1 Introduction: Let Us Tell of Mataram – Kawarna nagri Matawis
These stanzas in a stereotypical way mark the end of one of the many stories on Sultan Agung as told in the Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung texts.5 Sultan Agung is a historic figure who ruled over the Javanese kingdom of Mataram, stretching from Central to East Java, from 1613 until 1645. Ricklefs (1998: 471) calls him “the greatest warrior king and the most powerful monarch in Java since the fourteenth century.” In historical sources the sultan is described as a wise, knowledgeable, severe, and pious person.6 Sultan Agung’s exploits feature elaborately in particular texts that were written at the Central Javanese court of Yogyakarta and called Sĕrat or Babad Nitik Sultan Agung, one of which is explored in this article.
The stanzas mentioned above demonstrate that due to the king’s justice, Mataram achieved a state of welfare. Following Javanese conventions, the storyteller presents the readers and listeners with the image of an overall prosperous country, where the citizens – due to the endless flow of royal gifts – are enjoying an abundance of food and clothing and choose to abandon their original religion in order to embrace Islam. The criminals have been banished from the realm and everybody is living a peaceful life.7 Sultan Agung is presented as an ideal sovereign who creates an ideal world for his subjects. Their prosperity and conversion to Islam, and the peace and order of the realm, confirm the ruler’s authority and power.8 This motif is frequently repeated throughout the Nitik narratives as a kind of mantra, emphasizing Sultan Agung’s qualities and his political, religious, and cultural status that leads to Mataram’s welfare. From this we may conclude that the stories in the Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung are narrated in such a way as to demonstrate the eminence of the protagonist.
Repetition is one of the stylistic devices of the narrators, confirming the sultan’s glory to the audiences of the stories. The storytellers in the various texts repeatedly mention epithets that refer to Sultan Agung’s physical and inner qualities, his title, his impressive knowledge, and his converting activities. In formulaic expressions, they recall the crown prince’s divine predestination, the blessings he received from the gods, and the Islamic faith he devotes himself to. Other rhetorical devices are the use of similes to picture the sultan’s resemblance to quranic figures and Hindu-Buddhist deities; the use of direct speech when presenting teachings and instructions; and appeals to the emotions of the audiences. One specific persuasive device to achieve this aim is source credibility. Both on the level of the narrative and the meta-narrative, the presentation of sources that possess authority, trustworthiness, or other attributes may have an impact on the audiences and establish credibility (Pratkanis and Aronson 2001: 51).9 The main protagonist receives knowledge and direction from authoritative figures, whereas the storyteller provides knowledge by making references to authoritative sources.
I argue that these modes of referentiality have multiple aims. They are used to build credence so as to convince the audiences of the stories of Sultan Agung’s prominence, to claim the authenticity of the tales, and to authorize their telling. They also demonstrate that the representation of the past in the Sĕrat Nitik is based on tradition, both oral and written. Proximity, both historical and cultural, may enhance credibility. As is the case with those who watch wayang kulit (shadow puppet shows) and kěthoprak (popular Javanese drama), the audiences of the Sultan Agung tales most possibly were and still are familiar with the stories and their epistemologies, the characters, the scenes, and the settings.10 This leads to a different kind of attention and a different way of listening than applied when hearing new stories.
2 Javanese Kingship, Power, and Wisdom
The Javanese stanzas mentioned at the beginning of this essay disclose ideas regarding Javanese kingship and the concepts of power and wisdom. Fertility, prosperity, stability, and glory are the qualities that pertain to Sultan Agung’s kingdom. They are the social signs of the concentration of the sultan’s power (Anderson 1990: 32–33, referring to Moertono 1981).
Ideas on power are culturally determined and hence should be viewed and defined within the epistemological context in which they occur and are used.11 The Javanese concept of power in relation to kingship has been studied quite elaborately over the years.12 Royal authority, then, is of divine origin and nature (Moertono 1981: 2 ff.; Behrend 1993: 414; Ras 1994b; Ras 2001). To achieve excellence and obtain supernatural force, a king acquires power by means of ascetism (Anderson 1990: 28) and by receiving powerful tokens, admonitions, and objects from authoritative figures. The construction or mastery of a kraton and patronage of the arts augment his royal status (Behrend 1993: 414). Moertono (1981: 14–82) gives an extensive analysis of “the magical and religious implementation of kingship,” including the characteristics of the ideal king. These are stereotypical and also feature prominently in the Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung, as demonstrated in this chapter. Power is very closely connected to locus: Sultan Agung’s power is intertwined with his realm Mataram. Mecca, Istanbul (Stambul)13 and the Ottoman Empire (Rum), then, are spaces of power that sanction the sultan’s position and authority because of their role as centers of Islam. At present, the aura of Mataram still radiates on the central Javanese kingdoms through their dynastic link with Mataram.
Erudition and esoteric knowledge (ngelmu) are other aspects of power in the context of the Javanese kingdom. Moertono (1981: 41) defines the king’s kawicaksanan as “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.” The word wicaksana encompasses a wide range of meanings, from highly excellent, wise, experienced, skillful and intelligent to learned and having a clear insight (Moertono 1981: 41). A Javanese king should seek divine guidance in order to be endowed with wisdom – the term I use here to cover the wide meaning of wicaksana.
In this chapter, I examine how credible and reliable sources convey words of power and wisdom to the crown prince before his enthronement as Sultan Agung. To that aim, I identify the main messengers of powerful and wise words, their messages, and how they are conveyed. I use brief parts of the narratives to exemplify the workings of informative and persuasive rhetorical devices. They demonstrate the intricate relationships between the protagonists and the impact of their interaction. In the concluding remarks, I will cast some light on the audiences of the texts.
Before throwing light on these words of power and wisdom, I will briefly introduce the Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung corpus.
3 The Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung Corpus
Sultan Agung, who ruled over the Javanese kingdom of Mataram from 1613 until 1645,14 has lived on in the collective memory of the Javanese until now and is considered a national hero of Indonesia. The painter Sudjojono immortalized his battle with Jan Pieterszoon Coen, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in a triptych (Figure 8.1). The sultan’s meeting with the Queen of the Southern Ocean is represented in a sacred bědhaya dance of the Yogyakarta court.15 Sultan Agung figures as a protagonist in popular drama on radio and television (kěthoprak) and in novels and movies (Figure 8.2). The sultan’s burial place at Imagiri has become an important site of pilgrimage. The Sĕrat (or Babad) (Pa)Nitik Sultan Agung(an) texts are part of this storytelling tradition.
S. Sudjojono, The Battle between Sultan Agung and JP Coen, 1973. Oil on canvas
Jakarta History MuseumPoster of Hanung Bramantyo’s Sultan Agung: Tahta, perjuangan, cinta (2018) (Sultan Agung: Throne, struggles, love)
Pikiran Rakyat, August 23, 2018These Nitik tales recount the adventures of Sultan Agung. They investigate (nitik) how Sultan Agung – a man of esoteric knowledge and divine power, and of letters and the performing arts – in a miraculous way subjects the surrounding world to Mataram and converts its inhabitants to Islam. In the stories, which belong to both written and oral traditions, and to court and folk tales, we are told how gods from the upperworld and forces from the underworld assist and support him. They tell the history of Mataram from a much later Javanese perspective. Also, they are meant to instruct the readers and listeners and to set an example.
