If the backwash of great political events or religious discussion when the Islām superseded older creeds, may have aided Kala, the Destroyer, in demolishing a good many buildings of the classical period, whose sites even are sought in vain, it is certain that the pioneers of western civilisation, proud of their superiority, willfully and wantonly undid in many places work that had been spared by time and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and enemies born of the soil, devastating with fire and sword their brethren’s hearths and houses. Christian zealots regarded the ancient monuments as assembly-rooms of the Devil where the benighted heathen used to foregather in idolatry, lodges of abomination the sooner razed the better, a pious feeling often translated into action on grounds of utility: the stones offered excellent building material. Officials and particulieren[52] of broader views, besides acknowledging the serviceableness of chandis in this respect, went recho-hunting[53] for the adornment of their houses and gardens. Quite a collection has been formed in the residency grounds at Jogjakarta, the nucleus of which was moved thither from the estate Tanjong Tirta, whose former occupants, like most of the landed gentry, made exceedingly free with the temples and monasteries in that neighbourhood. As neither they nor the others bothered about noting where they got this or that piece of sculpture, we are entirely at sea concerning the meaning of several beautiful statues. This is the case, e.g., with one of remarkably fine execution, a crowned goddess, sitting on a lotus cushion and encircled by a flaming aureole, pressing her hands to her bosom. She has been fortunate enough to escape the fate of some deities who shared her sequestration and were left to the care of the convicts detailed to keep the Resident’s compound in trim, a duty performed by whitewashing or daubing them with a grayish substance, excepting the hair of the head, the eyebrows, the eyeballs and the prabha, which the gentlemen-artists of the chain-gang are in the habit of painting black, enhancing the general effect by “restoring” lost hands and feet and damaged faces after methods nothing short of barbarous, but therefore the better in keeping with the traditional attitude of those in authority. For this infamous disfiguration and desecration, which makes any one unaccustomed to Dutch East Indian processes shudder with horror, never disturbed the aesthetic sense or equanimity of the several occupants of the residency who, during the last thirty-five years, saw it going on under their very eyes, the eyes of the representatives of a Government lavish in circulars[54] recommending the country’s antiquities to their care. Neither are those eyes shocked by the “museum” adjoining the residency, a jumble of plunder from chandis far and near; nor by the chaotic mass of torsos, arms and legs, fragmentary evidence of wholesale spoliation behind that pitiful exhibition of archaeology turned topsyturvy.
So much for the statuary removed from the chandis, as far as it can be traced. Concerning the chandis themselves, it should be remembered that the greater part has wholly disappeared. Hillocks, overspread with brushwood, sometimes awaken hopes that by digging foundations and portions of walls may be discovered; heaps of debris, tenanted by lizards and snakes, point to structures of which nothing that is left, indicates the former use; shattered ornamental stones speak of magnificent buildings fallen or pulled down—glimmerings of splendour that was. The temples still standing are reduced to ruins and diminish almost visibly in attractiveness and size. Rouffaer[55] gave an interesting example of their fate in the story of the spiriting away of the chandi Darawati: in 1889 tolerably well preserved, though two large statues of the Buddha had been dragged off to the dwelling of a European in the dessa Gedaren, it was gone in 1894—vanished into air! The temples constructed of brick, like the chandi Abang, have suffered even more, of course, than those of stone, the memory of whose grandeur is retained in a few ghastly wrecks. Reserving the Buddhist remains for later treatment and passing by the Sivaïte caves with rectangular porches in the Bagelen, mentioned by Fergusson, I shall deal here with the chandis Suku and Cheto, and the most noteworthy ruins in the southern mountains. The latter comprise the kraton of Ratu Boko, Mboq Loro Jonggrang’s father, as the natives call it, and the temple group of the Gunoong Ijo. Of the legendary kingly residence little more is left than a square terrace with portions of a wall and the sill of a gate. The chandi Ijo consists of a large temple of the usual polygonal form with ten smaller ones and a pit which contained two stone receptacles and strips of gold-leaf with the image of a deity and an inscription; the buildings are in a sad condition, but decay has not impaired their beauteous dignity and the landscape alone repays a visit to Soro Gedoog, an estate whose gradual reclamation of the jungle led to their discovery in 1886 when ground was cleared for an extension of the plantations.
