general traditional symbols.
In Cantos VI to VIII, the
theme is substantially developed in the story of the search
for signs and portents, that was supposedly carried out. by the servants of Dipanegara»
Tjakranegara inherited the Javanese world view which held that king, country and heaven were sympathetically attuned to each other, and that when the cosmic order approached its periodic destruction, decay spread in the world, and kings were totally evil and rapacious,1
.According to this view, the messiahs, and the kings of the Golden Age, were unassailable and their kingdoms were strong and illustrious. Tradition described such kingdoms in the following terms:
gede obore padang djagade d uw ur kukus e
great is its torch radiant is its realm high rising its smoke adoh kuntjarane - far-reaching its fame. The evil king, on the contrary, was cruel, profligate and always drunk, He neglected administration, and the people fled from his kingdom. Moreover, the country was continually devastated by earthquakes, storms, floods and showers of ashes. There were eclipses of the sun and moon and other omens. These portents and the uncontrolled
behaviour of the king were considered by Javanese tradition to signal the impending downfall and destruction of a kingdom
See section on the Javanese Messianic tradition, S, Moerto.no, op.cit., p.6l.
T h e p o s t - G i a n t i period in J a v a n e s e h i s t o r y seems to h a v e b e e n r e g a r d e d as such a 'bad' era, and J a v a n e s e came to h o p e for a p e r i o d of d e s t r u c t i o n w h i c h w o u l d s w e e p away
2
the p r o b l e m s that h a d a c c r u e d . W h e n the Java W a r came in 1825, m a n y m u s t h a v e w e l c o m e d it as a ’clea n s i n g ' war, w h i c h p r o m i s e d to r e j u v e n a t e s o c i e t y u n d e r the l e a d e r s h i p of its m e s s i a h . T j a k r a n e g a r a also saw the p e r i o d before the J a v a W a r as e s s e n t i a l l y 'bad' , a n d he u s e s t r a d i t i o n a l m o t i f s to c o m m u n i c a t e the view that the k i n g d o m of M a t a r a m w a s d o o m e d to d e s t r u c t i o n .
I n C a n t o I he speaks of the c o m i n g of G o d ’s j u d g e m e n t in the fo r m of a d e v a s t a t i n g storm. S u c h s t o r m s w e r e
c o n s i d e r e d p o r t e n t s o f bad t i m e s and it seem e d to be no c o i n c i d e n c e that, as a r e s u l t , S u l t a n S e p u h w a s e x i l e d fr o m
3
his k i n g d o m . The r e i g n o f D j a r o t , D i p a n e g a r a 's brother, w a s fo r T j a k r a n e g a r a e v e n m o r e o m i n o u s and his a c c o u n t of
the r e i g n is s t r o n g l y i n f l u e n c e d b y the t r a d i t i o n a l m o t i f s of the 'bad' king. D j a r o t w a s s t i l l quite y o u n g w h e n he ca m e to the throne in I8l4. W i t h the c o n n i v a n c e of his m o t h e r he came to lead a m o s t p r o f l i g a t e life, c o n s o r t i n g w i t h the m o s t b e a u t i f u l g i r l s in the k i n g d o m . He w a s
s u r r o u n d e d by the m o s t e x p e n s i v e l u x u r i e s and he amu s e d h i m s e l f w i t h fine clothes, p e r f u m e s , a r o m a t i c oils, the