Borrowing a view from Mitchell (1994: 105) as presented in his Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, I suggest the Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung texts display “a radically heterogeneous representation of history.” The tales rest on multiple historical layers. Among others, there is the historical context of the tale and the historical context of the telling. The historical context of the tale concerns the first half of the seventeenth century, the tale being: Sultan Agung’s life and deeds, his acquisition of power and wisdom, and his confrontation with people from overseas/foreigners, the Dutch in particular. As the manuscripts I have been studying all date from the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, the historical context of the telling concerns that period, the tale being: Yogyakarta and the foreigners. But also, the provenance of the work and the contemporary context of the Yogyakarta court circles where the manuscripts were written and copied, recited and listened to contribute to the historical context of the telling. The tales as created by the storytellers and following the logic and constraints of the narrative also contain stories about the ease with which the sultan spreads Islam, the meetings with his forefathers and his passionate love for the Queen of the Southern Ocean. The voices of the storytellers, presenting the tales in a vivid, visual, and poetic language, and representing the conceptual worlds and voices of (and the interaction between) the actors belonging to different ideological and historical realms and their use of direct speech, create an “illusion of oral immediacy” (a term used by Mitchell 1994: 105). This illusion is also evoked by the storyteller’s references to oral sources. Pigeaud calls the stories “rather novelistic” (1967: 88),16 but I would suggest that the telling in the Nitik tales resembles the narrative aesthetics of theater (and even film, avant la lettre).
The Sĕrat Nitik Sultan Agung texts belong to a storytelling repertoire which is perceived to be characteristic of Yogyakarta – only a few texts originated in Surakarta – and hence show a specific regional particularity.17 Simultaneously, they share stories and motifs with other Javanese and Malay textual traditions. They were used at the court and circulated among nobility.
Most Nitik tales are composed in the macapat meter, a Javanese poetic form,18 while some are written in prose. Viewing them as performative art touches upon vocality and the aural aspects which are inherent to the těmbang macapat: the written texts are tailored to be performed orally in a specific style for an audience and to be heard and listened to. Therefore, they only obtain and reveal their full meaning if vocalized/sung. Vocalizing the metrical texts guides the reader in reading the text. Or, as Finnegan (2005: 177), writing on the concept of performance literature, puts it, the performance is in the text, meaning a text “may carry the sonic echoes of a sung acoustic performance.” Besides, “public oral delivery”19 of the těmbang macapat texts leads to a literary experience which for both the “reader” and the audience differs from private silent reading.
As a corpus, the Nitik Sultan Agung texts are multivocal. They have an open structure and accommodate a range of narratives, all centering around Sultan Agung as the principal protagonist.20 They combine an array of scenes with the corresponding moods: court scenes, instructions (on kingship, on being a good Muslim and the benefits of it), piwulang (didactic moralistic instructions),21 the quest for secret knowledge, tales of origin (of specific places, of royal heirlooms), everyday life, love scenes, meetings and confrontations with foreigners (reflecting Mataram’s position in an international trade network), conversion and battle scenes, and humoristic sequences. They present glimpses of, or detailed insights into, Javanese court culture, including ceremonies, rituals, literature, and performances. Each type of scene evokes a particular mood, which can be serious, solemn, sad, humorous, dramatic and fierce, romantic, religious, spiritual or instructive.
Due to the open structure of the texts, the contents of this Nitik corpus show a great variety. I have based my present analysis on Cod. Or. 6489a, a manuscript kept at the Special Collections of the Leiden University Libraries, entitled Sĕrat Babad Nitik (Figure 8.3).22
Sĕrat Babad Nitik
Leiden University Libraries, Special Collections, Cod. Or. 6489a, Canto IX, stanzas 1–7In the recension, as found in this and related texts, we follow the development of the protagonist from crown prince to the invincible Sultan Agung. Surrounding countries surrender themselves of their own volition and embrace Islam. The texts emphasize how under Sultan Agung’s rule Mataram is prosperous and peaceful. The possession of royal heirlooms contributes to the special qualities a king should have. Hence, we witness how Agung creates royal entertainment in the form of sacred dance and music, and how he plants the first rice and coconut trees. Another recension, as contained in Cod. Or. 6476 and related texts, presents a similar image of the sultan. Upon the arrival of the tiyang sabrang, the English, Chinese, Dutch and other foreigners from overseas (Turks and Abyssinians, for instance), the equilibrium is disturbed and slowly but surely the tide is turning. Although Mataram sends support to Jakarta, eventually the Dutch occupy the city. A Javanese-Dutch marital bond legitimizes the foreigners’ presence in Java. There is a partial overlap between the two recensions.23
4 Words of Power and Wisdom
Before reigning over Mataram as Sultan Agung, the crown prince leaves the kingdom and – like a wandering Muslim student (santri lělana)24 – roams around to behold the secrets of the Ruler of the World. Meditation and teachings help him to grasp the meaning of the secret knowledge and to achieve supernatural power, kasěkten.25 The spiritual and esoteric input of gods, saints, and ancestors provide the royal authority in Mataram with “the religious and supernatural props of legitimation” (Ricklefs 1974: 23).26 Canto after canto we witness how his father, Islamic saints, Hindu-Buddhist deities and the Spirit Queen of the Southern Ocean bestow spiritual and esoteric gifts on the young crown prince. As authoritative and credible sources, their words of power and wisdom, conveyed in dreams, prophecies, teachings, and magic spells, invigorate the future sultan and prepare him for kingship. The circumstances in which these words of power and wisdom are passed on are described in detail.
Sultan Agung is predestined to attain supreme rule. This twofold divine predestination is a very powerful source of authority. From the Islamic side, the legitimization of Agung’s kingship is quite overwhelming, while representatives of the right line of royal descent, the Muslim garis paněngěn, endorse him.27 We learn that God had the star of royal destiny, pulung irhas, descend upon him and entrusted him with the spreading of Islam on Java. Thus, he becomes the Prophet’s favorite (XII-46). When called Kalipatollah, he is considered God’s representative (caliph) on earth.28 Besides, because of his radiant glow and splendor, Sultan Agung is compared to the prophets Joseph (Nabi Yusup, V-30–31) and Solomon (Nabi Suleman, XII-10), two quranic figures who developed into well-known Islamic legendary personages, as they feature in the Javanese Ambiya tradition (see chapter 6) and elsewhere. With similes as literary devices, the physical beauty and special qualities of these famous figures are assigned to Sultan Agung. On the other hand, the narrator informs us that the regular intervention of Hindu-Buddhist deities strengthens Agung’s position as well. Hence, the supreme god Bathara Guru himself arranges for Sultan Agung to meet his future spirit queen (IV-30 ff.). The five Pandhawa brothers, sons of King Pandhu and Dewi Kunthi and main characters in the Javanese Mahabharata epic,29 and representatives of the left dynastic line (garis pangiwa), provide him with magic formulae, aji, that enhance the sultan’s power and knowledge (XXI ff.). Again, by means of similes, the sultan acquires the charisma of the Hindu-Buddhist deities. He is described as an exceptional human being, an incarnation of the god Wisnu (V-7), and is said to resemble both the love god Hyang Asmara (V-31) and Bathara Guru on his throne (XII-10; XII-46). Sultan Agung’s position as Bathara Guru and as Kalipatollah are references to the Hindu-Buddhist concept of the devaraja, the divine king, and the Islamic concept of God’s representative on earth. The storyteller of the late nineteenth century Nitik narrative (as contained in the 1908 copy) combined both concepts to demonstrate Agung’s status. A third aspect that enhances Agung’s position and might is his bond with and the support he receives from the indigenous Queen of the Southern Ocean, Ratu Kidul. Ricklefs (this volume) calls this coming together of three spheres of belief a “mystic synthesis” and concludes that it “seems to have been the dominant mode of Islamic religiosity among Javanese by the late 18th and early 19th centuries.” The examples in this chapter demonstrate, however, how intricately linked to each other these three spheres of belief still were in late nineteenth-century Javanese macapat poetry and the world views it represents.