The chandis Suku and Cheto are situated respectively on the western and northern slope of the Gunoong Lawu, a volcano on the boundary between Surakarta and Madioon, not less expressive in its scenery of what heaven has done for this delicious island. Shortly after the mysterious pyramids of Suku had drawn the attention of Resident Johnson, in the British Interregnum, Thomas Horsfield visited them and made some drawings. The inscriptions and the sculptured ornament of Cheto were reported upon by C. J. van der Vlis, in 1842. The groups belong to the latest, most decadent period of Hindu architecture in Java and their foundation, Suku being a few years older than Cheto, must have coincided with the introduction of the Islām. Bondowoso, the son of the recluse Damar Moyo, who assisted the King of Pengging against Ratu Boko and took such signal revenge upon the latter’s daughter, Loro Jonggrang, for rejecting him, the uncouth slayer of her father, is supposed to have erected the buildings at Suku. Those at Cheto owe their origin to a prince of Mojopahit, who quarrelled with his brother, the ruler of that empire, or, according to another legend, to a certain Kiahi Patiro, who refused to become a convert to the new faith and repaired to the Lawu, where he lived as a hermit and was killed by Pragiwongso, an emissary of the Moslim King of Demak. Linga-worship returned in the temple groups of the Lawu to its crudest modes of expression, and Fergusson, who mentions the dates 1435 and 1440, speaks of a degraded form of the Vishnuïte religion, the garuda,[56] the boar, the tortoise, etc., being of frequent occurrence in the ornamentation. Junghuhn described the staircases he found, which connected the terraces, and the statues, which hardly came up to the artistic standard of Prambanan and the Boro Budoor, one of them distinguishing itself by a colossal head whose measurement from chin to crown was three feet, half of the whole height. Comparing his description with the actual state of things, much must have been removed, heaven knows whither! Notwithstanding the obvious truth of Fergusson’s remark that a proper illustration of Suku and Cheto, and, I may be permitted to add, of the remains on the summit of the mountain, whether originally tree-temples or consecrated to devotional exercises in the open, à l’instar of West Java, promises to be of great importance to the history of architecture in the island, very little has been done in that direction or even for the conservation of the ruins where recho-hunters and a luxurious vegetation vie in obliterating the traces of most interesting antiquities. Junghuhn sounded a note of warning apropos of the falling in of the peculiarly constructed pyramidal temple, May 1838, but this and the other monuments have been suffered since, as before, to crumble quietly away and the easily removable sculpture to be carried off. Ganesa, in his manifold reproductions, seconds on the Lawu his father Siva, head of the Trimoorti, continuing the lead obtained seven centuries earlier in the plain of Prambanan, and a systematic study of the reliefs, now covered with moss and lichens, might shed a good deal of light on several unsettled questions. One of those reliefs, blending the human and the divine in the manner of the allusions to the Brata Yuda on the Diëng plateau and the Rama legend on the walls of the chandi Loro Jonggrang, represents a complete armoury, with Ganesa, protector of arts and crafts, between the armourer himself and his assistant who works the bellows. If, with Rouffaer, we divide the long era during which the Hindus, first as immigrants and then as rulers, merged gradually in the aboriginal population, into a Hindu-Javanese period of Central Java and a Javanese-Hindu period of East Java, the monuments of Suku and Cheto belong evidently to the epoch of Javanese-Hindu decline, decadent art flowing back to its classical source, tarnishing original Hindu-Javanese conceptions. Leaving Buddhist architecture to be dealt with in the last chapters, and before turning to the chandis of East Java, a short historical review may aid in the appreciation of this decline and subsequent paralysis of the creative faculty. Kartikeya, the god of war, a younger son of Siva and Parvati, had his strong hand in this, and how he invested and divested mighty princes, who conquered or were defeated and finally passed away, causing the rise and fall of glorious kingdoms, is written in the babads, the Javanese chronicles, by no means such old wives’ tales as Dominee Valentijn tried to make them out, but containing in their extravagance a kernel of stern reality, not the less explanatory of the condition of the fairy island Java because the magnanimes mensonges of a vivid imagination animate the dull facts.
