-
liable person who does not feel it beneath his dignity to
advise his sons to deprive their cousins, the Pandawas, of
what is rightfully theirs.72 But because of his deformity
he is also cheated several times.73 Sunan Amangkurat III
(1703-1708), also known under his surname Sunan Mas (the
Golden Sunan), was nicknamed pun Kentjet (the Crippled One)
71.	Hardjowirogo, op. cit., p. 76. See also: G. W. J.
Drewes, Drie Javaansche Goeroe's, Leiden, 1925 , p. 23.
Here this story is connected with a tomb of a Sech Djambu
Karang in the district of Tjahjana, regency of Purba-
lingga, Central Java.
72.	Mechelen, op. cit., pp. 117-120, in the lakon "Pandu
Papa."
73.	Ibid., pp. 95, 96, in the lakon "Narasoma."40
because of his sensual improprieties which earned him the
contempt of his time; the Babad Tanah Djawi, even though a
royal chronicle, does not hesitate to record the words of
tumenggung Djajengrana of Surabaja who said of the king, at
the time in despair, facing the attacks of his usurper uncle,
Pangeran Puger:
And then the king, I noticed, had lost his t jahja
(gleam of the countenance) ; he looked pale like a
Chinaman whose stomach is aching.
At this the audience roared with laughter.71* To say such a
think about a king is something almost unheard of; he must
have sunk very low in this of f icial' s esteem. Professor
Hoesein Djajadiningrat sees these disparaging views of Amang-
kurat III as a means of justifying Pangeran Puger’s rebel-
lion.75 The lambang-pradj a is a symbolic narrative in which
each reign is described in poetic terms; the reign of Sunan
Mas is characterized as lung gadung semune rara nglikasi
(the tendril of a gadung-plant, also an allusion to a girl
twisting yarn), which alludes to the Sunan’s intelligence
but also to his unseemly character.76
How did the Javanese picture his ideal king? The king's
power was understood as unlimited. He could not be regulated
by worldly means, but within himself there was a force re-
flecting, or higher still, identical with the Divine Soul
(Hyang Suksma Kawekas), which checked his individual will.
The Javanese thought of the ideal king as one constantly
seeking for this internal divine guidance. In a wajang-lakon,
the dalang never fails to relate in his kanda (narrative) that
the king retires into the inner chambers of the palace after
holding an audience, changes into the plain clothes of a
pandita (sage) and then enters the sanggar pamudian (chamber
of worship) to "acquire knowledge of God's will. ' And the
required presence of three important officials at court, one
of which was the astrologer, undoubtedly also served the
74.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 2 7 3.
75.	Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschouwingen over de
Sadjarah Banten, H a a r 1 em~ 1913, p. 241. It
must be said however that Amangkurat Mas was one of the
fiercest opponents of Dutch political encroachment in
Java.
76.	J. A. B. Wiselius, "Djaja Baja," Bijdragen, Vol. VII (19),
1872, p. 192ff. These allegories are to be found in
the Serat Dj aj a Baj a which seems to have been written or re
written after the Java War (1825-1830). See also
Padmosoekotjo, op. cit. , pp. 52-53.41
king's need for divine guidance. Panembahan Senapati was
said to have advised Pangeran Benawa (whom he placed on the
throne of Padjang to succeed his father--only nominally--as
sultan) to appoint these three officials:
. . . first a pandita (sage), second a tij ang petang
iladuning palak palakijah (astrologer)~ third an anli
tapa (ascetic). If you find difficulties in governing
your kingdom, ask the pandita, if you want to know
about what is yet to come, ask the astrologer, if you
want to know about magic powers, ask the ascetic.77
Divine guidance expressed itself in the kawitj aksanan
of the king, a rare and highly esteemed capacity, which not
only endowed the holder with the widest possible range of
knowledge but also the deepest awareness of realities and a
sense of justice. That there is a wide range of meaning in
the word witj aksana is illustrated in the several existing
Javanese dictionaries and word lists where it is explained
as "highly excellent," as "wise, experienced, skillful, in-
telligent" or "learned," and again as "with clear insight."78
For the Indonesian word "bidjaksana" of the same origin,
Gonda gives the meaning "practical wisdom or skill."79 The
Sanskrit original of the word, wicaksana, denotes sagacity,
experience or familiarity. A Javanese, Poerwadarminta,
attaches two meanings to this word; first, being "aware,
waskita (able to see into things kept secret, like man's
thought, etc.)" and, secondly, "able to use one's budi
(thinking ability, reason) rightly." Kawitjaksanan denoted
the greatest skill not only in weighing subtly the possible
advantages or disadvantages of one's decision but also a
keen sense of judgment in the handling of situations, pri-
marily to preserve the cosmic order. In practice this
amounts to a policy of checking and balancing; that is,
avoiding those disturbing open clashes that were not absolute
ly necessary. Significantly, Paku Buwana X (1893-1939) of
Surakarta was called by the Javanese of his own time the
ratu panutup, "the last king," for he was the last king who
lived according to the tradition of grandeur and royal
77.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 96.
78.	P. J an s z , Javaansch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek, Bandoeng,
1906; T. Roorda, Javaansch-Nederlandsch Handwoordenboek,
Amsterdam, 1901; G~. W. J. Drewes, Eenvoudig hedendaagsch
Javaansch Proza, Leiden, 1946, Word-list; and J. Gonda,
op. cit., p. 305.
79.	Gonda, loc. cit.42
serenity. He had acquired the surname "witjaksana" because
his reign was marked by tranquillity; it was irrelevant that
this tranquillity was not the result of an active and stimu-
lating policy towards progress, but of helpless obedience to
the wishes of the Netherlands-Indies government.
The concept of kawitj aksanan was a surprisingly compre-
hensive tool for statesmanship in traditional Javanese society
but its totally abstract and general character limited its
usefulness in facing the realities of government. One might
even say that this idea put more emphasis on the king’s abso-
lute and lone power of decision over all matters, forcing
him to master all possible factors each time he acted. Nu-
merous books on practical politics had to be written instruct-
ing the king on problems ranging from how a king should com-
port himself to how he should choose his officials or on what
are the kingly taboos. Most of these works are quite general;
hardly any are of a specifically technical character. This
could be expected because technical trifles could not belong
to the kingly sphere. In these writings, true to the spirit
of conservatism, stress was put on the exemplary behavior
and meritorious acts of figures of the past, in history as
well as in legend. And again, as we have seen above, the
waj ang served as a never-failing source. Consequently these
stories and histories of famous characters are to be found
scattered through all types of literature. At any rate, the
Javanese never took up a book without seeking for some in-
struction in what he read, which, considering the preponder-
antly sacral character of literature in old Java, is not sur-
prising. Some, however, were specially written for the sole
purpose of instruction. 0
The best-known text on kingly attitude is the part
of the Serat Rama81 which records Rama’s advice to Wibisana,
whom he had placed on the throne of Ngalengka to replace his
late brother King Dasamuka (or Rawana in Sanskrit). This
part is called the Asta-brata, "the Eight Life-rules,"82 or
"the Eight (statesman’s) Virtues" according to Pigeaud’s
dictionary. The Asta-brata was so popular that it was taken
80.	See Chapter I, p. 12.
81.	Kyai Jasadipura I, Serat Rama, Semarang, 1919, pp.
432-435. The Serat Rama is a translation by the court
writer Jasadipura I (1729-1802) of the older Old-
Javanese Ramayana.
82.	The Serat Rama used the word lampah as a translation, a
Krama-word (Ngoko-form: laku) which can mean "(ascetic)
life-rule." See Appendix HI.43
over in full both in the Nitisruti, allegedly written by
Pangeran Karanggajam of Padj ang in the year 1612, and in the
later Nitipradj a dated 1641.8 3 It was also cited in the so-
called Angger Djugulmuda which was said to be the work of a
Sultan of Demak.8* Apart from being part of a cherished
story, the reason for the popularity of the Asta-brata might
be traced to the fact that the eight virtues prescribed for
the king were there identified with those of eight dewas
(deities) of the Hindu pantheon, which made the sanctity of
these virtues unquestionable. These eight deities apparently
were those known in Indian mythology as the Lokapalas or
Guardians of the Universe, four at first for the four cardinal
points and later extended to eight to include the intermedi-
ate quarters.85 The Serat Rama mentions the same eight
deities although not associated with directions. They are
respectively Endra, Jama, Surja, Tjandra, Baju, Kuwera,
Baruna and Brama. That these eight deities together form
the ideal characterization of a king again indicates the
king's central place in his world order. Not one of the
eight characteristics may be missing. This was stressed by
Rama:
beware, the eight deities must be within you . . .
you may not leave out one of the eight, or your
kingship will show a deficiency.86
The king, then, should possess these eight virtues:
1.	Unlimited dana, "beneficence," attributed to batara
Endra, master of all the lesser gods;
2.	Ability to repress all evil, attributed to the deity of
death, Jama;
3.	Kindly persuasiveness and wise conduct, attributed to
the sun-god, Surja;
4.	Lovingness, attributed to batara Tjandra;
83.	Poeibatjaraka, op. cit. , pp. 102 , 103. Professor Poerba-
tjaraka thought this dating to be pure nonsense.
84.	Tjabang Bagian Bahasa Jogjakarta, Ngungak isining Serat
Astabrata, Jogjakarta, 1958, p. 20.
85.	A. L. Basham, The Wonder that was India, London, 1956,
p. 314.
86.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 432.44
5.	Keen awareness and deep insight, attributed to the god
of the winds, Baju;
6.	Generosity with material wealth and recreation, attributed
to the god of worldly fortune, Kuwera;
7.	Sharp and ruthless intelligence in facing difficulties
of any kind, attributed to the god of the seas, Baruna;
and
8.	Fiery courage and spirited determination in opposing any
enemy, attributed to fire-god Brama.87
These characteristics indeed form a very realistic under-
standing of the problems of state politics, encompassing
benevolent love as well as unrelenting harshness and forget-
ting neither the importance of material wealth nor the power
of intelligence. But it also emphasizes the extraordinary
and indeed superhuman demands of the kingly ideal, the futil-
ity of which the Javanese fully realized. Therefore he was
not averse to describing the royal reigns--and so the kings
themselves--in the surprisingly well-chosen and frank allu-
sions of the Serat Djaja Baja, a secret and sacred document
to the Javanese because it reveals the future.88 To give
another example, the reign of Amangkurat I (1648-1677), nota-
bly a cruel king, was described as Kalpa sru semune kenaka
putung, ’’the harsh time of the broken nails." The harsh
period indicates the cruelty of the king's reign, and the
broken claws the many commanders whom he put to death unneces-
sarily. Paku Buwana I (1703-1719), already old when he came
to the throne, was pictured as Gunung kendeng semune kenya
musoni. The gunung kendeng (long mountain) refers to his
old age, while his habit of meddling with trifles was likened
to the cleaning of cotton by a girl, a job so unimportant
that it was usually done by children and old people. The
Babad Tanah Djawi displayed a great deal of frankness too in
relating stories about the king and his officials. The ex-
cessive cruelties of Amangkurat I seen in the Babad Tanah
Dj awi as a sign of his coming downfall, the apparent weakness
of Amangkurat II who relied wholly on his brother Pangeran Pu-
ger's abilities, the disgust which a cowardly deed inspired--
all this was told in words which left no doubt as to their
import.8 9
87.	For a translation of the Asta Brata, see Appendix III.
88.	See p. 40.
89.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 154, 237, 231.45
From the example of gods the Javanese then looked to
examples of great men of the past, so again to tradition.
In the available piwulangs, which all date from the nineteenth
century, emphasis is placed on the examples of the leluhur,
the royal ancestors, notably Panembahan Senapati and Sultan
Agung, but also on the (for the Middle-Javanese) most noted
of the Nine Walis, Sunan Kalidjaga.90 For the Mangkunegaran
principality, its first ruler, the well-known Raden Mas Said,
was the main example.91 Of course figures from the waj ang
and other persons, even some not of royal descent, were taken
in the piwulangs as "historic" figures worthy of emulation.
In all of these personages the characteristic most praised
was their spiritual strength in severely restricting their
worldly pleasures. Such laku (conduct, behavior) demonstrated
their sincere and consistent determination (tekad) 92 to
attain a certain goal, the most laudable of which was acquir-
ing ngelmu or ngelmu kasampurnan (spiritual knowledge).
Sunan Kalidjaga^ for instance, is said to have done tapa
(ascetic meditation) for years with such a profound firmness
that the roots of trees grew over him and Sunan Bonang, who
had commanded him to do tapa to test him, had difficulty in
finding him again.93 Panembahan Senapati did his tapa in a
river, allowing himself to be carried off by the current.9* In
the same way Sultan Agung earned the power to transport himself every
Friday to the holy city of Mecca itself, returning immediately
after saying his prayers to his kraton in Kuta Gede, "in the
wink of an eye." But apart from acquiring supernatural power
or knowledge (sekti) , the performance of tapa had its great-
est value in the advantage it gave to one1s descendants and,
for a king, to his people and his entire kingdom. Mangkune-
gara IV attributed the prosperity of his princedom to the
difficulties--also considered as a form of ascetic practice--
which the founder of the Mangkunegaran House endured and his
perseverance in the face of all kinds of discomfort in his
fight for an independent realm.95 Paku Buwana IX cites an
90.	Paku Buwana IV, Wulangreh, p. 37; also Paku Buwana IX,
op. cit. , in the "Wulang Putra."
91.	Mangkunegara IV, Dwidja Isjwara, ed. Padmasusastra,
Surakarta, 1899,	43.
92.	Ki Hadjar Dewantara, Beoefening van Letteren en Kunst
in het Pakoe Alamsche geslachtj Jogjakarta,
1931, p. 26, "Serat Piwoelang," couplets 2, 3.
93.	Babad Mataram, p. 30.
94.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 77, 78.
95.	Mangkunegara IV, op. cit. , p. 44, in the "Pariwijata."46
even clearer example: the demang (an official directly above
the village-headman) Singap'arna renounced his conjugal rights in
order to become an ascetic, and so, through the female line, he
had as a descendant a king, Paku Buwana VIII (1858-1861).96
From these examples one can deduce how very important the
laku was for the ruling Javanese elite, and this was logical
for only self control could prevent misuse of power by an
absolute king. The king had to possess a personality of not
merely flawless but of incorruptible righteousness which,
according to the Javanese, could be achieved only through
this method.
Following the examples of great ancestors and predeces-
sors also led to the rigid observance of wewalers (taboos)
imposed by the ancestors and usually based on personal ex-
perience. These taboos ranged from the observance of dina
sangars (calamitous days) to the use of certain kinds of
wood for the shaft of a lance or the obedience to certain
customs in certain localities. Paku Buwana IV in his
Wulangreh meticulously enumerated these wewalers.9 7
It is perhaps interesting to examine further the period
covering the end of the eighteenth century and through the
nineteenth century. Much of the writing of this period re-
veals Javanese ideals as well as realities. This period
seems to have had an intensive court-culture90 which resulted
in a profusion of literary achievement. For example, most
of the works of the Later Mataram period listed in Poerbatja-
raka's book on Javanese literature were written during this
particular period.99 And indeed there are no piwulangs from
any other period, which of course does not mean that they
did not exist previously. Piwulangs were meant to fulfill
specific contemporary needs, although of course they were
based on traditional views and ideas.100 A careful reading
96.	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit. , p. 77, in the part "Wulang
Putra."
97.	Paku Buwana IV, op. cit. , pp. 37, 38.
98.	D. H. Burger, Structural Changes in Javanese Society,
trans. Leslie FT Palmier, Translation Series, Modern
Indonesia Project, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.,
1956, pp. 11-14.
99.	Poerbatjaraka, op. cit., p. 170ff.
100.	See for comparison Ki Hadjar Dewantara, op. cit. This
pamphlet describes the literary activities of the Paku
Alam House of Jogjakarta. For examples of piwulang, see
pp. 26, 32, 35.4 7
of this genre of literature discloses the period's atmosphere
of regret, of uncertainty and helplessness in the face of a
reality too often unrelated to accepted standards of conduct.
In the	Serat Djaja	Baja, the	time of the Java	War was
interpreted	as Praptane	kalabendu	ing Semarang lan	Tembajat,
"the coming	of Kala and	Anger (of	God) to Semarang	and Temba-
jat." Such a characterization implies the deterioration of
the people's welfare and the ineptitude of its government.
Semarang referred to the Dutch and Tembajat to the Javanese.
The book further comments: "The movements of the people are
without purpose. They go from the North to the South and
back again; finally they die without having gone in pilgrim-
age."1®1 The last king cited in the Serat Djaja Baja was
Paku Buwana IV (1788-1820),so this period immediately pre-
ceding the Java War was considered a time of decline, a time
in which society lay in a state of abject inertia. Should
we not see the Java War, then, in its five-year long severity
as a desperate effort to recapture past grandeur and inde-
pendence of kingship? Paku Buwana IX (1861-1893) wrote of a
bupati who could be corrupted by bribes and that one could
buy a mantri-rank (lower official) and think nothing of the
impertinence.102 Veth, perhaps with a shudder of disgust,
wrote about "the population of the Kraton":
Among the populace as well as among the dignitaries
there must be a terrible perversity of morals; dis-
gusting stories went around about it.103
Although undoubtedly very much exaggerated, these words,
written in the 1880's, pictured the mood of the time. Louw's
monumental work on the Java War also described corrupt prac-
tices in Javanese society, especially the heavy burden of
taxes laid on the population. 0u Dr. Johns mentions "the
present day assessment of [the Sufi orders] as other-worldly
and escapist institutions, representing Islam in decline,”105
101.	Wiselius, op. cit. , p. 186.
102.	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit. , p. 185.
103.	P. J. Veth, Java, Haarlem, 1875, Vol. Ill,
p. 676.
104.	P. J. F. Louw, De Java Oorlog, Batavia, 1894,
p. 12, citing the "Verslag van den Assistent Resident
van Jogjakarta," dated June 13, 1824.
105.	A. H. Johns, "Sufism as a Category in Indonesian Litera
ture and History," Journal of Southeast Asian History,
Vol. II, July, 1961, p. 21.48
This assessment is applicable to the period we are discussing
for Islam in general, for in religious life, too, standards
were deteriorating. Paku Buwana IX made this clear by his
words,
pengulus (ecclesiastical dignitaries) forget to
pray, constantly having their cockerels fought in the
ring.10 6
And it is possible that the wajang lakons which depict the
power of the people107 were composed during this period as a
warning to those concerned not to oppress the common people.
The lakon Petruk dadi Ratu (Petruk becomes a king) portrays
Petruk, the clown, as king of "Burneo,"108 obviously meaning
the island of Kalimantan (Borneo). Therefore the lakon could
not be very old as the name does not appear in the older
literature, where Kalimantan, or at least part of it, was
known as Sukadana.109
In the piwulangs of Paku Buwana IX and Mangkunegara IV
as well as in the Wulangreh of Paku Buwana IV (1788-1820)
there are repeated complaints about the unseemly behavior of
a younger generation filled with pride, lacking deep knowl-
edge, and using position for personal enrichment.110 This
indicates that the younger generation, forced to comply with
the new standards of time, had begun to desert established
values.
106.	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit. , p. 185.
107.	Chapter II, p. 24.
108.	Serat Padalangan Ringgit Purwa, Vol. XXII, p. 20. The
name "Borneo*' certainly was not created by the Javanese
but probably, at least in its misspelling, originated
with the Europeans. It must have struck an odd note in
the Javanese ear because of its unfamiliar sound and
therefore was appropriate for the kingdom of the clown-
ish second son of Semar.
109.	De Graaf , Geschiedenis van Indonesie, p. 107.
Mechelen, op. cit. , p. 30. See also Pigeaud, Java in
the 14th Century, Vol. Ill, p. 16, where, in the summa-
, tion of territories under Madjapahit, Kalimantan was not
named as an entity although many of the regional names
undoubtedly referred to places on the island.
110.	Paku Buwono IV, op. cit., pp. 4, 31.49
The writings of the kings cited above give the impression
that the monarchs themselves did not feel that they had enough
power to deal firmly with all these anomalies. They tried to
compensate by giving examples of good and evil and stressing
the virtues of a life of righteousness and abstinence. Such
helplessness is largely explained by the humiliation inflicted
on them by the Netherlands-Indies Government which had re-
duced their power and, not least, their very basis of wealth--
population and farmland--to a mere fraction of what it had
been.111 But it is also true that the Javanese themselves
can be blamed. Instead of seeking new and more effective
means to face the new situation, the monarchs fell back on
the traditional "proven" methods, which they sought to apply
while lacking their previous power. Javanese society in
general seemed to be afflicted with a loss of vitality, look-
ing backwards towards great figures of the past but lacking
the determination to surpass or even equal what had been
achieved. The self-assurance of a Ki Adipati Martalaja, who
grasped a Dutch envoy by his neck to force him down into the
sila-posture (sitting crosslegged) before Amangkurat II (1677-
1703) at Tegal,112 or the tone of respect with which another
envoy described the fierce countenance of Sultan Agung,113
could scarcely be found in writings of these periods of stag-
nation. In this atmosphere of impotence there were even
warnings against reaching too high to the examples of the
great such as Sultan Agung or Sunan Kalidjaga, because the
former was a "king-sage"; it sufficed to ask nis benevolent
influence and to take a lesson from the latter’s youthful
life of abandon, which, however, was precisely what the young
men of Paku Buwana IX's time were not doing.114 These tend-
encies towards decline might account for Mangkunegara IV's
attempt to revive the spirit of satrij a-ship (knighthood)
with the--again traditional--idea-of Kawirjan, the virtues
of bravery and noble conduct.115
111.	See also P. J. Veth, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp the extensive intervention of the Dutch in of the two Javanese kingdoms. See further p. 118.	. 567-568, the affairs Chapter III
112 .	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 178.	
113.	De Graaf, "De Regering van Sultan Agoeng,"	p. 99.
114.	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit., pp. 91, 92.	
115.	Mangkunegara IV, O]3. cit., p. 41ff. and p. the parts, "Pariwijata" and "Najakawara."	56ff., in50
It is strange that this period of political decline
should have seen such an intensive cultural life and an over-
refinement and stylization in etiquette and art. However,
the relative peace of that period or the lack of opportunity
in the political field might have caused the Javanese, or at
least the Javanese courts, to turn their activity inward
towards culture and art.
If we return from this excursion into the spirit of
this interesting period of Later Mataram’s history to the
importance of examples, it is natural that in the first place
the king himself had to set an example for his people. In
the Serat Rama exemplary conduct of the king seemed to be
prerequisite for an ideal monarch. Setting an example became
the duty of a king, and his people would follow his example
whether it be "good" or "bad." Thus the king's behavior was
a determining factor for the state of affairs in his realm.116
Another essential requirement for an ideal ruler was
his ability to choose his officers,for which rules were given
in many writings. Physical harmony and physical features
played an important part in determining the choice.117 This
formed one of the reasons why the ngelmu firasat (the knowl-
edge to judge character from physiognomy) was always
important to the Javanese, although later it was almost ex-
clusively used in gaining knowledge of the character of men.
Such stress on the choice of officials can be readily
understood if we see it as a consequence of the close per-
sonal ties between master and servant. This also explains
another requirement of kingship, that the king must know
each of his officials by name. Indeed, until far into the
twentieth century, this was considered a noteworthy feature
of a member of the indigenous "B.B." ("Binnenlands Bestuur,"
the Colonial Civil Service) and it was a fact to be proud of
if one was personally known or even remembered by a dignitary
of high rank.
These writings go into much detail, summing up what one
should or should not do. A king is thought particularly un-
tactful if he does not give his full confidence to his offi-
cers, a very important concept which we will discuss later.
A passage in the Nitigastra, however, not found in other
writings, says that
116.	Jasadipura I,	op. cit. , p.	4 32.
117.	Jasadipura I,	op. cit. , p.	444; Paku Buwana	IX,	op.
cit., p. 180;	Mangkunegara	IV, op. cit., p.	53;	and
Nitigastra, points 30, 106-110.51
if a king has a character of [indiscriminate] kind-
heartedness and resignation, his territory will
inevitably be gone, taken away by the enemy.118
Another said that a king has to be adil paramarta (just and
kindhearted); for him there was no "favorite official"119
because
there are no differences between children, near relatives,
and the common people; if they are serving [the king], all
are called abdi (servants); if they commit a crime, their
punishment will be the same. . . . Since the king has
neither kin nor child, relatives nor close relations, not
even a favourite wife, only justice is his basic belief.120
The Babad Tanah Djawi says that the reign of Panembahan Seda
Krap j ak was adjeg adfl ukumipun, kukuh ing agaminipun (constant
and just in his law, sturdy in his religion)?121 This stresses
not only firm religious belief but also justice as an ideal
feature of kingship. The Javanese consider Raden Ngabei Rang-
gawarsita (1802-1873) the last great pudj angga122 (master of
literature); he was a great-grandson of the well-known Jasadi-
pura the Elder (1729-1802) who, with his son Jasadipura the
Younger, had contributed much to Javanese literature. Rangga-
warsita put the king's task in a comprehensive form in four
couplets relating King Kusumawitjitra's advice to Prabu (king)
Gandakusuma and Djajasusana. The first concern of the king was
the organization of administration and the execution of govern-
ment. His second concern was the control of his officials
which must be done in a subtle and unobtrusive manner. The
third concern was to know the situation in all parts of the
realm in order to be able to give help wherever needed; and the
last was to punish wrong-doers or, in other words, to guard the
security of the state.123 This presentation seems quite modern,
with its emphasis on administration; the organizational aspect
118.	Nitijastra, p. 61.
119 .	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit., p. 32.
120 .	Paku Buwana IV, op. cit., pp. 13, 14. See also: Jasadi- pura I, op. cit., p. 446.
121 .	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 113.
122 .	See also Berg, "Javaansche Geschiedschrijving," Ch. II, par. 6, 7.
123.	Tjabang Bagian Bahasa Jogjakarta, op. cit., p. 52, citing the Witaradya of R. Ng. Ranggawarsita.52
of rule was seen as the foremost task of the king. Of course
one can never be sure whether or not Ranggawarsita had been
influenced by more modern thought through his acquaintance with
Dutch scholars and administrators, among others C. F. Winter
and Cohen-Stuart.124 But again, as the tool to control offi-
cials Ranggawarsita recommended the traditional method of secret
observation. Furthermore the terms used in these couplets are
the traditional ones for expressing matters of rule and govern-
ment .
Legitimation of Kingship: Succession,
Usurpation and the Cult of Glory
In Java kingship is most often made legitimate by proving
continuity. A link, whether of blood or of similar experience,
with a great predecessor allows a man to partake in the aura of
greatness. But also, and this was most important, it makes him
a link in the chain of continuity. Trahing kusuma, rembesing
madu, widjining tapa, tedaking andana warin (descendant of a
flower, seepage of honey, seedling of an ascetic, of noble
descent),12’ were qualities of a person of august and spotless
ancestry. Tracing one’s lineage, 6 if possible to a ruling
monarch or great vassal,was therefore something on which the
Javanese eagerly spent time and effort. The coming of Islam
did not eliminate the practice of proving continuity through
kinship127 and it was probably even strengthened by the Arabic
custom, followed especially by Javanese of rank, of incorporat-
ing one’s ancestors* name into one’s own name.128
124.	Poerbatjaraka, op._cit., pp. 159, 163. Professor
Poerbatjaraka’s well-founded opinion about the notori-
ety of Ranggawarsita to incorporate in his writings modern
ideas and knowledge which he did not seem to understand
adequately makes it necessary to use his writings with
caution.
125.	Mechelen, 'Drie Teksten van Tooneelstukken uit de Wayang
Poerwa,"dl. II, p. 13. Said of princess Erawati of Mandraka.
126.	H. L. Shorto believes this was an ancient Indonesian prac-
tice. Shorto, ”A Mon Genealogy of Kings,” in D. G. E.
Hall, Historians of Southeast Asia, London, 1962, p. 67.
