Chronicle
The Chronicle of Java
Babad Tanah Jawi
Anonymous · 1700
Synopsis
The genealogy of the kings of Java, from Adam, given as an ancestor of the god Bathara Guru, through the Hindu deities and the prophets, down to the rulers of Majapahit, Demak and Pajang, and then to the founding of the kingdom of Mataram. Muslim saints convert the island to Islam. It follows Senapati, presented as a descendant of the last king of Majapahit, who receives the support of the queen of the southern seas, Nyai Rara Kidul; omens, dreams and prodigies foretell the fall of some and the rise of others.
Context
The title covers numerous manuscripts in Javanese verse, none of which is earlier than the eighteenth century: one family goes back to a scribe of the court of Surakarta under Pakubuwana III, another to Carik Adilangu II, whose oldest manuscript dates from 1722. The prose version published by Meinsma in 1874 was composed in Surakarta, from 1837, by Ngabehi Kertapraja for the Institute of the Javanese Language; a revision by C. F. Winter was translated into English in 2022. Balai Pustaka published the versified text in thirty-one volumes from 1939 to 1941.
Who it is for
A long, genealogical chronicle, to be consulted by sections; historians read it with caution, so thoroughly does myth mingle with fact in it.
Prizes and reception
Published in prose in 1874, translated into Dutch by Olthof in 1941 and into English by Remmelink in 2022, it remains a disputed source for the history of Java.