The Majapahit era

In 1289 the Javanese king Kertanagara maltreated Kublai Khan’s envoy, who had been sent to demand the king’s submission. The Mongol emperor organized a punitive expedition in 1292, but Kertanagara was killed by a Kadiri rebel, Jayakatwang, before the invaders landed. Jayakatwang in his turn was quickly overthrown by Kertanagara’s son-in-law, later known as Kertarajasa, who used the Mongols to his own advantage and then forced them to withdraw in confusion. The capital city of the kingdom was moved to Majapahit. For some years the new ruler and his son, who regarded themselves as successors of Kertanagara, had to suppress rebellions in Java; not until 1319 was Majapahit’s authority firmly established in Java with the assistance of the renowned soldier Gajah Mada. Gajah Mada was the chief officer of state during the reign of Kertanagara’s daughter Tribhuvana (c. 1328–50), and in these years Javanese influence was restored in Bali, Sumatra, and Borneo. Kertanagara’s great-grandson, Hayam Wuruk, became king in 1350 under the name Rajasanagara.

Hayam Wuruk’s reign (1350–89) is remembered in the archipelago as the most glorious period in Javanese history. Prapancha’s poem the Nagarakertagama provides a rare glimpse of the kingdom from a 14th-century point of view. The poem, originally called the Desa warnana (“The Description of the Country”), describes itself as a “literary temple” and endeavours to show how royal divinity permeates the world, cleansing it of impurities and enabling all to fulfill their obligations to the gods and therefore to the holy land—the now undivided kingdom of Java. The poem resembles an act of worship rather than a chronicle. The poet does not conceal his intention of venerating the king, and, in the tradition of Javanese poetry, he may have begun it under the stimulus of pious meditation intended to bring him into contact with the divinity that was embodied in the king.

The core territories of Hayam Wuruk’s polity were probably considerably more extensive than those of his predecessors. Important territorial rulers, bound to the royal family by marriage, were brought under surveillance through their incorporation into the court administration. Although a network of royal religious foundations was centred in the capital, it remains unclear whether a more centralized and enduring structure of government was introduced or whether the unity of the realm and the ruler’s authority still depended on the ruler’s personal prestige. Prapancha, at least, did not ascribe to Hayam Wuruk an unrealistic degree of authority, even though his poem is an undisguised representation of the attributes of royal divinity and the effects of divine rule in Java. In their travels around the kingdom, subordinate officials asserted their royal authority in such matters as taxes and the control of religious foundations. A sign of the king’s prestige was his decision to undertake a land survey to ensure that his subjects’ privileges were being maintained. In the absence of an elaborate system of administration, the authority of the government was strengthened by the ubiquity of its representatives, and no one set a more strenuous example than the king himself. According to Prapancha, “the prince was not for long in the royal residence,” and much of the poem is an account of royal progresses. In this way Hayam Wuruk was able to assert his influence in restless areas, enforce homage from territorial lords, reassure village elders by his visits, verify land rights, collect tribute, visit holy men in the countryside for his own spiritual enlightenment, and worship at Mahayana, Shaivite, and ancient Javanese holy sites. His indefatigable traveling, at least in the earlier years of his reign, meant that many of his subjects had the opportunity to come into the presence of one whom they regarded as the receptacle of divinity.

One of the most interesting sections of the Nagarakertagama concerns the annual New Year ceremony, when the purifying powers of the king were reinforced by the administration of holy water. The ceremony, attended by scholarly Indian visitors, enabled the poet to assert that the only famous countries were Java and India because both contained many religious experts. At no time in the year was the king’s religious role more emphatically recognized than at the New Year, when the notables of the kingdom, the envoys of vassals, and village leaders went to Majapahit to pay homage and to be reminded of their duties. The ceremony ended with speeches to the visitors on the need to keep the peace and maintain the rice fields. The king explained that only when the capital was supported by the countryside was it safe from attack by “foreign islands.”

Since the poem venerates the king, it is not surprising that more than 80 places in the archipelago are described as vassal territories and that the mainland kingdoms, with the exception of Vietnam, are said to be protected by the king. Prapancha, believing that the king’s glory extended in all directions, delineated in detail what he perceived to be the limits of relevant space. No fewer than 25 places in Sumatra are noted, and the Moluccas, whose spices and other products were a source of royal wealth, are well represented. On the other hand, northern Celebes (Sulawesi) and the Philippines are not mentioned.

During Hayam Wuruk’s lifetime Javanese overseas prestige was undoubtedly considerable, though the king demanded no more than homage and tribute from his more important vassals, such as the ruler of Malayu in Sumatra. In 1377, when a new Malayu ruler dared to seek investiture from the founder of the Ming dynasty in China, Hayam Wuruk’s envoys in Nanking convinced the emperor that Malayu was not an independent country. Javanese influence in the archipelago, however, depended on the ruler’s authority in Java itself. When Hayam Wuruk died in 1389, the Palembang ruler in southeastern Sumatra saw an opportunity to repudiate his vassal status. He had noted the Ming dynasty’s restoration of the long-abandoned tributary trading system and its prohibition of Chinese voyages to Southeast Asia and supposed that foreign traders would again need the sort of entrepôt facilities in western Indonesia that Srivijaya-Palembang had provided centuries earlier. He may even have announced himself as a bodhisattva and heir of the maharajas of Srivijaya. The Javanese expelled him from Palembang, and he fled to Singapore and then to Malacca on the Malay Peninsula.