127.	See also Berg, "Javaansche Geschiedschrijving,” p. 96.
128.	The demand for continuity is also expressed in the Islamic
preoccupation with isnad: proof of authenticity and
soundness of traditions by citing a chain of authorita-
tive narrators, in Arabic hadith.53
When a reigning house was not tied by blood descent to
a previous dynasty, the Javanese resorted to various devices
to prove continuity. The stories of Ki Ageng Sela's ardent
prayers and of Sunan Giri's prophecy that Ki Ageng Pemahahau's
descendants would rule Java 129 can perhaps be seen as efforts
to make the later kings of Later Mataram legitimate by dint
of blood-lineage. Yet, the Javanese sense of reality put a
seven generations limit on such a privilege.130 The houses of
Tjirebon and Banten were founded by Fatahillah (also called
Faletehan or Sunan Gunung Djati), a foreigner who spread the
Islamic faith in the eastern part of West Java. Thus the
babad writers, faced by the incongruity of two dynasties
without ties to a previous ruling House, ingeniously linked
them to the old kings of Padjadjaran simply by imagining
that a son and a daughter of one of the last Padjadjaran
kings had been sent to Arabia. There, the princess, Nji
Dalem Satang, married a monarch of Banusrail and bore him a
son, Hidajat Sarip, who later returned to Java and became
the wali Sunan Gunung Djati, the ancestor of the house of
Tj irebon.131
The Babad Tjirebon, which contains this story in its
most recent form, also tells the story of the division of
Mataram (1755) into Surakarta and Jogjakarta and that the
Dutch, like the parent of a small child, "spoonfed"132 the
"king of Java." To explain the anomaly of Dutch domination
in terms of continuity, the well-known "origin legend"--
borrowing Shorto's term133--is used; the princess of Padja-
djaran with the flaming womb was sold for three guns to the
Dutch because of her aberration. She became the mother of
the Dutch who were later to come and rule in "Djekarta."
Since Djakarta is in the region of West Java, descendants of
Padjadjaran had the right of inheritance.134
129.	This story was inserted in the Babad Tanah Djawi, pp.
36, 68.	------------------
130.	Strangely enough, even towards the end of the 1940's
when the Dutch tried to isolate the young Republic of
Indonesia by creating regional negaras (states) the story
went around that a negara head was given by the Dutch
government the promise that his descendants--for seven
generations --would be regents of a certain regency in
East Java.
131.	Babad Tjirebon, p. 7.
132.	Ibid., p. 26.
133.	Shorto, op. cit. , p. 66.
134.	See also: Th. Pigeaud, "Alexander, Sakehder en Sena-
pati," Djawa, Vol. 7 (1927), nos. 5-6, p. 325 .54
The remarkable similarity of this story to that of Ken
Angrok is probably not accidental. Ken Angrok, the first
ruler of the Singhasari dynasty, was advised to marry Tunggul
Ametung's wife, Ken Dedes, because her flaming womb guaran-
teed that she would bear future monarchs. The story of the
Wandan-woman who restored King Brawidjaja's "health" when he
was suffering from radja singa (syphilis)135 is interpreted
by Professor Berg as a tale of regeneration.136 However, it
could easily be identified with the former two stories,
since, like them, its essence seems to lie in the revitaliz-
ing effect of a marriage in order to create an entirely new
Ruling House--the Dutch, the Singhasari dynasty, the House
of Mataram, respectively. The differences among these found-
ing kings is of course clear, but all are linked in a chain of
legitimate succession by their common experience, marriage
to a woman endowed with magical revitalizing power.
Continuity could also be expressed in terms of Hinduistic
cosmology; the universe is in a state of constant cyclical
change. Each cycle is composed of four ever-worsening world-
ages (yugas).137 The Javanese of Later Mataram knew this
cosmology, although in a corrupted form, and used it to
justify dynastic change. The necessity to end the djaman
kalabendu (the Kali-Yuga in Indian mythology, the last and
most sinful age in a cycle) in order to enter the era of
welfare and prosperity under the Ratu Adil (the Just King)138
was a recurring rationale in the history of revolt and unrest
in Java. The principle of patterned continuity has been
elaborated in Berg's highly intriguing theory concerning
Javanese historical writings.139 This theory is certainly
worthy of careful examination. The idea of an awatara, or
incarnation (Javanese; nitis) of a god,was of course known
to the Javanese. Paku Buwana IX placed it, rather awkwardly,
in an Islamic context, seeing Sultan Agung as something more
than a great king.
135.	Babad Mataram, p. 16.
136.	C. C. Berg, "The Islamization of Java," Studia Islamica
IV (1955), p. Iliff.
137.	Heinrich Zimmer, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and
Civilization, New York, 1962 , pp . 13 -17 .
138.	Wiselius, op. cit. , pp. 202 , 203.
139.	See C. C. Berg, loc. cit. , and the counter-argument of
F. D. K. Bosch, HC. (7^ Berg and Ancient Javanese His-
tory," Bij dragen, 112 , 1956.5 5
He was the All-Virtuous [that is: God] who had
become the king, just like the Prophet of Allah
in olden times. 4®
Still another example of the effort to wed change to
continuity appears in the Babad Tanah D^awi and the Babad
Tj irebon stories about the end of the Hindu kingdoms, Madja-
pahit and Padjadjaran. The last kings of these dynasties
did not end their existence in this world with physical
death in battle against the Moslem forces; they disappeared
spiritually and physically (muksa). In this way the idea of
change was relieved of the banal abruptness of man's work
and became colored by the smooth inevitability of God's pre-
destination; change was made more harmonious with the idea
of continuity. The Babad Tjirebon even provided a device to
accomplish this disappearance, the "oil of life" inherited
ty the Padjadjaran kings from ancient times. Two divine
messengers asked the last king of Padjadjaran to return the
oil to them; they then smeared it on the rib of a sugar-palm
leaf (sada lanang). When the rib was planted in the middle
of the great square (alun-alun), the palace and the king dis-
appeared (sirna). It is obvious that the request for the
return of the lenga kahuripan (oil of life) signified the
end of the period of the Hindu kings. At one point in the
wajang cycle the oil of life became an object of dispute be-
tween the Pandawas and Korawas.141 In the lakon Pandu-Papa
(Pandu in misery), Batara Guru, upper-god of the heavens,
answers Bratasena's (youth-name of Bima, the second of the
Pandawas) question about his deceased father Pandu as follows:
Your father's soul I have given the 29th Heaven, which
will be occupied by all of your descendants, who will
die mikrad (Arab, ascending to heaven with one's mate-
rial body), all your descendants to the time of Madja-
pahit. Padjang, Mataram will not be included; those
are not my responsibilities.142
The finality of the change between Hinduism and Islam
is also clearly demonstrated in a Babad Tjirebon story in
which the divine beings restrained the Padjadjaran monarch
140.	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit., p. 92.
141.	Mechelen, Drie en Twintig Teksten, pp. 117-119, in the
lakon "Pandu Papa."
142.	Ibid., p. 119. Observe the precise complementary
character of these two stories from sources of differ-
ent genre--babad and lakon--which shows a widespread
knowledge of such concepts.56
from conversion to the Islamic Faith,143 even though he him-
self was quite willing. In Madjapahit history, the chasm
between Hinduism and Islam is symbolized by the forty days
interregnum of Sunan Giri, who--as the foremost wali of that
time--was able to assure "... that the traces of an unbe-
liever-king will be entirely eradicated."144 The forty days
interregnum has a special sense of finality since,to the
present in Java, a forty day period marks the end of the
first phase of commemoration of the dead.
The kingdom of Madjapahit thus came to an end, but king-
ship itself did not. "At the time of the disappearance of
king Brawidjaja, at that very moment, something like an
andaru (sign of greatness) was seen emerging from the kraton
of Madjapahit, looking like a streak of lightning, [accom-
panied by] the frightening sound of thunder, and it fell in
Bintara."145 Bintara is the region where the later kingdom
of Demak was located. With this story we come to perhaps
the most convincing means of legitimation for the Javanese--
the wahju, which Pigeaud translates as "godly spirit, force."
In its original Arabic form, wahy, it has the meaning
of "revelation" from God, but the Javanese thought of it as
a substance which graced kingship (wahju kedaton or t j ahj a
nurbuwah),14 6 literary genius (wahju kapudjanggan), knigntly
valour (wahju kapradjuritan), or wali-snip ana even bupati-
ship. This god-given substance was not always granted
to a specific person, as was seen in the transfer of kingship
from Madjapahit to Demak. It was visualized in different
shapes and forms--bright luminescence, a "star," but most
often it was seen as a dazzling blue, green or white ball of
light (andaru, pulung), streaking through the night sky.147
In the popular lakon Wahju Tjakraningrat, the young ksatrias
of the Pandawa and Kurawa clans and the crown-prince of
143.	Babad Tjirebon, p. 16.
144.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 30.
145.	Ibid.
146.	Ibid. , p. 174.
147.	Similarly, the Javanese perceive of epidemic diseases
as dripping red balls of light (the teluh bradja).
The "presents" exchanged by the spirit-queen of the
Indian Ocean, Njai Lara Kidul, and the spirit-guardians
of Mount Lawu and Mount Kelud in Java are also seen as
pulungs which entered into the crater or the sea with
a mighty boom.57
Dwarawati compete in ascetic practice and abstinence in order
to attract the wah ju. In the lakon the wahju is pictured as
a divine being. Thus the descendants of Ardjuna’s son,
Abimanju, were assured of Java’s throne for all time to come.
A passage in the Babad Tanah Djawi111 8 tells a story of the
pangeran dipati (anom) (crown-prince), later Amangkurat II,
from which we might conclude that the wahju was actually
seen as the substance of great power and ability. After
Trunadjaj a ’ s occupation of Mataram’s capital, Amangkurat I
fled with the crown prince and later died in exile. The
prince was firmly convinced that instead of trying to regain
what he had lost to the rebels he should go on pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. He was unresponsive to the pleas of his
bupatis to relinquish his plan until in a dream he saw a
wanju in the form of seven moons and a "child as small as a
kris-handle, shining like the sun" entering his body. He
then completely changed his mind and decided to fight for
his lost kingdom. His followers
. . . did not recognize their master; formerly his
face was drawn and without expression, now his coun-
tenance became bright and of a stately gravity.149
It is noteworthy that such signs of legitimacy appeared
in the Babad Tanah Djawi mostly in stories of usurpation.
Wahju is first mentioned in the story of Padjang's assumption
of Demak’s power through its first as well as last monarch
Djaka Tingkir, later Sultan Adiwidjaja. Wahju next plays a
role when Panembahan Senapati usurped the Padjang throne,
and again when Pangeran Puger, later Paku Buwana I, with the
help of the V.O.C., forceably expelled his nephew Sunan
Amangkurat Mas (Amangkurat III) from his capital in 1705.
All these cases show that legitimation proven by possession
of the wahju was final and not to be doubted since it clearly
came from God himself. In the last case, that of Pangeran
Puger, the argument for legitimacy was further strengthened
by the principle of regeneration, not much different from
the symbolism of the princess with the flaming womb, but now
in a more undisguised form.150 The Babad Tanah Djawi relates:
148.	Babad Tanah Djawi, respectively pp. 36, 76, 30, and
Babad Mataram, p? 27.
149.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 174.
150.	Professor Hoesein Djajadiningrat in his dissertation
is of the opinion that the stories woven around the
figure of Pangeran Puger were obviously meant to justify
his usurpation and this led him to the conclusion that
this part of the Babad Tanah Djawi had been written by58
The story was told that the [deceased, namely Amang-
kurat II] king’s manhood stood erect and on top of
it was a glittering shine only the size of a grain
of pepper. But nobody observed it. Only Pangeran
Puger saw it. Pangeran Puger quickly sipped up the
light . . . and the manhood ceased to stand erect.
It was God’s will that Pangeran Puger should suc-
ceed to the throne.151
A wahju left the king at his death--or at his apparent
downfall--to go over to those chosen by the gods. It should
be realized that the device of divine sanction in the form
of a wahju made kingship extremely vulnerable, open to ille-
gal change. But such change was only a change of personnel
and never a change in the concept of kingship itself. For,
regardless of his previous status, the moment the usurper
assumed the position of king, he was automatically emblazoned
with all the traditional attributes of kingship which he
could not dispose of in preference to another system of gov-
ernment, unless he wanted to be accused of an unkingly attitude
He had to leave everything as it was and comply with estab-
lished customs for the sake of harmony and continuity. Paku
Buwana IV (1788-1820) readily agreed that his ancestors had
lived the life of the common peasant, but of course in his
august position it was difficult to admit his low origin.
He explains this therefore with the words that
. . . the life-rule of the ancestors was that of a
life of humbleness. That was what they used to
disguise their ascetic life. Their asceticism was
screened by living as peasants; this was what was
used as a cover, with the purpose that it should
not be seen by all, . . . their humility contained
a deep meaning.152
Paku Buwana IV's explanation in fact emphasized the great
difference between the kawula and the gusti. In connection
with the idea of usurpation this means that the character of
kingship could not be changed, even if the usurper came
contemporaries or at least by persons living not too
far after the period described, a fact which, with due
caution, make these babads "or parts of them" usable
as historical sources’^ (Hoesein Djaj adiningrat,
op. cit., pp. 241, 307.)
151.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 260.
152.	Paku Buwana IV, op. cit. , p. 37.59
directly from the people, because then he simply could no
longer be identified as kawula.
The ritual of enthronement as part of the legitimation
of kingship naturally has its own significance. However,
sources describing enthronement of kings are not easily found
and Javanese literature itself does not give elaborate ac-
counts. A ceremony is described several times in the Babad
Tanah Djawi and once in the waj ang-lakons, which in its crude
pnmit iveness seems to have importance in terms of legitima-
tion. The Babad Tanah Djawi describes the investiture of
Panembahan Seda Krapjak [1601-1613) : after the death of
Panembahan Senapati, on a Monday (Mondays and Thursdays are
the days of audience), two trusted dignitaries of the late
king, Adipati Mandaraka and Senapati's younger brother, Pan-
geran Mangkubumi, took the crown prince by his hands, stand-
ing at his left and right side, and led him to the s itinggil
(the open audience hall built on artificially raised ground).
After seating the crown prince on the golden stool (dampar
kentj ana), Mangkubumi arose and announced in a loud voice:
All people of Mataram, whoever they be, witness,
that at this very day, the crown-prince assumes the
sultanship,succeeding his august father. If there
is anybody who feels dissatisfied in his heart,
show your intention now and I will be your opponent
in duel.
At this the people of Mataram asaur peksi djumurung (hailed
it unanimously).153 The last part of the proclamation, es-
pecially the so-called panantang (challenge) by the king's
champions with its obvious appeal to the use of force, is of
a rather primitive character, which might indicate the great
age of this custom. The ceremony falls into two distinct
parts, the proclamation of the enthronement and the acceptance
by the congregation of high dignitaries and other important
persons at the audience. This ceremony was even carried out
by the Dutch at the installation of the susuhunans of Sura-
karta or the sultans of Jogjakarta when the Dutch themselves
acted as champions of the new king. At the investiture of
Hamengku Buwana III in 1792, the Dutch Governor representing
his government but also acting as champion of the candidate
asked the Lurah Sentana (Chief of the Royal Clan) and the
Kepala Bupati (Headman of the Bupatis) whether they were
gilig (in perfect unanimity) with the enthronement. He was
153. Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 113. See also pp. 117, 141, 278.
The Babad Tanah Djawi in poetic metre has another ver-
sion o£ the ceremony (Babad Tanah Djawi, ed. Balai
Poestaka, Batavia, 1939, Vol. 7, pp. 74, 75).60
answered with the traditional agreement.15u Curiously, in a
wa}ang-lakon, when Pandu, the father of the Pandawas, is
initiated as king in Ngastina, the investiture is proclaimed
by Semar, the panakawan with divine characteristics.155 One
is tempted to deduce from these stories that the essence of
this ceremony must be legitimation of kingship by acceptance,
or, more accurately, by the submission of the whole population
represented by the audience at the throne-hall. The role of
Semar as king’s champion in the waj ang story may indicate
that the panantang, the challenge, had changed from its orig-
inal meaning, a snow of force, to the sanction of God, here
personified in Semar. On the other hand, Semar's role may
be explained by the fact that he was the oldest and the most
venerated in the realm, for, when the panantang at the en-
thronement of Amangkurat II was omitted, the adipati of Sam-
pang commented that the oldest relative of the late king
should have installed the crown prince.156 The complete
attendance of the clergy and other personages of religious
fame, which seems to have been required at these ceremonies,
undoubtedly served to strengthen the authority of the king
in the realms of religion and belief.157 Officially, their
attendance was called for to ngestreni (to honor by one’s
presence) the investiture.
Such means of legitimation as royal descent and the
mark of divine consent (e.g., the wahju) served another and
far more important purpose in the realities of state-life.
They became most important political devices for enhancing
the king's kawibawan (authority). For since he was the cen-
tral, all-dominating and sole source of power in the state,
his major concern had to be upholding authority, and he did
so by continuously demonstrating his greatness. Glorifying
the king was made particularly necessary by Javanese cosmol-
ogy which identified the greatness of the king with the
greatness of the whole kingdom. And, politically speaking,
the greater glory of the king is equated with greater pres-
tige and authority. There must not be anything which could
challenge the king's greatness and it was significant that
154.	C. Poensen, "Amangkoe Boewana II (Sepoeh)," Bijdragen,
Vol. 58, 1905, p. 81.
155.	J. van der Vliet, "Pandoe," Bi j dragen, Vol. 27 (1879),
p. 228.
156.	Babad Tanah Djawi, ed. Balai Poestaka, Vol. 16, pp. 43,
44. The version in poetic metres.
157.	Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 17. See also Babad Tanah Djawi, ed.
Meinsma, pp 278, 340.61
the greatness of the king in Javanese literature, especially
in the wajang, was always measured against the amount of re-
spect shown him by other rulers. A great state was one which
was dawa kuntjararie, unggul kawibawane (far-reaching is its
fame, high is its prestige), or in other words, gede obore,
padang djagade, duwur kukuse, adoh kuntjarane (great is its
torch7 radiant is its realm, high-rising itssmoke, far-
reaching its fame); it was respected by other states.158
The radja sewu nagara, or "the kings of the thousand states,"
who attended	and affirmed the investiture	of	the	father of
the Pandawas	as king of Ngastina attested	to	the	unsurpassed
greatness of	Pandu Dewanata as an example	of	the	ideal world-
ruler . 1 5 9
The dependent relationship between the realm and the
person of the king meant that the king's benevolence pene-
trated the whole kingdom.160 Many incidents are related in
Javanese literature in which the state of mind of a hero,
and especially a monarch, and then to a far greater extent
because of his extraordinary powers, is reflected in or even
affects nature. This is especially dramatic in the lakon
relating Wrekudara's search in the forest for the highest
truth.1”1 When Paku Buwana IX lost his queen, he felt that
the whole kingdom reflected his despondent mood, "cold in
their hearts, the whole kingdom is plunged into sadness."162
It is understandable that such an emphasis on the king's
greatness inevitably led to systematic efforts towards glori-
fication of the person of the king. The Cult of Glory became
the most substantial and effective means of enhancing author-
ity. This is seen in the description of the king as ratu
gung binatara (the great divine king)163 and in the phrases
banda-bandu (rich in material wealth as well as relatives)
and also in the well-known phrase in ancient Indian political
158.	Mechelen, "Drie Teksten," p. 1.		
159 .	Van der Vliet, op. cit., p. 228.		
160 .	See p. 36.		
161.	Prijohoetomo, Nawaruci, Groningen, sutji Canto VIl, Strophe 7-10).	1934, p.	162 (Bima-
162 .	Paku Buwana IX, op. cit., p. 23 in Turida."	the part	"Gandrung
163.	See also the Babad Tanah Djawi, p.	117. It	says of
Sultan Agung: ratu ageng, ambek adil paramarta (a
great king, just and kindhearted).62
thinking, mbaudenda njakrawati (with the power to punish and
a ruler of the whole world).16* Two kinds of tools were
available to the Cult of Glory, one which was of an immate-
rial, or abstract character, and the other of a more percep-
tible and concrete character. The tools are however not as
distinct as they seem at first glance. Both are expressions
of the macro/micro-cosmos relationship which made kingship a
replica of godly rule, giving it a two-sided aspect of spiri-
tual as well as material excellence. For the Javanese saw
the godly realms as a place of superfluous riches, a place of
ultimate greatness in terms of material as well as spiritual
wealth. Thus, the earthly king also had to seek his glory in
these two categories.
Probably the most important of the spiritual tools to
glory was religious merit or spiritual merit in general.
Possessing the characteristics, conduct and behavior required
of an ideal king most increased a king's glory. Such spiri-
tual perfection was thought to be demonstrated by the posses-
sor's capacity to perform feats which no ordinary human being
could perform (sekti). A striking story in this connection
is of Sultan Agung's switch, after his failure to conquer
Batavia in 1628 and 1629, from the quest for greatness on
the battlefield to that of intense religious endeavour.165
The might and splendour of religious monuments too had always
occupied a major place in enhancing the king's glory,although
in the Later Mataram period nothing was built which could
match the great structures of the Old Javanese period.
Nevertheless, we can detect this idea on a much lesser scale
in the Mataram kings' veneration and occasional restoration
of the Demak mosque.166 The building of a rather small
pendapa (open hall) at the holy graves of Tembajat by Sultan
Agung served the same purpose.lb7 Actually the king's kraton
(palace) in the vastness and splendour of its design and con-
struction and the royal graves at Imagiri were in themselves
tokens of the king's glory.168
Another means of enhancing royal glory was the king's
genealogical tree. The more august persons, real or legendary
164.	See also H. C. Humme, Abiasa, 's-Gravenhage, 1878, p. 30,
where the word nj akrawati is also used.
165.	De Graaf, Geschiedenis van Indonesie, pp. 109, 113.
166.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 306.
167.	De Graaf, "De Regering van Sultan Agung," p. 202.
168.	De Graaf, "Titels en Namen," p. 77.63
it incorporated and the further back it went, the greater
the king’s prestige. The Javanese mind strove to syncretize
the two different cultures of Hindu religion and Islam in
order to establish the desired continuity; the kings of
Mataram were therefore provided with a double genealogy, the
Sedjarah Pangiwa (the left history) and the Sedjarah Panengen
(the right history).169 According to Berg these genealogies
were first composed only in the Later Mataram period.170
Islam had forced the replacement of the Old Javanese king-god
identification. Consequently, the genealogies were forged
in order to maintain a resemblance to the king-god identifi-
cation; it was irrelevant that all standards of chronology
or the consequences of places and events were ignored. The
Right Genealogy began with the Prophet Mohammad, in the Babad
Mataram called Kandjeng Rasul, followed by (among others) a
princess of Tjempa (Champa) and her son Raden Rachmat,171
the later Sunan Ngampel, oldest and most prominent of the
walis. It probably then continued with Pangeran Pekik of
Surabaja, who married Sultan Agung's sister and whose daughter
bore the later Amangkurat III of Mataram. Amangkurat III
ended the line of kings from this Right Genealogy. But there
must have been another link connecting later Mataram kings
with the Sedjarah Panengen.172 The Sedjarah Pangiwa went
further in its genealogical extravagance. Beginning with
Nabi Adam and Nabi Sis (Adam and Seth), names of Islamic
origin, it then went through the Hindu pantheon, then through
the legendary king Watugunung of indigenous origin to the
ancestors of the Pandawas, epic figures from the Indian
Mahabharata. It continued with the first king of Java, king
Swela Tjala of Purwatjarita (a name denoting nothing in par-
ticular as it simply means "the beginning of the story," so
referring to antiquity in general). Then came a jumble of
names of kings, historical ones like those of Koripan, Djenggala
and Kediri, Galuh, and Singhasari, but in the wildest disorder.
The genealogy then listed a connection with Padjadjaran in
West Java, then with Madjapahit in the East and through a
link in Palembang to the Sultans of Demak where it came to
an end. Through another branch of descendants of Madjapahit*s
last king Brawidjaja, via the story of the Wandan woman173
169.	Djajadiningrat, op. cit., p. 298.	
170 .	Berg, "Javaansche Geschiedschrijving,"	p. 96 .
171.	Babad Mataram, Vol. I, p. lOff.	
172 .	The links to the Mataram House in this not clear to the writer.	genealogy are
173.	See p. 54.	64
and the popular Kyageng Tarub story involving a celestial
nymph, the genealogy came at last to the first kings of
Mataram.171* Thus the kings of Mataram were bedecked with an
ancestry which included divine personages as well as famous
personalities from all known countries of all times, for the
sake of their glory and so for their prestige and authority.
A fourth means of glorification was the king's alignment
with what the indigenous world of belief had to offer in
magical and spiritual powers. The well-known Naga-princess
in Khmer myth, as a symbol of the fertility of the soil, con-
summated marriage with the kings at certain times to assure
the welfare of the country.175 Java also had its spirit-
queen, the mighty and ever-beautiful Njai Lara Kidul, ruler
of the spirit world of the Segara Kidul (the Indian Ocean),
much feared by the Javanese because of the toll in human
lives which she levied from time to time from the adjacent
coastal regions of Java. So a Javanese king, if he did not
want to lose his prestige, had to subject the goddess to his
authority, and what better means of alignment could the Java-
nese think of than that of marriage. Njai Lara Kidul married
first Panembahan Senapati176 and later all the kings of Mata-
ram, thereby assuring the safety of the realm,for in times
of distress she would come to the king's aid with her innu-
merable spirit-armies. But, from time to time, feminine
unpredictability still made her take the lives of the king's
subjects in epidemics! The yearly ceremony of the labuh,
the sending of gifts on a raft into the Indian Ocean by the
rulers of Jogjakarta, attested to the bond between the rulers
of the human world and Njai Lara Kidul, the queen of the
spirit world. Gifts were also offered to the spirit-guardian
of Mount Lawu.
The function of the kotang Antakusuma (the Antakusuma-
jacket) can perhaps be incorporated into this fourth category
of means of royal glorification.177 This relic, a pusaka
(holy object of inheritance) is in the possession of the ”
Sultans of Jogjakarta and is worn by them only in the danger
of battle. According to Hooykaas, the kotang is a symbol of
the king as the cosmic ruler, for while wearing it the king
174.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 24ff.
175.	D. G. E. Hall, History of Southeast Asia, London, 1955
p. 24 .
176.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 79.
177.	Jacoba Hooykaas, "The Rainbow in Ancient Indonesian
Religion," Bij dragen, 112 , 1956 , pp . 291-322.65
can stand between the earth and the Underworld or between
earth and the Heavens. Hooykaas identifies the jacket with
the skin of the Snake-king (the ruler of the underworld) and
also with the rainbow which in folk belief forms the bridge
to Heaven. The idea of a bridge to Heaven is said to be of
indigenous origin and widely known throughout Southeast Asia.
It has also found a place in Javanese Islamic tradition. In
this tradition Sunan Kalidjaga is said to have made the
Kotang Antakusuma from a goatskin which had contained another
Kotang Antakusuma and a letter from the Prophet saying that
he himself had worn the jacket. This goatskin bundle fell
amidst the synod of walis in Demak.178 The jacket subse-
quently made from the goatskin was first named Kyai Gundil
(the Hairless) and later became one of Jogjakarta's pusakas
under the name Kotang Antakusuma. This legend again reveals
the Javanese desire to incorporate all significant Javanese
beliefs into the new culture of Islam, thus providing it with
appropriate accoutrements for the jacket, which allowed the
king to associate himself with the denizens of the three
worlds, again raising him far beyond the average human capacity
With the Kotang Antakusuma we come to the fifth category
of non-material means of glorification, the pusakas (holy
relics of inheritance). Their importance lay in the magical
powers they were thought to contain. Between a pusaka and a
magically powerful person, like the king, there exists a
mutually stimulating effect. For each kris (an intrinsically
powerful object), for instance, there is an appropriate
wearer;179 thus, a person might not be "strong" enough to
own a particular kris because it should be worn only by a
king (ageming ratu). On the other hand, a king may be so
powerful that, for instance, his carriage of state also be-
comes "strong," an object of reverence. Water used to wash
such a carriage at certain times was and is much coveted for
its power to restore youth and vigor.180
The pusakas include a wide variety of objects and the
origins assigned them by tradition were also varied. The
famous "crown of Madjapahit," lost in the Trunadjaja war and
rediscovered by the Dutch at the fall of the rebels' strong-
hold in Kediri and then returned to Amangkurat II, had seemed
to be lost forever. As we have seen, the Demak mosque and
178.	Babad Mataram, p. 62. The Babad Tanah Djawi (p. 103)
has a slightly different version.
179.	Rassers, op. cit. , p. 2 24 .
180.	Kandjeng Kyai Garuda Yaksa, Jogjakarta's state-coach,
was made in a European country.66
Sunan Kalidjaga's tomb are also considered pusakas.181 An-
other pusaka, the war-gong Kyai Bitiak, was made a pusaka
by the consent of Sunan Kalidjaga.162 However, the majority
are weapons, primarily krisses and lances although more
modern weapons like the two cannons, Kyai and Njai Setomi
of Surakarta's kings, are also considered pusakas. One kris
was made by the famous smith-sage (empu) Supa of Tuban, and
was named Kandjeng Kyai Sengkelat. Others were traced
through a long line of inheritance, like the lance Kyai
Plered;183 still others were taken from the enemy such as
the lance Kyai Baruklinting, which was thought to have been
the tongue of a huge naga doing tapa (ascetic practice).
This lance was connected with the well-loved story about the
Kyageng of Mangir184 who dared to stand up against Mataram
because he possessed the lance. The Javanese have woven a
romantic story around this uprising, the authenticity of
which we will leave untested. Another pusaka is the gamelan
(complete set of instruments composing the Javanese orchestra)
Nj ai Sekati.
