JAVANESE COURT SOCIETY AND POLITICS IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: THE RECORD OF A LADY SOLDIER
PART I: THE RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC LIFE OF THE COURT*
Ann Kumar
One of the questions which have occupied the attention of observers of modern Indonesian politics is the extent to which the contemporary conceptualization and practice of politics shows a demonstrable legacy of colonial and, especially, pre­ colonial, "traditional" form s.*1 The legacy o f older social and political forms has also been discussed by students o f other Asian polities, but it seems fair to say that in the case of Java—the "majority tradition" o f Indonesia—the discussion has been characterized by a higher level o f abstraction than has been the case for other societies. In studies attempting to relate the traditional to the contemporary, this has perhaps been due in part to the utility of presenting the former in a dis­ tilled and firmly characterized form in order to facilitate comparison. Yet a similar level of abstraction, a concentration on theory rather than practice, conception rather than reality, has also marked many studies not concerned to relate contem­ porary to traditional political behavior but simply to characterize the latter. Clearly the extensive analyses o f C. C. B erg, portraying Javanese political beha­ vior as the enactment of a periodicity based on the alternation of Buddhist and Vaishnavite kingdoms at predictable intervals, fall into this category.2 Not all writers, of course, have seen traditional Javanese political behavior as essentially the enactment of the developments preordained by a religious schematization made manifest in this world, but even those who have attempted to study in detail the more "practical" side of political life, the administrative and political geography o f the kingdom, have tended to present a picture characterized, to a greater or lesser degree, by a concentration on ideal structures and a depiction of a fixed, perfected,
* This is Part I of a two-part article. The second part, which will examine politi­ cal developments between 1784 and 1791, will appear in Indonesia 30 (October 1980).
1. See,for example,B. R. O'G. Anderson, "The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture," in Culture and Politics in Indonesia, ed. C. Holt, et al. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 1-69; Section V, "Javanese Traditionalism," in Herbert Feith and Lance Castles, Indonesian Political Thinking 1945-1965 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp. 178-200; and H. J. Benda's "Democracy in Indonesia, review o f Herbert Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia," Journal o f Asian Studies 22, no. 3 (1964), pp. 44D-56, in which Benda argued that an un­ broken tradition must be seen as politically dominant.
2. Berg's major theoretical analysis is to be found in his "Het Rijk van de Vijfvoudige Buddha," Verhandelingen der Kon. Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde 69, 1 (1962) [for a summary see pp. 196 f f . ] , and Maya's Hemelvaart in het Javaanse Buddhisme, ibid. 74, 1 and 2 (1969) [summary pp. 52-53, 128, 138-39].
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political o r d e r .34 It is only fair to say that such a picture is to a large extent the natural result of the kind of Javanese sources which we have available: sources which give either idealized schemata o f the administration of the kingdom, or sec­ ondary constructs of the philosophical significance of political structures for the Javanese world-view. It is extremely difficult to find Javanese sources which show political theory adapting to a changing reality, for we have nothing comparable to the minutes, letters, and other administrative records which make possible the study o f, let us say, the evolution of conciliar government in Tudor England.
Had different sources been available, no doubt different books would have been written. The only writer who has attempted the difficult task of integrating Javanese conceptualizations of the nature o f the kingdom into a diachronic account of political change o f a major order is M. C. Ricklefs, whose study is o f particular importance for that attempted here. ** Even here, however, the peculiarly dual character o f the sources used by Ricklefs—administrative, political, and economic records from the Dutch side, and literary and philosophical works from the Java­ nese side—has also brought about a corresponding duality in the finished study, in that we tend to see the unfolding of "real events" and historical change, day by day or year by year, through the Dutch rapportage, while the Javanese sources provide a secondary construct, the reflection of these changes in the Javanese world-view. In this article and the following one, an attempt will be made to re­ dress this balance somewhat by looking at part o f the period covered by Ricklefs from the perspective of a rather special Javanese source: one which is not a sec­ ondary, ex post facto construct, but a primary record probably unique among extant sources.
This work, used here as the central point of reference to which outside sources are related, is a diary: 5 an example o f a genre often considered absent from Java­
3. See, for example, Soemarsaid Moertono, State and Statecraft in Old Java: A Study o f the Later Mataram Period, 16th to 19th Century (Ithaca: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1968), and B. Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies, vol. 2, Ruler and Realm in Early Java (The Hague: van Hoeve, 1969). While it would be untrue to say that Schrieke ignores historical change, he does see Javanese society as conforming to the same essential structure over a very long period ("the Java of around 1700 A .D . was in reality the same as the Java of around 700 A .D .," p. 100); and a similar outlook is implicit in Moertono, whose Javanese sources for his politi­ cal geography are overwhelmingly of nineteenth-century origin, but are made to apply as far back as the sixteenth.
4. M. C. Ricklefs, Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi 1749-1792: A History of the Division of Java (London: Oxford University Press, 1974).
5. The manuscript itself is KITLV Or [Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Oriental Ms.] No. 231 of the collection o f the Institute at Leiden. It is in book form on Javanese bark paper, and comprises 303 large double pages (that is, when the book is opened only the left page is numbered, so that, accord­ ing to modem convention, the diary would comprise 606 pages). All references to the diary will cite only the relevant page number, with L or R to signify the left or right side: for example, 311R, 300L.
The number o f pages, 202, given in Dr. Th. G. Th. Pigeaud's catalogue, Literature of Java (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968), 2, p. 832, is not correct. The diary manuscript was in a state of disarray when it was presented to Dr. Pigeaud (who later presented it to the Koninklijk Instituut collection) by MangkunSgara VII. Its loose pages were put in order and bound, but the cover-page had suffered considerable wear. This cover-page contains four Javanese-script inscriptions in different hands—none of them that of the body of the manuscript—and one in-