Those who contribute to the crown prince’s development towards kingship and Sultan Agung’s acquisition of power and wisdom all have their proper roles and functions. Also, each of them is linked to a specific locus. In the following section, I dwell on the crown prince’s father, and on Sunan Kalijaga, the Pandhawa brothers, Ratu Kidul and The One in Disguise as main sources of powerful and wise words in the Sĕrat Babad Nitik.
5 King Anyakrawati: “Only You, My Son, Deserve to Become the King of Java”30
The first words of power and wisdom that are bestowed on the crown prince are those of his father, King Anyakrawati.31 Teaching him how to be a just and virtuous ruler, his father’s instructions on statesmanship prepare the crown prince for kingship.
The two introductory stanzas and the final two stanzas of the first canto frame the entire narrative: the storyteller introduces Sultan Agung from Karta, known to be excellent (dibya) and in the possession of supernatural powers (sĕkti), and confirms the qualities a new king should have: endorsement from a religious side of the divine origin of kingship, and invincibility. A suitable and strong pedigree is another requirement (Moertono 1981: 62–63; Ras 1994b: 523–26, 534–35). Beside the brief genealogical information that focuses on the origin of the crown prince and his siblings (I-7–16), the king’s father emphasizes the crown prince’s link to his great ancestor Senapati (I-28).
The story goes as follows: It is told that the second ruler of Mataram, King Anyakrawati, summoned his son to appear before him because he wanted to explain to him everything about the government of the land. His Majesty paring sabda, that is he addresses his son-the-crown-prince as a father and king, solemn, wise, and higher in rank, granting him powerful words and teaching him the rules of royal conduct, so as to lend the kingdom prosperity.32 To be an excellent king, he should carry out the duties and responsibilities that come with the position and rank, and act accordingly.
The first advice concerns the relationship with the army, the cornerstone of the realm. For a sound government, a king should skillfully win the favor of the soldiers, his generosity must be unstinting. To make the army dedicated and faithful, he should spread far and wide his fragrant and sweet words. Finally, the king advises his son not to hurt the feelings of the subjects; his reign should be endowed with wisdom (kawicaksanan) (I-18). Then follow instructions about the qualities a good king is expected to have: careful, clear and steadfast in his conduct should he be, sharing his knowledge about virtue, with excellence as his aim (I-19, 20). A significant part of the teaching is dedicated to spiritual matters that include refined behavior, a firm hold on religion, a proficient performance of the religious duties and a mastering of all that concerns darma (obligations and duty) (I-20).33 An outstanding person, he will receive the blessings of the afterlife (I-21, 22). King Anyakrawati elaborates on the worldly position of the monarch as the “nail of the universe” and on how difficult it is to act as a virtuous king (I-24), and on his spiritual position as representative of the Apostle (I-25). To perform the latter, he should follow the Prophet as an example, since the Apostle of God is the representative of the One who Ordains All (I-24, 25).
The king continues that Islam is the final religion until the Day of Judgement (I-27) and summons his son to spread it throughout Mataram. Also, he requests him to guard and appreciate the merits of his late grandfather, Paněmbahan Senapati, who founded Mataram (I-28). Weakening his own role, his final words are:
Reflecting on the event, the storyteller concludes: “Thus the king finished his teachings to the crown prince, truly a splendid young man, for the esteem of Java. It corresponded to how the king’s father, Panĕmbahan Senapati, had spoken” (II-1, 2).
In this scene, King Anyakrawati initiates the crown prince into the duties and responsibilities of a king, the third in the line of the Mataram dynasty. To be a successful monarch it was essential “to behave in what was recognized as a kingly fashion” (Ricklefs 1974: 14–15). Supreme qualities and conduct, duties and responsibilities, relations with the army, the genealogical ties with the past (and the founding of the Mataram dynasty) and the continuity of the realm, worldly and religious positions, and in particular the urgency of darma and of religion – the king’s teaching brings to mind similar instructions in the wayang kulit the audiences would be familiar with and is an example of cultural proximity. The strong rhetoric of the king’s instructions and the use of direct speech reinforce the persuasive character of his words. The fact that we hear the king’s voice directly, not by means of the narrator, boosts the veracity and power of his messages. Another rhetorical device is the arousal of emotions, both towards the crown prince and towards the audiences. During the teaching, the monarch addresses his son, calling on him to “obey my words” (estokna ujaringsun); “this is something you need to remember, my dear” (kaki sira engĕta); “day and night I demand” (sun pĕpinta siyang myang ratri); “by all means, my son, remember all I have explained my dear, you splendid young person.”34 His use of affectionate terms like “my son” (sutengsun), “young man” (kaki or kaki putra), “my child” (atmajaningwang) and “my beloved son” (nyawa atmajengwang), sometimes combined with the interjection (a)dhuh to express his deep affection and tenderness (oh my beloved son, dhuh nyawa atmajengwang), strengthens the king’s appeal to his son, increases the crown prince’s involvement in the event (although the crown prince himself does not speak a word) and is touching at the same time – a rhetorical device of the narrator to address the listeners’ feelings.
Anyakrawati’s teaching echoes mirrors for princes, and it reminds us of other instances in Javanese literature and culture that display instructions about kingship, in particular of the Astabrata, the Eight Rules of Life. The present instruction, however, differs much from Rama’s lessons to Wibisana, although it contains comparable moral guidelines.35 Another instance of an admonition to the king is to be found in the Suluk Garwa Kancana, which, according to Ricklefs (1998: 479) demonstrates Sultan Agung’s effort to reconcile Javanese and Islamic identities.
6 Sunan Kalijaga: “Know, Young Man, That You Have Received the Love of God”36
Now that his father has enlightened him on leadership, the crown prince is ready to receive words of power and wisdom from other influential sources.
The first new protagonist the narrator introduces is Sunan Kalijaga, one of the nine wali (the saints who, according to tradition, introduced and spread Islam on Java), who arrives all of a sudden as a result of the crown prince’s meditative practice, while praying to become an esteemed man. In his first visit to the sultan, Sunan Kalijaga announces the divine support of his kingship. The storyteller narrates the news that had spread over the world about the qualities of the king’s son and the blessings he had received, blessings for Java. The divine star of royal destiny had fallen on him, the god Siwa had blessed his meditation, as if he had become the meditating Wisnu, and the Law of the Apostle, the sarengat, and prophethood, the cahya nurbuwat, had been passed down to him (II-3–5). This all happened in conformity to Sunan Kalijaga’s prophecy to the crown prince’s grandfather, Senapati of Mataram, that the pre-Islamic belief of Buda and Islam would intertwine and come down on his grandson (II-6). The revelation that he will be the king of Java also applies to his descendants:
And so it happened – says the storyteller – that at dawn the incarnation of the kingship coincided indeed with his conversion to Islam; they were said to belong together as a keris and its sheath. Truly right and proper it was (II-9).37 The crown prince leaves the place of inauguration, visits the abode of Bathara Guru and swiftly disappears, flying to all corners of the world (II-11, 12).