Of the Hindu empire Mataram in Central Java nothing tangible is left except the ruins referred to, a few objects in metal and stone, accidentally unearthed or dug up by treasure-seekers, and some inscriptions, title-deeds, etc., the scanty “genuine charters of Java” as van Limburg Brouwer defined them. The name Mataram has been preserved on a copper plate, dating from about 900, which agrees in this respect with four other records, discovered in East Java; the capital of the Maharaja i Mataram is called Medang. For two centuries, from the beginning of the eighth until the beginning of the tenth, Mataram seems to have flourished as the most powerful state in the island, especially aggressive towards the east. Native tradition, in fond exaggeration of her importance, makes her sway the destinies of the world. Her star waned suddenly; by what cause is unknown; but whether it was the invasion of a mightier enemy or a natural catastrophe, the same as that which overtook the builders of the Diëng and the plain of Prambanan, forcing them to leave their work unfinished, ancient Mataram sank into insignificance. From the middle of the tenth until the beginning of the sixteenth century, the successors of her former eastern vassals, that is whichever of them happened to be on top in the continual struggle for supremacy, did in East and Central Java as they pleased, warring, intermarrying, annexing their neighbours’ domains, only to lose them again and their own kingdoms to boot, to usurpers, ambitious ministers, popular governors of provinces, enterprising condottieri or mere adventurers favoured by Dame Fortune. In that overflowing arena of high rivalry, dynasties succeeding one another with amazing rapidity, Daha, situated in what is now Kediri, secured paramount influence after Kahuripan, situated in what is now Southern Surabaya; then Tumapel, situated in what is now Pasuruan, became ascendant; then Daha once more and, last of the great Hindu empires, Mojopahit, about 1300, to be overthrown, after two centuries of preponderance, by the sword of Islām. Jayabaya, King of Daha, from about 1130 till about 1160, has been called[57] the Charlemagne of Java, in whose reign learning and letters were encouraged; or the Javanese King Arthur, whose life among his heroes, in peace and war, is reflected in the idylls of the Panji-cycle, at whose Court the famous poet Mpu Sedah began his version of the Mahabharata, the Brata Yuda, finished by Mpu Panulooh, author of the Gatotkachasraya, while Tanakoong wrote the Wretta-Sansaya, a sort of Epistola de Arte Poetica. When Tumapel expanded, especially under Ken Angrok, troublous times arrived for Daha, which could hardly hold her own against the encroachments of that unscrupulous monarch. Ken Angrok or Arok, born in 1182 at Singosari, had seized the royal power after assassinating the old King in 1222 or 1223. The kris he used, had been ordered expressly for that deed from the famous armourer Mpu Gandring, who was its first victim because he tarried in delivering it, the tempering of the steel having taken more time than suited the usurper’s patience. Dying under the murderous stroke, Mpu Gandring uttered a prophetic curse: This kris will kill Ken Angrok; it will kill his children and grandchildren; it will kill seven kings. The prophecy came true with wonderful exactness. Ken Angrok having married Dedes, the widow of the old King he had despatched, was himself killed as the third victim of Mpu Gandring’s kris in the hand of a bravo commissioned by their son Anusapati, the Hamlet of Javanese history. And how blood followed blood during the hundred years of Tumapel’s hegemony, how Ken Angrok’s descendants harassed their neighbours before the curse took effect upon each of them, appearing like luminous stars in the sky of politics and war, and then disappearing behind the shadowy cloud of untimely death, is it not written in the Pararaton or Book of the Kings of Tumapel and Mojopahit?