In terms of magical power, aside from these lifeless--
from the rationalist Western point of view--objects, we can
include the custom of having magically powerful persons at
court with the same objective as that of the pusakas mentioned
above. Artisans, who exercise "dangerous" occupations like
silver-, copper-, gold-, and blacksmiths, potters, dalangs, and
managers of dancing girls were included in this category be-
cause of the forces they worked with185 (fire, passion, the
power of impersonation). The empus, the weapon-smiths, were
granted particularly high esteem,186 The Babad Mataram re-
lates that at one time King Brawidjaja of Madjapahit gathered all
the empus in the palace to make him a particular type of
kris, which would be used as a tumbal (exorcizing object to
ward off bad luck) for the realms (5ne by one the names of
all the empus are mentioned which indicates their revered
181.	See p. 32.
182 .	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 44. Two rings were also pusakas; ibid., p. 60.
183.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 27.
184 .	Kyageng is a title given to persons respected for their devotion to the religious life.
185.	Pigeaud, Javaanse Volksvertoningen, p. 58.
186.	See for the important position of the empu: Rassers, op. cit. , p . 224 .67
position in society.187 Another source of magical power
seemed to be the palawidjas, dwarfs, blind men, albinos, etc.,
who because of congenital physical deformities were considered
to have "dangerous" forces in them. Some of them were kept
close to the king, not only to neutralize their harmful in-
fluences188 upon the community of common men, but mainly be-
cause these influences, to the magically forceful king, would
become a stimulating and enhancing rather than endangering
force.
Wealth must be considered one of the material means of
the Cult of Glory. This included a large population and a
large number of kin. Numerous kin gave the king more strength
in terms of support,and,in a society where close relations
formed an essential element in the social framework, rela-
tives, by virtue of the natural ties of blood, constituted
the basic relationship-group, much stronger and much more
closely knit than they are now. Thi s is shown in Ki Ageng
Pemanahan’s words, when he explained his plan to Sultan
Adiwidjaja of Padjang to dispose of Arya Penangsang of
Dj ipang:
Would Your Majesty please look from afar only. I
myself with all my kinsmen will meet him in battle.189
A large population meant that the king had sufficient men to
extract wealth from the soil and to form the mass-armies of
fighting men as well as equipment-bearers which were reported
by Dutch envoys. Two thousand armed men could be gathered
within half a day by sounding the war-gongs and, later, by
firing the cannon Kyai Guntur Geni (Thunder of Fire) in the
capital.190 In the waj ang, when Jamawidura, uncle of the
Pandawas, was granted the rather insignificant region of
Tjarang Glagah (Spiked Branches and Reeds), he expressed his
desire for a large population:
Perhaps later it will become a large city, if only
it will become populated.191
187.	Babad Mataram, p. 79.	
188 .	Pigeaud, Javaanse Volksvertoningen, p. 58.	
189.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 54. This took place TTHT—				in or about
190.	De Graaf, "De Regering van Sultan Agung,"	p. 125 .
191.	Van der Vliet, op. cit., p. 328.	68
Perhaps when the Mataram rulers moved large numbers of
the population from the conquered regions to Mataram proper192
it was considered a means of enhancing the king's greatness.
If one knew exactly how many conquered peoples were forced
to move and how and where they were given lands it might be
possible to decide whether these measures were taken purely
for economic reasons or whether they also had political sig-
nificance .
The king's armed forces provided a further material
tool of Glory. In Later Mataram the army consisted of a
specially picked body of men, the king's guard, incorporating
several units with their own names, specific weapons and
assigned duties. Most of them were guardsmen stationed at
certain places in the palace-compound, but they also acted
as executors of death sentences. The guard consisted of both
infantrymen and mounted troops.193 The forces of Sultan
Sepuh and of Surakarta were reduced to virtual extinction
following the new contracts with the English in August 1812
and Sultan Sepuh's failure to shake off the yoke of foreign
rule.194 The troops of the Kraton of Surakarta then con-
sisted of 29 units, from 15 to 125 men strong. One corps,
the Martalulut, executed the death sentence by the kris,
sabre or lance; another, the Singanagara, executed the death
penalty by decapitation and the penalty of mutilation of
hand or foot. This was done with the wedung (short, broad
knife).195 At various periods reigning monarchs had formed
these corps, the oldest of which was reputedly the Tamtama,
formed during the Demak-period around 1500 A.D.196 It is
related that Ki- Djaka Tingkir was made its commander under
Sultan Trenggana (1521-1546) when he showed his extraordinary
abilities by jumping backwards over a pond from a sitting
192.	De Graaf, "De Regering van Sultan Agung," p. 263.
193.	Soemantri mentioned 3 units of mounted troops, which
did not exist anymore at his time. (Soemantri Hardjo-
dibroto (trans.), "De Wijzigingen der gebruiken en
gewoonten aan het Solosche Hof," in Djawa, Vol. 11
(1931), no. 4, p. 164.)
194.	Sultan Sepuh was Amangku Buwana II (1792-1810, 1811-
1812, 1826-1828). Veth, op. cit., Vol. II, p.
5 86.
195.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 132, 304.
196.	C. F. Winter, Senior, Javaansche Zamenspraken, Amsterdam,
1862, pp. 25-29.69
position.197 At that time, in order to join this special
unit one had to possess kadigdajan (magical physical powers,
like invulnerability to weapons) which consisted of the abil-
ity to crack the skull of an enraged wild bull (banteng)
with one’s bare fist. These stories were undoubtedly created
to illustrate the extraordinary capacities of the Tamtama.
At that time, also, the units seem to have been much larger,
for Sultan Trenggana intended to enlarge the Tamtama corps
by four hundred. Apart from their duty as bodyguards to the
king, these special corps might have also formed the core of
the army to be sent into battle.198 They were supplemented
by the common peasantry, recruited through a general levy
(kerigan).19 9 This levy provided not only the fighting men
but also, and perhaps for the greater part, manpower to carry
or haul the necessary equipment and supplies.208 The basic
characteristic of the army lay, however, in the closely knit
cores of trusted followers of the commander (the king, a
bupati or some other dignitary). These special units earned
their exceptional position as much as the trusted followers
of the king as for their martial ability. This was demon-
strated by the careers of two men who rose to the highest
rank, namely Madjapahit's able patih Gadjah Mada, a former
commander of the Bhayangkari guards, and Ki Djaka Tingkir,
the later Sultan Adiwidjaja and son-in-law of the Sultan of
Demak, who began as commanding officer of the elite corps of
the Tamtama. The relationship of trust and loyalty between
master and follower, between gusti and kawula, was demon-
strated by Tumenggung Danupaja. On hearing that his lord
Pangeran Alit had died in a fruitless effort to wrest the
Mataram throne from Amangkurat II (1677-1703), Danupaja ended
his life by taking poison.201 And, on the other hand, the
Babad Tanah Djawi frequently tells of how a successful cam-
paign was followed by the soldiers’ immediate reward with
rank and goods.202
The close relationship between leader and trusted follow
ers made the army a ready and willing tool for use in the
197. Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 37.
198.	Ibid.,	pp.	57,	106.	
199.	Ibid., 79T7	P-	160 .	See	also:	Jasadipura I
200 .	Ibid.,	P-	297.		
201.	Ibid.,	P-	145.		
202.	Ibid.,	PP-	120,	185,	301.70
Cult of Glory, because sharing in greatness, psychologically per
haps more than materially, formed a strong stimulus for the
soldier. Glory was eagerly pursued through the roads of war,
because even the threatening presence of a strong army en-
sured a submissive attitude from neighboring countries, and
thus the glory of the king and his followers was enhanced.
In the Babad Tanah Djawi the order to subjugate a region or
city appears to be given so casually that one must conclude
that warfare--which of course in itself did not have the
widely devastating effect that it has now--was a usual af-
fair.203 Some examples will illustrate this point. Sultan
Agung at one time ordered Tumenggung Suratani:
Go and attack the Eastern part of the realm. Take
all the troops and all my kinsmen with you, try
them out on the battlefield204
without any further explanation. At another time it is nar-
rated :
Not long afterwards His Majesty the King gave the
order to besiege Surabaja
also without any comment as to the reason for the attack.205
Giving reasons for the expeditions does not seem to have
been considered necessary. In two instances in the Babad
Tanah Djawi where a reason is given, they are the same,
namely that the opponent was not willing to submit (nungkul)
and recognize the suzerainty of Mataram’s rulers.206 In
fact, in the Cult of Glory this proved to be the valid reason
for war. When the dalang says that the surrounding countries
subjected themselves to the sovereignty of a great king with-
out resorting to war it is expressed picturesquely in the
words kang tjedak manglung, kang tebih tumijung (the closer
ones lowered their tops [like bamboo] the farther ones leaned
over [like a palmtree in a strong wind]). This description
only affirms the fact that warfare was the usual method to
assure submission. Such a mechanical, almost inevitable
203.	See also: de Jonge, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 58, where
it was told of Sultan Agung that one could not meet
him in the months of April, May or October, because he
would then be in the field leading his troops on some
expedition.
204.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 118.
205.	Ibid., p. 129. See also pp. 135, 140.
206.	Ibid., pp. 112, 134.71
tendency towards expansion (ngelar djadjahan: expanding
one’s territorial jurisdiction) is clearly found in the
mandala-idea in ancient Indian political thinking.207 Al-
though it is not certain that this idea was known in the
Later Mataram period, the final result of such a policy--the
king as world ruler (Skrt: chakravarttin)--was certainly
not unknown to the Javanese who used the word nj akrawati,
as we have seen above.208 Clearly, Sultan Agung’s intention
to work towards his ideal of rebuilding the empire of Madja-
pahit209 was not very different. It was therefore only nat-
ural that a passage in the inexhaustible Babad Tanah Djawi
should show, at the time of Panembahan Senapati, the fear of
the regional power-holders in Eastern Java that such an in-
evitable expansion would follow the gradual rise of Mataram.
Therefore, sometime about 1590, the Panembahan of Madiun, an
influential regional head, gathered
. . . the bupatis of the Eastern territories [East
Java], who were not yet subject to Mataram, to plan
an attack on the capital of Mataram, because Senapati
could be compared to a fire the size of a firefly’s.
It was better to put it out with water as soon as
possible, so that it would not spread into a confla-
gration .210
207.	The mandala (circle, namely of influence, interest or
ambitions) can be described as a complex of geopolitical
relations, relating to boundaries and to contact with
foreign countries. The doctrine emphasizes the cult of
expansion, a necessary spur to the struggle for exist-
ence, self-assertion and world domination, and the
dynamic factor calculated to disturb the equilibrium of
inter-state relations. A state’s belligerence is in
the first place directed towards its closest neighbor(s),
thus making necessary the friendship of the state next
to the foe, which, because of its proximity, is also a
natural enemy of the foe. But if the mutual foe should
be conquered, the two allies would become close neigh-
bors, which of necessity would create a new enmity.
So this circle of alignment and alienation would stead-
ily expand until a universal peace is reached by the
establishment of a world-state with a sole and supreme
ruler (chakravarttin). (See further: Benoy Kumar
Sarkar, Creative India, Lahore, 1937.)
208.	Page 62.
209.	Berg, "Islamization of Java,” p. 125f.
210.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 100.72
The bupatis agreed.
The last of the material means for the Cult of Glory was
material wealth as such. And here again the basic idea of
richness and splendor lay in visualizing the king's environ-
ment as a replica of the heavenly abodes, of the Kaendran
(Indra's Heaven) or even of the Suralaja, the abode of the
highest deity, Batara Guru. The dalang describes the splen-
dor and beauty displayed when the king comes out to hold
audience, including the young maidens who bear the upat j ara
(the regalia of kingship). He ends with a comparison:
strong was the fragrance of the king penetrating far
outside beyond the pangurakan (the entrance to the
great square); gone were his human features and he
looked like the deity Batara Sambu, attended by a
host of nymphs.211
In the palace, the entrances to the inner chambers and the
pleasure garden were made in imitation of the entrance to
Suralaja, the two guardian giants, Tjingkara and Bala Upata,
here represented as statues. The dalang relates that in the
inner courtyard
as gravel to cover the yard nila- and pakadj a stones
[kinds of semi-precious stones] were used and when
they were raked by the feet of the many passing
serving-maidens they shone and glittered like so
many shooting stars.212
This display of wealth was apparent also in the preference
for gold (paint) and in the pomp and grandeur of the court
ceremonies. Thus, with regard to earthly wealth the king
had also to display an unsurpassable lavishness.
When considering the Cult of Glory, one is apt to con-
clude that the main purposes of kingship in Java lay in the
pursuit of the king's glorification alone, and the practice
of state-craft lent credibility to such a point of view.
However, in the context of Javanese ideals and cosmology,
kingship, as a reflection of God's rule, is the maintenance
of harmony and order in this smaller world of man, and thus
such a lofty task, such a position of high honor, could not
have so insignificant a purpose as the acquisition of earthly
wealth or physical power or any other outward sign of great-
ness alone. In Javanese tradition material wealth per se
211.	Mechelen, "Drie Teksten," p. 2.
212.	Ibid., p. 25.73
has never been a purpose of life. The words agung or luhur
(literally:	"great" and "high") always had the connotation
of an inner greatness and perfection, the true signs of the great
ness of a king. Submission to a really great king could never
therefore be the result of war but had to be a response to
the king's noble and wise rule, to quote the dalang1s words:
Many kingdoms have submitted of their own free will
without being subjugated by force; it is only be-
cause they are overwhelmed by the king's character.213
Attachment to wealth was considered an ignoble attitude. Al-
though a king, because of his inner magnitude, must be bestowed
with riches, fortunes, like his benevolence, must also flow
out from the king to the benefit of whomever might need it.
This was why dana or beneficence was thought of as the most
important feature of a kingly attitude. In the Asta Brata,214
the characteristic of the ideal king mentioned first is dana,
attributed to the most prominent of the God Guru's sons, Endra.
In the wa j ang, dana again is mentioned first by the puppeteer
in describing the good character of the king 2-15 and is re-
peated last:
for certain, one cannot measure the beneficent
gifts of His Majesty the King of Mandaraka.216
So display of magical power, physical might and material
wealth formed an essential part, a necessary decoration, of
kingship but only as the consequences of the king's inner
magnanimity; the king's virtue is proven by his use of these
abundant resources.
It was the king's use of the signs of greatness which
the Javanese keenly observed. Misuse of his powers was seen
as a sign that his greatness was waning and that his downfall
was at hand. Javanese tolerate oppression when they think
the king "is still bestowed with the wahju" (lagi kewahjon)
for it is of no use whatsoever to remonstrate against the
possessor of the wahju. Moreover, since such behavior is
the unmistakable sign that the wahju will soon leave the
king, his ruin is consolingly inevitable. The downfall of a
holder of power was thus seen, like any and all events, to
be part of the cosmic order; man can take no deliberate part,
213. Tjan Tjoe Siem, Hoe Koeroepati zich zijn vrouw verwerft,
Leiden, 1938, p. 4.
214 . See p. 43.
215. Mechelen, "Drie Teksten," p. 1.
216 . Ibid., p. 2.74
for when he does act, he is merely a tool in the hands of
Providence.
Signs of the downfall of a king were varied. The Babad
Tanah Djawi described the fall of Amangkurat I (1645-1677) as
follows:
At that time His Majesty's behaviour was different from
what it usually was; he often punished severely, and
continuously indulged himself in cruelties. His bupatis,
mantris (officials) and kin were very uncertain of
their position and order had deteriorated very badly.
All the Mataram people felt fear in their hearts; sun-
and moon-eclipses occurred frequently; rain was falling
out of season; a comet was seen every night. Ash-rain
and earthquakes [occurred]. Many omens were seen.
These were signs that the kingdom was facing ruin.217
The Babad Mataram speaks of an "old" state with many
"nuisances"; many became enemies "not fearing or obeying
their king."218 Wibisana, in the Serat Rama, on seeing the
signs of destruction, told his brother Dasamuka (Rawana)
that
animals of the forest have sought refuge in the city
.	.	. their sight has changed. Ngalengka is seen as a
forest, and with great noise the animals enter the town,
the birds give wailing cries; it is clear [that the
city] will be destroyed.219
Professor Schrieke pointed out that in older Javanese
literature a king's drunkenness and an ill-mannered attitude
towards people of religion were seen as tokens of a pralaja,
the period of destruction.220 That drunkenness was also
considered a sign of pralaj a in the Later Mataram period is
affirmed by the Serat Rama. A king who gave way to unbridled
harshness and anger, because of anxiety to be feared and
obeyed, was also condemned. Such a king was likened to a
goat that attacked any piece of wood held up before him.221
217.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 154.
218.	Babad Mataram, Vol. V, p. 15.
219.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 238.
220.	Schrieke, op. cit., Book One, III, 6, pp. 88-
95.
221.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 38.75
Such behavior, of course, revealed an uncontrolled emotion,
which for the Javanese was a highly unbecoming trait.
In a society, where the belief in fate was so strong,
reaction against an oppressive rule lay in evasion rather
than in interference. At a time when population was sparse,
untilled land was available in abundance, and especially
when wooded areas and mountain ranges could still provide
hiding places, such tactics were most feasible. This custom
seems to be quite old, for the Nitisastra, a translation of
the Old-Javanese Nitigastra dating from the end of Madjapahit
(about fifteenth century), states that a king who
did not keep an eye [on his subjects] and had a
cruel disposition will be left and evaded by his
subj ects. 2 2
The Bajan Budiman, a Javanese book of Persian origin,2 2 3 also
contains a passage, which tells us of such evasion of oppres-
sion. The vizier, Suleksan, at his wit’s end because he could
no longer provide the monarch of Ngesam with a girl every
night, informed the king that
the wealthy and the small people alike have fled into
the mountains, the town is depopulated; how ever can
one possibly find a girl?22U
A more recent and historically dependable example comes from
a narrative of the journey of Governor General van Imhoff
(1743-1750) in 1744. When speaking of the river Tangerang as
the partition between V.O.C.- and Banten-territory, the
narrative relates that many people from the Company’s side
of the river were migrating to the other side because it was
said that there buying one's freedom from statute-labor was
less expensive.225 A report from a former administrator of
222.	Nitiqastra, point 27.
223.	This book has the well-known frame-story of the king
who married a maiden every day only to put her to death
the following morning, and who was cured of this cruel
habit by the daughter of his vizier who told him a
long chain of stories night after night.
224.	Ch. Hooykaas, Tantri.de Middel-Javaansche Pancatantra-
bewerking, Lei den, 1929 , Appendix V.
225.	"Reis van den G. G. G. W. Baron van Imhoff in en door
de Jakatrasche-Bovenlanden 1744," Bijdragen, New Series,
Vol. VII, 1864, p. 230.76
the V.O.C. about the Surabaja region, dated December 31,
1812, suggested that the amount of forced deliveries be
reduced in order to prevent a "lessening of the population."226
People fled from difficult conditions during the first
half of the 1930's when, because of the Great Depression, it
was very difficult to earn enough money in the villages to
pay the comparatively low land-rent; many farmers gave up
their already small shares of the village communal-land in
order to be freed from paying taxes. In a country where
peoples' living is almost exclusively based on the produce
of the soil, abandoning that soil indicates a really desperate
situation.27 But we may presume that during the earlier
period, especially when forced by war, such disappearances
into the mountains were temporary; the peasants would return
to their villages when the dangers had passed. Under a truly
oppressive rule (usually when the tax burden was overwhelm-
ing) , the people would seek permanent refuge in other coun-
tries or at least in more remote areas of their own country
beyond the reach of the king's men.
Van Vollenhoven mentioned two kinds of collective pro-
test by the people. One was the right of villages to place
themselves under the jurisdiction of another administrator
or certain members of a ruling family group or another tax
collector. The second one was the right to complain to a
higher official in a procession called nggogol. 28 This
means of showing public sentiment in a procession seems to
be quite old. Criminals caught, thieves and rebels also
were brought to the authorities in procession,and the pre-
ventive meaning of such a public showing is obvious.
Another public show of concern was the custom of doing
pepe (to sit in the full rays of the sun) in the great square
of the Kraton in view of the king's audience hall (sitinggil)
until the king agreed to hear the petition. Such an act
226.	F. J. Rothenbuhler, "Rapport van den Staat en Gesteld-
heid van het Landschap Sourabaija," VBG,
Vol. XLI, 1881, p. 37.
227.	Therefore in times of war the population was pictured
as being in a state of wajang-wujungan (going hither
and thither without purpose)7 and the Babad Tanah Djawi
says "the people did not have the opportunity to till
the soil, constantly moving to and fro." (Babad Tanah
Dj awi , p. 245).
228.	C. van Vollenhoven, Javaansch Adatrecht, Leiden, 1923,
p. 42 .77
contained the implication that the petitioner laid his life
in his Lord’s hand. Pepe might also indicate a petition for
clemency.229
In connection with demonstrations of the public's con-
tempt, we must examine another weathervane of public opinion
in Javanese society, folk-humor, expressed in the jokes of
the clown-figures of Javanese plays, first of all, in the
wajang kulit but also and more importantly in other folkshows.
The most common are--at least for the later period--the
waj ang wong (waj ang plays staged by actors, not puppets),
the ketoprak (a kind of operetta), and, in East Java, the
ludruk. Such expressions of public opinion were never re-
corded because they did not belong to the court-sphere. In
Javanese society, clowns and jesters traditionally have had
a certain immunity from punishment for their witty and some-
times stinging remarks about current situations or persons
of importance. Dr. Pigeaud, as we have seen above, 30 ex-
plains their immunity by pointing out that actors were
thought "dangerous" in the sense of being magically powerful.
Perhaps actors were thought to be magically powerful because
they impersonated ancestors and other famous people of the
past and thus "actually" contained their spirits; in the
case of clowns, their abnormal behavior "actually" gave them
superhuman powers. Perhaps, as Pigeaud thinks, their ability
to release human emotions and passions made them "dangerous."
These are questions which will make a further study of this
subject highly interesting. The garebeg-processions of the
kings of Jogjakarta and Surakarta 231 were of entirely solemn
and dignified character but, strikingly, two figures, the
tjantang balungs, who were the lurahs (chiefs) of the dancing
girls in the city, marched along in the procession,232 in
strangely foolish attire and acting jocularly all the time.
One might assume that the magical aspect of their theatrical
profession made their participation in the grave occasion
appropriate. During the Japanese occupation (1942-1945), a
229.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 133, 148. Also Oudemans, op.
cit., p^ 199. TEe act of pepe is here regulated m
the Pramatan Patuh, codified in 1869: "Doing pepe
without valid reason is made susceptible to punish-
ment ."
230.	Page 67.
231.	Garebeg processions from the palace to the mosque,
Masdj id Ageng, were held on certain holy days.
232.	I. Groneman, De Garebeg'ste Ngajogjakarta, 's-Gravenhage,
1895, p. 33.78
rule of torture and cruelty, perhaps unconsciously relying on
the old immunity, a badut (clown) of a well-known ludruk-
group, Tjak Durasim of Surabaja, frankly and openly criticized,
or better, made fun of the abject conditions of the people.
Unfortunately for him, the Japanese military government did
not recognize his customary immunity. The dalang, by way of
the panakawans (clown puppets), assumes the same privilege of
commenting and criticizing.
Folk-opinion is expressed in yet another way. Short
phrases, rhymes or pithy words were composed, especially in
the Surakarta region, and became so popular that they were
known to virtually everybody,becoming a kind of a street-song
shouted back and forth between groups of strolling young
people or sung by children at play. Such "limericks," sometimes
not very clear in meaning, dealt with what was of current
interest to the common man. They might be of a very innocent
character like the rhyme which expressed surprise at the
ability of motor cars to go their way without horse or cow in
front. A street-song from the beginning of this century
went:
tit tuwit dimar mati ungalna
kintel lungguh dingklik sabuk nekel ora duwe duwit
tit tuwit (the sound of a whistle) the lamps went out
so turn them up.
a frog sitting on a stool, a waistband clasp of nickel
but no money.
Another version which read "muliha" (go home) instead of
"ungalna" at the end of the first line made people think it
was a kind of prophecy of World War II, the sounds of whistles
referring to the sirens of the air-raid warning system; the
second line ridicules the many penniless dandies of the time.
Sometimes the "limericks" tersely condemned conditions and situ
ations which were thought improper. During the Revolutionary
years after the proclamation of Indonesian independence in
1945, a street-song appeared which ridiculed the incompetence
of hastily appointed leaders and authorities. One can assume
that this way of giving vent to the public's dissatisfaction
could be encountered too in earlier times although, lacking
records, we are restricted to examples from the very near
past. What effect street-songs have had on the reigning
monarch is difficult to evaluate now, but a wise ruler would
most certainly not disregard any signs of discontent which
might be manipulated by a would-be usurper.
To express rebellion against a lawful master, the Java-
nese used the words mbalik (lit.: to turn around and stand
face to face), mbeka (to be recalcitrant), mbalela (to revolt),79
and the phrase madeg kraman2 3 3 which can be translated as
"to set up one’s own government," obviously with the purpose
of establishing a new and independent territorial power or
even a new government challenging an existing one. Indeed
if we examine the revolts and rebellions during the Mataram
period and even as late as the nineteenth century, the pur-
pose of an uprising seemed almost always to set up an inde-
pendent government, complete with all ceremonial paraphernalia
and a full set of dignitaries. This was even true of the
most insignificant disturbances, for the idea of magical
identification made such imitation essential to the success
of the undertaking. Raden Surjakusuma, a son of Pangeran
Puger, rebelled at the beginning of Sunan Amangkurat Ill's
reign (1703-1708). He fashioned (ngreka) a palace complete
with alun-alun at the village Ngenta-enta,23* a place which
a later rebel, Ki Mas Dana (the Babad Tanah Djawi gives the
year 1711 for Dana's rebellion) also used as a base for his
operations. The latter also was said to have "already
appointed mantris and bupatis (officials)"235 to
implement his "state." A rebellion against the Dutch colonial
government around 1880 was not very serious because of its
utterly naive, traditional planning: a certain Malangjuda
of Purbalingga in Central Java, intending to become the
supreme lord of Java with the title wali, appointed three
kings, one for the West, one for the Middle, and one for
East Java. In anticipation of his coming success he had al-
ready secured four kuluk kanigara (a brimless, black headgear,
ornamented with strips of gold), the ceremonial headgear of
Javanese dignitaries of high rank236 to be worn at the offi-
cial inauguration. The adventure ended dismally. In the
disturbances at Klaten around the 1880's, the rebels had
formed a government complete with all the high officials,
royal decrees and royal seals.237
A magical and religious orientation is evident from the
fact that many usurpers began their efforts by avoiding or
leaving the capital, that is, the kraton, to live in seclu-
sion and meditation, hoping to strengthen themselves inwardly
233.	Madeg: to become, to make oneself; ngraman: to set up
a new settlement.
234.	The word "ngenta" means: to simulate, to copy an
original.
235.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 305.
236.	Drewes, op. cit., p. 31.
237.	I. Groneman, Uit en Over Midden Java, Zutphen,
1391, p. 70.80
for the coming confrontation of force. An early example,
although under circumstances which were slightly different,
was King Airlanggawho, after the collapse of King Dharmavamsa
Anantavikrama's rule (991-1017), hid himself for two years
and lived as an ascetic in a monastery in the forests of
Panaraga, wearing treebark-clothes238 in order to prepare
himself for the struggle to recapture his father-in-law's
throne. The Babad Tanah Djawi mentions Raden Punta, a nephew
of Amangkurat II (1677-1703),who
ndedagan (meditated at the foot of a grave) in the
burial grounds of Tegal Arum, with the intention
to revolt.239
The hiding place of the famous rebel Untung Surapati in
the mountains of Ngantang of East Java (which contain caves)
was most probably a place of meditation. So was the cave of
Selarong in Jogjakarta, where Prince Dipanegara, the great
leader of the Java War of 1825-1830,spent days of seclusion
in preparation for the war. The felt need for inner strength
and unquestionably also for magical powers (especially in-
vulnerability) made it natural that in the late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries the initiative to revolt should most
often be in the hands of gurus and kyais, men who by virtue
of their religious life had already acquired the reputation
for possessing supernatural or at least more than human
capacities. The authority of rebel kyais and gurus presum-
ably owed more to these assumed magical powers than to their
religious piety. Moreover, the kyais could easily translate
general discontent against a foreign rule into the Islamic
djihad (Jav.: perang sabil, the war against the kapir, the
unbeliever); participation in the rebellion thus became the
duty of a true Moslem. Such was the case with the serious
uprisings in Tjilegon, Banten (July 1888) and in Klaten (in
about 1880), and with the rather insignificant rebellion of
the guru (teacher of religious learning) Imam Sempurna240 in
another Surakarta district (1888) who, together with his
small group of followers (murid,disciples) among whom were
several women, fought futilely to his death. And of course
Pangeran Dipanegara's main advisor and fellow commander,
Kyai Madja, served both as an inspiring source of super-
natural powers as well as an influential leader of the Moslem
238.	J. G. de Casparis, Airlangga, Inaugural speech, Surabaja
1958.