Sunan Kalijaga is a superstar, according to Behrend (1987: 349–50) and he is “accomplished in all fields of knowledge” (Warsadiningrat 1987: 55). Quinn states that he “is an embodiment of Javanese Islam and his life story parallels the evolution of Islam in Java” (2019: 50). A wali of Javanese descent, he is “most associated with the history of the Mataram dynasty” (Ricklefs 2006: 210) and has a prominent role in the court chronicle (Babad Tanah Jawi), in particular in relation to Senapati (Ricklefs 1974), and in other Javanese literature. He is remembered for “his quintessential Javaneseness” (Florida 1995: 329). Meyer (this volume) elaborates on the narrative traditions of Sunan Kalijaga,38 whereas Ricci (this volume), in her discussion of the echoes between the prophets’ biographies and those of the Javanese walis, calls the sunan “a foundational father figure.” In the Sĕrat Babad Nitik, Sunan Kalijaga acts as an adviser to the sultan. He is an envoy of the Islamic realm, a seer and prophet, a mediator, and a spiritual teacher. According to the storyteller, he is the sunan who used to have his residence in Kadilangu (XXI-3).39 At the time of the telling he has been released from the physical world (mukswa), but he is still roaming around the world and meeting with the one who is practising ascesis, that is, the sultan (XXI-3).
Sunan Kalijaga spreads Islam over Java, which Sultan Agung also does in the Nitik stories. In this respect the sultan can be compared to Sunan Kalijaga – he is perceived as the protector of Islam since Allah had entrusted him with the spreading of the holy religion (IV-4). His charismatic presence brings people to remove wooden idols, cease worshipping heaven and earth and study the contents of the Quran (IV-5). Fighting the old religion, the crown prince (later Sultan Agung) becomes the favorite of the Prophet and accedes to the doctrine that had been revealed to the Arabs (IV-7). Another activity that Sultan Agung and Sunan Kalijaga have in common is the creation and patronage of performing art genres. An example is the Gamělan Sěkaten, which Sunan Kalijaga created to capture the hearts of the Javanese people (Warsadiningrat 1987: 55), whereas Sultan Agung created this gamělan when he was enraptured by the sounds of nature in Ratu Kidul’s pleasure-garden (IV–V).
As a seer and prophet, the sunan is a strong support for the Mataram kings.40 When Sultan Agung meditates (tapa; měrěs cipta) or prays (maca donga nurbuwat),41 Sunan Kalijaga arrives immediately. Called the Great Sage (Sang Maha Moni), he is aware of Sultan Agung’s inner thoughts and wishes. At crucial moments, he guides the sultan in religious and spiritual matters and in matters of love and kingship, opening his eyes, mind, and heart. Foretelling the future, he acts as a prophet. But he is also present in times of sadness and sorrow, when he consoles the persons concerned. This happens for instance when ruling king Anyakrawati is mortally wounded during a game hunt. After Sultan Agung and Ratu Kidul have honored him and the king has spoken his last words to them while subduing his pain, Sunan Kalijaga points him to the wide open gates of heaven. The king reads the Islamic profession of faith (syahadah) and praises the Lord in his prayers (IX-11), then passes away, accompanied by heavy rain and a stormy wind. That both Sunan Kalijaga and Ratu Kidul are present in Prabu Anyakrawati’s last hours is proof of the importance of both figures for the realm of Mataram and its history. Also important is that her father-in-law acknowledges Ratu Kidul to be the crown prince’s official spouse.
Another major feature of Sunan Kalijaga is his concern with the welfare of Mataram. In this respect, he – together with Ratu Kidul – is linked to a myth of origin. From the final canto we learn that the sunan instructs Sultan Agung (wĕlingira sunan Lepen; XXXV-15) to fetch rice grains from Champa (Cěmpa) and to sow them in order to provide for the Javanese. The rice is of such a high quality that it is suited to be made a royal delicacy (Pantěs dadya langěn aji; XXXV-22). After having distributed the grains among the bystanders who admired its beautiful shape, Sultan Agung retreats to the place of worship where Ratu Kidul appears before him. She proposes to clear the forest of Pamancingan (V-29).42 The sultan agrees, and orders his royal servants to do so and build the rice barn (lumbung) Layur. The first rice and the first coconuts are then planted (XXXV-31–33).
7 Ratu Kidul: “Now the Excellent One […] Will Assume the Royal Title”43
Divine predestination is the origin of Sultan Agung’s kingship. Since the crown prince needs access to yet another source of power before he becomes the sultan of Mataram, therefore his bond with the spirit world and its Queen of the Southern Ocean, Ratu Kidul, has been predestined too.
When the crown prince needs to secure the support of Ratu Kidul, the scene leading to their first meeting and their eventual union is recalled in detail. Firstly, the divine envoy Hyang Kaneka44 whispers the secret revelation to Ratu Kidul that her time to wed has come.45 Secondly, Sunan Kalijaga appears as intermediary between the crown prince and Ratu Kidul, revealing that their wedding is predestined (IV-8–24). He says with a smile that the sun and the moon will act as the wali,46 and he will be the witness (někseni) (IV-24). In this function, the sunan may remind us of the figure of Nabi Khadir (Ar. al-Khiḍr) who in the Sejarah Melayu acts as wali during the wedding ceremony of King Iskandar Zulkarnain (Ar. Dhū l-Qarnayn) and the princess of Kida Hindi (Ras 1968: 84). As Nabi Khadir (or Khidr), Sunan Kalijaga – the sunan who guards the river – is associated with the element “water.”47 It is the water that connects Sunan Kalijaga to Ratu Kidul and that may be the reason why in the Nitik tales these two characters frequently make their appearance jointly to support the crown prince/sultan.
Thirdly, the narrator introduces charismatic ancestors of the left dynastic line, whom the audiences would be very familiar with. In cooperation with the supreme Hindu-Buddhist god Bathara Guru, Sunan Kalijaga then prepares the crown prince and Ratu Kidul for the coming union. When the god and goddess of love enter their bodies, they become very much attracted to each other. Deeply in love, they go to Ratu Kidul’s underwater palace (IV-62 ff.).
As Ras (1986: 266) points out, the ruler’s alliance with Ratu Kidul represents
the story of the union of the founder of the dynasty with the princess ruling the waters and the Underworld. This is the central theme of the ancient Indonesian myth of origin found in many variations in texts concerned with the mythic past.
While Ras refers here to Senapati’s marriage to the Queen of the Southern Ocean, the same holds for Sultan Agung’s bond with Ratu Kidul and her bond with all future kings of Java. This is an instance of the correspondence between Paněmbahan Senapati and Sultan Agung in Javanese literary tradition. Also, the events preceding the wedding of the crown prince with the Queen of the Southern Ocean follow a pattern, which parallels Senapati’s story in the Babad Tanah Jawi.
When the crown prince enters the golden pavilion (V-1–5), Ratu Kidul is impressed by his excellence, an incarnation of the god Wisnu, embraced by the star of royal destiny (Tuhu yen jalma linuwih, titising Wisnu Bathara, pulung irhas pulětane; V-7). With this description, the storyteller introduces a pivotal scene:
With the title, the sultan acquires a new status and both worldly and spiritual power.51 This mythical support for Sultan Agung as a historical figure will be inherited by all future Javanese kings up to the present.
From this moment onwards, Sultan Agung authorizes Ratu Kidul and her female soldiers to join and accompany him on his travels, on the condition that they will remain invisible (V-48). With her supernatural power she sustains him in fulfilling his duty as the king of Mataram, in particular when conquering other regions and islands and converting the inhabitants to Islam. When Sultan Agung longs for an encounter with the Queen, he goes to Pamancingan at Java’s South Coast, where the Queen’s palace is located.