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nese records, and an example of unusual scope and interest, covering as it does a full decade (1781-1791) and being written at the court of MangkunSgara I, one of the major figures o f eighteenth-century Javanese history, and one of the last of the "old style" princes to rise to eminence in the context o f a political and mili­ tary competition for power of the type that was never again to be possible for the Javanese aristocracy.
What is more, the diary was written by a member of a venerable Javanese in­ stitution which was also to pass away with the old style o f life. She identifies herself in a short introductory note in prose, which forms the first lines of the manuscript itself: "Attention: the writer is a lady scribe and soldier, bringing to completion the story of the Babad Tutur, in the month of Siyam, on the 22nd day, still in the year Jimawal numbered 1717, in the city of Surakarta."6 This passage is followed by the first stanza of ( macapat) verse, which reads: "The work then is in Mijil meter; its basis is something else, it follows a different story. Because of the length of the story it was written [in an abridged form in verse??] It was still a [the?] lady scribe who transmitted i t . " 7 The descriptive material of the diary follows immediately, and there is no further information on the writer either here, at the beginning, or at the end of the manuscript. The small amount of in­
scription in Arabic script (pegon) . Beginning at the top of the page, the first Javanese-script inscription says
that the work was written by Bagus Prawiratruna, the scribe of Sergeant Kock ("Sareyan Kok") of "Siti Rawi," and also mentions a milkman ( tukang p£r£s) o f Salatiga, whose name (Wiryadirana??) is not fully legible. This information pre­ sents problems. There seems to be no place called "Siti Rawi," and though this could be a metanym or transliteration for a different toponym, none of the major or minor Dutch military posts on Java seems plausibly indicated. ("Siti" is a syn­ onym for Z8mah, or bumi, "earth," a fairly common first element in Javanese toponyms, and "rawi" can be either a form of rawa, "swamp," or a literary word mean­ ing "su n ," and so, by extension, possibly some quality associated with the sun. One might tentatively suggest the Lemah bang, "red earth," district o f Salatiga, since Salatiga is itself mentioned.) In addition, such a low-ranking officer as a sergeant would hardly have had a "Javanese scribe" assigned to him.
The second Javanese-script inscription, which is upside down, mentions a cer­ tain Adiwirya of Semarang (it appears to read: ngalamat s'Srat . . . tura yingkang rama adiwirya ing sumawis).
The third Javanese-script inscription seems to be just a line o f tSmbang verse with no particular reference to the diary ( lambang raras tansah bronta kingkin, "harmonious form, endlessly longing," plus a couple o f illegible words).
The last Javanese-script inscription apparently names a particular village, now faded out (punika atur (?) pratelanipun adSdSkah (? ) eng dusun . . . ) .
The Arabic-script inscription repeats the information contained in the first Javanese-script inscription. Apparently the manuscript has passed through dif­ ferent hands, and the relationship between them is not clear.
6. pemut kang anSrat prajurit carik estri/anutugaken carita serat babad tutur/ ing wulan siyam / tanggal kalih likur / maksih taun jimawal / angganing warsya / 1717 / wat8n [wontSn] nagari salakerta.
Words in square brackets occurring in the Javanese text indicate the standard spelling of words which in the original have either an archaic or an idiosyncratic spelling.
7. sSrat laj§ng kang sSkar pamijil / papanipun seos / urut carita seyos papane / saking panjang carita tinulis / maksih carik estri / kang nSrat nunurun / /