239.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 259.
240.	I. Groneman, Uit en Over Midden Java, p. 27.81
community. The white robes the rebels wore241 and the blind
fanaticism with which they fought revealed their confidence
that their leader’s magic powers made them invulnerable to
the sharpness of steel and even to the penetrating power of
bullets or shells. Such beliefs in invulnerability still
found acceptance during the Indonesian Revolution. Myth-
making was always an important element in war and accounted
for the leader-commander's very crucial role.
Another characteristic of Javanese uprisings was the
seeming preference for certain places to begin a rebellion
or to use as a stronghold. Professor Schrieke242 cites
Kediri in East Java as an example of such a favored region.
The Alas Ketangga (the forests of Ketangga), mentioned in
the Serat Djaja Baja as the abode of the coming ratu adil
(The Just King), is located in Kediri. The Babad Tanah Djawi
mentions the village Ngenta-enta twice as a center of rebel-
lion.243 The failure of previous rebellions did not seem to
discourage later pretenders from choosing the same headquar-
ters, a fact that might be explained by the unshakable belief
in fate which ordained that these places be the starting
places of a new and better state.
Leaders of rebellions were of diverse origins. Quite a
few were princes or regional authorities, e.g., adipati
Pragola of Pati,244 Tumenggung Djaja Puspita of Surabaja,245
and Trunadjaja of Madura. There were also men of the common
people, e.g., the Tjilegon rebel leader of the Klaten uprising
mentioned above, but it is apparent that the commoner's goal
was no different than that of a rebel prince; it was to be-
come the traditional and conservative king, the inevitable
and predestined leader of the community.
The belief that the coming of the ratu adil (The Just
King) is inevitable developed from the Indian belief in the
four world-periods (yuga) going in cycle from good (Krta-)
declining via Treta and Dvapara Yuga to evil (Kali-Yuga).
The Islamic belief in a coming messiah, the Imam Mahdi, also
241.	Drewes, op. cit., p. 33. p. 315.	Also Babad Tanah Djawi,
242 .	Schrieke, op. cit., p. 94.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p.
243 .	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 262	, 306.
244.	Ibid., p. 110.	
245 .	Ibid., p. 307.	82
contributed to the Javanese belief in the forthcoming emer-
gence of a righteous and just king after a period of upheaval
and moral decline.21*6 In Javanese such a period was called
the dj aman kalabendu (period of Kala and Anger). The Java-
nese associate theword Kala with mishap and destruction,
the characteristics of the Indian deity Kala or Mahakala the
demoniac aspect of god £iwa, who represents death and time,
the two powers of destruction. The name "Herutjakra," a
combination of heru of Arabic origin (Arab, chair: good,
fortune) and tj akra of Indian origin (Skrt. cakra: disc,
wheel),21*7 was given as the name of the coming king. Two
rebel princes had assumed this title, both named Pangeran
Dipanegara; the first, during the reign of Paku Buwana I
(1703-1719), with Bupati Dj a j aPuspita of Surabaja rebelled
against his own father, and the second led the Java War of
1825-1830. Dr. Drewes, in his dissertation, studied the
problem of the ratu-adil movement extensively.21*8
Politically, the convenience of the ratu adil concept is
obvious; it justified usurpation. As for the time of decline
which had to precede the emergence of a ratu adil, there were
always scores of reasons to be found with which one could
rationalize one's discontent. A student, however, might
measure the intensity of discontent during a certain period
by the frequency with which such ratu-adil movements appeared,
and the breadth of discontent by the number of followers
gathered or the size of territory affected. Whether strict
personal motives or a general discontent formed the incentive
towards a rebellion can also be estimated. So in judging
rebellions in older Javanese history one must not stare
blindly at the apparent and traditional goal of every upris-
ing, namely the acquisition of the throne for the leader of
the revolt, but one should take into consideration also the
cosmological principles and beliefs which explained the in-
evitability of the king's downfall.
246. As we have seen (pp. 40, 44 above), eschatological
speculations form the main theme of the Serat Djaja
Baj a.
247 . Herutj akra reminds us of njakrawati, the world ruler.
248. Drewes, op. cit., especially Ch. Ill, pp. 129-193. See
also Th. W. Juynboll, Handleiding tot de kennis van de
Mohammedaansche Wet, Leiden, 1930, p. 338.CHAPTER III
THE TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF KINGSHIP:
THE PROBLEM OF ADMINISTRATION
Objectives and Tools of Administration
The Idea of Self-sufficiency in Government
With the all-dominating position of the king in state-
life, administration as the technical tool of kingship had
to reflect the king’s major concern, the preservation of
Harmony. This need, which was expressed as ndjaga tata-
tentreming pradja (to guard the order and tranquillity of
the state), determined the pangreh-pradja's (or paprentahan:
administration) major and most important task, namely main-
taining security. In practice this meant guarding against
any possible disturbance from an outside foe as well as any
internal crime or irregularity which might disturb the balance
between the two cosmic spheres. Protecting and encouraging
religious observance was a vital means of retaining such a
balance, and therefore had to be included as an objective of
the administration. The Serat Rama attributes the task of
destroying the outside enemy to the god Brama, and wiping
out internal crime to god Jama.1 It also stresses the neces-
sity of eliminating crimes endangering religious practice,
so that those who "did ascetic practice and worship" would
then be able to pursue their task for the blessed welfare
of the realm.2 Protection and encouragement of religious
life from olden times on took the form of granting special
rights to religious groups and communities. Usually gifts
of land were distributed by the king to religious communi-
ties, not merely as a means of subsistence, but primarily so
that they would be financially strong enough to perform their
religious services satisfactorily for the welfare of the
king and so of his realm. These domains in the Old-Javanese
1.	See page 43.
2.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 41.
8384
period were called dharmas or dharma lepas (freeholds).3 4 In
the Later Mataram period there were several kinds of desa
perdikan (free villages), many of which were to be found in
the region of old Bagelen and Panaraga (Madiun). The impor-
tance of the religious element in Later Mataram state life
was also reflected in the existence of a separate and seem-
ingly more independent administrative department, the Reh
Pangulon (Office of the Head of the Clergy), which was respon-
sible for matters of religion including rendering justice in
disputes under the jurisdiction of the Islamic laws. This
department, however, as an incorporated part of the state
administration1* with a state-wide jurisdiction, did not seem
to be very old; at least there are no indications that may
justify such a conclusion. In fact, the non-existence in
Islam of a widely organized, hierarchical clergy in the
Christian sense does not support such a view. The institu-
tion of the pengulu possibly was older, for he was the head
of the clergy in the main mosque in the king's capital and
only gradually was he incorporated into the administrative
system as head of a special division. Dr. Juynboll, writing
about the Mangkunegaran principality in 1882, reports that
the pengulu at court had his say about the appointment of
the lower pengulu naibs who each administered the religious
affairs of a certain number of villages.5 These lower offi-
cials were not thought of as belonging to the king's adminis-
tration for, unlike the other royal officials, they did not
receive either income or token appanage from the king; from
early times on, they had to make their living from the regular
djakat and pitrah levies, the obligatory contributions which
Islam prescribed to its followers. The levy was in the form
of a certain portion of every gedeng (a kind of measurement)
of ears of rice. The officials also received gifts or con-
tributions in the course of performing marriages, dividing
inheritances and the like. In 1881, this was also true for
the regency of Surabaja, at that time no longer a part of
the Mataram kingdom.6
3.	Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV, pp. 223, 226.
4.	In 1935, in Surakarta, strangely enough this department
was called Kawedanan Yogaswara, the last name having an
entirely Hinduistic notion.
5.	A. W. T. Juynboll, "Kleine bijdragen over den Islam op
Java," Bij dragen, 4th series, Vol. VI, 1882 (30), p. 281.
See also: Rouffaer, op. cit. , p. 61.
6.	Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p. 21.85
The existence of bands of bandits and robbers seems to
have formed an established and quite ancient institution,
not only in Javanese society, but everywhere in the world at
one time or other.7 Dacoity in India and Burma, the existence
of secret societies in China, and the pirate colonies along
the Straits of Malacca and the Sulu Islands of the Philippines
attest to the persistence of these institutions in history.
Piracy may even have been a means of creating nuclei of
political power out of which strong states might be built.8
The Serat Rama is quite explicit that criminals had to be
disposed of without delay, just as one would dispose of cater-
pillars,9 and taking the law into one's own hands against a
criminal was not considered a crime. The existence or non-
existence of such bands of robbers always formed a standard
to measure the efficiency and stability of a regime. Bandits
threw the realm into a state of resah (Kr., rusuh Ng.:
unstable, unsafe) when the king's rule was weak, for they
would lay low and seek refuge in the woods under a reign of
strength and ability.10 When hiding in remote and secluded
areas they might even form regular village organizations with
fellow-villains and their families. Such a village of
brigands is mentioned in the encyclopaedic Serat Tjentini, a
work written in the 1820's, in which the powerful brigand
leader is called the village petinggi (village headman) and
it was he
who controlled the roads through the forests and
mountain range.11
It was not unusual, even in the first decades of the twentieth
century, that, when a certain region riddled by brigandage
and robbery was pacified, a local "converted"--usually only
half-converted--leader of a band was made a village headman
and burdened with the duty to govern and appease his region.
Such a policy was based on one of the basic principles of
administration in Java: choose officials with regional re-
sponsibility primarily on the basis of the influence he
7.	D. H. Meyer, "Over het bendewezen op Java," III, July 1949-May 1950, p. 179.	Indonesie,
8.	Nicholas Tarling, Piracy and Politics in the Melbourne, 1963, p. 4. See also p. 10.	Malay World,
9.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 43.	
10.	Ibid., p. 36.	
11.	Serat Tjentini, ed. Bataviaasch Genootschap Wetenschappen, Batavia, 1912-1915, Vol. VII- VIII, p. 112ff.	van Kunsten en86
already has in the community. It was said and it was believed
that incorporating such robber-chiefs made their particular
region free from the disturbances of robbery and brigandage.
When brigands had de facto power over certain areas, they
imposed a kind of forced tribute on the villagers and traders
passing through.12 Physical force, the bands' sole tool to
enforce their authority, was used to make them, if only tem-
porarily, the masters in areas where the king's authority was
ineffective. The bandits' pillage or looting might be seen
in terms of the accepted right to ransack a defeated adver-
sary's kraton or dalem (manor! for riches and women (ndj arah
lan mbebojong or mbebandang).13 Javanese stories tell about
kings (for instance Ken lotgrok) and saints (Sunan Kalidjaga)
who had been robbers,but the stories stress the unusualness
of this background for a great man. If we consider all these
aspects of brigandage together, we notice the apparent simi-
larity between the rule of brigand bands and that of the
kings of the past. First, brigand bands, living an independ-
ent perilous existence within the state, assumed the royal
practices of levy and pillage-in-war in the territories they
controlled. Secondly, like the brigands, the monarchical
state in Old Java, however intricate and elaborate its organ-
ization and structure might be, relied primarily on the use
of physical force to establish its authority.
Taxation, in a sense, is tribute in exchange for the
lord's protection. Thus we can understand why taxation and
the collection of taxes, in the form of money, produce, and
labor, formed the third important task of the state. It is
interesting to observe here that taxation was not mentioned
or discussed in the many piwulangs we have used for this
study although it did form an essential and finely regulated
part of state life. It was not deemed necessary to discuss
the moral justification of taxes and perhaps as a material
matter they were not worthy of deep consideration.1“ Taxation is
12.	Meyer describes brigandage in Banten in very recent times;
tribute, there, was called wang ngaraksa (Sundanese:
safeguard-money). It is striking that watchmen-organiza-
tions elsewhere in Java in the revolution of 1945-50, at
least some of them, were thought of as organizations of
former brigands. This corresponds entirely with Meyer's
description. Meyer, op. cit., p. 187. See also Pigeaud,
Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV, p. 476.
13.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 112, 126, 131, 135.
14.	See further Appendix II.87
dealt with in the Serat Rama; however it treated not the
principles of taxation but only the ideal characteristics of
a tax collector.
if you want to get tribute-money, you have to choose
another official, namely one who has the character
of a goat . .	. the habit of one with the character
of a goat is not being used to cleanliness ... he
must be untiring in insistence and only stop when he
has achieved his ends, never looking to the right
nor to the left, urgent in his persistence.15
Maintenance of justice was another major concern of the
king in preserving Harmony. The older term mbebeneri for
rendering justice has now fallen more and more into
disuse and has been replaced by the Arabic derived term
ngadili [1adl (Arab.): justice], which has the literal mean-
ing of "making right." The newer term is perfectly in accord
with the idea of setting straight the balance of tranquillity,
the sense in which "harmony" is understood by the Javanese
in the context of macro- and micro-cosmos relationship.
Winter discusses a characteristic of Javanese law in
his description of the judicature in the kingdom of Surakarta
at about the middle of the nineteenth century, namely con-
ciliation, or compromise, whereby the king's official, the
territorial administrator,16 was required to attempt to
settle a case with an agreement between the parties concerned.
Winter wrote that such a method of solution could be applied
to "all cases, of any kind whatsoever," thus including civil
as well as criminal cases, in European legal terminology.
In the summation of the duties of the Tumenggung-redi or the
Kliwon-redi-- the redi denoting that those officials were in
charge of police supervision--the task of trying for a peaceful
solution is mentioned as one of the important duties.17
Actually, if we look up an older lawbook from Bali, which was
taken by Dr. Jonkers as a subject for his dissertation, we
can find that criminal acts were treated as matters of civil
law. Article 45 of the lawbook for instance says that steal-
ing of the fruits of the land is punishable by death if done
at night, but if it is done in the daytime it can be nullified
by a compensation of thrice the value of the stolen goods,
15.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 40.
16.	C. F. Winter, "Regtspleging over de onderdanen van Z. H.
den Soesoehoenan van Soerakarta," Tijdschrift voor
Negrlandsch Indie, Batavia, 1844, ~pZ 123 .-------
17.	Ibid., p. 23.88
which would come to the benefit of the plaintiff. Article 24
tells of a compensation of two times the value of the stolen
wares plus a ransom and a fine of respectively "8000” and
"4000" which came to the king if the thief should plead for
preservation of his life.18 From this fragment of Balinese
law written in Old-Javanese, in conjunction with others,
Jonker concluded that "indigenous law throughout the whole
Archipelago" had a civil law character,19 tending to consider
all cases of litigation as affecting only the parties con-
cerned. An agreement between the parties themselves would
then eliminate the cause of the disturbance and thereby re-
store the tranquillity of both cosmic spheres.
But, perhaps from the point of view of practicality in
state policy, the reason for the tendency to grant parties
the right to solve disputes independent of outside inter-
ference, even from the state, must be sought more in a char-
acteristic typical of state administration in Old Java, and, as
further study will undoubtedly show, of feudal administration
in general. That is, the effort to avoid the problems in-
herent in intricate and complex organization by keeping state
administration as simple as possible. This was accomplished
by creating a system of highly autonomous and usually also
financially self-sufficient administrative units, be they
territorial like a district or a regency, or functional like
the department of religious affairs and the department of the
Kalangs (woodcutters and woodworkers). Probably the Javanese
did not intentionally differentiate between territorial and
functional units and we do so only for the sake of convenience.
According to Rouffaer,20 before 1831, there were seven ranks
of officials lower than Wedana and Kliwon (these two being
regarded as belonging to the higher officials) namely, from
highest to lowest: the Panewu; Penatus (or Mantri); Paneket;
Panalawe or Panglawe; Panigangdj ung; Panandjung; and Panakiki1.
The names indicate that they nad respectively 1000, 100, 50,
25, 4 and 2 tj atj ah21 under their authority. This seemed to
18.	J. C. G. Jonker, Een Pud-Javaansch Wetboek, disserta-
tion, Leiden, 1885 , p. 101. Jonker says the code is
"relatively old."
19.	Ibid., p. 22.
20.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 60. See also Babad Tanah Djawi,
p. 16.	1831 was the year of the reorganization of the
Kasunanan (Surakarta) and Kasultanan (Jogjakarta) terri-
tory in response to the last great reduction of these
kingdoms in 1830 after the Java war when they assumed
their present sizes.
21.	For the meaning of tj atj ah see Appendix II.89
indicate that in former times the rank of an official was
always measured according to the tjatjah (count, thus the
number of men) under his jurisdiction. In this system of
administrative units, in accord with the character of sim-
plicity of organization, the leader was given the sole, un-
divided responsibility and undivided power within the boun-
daries of his function, necessary to accomplishing his all-
inclusive task: ndjaga tatatentreming pradja (to guard the
tranquillity of the realm) mentioned above. That the offi-
cials’ full responsibility had to be counterbalanced by the
king’s absolute confidence in them was put forth again and
again in the Serat Rama, even with regard to a subdued enemy
re-installed as the king's vassal.22 Since he possessed full
power and thus full responsibility, the official could expect
harsh punishment,including death, if he failed to execute his
duty to the satisfaction of his lord. The Babad Tanah Djawi
includes the classic case of the two commanders who led the
Mataram troops in 1628 in the attack on Batavia, capital of
the merchant empire of the United East-India Company of the
Dutch (V.O.C.). Rice-stores were set up along the route of
the troops and a general levy putting the entire Mataram
forces into battle was drawn from all dependencies from the
Priangan highlands of West Java to Sampang on the island of
Madura. All this testifies to the great importance which
Sultan Agung (1613-1645) attached to the undertaking, and
thus also to the great personal responsibility of its com-
manders. Punishment with death for failure23 was in this
case quite acceptable to the Javanese. The bupati (regional
chief) of Pasuruhan in East Java, who fled to Kartasura when
Raden Tirtakusuma of Winongan rebelled within his territory
of jurisdiction,was sentenced to be put to death by kris
because
his crime being that he failed in taking care of
the province of Pasuruhan [because] he would not
meet the Winongan troops in battle.2
Such a responsibility was also stressed in Mangkunegara IV's
writing.25 The king's officials, from high to low, were
held accountable not only in matters of great importance,
but also in their daily tasks. This was evident from the
many cases where the official in charge had to pay a fine
22.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., pp. 38, 39, 44, 448.
23.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 139.
24.	Ibid., p. 307.
25.	Mangkunegara IV, op. cit. , p. 67.90
for irregularities occurring in his district; mostly these
cases had to do with crimes, like serious injury or murder,
for which the culprit could not be identified or could not
be arrested.26
The state also followed a policy of allowing the desa
(village) a certain degree of autonomous self-sufficiency
especially in the field of security. The policy was imple-
mented by instituting collective responsibility for some
crimes and other illegal acts; thus not only were the inhabi-
tants of the premises where the crime or deed was committed
responsible, but also the neighbors who lived madjupat (on
all four sides) within a certain number of t jengkal (7.95
feet for each tj engkal) from the scene of the crime.27 In
some criminal cases, the whole desa and even its mant japat
and mantj alima,2 8 the contiguous villages and the desas next
to them,29 were held responsible. Such was the case with the
crime of robbery with manslaughter, in which the delinquents
could be neither caught nor identified. In fact, as a general
rule the villagers were collectively held responsible for
the security of their desa, not only to the benefit of them-
selves, but also to that of strangers, peddlers and traders,
and especially to that of royal officials who had to stay
overnight in the desa in the execution of their duties.30
Even the markets, which were let out by the king to Chinese
entrepreneurs, had to be guarded by the villagers.31
Self-sufficiency seemed to be the main principle in
state financing too. The finance system of Later Mataram
can be called "salary-financing," for out of the salary which
the official earned (entirely in the form of appanages called
lungguh) he was expected to pay all the expenses entailed in
26.	Law "Angger Ageng," art. 4, 10; also art. 7, 22. Law
"Angger Arubiru," art. 14 (Oudemans, op. cit., Vol. II,
pp. 54, 82; 74, 102; 13).
27.	Law "Angger Pradata Akir," art. 8 (Oudemans, op, cit.,
Vol. II, p. 28); Law "Surja Alam" (Soeripto, Ontwik-'
kelingsgang der Vorstenlandsche Wetboeken, Dissertation,
Leiden, 19z9, p7 218.
28.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 57.
29.	Winter, "Regtspleging," p. 124. Law "Angger Ageng,"
art. 4.
30.	Law "Angger Ageng," art. 3.
31.	Ibid., art. 23.91
the performance of his tasks and duties.32 The official
could defray the expenses of his work because the full
authority given to him by the king enabled him to exact con-
tributions and levy of labor from his district. But since
he was required to be self-sufficient he had no recourse to
financial sources other than those prescribed.33 Several
articles of the law ’’Angger Gunung" codified in 1846, and so
of a rather recent date, have to do with this principle of
self-financing. Articles 4-14 which regulated the different
"postal stations" on the stagecoach service put the burden
of providing relief-bearers or relief-horseteams (tundan)
entirely on the official concerned. Articles 22 and 23
ordered the responsible officials to arrange all that was
necessary for the reception of the king or of "great Dutch
dignitaries" (tuwan-tuwan gede) while they were at rest
stations.34 This meant that che officials had to provide
refreshment or even food and entertainment; at least a
gamelan-orchestra had to play upon the arrival of the guests.
However, for this purpose, at least some officials were given
special additional appanages. The burdens of providing a
worthy reception to passing dignitaries moved an official to
comment to patih Pringgalaja:
You could not possibly bear these burdens, for your
sawahs (rice-fields) would all be gone.
He would have to rent out all his appanages to finance these
expenditures.3 5
The "Angger Gunung" also confirms our conclusion about
self-sufficient financing in a negative way. This law
creates a new administrative office which financed the main-
tenance of the "postal station" buildings and also of roads
and the bridges on, presumably, only the main roads. This
office was called kantor from the Dutch "kantoor" (office)
which indicates that it had not existed earlier. It is not
certain whether this office was that of the Dutch Resident
as representative of the Netherland-Indies Government, which
is very likely, or a part of the king’s administration
proper. Nevertheless it is clear that the system of central
financing prescribed was new to the Javanese.
32.	See also: H. J. van Mook, "Kuta Town, The Hague, 1958, p. 302.	Gede," in The Indonesian
33.	See further: Appendix II.	
34.	Oudemans, op. cit., Vol. II, pp.	200, 201.
35.	Babad Mataram, Vol. V, p. 114.	92
It is well known that the peasant soldiers had to pro-
vide their own food and lodging (the latter only in the form
of a sleeping mat: klasa) on expeditions.36 This fact also
is an example of the policy of requiring self-sufficiency.
The rule of autonomous financing for all parts of the
administration suits exceedingly well a state governed by
the ideal of non-interference. Non-interference also was
quite in accord with the self-sufficiency of the agrarian
life in the Javanese desa, whose narrow espace social required
neither differentiation of occupation nor intensive communi-
cation with the outside world. Letting life take its course,
in accord with conservative traditionalism, the state became
the guardian against disturbance, interfering only when there
was a threat to tranquillity. The word pangaioman (giving
shelter from rain and sun, from ajom: shaded) along with the
waringin (ficus benghalensis), the giant banyan tree with
its dense and widespread foliage, became the symbol of kingly
rule. Inside the realms, tranquillity and regularity was
the state’s main aim, not active stimulation towards progress.
The full and undivided authority of the punggawa (offi-
cial) and the autonomous self-sufficiency of his position
made him a man of broad responsibilities, and this was espe-
cially so if he had territorial responsibility. It is there-
fore not surprising that, within his region, he wielded the
powers of administrator, judge and commander of the local
contingent of troops.37 The elaborate household of the king
and the multiplicity of royal duties (international relations,
the army, ceremonies, etc.) demanded a division of functions
with the king in the controlling position. The fact that
regional officials held undivided power made it essential
that they be chosen with great care. As we have seen,30
selection of officials was considered a crucial and difficult
royal task because high morals, a deep Sense of duty and
36.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, Book 2, 2, especially
p. 128.
37.	Dr. Soeripto also hinted that the king's officials were
administrators and judges at once, which seemed to be an
old Indonesian monoduality. (Soeripto, op. cit., p.
175). The najakas, heads of the departments of adminis-
tration at court, were all members of the Balemangu-
court under the chairmanship of the Raden Adipati (title
of the Grand Vizier) (Winter, "Regtspleging," p. 100.
See also: Rushton Coulborn, Feudalism in History,
Princeton, 1956, p. 5).
38.	See p. 50.93
great courage were required for such all-embracing work.
Just as for the king, a regional official’s main problem
was how to accumulate sufficient influence in his region to
make his task agreeable. His authority to a certain extent
of course depended on the fact that his was an aspect of the
king’s (and thus also of God’s) supreme right to rule.
State administration in Later Mataram was imitative in its
perception of power and authority, and in its ideological
aspect. We will observe later that this was also the case
in its technical-administrative aspect. Regional administra-
tion was, from top to bottom, entirely repetitive, but of
course within consecutively smaller territories.
The Prijaji
The positions and functions in the king’s administration
were filled by punggawas (officials), also called by the more
general term abdidalem (the king’s servants). Throughout the
centuries these officials, from the highest to the lowest,
had gradually become a social class with an exclusive set of
beliefs and values; they formed the social stratum between
the king and the small group of princes of royal blood (para
bendara) and the great mass of private citizens who, irre-
spective of wealth or means of living, were called the tij ang
alit in Krama or the wong tj ilik (the small people) in Ngoko?39
In the older Javanese society, the ruling elite was thus com-
posed of two groups, the aristocracy of blood (the king and
the para bendara) and the aristocracy by profession who were
called kawula^ the name used for the king's subjects in
general. As the Babad Tanah Djawi indicates, officials were
also called bala (subj ects, troops) “*0 although since they
39.	Krama or "high"-Javanese and Ngoko or "low"-Javanese are
the two basic social dialects in the Javanese language, with
some other intermediate forms. These dialects were how-
ever not spoken only within, but to a greater extent
between the social strata of Javanese society to indicate
degrees of respect and intimacy of relation between the
speakers. It forms a linguistic etiquette of a rather
intricate pattern. Dr. Clifford Geertz has reserved to
this subject a short but not an undeserving paragraph in
his book, although the location of his study is hardly
proper to study the delicate intricacies of etiquette in the
Javanese language. (Clifford Geertz, The Religion of
Java, Glencoe, Ill., 1960, pp. 248-260.)
40.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 252. This was said of Raden Sukra,
although the son of the highest official, the grand94
were in the service of the monarch they might occupy the same
functional position. Thus, Javanese society of the Later
Mataram period had an elite group which a commoner might
enter, but only by becoming a servant of the king, an offi-
cial. The word kulawisuda or kawulawisuda, which Gericke's
dictionary translates as "raised to a higher rank" and which
is a combination of the words kawula (subject, servant) and
wisuda (to promote),1*1 implies the possibility of entering
the elite and also that such entrance was effected only via
the road of officialdom. Another phrase denoting promotion
to high rank is sinengkakaken ingaluhur which has the conno-
tation that the person has gained favor with the king and
has joined the para luhur (the high), the top-elite of the
ruling aristocracy.
The official's relationship to the monarch was uncondi-
tional and submissive for only the king could grant kamukten
(welfare and prosperity);1*2 this had to be true in an agrarian
based state when the king had the absolute right of disposal
over the land, and officials were paid with the usufruct of
land in the form of lungguh (appanages). This was also stated
clearly in Paku Buwana's IX writing,1*3 and the Wulangreh ex-
presses it as follows:
there is nothing to be compared to serving the king;
he will see the king's court-yard and will be re-
spected and have a name [in society] , and then there
is also the appanage; .	. . serving can be likened
to debris drifting in the ocean, going wherever it
is commanded to."1*
Unconditional submission is also required of the armed forces.
The troops are the arrows of the bowman; the commander
(senapati) **5 aims them according to his will.
vizier, in contradiction to the crown prince, who is
"son of a king." In another place (p. 251) Raden Sukra
is called a "wong tjilik," a commoner.
41. J. F. C. Gericke, Javaansch-Nederduitsch Woordenboek,
Amsterdam, 1847.
42.	Paku Buwana Punggawa."	IX,		cit. , p.	173, in the part "Wulang
43.	Ibid.				
44 .	Paku Buwana	IV,	op.	cit., p.	16.