The foundation of Mojopahit has been attributed to scions of several royal families, among them to Raden Tanduran, a prince of Pajajaran in West Java which, it will be remembered, owed its origin to princes of Tumapel. The most widely accepted reading is, however, that a certain Raden Wijaya, commander of the army of King Kertanegara, great-grandson of Ken Angrok, profiting from his master’s quarrels with Jaya Katong, ruler of Daha in those days, carved out a kingdom for himself, reclaiming, always with that end in view, a large area of wild land, Mojo Lengko or Mojo Lengu, near Tarik in Wirosobo, the present Mojokerto. King Kertanegara who, by branding the Chinese envoy Meng Ki, had stirred up trouble with the Flowery Empire, was unable to punish this act of arrogance, and his violent death in a battle won by the legions of Daha, meant the inglorious end of Tumapel. This happened in 1292 and the expeditionary force sent from China to chastise him for his ungracious treatment of ambassadors to his Court, consequently found their object accomplished or, more correctly speaking, unaccomplishable when landing in 1293. But its leader indemnified his martial ardour by entering the service of Raden Wijaya who, with his assistance, subjugated Daha, which had tried to reassume her former precedence. Firmly established on the throne of the realm he had fashioned out of Daha, Tumapel and his own territory near Tarik, he refused, however, to pay the price stipulated by his Chinese ally and when the auxiliary troops asked the fulfilment of his promises, arms in hand, he proved to them that superior strength is the ultimate arbiter of right and sent them home much diminished in numbers and pride. The Emperor of China, wroth that the beautiful princesses of Tumapel, daughters of the late King Kertanegara, whom he had deigned to accept as concubines, were not forthcoming, but stayed behind to adorn the harem of the self-made King of Mojopahit, ordered his unsuccessful generalissimo to be flogged by way of example to other commanding officers. Raden Wijaya who, with the kingly title, had assumed the name of Kertarajasa, enjoyed his royal dignity only until 1295 and his ashes were entombed in two places not yet located: in the dalem (the inner, private part) of his palace conformably to the Buddhist, and at Simping conformably to the Sivaïte ritual, not otherwise than King Kertanegara received last honours in the guise of Siva-Buddha at Singosari and in the guise of a Dhyani Buddha at Sakala, and the remains of King Kertarajasa’s successor were interred in three places according to the Vishnuïte ritual, circumstances from which we may conclude that in East as in Central Java the different creeds lived together in most amiable harmony.
The kris of Mpu Gandring might limit the earthly term of the descendants of Ken Angrok, it could not check their prowess while they were still up and doing. Overlords of East and Central Java, extending their rule to Pajajaran, they even looked for conquest to the other islands of the Malay Archipelago. Under Hayam Wurook or Rajasa Nagara, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, Mojopahit reached her zenith; a record of 1389 mentions Bali as being tributary since about 1340; Aru, Palembang and Menangkabau in Sumatra, Pahang with Tumanik in Malacca, Tanjong Pura in Borneo, Dompo in Soombawa, Ceram and the Goram islands acknowledged Nayam Wurook’s suzerainty too. Seeing no more worlds to subdue, he died and, as in the case of Alexander the Great, his empire fell to pieces; in East Java itself Balambangan seceded from Mojopahit proper and the Muhammadan propaganda, fanning discord between the Hindu princes of old and new dynasties, prepared their common doom. The beginnings of the Islām in East Java have already been spoken of, with Gresik as a missionary centre, Maulana Malik Ibrahim as the first wali in that region and the conversion into Moslim vassal states of the dependencies of Mojopahit, whose princes, combining under the auspices of Demak against their liege lord, sealed his fate. Raden Patah of Demak was a man of war and destiny. The fire of the new faith burning fiercely within him, he hurled his defiance at the stronghold of the heathen, speaking to the last King of Mojopahit, his father or grandfather according to tradition, as Amaziah, King of Juda, spoke to Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, King of Israël: Come, let us see one another in the face,—but with a different result: the challenger from Demak came out victorious and Mojopahit ceased to exist, an issue fraught with grave consequences. This occurred about the year 1500[58] and Raden Patah, pursuing the royal family on their flight, defeated the King or one of his sons again at Malang, where a last stand was made. But Gajah Mada, the Prime Minister of Mojopahit, founded a new empire, Supit Urang, which comprised much of the territory once belonging to Singosari. The Saivas also held out at Pasuruan, which was invested by Pangeran Tranggana, a successor of Raden Patah, but after his assassination by one of his servants, the troops of Demak returned home. Pasuruan and Surabaya reverted, later on, to the Regent of Madura, a son-in-law of Pangeran Tranggana. Yet, Hinduïsm lingered on in the island; its political power was only broken with the conquest of Balambangan by the East India Company in 1767, and the population of the Tengger mountain region did not commence to accept the Islām until very recently.