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formation which is given seems to suggest that the diary in its present form is a revision of an earlier version, probably an abridgement, since the "length" of the story which formed its basis is given as the reason for (r e -) writing. The last entries in the diary are in fact from the first half of the month of Mulud 1718 AJ (November 1791 A D ), that is, nearly half a year after the date, Siyam 1717 AJ, given in the opening passage, above. Presumably the authoress o f the revised version which we have went on to extend the original text to cover the half-year period which had elapsed since it was written. The revision retained the diary form, for it consistently indicates the day, 8 and, at least weekly intervals, also the date9 on which an event took place. There is not an entry, or provision for an entry, on every day, however, and the coverage of the first two years of the decade reported is much less detailed than is the case for the later years. Checked against Dutch archival records, the diarist’ s dates prove accurate, except for oc­ casional slips. The introductory note describes the work as a continuation of another work, a "Babad Tutur"; I have not been able to identify this manuscript.10
It is clearly a matter of regret that the information given on the authorship of the diary should be so tantalizingly brief and cryptic: the authoress is not identi­ fied by her name, and it is not even clear whether the women referred to in the introductory note and in the first stanza of verse are one and the same person. Still, it does tell us that the diary represents the work of at least one of the mem­ bers of a rather special institution, the prajurit estri corps of the old Javanese courts.
It was no innovation or idiosyncrasy on MangkunSgara I's part to keep such a corps, but in keeping with old established custom. The female guard of earlier Javanese rulers, the Sultans of Mataram, was remarked upon by the earliest Dutch visitors to the court (during the reign of Sultan A gu n g), and in the years covered by the diary the future Second Sultan of Yogyakarta also had such a corps, as Ricklefs has noted.11 Rijklof van Goens, who visited Mataram in the mid-seven­
8. The day o f the seven-day week (Sunday to Saturday) is always given, some­ times in combination with the day of the five-day week (L8gi or Manis, Paing, Pon, Wage and Kliwon), as in salasa-manis (Tuesday-Manis).
9. Because of the importance of the Friday prayer observances, discussed below, the date of the month is given on every Friday for which there is an en try, for example, dina wage jumungah/tanggal ping n8m likur b8sar wulanipun, FridayWage the 26th of the month of BSsar. The year is given on the first day o f every new year, for example, nulya di[n]t8n s8ptu wage salin wulan II tanggal pisan sasi sura / salin jimawal kang warsi / kuda eka syaraningrat: "then it was the day Saturday-Wage, the first day of the month o f Sura. The year changed to Jimawal [the third year o f the eight-year windu cycle] one horse, voice of the ruler [chronogram for 1717 A J ]." The year is also noted on the occasion o f some par­ ticularly important event, such as the installation of a new ruler.
10. There are a number of late eighteenth-century MangkunSgaran Babad, but none seems appropriate. The British Library Manuscript No. Add. 12283 (see M. C. Ricklefs and P. Voorhoeve, Indonesian Manuscripts in Great Britain [Lon­ don: Oxford University Press, 1977], p. 45) was written in 1705 AJ (AD 1779) on the occasion of MangkunSgara's 55th birthday, but it describes the wars leading to the partition of Mataram and ends in 1682 AJ (1756-57 AD). Another MangkunSgaran Babad, Add. 12280 (see ibid. , p. 45) though from a later year (1727 AJ/ 1800 AD) also deals with these wars, breaking o ff after describing the building of the new kraton o f Yogyakarta in 1756.
11. Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, p. 304, n. 42: apparently the Yogyakarta crown prince's