45.	Mangkunagara	IV	, op	. cit., p,	. 49.95
Although Javanese society had an open elite, the king's
officials traditionally were recruited mainly from the pri j aj i
class, the social group which essentially consisted of the
king's punggawa (officials) but gradually came to include
their families and their descendants. Yet, the essential
criterion for membership remained being in the king's service;
consequently, if a person were not a punggawa his inclu-
sion in the prij aj i class depended on a close blood-relation-
ship to a royal functionary. The higher the position of a
functionary, the longer the line of his descendants included
in, or, better, perceived by the community as belonging to
this social group. But even the number of royal descendants
included in the privilege group was limited. The titles of
the putra (the king's immediate offspring) and of the sentana
(the king's extended family) change according to the distance
of the relationship; the immediate offspring of the monarch
are titled gusti and the furthest removed descendants are
called raden.4 6
Before he could acquire a position in the bureaucratic
hierarchy, a young man usually had to go through two phases
of instruction, the first of which was the njuwita (to serve)
and the next, the magang-ship (apprenticeship) . As a boy of
twelve to fifteen years he had to njuwita, to serve with a
family, usually of a higher standing than his own. He might
do ordinary servant's work like sweeping the floor or carry-
ing water but the essence of njuwita was always to learn by
experience the humility and hardships of a low position in
the first place, and to learn by observation the intricacies
of higher milieu etiquette in the second place. He was also
expected to acquire professional skills (like writing, read-
ing, horse-riding, the use of weapons) and artistic skills
(primarily in literature, dance and music).1*7
This procedure of acquiring knowledge and so opening
the opportunity to enter officialdom has been a regular prac-
tice for all strata of the Javanese society. Ki Padmasusastra
(1840-1926), well known because of his knowledge and documen-
tation of Javanese customs and tradition, described in his
Tatatjara (Traditional Customs) life in a typical Javanese
family of his time, from birth to death, not even forgetting
a favorite pastime, the raising of fighting cocks.1*8 In this
46.	See also: Winter, Javaansche Zamenspraken, p. 12.
47.	The Nagarakrtagama already mentioned that the king him-
self demonstrated a dance and the princes sang and re-
cited poetry, a reason to conclude that music, dance and
literature must be part of the education of a gentleman.
48.	Padmasusastra, Serat Tatatjara, Semarang, 1911, p. 225.96
book the knowledge required of a prij aj i is of professional
skills, the arts and religion; however the art of war is not
mentioned at all. Formerly the art of fighting was demon-
strated in the colorful contests of skill and courage, the
senenan (or seton, named after the day: Monday and Saturday
on which these events were held). The senenan was a mock
fight with the blunted lance on horseback in the great square
before the kraton (palace). Ki Padmasusastra’s exclusion of
the ability to use arms is undoubtedly due to the conditions
of his time, when, because of the reduction of the powers of
Javanese kings in the nineteenth century, there was no longer
the opportunity to display military skill. It is therefore
not surprising that Mangkunegara IV, who was allowed by the
Netherland-Indies government to have a small but effective
contingent of troops, tried to revive the spirit of ksatria-
ship (knighthood) by stressing in his writings the virtue of
kawirjan (courageous attitude). For this purpose he empha-
sized in his very popular poem Tripama (the three examples)
the three ksatrias of the waj ang, Suwanda, Kumbakarna and
Surjaputra (Kama); each died the death of a true ksatria
in a hopeless battle honoring his pledge to fight for his
lord even, in the case of the last two heroes, for a morally
unjustifiable cause.1*9 Prince Mangkunegara IV went so far
in his praise that he declared:
the profession of warrior, that is the highest one
.	.	. superseding ascetic practice of a yogi, because
the offering of the prayers must be done on top of
the iron mountain.50
Religious knowledge, of which the ability to recite the
complete Kor’an formed an essential part, was considered a
further asset in the education of a son of the prij aj i class.
In Ki Padmasusastra’s time religious education entailed a
rather long stay (three years) at the famed pesantrens (or
pondok:	religious school) of Panaraga.51 The man of reli-
gion as the general educator was an ancient institution. The
Serat Rama mentioned the necessity to protect the panditas
and resis (men of religion who lived in contemplative seclu-
sion) with whom the king had to leave his young men to be
educated.
49.	Mangkunegara IV, op. cit., the parts "Pariwijata" and
"Tripama."
50.	Ibid., p. 50.
51.	Padmasusastra, op. cit., p. 173.97
You must let them teach what is good in the service
of the state.52
The phrasing of this statement by Rama to his brother Barata
might justify the conclusion that the sages, beside the rules
of morality, taught also the techniques of statesmanship con-
tained in the whole body of traditional literature.
After the young man had been educated, his--or his
family’s--concern would then be to get him as a wife a daugh-
ter of a ranking official or better still, of a nobleman,
for this to a certain extent would also pave his way to
officialdom. Then he must seek admittance to the administra-
tion by way of the second apprenticeship or magang to a high
dignitary, without any pay and for an indefinite time, de-
pending on his capacities and, of course, also on the con-
tacts his family had in the higher echelons of the king’s
service. From then on, until he reached the highest rank
possible, it was required that he consistently show his
kamantepan or katemenan (earnest perseverance, devotion) to
the king and to his task, which implied an unquestioning
execution of any task which the king commanded him to do.
The story of Dewarutji was usually used to illustrate such
an attitude. Dima, tEe forceful second Pandawa, unquestion-
ingly carried out the orders of his guru (teacher) Durna,
even when Durna tried to dispose of nim (and the threat he
would present in the coming Baratajuda war) by sending him
to exceedingly dangerous places ostensibly to seek for the
truth of life. Bima emerged victoriously, because the gods,
struck by his unrelenting perseverance, allowed him to find
the truth of life in the middle of the ocean in the form of
Dewarutj i.5 3
In connection with the devotion required of the pri jaji
by his monarch, it is no more than natural that seba, being
present on the traditional days of audience, Monday and
Thursday (Senen and Kemis), was thought of as being the
servant’s most important duty. Seba signified the official's
readiness to serve anytime the monarch or his superior de-
manded it. But the political meaning of the seba is even
more important, for it was a public show of submission to
the authority and rule of a superior. Seba was of such essen
tial importance in the formal relationship between superior
and subordinate that it was repeatedly mentioned in the
piwulangs as being of most praiseworthy merit. The Wulangreh
52.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., p. 41.
53.	Prijohoetomo, op. cit.. p. 177.98
makes it a duty of all officials, of all ranks.54 The
Margowirjo of Djajadiningrat I of Surakarta mentions that
the traditional figure of the Prince of Karanggajam in
Padjang's times (second half of the sixteenth century) wrote
a kakawin surti, a kind of didactic poem, which gave advice
to those officials who could not afford to live a life of
seclusion. The Prince wrote that the place for doing tapa
(ascetic practice) "within the state" was the paseban,5 5 the
open hall where the king's officials came to seba, sTtting
on their mats, awaiting possible orders from the king. On
that very spot officials were expected to do continuous
semedi (concentration). When one has seen court officials
sitting for hours on end in the sand-strewn courtyard of the
inner palace compounds in the shadow of the many trees one
cannot help but be impressed by their correct, absolute im-
mobility and yet undiminishing alertness; this posture and
state of mind was most favorable to the constant spiritual
awareness of the semedi. The custom of doing pasa Senen-
Kemis, fasting on the audience days, must also nave a connec-
tion with the idea of semedi on the paseban.
If an official wished to express a grudge, resentment
or antipathy against his superior or the king, he would de-
liberately avoid coming to the pasowanans (appearing before
the king). For example, when Panembahan Senapati, first
ruler of Mataram, decided to stand as an independent ruler,
he showed his intention by not coming to his suzerain's
audience days.56 However, if a king granted an official the
right, for a defined length of time, to be absent from the
audiences, this was deemed a great favor. The regional chief
of Priangan (the Sunda highlands of West Java), in his charter
of installation from Sultan Agung of Mataram, was allowed
"to stay away" from Mataram for "pitung padjenengan" (seven
reigns, perhaps meant here as seven years) because of his
help in subduing the rebellion of the adipati of Ukur in
1630.57 Panembahan Senapati,after his installation as suc-
cessor to his father as Padjang's vassal, was allowed to be
absent from court for one year.58 One's guess is that this
54.	Paku Buwana IV, op. cit. , p. 16.
55.	R. M. H. Djajadiningrat I, Margowirjo, Surakarta, 1908,
p. 30.
56.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 70-72.
57.	J. Brandes, "Nog iets over een reeds vroeger gepubliceerde
Piagem van Sultan Ageng," Tij dschrift, 32 , 1889, p. 363ff.
58.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 70.99
privilege also entailed dispensation from the yearly tributes
for the same length of time.
The pasowanans had a special function, namely to enhance
the glory of the king. On special occasions, like the
Garebeg, literally all of the king's officials from every
part of the country were required to come. The glitter and
pomp displayed on these occasions and, certainly not in the
least, the great number of persons attending were perceptible
evidence of the king's greatness and authority. But from
the point of view of the officials, to be included in such
events was a great honor, particularly as the strict hier-
archical arrangement of seating, the distinctive color and
pattern of apparel and paraphernalia,and the number of per-
sons in their entourages clearly displayed their exact place
in the bureaucratic hierarchy.
The necessity for such perceptible marks of distinction
in terms of status, prestige and authority made detailed and
precisely defined etiquette an essential part of pri j aj i life.
Burger mentions an over-emphasis on refinement at the courts
of Javanese kings in the last centuries,59 but such emphasis
was perhaps the result of the fact that ability as the basis
of authority could not find its expression in the political
sphere, at least not in accord with the traditional standards
of victorious campaigns and sumptuous gifts.
It was apparent that, in his service to the king, it
was expected that the prij aj i would never be led by personal
motives or pecuniary needs.®0 For him, being in the king's
service must be a great honor and he should always be ready
to sacrifice his possessions or even his life should the
welfare of the state or the wish of the king demand it. He
must be brave without boasting, alert, earnest and grave,61
in short a ksatria (knight), able to bridle his passions.
These are the qualities which differentiated the ksatria from
the buta (ogre) with his unrestrained lusts and greeds.6 2
The pnj aj i is true to his work, brave beyond doubt, free of
selfish motives in his service to the king (sepi ing pamrih,
rame ing gawe). In his outlook towards life' in his ambitions
and ideals, Ee of course followed closely those of the king,
59.	Burger, op. cit., p. 13.
60.	Serat Rama, p. 37.
61.	Paku Buwana IV, op. cit., p. 25.
62.	Wedyodipuro, "Het Wajangspel," in Congres voor Javaansche
Cultuur Ontwikkeling, Surakarta, 1918.100
which is natural since, as we have seen, the different levels
of the king's administration, although certainly there were
gradations of power, in essence followed the same pattern of
authority and prestige.63
Javanese tradition divides the life of the prijaj i into
three distinctly different phases. The first phase of de-
velopment (youth) is marked by trial and error, and lara-lapa
(pain and hunger, suffering). These are the years of njuwita
magang-ship, and the long stay at the pesantren (religious
school) under very simple conditions and harsh discipline;
it is a period of learning in anticipation of a task in the
king's ranks. But there was also the idea that this phase of
life should be a life of abandon, tasting all the sweetness
of life, an idea which might have been inspired by the exam-
ples of Sunan Kalidjaga61* and Ken Angrok who were notorious
highwaymen in their younger years, as was also the robber
Djakawana. These three became men of outstanding qualities
later, the first becoming a wali, the second a king and the
third a noted commander of troops. These stories were in
turn based on the belief that the awatara (Skrt.: divine in-
carnation) of god Wisnu, King Kpsna^ in his youth also led a
life of lust and abandon. These stories all describe an
abrupt change from bad to good when the hero suddenly becomes
aware of his vocation, and consequently is cured of vices
(tobat). The tales seem to have the same meaning as the
initiation rites which in primitive societies mark the change
between stages of life.
The second phase of life was characterized by responsi-
bility and the dutiful execution of tasks and also by the
achievement of standing and greatness in the material world.
Then came the third phase when, after retirement, the prijaji
took up the contemplation of life's purpose and devoted him-
self to the study of the ngelmu (mystical knowledge), in
general transferring his interest from the material to the
spiritual world. He embarked upon this course, not only to
prepare himself for the hereafter, but also to enhance the
welfare of the world by generating the power of spiritual
concentration; moreover, he sought God's consent for his
descendants' continuance of his state of prij aj i-ship. Dr.
de Casparis in his inaugural lecture as a professor at Air-
langga University in Malang mentions these phases of life
in connection with the monarch who had to go through three
asramas (Old-Jav.: phase of life). In the first asrama, the
king studied books on religion, law and the life. In the
63.	See p. 77.
64.	Babad Mataram, Vol. I, p. 19.101
second, he reigned and in the third, he retired and devoted
himself to the well-being of the world through the force of
contemplation.65 This is what a king must do if he wants to
live according to his svadharma, his own destiny. This con-
cept is of Hindu origin.
The Technical Organization of the Administration
The Lord-Vassal Relationship
It is rather difficult to find in Later Mataram litera-
ture clear indications of the existence of a formal distinc-
tion between the king's nomarchs66 in the outer regions and
the ranking administrators at the capital. As far as rank,
title or honors are concerned, there were no differences.
Yet the very distinction between core regions and outer
territories was and must be based on a real difference between
the political status of the two groups of functionaries. A
distinction was drawn between the nagaragung (the great lands)
as the core regions, and the mant janegara6 7 (the surrounding
or neighboring regions) and the pasisir (the coastal prov-
inces) as the outer territories. Such a distinction was made
not only in the Later Mataram kingdoms but also in the time
of Madjapahit rule when the core regions were divided into
vice-royalties under the personal administration of the king's
close relatives,68 his father, mother, cousins, nephews and
nieces. The tributaries, all outside Java, were denoted in
the Nagarakrtagama as:
the other islands, all ring-kingdoms, looking for
support, numerous. .	.	. 63
The reference to the "ring-kingdoms," as Pigeaud translates
65.	De Casparis, op. cit.
66.	It seems better, instead of using the word vassal, to
borrow the more neutral term "nomarch" defined by Rushton
Coulborn as "chief officer of local government" (Coulborn
op. cit., p. 5) in order not to get a prejudiced and
predetermined view of this institution.
67.	Veth, op. cit., p. 575; Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 81, 87.
68.	Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV, p. 10.
69.	Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 15.102
man^alita ra$|ra,70 is rather interesting as that term might
be interpreted as having exactly the same connotation as the
word mantjanegara and might be similarly related to the anal-
ogous mantiapat and mantjalima village alliances we have
mentioned before.71
When and how the distinction between core and outer
regions became established in the Later Mataram period is not
known. The region of Mataram proper had been granted by
Sultan Adiwidjaja ofPadjang (1568-1586) to Kyageng Pemanahan,
founder of the House of Mataram, as an unexploited area which
"is still forest"72 which means that it was still sparsely
populated, while Pati, given to Ki Pandjawi by the Sultan,
was already a "negari," a populated town. This does indi-
cate that, at that time, there were still territories avail-
able, exploited or unexploited, which could be distributed
as territorial grants to the followers of the king over which
they obtained full rights of disposal and administration and
where they would actually reside. Although Mataram is only
fifty miles away from the capital of Padjang it apparently
was not considered part of the core region, the region which
in later times would include all appanages of royal digni-
taries residing in the capital just as it did in the Madja-
pahit times. Living in the capital would, to a certain
extent, hamper the officials in the exercise of their full
autonomous rights. Perhaps Mataram was in a fully autonomous
position during Padjang times because the king did not strictly
follow the policy of keeping his officials close to himself
by providing them with appanages within the core region.73
Only the later kings of Mataram strictly adhered to such a
policy and it forced them to enlarge the core region until,
towards the end of the eighteenth century, it included the
Bagelen-Kedu area and the Jogjakarta-Surakarta area.7** An-
other explanation of the growth of the core region might be
that as a result of greater elaboration in court life a
greater number of officials was required and with the appanage
system of salaries the area of available land simply had to be
expanded.
70.	Ibid., Vol. I, p. 10, Canto 12.6.4.
71.	See p. 27.
72.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 59.
73.	Some appanages of court dignitaries, as an exception,
were outside the core region, for instance in Patjitan
and Blitar.
74.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 4.103
Although an official resided in the capital, his duties
were not necessarily limited to the court or the inner re-
gions. Many had jurisdiction over territories or affairs
outside the core regions, as commander of troops, as con-
trollers of revenue in the coastal provinces or in the main-
tenance of relations with the outside world. However, not
very much is known about the jurisdictions of the central
functionaries. For instance, it is not known how far the
authority of the grand vizier extended relative to the inner
and to the outer regions.
Nomarchs residing in the outer regions, and so outside
the Nagaragung, undoubtedly had more freedom of movement;
they were under less control simply because of the distance
from court. Most of these outer regions were under the ad-
ministration of the local nobility; these included terri-
tories which had been formerly more or less independent from
Mataram, like Surabaja, Tuban, Kediri, and Ukur in West Java,
and territories which formerly had been administered locally
by dignitaries appointed by the court, like Banjumas (Pasir)
and also Mataram itself during the reign of the kings of
Demak and Padjang in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.75
It was also the case with Madiun and Pati.76 The main duties
of the regional officers were collecting the yearly payment
of revenue for the king’s treasury and supplying manpower
for war or for building public utilities like roads and
canals.
In terms of authority and power of the king's nomarchs,
for the regions more or less directly to the north of Mataram
proper, another policy was followed. There was considerable
involvement of the court in the administration of these
"pasisir" territories, probably because they were located on
tne road to the north coast of Java, the gateway to foreign
political and economic relations. At one time Pekalongan
(1623), Djepara (1733 and 1737), and Banjumas (1737), the
last to the west of Mataram, were governed--via a local
representative--by a court dignitary at the capital.77
Schrieke called Pekalongan an appanage of a court dignitary.
Furthermore, the importance of the harbors of Djepara, Lasem,
75.	Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV, p. 375. For
the later period see Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 158.
76.	The great rebellion of adipati Pragola against Sultan
Agung attested to the independent position of this local
power-holder. (De Graaf, Geschiedenis, p. 110; Babad
Tanah Djawi, pp. 110-111.)
77.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 192, 169.104
Djuana and later, Semarang, to foreign trade and relations
demanded a rather different administration. Here the sahban-
dars or harbor-masters formed a new element in state adminis-
tration. The Babad Tanah Diawi mentions the adipati Sura
Adimenggala, who was made tne administrator oT
the village-lands along the main highway, going
from Semarang to Kartasura.78
This was in 1703 and the creation of this function undoubtedly
was meant to meet the needs of the time.
With all these examples of the realities of administra-
tion in mind, hard and fast rules cannot be drawn about the
competencies and powers of the dignitaries administering
the two main parts of the realm, for there was always a
fluidity of situation and an ever-changing balance of power.
Kingship in Java was characterized by the all-importance of
personal relationships and thus the balance of power was
entirely dependent on the personalities of and relations be-
tween the holders of power at the capital and in the regions
or between the regional nomarchs themselves.79
So during the Later Mataram period the king’s administra-
tion was essentially an hierarchical line of separate, self-
sufficient and highly autonomous units of power, vertically
linked by the direct and personal ties between the several
power-holder/administrators. Apart from the binding ties of
a common servitude and loyalty, there did not seem to be any
horizontal administrative relationship which could limit the
monarchs’ independence from each other. In fact, high-handed
acts of violence towards fellow nomarchs were apt to occur
when the controlling power of the central authority was lack-
ing. This was made all the more tempting because the nomarchs’
autonomy entailed the right to have their own armed forces.80
It was therefore very usual that when an official would go
into rebellion, he would first attack the neighboring region.81
Raden Rangga Prawiradirdja III, Jogjakarta’s bupati (regional
head) of the Madiun region at about the beginning of the
nineteenth century, on his own initiative plundered some
78.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 278.
79.	See also Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 207.
80.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 136, 324.
81.	Ibid., pp. 110, 114, 308.105
villages in the Surakarta region of Panaraga.82 The Chief-
regent of Madiun reported an attack on his residency by the
regent of Muneng and his son.83 The nomarchs' independence
can also be seen from the alliances of regional officials to
rise against their king, notably that of the regional chief
of Madura, Pangeran Tjakraningrat, and of Surabaja,
tumenggung Djajengrana of Surabaja, during the reign of
Amangkurat III (1703-1708),8u in support of Pangeran Puger,
later Paku Buwana I.
The self-sufficiency of function and the preponderant
position of chiefs on all levels of the administration con-
tributed to the repetitive character of the administration’s
organizational set-up.85 The patih (vizier) was the head of
the executive, overseer and coordinator of the administrative
departments’ fulfillment of his master’s orders. Important
functionaries at court and regional administrators alike
had their own patih, sometimes two, a patih ndjero and a
patih ndjaba (inner and outer patih) in imitation of the
king*s court where one patih was responsible for court affairs
and one for the administration of the realm. The two promi-
nent governors of Surabaja had two patihs each.86 The Babad
Tanah Djawi mentions the patih of Pangeran Puger, who later
82.	L. Adam, "Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen omtrent de
residentie Madioen," Djawa, Vol. 20 (1940), nos. 4-5,
p. 334. See also Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 219,
citing a report of Governor General J. P. Coen (1619-
1623 and 1627-1628).
83.	T. Roorda, Javaansch Brievenboek, Leiden, 1904
p. 132.
84.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 266.
85.	The term "repetitive" is preferable to "imitative" be-
cause in the idea of the macro/micro-cosmic relationship
it indicates more a conveyance, magic transfer of es-
sence- -and thus also of form--which made it essential
that the receiving substance be of equal capacity, and
so, of equal structure. The word anggaduh, with its
ordinary meaning of "receiving in land-lease," used in
connection with power and authority had the connotation
indicated above. An example is in the law "Angger Pra-
data Akir" in which the monarch transferred (nggaduhake)
for the time being, to do justice to a special dignitary.
(Oudemans, op. cit., p. 22.) Similarity in structure
of administration is thus more than mere imitation. See
also p. 77.
86.	Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p. 14.106
became grand vizier of Mataram when his master ascended the
throne as Paku Buwana I (1703-1719).
Ki Setradjaja, patih of the Kapugeran principality,
was made grand vizier, governing the people of en-
tire Java, and he was granted [by the king] the name
adipati Tjakradjaja. Ki Banjak Patra was made inner-
patih, and granted the name tumenggung Kartanegara.87
A patih of a bupati at court, Tumenggung Wiraguna, is men-
tioned in the Pranatjitra.88 Veth confirmed that the tumeng-
gungs at the end of the nineteenth century also had patihs.
The Grand Vizier himself seemed to have a patih of his own.89
According to Veth these patihs of officials were not con-
sidered formally to be officers of the king, which in a sense
again reflects the autonomous character of administrative
units.
Another similarity between the court administration and
those of the nomarchs was in the number of functionaries.
The Pranatj itra tells that Tumenggung Wiraguna, one of the
heroes in the suppression of the revolt of Adipati Pragola
of Pati in 1627, had 12 mantris (lower officials) under his
patih. Rouffaer claims that in 1733 there were at court 12
wedana (officials of high rank) under the Grand Vizier.
Whether the total number of 12 district heads (called wedana
too) under the two Bupatis of Surabaja (each had six) around
18OO90 imitated the 12 wedanas at court in the eighteenth
century, is open to conjecture, because at the beginning of
the nineteenth century the number of wedanas at court had
been reduced to eight.
The regional administrations imitated the court in em-
ploying public prosecutors. At the end of the nineteenth
century, the Grand Vizier employed a djeksa nagara (public
prosecutor) as did all the eight wedanas. The djeksas of
the wedanas and those of dignitaries heading special depart-
ments of administration formed the Pradata court91 which was
presided over by the djeksa nagara. Moreover, just as at the
capital, regional bupatis had their own pengulu (head of the
clergy).
87.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 279.	
88.	Pranatjitra, Batavia, 1932	, p.
89.	Veth, op. cit., p. 589.	
90.	Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p.	15.
91.	Winter, "Regtspleging," p.	103107
Officials seem to have had full autonomy in the appoint-
ment of subordinates and apparently also in the apportionment
of territories of jurisdiction to them. The demangs (chiefs
over some villages), for instance, were appointed by that
official whose appanage included the area of the demang.9 2
And the Chief-regent of Madiun, Kandjeng Pangeran Rangga
Harja Prawiradiningrat, proposed at one time that the Dutch
Resident of Surakarta appoint his candidate to the post of
bupati of Gorang-gareng, and also confirm his intention of
joining the regency of Muneng with another district.93 Al-
though apparently the consent of the Dutch Resident was
necessary--this was in 1813--this example gives us some idea
of the extent of the authority of the king's officials for
their respective regions. Given the repetitive character of
administration, this might also have been true of lower offi-
cials in their own territorial or personal jurisdictions.
One can understand that these units of administration
posed a potential danger to the unity of the state, for each
of them was a complete and similarly organized entity. A
favorable change in the power relationships or an ambitious
and bold leader could propel it into an independent position
or attempt to seize the superior position. Paku Buwana
IX's warnings to his kinsmen are telling.
Please, my descendants, do not try and reach for
the crown .	. . because if you intend to become a
king, your wish will not find its mark.
He then suggested a rather inadequate substitute.
On the other hand, place yourself under the favor
of the one who is chosen crown prince, and if you
have a child, of beautiful countenance, pray that
she will be his spouse. . .
It was therefore essential for the king to keep a close
and unrelenting watch over his prij aj is, whether they were
persons of his own blood or the landed nobility of the outer
regions incorporated into his realm, or commoners who had
risen into the prij aj i class. In the eight ideal character-
istics of the king, tKe ability to "see the movement of body
and soul of his officials" (mawas obah osiking bala) was
92.	Roorda, op. cit. , p. 38.
93.	Ibid., p. 174.
94.	Paku Buwana IX, op, cit. , p. 85.108
ascribed to the god Baju.95 Such an attitude did not contra-
dict the requirement that the king should fully trust his
officials, because such vigilance was primarily meant to
detect any slight intention of standing up against his author
ity and was not intended to curb the official’s authority in
his own field. Naturally such control had to be exercised
secretly. The word mata-pitaj a (lit. "trusted-eye") for the
secret investigator and lampah sandi for "doing in secret"
attested to this widely used practice. Javanese tradition
demanded from a responsible official that he know everything
happening in his territory, and it was usual that at certain
times he made rounds during the night with an armed escort
(nganglang) to investigate the state of security and content-
ment in his district. If the situation demanded he would
also mingle among the people incognito (njamur kawula) to
inform himself of public opinion.
In order to maintain control over his subordinates, the
king resorted to three methods.96 The first was the use of
harsh force, even to the extent of executing possible con-
tenders and their family, a method which was by no means
rarely applied. Schrieke mentions that probably Panembahan
Senapati had to eliminate the local ruling family before he
could sit securely on the Mataram throne.97 The House of
Pati and that of Adipati Ukur of West Java were destroyed
after their revolt. Sultan Agung also eliminated the local
nobility of Madura except that of Sampang,98 and the family
of the ecclesiastical lord of Giri was reduced to virtual
extinction in 1680 by Mataram’s forceful methods.99
A second method of central control was the practice of
keeping influential regional dignitaries at court for long
periods of time while their provinces were left to the care
of their representatives. Pangeran Tjakraningrat of Madura
and Adipati Djajengrana of Surabaja were so powerful that
Amangkurat II called them "the bulwark of the kingdom of
95.	Jasadipura I, op. cit., pp. 434, 436.
96.	See Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, Book II,
Sec. IV.
97.	One will remember in Burmese history the almost tradi-
tional bloodbaths to eliminate all possible competitors
when a ruler came to the throne.
98.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 218.
99.	De Graaf, Geschiedenis, p. 224.109
Mataram,"100 and they virtially lived in Mataram. Before
them the Senapati of Kediri and later Pangeran Pekik of Sura-
baja stayed in Mataram too,101 presumably to ensure the loy-
alty of their people to Mataram’s ruler. But one event
showed that such a policy might also be fatal. Raden Truna-
djaja, on the instigation of the Crown Prince himself, stood
up against Mataram and managed without difficulty to subju-
gate the Madura region, while the regional head was staying
at court.10 2
The third method was alignment through marriage. The
marriage of Panembahan Senapati to princess Djuminah of
Madiun, a descendant of the kings of Demak, Sultan Agung's
marriage to the daughter of Tjirebon's Panembahan Ratu, and the
marriage of the Sultan's sister, Ratu Pandansari, to the prince
of Surabaja, Pangeran Pekik, are well-known examples of such
a policy. Also, the custom of triman (lit.: what was re-
ceived), the king giving a princess m marriage to his offi-
cials of rank, served the same purpose. Some writers see
the prij aj i practice of taking concubines from among the com-
moners as an attempt to strengthen the bonds between princely
nobility and the people.103 But the practice owed more, pre-
sumably, to the king's prerogative to choose his mate at will
than to the serious intention of establishing ties of kinship
between high and low.
The possibility that commoners might rise to high
officialdom also served to reduce the dangers of an estab-
lished aristocracy; the new elite, grateful for their newly
acquired status and thus more trustworthy, counterbalanced
the blood aristocracy. Perhaps the followers' simultaneous
rise in rank when the master obtained a position of impor-
tance, of which instances are easily found in the Babad Tanah
Djawi, was also rooted in the master's quest for security by
encircling himself with a group of trusted followers.101* And
we know that instant reward for demonstrated merit was con-
sidered a good royal policy.105 It was inevitable that the
100.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p.
