Pararaton

The Pararaton, also known as the Book of Kings, is a Javanese chronicle[1]:187 in the Kawi language. The comparatively short text of 32 folio-size pages (1126 lines) contains the history of the kings of Singhasari and Majapahit in eastern Java. The book is also called "Pustaka Raja", which is Sanskrit for "book king", or "book of kings".

Pararaton opens with a formal incarnation of the founder of Singhasari kingdom (1222–1292), Ken Arok (or Ken Angrok).[2] Almost half of the manuscript is the story of Ken Arok's career before his accession to the throne in 1222. This part is clearly mythical in character. There then follow a number of shorter narrative fragments in chronological order. Many of the events recorded here are dated. Towards the end the pieces of history become shorter and shorter and are mixed with genealogical information concerning the members of the royal family of Majapahit.

The importance of the Angrok story is not only indicated by its length, but also by the fact that it furnishes an alternative name: Serat Pararaton atawa Katuturanira Ken Angrok or "The Book of Genealogy or the Recorded Story about Ken Angrok". Since the oldest colophon in the manuscripts contains the date 1522 Saka (1600 CE), the final part of the text must have been written between 1481 and 1600 CE.

Prelude

Pararaton commences with a brief prelude telling how Ken Arok incarnated himself in which he became the king.[2] He offered himself as a human sacrifice to Yamadipati, the Javanese Door God, in order to save himself from death. As a reward, he was promised that upon his death he would return to Vishnu's heaven and be reborn as a superior king of Singhasari.

The promise was fulfilled. Ken Arok was begotten by Brahma of a newly-wed peasant woman. On his birth, his mother laid him in a graveyard where his body, effulgent with light, attracted the attention of Ki Lembong, a passing thief. Ki Lembong adopted him, raised him and taught him all of his arts. Ken Arok indulged in gambling, plunder and rapine. In the manuscript, it is written as such that Ken Arok was saved many times by divine intervention. There is a scene in Mount Kryar Lejar wherein gods descend in conference and Batara Guru (Shiva) declares Ken Arok his son. Ken Arok is also destined to bring stability and power to Java.

The prelude of Pararaton is followed by the meeting of Ken Arok with Lohgawe, a Brahmanian who came from India to make sure Batara Guru's instructions were fulfilled. It was Lohgawe who asked Ken Arok to meet Tunggul Ametung, ruler of Tumapel. Ken Arok then killed Tunggul Ametung to gain possession of Ametung's wife, Ken Dedes, and also the throne to Singashari.

Analysis of the manuscript

Some parts of Pararaton cannot be accounted as historical facts. Especially in the prelude, fact and fiction, fantasy and reality go together. Scholars such as C. C. Berg argued that texts such as these are entirely supernatural and ahistorical, and intended not to record the past, but instead determine future events.[lower-roman 1] However, the majority of scholars accept some historicity in the Pararaton, noting numerous correspondences with other inscriptions and Chinese sources, and accept the manuscript's frame of reference within which a valid interpretation is conceivable.[2]

The manuscript was written under the nature of Javanese kingship. For Javanese, it is the function of the ruler to link the present with the past and the future and to give human life its appropriate place in the cosmic order. The king, in the Javanese realm, is the sacral embodiment of the total state, just as his palace is a microcosmic copy of the macrocosmos.[2] The king (and a founder of a dynasty) possesses an innate divinity to a far higher degree than ordinary men.

Ras compared the Pararaton with the Sanskrit Canggal inscription (732 CE), the Śivagŗha (Siwagrha) inscription (856 CE), the Calcutta Stone (1041 CE) and the Babad Tanah Jawi (1836 CE). These show clear similarities in character, structure and function and also similarity with texts from the Malay historiography.[5]

It describes a violent volcanic eruption in 416 AD in the Sunda Strait area, though the known eruption nearest this date was that of Krakatoa in 536: see 416 AD eruption of Krakatoa.

Notes

  1. ↑ [3] cited in [4](pp18 and 311)

References

  1. ↑ Cœdès, George (1968). The Indianized states of Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824803681.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Johns, A. H. (1964). "The Role of Structural Organisation and Myth in Javanese Historiography". The Journal of Asian Studies 24: 91. doi:10.2307/2050416. JSTOR 2050416.
  3. ↑ C. C. Berg. Het rijk van de vijfvoudige Buddha (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, vol. 69, no. 1) Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1962
  4. ↑ Ricklefs, Merle Calvin (1993). A history of modern Indonesia since c. 1300 (2nd ed.). Stanford University Press / Macmillans. ISBN 9780804721950.
  5. ↑ J.J. Ras, 2001, Sacral kingship in Java. In: Marijke J. Klokke and Karel R. van Kooij (eds.), Fruits of inspiration. Studies in honour of Prof. J.G. de Casparis, pp. 373-388. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2001. [Gonda Indological Studies 11.] ISBN 90-6980-137-X

Further reading

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