Several divine sources of power and wisdom supported the coming together of the crown prince and Ratu Kidul, culminating in their relationship of love, beauty, power, and royalty. As the examples show, not only does the unification involve the entire cosmos, but also the ancestors of the Javanese royal dynasty of the right – Islamic prophets and saints – and the left – Hindu-Buddhist gods and heroes – lines of descent. In contrast to the divine world, Ratu Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Ocean, represents another aspect of the Javanese realm, which is considered to be a center of power: the world of the spirits. She controls the destructive power of the underworld creatures, the spirits and ghosts. When Sultan Agung is able to make use of this power and turn its negative character into a positive one, he will become invincible. Taking her as his spouse enables him to profit from her sěkti. Ratu Kidul promises to assist and protect the king with her spirit army in times of difficulty and danger. Also, she predicts his future and the future of his heirs. The sultan and the queen form a perfect union and their relationship clearly has a political function. Ratu Kidul contributes to the sultan’s new status when in her presence and with the consent of the spirits, the sultan is given a royal title. She accompanies the sultan wherever he goes, as always invisible, but perceptible at ceremonies and rituals because of her fragrance. Her presence at Sultan Agung’s coronation ceremony as the Queen of Mataram adds luster and power to the event (XII). All the while, as the narrator underlines, for several reasons she is not the sultan’s equal.
In oral literature and folk tales, Ratu Kidul appears above all as the goddess Durga and as Dewi Sri. As Durga, she brings illness and death to those who do not respect her rules. As Dewi Sri, she is associated with a prosperous harvest, which can relate to the rice crop, fishing, or the gathering of swallows’ nests. The Sĕrat Babad Nitik features the Queen in both capacities. In the tale of the planting of the first rice plants and coconut trees, as mentioned above, Ratu Kidul acts as the goddess of fertility (XXXV).52 In another recension of the Nitik tales, with her destructive powers she controls a snake plague on the premises of Sultan Agung’s future burial place at Imagiri (Cod. Or. 6476: XV–XVI).
Whereas the outward appearance of the male characters in the Sěrat Babad Nitik does not receive detailed attention, the Queen’s excellent beauty is described elaborately and stereotypically in candra, descriptions of a person’s traits using metaphors, and features abundantly in the love scenes with Sultan Agung (e.g., in V-38). Considered to be an embodiment of Dewi Ratih, the beautiful love goddess, her outward appearance corresponds to the prototype of a Javanese princess.
The Queen of the Southern Ocean does not only provide the sultan with a royal title and military support. She also contributes to another significant aspect of kingship, namely the royal arts. Her dancers and pleasure-gardens are sources of inspiration to the sultan and form the origin of particular sacred court dances and music that become royal heirlooms (pusaka kraton). The coming into being of the Bědhaya Sěmang, the srimpi and the Gamělan Sěkaten in the presence of Ratu Kidul makes Sultan Agung a patron of the royal arts, “an act that defines and proves the kingship of the ruler” (Behrend 1993: 414).53
Like Sunan Kalijaga, Ratu Kidul is a personal adviser of the Sultan. When the Portugese invite Sultan Agung to solve the chaos in the Land of the Straits (nagari Sělat; XI-1) and he is about to be installed on the throne, Ratu Kidul intervenes. She reminds him of his duties in Mataram and reprimands him that he cannot possibly betray his faithful subjects there. Emotionally somewhat manipulative, she begs him to return to Java; she herself will take care of the peace in Sělat. Once the issue has been resolved, Sultan Agung will be installed on the throne in Singapura, Sělat and Mataram (XI-16–18).
8 The Pandhawas: “All of Them Passed Down Their Teachings”54
When the king is very worried – his younger brother died in the war with Pathi, there is unrest in the outer provinces (mancanagara) – every night he devotes himself to prayers (Yen dalu tansah akajad; XXI-2). In this period of despair, Sunan Kalijaga visits Sultan Agung in his place of worship. He is aware that the sultan is asking for superior powers (kaluwiyan) and admonishes him for this. You should request your forefathers to give you these powers, he says, referring to the Pandhawa brothers who dwell on the island of Brambang. Everything the sultan is looking for will be granted (XXI-5). An envoy is sent to Nusa Brambang to receive the teachings (XXI-6), but the Pandhawa brothers want to meet with Sultan Agung in person.
In Mataram, each member of the Pandhawas passes down a teaching to the sultan:
The contents of the magic formulas however are not revealed to the audiences, as only the king deserves to learn and possess them.
The Pandhawa brothers, representatives of the left line of descent, are main characters in the Mahabharata epic and heroes of the Javanese past. Known as courageous, heroic, resolute, powerful, firm, and magnanimous, they overcome all obstructions and hindrances they meet successfully (Sudibyoprono 1991: 375). If the king is given these qualities, it will empower his kingship. As an effect of cultural proximity, the Javanese audiences of the Sĕrat Nitik tales, to whom the history and the adventures of the Pandhawa brothers are very familiar from the performing arts and literature, and who identify with their heroic qualities, consider them exemplary characters and credible sources of authority.
When Hindu-Buddhist deities instruct Arjuna, the third Pandhawa, and his beloved Sumbadra, to enter the bodies of the crown prince and Ratu Kidul, there is an immediate effect: they are overcome by love, due to Arjuna’s magic love formula (aji asmaragama) (IV-36). Since Arjuna and Sumbadra, both very good looking and an ideal match, are themselves incarnations of God Wisnu and Goddess Sri,57 they bestow the crown prince and the Goddess of the Southern Ocean with the divine qualities of Wisnu and Sri (IV-31–36).
9 The One in Disguise: “I Have Been Granted Permission to Instruct You”58
My last example of an instruction to Sultan Agung concerns an event happening in Bantěn, where Sultan Agung has an encounter with a man in disguise ([a]mindha) (XVIII-15, 17). Radiant and in full glory, sitting on his golden throne and carried by his white, faithful, and powerful spirit-servant Juru Taman,59 Sultan Agung flies to Bantěn, where he wants to inspect the conditions. After an encounter with the king of Bantěn, the sultan wishes to return to Mataram but Juru Taman is nowhere to be seen (XVIII-7). As he relies on his spirit-servant to reach home, the sultan is distressed. He begins meditating, sitting on a stone and facing the direction of Mecca, hoping to be given a solution (XVIII-9). Suddenly, a refined middle-aged man appears in front of him, radiant like the full moon. The man who had just arrived speaks sweetly (XVIIII-10):
Hearing this, the sultan wonders how the One in Disguise was able to read his thoughts and feelings. He surrenders and is prepared to receive the man’s admonition. He also requests assistance in getting home (XVII-12). When asking who he is, the man does not want to reveal his identity, he just says (XVIII-13): “Stop being sad, you will receive the Lord’s compassion. I have been granted permission to instruct you.”60 He invites the sultan to come close to him and teaches him the true secret knowledge (Sasěngkran parama widya; XVIII-14). Then the concealed one speaks: “Hey sultan, here is my final request to you. When you are back in Mataram, embellish the grave of Sunan Bayat soon, as its condition is not yet proper.” After the sultan agrees, the man in disguise then discloses the truth to the one who had just been initiated (XVIII-15). After having told this intimate story, the narrator reflects on people’s discussions about the identity of the man in disguise:
Then, the narrator returns to his telling of the story: the man urges the sultan to enter the sleeve of his jacket and in the blink of an eye they arrive in Mataram (XVIII-18).