101.	Ibid., p. 108, 134.
102.	Ibid., p. 157.
103.	B. ter Haar, Adat Law
	76.
104.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp
105.	See p. 69.
242.
in Indonesia, New York, 1948, p.
261, 279.110
state administration be primitively organized, permitting
the existence of almost independent regional units tied only
by personal attachments and loyalties, because the regions
were far-flung and communications poor.106 However, the
danger of disintegration was inherent in the system, espe-
cially as hereditary succession stimulated the establishment
of new gentry families.
The right to inherit one’s father’s position was well
known and became established as a custom in the last centuries
of Later Mataram,although presumably neither the extent of
territorial jurisdiction nor the extent of appanages received
as remuneration for his services to the king was assured.
These remained the prerogative of the king or the regional
chief. The Madiun regency seemed especially subject to fre-
quent reparceling, and even at one time (1755) the small
Madiun district of Gorang-gareng was a regency.107 Tjaruban
and Djagaraga were also small regencies. The Pangeran of
Lamongan, after the revolt of Trunadjaja (1677-1680), was
given a lungguh (appanage) which the king had taken from
(kagempalaken:	broken off) the territory of Surabaja.108
Even a prince could not be assured an appanage. Amangkurat
IV (1719-1727) deprived Pangeran Blitar of his appanage, the
region of Blora.109 The whimsicality of the king in handing
out even the highest positions is evident in the Babad Tanah
Djawi story of Amangkurat I’s raising a son of ki bujut (alder
man) Kalawejan, (the title is of a low, relatively unimportant
rank) to the rank of bupati of Semarang, only because on a
sea voyage, when the king felt thirsty, the ki bujut happened
to be able to serve him refreshing fruits.lT°
According to an account of conditions in Surakarta in
the mid-1880's inheritance of a "kalungguhan" (function, from
lungguh: appanage) came, in order of precedence, to the:
1. eldest son, although precedence was given to a son
of the main-wife; and then to the other sons;
106.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, Book II, One,
3 and 4.
107.	Roorda, op. cit., p. 171.
108.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 197.
109.	Ibid., p. 334.
110.	Ibid., p. 198.Ill
2.	eldest daughter, who would be represented by her
husband, for the benefit of her eldest son (whether
the other daughters had preference above the next
group is not certain) ;
3.	brothers, father’s brothers, nephews along the patri-
lineal line, cousins along the patrilineal line;
or "that which was preferred by the government"111 which
means that royal caprice had the ultimate say. This might
mean that,in principle, functions were not hereditary and,
since the aristocracy mainly was identified with function in
the king's administration, aristocracy was in principle not
hereditary either.
The account also mentions non-hereditary functions,
namely that of the raden adipati (the title of the grand
vizier), the pengulu (head of the clergy) and the djeksa
(public prosecutor). Reasons for these exceptions are not
given. The positions of Grand Vizier and patih were held by
the master's most trusted follower or right-hand man; their
selection very much depended on personal considerations.
Nevertheless, hereditary tendencies can be detected even for
these positions.112
Territorial Division of the Realm
It is interesting to note that the Javanese,apparently
from olden times on, had almost always identified the state
with the king's residence. One can hardly find any example
in which the name of the state was not that of the capital.
Kadiri, Singhasari, Madjapahit, Padjang, Demak, Surakarta,
Jogjakarta all derived their names from their respective
capitals. Some, like Mataram and Bintara, were named after
the regions where the kingdoms were originally established.
Cosmologically, the capital as residence of the king formed
the magical center of the realm113 but also, from the view-
point of state politics, the central region was preponderantly
important. We have already seen evidence of a center-oriented
outlook in administrative organization; the core region was
relatively closely knit through the use of a remuneration
system of appanages,while the outer regions were more loosely
administered.
111.	Winter, Javaansche Zamenspraken, p. 13.
112.	See also Th. Pigeaud, "K. P. Arja Adipati Danoeredja VII
Djawa, Vol. 11 (1931), no. 4, p. 128ff.
113.	Heine-Ge Idem, op. cit., p. 3.112
The physical powers of the state, notably the core regi-
ments of the armed forces, were concentrated in the capital;
the army went out to the regions to demonstrate the king’s
ability to subjugate or quell revolts, but always returned
to the capital. This fact indicates a center-oriented view.
Armed forces were never occupational, but always expedi-
tional.11*
The contradistinction of the three kinds of regions seen
from the position of the center attests also to this view.
In the Nagarakrtagama we find three territorial provinces:
Java, the regions and islands outside Java including the
southern part of the Malay peninsula, and the countries be-
yond, like Champa and Cambodia.115 In the Later Mataram
period there were also three categories, nagaragung (the core
region), mantianegara and the pasisir (the outlying prov-
inces) , and the tanah sabrang (the lands across the sea).
This territorial concept is in accord with Professor Veth’s
and Dr. Selosoemardjan's observations that the Javanese
states were laid out in concentric circles,116 beginning with
the innermost circle of the palace and ending with the outer-
most territories. What we have observed about the relative
position of officials in the nagaragung and in the mant jane-
gara 117 leads us to conclude tnat a territory was allocated
to one of the three categories on the basis of the degree of
influence that the center, that is, the king, exercised there
Consequently, territorial jurisdiction could not be strictly
defined by permanent boundaries, but was characterized by a
fluidity or flexibility of boundary dependent on the diminish
ing or increasing power of the center. This was evident in
the words of the dalang cited elsewhere; the state "is far-
reaching in its fame,ni18 and was a "bright world." The
state is thus likened to a torch so bright that it spreads
its light far afield. It is rather difficult to find a clear
indication of how this concept of territory as spheres of
influence affected state policy. However, evidence of the
concept might be seen in the circular expansion of the origi-
nal region of Mataram (the districts "Mataram" and perhaps
114.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp	. 107, 109.
115.	Pigeaud, Java in the	14th Century, Vol. IV, p. 35.
116.	Veth, op. cit., Vol. cit., p. 24.	II, p. 575; Selosoemardjan, op
117.	See p. 86.	
118.	See p. 61.	113
also "Gading Mataram"119) into the core region, the "Nagara-
gung," of later days, and further in the existence of appan-
ages outside the nagaragung which were called the appanages
of the dj abarangkahi2 o (outside the boundaries). The gradual
shrinkage of the Mataram regions because of loss to the Dutch
characteristically also followed this pattern of concentric
circles, in the sense that it diminished from the outermost
to the more inner circles of state territory.121
To assume, however, that territorial claim was not im-
portant is wrong. The very distinction between nagaragung
and mantjanegara indicates that the king had a stronger ter-
ritorial claim in the former than in the latter part of the
realm. The apportioning of appanages outside the core region,
and also the establishment of colonies by Sultan Agung men-
tioned in de Haan's well-known work on the Priangan region,
namely, among others, that of 2000 men under Kyai Singapra-
bangsa along the Tjimanuk river in 1653, are examples of
territory claimed by dint of settlement by royal subjects,
thus through personal jurisdiction. De Haan based his view
of the importance of personal jurisdiction on the fact that
untilled soil had no value at all in an agrarian society.122
However, a passage in the Babad Tanah Diawi does not seem to
confirm the idea of territorial claim through one's subjects.
When Panembahan Senapati (1575-1601) planned to attack the
bang wetan (the eastern parts of Java as distinct from the
bang kulon, the western part of Java seen from Mataram), the
regional chiefs of Tuban, Sedaju, Lamongan, Gresik, Lumadjang,
Kertasana, Malang, Pasuruhan, Kediri, Wirasaba, Blitar,
Pringga-baja, Pragunan, Lasem, Madura, Sumenep and Pakatjangan,
under the leadership of Pangeran Surabaja, formed a grand
alliance to withstand the attack. The religious leader of
Giri tried to persuade the parties to avoid war by having
the two opponents, Panembahan Senapati and Pangeran Surabaja,
choose via an envoy between "the content and the receptacle"
(isi lan wadah) in order to determine who would be "high"
and who would be "low." Senapati allowed Pangeran Surabaja
to choose first and he chose the "content." Upon hearing
this, Sunan Giri declared
119.	Rouffaer, op. cit., pp. 4, 53.
120.	Ibid., p. 7.
121.	See Map I.
122.	F. de Haan, Priangan, Batavia, 1910, Vol. I, p. 15.114
Let it be known that it is determined by God's Will
that Senapati has rightly reserved the receptacle
for himself. The receptacle is the realm, the con-
tent, the people. If the people would not obey the
one who owns the land, they will be ousted.123
Such a statement seems to raise the importance of territory
above that of the people as the king's subjects. However,
Sunan Giri's ruling should be seen more in the context of
the fluidity of spheres of influence discussed above; juris-
diction, be it personal or territorial, had to be expanded
or retracted according to the reality of power distribution
between powerholders in the center and the regions as well
as between different states.
Boundaries were known. They consisted of waterways,
mountains and mountain ranges,12* natural divisions which
were very convenient as border indicators. The intention to
mark off territories as permanent political units and thus
to ward off jurisdictional disputes was almost unattainable
because of the fluidity of power relations. During Airlangga's
reign (1019-1049), Mpu Bharada was to create with magic water
an "uncrossable" division of Java into two parts, Pandjalu
(Kadiri) and Djanggala.125 Interestingly, Mpu Bharada could
not finish his work and so the coming of a dispute was fore-
told and indeed dispute later arose. So even this tale seems
to imply the futility of permanent territorial divisions.
Such an intended sanctity of a boundary line perhaps left
its traces in the Later Mataram belief that when two opposing
armies face each other across a river, the one crossing first
will lose the battle.
It was told of the taboos of the people of old that,
when people confront each other in battle, he who
crosses the river will certainly lose the battle.126
Disobeying this taboo was thought to be the cause of the
death of Arj a Djipang, pretender to the Demak throne, in
about 1570.
The fact that territorial boundaries of the state were
fluid did not prevent regions and districts from being well
123.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 99-100.
124.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 104.
125.	De Graaf, Geschiedenis, p. 51.
126.	Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 56.115
defined geographically if not politically, for recognized
natural boundaries were abundant, not the least of which were
exceptionally large trees like the randu alas (bombax mala-
baricum), the wild kapok tree. Natural boundaries are fre-
quently used in the Babad Tanah Djawi as landmarks to indicate
a region or district: sawetanmg gunung Lawu (east of the
Lawu mountain); siti dusun salere redi Kendeng (village lands
north of the Kendeng range);127 also Padjang xulon Benawi,
Sokawati wetan Benawi (Padjang west of the River, Sokawati
east of the River) indicate the location of these areas
with respect to the Bengawan Solo. Natural boundaries also
played an important part in the Javanese ecological ideal of
state territory as it is expressed in the waj ang.
pasir-wukir .	.	. pasir means sea, wukir, mountain;
because Mandaraka Ts a-kingdom with mountains behind,
rice-fields on the left and a great river on the right
side, and, in front, it has a large harbor.128
Needless to say such an ideal had its political and its eco-
nomic aspects as well, for sea, river and mountains form
natural barriers against invasion, and harbors and ricefields
were the basic elements of prosperity.
Before finishing this discussion of the division of the
realm we should deal with the territorial importance of the
lungguh (appanage) in the administration of the state. From
our previous discussion and the available literature concern-
ing land rights of the Later Mataram monarchs, we must con-
clude that the king had two kinds of rights over the land.
The first can be called political or public rights for they
determine the extent of his territorial jurisdiction. These
rights only define the limits or boundaries of the area within
which he may administer, that is, in which he may render
justice and which he may defend against attack from an enemy.
The second and more direct right of the king vis-a-vis
the land is the right to dispose of the produce of the soil
according to customary law. The basis of the right of dis-
posal seems to be the old village custom (paron) of dividing
the produce of the soil into half for the tiller of the soil
and half for the person who has the right of usufruct, a
right which he receives from the desa which is the true owner
of the land, the siti dusun (desa land). Although further
study is necessary to prove this point, it is not at all im-
probable that the king’s right to the produce of land had
127.	Babad Tanah Djawi, pp. 257, 110.
128.	Tjan Tjoe Siem, op. cit. , p. 3.116
developed from this custom. With Professor van Vollenhoven,
one can say that unquestionably the king did not possess the
land in the sense of private property; he possessed only the
right to a part of the produce of the land which he might
farm out to financiers. For however arbitrary the king might
have been in the disposal of the right to the produce of the
land, the peasant who actually worked the land always re-
ceived a greater part, originally perhaps 50% of the yield.
Rouffaer’s suggestion that in the outer regions the king ad-
hered to the old custom of a five-part division of the pro-
duct of the land in which the people got the largest part,
namely two-fifths, or 40%,129 supports our argument. However,
one should not forget that the king, because of his absolute
powers, not infrequently violated these traditions, but this
does not eliminate the tenability of the principle.
Although the king granted others rights to a portion of
the produce of the land, he extracted a certain amount of
this portion for his own benefit in the form of a padjeg
(tax). He thus shared the income of the land with his offi-
cers, in the mant j anegara with the regional chief (the Bupati)
and his subordinates (the district heads and the headmen of
villages), and in the core region with his appanage-holders
and their bekels (steward and representative of the appanage-
holder in the desa).
Two types of landholdings were not liable to the same
sort of taxation, namely the narawita (crown domains) and the
perdikan lands, mentioned elsewhere.130 The crown domains
were placed directly under the management of the king through
a special official (wedana midj i, midj i denoting a special
task or position). These lands were not actually free of
tax, but they were reserved entirely for the benefit of the
ruler and had to supply commodities like rice,131 oil, flow-
ers, suruh leaves132 (for betelnut chewing) for the special
use of the king’s household. Analogously, the regional heads
129.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 73. The produce of the taxable
lands was divided as follows: two-fifths to the tiller;
one-fifth to the village chief; and two-fifths to the
king, which was divided, one-fifth to his vassal bupati,
one-fifth to his vassal’s officers, and three-fifths to
his own treasury (which is 24% of the whole amount).
See further Appendix II.
130.	See p. 84.
131.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 51.
132.	Roorda, op. cit., p. 28.117
of the cuter regions also reserved domains for their own use.
For instance, the regents of Surabaja, Rothenbuhler reported,
had their "own lands and villages."133
As for land rights given by the king or regional power
holders to their officials as a remuneration and also as the
means of financing their tasks, we have to distinguish between
the lungguh (appanage) and the bengkok or tjatu (salary-fields).
Van Vollenhoven defined the appanage as "an assigned region
where one has the right to gain from the land and the inhabi-
tants a profit, from which the king can draw (taxes, services,
incomes from domains), but which gives no rights on the land
itself." A "salary-field" was "a piece of arable land which
is part of the lands of the king and assigned to an official,
kinsman or a favored person. It is tilled by levy-service
to the benefit of the person granted."131* It is not clear
what is meant by the king’s lands in the second definition.
Formerly, the size of an appanage seemed to be as vast as
the territorial jurisdiction the appanage holder was entitled
to by dint of his office or rank; later on, however, the ap-
panages became much smaller and more and more they grew to
resemble "salary-fields" in size if not in other characteristics
Rouffaer gives examples from 1744 to illustrate the later
development.13 5
The appanage system was in effect in the nagaragung, for
all officials of the court from the highest to the lowest
and it existed also for some regional heads in the other
provinces. The "salary-field" system was in effect in the
mant j anegara.13 6 An explanation of the difference between
the two salary systems--because that was what they essentially
were--cannot be easily discovered, nor has it been determined
whether the bengkok system was applied in all parts of the
mantjanegara or only in the regions of eastern Java. Besides
the appanages and "salary-fields," the king also had his own tax
territories, the siti pamadjegan-dalem, from which he gathered
taxes and labor services for his own benefit.
133. This kind of special taxation for the use of the court
was already old. The Babad Tjirebon narrates that, be-
cause of the Islamization of Tjirebon, it stopped pay-
ing tribute of fish paste to Padjadjaran. (Babad
	Tjirebon, p. 15.)
134.	Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p. 19.
135.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 74, see also pp.
136.	Van Vollenhoven, op. cit., pp. 52, 53.118
In the nineteenth century, an official might hold appan-
ages in widely scattered areas. After the 1755 partition,
the mixing of appanages caused much incessant bickering be-
tween the subjects of Surakarta and Jogjakarta, so much so
that the situation came to be called the perang desa (village
wars). It eventually had to be regulated by law.137
The shrinkage of the two kingdoms contributed to the
fragmentation of landholdings. A district or even a desa
might be divided into several appanages. At one time it was
reported that an average-sized village might be divided into
four or six different holdings; larger villages might be
divided into ten or more.138 Landholdings came to be so
fragmented that there were many bekels (the representatives
and tax collectors of the appanage-holder) who did not have
a single villager under them and were therefore called bekel
gundul (bald bekels) . They were, in fact, their masters"1
bekel and the tillers of the soil. There were many bekels,
often several in the same village in the core regions of
Jogjakarta and Surakarta, who had administrative functions.
Thus village heads were seriously challenged in their roles,
so.much so that in 1896 in Surakarta and sometime later in
Jogjakarta their position had to be reinstated.139
If we look again at the definition of an appanage it is
obvious that it entailed territorial rights, which was also
apparent from the right of the appanage-holder to appoint
his own bekel as his representative and tax collector. The
bekel, in turn, was given a small appanage by his master.
It might be assumed that the appanage system was an older
institution than the bengkok system; for the latter system
had more the character of a simple remuneration for services
rendered, while in the appanage there were traces of adminis-
trative rights. The system of lungguh is thus more in accor-
dance with the repetitive character m the old Javanese
state system.
137.	Law "Angger Gunung," arts. 65, 81, 89, 90. Ageng," art. 22. (Oudemans, op. cit., Vol.	Law "Angger II.)
138.	Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 85.	
139.	Ibid., p. 89.	CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
Before presenting a review of and some conclusions about
state and state craft in the Later Mataram period we would
like to point again to the main distinction drawn in this
study, that between the magico-religious aspect and the
technical-economic aspect of kingship.
Belief and religion dominates Javanese society, and
kingship in the Later Mataram period drew its strongest sup-
port from religious belief. It can even be said that the
basis of kingship lay in religion; the authority of the gods
justified the authority of the king. The state was seen as
an image of, or stronger still, was identified with the
divine realm, in its immaterial and in its material aspect.
The king, and to a lesser degree his officials as the exten-
sion of his power, had to possess might and power commensurate
with that of the gods; he had to display the material grandeur
and pomp worthy of an image of the gods, and also a lavish
beneficence proper to mankind’s helper and protector in times
of distress. However, to explain the absolute and all-domi-
nating power of the king, we must look to religious concep-
tions other than the idea that the king's powers must mirror
the powers of the deities. For Javanese religion's acceptance
of an upper god also served as a means of justifying the king
as the absolute and sole power holder in the earthly realm.
After the coming of Islam when the god-king identification
could no longer be accepted, the absolute powers of the king
were made acceptable by making him the only medium between
man and God; he became God's spokesman and so his will had
God's sanction.
In the magico-religious sphere of kingship the concept
of continuity had such great importance that Javanese tradi-
tion created two major devices to deal with this problem. A
genealogy was created to link preceding dynasties to the
present one; deliberate forgery and artificial construction
overcame obstacles to the much desired end. Second, the idea
was accepted that God's consent in the form of a perceptible
token, the wahju, was passed from ruler to ruler as the sign
of royalty. Similar or identical experiences, as in the well
known Ken Angrok-Wisnu identification, also created continuity
between rulers. The strong adherence to the principle of
continuity was a response to the need to justify new ruling
119120
dynasties. The practice of proving continuity might ulti-
mately be rooted in the custom of claiming an inheritance
through blood lineage which obviously is the strongest and
most ancient way to claim rights, except perhaps for the
claim to rights by sheer force.
Strangely enough, claim by force is not unknown in a
tradition of such sophistication and refinement as the Java-
nese. It was expressed in the ceremony of enthronement of a
new king, when the king’s champions challenged those who
would show their opposition to the new monarch's rule.
Such primitiveness as is evident in the idea of kingly
authority also appears in the technical and economic imple-
mentation of Later Mataram state life. State administration
was intrinsically primitive in character. The importance of
physical power apparent in the idolization of ksatria-ship,
the simplicity of administration with its repetitive schema
of identical structures, the nondifferentiation of functions
in leader positions, the autonomous self-sufficiency of func-
tions, very obvious in its system of finance: all these
factors reveal the basic simplicity of concept in the Later
Mataram state.11*0 Simplicity of structure along with the
granting of great personal power and responsibility to each
position in the hierarchy might be sufficiently effective as
the basic elements of rule in a small territory where central
control can be enforced. But in a state of some size, the
autonomous position of regional leaders and power holders
presented problems; the danger of disintegration was ever
present from regional chiefs who felt themselves strong
enough to resist the powers of the central authority and to
stand on their own, or even worse, to seize the throne for
themselves.
Devices to maintain the unity of the state were there-
fore of overwhelming importance. The outstanding device was
the requirement of schooling in and pursuance of high moral
standards as a prerequisite to participation in the king's
and--through identification--in God's rule of mankind. The
prijaj i' s belief that his was a highly honorable duty was to
a considerable degree responsible for the strong esprit de
corps among the members of the Javanese ruling elite. Group
solidarity was the more enhanced by a second device, inter-
marriage, which reinforced the strong personal relationships
necessary to hold together such an essentially loose organi-
zation of the state.
140. See also: Coulborn, op. cit., p. 197.121
It is evident that in this method of government the per-
sonal characteristics of the holders of power at the center
as well as in the regions very much determined the stability
and efficiency of state life,and the history of the Later
Mataram period has shown how disruptive of stability any in-
trusion could be. The natural balance of power between a
strong center and the dependent regional powers was very
vulnerable to disturbances,for the regional powers were poten-
tially capable of independence from the center. The effec-
tiveness of such a system of government thus depended on mutual
respect and, ultimately, on the persuasiveness of physical
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A STANDARD PIJAGEM OF BEKEL-SHIP
Text
Pijagem. Iki lajangku pratanda pijagem, Kyai Ngabei
Anu, abdidalem Anu ing Surakarta, katjeke’la marang Anu ing
desa Anu.
Mulane njekel lajangku pratanda pijagem, dene takdadekake
bekel ing desa Anu gawening wong loro utawa sakikil:
*	satabon padukuhane, sabandjar pakarangane, sapadas perenge,
salebak wukire,
den sanggaa padjeg ing dalem satahun 8 rejal anelung puluh
wang, urip:
*	radja pundut taker tedaking nagara, sarta padjang pasisiran
tuwin watesan, apa dene bahu suku, lumebu Garebeg ping telu
satahun, sarta jen aku duwe gawe, apa dene dandan-dandan,
sarta lumadi: wang krig adji, walan, pamalem, pamulud lan
panjumpleng, pasangon putra.
Lan maneh enggone Anu dadi bekel ngiras tebas, kehing
duwit panebas: 100 rupijah, mulih dadi: 250 rupijah, sumurup
10 tahun 20 pasokan pundut, wiwit pasokane ing Bakda Garebeg
Mulud tahun Alip angka . . . tutug pasokane ing Bakda Garebeg
Pasa tahun Dje angka . . . pundut, Mulude Dal bandjur tapak
bajar padjeg sabandjure, sadjrone bumi ana ing tebasan, aku
nglilakake panguwasa:
*	kadjenanga kaebora, kaparokna kairasa, sadedak merange,
sa-amis batjine, nandur sarta motjota bekel pamburi.
aku wis lila atas wewenange Anu, sanadyan anaa:
*	gedang pupus tjinde, djamur tuwuh ing waton, krambil tapas
limar, atas dadi duweke Anu, wis mari dadi melikku, kosok-
baline menawa ana srilara radjapati,
*	getih tjinelung, balung tjinandi,
aku wis ora njumurupi, tinemua marang Anu dewe.
Djandji sapisan.
Anu ora kena ngrusak desa, ambubarake wong tjilik kang
awit saka parentah sija-nganiaja, negor kitri isih ana nipkahe,
sanadyan negor kaju tahun kang dadi wawajanganing desa, ija
ora kena.
130131
Djandji pindo.
Anu ora kena ngubungi laku palatjidra kandeg kampiran
wong ala, menawa anu nerak papatjak iki, sanadyan bumi durung
pundut, amesti tak dedel tanpa prakara sarta kowe tak potjot
saka kabe kelanmu.
Patjuwan-patjuwan marang wong tjilik ing desa Anu,
gede-tjilik, tuwa-anom, lanang-wadon, pada manut mituruta
apa barang parentahe Anu kang bener betjik.
Taha jen tan angestokna, atanapi jen maidoa, amesti
kaplaksana ing Parentah.
Surakarta kaping. . . .
(from:	Padmasusastra, Serat Patibasa, Batavia, 1916, p. 325)
* Note the custom-coined, stereotyped expressions.
Translation
Decree of Institution. This is a letter of mine, Kyai
Ngabei So and So (title and name of lessor) in the King's
service as Such and Such (rank of lessor) in Surakarta, as a
token of institution, to be held by So and So (name of lessee)
of the village of Such and Such (habitat of lessee) .
The reason for receiving this decree of mine is that I
make him bekel in the village of Such and Such, having juris-
diction over two persons (meaning: tjatjah) or otherwise named
sakikil:
with all surrounding barren lands (tabon) and hamlets
(padukuhan), including its orchards and gardens (bandj ar
pekarangan), its rocks (padas) and slopes (perengT^ its in-
dentures Clehak: valley) and hills (wukir),
with the duty of paying tax, per year eight rejal (1 rejal:
2 guilders) and thirty wang (1 wang: 8.5 guilder1s cents),
plus: the King's own exactions (radja pundut) and side-taxes
(taker tedaking nagara), special bekel-services (namely
towards his lurah: pacTjang pasisiran) and term-money (? wate-
san), also labor-service (bahu suku: lit. shoulder and leg),
to be delivered at the time of the Garebeg-feasts three times
a year, also whenever I give a fete, or have something to
repair, further to provide:
money to buy off labor-service for the King (wang krig adji),
gifts of edibles to the lurah (walan), contributions for the
Pasa- and Mulud-feasts (pamalem and pamulud), house-tax132
(paniumpleng) and contributions for the wedding-gift for the
Lord's daughters (pasangon putra).
Furthermore, the fact of So and So becoming bekel also
involves an advance payment [of the land-tax] amounting to
a hundred guilders, which will be paid back two hundred and
fifty guilders, corresponding to 10 years or 20 deliveries
[of land-tax], beginning with the first term on the Mulud
festivities (Rabi'ulawal 12) of the Alip-year of . . . and
ending with the term on the Pasa festivities [after the Rama-
dhan fast] of the Dje-year of . . ., so that, on the following
Mulud of the Dal-year, he must begin again to bring in taxes
regularly. As long as the land is still weighted with the
advance-payment, I herewith declare I am willing to give con-
sent to the holder of this decree:
to knead the clay [for bricks] and wash the sand [for possible
gold]; to lease the land out in crop-shares, or to till it
on his own, with all its produce be it plant or fish; to
install and depose bekels of the second grade.
[To all these rights^ I will not lay claim, even if he should
find a banana-tree with leaf-shoots of tjinde-silk, mushrooms
growing on stone, a coconut-tree with leaf-foils of limar-
silk [all this symbolizing possible buried treasures}^
those will all be his property, and will cease being mine.
On the other hand if there ever happens to occur:
molestation or murder; blood in a pot or bones immured [both
indicating mysterious crimes];
I will take my hands off it and the responsibility will all
be So and So's.
First clause.
So and So is not allowed to do mishap to the village,
to cause flight of the small man because of oppression and
misrule, to cut down fruit-bearing trees which still serve
as somebody's living; also to cut down trees benefiting the
village is not allowed.
Second clause.
So and So is not allowed to involve himself in miscon-
duct; to shelter or give temporary refuge to men of crime;
if So and So ever violates these prohibitions, the land I
will instantly take back, even if the time agreed upon has
not yet expired, and I will depose him from his bekel-ship
without honor.
Prohibitions to the people of village Such and Such,
the big and the small, the young and the old, men as well
as women: be obedient to all just and good orders of So and133
So, and if ever one of you disobeys, or worse still is recal-
citrant, that one will be punished, as a warning, by the
State. [More usual is that misfortune and unhappiness will
befall him].
Surakarta, . . . (date of issue) . .APPENDIX II
THE SYSTEMS OF TAXATION AND LABOR LEVY
IN LATER MATARAM
Tax and Taxation
It is rather difficult to speak of "state financing" in
the modern sense during the second Mataram period, if we
understand it as a systematized and overall effort to organize
the incomes and expenditures of the state as a whole. This
is not only because of the non-existence of a centralized
treasury but also because of the incidental way by which
financial needs of the state were met. It would be better,
then, to speak of the acquisition and distribution of wealth
by the state in order to avoid limitations imposed by the
use of the modern term.