In the confusion which resulted after the death of Pangeran Tranggana from the disruption of his domains into Cheribon, Jayakarta and Bantam in the western, Gresik and Kediri in the eastern, and Demak proper and Pajang in the central part of the island, the latter territory absorbed Jipang and its Prince Tingkir, a scion of the royal family of Mojopahit, was proclaimed Sooltan by the spiritual authority of Gresik, the first time we find that title mentioned in the history of Java. Sooltan Tingkir appointed one of his trusted servants, Kiahi Ageng Pamanahan, governor of the tract of land which had preserved the name of Mataram. Kiahi Ageng Pamanahan improved the condition of the people and his son Suta Wijaya, who had married a daughter of the Sooltan, making himself independent by rebelling, by poisoning his father-in-law after his having been captured and pardoned, finally by taking possession of the regalia in the subsequent war of succession, became master of the situation and laid in New Mataram the foundation of another state which, in the reign of his successor Ageng, 1613-1646, gained the ascendency over the rest of Java with Madura, subjugating even Sukadana in West Borneo. Not, however, without strenuous exertion for Balambangan gave a good deal of trouble in the East and the conquest of Sumedang in the West, in 1626, taxed the military strength of the rising empire to its utmost. When the East India Company began to make its influence felt, Moslim solidarity proved a valuable asset as, for instance, in the relations with Bantam and Cheribon, whose Pangeran proposed the title of Susuhunan for Ageng (1625) before Mecca promoted him to the Sooltanate (1630). In 1628 and 1629 he ventured to attack Batavia, the new settlement of the Dutch, but had to retire and, what was even worse, by provoking those upstart strangers, he damaged his trade: they closed the channels of export to Malacca and other foreign ports of rice, the principal produce of the land. “Mataram must now become our friend,” wrote the Governor-General to his masters, the Honourable Seventeen, and, indeed, Mangku Rat I., Ageng’s son, found himself obliged to sign a treaty of friendship with the Company—a dangerous friendship! Differences between their “friend” and Bantam with Cheribon were sedulously fostered by the authorities at Batavia; the Company took a hand in the putting down of disturbances created in East Java by Taruna Jaya of Madura and Kraëng Galesoong of Macassar; the Company patronised and protected the reigning Sooltans, who moved their residence from Karta to Kartasura, against pretenders and exacted payment in land, privileges, concessions, monopolies, etc., shamelessly in excess of the real or pretended assistance afforded in quelling purposely manufactured anarchy—precisely as we see it happen nowadays wherever western civilisation offers her “disinterested” services to eastern countries of promising complexion for exploitation by western greed.