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teenth century, given some interesting information on the corps as it existed th en .12 He estimates that it contained about 150 young women altogether, of whom thirty escorted the ruler when he appeared in audience. Ten of them carried the ruler's impedimenta—his water vessel, sirih set, tobacco pipe, mat, sun-shade, box of perfumes, and items of clothing for presentation to favored subjects—while the other twenty, armed with bare pikes and blow-pipes, guarded him on all sides. He says that members of the corps were trained not only in the exercise o f weap­ ons but also in dancing, singing, and playing musical instruments; and that, al­ though they were chosen from the most beautiful girls in the kingdom, the ruler seldom took any of them as a concubine, though they were frequently presented to the great nobles of the land as wives. They were counted more fortunate than the concubines, who could never entertain an offer of marriage so long as the ruler lived, and sometimes not even after his death. Van Goens does not describe members of the corps as accomplished in literature, but such accomplishment would not have been easily apparent to a foreign visitor. Valentijn, writing a descrip­ tion of the court of Mataram in the first decade o f the eighteenth century, repeats van Goens' description almost word for word, adding, however, that the young women proved "not a little high-spirited and proud" when given as wives, knowing as they did that their husbands would not dare to wrong them for fear of the ruler's wrath.1314
European travelers give a number of accounts of a somewhat similar institution in seventeenth-century Aceh. The French admiral, Augustin de Beaulieu, who visited Aceh in 1620-21, reported that the Sultan of Aceh had 3,000 women as pal­ ace guards; he said that they were not generally allowed outside of the palace apartments, nor were men allowed to see them.11* The Dutchmen who sailed under Admiral Wybrandt van Warwijk in 1603, however, saw a large royal guard formed of women armed with blow-pipes, lances, swords, and shields, and a picture of these women is to be found in the journal of the voyage.15 On his visit to Aceh in 1637 the Englishman Peter Mundy saw a guard of women armed with bows and arrow s.16 It is possible that women were employed for guard duties in other Indo­ nesian courts, but the Javanese prajurit estri, the most cultivated and privileged group among the hierarchy of ranks which made up the female population of the court, are unlikely to have had close equivalents elsewhere.
corps was the occasion of "notoriety." See Koloniaal Archief [henceforth KA] 3708, Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie Overgekomen Berichten [henceforth VOCOB], 1789, Semarang to Batavia, August 19, Greeve's diary for August 13.
12. See H. J. de Graaf, ed. , De V ijf Bezantschapsreizen van Rijklof van Coens naar het hof van Mataram 1648-1654 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1956), pp. 259-60.
13. Frangois Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw O ost-lndien, vol. 4, Beschryving van Croot Djava ofte Java Major (Dordrecht, Amsterdam: n .p . , 1726), pp. 59-60.
14. See Beaulieu's account in Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, ed. John Harris (London: Bennet, 1705), 1, p. 744.
15. Begin ende Voortgangh, van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, vol. 1, Historische Verhael Vande Reyse gedaen inde Oost-lndien, met 15 Schepen voor Reeckeninghe vande vereenichde Cheoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie: Onder het beleydt van den Vroomen ende Manhaften Wybrandt van Waerwijck (Amsterdam: n . p ., [1644]), pp. 31-32 (of last fascicule).
16. R. C. Temple, e d . , The Travels of Peter Mundy 1608-1667, 5 vols. (Cam­ bridge: Hakluyt Society, 1907-1936), 3, p. 131.