If we bear in mind the simplicity of state organization
in those feudal times, it becomes quite obvious that the
meeting of contingent expenditures with contingent exactions
as the basis of meeting material and later financial needs
must be the most logical consequence of such a principle of
simplicity. In other words, during these centuries of royal
reign in Mataram, the fullest extent of self-support or
"autonomy" was practiced. Virtually every need--grass for
the royal steeds, repair of roads, an official’s living, a
transport department--every one of these was allotted a
source of income of its own, a piece of land, a special tax
or the manpower of a certain village, with which it had to
try to cover all possible, and sometimes quite impossible,
expenses. The maintenance of a department, office or
institution was left wholly to the ability and moral con-
siderations of the office-holder, a fact quite in harmony
with a state organization in which personal authority played
such a dominating role.
The court had its own resources for each of its various
needs:	special districts to provide the rice for the king’s
table, certain villages to provide coconut-oil, special
forests to provide teak-wood for the palace buildings. There
was central distribution but only for those members of the
king’s household who had not received a piece of land for their
living; this of course is also applicable on a lesser scale
134135
to the vassal’s household. There might have been a
considerable number of such people,since in the royal house-
hold there were hundreds of servants, ranging from those who
did simple menial work--sweepers of the many meticulously
clean courtyards, carriers of water, and the like--to crafts-
men who made the finest works of art and writers of copies
with their beautifully ornamented handwriting. In this group
must be included the various units of palace guards and crack
troops with grandiloquent names. All these workers drew their
living directly from the king's treasuries in the form of a
regular tj adong (portion, ration) of rice and other daily
necessities, plus from time to time a paringan (gift) of
clothing. But even in the king's household^ there were
several lower offices which were connected to certain speci-
fied emoluments, seemingly following a quite ancient custom.
For instance, the master craftsmen of the court and also
their colleague the lurah tledek (master of the public female
dancers) had the right to exact contributions from all other
people drawing their living from the same trade.1
Another fact to take into consideration is that, in a
state whose economy is based on entirely autonomous agrarian
desa-units and whose system of administration is comprised
of entirely self-supporting units, a very large part of the
exactions from the people, whether in the form of material
wealth or manual labor, must necessarily come to the benefit
of the holders of power, the king and his vassals. This is
especially so when commerce and trade, on which various kinds
of duties can be imposed, are thriving. Thus, one can imagine
that the accumulation of wealth in the Later Mataram king's
treasuries was indeed great. Mataram's direct and frequent
interference in the appointment of the chiefs of coastal
districts such as Demak, Djepara and Semarang (so unlike its
treatment of other vassalages) and the detailed official
stipulations concerning harbor cities must be seen in connec-
tion with the material benefits accruing from these areas.
Some potentates deemed it necessary to enforce the payment
of duties by sending out armed brigades to patrol the coastal
waters for passing merchantmen.2
The harbor cities were not alone in being considered
important; in inland trade, the numerous small and large
market places (called pasar) and the all too numerous stops
1.	See also: Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV,
pp. 423, 476.
2.	See further: M. A. P. Meilink-Roeloefsz. Asian Trade
and European Influence, The Hague, 1962, CTu III and
V (Part 4). Also: Tarling, op. cit., p. 189.136
on roads and rivers formed a considerable source of income.
A provision in a Javanese legal code, the Angger Ageng (the
Great Code), mentioned the duty of the people to mount guard
over every pasar and bandar (toll stop) each night,3 4 notably
to secure tne safety of the goods gathered at those places.
The Javanese have a special word for the exactions on trade
goods, be j a, which distinguishes them from regular taxes,
padjeg. TEe word beja originally meant ’’cost" or "expendi-
ture" in general and it is difficult to discover when it
assumed the particular meaning of "duty" or "customs," but the
fact that there are places in many coastal towns bearing the
name pabe j an points to a long established practice.1* These
places were also called pambandaran.
It may perhaps be of some interest, in connection
with the sources of wealth of the State, to see how the Java-
nese divided the population into four categories according
to their usefulness to the state. A piwulang written at the
beginning of this century states:
lan ana patang prakara, kagunganing kang pradjadi,
pradjurit lawan pandita, tri sudagar tjatur tani
and there are four matters forming the properties
of the Great Realm (the state), the soldier and the
sage, third the merchant and fourth the peasant.
An explanation is added:
the soldier is the fortress of the king, the peasant
the food of the state, the merchant the clothing of
the land and the sage provides the benefaction of
prayers.5
It is quite apparent from this piwulang that, while the
peasantry must provide the food needed7the riches of the
state had to be extracted mainly from trade and commerce,
for the word "clothing" (busana) includes all wearing apparel,
particularly ornaments and jewelry. Duties imposed on trade
ranged from three to six percent differing according to the
particular port through which the goods entered or according
3.	Oudemans, op. cit., p. 36, "Angger Ageng," art. 23.
4.	In Surabaya a regular market, now three miles from the
river mouth, is named pabejan.
5.	R. M. H. Djajadiningrat I, op. cit., p. 115.137
to the country of origin, but about four percent seems to
have been the common rate. For the Javanese ports, Tomd
Pires’ account (1512) mentioned the figure four as duty.6
In addition to the duties, most potentates demanded the cus-
tomary gifts or presents. The inland trade, up the rivers
or along the few main roads, probably suffered a heavier
burden of taxes, not because of higher rates, but because of
the great number of toll houses set up by the king or his
vassals. The situation became the more stifling to trade
when toll stops were let out to wealthy natives and foreign-
ers, notably Chinese, and extortion and over-charging was
practiced to an immoderate degree. Schrieke mentioned an
example from the year 1787.7 In 1824, this evil had become
so common that whole territories, for instance both the re-
gencies of Madiun and Magetan, were leased for their toll
gates to a single Chinese,who subsequently divided the region
into smaller districts to sell; the lesser lease-holders
subdivided again and farmed out still smaller parts of their
districts to the "highest bidder, or to put it clearly, to
the most unscrupulous Chinese." Thus, each piece of goods
passing through such a regency was officially burdened by
the regular toll plus three times a third of the sum and
unofficially it might be very much more, for every lease-
holder had the right to keep a third of the tax imposed for
his own benefit.8
The acquisition of great masses of riches which tolls
and duties made possible notwithstanding, the kingdom relied
for its orderly functioning as an institutional organization
first and foremost on the peasantry, whose labor provided
the means necessary not only to till the soil but also to
do the work of maintaining and sustaining the state, from
road repairs to transporting goods, from serving in a noble-
man’s retinue to fighting in the king’s army. Having control
over a populous territory was therefore considered of great
advantage and a lessening of population through evacuation
was anxiously guarded against.9
In connection with the importance attached to the density
of population, we must introduce here the term t jatjah, a
word used to denote measurement of territories in terms of
taxable land. The word itself meant in ancient Java a notch
6.	Meilink-Roeloefsz, op. cit., p. 113.
7.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 115.
8.	Louw, op. cit., p. 12.
9.	See pages 67, 76.138
or indentation carved on a stick or a papan (board) to facili-
tate counting; eventually it took on tne special meaning of
"number" as well. At the end of the last century, Dutch
writers, notably Rothenbuhler, Rouffaer and later van Vollen-
hoven,10 defined tjatjah as the unit of arable land which
produces enough for one farming family to live on, a term
usually equated with the word kar j a which originally meant
work or task, and with the word baHu, originally meaning arm
or upper-arm. Truly, both of the latter words denote work,
here ostensibly the amount of work to be done to till the
soil. Modern standardization puts four bahus into one djung,
approximately 28,386 square meters.
A possible explanation of the change in meaning of the
word tjatjah from number to unit of land might be arrived at
if we take into account the traditional classification of
the members of the desa community according to their rights
and duties toward the desa. Up to the present time, the
inhabitants of a desa are divided into four categories:
1.	the kuli kentjeng or kuli ngarep, kuli kuwat, kuli
§ogo~l, kuli sikep, the full-fledged member of the
esa community wno has received his traditional
share of the communal lands of the desa;
2.	the kuli kendo or kuli mburi, kuli setengah kentjeng,
who owns both a yard and a house on it and who is
on the waiting-list for vacancies in the ranks of
the shareholders;
3.	the tumpang or indung or pondok karang, who owns
only a nouse located in another man’s yard;
4.	the tumpang tlosor or pondok slosor, who does not
even own a house but boards with another family.
Much has been written about this system of categorization by
noted authorities like van Vollenhoven* 11 and more recently by
the anthropologist Koentjaraningrat12 in his research on the
10.	Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 158; Rouffaer,
op. cit., pt /1; Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p. 34; C. van
Vollenhoven, Het Adatrecht van Nederlandsch Indie,
Leiden, 1918, ”p'."'5'5T.
11.	Van Vollenhoven, Javaansch Adatrecht, p. 20ff.
12.	Koentjaraningrat, Some Social-Anthropological Observa-
tions on Gotong Rojong Practices in Two Villages of Cen-
tral Java, trans. Claire Holt, Monograph Series, Modern
Indonesia Project, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 1961.139
practice of gotong-rojong (system of mutual help) which has
explained much about the responsibilities of the villager
vis-a-vis his community. It therefore suffices to note here
that the first category of members or "kerndorpers" (core
villager), using Professor van Vollenhoven's term, has the
largest share of duties, gawe desa, towards the community:
the core villagers must pay taxes, work in the field of the
village chief or other notables or accompany them in their
retinue (pantjen service); they also must maintain irrigation
ditches, appear on gugur-gunung, stand guard duty (djaga) at
night and, formerly" they had to serve in the armies of the
lord. The next three categories of villagers have decreasing
shares of the gawe desa so that the last group, for instance,
is only required to appear when all members of the village,
except children and the aged, are called out to do the annual
cleaning of the cemetery or to help overcome a serious mishap
affecting the whole village. This is what is indicated by
the word gugur-gunung or kerigan. Outside the desa, in
state service, gugur-gunung was a general call to the whole
population to come out m times of natural calamities or in
case of war but also to do special, extra-ordinary work like
the building of a palace, and no doubt, in former times, the
building of temples.
The importance of the distinctions among members of the
village community lies in the stress customary law put on
the first category of villagers, the kuli kentjeng or kuli
kuwat and this is immediately apparent because kentjeng (taut
tight) and kuwat (strong, able-bodied) both denote strength
and abilityZ	Tt" is they who have the strength to carry the
burden of taxation and labor-levy for they have the means to
pay taxes, namely their share in the communal land. The
principal tax, the padjeg or padjeg bumi (land tax) is also
called padjeg sikep or sikep tax, and the shareholder of
communal land was and is still called kuli sikep. This per-
haps means that only this first category of villagers origi-
nally was burdened with the land tax. It is therefore most
probable that the word tj atj ah formerly denoted the number
of these shareholders in a certain district rather than the
total area of arable land. At any rate, the exact amount of
arable land was rather difficult to determine in Old Java,
judging from the difficulties Raffles encountered in his
efforts to realize a system of cadastral registration. When
later on the convenience of more modern precision and exact-
ness was sought, tj atj ah came to denote and be identified
with the bahu as a measurement of land. The fact that some
territories mentioned in Schrieke’s book were measured for
different tj atj ah-counts at different times strengthens the
suspicion that the tjatjah-number referred only to the amount
of tax that the ruler expected to draw from a territory given
in appanage; how that amount was to be gathered was140
entirely the concern of the appanage-holder. But here, too,
tradition formed a powerful check, for most of the regions
were indicated rather constantly with the same tjatjah-
numbers.13 The following are some regions with their
tjatjah-numbers as they appear in Schrieke’s book:
Lowanu	100	tj atj ah				350	(in 18
(as	listed	in Pustaka Radja		Purwa)			
Panaraga		12,000	(1678)	TZTmro	(1709)	12,000	(1773)
Kadiri	5,000			4,000	tf	8,500	ft
Patj itan	500			2,000	tt	400	ft
Kertasana	3,000	3,000	ft	3,000	tt	3,000	ft
						850	(1826)
Two other points must also be mentioned in this connec-
tion. First, recent research in the villages of East Java
has shown that the communal land has been divided into per-
manent shares (t jaton) exactly equal in terms of productivity
so that less fertile lands have been divided into slightly
larger shares. The latter are usually the lands situated
"at the back," that is, at the furthest points from the irri-
gation ditch. When the land is divided into shares of equal
size, the inequality of production is neutralized by the
practice of yearly rotation of shares, so that the gogol
ngarep, the "fronf'-shareholders with the most fertile lands
along the irrigation ditch, will eventually become the gogol-
buri with shares at the "back." This system is called
glebagan (turnover).
Secondly, it is important to include here some discus-
sion of units of measurements. According to sources con-
sulted, the number of bahus going into one djung was 2 (Peka-
longan and Surabaya) or 4 and 4% (Middle Java), 4 being the
usual figure. Rothenbuhler also defines other units of
measure. One Jonk (djung) was equal to 5600 Javanese square
ru (yard). One ru was equal to 8%, 9, 9%, 10 or 10% Rhynland
yards. The Javanese word ru is taken from the Dutch roe,
roede (yard).11* Since the number of shareholders in the desas
was constant--although the shares differed slightly in size--
and the definition of bahus was not constant--that is, it
differed from area to area--our conclusion is perhaps justi-
fied that originally the t j atj ah referred to the number of
shareholders of communal land in a certain district. This
is the more probable if we observe that in principle all
other land was exempted--at first--from tax. This included
13. Schrieke, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 183.
14. Van Vollenhoven, Javaansch Adatrecht, p. 46; Rothen-
buhler, op. cit., p. 27.141
dry land (tegalan), free-viIlages (perdikan), the king' ;
domain (narawita), and lands given as "wages” to village
notables (lungguh, bengkokj.
After this brief discussion of the unit of enumeration
for the purpose of taxation, we may proceed now to the problem
of the taxes themselves. In order to gain a clearer under-
standing of the Javanese tax system, we ought to consider
first the traditional way of sharing gains accruing from
services rendered. Mutual rendering of services proves to
be a very old practice especially in a simple agrarian com-
munity where continuous care was needed to attend to the
wet-rice fields and where payment for labor in money was
rare. It was and to a certain extent is still usual that
rice-fields are tilled, weeded, the small dikes along the
fields maintained, and later the grain harvested within a
system of mutual help. However, the labor ’’sharers" also
acquire rights the realization of which they insist upon very
keenly, namely the right to help with the harvesting and to ic
ceive a certain part of what is gathered; the share differs
according to the amount of labor contributed in the tilling
of the soil and the care of the crop. In the region of East
Java up to the present time, the custom is as follows. A
co-worker who helps (a) with the tilling, weeding, dike-
maintaining and harvesting receives one third of the rice his
family (wife, daughters) can harvest; (b) with the weeding,
dike-maintenance, harvesting receives one fourth; (c) with
the weeding and harvesting only receives one fifth; and (d)
with the harvesting only--this when a field is harvested in
a "come-one-come-all" (krotjokan)--receives one sixth. The
share for services rendered is called bawon or--especially
in East Java--sasrahan. It must be noted that digging the
soil and dike-maintenance are done by men, weeding and har-
vesting by the womenfolk, and also that the grain is harvested
ear by ear, so that the amount that one person can gather is
very limited. If we take into account the fact that the
maron-system (half for the owner and half for the tiller of
a piece of land) is also quite old, we may then come to the
conclusion that the five-part division of the produce of
village land--one-fifth to the village authorities, two-fifths
to the king, two-fifths to the peasant tiller-shareholder--
mentioned in Rouffaer’s invaluable report,15 could be based
or at least modeled on these age-old customs in the desas.
That is to say, in principle, the land belongs to the desa,
and the king like the village notables receives his share
for services rendered (protection and administration). Indeed
there have been no examples found where the king took away
15. Rouffaer, op. cit., pp. 68, 69. See also Adam, op. cit.,
p. 331.142
village land in such a way that the villager was entirely de-
prived of his traditional share of the produce of the land,
except of course when land was confiscated for purposes other
than for farmland.
The two-fifths share of the king--in actuality half of
the produce of the land tilled by the peasants after one
fifth was set apart for the desa notables --was called padj eg,
padjeg-sikep or padjeg bumi, which formed the principal tax.
Later developments led to standardization so that the tax
was fixed at 1 Real [fl. 3.00 (Dutch) or approximately $3.00
(U.S.)] per 1 djung or real for 1 bahu. According to
Rouffaer around 1755 the tax was raised so that every bahu
then had to yield 1 real a year in tax.16 For the outer
provinces, the mant j anegara, where governors managed the
territories, the king received a lesser share. Rouffaer
reconstructs it as follows: one-fifth for the village nota-
bles, two-fifths to the peasant shareholder, one-fifth of the
sovereign's two-fifth part (or 2/25 of the whole produce) to
the provincial governor (bupati), still another 2/25 to the
governor's officers as a whole, and the rest or 6/25 to the
king himself, or in percentages subsequently 20%, 40%, 8%,
8%, and 24%. 7 The governor's share, as well as those of his
officials and of the village notables,were of course given
not in produce but in areas of land. Moreover, it was quite
possible for the king to add some lands to the territory of
a favorite governor,18 and appropriation of another vassal's
rights by annexation of land was not impossible.
In the core regions where the sovereign had granted the
right to extract taxes to an appanage-holder, one-fifth of
the land was set apart for the bekels who actually adminis-
tered for their lurah or patuh (master), the appanage-holder,
performing police duties but mainly collecting taxes.19 The
bekel received from his master a piagem, a certificate of
installment, the form of which was traditional and thus uni-
form and helps the student acquire a better understanding of
situations and conditions of the time.20 Piagems, at least
those that have been preserved which date from the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, almost invariably reveal a practice
16 .	Rouffaer, op. cit
17.	Ibid., p. 73.
18.	Babad Tanah Djawi
19.	See also p. 118.
20.	See Appendix I.143
which became widespread at the time, namely the farming out
of the tax-gathering privilege to financiers who had advanced
money to the appanage-holder; these financiers were Javanese
and not infrequently foreigners, Dutch or Chinese. Strangely
enough, because the right to gather taxes was given to the
creditor he was constituted a bekel as well. A piagem of
1825 mentions a bekel pamadjegan Tjina, a Chinese tax-bekel.21
To what extent they might exercise the bekel rights other
than tax-collecting cannot yet be determined, but a story
from about 1850 of a Chinese woman who continued to exercise
the rights of her late husband as a bekel Tj ina seems to
indicate that these rights were far-reaching, including ap-
pointing and deposing the lesser officials, demangs and
lesser-bekels in their districts.22 These practices might
indicate^ however, that the sale or lease of land by the
sovereign was not thought to be permissible and the king's
or officers' need for cash was usually met by farming out
the right to collect taxes--essentially the right of usu-
fruct--to the highest bidder. But again, the fact was that
the right of tax-collection might be farmed out for a very
long or even an unlimited span of time. Even when, later,
land-lease (only to Europeans) was made possible in the
"Vorstenlanden" to meet the demands of European sugar and
tobacco plantations, the lessee acquired public rights as
well; namely, he was permitted to requisition labor from the
people,23 a true trait of the old appanage system. This
system lasted until 1918. That these practices to a great
extent corrupted the purity of the appanage system can easily
be seen.
A fact that has always attracted the attention of the
superficial observer of Javanese feudal society is the seem-
ingly endless number of exactions which the king's government
could extract from the people; the picture of the Javanese
peasant heavily burdened with taxes is a common one. There
were indeed many kinds of taxes. Rothenbuhler's report listed
twenty-five .2 ** Another record dated Semarang, August 21,
1830, arrived at the impressive number of thirty-seven.23
21.	Roorda, Brievenboek, p. 10.
22.	T. Roorda, Beknopte Javaansche Grammatica, Zwolle, 1906,
p. 250ff. This book was written in 1874.
23.	A. D. A. de Kat Angelino, Staatkundig beleid en bestuurs-
zorg in Nederlandsch Indie" 's-Gravenhage, 1930, Vol. TT,
24.	Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p. 35ff.
25.	Selection . . . Collection Kern and Gobee, no. 28. See
also:	van Vollenhoven, Javaansch Adatrecht, p. 44.144
They ranged from a tax on the produce of the land to simple
fees, from exactions to meet expenses connected with the
sending of envoys and the reception of important guests to a
contribution given to the superintendent of water in the desa,
from obligatory delivery of chickens and ducks to the lord’s
kitchen to payments to the district chief adjudicating a dis-
pute between villages, from fees for weddings, divorces,
dividing an inheritance, and holding a theatrical performance
to contributions of a religious character. One can see that
taxes had a great variety of objectives and purposes, many
of which cannot be regarded as belonging strictly within the
scope of taxation. However, taxation did not affect all
classes of the population and not all taxes were collected
regularly. Furthermore, the Javanese themselves seem to make
a distinction between the principal tax, the padieg, and all
other exactions or contributions to the state (the king), the
taker turun26 or pundutan. The policy of ad hoc or contingent
financing forced the state to create for any expenditure,
however small it might be, its own special source of income
which most likely would be in the form of contributions. All
this should prove that the usual assumption that the feudal
population was heavily burdened by taxation is inaccurate,
for the burden was sporadically,not consistently, heavy.
The Use of Labor
The importance of exactions in the form of produce and
later money for the financing of the state could not match
the importance to the functioning of the state of exactions
in the form of the manual labor of the people. The lack of
labor-saving implements and especially the relative smallness
of the peasant’s landholding made man’s raw physical strength
or, in more modern terms, unskilled labor the only possible
means of production and so of wealth. Labor came, then, to
be identified with the small man, the common villager with
his simple and rather "backward" demands, from whom tradi-
tionally labor-service was extracted. Any exemption from
these levies was considered a special favor, and indeed this
was the first and foremost privilege of the man in the king’s
service of almost any rank, down to all members of the
village administration. The officials had, in fact, to ap-
pear at work parties but--and this was the great difference--
as the leaders, overseers, and not as workers. All Javanese
agreed that only on the battlefield must the leader really
participate, for there he had to be the spearhead of his
troops.
26. Van Vollenhoven, Javaansch Adatrecht, p. 44. Also
Rouffaer, op. cit., p. 87.145
But the implication that the Javanese must consider
manual labor degrading is a very misleading one because every
Javanese from whatever class at least once in his life, in
his youth and during any apprenticeship for a job, had to
endure the most humble servitude. This period formed a most
important part of his education, teaching him self-restraint
and so the concept of tepa slira, and gave him a sure and
reliable standard--because of personal experience--when later
as a leader he would demand work from subordinates.27
Bearing in mind the diversity of taxes, fees and con-
tributions, we might expect that the list of labor-services
to be rendered to the state must also be long. Roughly
classified, there were two types of labor-service, the work
to be done for the village (gawe desa) and the work to be
done for the state and so the king fgawe adji). The services
could also be classified as general or public service --which
included watch-duties, repair and maintenance of roads, dikes
waterworks, bridges and the like--and personal service ren-
dered to dignitaries for their personal benefit (pantj en)- -
working in their fields, repairing their houses or accompany-
ing them to court to take care of their steeds, to be their
bodyguards or to carry their luggage. Later, providing
manpower for the transport along the main roads of goods
(pikulan) and persons (tandon) became a burdensome duty. It
was done in relays by the people of desas along the road.
Military service was of course a primary duty, although the
common villager usually served only as bearers of food and
other necessities for the troops. Almost always these men,
or their fellow villagers for them, had to provide their own
food when serving away from home. Again, the burden of labor
exactions fell entirely upon the shoulders of the villager-
shareholder of communal land, the kuli kentjeng mentioned
above. It was therefore not surprising that in times of
oppression the only way to free oneself from the burden of
tax and labor-levy was to leave the land, which actually
meant that one discarded the status of kuli kentjeng. It
must be noted, however, that,with the introduction of the
"culture system" by the Dutch, the duty to serve in compul-
sory labor gangs seemingly was extended to include all house
owners.2 8
Rothenbuhler's estimates from the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, although given only for the district of Sura-
baja, will be of some use here for they give an impression
27.	See page 95.
28.	Rothenbuhler, op. cit., p. 44.146
of the amount of labor extracted from the whole people.29
From each village six to seven men a day would be assigned
as follows: two to render personal services to dignitaries;
one to dispatch instructions and other official news; one to
cut grass for the horses of the Djajengsekar (an old, native
police corps recognized by the Dutch); one to work on the
construction of a public building; one to serve as a carrier
for the transport of goods; and one to work in the government
coffee plantation. Every village was assigned its share ac-
cording to its distance from the work presently to be done.
A regulation of 1887 mentions the bau paneman ("workers of
six"), namely kuli kent jengs of desas in the mountainous
Gunung Kidul district (South Mataram) who were required to
work in the forests every six days for a day, cutting down and
transporting the valuable teak-wood.30 Daendels had laid
down directives as to how many men Javanese chiefs might be
alotted:	for a bupati, 170 men a day not including musicians,
topeng (mask) dancers and waj ang dancers; for a patih, one-
fourth of that number; for principal mantris and djeksas and
the close relatives of the bupati, one-eighth; lesser mantris,
one-sixteenth; lower officials, one man per day. Rothenbuhler
gave the number of 5000 men a day in the service of govern-
ment and officials, and the total number of the population
of the two Surabaja regencies as 143,662 excluding the fami-
lies of the two bupatis. People had to work in total four
or five months a year m levy-service and from six to seven
months where government plantations were located.
An account of labor-exaction in the kingdom of Later
Mataram would obviously not be complete without mentioning
the special classes of people who, because of their low
social status, were destined to do heavy and toilsome--and
so to other people undignified--labor, notably slaves, con-
victs and the three groups of people called the Kalang,
Gadjah and Pinggir.
To say that slavery did not exist in feudal Mataram is
untrue. An old Javanese code of law mentions four ways by
which a' free man could become a slave (kawula): as a prisoner
of war, because of an unpaid fine, because of "leaving his
master's (gusti) house"--this perhaps means escape--and be-
cause one "enslaves himself because of food," which means
that a man might voluntarily become a slave to secure himself
a living and protection. With her husband's consent, a wife
29.	Ibid., pp. 46, 47.
30.	Oudemans, op. cit., under "Pranatan Kabupaten Gunung
Kidul," art. 5.147
could sell herself into slavery.31 A proclamation of Sultan
Zainul Abidin of Banten stipulated that someone guilty of
robbery or piracy was to be killed and his wife and children
were to be taken to the king’s palace "to become his slaves."
It was dated 1690.32 So slavery must have existed too in
Later Mataram. However, a more important question in connec-
tion with the use of manpower by the state is whether slave
labor was used en masse and intensively so that it became a real
economic asset. It is doubtful that it was, for the state
or its dignitaries had easy access to manual labor through
the labor-levy, as we have seen above. Wertheim is also of
the opinion that generally speaking the burden of slavery in
Java was a mild one,33 which is quite in accord with the
attitude of familial protectiveness which formed a marked
characteristic of social communication throughout Java.
Moreover, when referring to another kind of slave, Javanese
literature uses the word batur tukon or "bought servants."
Perhaps it was sensed that there must be some difference be-
tween the traditional, custom-regulated concept of kawula
and the more economically determined batur tukon, perhaps
referring to those who later were brought in through foreign
sea trade.31* Further work is needed to define clearly the
meaning of both terms.
In connection with the use of the two other categories
of suppliers of manpower, the convicts and the three named
groups, we must mention a most provocative work dealing with
the early development of the town of Surabaja in which the
writer,	Faber, very ingeniously--and this is the exact
word to describe his efforts--has tried to give a plausible
31.	Jonker, op. cit., arts. 169, 171.
32.	Th. Pigeaud, "Afkondigingen van Soeltans van Banten
voor Lampoeng," Djawa, Vol. 9 (1929), nos. 4-5. See
for further references on slavery, Repertorium op de
Koloniale Literatuur 1595-1865, Amsterdam, 18?7, Vol. I,
under Nos. 5661, 5665, 5671, 5672, 5677, 5681.
33.	W. F. Wertheim, Indonesian Society in Transition, The
Hague, 1956, p. 230.
34.	The Babad Tanah Djawi mentioned "servants bought-men"
of a Balinese merchant of Gresik who fought with the
troops of Adipati Djajengrana of Surabaja against Mata-
ram. (Babad Tanah Djawi, p. 310). Also mentioned were
the "bought men" o£ the Adipati of Tuban. It is to be
noted that these two towns were harbors of international
trade.148
explanation for forced labor by convicts and other undesirable
persons.35 In former times, the king decreed that some
regions spread throughout Java were places for deportees.