In this scene, the One in Disguise admonishes the sultan, pointing him to his erring conviction when he relies on the power of a spirit, which God (the God of Islam) does not approve of. A king should not fail in what he does! This reprimand stirs the sultan to show remorse and attain a state of perfect meditation. Only then can he receive the secret doctrine which he needs in order to strengthen his kingship. The man does not only instruct the sultan, he also uses his sěkti to bring the sultan back to Mataram in the sleeve of his jacket.
This passage, which is followed by the tale of the building of the burial place in Těmbayat,61 is an instance of oral storytelling as presented by the narrator on which the actual rendering in the Sĕrat Babad Nitik may have been based. After having told that the One in Disguise revealed his identity to the sultan – actually in this recension without revealing his name – in the following stanzas the narrator reflects on the telling of the tale. He refers to people’s various interpretations of the identity of the man with whom Sultan Agung had an encounter and about whom they argued, offering various suggestions, all of them credible authorities. Was it Sunan Bayat the First or the Third, who taught the sultan the secret teachings and brought him to Mataram? Others claimed that it was Sunan Kalijaga, and others again called the apparition a figure emerging from the power of the Immaterial One. The fact that, according to the storyteller, the meeting between the One in Disguise and Sultan Agung had been “the talk of the village,” puts their encounter in another perspective. The reference to its oral history links the scene to tradition and enhances the credibility of the tale.
10 Concluding Remarks
Having studied fragments of the Sĕrat Babad Nitik, we need to question what new insights we can gain from this exercise. First, I will focus on the rhetoric of persuasion and on ideas of power and authority as they are represented and claimed within the narrative.
The Nitik fragments I discussed in this article pre-eminently exemplify how much the narrator entwines motifs, ideologies, and characteristics of the Hindu-Buddhist and Muslim upperworld and the world of the spirits. The three spheres of belief are mutually inclusive and belong to the Javaneseness as displayed in specific Javanese literature written in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, Islam being the dominant religion at the Javanese courts.62 The fragments demonstrate how representatives of the upperworld, belonging to the left and right lines of descent, and the Queen of the spirit world are portrayed as interacting with the main protagonist and with each other. The narrator presents the readers of, and listeners to, the tales with extensive descriptions of the circumstances in which they pass on their words of power and wisdom. The contents of the messages, however, are usually not revealed to the audience. Secret knowledge is only given to the one who deserves to receive it. But the audiences know this.
We learn how the messengers of the powerful and wise words contribute to the development of the crown prince and have an impact on the history of Sultan Agung. They are shown supporting him by initiating him into kingship, giving him instructions, admonitions, advice, and a royal title, by teaching him the secret knowledge and passing down magic charms. Featuring their presence and performance, the narrator links the present (at the time of the writing and telling in the second half of the nineteenth century) to a glorious past, set in the first half of the seventeenth century. Belonging to the collective memory of the Javanese audiences, these messengers are staged to build credence with their charisma, status, extraordinary capacities and qualities, knowledge, wisdom and power, and their concern with Mataram’s welfare – all of this resonating in the person of the crown prince, the later Sultan Agung. The audiences are familiar with these sources from oral and written traditions, and this proximity enhances their credibility. Actually, all the characters I mentioned in this chapter appear in the Javanese court chronicles (Babad Tanah Jawi), parts of which have become well-known in popular drama and movies. References to oral testimonies and to authoritative texts are another means to build credence, to claim the authenticity of the tales and to authorize the telling.63 It seems (but this needs further investigation) that such references, together with the extensive descriptions of the meeting of the authoritative sources with Sultan Agung in the Nitik tales, may help us to unravel the composition processes and structure of these texts and their relations with the Javanese court chronicles. Most probably, the brief sequences on the history of Mataram are based on a version of the Babad Tanah Jawi64 and form the basic pattern, the axis of the Nitik tales. The very elaborate and lively narratives on the life and deeds of the crown prince, later to become Sultan Agung, provide the audiences with intimate information of another kind.65
In short, the analysis of the text fragments from the perspective of “source credibility” presents us with insights in late nineteenth-century world views regarding religiosity and spirituality that have been projected on the seventeenth-century life and deeds of Sultan Agung. The examples in this chapter show how rhetoric and style are tools that are used in the narrative for informative and persuasive aims.
Secondly, I would like to go into a few questions that are related to some of the Sĕrat Babad Nitik’s functions and its potential audiences: Why was it considered important in the second half of the nineteenth century to tell these tales about Sultan Agung and confirm his eminence? Why did he, the famous sultan, still have to be glorified? Who would have to be persuaded? In other words, who would have been the audiences of this Sĕrat Babad Nitik?
To begin with the latter, the readers and listeners are not easily traceable. A deeper knowledge of the circumstances at the Yogyakarta court at the time of the writing/copying of the manuscripts and the way the texts were dealt with are indispensable. However, references in the text and historical evidence may also give us some clues. We know that the Sultan Agung tales are meant to instruct the readers and listeners and to transmit knowledge. The text contained in the manuscript of Cod. Or. 6489a mentions this explicitly. It was written for or commissioned by the Ratu Agĕng, the royal spouse of the late Sultan Hamĕngku Buwana VI (r. 1855–77), with the intention to tell the story of the young Agung to her son, Sultan Hamĕngku Buwana VII (r. 1877–1921) and to set an example.66 Herewith we have identified one specific audience member. Since wulang, the didactic moralistic aspect, has a prominent place in the Sĕrat Babad Nitik, it is clear that Sultan Agung functions as a role model, in this case in particular for the sultan-to-be in the late 1870s. The tales explain and demonstrate the meaning of good leadership, as an example to the sultan’s descendants (Suradi 1991–92: 227). The text I analysed in this article (dated 1908) goes back to a copy written between 1873 and 1876.67 Sultan Hamĕngku Buwana VII was installed on the throne in 1877. Most probably, the Ratu Agĕng meant it to be an initiation in kingship for her eldest son before his inauguration.
There may be other reasons why the Ratu Agĕng considered the Sĕrat Babad Nitik significant for her son. For years, circles at the Yogyakarta court and Dutch officials had been questioning who was the legitimate heir to the throne: the eldest son of the Ratu Agĕng68 or his cousin (and maybe half-brother). A first conspiracy in 1864 and court intrigues complicated the matter (Kumar 1982: 253).69 Eventually, in 1872 the eldest son was appointed crown prince and his mother was raised to the rank of queen (ratu), becoming the (second) official wife of Hamĕngku Buwana VI (Houben 1994: 214). In this light, Anyakrawati’s last words after having taught his son as told in the Sĕrat Babad Nitik may be endowed with additional meaning if read from the perspective of the Ratu Agĕng: “Only you, my son, deserve to become the king of Java.”
The Sěrat Babad Nitik also targeted a wider audience, namely the present and future kings of Java. The wisdom and power of their ancestor Sultan Agung, acquired via the teachings of the credible authorities, “radiate” onto the contemporary rulers of the Central Javanese courts. As it says in the text, all the excellent kings in Yogyakarta, from the first king onwards, and in Surakarta, follow Sultan Agung’s conduct (XXXV-11). The tales confirm the power of the Mataram rulers and the heirs to the throne until now (now, at the time of the writing and telling), and emphasize the strong genealogical link with the founders of the dynasty.