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It may also be worth remarking that in modern Javanese literature the repre­ sentation of women in armed combat and on the battlefield occurs much more fre­ quently than one might expect. It is particularly prominent in the Menak epic, with its apparently inexhaustible succession of episodes relating the career of the Islamic hero Hamza b . fAbd al-Muttalib. The Javanese version is based on a Malay version fairly close to the Persian*original,17 but it is very greatly expanded and interpolated, nowhere more so than in the description of the martial exploits of the women characters, which were already striking in the original. Especially remark­ able in the Javanese version are the sections devoted to the "Chinese" princess (she is Chinese only in the Malay and Javanese versions) and to the lovely RSngganis.18 The Chinese princess of the Menak story is probably the basis of the simile in the following passage, in which the diarist describes the prajurit estri corps on a ceremonial occasion, the reception of a Governor of the northeast coast:

dina kSmis ing sawal kang sasi tanggal pitu likur wanci asar dSler sarta kumpfS] nine marang ing dalBmipun wau kangjSng pangran dipati marang laji [loji] amapag dSler kang pinStuk bSkta prajurit w’anodya2324

On Thursday, Sawal the twenty-seventh,19 in the late afternoon the Governor20 and the Company officials came to the MangkunSgaran.
The Pangeran Dipati21 went to the factory22 to meet the Governor, taking the lady soldiers.

anyuriga duwung cara bali godong rere[n]dan epek
rere[n]dan ting galSbyar busanane kang lumampah rumuhun wong nyutrayu darat
jSmparing

They wore krises in the Balinese style, ornamented with gold filigree leaves, in a
gold filigree belt. Their clothes were glittering. Those who went first were the Nyutrayu corp s, 2t* on foot carrying
bows and arrows

17. The facts of Hamzah's career have been enormously elaborated and expanded in the epics it inspired, which have a striking resemblance to cowboy serials and are not always esteemed by educated Muslims. Both Arabic and Persian versions exist, and the Malay and Javanese versions derive from a Persian original: see Ph. S. van Ronkel, De Roman van Amir Hamza (Leiden: Brill, 1895), pp. 91-98, 165-66, 176, 184, 245-51.
18. For a synopsis o f the-RSngganis story, an original Javanese composition which grew out of the Menak material, see R. M. Ng. Poerbatjaraka, P. Voorhoeve and C. Hooykaas, Indonesische Handschriften (Bandung: Nix, 1950), pp. 1-17.
19. The year was 1714 AJ and the date converts to July 31, 1788.
20. The Governors o f Java's northeast coast, the most important o f the Company's officials so far as the central Javanese courts were concerned, are usually referred to by the diarist as "the DSler," which is derived from Dutch edelheer, the title they bore as members of the Governor-General's Council.
21. That is, MangkunSgara, who is nearly always referred to in the diary simply by his title, "Pangeran Dipati."
22. This word is used in its original sense of "An establishment, such as a trading station, where factors or agents reside and transact business for their employers."
23. To be metrically correct, this verse should have two more lines.
24. The Nyutrayu and Jayengasta (see next line) were names of corps in MangkunSgara's armed forces: see also below pp. 20 and 25.