Perhaps it is likely that these places were chosen for this
purpose because they were angker, having the reputation of
being the dwelling-places of eery ghosts and evil spirits,
for they were mostly barren hills, dark jungles or swampy
coasts, avoided by man because of their ill reputations. In-
deed, even now the Lodaja region of South Blitar in East
Java is believed to be the habitat of the were-tigers (matjan-
fadungan), and it had been for a long time a place of exile
or princes who had wronged against the king. Apart from the
politically undesirable persons, convicts, adulterers and
other criminals, persons suffering from hideous diseases like
lepers, frambesia victims, and also cretins, albinos, the de-
formed and others who bore the stamp of evil were usually
deported with their families; the last category of undesir-
ables were to be accompanied by their mothers.36 The exiles
were expelled for as long as they lived. The story of the
legendary spirit-queen Lara Kidul, ruler of the Indian Ocean,
seems to confirm the stories about the existence of such a
colony of untouchables along the southern coast of Mataram.
The queen was formerly a beautiful princess who, suffering
from a horrible and incurable disease of the skin, committed
suicide by flinging herself from the high cliffs of the
south coast into the mighty waves. The sea restored her
beauty and made her queen. The curative power of sea water
for skin diseases might be another raison d'etre for the
existence of the Gunung Kidul colony.
The work reserved for members of deportation colonies
was naturally of the lowest and coarsest kind.	Faber
related that the main task of the colony of convicts in the
unhealthy marshlands near Surabaja was to keep burning the
huge fire-beacons which guided ships through the treacherous
coastal waters into the harbor. Keeping these giant fires
burning day and night must have been a strenuous task, for
the heat was scorching and the huge stock of wood-fuel had
to be replenished constantly. Moreover, members of the colony
had to tow incoming ships along the banks and thus many of
them became able pilots. The convict colonies were divided
into eight classes according to the progress each had made
35.	G. H. von Faber, Er werd een stad geboren, Surabaja,
1953.
36.	Note the similarity with the Balinese custom of purifi-
cation of mothers who have borne twins of different sex
(regarded as incest) who have to live for a definite
number of days at the cemetery.149
in terms of good conduct. It might take one more than one
generation to reach the uppermost class and so to return to
society again.37	Faber lists a number of places used as
deportation colonies, among others, Tjirebon, Pekalongan,
Semarang, Demak and Surabaja which later became ordinary
coastal towns; the districts of Tjaruban, Prijangan and
Gunung Kidul are also listed, to which Lodaja, mentioned above,
might be added; all these latter places were situated in
forest areas. Perhaps this indicates the work the deportees
had to do; in the coastal colonies they kept the great beacons
burning, towed incoming ships and perhaps also loaded and
unloaded cargoes, and in the wooded areas their main task
must have been cutting and transporting the wood. It is
certain that convicts were used for the heavy work of trans-
porting goods in the service of the state. They were called
wong gladag or patj akan. A special officer of sufficiently
hign rank, the wedana "gladag, was assigned to organize and
control their work. Tne assignment of a wedana indicates
the importance of the department. The heaviness of the task
depended on the demands of the state as well as on the number
of members in the colony. Work must have been organized on
the basis of rotating work squads. Again according to
Faber, the work squad, guards and overseers were convicts of
the highest class, called Pinggirs (pinggir means rim, border),
and traditionally they were allotted the task of watching
over the convicts of lower class. The name Pinggir must have
been given them because of their status on the periphery
(pinggir) of ordinary society into which they would in due
time be admitted.38
The origin of the group named Pinggirs as well as of
the other two groups, the Kalangs and the Gadjah or Gadjahmati,
is offered by another source. The Kalang people, so the
story goes, were descendants of animals of the wilds--a wild
sow and a male dog both married to human beings who had
chosen the forests as their home. Another story tells us
that they were men of the woods who, because of their habit
of raiding the villages, were "tamed" by Sultan Agung of
Mataram. The king decreed that they had to live in walled
villages and that they were not allowed to have intercourse
with ordinary people. They were renowned saddlemakers and
ropetwisters.39 Wood construction was also their specialty.
37.	Faber, op. cit., p. 15. It is a pity that Faber
does not always mention the sources from which he draws
his conclusions.
38.	Ibid., p. 24.
39.	Inggris, "De Kalang's in Bagelen," Djawa, Vol. 1 (1921),
no. 1, p. 32.150
Still another story makes the Pinggir and Gadjah conquered
tribes from the region of Balambangan in eastern East Java,
who were forcibly moved in considerable numbers to Central
Java. From them were recruited men for a special corps of
guardsmen, the Pradjurit Balambangan, because of their courage
in battle. They were even ordered to serve, at one time, in
testing the powers of newly forged krisses. It is certain
that their womenfolk served as wetnurses for the royal in-
fants. Their bluish milk was regarded as being exceedingly
healthy. The name Pinggir might then refer to pinggir
seganten (the "rim of the sea," the coast), their original
habitat.40 We might conclude that these peoples were primi-
tive tribes, perhaps of Pre-Dravidian or Proto-Malayan stock
living in the deep forests or marshy coasts of Central and
East Java originally. The Mataram rulers and undoubtedly
also earlier kings exploited their special skills but it is
apparent--since they were forced to live apart--that they
were regarded as people of low caste, fit only to live with
the undesirables of the common society. To be compelled to
live and associate with these people really must have been a
grave punishment for the status-conscious Javanese.
Nevertheless it could not be denied that these classes
of people, convicts as well as the "aboriginal" groups, were
an important economic factor in state life, which necessitated
the assignment of officers with the high wedana or naj aka
rank,41 although later the name "kabupaten Kalang" and "kabu-
paten Gladag" referred more to the task and duties of the
departments of respectively forest exploitation and trans-
portation than to the specific group of people assigned to
do the work.
Summarizing what we have tried to explain above about
the acquisition and distribution of wealth in Later Mataram
we may come to the conclusion that:
1.	The taxation and labor-levy systems, like the organ-
izational line of the state, were relatively simple
and might be termed ad hoc or contingent financing.
2.	The greatest source of state wealth had been trade
and commerce, but after the total breakdown of trade
40.	S. Soehari, "Pinggir," Djawa, Vol. 9 (1929),
nos. 3-4-5, pp. 161-161C Compare also Pigeaud’s ex-
planation in his Java in the 14th Century, Vol. IV,
p. 419.
41.	Rouffaer, op. cit., pp. 54, 63.151
because of Dutch competitive interference it had to
become the peasantry,and so the wealth-gathering
system became unbearably oppressive.
3. Labor exactions from the people formed a crucial
economic factor for the functioning of the state.APPENDIX III
ASTA BRATA
(The Eight Statesman's Virtues)
And please remember the eight duties;
be certain that they are within you
and like them, one by one.
Eight [virtues] must be within your body;
you must certainly not try to ignore them,
not even one of the eight.
Your kingship will be flawed
if one of the eight should be left out.
The first one is god Endra.
God Surja is the second.
Baju the third.
Kuwera forms the fourth one,
Baruna, the fifth;
Jama, Tjandra and Brama
complete the eight. Be sure that they are within the king
his body, living, the Asta Brata,
true to a monarch.
As for the ways of batara Endra:
it is he who showers the earth with scent;
his benevolence spreading far and wide
evenly over the earth's face,
to the high and the low alike,
with no exceptions,
that truly is Endra's character.
That you must do, my brother,
to all of your subjects who populate the earth.
As for the one who acts against those who are evil
as their punisher,
who destroys all the malevolents in the realm
without distinguishing kin or clan;
if a man is evil, he shall then be killed.
152153
Those who do evil
will be tracked and hunted down;
everywhere they will be followed relentlessly
and when caught, put to death.
All dirt of the state, he tries to sweep away.
Such is batara Jama,
in his efforts to safeguard the realm.
Thieves are the blemish of the state;
to get rid of the bad which soils [the kingdom],
all the king's officials must be ordered
not to house the bad
and he who favors acts of evil must leave.
The bad will be killed
until all their kind are annihilated entirely--
all kinds of evil acts.
And in this, you really must practice god Jama's [ways].
Surja is the third;
the way of paramarta is his,
showering grace and kindness [while he]
lets his intention penetrate [the heart],
peacefulness being the sole aim.
Be without fierceness, do not follow passion.
Your officials will not feel your command if you aim
for the good.
There will not be any difficulty [if you]
go under [cover] to reach your aim.
What you want to have, try to gain it with tact
and in so doing you will have what you want.
Do not be hasty in trying to attain your wish.
Even if a man is not sharp of mind his heart can always
be reached;
[Your command] will not lose its aim because it is imposed
with care.
Fourth is the way of god Tjandra;
forgivingness forms his instrument
filling the whole earth.
Aiming at the contentedness o,f the whole kingdom,
in his reign he is full of kindness in his heart;
all of his words express such an attitude
so do his countenance and his behavior.
His acts are always accompanied with a smile,
never showing any strain,
showing his charm in all his commands.154
[A feeling of] intrinsic peace towards humanity
reigns in his heart, through and through;
kindhearted, intensely beloved
by all ascetics.
The fifth one is the way of batara Baju:
determined to understand what is done in the world,
the universe's will he tries to grasp.
Without limit or boundary
are his efforts to know the intention of
all his officers--unnoticed he does it--
evil as well as their good intentions
all of his dignitaries' actions he can see.
While earning their living,
his officers constantly live in prosperity.
Never ceasing is [the king's] striving
for the happiness of his men
and for the good of them
their hearts he beseeches
in order to achieve prosperity and peace.
In their hearts they cannot make a move
which [the king] will not see clearly;
excellence and noble conduct are followed,
good morals and happiness.
His superior character is unanimously accepted.
That is Baju's way of life.
Please, keep it in mind constantly.
The sixth is god Kuwera,
always giving prosperity and happiness.
In applying his means
he never uses physical contact
towards those to whom he entrusts the navigation of the
[ship] of state;
he benefits them [fully] in
their efforts to do no wrong.
The whole realm he entrusts [to them].
Free flowing are his gifts, superhuman
ability forms his constant aim
he never praises nor blames;
to all he does the same.
In his trust the whole knowledge of knighthood he gives
[to his men],
while they do not know
that their innermost self is being studied [by the king]
The seventh is Baiuna.
Always with a weapon he goes through life
in order to find security on the road.
In his heart he always concentrates
to master all the power of magic
even to the extent of wiping out all world’s content.
Excelling in insight and full of caution,
wiping away all the crooked.
Sad and afraid are the men of bad living.
The whole earth is under his rule;
known to him is what is bad and what is good.
Never hesitant in applying the remedy,
unyielding in his virtue;
you certainly must take Baruna as an example.
The way of life of god Brama:
the worldly needs he seeks to acquire, with all his men,
whether high or low of rank.
Brutal he is against the enemy.
He knows the habits of his troops.
Blown away will the enemy be, overwhelmed and ground down.
Follow the example of god Brama;
be his--be in accordance with your heart.
(From Kyai Jasadipoera Serat Rama, Semarang,
1919, p. 432ff.	' ----------APPENDIX IV
GLOSSARY
a.bdi -- servant
abdidalem -- persons in the
service of the king
adil paramarta -- just but
not harsh
adipati -- high title, rank
adja sok njepelekake --do
not belittle
adjeg -- 1. regular; 2. fixed
adoh -- far
agama -- religion
agami -- (Kr) see agama
ageming ratu -- to be worn
by a king
ageng -- (Kr) big
agung -- lofty, high posi-
tioned
ahli -- expert
ajang-ajang -- shadow
alit -- (Kr) small
alun-alun -- open square
before the residence of
a high dignitary
andana warih --of noble
birth
andaru -- blue fireball
foreboding rank or
position
angger -- law
angker -- imbued with evil
influences (of places)
asaur peksi djumurung --
unanimously approved
asrama -- hermitage
asta -- eight
awatara -- incarnation (of
gods)
babad -- 1. to clear (woods);
2. history
badut -- clown
bahu -- 1. unit of arable
land; 2. worker, helper
bakal -- basic material
(clothing, wood)
baku -- basic
bala -- 1. in the king's
service; 2. the army
banda-bandu -- "wealth and
kin " expressing ultimate
wealth
bandar -- toll stop
bang kulon -- western realm
bang wetan -- eastern realm
banteng -- wild bull
banter -- 1. fast (speed);
2. consistent (of tapa)
batara -- title of a god
bati -- profit
batur tukon -- bought slave
bau -- see bahu
bawon -- pay m kind at har-
vesting
beja -- duty (at the customs)
bekel -- 1. someone holding
a lease on land of an
appanage holder; 2. lower
official
bekel gundul --a bekel with-
out men to extract labor
from
bendara -- the king's close
relatives; see sentana
bengkok -- "salary-field" of an
official; see lungguh
binatara -- honored like a
batara
brata -- way of life
bubuka saking agama -- be-
cause of religion
buda -- old, from the Hindu-
istic period
156157
budi -- 1. intellect; 2.
disposition
budjang -- bachelor
bujut -- 1. title of vener-
ation for old people;
2. great grandparents
bupati -- high dignitary
gakti -- (Skrt)
chakravarttin -- (Skrt) see
tjakrawati
dadi -- to become
dalang -- wajang puppeteer
dampar kentjana -- golden
stool
dana -- alms, gifts
dawa kuntjarane -- far does
its fame reach
demang -- lower official
desa -- Javanese village
dewa -- deity
dina sangar -- day of ill
luck (astrology)
dipati -- see adipati
djabarangkah -- the outer
regions
djadjahan -- dependency,
colony
djaga -- watch-duty
djagade -- its realm, its
sphere
djakat -- religious gift
djaksa -- attorney
djaman kala bendu -- age of
misfortune
Djawi -- (Kr) Java, Javanese
djedjer -- 1. principle;
2. scene
djeksa -- see dj aksa
djubah -- overcoat
djumbuhing kawula gusti --
principle of one-ness
between man and God
djumurung -- to agree
djung -- 28,386 square metres
dupak budjang, semu mantri,
esem bupati --a kick for
a servant, an insinuation
for a mantri, a smile for
a regent (the higher the
position, the more subtle
the reprimand)
dusun -- desa, village
duwur -- high
ejang -- grandparent
embanan -- setting (of a ring)
empu -- title of one with
great professional ^cill
esem --a smile
firasat -- physiognomy
gadung -- climbing plant with
edible but stupefying
tubers
gamelan -- Javanese orchestra
gara-gara -- disturbance of
nature
garebeg -- the three impor-
tant Moslem holy festi-
vals of Mulud, Pasa and
Besar
gawe -- 1. work; 2. feast
gawe-desa -- desa-duties
gede obore, padang djagade,
duwur kukuse -- expres-
sion denoting outstanding
fame
gedong -- building
gilig -- 1. to come to com-
plete agreement; 2.
rounded
glebagan -- turnover of
shares of communal land
gogol -- villager shareholder
of communal land
gotong-rojong -- system of
mutual help158
gugur-gunung -- coming out
of the whole population
in case of calamities
gundul -- bald
gung -- great, from agung,
see ageng
gunung kendeng, semune kenya
musoni -- saying indicat-
ing old age and fussiness
guru -- teacher, particularly
of spiritual matters
gusti -- master, lord
hadith -- Moslem tradition
as source of theological
interpretation
hyang -- title of a deity
iladuni -- secret knowledge,
especially prophesying
isi lan wadah -- content and
receptacle
isjwara -- instruction, indi-
cation
isnad -- proof of authen-
ticity (Moslem tradition)
kadigdajan -- immunity to
weapons or magic spell
kaendran -- Indra's heaven
kagempalaken -- broken off
from
kakawin surti -- kind of in-
structive poetry
kalabendu -- period of disas-
ter and malady
kali yuga -- world-period of
decline
kalipatullah -- caliphate
kalpa sru semune kenaka
putung -- indication of
a reign of anger and
cruelty
kamantepan -- consistency
kamukten -- state of being
endowed with richness
and prestige
kanda -- spoken recital in
wajang play
kang tjedak manglung, kang
adoh tumijung -- indicat-
ing voluntary submission
to benevolent rule of a
king
kanigara -- fez-like black
velvet headgear with
linear gold-leaf ornamen-
tation
kantor -- office
kapit -- between something
kapradjuritan -- pertaining
to literature
karemenan -- consistency and
loyalty
karja -- 1. work; 2. unit of
arable land
karman -- (Skrt) work, deed
karsaning Pangeran -- God's
will
kasampurnan -- ultimate per-
fection
katekan -- attained (of aim)
kauripan -- with the property
of restoring life
kawibawan -- authority
kawirjan -- nobility
kawula-gusti -- Man-God (rela-
tionship)
kawulawisuda -- installed to
a high position
kenaka -- fingernail
kenja -- girl
kentjana -- gold
keparak -- certain group of
officials at court
kerata-basa -- word interpre-
tation according to sound
in folk etymology
kerigan -- general call to
arms or at great disasters
kerisan -- wearing a kris
ketoprak -- Javanese operetta
with unlimited repertory
of indigenous or foreign
stories159
kewales -- to suffer the con-
sequences of one’s deed
ki bujut -- title of venera-
tion
ki sanak -- used towards
strangers
kiwa -- left
kotang Antakusuma -- name of
a relic in the form of a
jacket
Krama Inggil -- highest
honorific form of Java-
nese speech
krotjokan -- a "come one
come all"
kraton -- palace
ksatria -- knight
kukuh -- strongly built
kulawisuda -- see
kawulawisuda
kuli kendo -- second category
of villagers, see tumpang
kuli kentjeng, kuli sikep - -
first category of
villagers
kulon -- west
kuluk -- fez-like headgear
kusuma -- flower
kyai -- title of veneration,
also kyageng
labuh -- ceremony of offering
to sea or stream spirits
laku -- see lampah
lambang pradja -- state
symbol
lampah -- (Kr) a life of
lampah sandi -- secretly
lan -- and
lanang -- male
lapa -- hunger
lara-lapa -- misery and
hunger
leluhur -- ancestors
lenga kauripan -- oil of life
lokapala -- the eight Guard-
ians of the universe
lor -- north
ludruk -- king of folk-oper-
etta in East Java
luhur -- 1. of high birth;
2. of great wisdom
lung -- tendril
lungguh -- appanage, salary-
field, see bengkok
lurah -- 1. master^ lord;
2. village headman
lurah sentana -- prince, head
of the king’s kin
lurah tledek -- chief of the
public dancing girls
madeg kraman -- to revolt
madjupat -- four-cornered
madu -- honey
madya -- middle
magang -- apprentice
mandala -- territorial circle
of political influence
mandjing -- to go into and
be one with something
manglung -- to bow down to
mantjalima -- the mantjapat
with the villages next
to them
mantjanegara -- outlying
regions of the kingdom
mantjapat -- the four neigh-
boring villages, houses
mantri -- official of lower
rank
manunggal -- to become one
(with God)
mata pitaja -- confidant, spy
matjan-gadungan -- were-tiger
mawas obah osiking bala -- to
keep an eye on the wishes
of his people
mbalela -- to revolt
mbalik -- to revolt, to turn
mbaudenda mjakrawati --
mighty and influential
(of a king)
mbebeneri -- to do justice
mbeka -- to revolt, to be
recalcitrant
midji -- special (of a task)
momong -- to take care of (a
childj one’s wife)160
momongan -- the person taken
care of; see pamong
mondong -- to carry
muksa -- to disappear with
one’s physical body
murba-wisesa -- to have the
power of decision
murwa -- to begin
musoni -- to clean (rice,
cotton)
niti -- 1. to inspect; 2. tact
nitis -- to reincarnate
njakrawati -- see tj akrawati
njamur kawula -- incognito
njuwita -- to serve (in a
family)
nungkul -- to bow, to sur-
render
nur -- light, divine light
nurbuwah -- divine sign of
prophecy
naga -- mythical serpent
nagara -- state
nagaragung -- the inner
realms, the core region
najaka -- high-ranking
officer
narawita -- lands excluded
for special purposes
ndedagan -- keeping watch
at a grave to acquire
spiritual power
ndjaga tata-tentreming
pradja -- guarding the
peace and tranquillity
of the state
negara -- see nagara
neges karsaning nyang ingkang
murbeng pandulu -- trying
to comprehend God’s will
by fasting, ascetic
practice
ngadili -- to do justice
nganglang -- going the rounds
to control the realm
ngelar djadjahan -- to expand
the realm through conquest
ngelmu -- knowledge, espe-
cially secret knowledge
ngenger -- to serve with a
family of high position
ngestreni -- to attend (a
wedding)
nglikasi -- to reel (weaving)
ngoko -- Low Javanese
ngreka -- to arrange
nila -- indigo
obah -- to move
obore -- its torch
osik -- unexpressed thought
padang -- light
padjeg -- tax
padjeg-bumi -- land tax
pakadja -- 1. the lotus
flower; 2. a semi-pre-
cious stone
paken -- outlines of wajang
stories
palak palakijah -- astrology
palawidja -- 1. products
planted after rice; 2.
deformed persons in the
king’s retinue
pamong -- the person taking
care (of a child, one’s
wife); see momongan
pamong pradja -- the civil
service
pamoring gusti-kawula -- the
merging of man into God
pamrih -- with benefit as
motive
pamudjan -- place of worship
panakawan -- valet, companion
panantang -- the challenge
pandita -- sage
pandulu -- look, glance
panembahan -- title of per-
sons of high rank or
spiritual knowledge161
panengen -- see tengen
pangajoman -- protection
pangeran dipati -- prince,
crown-prince
pangiwa -- see kiwa
pangreh pradja -- the civil
service, all the king’s
officials of the "outer"
(territorial) service
pangulon -- Office of Reli-
gious Affairs under a
pangulu
pangulu naib -- clerical
rank under the pangulu
pangurakan -- place around
the main gate to the
alun-alun
panjuwun -- petition, re-
quest
pantjen -- personal service
to dignitaries (of
villagers)
papa -- needy, in misery,
paprentahan -- government
para bendara -- the king's
kin
para luhur -- the nobility
paringan - - gift
paron -- half and half
pasar -- market
pasarejan -- cemetery
pasir -- sand
pasir-wukir -- coast and
highlands
pasisir -- coastal regions
pati -- 1. lord; 2. death
patih -- grand vizier
patih ndjaba -- patih of the
"outer" service (the
realm)
patih ndjero -- patih of the
"inner" service ("the
court)
patjakan -- see wong gladak
peksi -- 1. bird"; 2. part of
the kris, the hilt
penggede -- high official
pengulu -- see pangulon
perang desa -- ’’village war,"
disorders as a result of
Mataram's division in
1755
perdikan -- free-village
pesantren -- institution for
Moslem religious instruc-
tion
petang palak palakijah --
astrological calculations
(knowledge)
piagem -- charter, decree
pikulan -- carrying-pole,
load
pinesti -- pre-ordained
pinggir -- rim, border
pitaja -- trust
pitrah -- religious alms for
the poor
piwulang -- lesson, ethical
instruction
pondok -- boarding house (of
a pesantren)
prabu -- title of king
pradja -- the state
pradjurit -- warrior, soldier
pralaja -- the Great Upheaval
Gotteraammerung
pralambang -- (God's) sign
or indication of things
to come
praptane kalabendu ing Semar-
ang lan Tembajat -- the
coming of mishap will be
at Semarang and Tembajat
(a pralambang)
prijaji -- the king's offi-
cials, forming the Java-
nese elite
pundutan -- see taker turun
punggawa -- officials not of
noble blood
pulung -- lightball as a
divine sign of a high
position or rank to come
pusaka -- holy inherited ob-
j ects
putra -- offspring
putung - - broken in two
raden -- title of the king's
relatives from the fifth
grade down
radja -- king162
rame -- bustling
randu alas -- giant wild
"kapok"-cotton tree
(bombax malabaricum)
rangkah -- 1. barricade;
2. tollgate at the boun-
daries of the state
rara -- maiden
ratu -- king
ratu adil -- the coming
Messiah
ratu gung binatara -- Great
Ruler
ratu sewu negara -- the thou-
sand kings bowing to the
rule of a great emperor
redi -- (Kr) mountain
reh pangulon -- under the
jurisdiction of the
pangulu1s office
rembesmg madu --of noble
birth
resi -- hermit
sabil -- war to propagate
Islam
sabrang -- a foreign country,
another island (than
Java)
sada lanang -- nerve of the
leaf of a certain palm
saderek -- (Kr) relative
sahbandar -- harbormaster
saking -- (Kr) from
salere -- north of
sanak -- relative
sandi -- secret code
sang murba-wisesa -- "the one
who has the right to de-
cide and punish" (title
of the king)
sanga -- nine
sangar -- having evil influ-
ence (a place, certain
hours of certain days)
sanggar pamudjan -- place of
meditation
sapa -- who
sasrahan -- see bawon
satak -- certain amount of
money
sawetaning gunung Lawu --
east of Mount Lawu
seba -- to come to audience
sedija -- prepared to
sedjarah panengen -- the
"right" line of lineage
of the Mataram kings
sedjarah pangiwa -- the
"left" line of lineage
of the Mataram kings
sekti -- with superhuman
powers
semedi -- to meditate
semune -- the allusion is ...
senapati -- commander in
chief
senenan -- tournaments on
horseback on Monday
(Senen)
sentana -- the king's more
distant relatives; see
bendara
sepele -- insignificant,
very easy
sepi ing pamrih, rame ing
gawe -- free of the
desire for gain, full of
activity
serat -- (Kr) letter
Serban -- turban
seru -- loud
sesotya -- jewel, precious
stone
sesupe -- (Kr) ring
seton -- tournament on horse-
back, held on Saturday
(Setu) as part of mili-
tary training; see
senenan
setunggil ~- one
sewu -- thousand
sideku -- sitting with elbows
resting on the knees
sila -- sitting cross-legged
before a superior
sinengkakake ing ngaluhur --
raised to a high position163
sing sapa gede panjuwune,
bakal katekan sedyane --
he who sincerely asks (of
God) will reach his goal
singa -- lion
sirna -- disappear without a
trace
siti dusun salere redi
Kendeng -- regions north
of the Kendeng range
sruwal -- underpants
suksma -- soul
suluk -- 1. chanted inter-
ludes by the puppeteer
at a wajang play to set
the mood of the act; 2.
secret teachings in
Islamic mysticism
sultan -- sultan
sunan -- title of a king or
that of a Wali
surasa -- deeper or inner
meaning
suruh -- leaf as ingredient
in betel-nut chewing
suwun -- 1. to ask; 2. to
carry on one's head
svadharma -- (Skrt) destina-
tion
taker turun -- side-taxes
tanah sabrang -- the other
islands
tandon -- what is carried in
a sedan-chair
tapa -- ascetic practice
tatatjara -- custom, tradi-
tion
tebih -- far
tedaking andana warih -- of
august descent
tegalan -- dry, unirrigated
lands
teges -- meaning
tekad -- determination
tekdir -- fate
teluh bradja -- fire-ball as
an omen of disease to
come
tengen -- right
tentrem -- tranquil, calm
tepa-slira -- to estimate to
one's own capacity
tijang alit -- the common
people
tinitah -- ordained, destined
tiwikrama -- demonic rage
tjadong -- ration
t j ahj a nurbuwah - - nurbuwah
light, see nurbuwah
tjakra -- Kresna's disc-
shaped weapon
tjakrawati -- world rule
tjandi -- temple from the
Hindu period
tjantang-balung -- palace-
dancers, doing clownish
dances at processions
tjara -- way (of life)
tjarangan -- "branch"-story
of the waj ang
tjatjah -- 1.notch; 2. number
of able, male shareholders
of communal land in a
certain region; 3. meas-
urement of land for
taxation
tjaton -- see tjatu
tj atu - - one share
tjedak -- close
tjengkal -- approx. 3.75 m.
tjuriga -- the kris
tobat -- to repent
topeng -- mask
trahing kusuma -- of noble
birth
trasi -- fish-paste
triman -- women given as a
wife to an official by
the king as a favor
tumbal -- magically potent
objects to ward off evil
tumenggung -- high title,
lower than adipati
tumijung -- to bow, to" hang
over
tumpang -- third category of
villagers164
tumpang slosor, pondok
slosor -- fourth cate-
gory of villagers, see
kuli
tuna -- loss
tuwan -- sir, mister
ukum -- law, religious law
unggul -- winning
upatjara -- 1. regalia of
Javanese kings; 2. cere-
mony
uwal -- to become detached
from
widjining tapa -- descendant
of an ascetic
wisesa -- might, power
wisuda -- to inaugurate
witjaksana -- tactful, wise
wong -- man
wong gladag -- men of the
transport department
wong tjilik -- the common
people
wukir -- mountain
Vorstenlanden -- (D) Dutch
name given to the two
Javanese kingdoms of
Surakarta and Jogjakarta
(D)	= Dutch
(Kr)	= Krama; High Javanese
(Skrt) = Sanskrit
wadah -- receptacle
wadi -- secret
wahju -- divine token of
greatness and honor
wajang -- Javanese shadow-
play
wajang-wujungan -- going to
and fro in great disorder
wali -- a saint
warana -- screen
warangka -- scabbard of a
kris
warih -- water
waringin -- giant banyan tree
(ficus benghalensis)
warta -- news, message
waskita -- clairvoyant
wedana -- 1. chief-bupati;
2. district officer
under a bupati
wenang -- authorized, having
the right
wetan -- east
wewaler -- taboomae i
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