Lastly, the Nitik tales present a Javanese narrative of a heroic past and a strong ruler in a period when the grip of the Dutch colonialists on local society had become increasingly firm. The colonial power intervened in internal administrative, military, economic, and judicial affairs, and even in royal weddings and successions to the throne (see Houben 1994; Sri Margana et al. 2018). As Sultan Agung is also remembered in Javanese historical tradition as the great conqueror, the pious Muslim and the opponent of the Dutch (Ricklefs 1974: 18), the Nitik tales may have been a source of mental support to the colonized Javanese. Emphasizing Sultan Agung’s belief, his quest for knowledge of Islamic sufism, and his Islamizing of the surrounding world, may have been perceived as a narrative of resistance, countering the narrative of the Dutch infidels, to those who were able to read or listen between the lines.70 This possibly justifies why the Nitik manuscripts continued to be copied until the early 1940s.
However, the Nitik tales must have had other functions as well. In this chapter, I have only focused on the scenes telling of the instructions with which the crown prince is prepared for kingship. As there are so many other scenes that contain messages and moods of a different kind and order, the audience range of the Sĕrat Babad Nitik must have been much wider. For sure, the tales must have been read and vocalized for entertainment purposes.
To conclude, I briefly want to mention one of the most important themes that come to the fore when studying Javanese texts, namely their rootedness in a specific place. It is this particular place and its characteristics that determine ideas on power and wisdom, grounded as they are in local culture. The sultan’s power and wisdom are closely connected to the geographical, political, and cultural spaces of the seventeenth-century Mataram kingdom and the Yogyakarta sultanate of the nineteenth century, its aura stretching to the courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta of the present day. Place also means Mecca, Rum and Stambul, for instance, as centers of Islam and spaces of power, indicating the connection between Java and the Middle East. It comprises the dwellings of the Hindu-Buddhist deities and the Queen of the spirits and the connotations these dwellings generate to the audiences. It includes the area of Yogyakarta where the stories of Sultan Agung were (and still are) told and the palaces of the Yogyakarta aristocracy where scribes created the manuscripts, as well as the realm of Mataram, enclosed by a wall of white cotton, said to be a locus of welfare and prosperity.
Acknowledgments
A heartfelt thanks goes to my “Java in Jerusalem” colleagues who commented extensively on earlier versions of this chapter and provided me with valuable suggestions. After my participation in the “New Directions in the Study of Javanese Literature” program, a Drewes Fellowship of the Leiden University Scaliger Institute enabled me to continue my research, for which I am grateful. Special thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers.
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Wieringa, Edwin P. 2018. “The Illustrated Asṭabrata in Pakualaman Manuscript Art.” In Traces of the Ramayana and Mahabharata in Javanese and Malay Literature, edited by Ding Choo Ming and Willem van der Molen. Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 180–215.
Since other versions of the text give either adoh marang ing murka (e.g., Cod. Or. 10.841) or adoh marang kamurkan (W.55), I prefer to translate adoh marang durmuka with “removed from greediness.”
[https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22595926.v1] I would like to thank Yosephin Apriastuti Rahayu for the (těmbang) performance of this stanza, and for her valuable suggestions for the interpretation of some obscure passages in the text.
Cod. Or. 6489a Canto XXXV: Asmaradana (38 stanzas). XXXV-1 = Canto XXXV stanza 1; [153] = page 153 in the manuscript.
In my English translation of the Javanese text fragments, I have not strictly adhered to the formal structure of the stanzas being characteristic of the macapat meter; hence I have not kept the verse line division of the Javanese original in my translation.
From paragraph 3 onwards referred to as Sĕrat Babad Nitik (the title of the text I use in this article) or Nitik tales or narratives. On the meaning of nitik, see Bogaerts 1990: 41–47; 2021: 642.
See De Graaf 1958 and Ricklefs 1998, who refer to contemporary sources to describe the sultan’s features, character, and reputation.
The stereotypical description of Mataram’s welfare in these stanzas does not comply with Ricklefs’ conclusions about the sultan, based on historical research (Ricklefs 1983: 41–42). See also Anderson (1990: 203).
The kandha, the introductory narrative of wayang kulit plays, presents a similar image (Moertono 1981: 38).
On Source Credibility Theory, see also Pratkanis and Gliner 2004–2005; Jowett and O’Donnell 2019.
On intermediality and familiarity, see Bogaerts 2016: 497–500.
Cf. Anderson 1990: 19–20 n. 8.
See Moertono’s evaluation of the work of Schrieke and De Graaf (Moertono 1981: 8–9). Moertono also builds on and criticizes the work of Pigeaud (several years). See further Koentjaraningrat 1980; Ras 1994; Ras 2001. Anderson’s study on language and power (1990) needs to be mentioned here, as well as Ricklefs (1974; also Ricklefs 1998). Behrend (1989) writes about the cosmic significance of the kraton. In his topographies of power, focusing on the management of power in Banyuwangi, East Java, during the Soeharto era, Beatty (2012: 173–74) builds on the work of the predecessors mentioned here.
In the period 1873–1876, when the original Sĕrat Babad Nitik manuscript was composed or copied, still called Constantinople by Europeans.
1646, according to Ricklefs 1998: 470.
Bědhaya is a female court dance; see Brakel-Papenhuijzen 1992 and Suharti 2015. The Bědhaya Lambangsari was performed at the Yogyakarta Kraton during the Uyon-Uyon Hadiluhung performance on December 28, 2020. In the kandha, the spoken introduction to the work (a creation of Sultan HB VII which was developed by Sultan HB VIII), and also at the official site of the Kraton, reference was made to the Sĕrat Babad Nitik as the source of this bědhaya. The dance depicts, however, the meeting of Paněmbahan Senapati with Kangjeng Ratu Kidul. See https://www.kratonjogja.id/peristiwa/129/uyon-uyon-hadiluhung-senin-pon-28-desember-2020 [last accessed January 2022]. This example demonstrates how stories about the relationship between Paněmbahan Senapati and Sultan Agung with Ratu Kidul are still part and parcel of the Javanese oral repertoire. It also shows that stories about Paněmbahan Senapati and Sultan Agung in Javanese literary tradition tend to be interchangeable (see Bogaerts 1990: 42–43).
“as a rule not didactic, but rather novelistic” (Pigeaud 1967: 88). Pigeaud’s first claim (“as a rule not didactic”) is very questionable, as I have demonstrated in this chapter and in Bogaerts 2021.
See Behrend 1993: 410, on the need to generate “a far more detailed and regionally particularistic picture of Javanese literary history.”
On the poetics of těmbang macapat, see Ras 1994a: 308–37; Arps 1992.
This is a term Finnegan (2005: 167) uses.
On Nitik as a genre, see Riyadi 1980, 1984, 2011; Bogaerts 1990: 41–47; Wieringa 1993.
See Bogaerts 2021.
The Leiden University Library manuscript Cod. Or. 6489a belongs to the Hazeu Collection of 1931. Entitled Sĕrat Babad Nitik, it is written in verse in Javanese script by Pangeran Arya Candra Nagara of Yogyakarta, and dated 1838 AJ (1908 CE). It consists of 37 cantos. Except for the colophon, the text of this manuscript is very closely related to the oldest existing manuscript found so far, the Sonobudoyo MSB S57, written between 19 July 1873 and 16 July 1876 (see Behrend 1990: 30–31).
Bogaerts (1990: 48–52) gives an overview of the related texts that are kept in the Leiden University Libraries. A digital overview and description of all registered Nitik manuscripts is under construction.
Tony Day’s chapter on the Sěrat Cěnthini explores the concept of the santri lělana elaborately.
Also called: sěkti.
Ricklefs refers here to the study of Soemarsaid Moertono in which he distinguishes between “the magical and religious implementation of kingship” and “the technical implementation of kingship” (see Moertono 1981).