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anulya jayengasta tan rasukan mungguh [?? illegible] anulya pangran dipatya ginarSbSg ingkang prajurit pawestri tan ana papadanya
anglir dewa tSdak saking langit ginarSbSg putn saking cina lir mangkana upamane wong sinSliran pungkur mung punika ingkang tut wuri kang bala katah-katah sadaya tan tumut prandene wong nononton tembak kang busana sruwa kSncana tulya sri prapta laji [loji] pinapag
tuwan upruk lan sagung upSsir mapan terror for mapag] raring
kangjSng pangran dipatya sami tatabeyan kabeh dSler tabeyan
lu[ng]guh sinasSgah anginum awis kang prajurit wanodya sami tata lungguh sinasSgah num-inuman nulya upruk nitih reta malbeng
puri manggil anem dipatya
nulya tata kang prajurit estri
sami darat laji [loji] palataran tSdak’ pangran dipatine lan dSler suka dulu kang prajurit astri [estri] abaris dyan anem dipatine lawan upruk rawuh ing laji [loji] sabalanira nulya pangran dipati sSpuh ngabani mring prajurit wanodya

and then the Jayengasta corps, not properly [?] dressed, and then the Pangeran Dipati, ceremonially escorted by the lady soldiers, without peer,
like a god descended from heaven, attended by princesses from China: that is the [only] comparison. The picked men went behind —only these brought up the rear, for the ordinary soldiers were none of them taken along. Even so the spectators crowded around; the all-gold clothing was really beautiful. They arrived in the factory and were met
by the Resident,25 and all the officers, coming to meet the Pangeran
Dipati. They all greeted one another; the Governor paid his compliments and
sat down. They were offered arak26 to drink. The lady soldiers sat down in the correct fashion and were offered drinks. Then the Resident went to the palace in a
carriage, to summon the heir to the throne.27
Then, correct in their ranks, the lady soldiers
descended to the compound of the factory. The Pangeran Dipati descended, and the Governor, delighted at the sight of the lady soldiers in their lines. The heir to the throne and the Resident arrived, at the factory, with the escort. Then the Pangeran Dipati28 gave the order to the lady soldiers.

25. The V .O .C . (First) Resident at Surakarta is referred to, here and elsewhere in the diary, as the "upruk," from Dutch opperhoofd, "head" (o f mission), the designation generally used in the V .O .C . letters o f this period.
26. Arak is a strong drink prepared from a base o f sugar-cane and a glutinous type of rice.
27. That is, the future Pakubuwana IV, who is referred to here as "the younger Pangeran Dipati," in contradistinction to "the elder Pangeran Dipati," i . e . , MangkunSgara.
28. Lit. "the elder Pangeran Dipati."

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sarSng mungSl drel prajurite estri
kang ngabani pangeran dipatya
sSmbada lawan rakite Sdrel ambal ping tSlu cingak idab ingkang ningali dSler goyang kang nala kacaryan adulu sasampunira mangkana nitih kuda prajurite astri [estri]
rumiyin nulya pangran dipatya saha bala pan kondur rumiyin kantun laji [loji] anem dipatya

The salvos o f the lady soldiers sounded in unison;
it was the Pangeran Dipati who gave the order.
They were well-matched and in time as they fired a three-fold salvo. The watchers were astonished and amazed, and the Governor was staggered, and completely captivated by the sight. After this, the lady soldiers mounted their horses
first, followed by the Pangeran Dipati who withdrew first, with all his armed men, leaving the heir to the throne at the factory.

Once home, the corps changed from the gold masculine clothing they had worn for these maneuvers into plain white women's clothes—and proceeded to archery prac­ tice. Later, the Governor came to MangkunSgara's residence where an elaborate entertainment awaited him, and where the lady soldiers again displayed their skill with firearms. The diarist comments on this occasion that none of the Company officers had seen anything like them in Surakarta, Yogyakarta, or Semarang.
Since the diarist was herself a prajurit estri and takes an unmistakable pride in the different achievements of the MangkunSgaran, her claims to a disciplined skill at arms might be regarded with indulgence. But the Governor, Jan Greeve, for whose benefit this exhibition was made, also wrote a diary of his visit to Sura­ karta, and the entry for Thursday, July 31, included descriptions of this recep­ tion at the Dutch factory and o f the later entertainment at MangkunSgara's resi­ dence. Of the first, he says that the three-fold salvo was fired "with such order and accuracy as must cause us to wonder"; and of the second that the women "dragoons" "once more fired a three-fold salvo from their hand weapons with the utmost accuracy, followed by various firings of some small [artillery] pieces which had been placed to the sides, after which he went to see the Dalem29 and the house, both fashioned after a very wonderful style of architecture. . . . " This was, moreover, a period when skill with firearms was by no means universal among Javanese troops: when Greeve visited Yogyakarta the following month he recorded that the crown prince's troops were so unhandy in this respect that they exploded one of their weapons, wounding a European artilleryman.30
This diary resembles others from different milieux in that the reader will find on most pages a miscellanea of information without inherent unity and not in con­ tinuous narration, with the exception of certain portions reporting important polit­ ical developments. Much of what is noted can only be described as odds and ends; and, like the journalists of the future, the diarist displays a particular interest in misadventures, whether major or minor. Those she recorded include kraton fires, some seriou s;31 the collapse of kraton buildings, whether in the aftermath of fire