Mataram, trying to escape from the extortionate friendship of the honey-tongued strangers at Batavia, whose thirst for gold seemed unquenchable, has its counterparts in benighted regions now being “civilised” after the time-honoured recipe: interference which upsets peace and order, more interference to restore peace and order with the naturally opposite result, occupation until peace and order will be restored, gradual annexation. The East India Company’s mean spirit of haggling was held in utter contempt by the native princes, grands seigneurs in thought and action, too proud to pay the hucksters with their own coin, though bad forebodings must have filled the mind, for instance, of Susuhunan Puger, recognised at Batavia as Mataram’s figurehead under the name of Paku Buwono I.,[59] when near his capital a Dutch fort was built and garrisoned with Dutch soldiers to back him in his exactions for the benefit of alien usurers and sharpers. Like the rat of Ganesa, they penetrated everywhere and the tale of their relations to the lords of the land is one of tortuous insinuation until they had firmly established themselves and could give the rein to their sordid commercialism in always more exorbitant claims. Paku Buwono II., feeling his end approach, was prevailed upon, in 1749, to bequeath his realm to the Company, but one of the most influential members of the imperial family decided that this was carrying it a little too far: Mangku Bumi,[60] brother of Paku Buwono II., supported by Mas Saïd, son of the exiled Mangku Negara,[61] and other pangerans (princes of the blood), stood up in arms to defend their country’s rights and inflicted severe losses on the Dutch troops in stubborn guerrilla warfare. This led to the partition of Mataram between Paku Buwono III. and his uncle Mangku Bumi, both acknowledging the supremacy of the Company, the latter settling at Jogjakarta, the old capital Karta, under the title and name of Sooltan Mangku Buwono,[62] while Mas Saïd, who did not cease hostilities before 1757, gained also a quasi-independent position as Pangeran Adipati Mangku Negara, which in 1796 became hereditary. With three reigning princes for one, the power of Mataram was definitely broken and Batavia assumed the direction of her affairs quite openly, the “thundering field-marshal” Daendels emphasising her state of decline and the British Interregnum bringing no change.
In 1825 the divided remnant of Mataram, viz. Surakarta with the Mangku Negaran and Jogjakarta with the Paku Alaman,[63] was deeply stirred by Pangeran Anta Wiria calling upon his compatriots to chase the oppressors away. Born from a woman of low descent among the wives of Mangku Buwono III., Sooltan of Jogjakarta, it seems that, nevertheless, hopes of his succession to the throne had been held out to him when he assisted his father against the machinations of his grandfather, Sooltan Sepooh (Mangku Buwono II.), banished by Raffles in 1812. However this may be, he resented the settlement of the Sooltanate on the death of Mangku Buwono III. upon Jarot, an infant son, and other circumstances adding to his dislike of Dutch control, he raised the standard of revolt. The Javanese responded with alacrity to an appeal which bore good tidings of delivery as the wind, ridden by the Maroots who make the mountains to tremble and tear the forest into pieces, bears good tidings of coming rain to a parched earth. Anta Wiria, under his more popular name of Dipo Negoro, and his lieutenants Ali Bassa Prawira Dirja, or Sentot, and Kiahi Maja, gave the Dutch troops plenty of bloody work in the five years during which the Java war lasted, 1825-1830. It was the last eruption on a large scale of the fire imprisoned in the native’s heart, the last sustained effort at regaining his independence, crushed by the white man’s superiority in military appliances, but occasional throbbings, ruffling the surface as in Bantam (1888), the Preanger Regencies (1902), Kediri (1910), etc., show that the volcano is by no means an extinguished one. Though “kingdoms are shrunk to provinces and chains clank over sceptred cities,” the love of liberty, laid by as a sword which eats into itself, does not own foreign dominion, and the native princes, especially the Susuhunan of Surakarta and the Sooltan of Jogjakarta, remain objects of worshipful homage. Their genealogy remounts to the gods whose essence took substance in the illustrious prophet Adam who begat Abil and Kabil on the goddess Kawa; the history of their house begins with the arrival in the island, in the Javanese year 1, of Aji Soko; they are the panatagama and sayidin (shah ad-din), directors and leaders of religion; their Courts set the fashion in high native society, Solo[64] being more gay and extravagant, Jogja[64] more sedate and solid, as a writer at the end of the eighteenth century already remarked.