Javanese kings trace their origins back to Adam. The left dynastic line (garis pangiwa) follows the genealogy of the Hindu-Buddhist deities and their descendants, to begin with the supreme God Bathara Guru or Shiva; the right line of descent (garis paněngěn) follows the Muslim lineage, to begin with the Prophet Muhammad. See Moertono 1981: 63–64; Florida 1995: 267; Wieringa 1999; Arps 2019.
When he receives his title in Ratu Kidul’s palace (V-8 and 9; see below).
They become engaged in a conflict with the Kurawa, their one hundred nephews, which leads to the Bratayudha war.
mung sira putraningsun / ingkang maděg sultan Matawis (I-29).
Ruler of the world. See footnote 50 on Anyakrakusuma.
Mrih mulyaning kanang rat (I-17). In the same way, at the time of writing, Sri Sultan HB X of Yogyakarta regularly conveyed his wise words (sabda) to the people of the Special Region of Yogyakarta by means of social media, his messages spoken in Javanese, solemn and wise, instructing the people to keep to the Covid-19 regulations – for their own safety and the well-being of the community.
“Darma is usually translated duty, a word that has unfortunate Christian overtones. It is really a caste or status-obligation: Being a satria, one acts as a satria. In a more general sense, it has some of the connotations of justice” (Anderson 1990: 52 n. 75).
For the Javanese original, see the example above (I-29).
See van der Molen 2015: 529–31 and Robson 2015: 649–51 for the Astabrata in the Old Javanese Ramayana. Wieringa 2018 focuses on later versions of the Eight Rules of Life from the Pakualaman court.
Wruhanira jěbeng iki, pasiyanira Hyang Suksma wus dhumawuh sira yěkti (Cod. Or. 6489a II-9). Hyang Suksma: one of the names of Bathara Guru, the supreme God (Gericke and Roorda 1901, 1: 790).
Literally: like a sheath into which the keris enters: Samana ing wanci pajar / titising kratyan marěngi / lan pasuk ing gama Islam / wrangka curiganya manjing / pantěs pinatut yěkti (II-9).
Quinn 2019 presents still other narrative traditions.
His holy grave in Kadilangu, which is close to Děmak in Central Java, has become a favorite pilgrimage site.
The title of Sunan, meaning “he who is revered,” was originally used for the Islamic saints (wali) only. Since the eighteenth century, rulers of the Mataram dynasty have adopted the title. See Florida 1995: 95.
Donga nurbuwat: the prayer of kingship.
Pamancingan is a place close to the entrance of Ratu Kidul’s underwater palace.
Ing mangke sang sudibya / raja putra ing Matarum / sisilih nami narendra (V-8).
In some instances, reference is made to Hyang Kanekaputra, Hyang Kaneka’s son, better known as Bathara Narada. In Canto IV the names Narada and Hyang Kaneka are used alternately. Also: Rěsi Kaneka.
Sung wangsit / yen kinen akrami / wus mangsane iku (Cod. Or. 6489a III-6).
Guardian to the bride (another meaning of the word ‘wali’).
Meyer (this volume) explains the origin of Sunan Kalijaga’s name. On Iskandar tales, see Ricklefs and Arps (both this volume).
Verena Meyer suggested this term is derived from the Arabic shamsu ’l-rijāl (elided to shamsurrijal).
Sultan Agung: Great Sultan.
Ruler of the universe. According to de Graaf (1953: 80), the names Anyakrawati and Anyakrakusuma are linked to Sunan Bonang, “the most famous saint” among the nine wali (Sugahara, this volume). This connection augments the spiritual prestige of the Javanese monarchs. See also Florida (1995: 95) about the name/title Anyakrakusuma designating (universal) overlordship.
In 1641, the king of Mataram sent an envoy to Mecca in order to obtain the Islamic title of Sultan (Pigeaud and De Graaf 1976: 49).
Beatty (2012: 180) refers to the sěblang trance dance of Bakungan, close to the East Javanese Banyuwangi, in which the first clearing of the forest and planting of the rice is enacted. The local interpretation of this enactment suggests a parallel with the first rice planting of Ratu Kidul and Sultan Agung.
In 2020, the rehearsal of the sacred Bědhaya Sěmang was resumed at the Kraton of Yogyakarta (written communication with Theresia Suharti).
Sadaya angsung wasiyat (XXI-10).
In the Javanese text Arjuna is also called Parta.
On nafi or napi isbat, see Drewes 1968: 215 ff.; Arps 2019: 9; Florida 2019: 169. It is interesting that the Pandhawas as representatives of the left line of descent pass on a teaching belonging to the Islamic right line.
Wisnu is the son of the supreme God Bathara Guru; Sri is Wisnu’s spouse.
wus pinarěng ulun kiye / mějang dhatěng sireku (XVIII-14).
Also called Laweyan Putih (White Spirit), he used to serve Paněmbahan Senapati (XVII-2).
Wus pinarěng ulun kiye / mějang dhatěng sireku (XVIII-14).
The Central Javanese Těmbayat is the location where Sunan Bayat resided. His grave has become a popular pilgrimage site until now. Těmbayat was the centre of rebellion against the kings of Pajang.
Ras (1992: 291) writes that “in Javanese culture, the Hindu heritage and the new religious faith of Islam are to be considered as inseparable as the ancestral couple of the pedigree.” Also, according to Ras (1992: 295), Javanese court life will of necessity always be an aesthetic compromise between ancient cultural traditions and modern Islam, since Javanese kingship has its roots in the pre-Islamic past. Ricklefs (2006: 222–23) uses the term “reconciliation of identities.” He calls it “a trade-off between two quite different ways of looking at the phenomenal and eternal worlds.” But, there is “no abandonment of older cultural forms” (Ricklefs 2006: 223–24). He also uses the term “mystic synthesis” (2006: 221–22; this volume), on which I have commented above. Wieringa (2018: 184) uses the verb “redefined” when he refers to the relation between “the age-old Indic tradition” and the “Islamicate environment”; Arps (2019: 15, 22) uses the term “compatible” for the link between Buddhic and Islamic ideas and knowledge; for various reasons, Wieringa and Arps do not incorporate the forces of the spirit world into their analysis. Florida (forthcoming) calls the coming together of the spheres of Hindu-Buddhist beliefs, Islam, and the Javanese spirit world “a tradition of dialogic encounters.”
I have not discussed the references to authoritative written texts in this article. For an extensive comparison of the scenes featuring Ratu Kidul in the Babad Tanah Jawi and the Sěrat Nitik Sultan Agung, see Bogaerts 1990.
Maybe the Yogyakarta Babad Kraton, but this needs to be investigated still.
See Rinkes (1911: 490): “onderwerpen van meer intiemen aard uit het leven der vorsten […] en die in de officiëele Babad Tanah Djawi niet ter sprake komen.”
Cod. Or. 6489a I-3: marmanira anĕdhak Srat Babad Nitik / yogya karya darsana (the reason why the Sĕrat Babad Nitik was copied, was that it was appropriate to set an example). The first canto (stanzas 4–6) contains a reference to the Ratu Agěng. The exact dating of the original text that was commissioned by the Ratu Agěng needs more investigation.
The use of the word anĕdhak (to copy) (see previous footnote) may indicate that this nineteenth century text was copied from an older text.
Then not yet having this title, but called Raden Ayu Sěpuh (Houben 1994: 214).
The crown prince’s competitor, his mother, and his following continued to claim the throne, which in 1883 led to the so called Suryengalagan affair (Kumar 1982).
See also Bogaerts (1990: 45).