29. In the Dutch "dalm," from Jav. dalem, noble or princely residence.
30. See entries of Thursday, July 31, and Wednesday, August 13, in Greeve's diary, which is found under Semarang to Batavia, August 19, in KA 3708, VOCOB, 1789.
31. See 68, 157-59, 178, 183-84, 198-99. See also the letter o f Governor Greeve to Batavia, March 14, 1789, in KA 3754, VOCOB, 1790, mentioning a serious fire

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or from other causes; brawls in the marketplace; floods; epidemics; and more occational and striking occurrences such as the most unwelcome pregnancy of an un­ married princess of Pakubuwana Ill's family,3234and a ferocious attack on the part of MangkunSgara's peacock, which actually managed to kill a visitor to his resi­ dence. 3
In this first article, a more systematic presentation is attempted, sorting the data contained in the diary into a number of classifications relating to those sub­ jects for which its testimony is especially illuminating, rather than simply present­ ing them in the chronological order in which they occur. Since the entries are often concise to the point of being impenetrable to an outsider, and the diarist herself makes no attempt to provide either context or a resume of previous devel­ opments, this has been supplied from other sources where these are available.
1. MangkunSgara I (1726-17963tt) and the MangkunSgaran Kraton
The diary opens at a late period of MangkunSgara's career—he was approach­ ing sixty—but it testifies to the continuing significance of the pattern and nature of his earlier life. A brief review of this may therefore be useful.
MangkunSgara was a son of Pangeran Arya MangkunSgara, Pakubuwana II's brother, who was banished to the Cape in 1728. In his youth he was called first Suryakusuma and then Pangeran Prang Wadana. In European accounts, however, he is usually referred to as Mas Said.35 From very early manhood he was to choose the life of a warrior: though only fourteen when the ''Chinese war" broke out in 1740, he was one of the party of the aristocracy who joined the Chinese against the Dutch. He did not surrender with the "Chinese" Sunan (Sunan Kuning or Raden Mas GarSndi, who was eventually exiled to Ceylon) in 1743, and remained at large with a number of other princes, insolently close to the capital, Surakarta. Paku­ buwana II offered 3,000 cacah36 in Sokawati (Sragen) to whoever could drive MangkunSgara and his associates from their base in that region, a task which the
in the MangkunSgaran. Fire was a constant hazard in the old Indonesian cities and is the major reason for the loss o f all old kraton buildings.
32. 31R.
33. 300L. Even if the Javanese should be read as a plural, this is still a remark­ able feat for one or more peacocks. The diarist solemnly concludes that the man must have been a bad character: otherwise, none of the God-fearing MangkunS­ garan domestic animals would have harmed him.
34. MangkunSgara celebrated his 59th birthday early in the period covered by the diary, on (SSptu Wage) 4 Arwah 1709 AJ (23R ); so that he was born on 4 Arwah 1650 AJ, which is April 7, 1726. This date is confirmed by another MangkunSgaran manuscript, Add. 12283 (see above n. 10) where the opening passage notes that it was written in Arwah 1705 AJ on the occasion of MangkunSgara's 55th birthday.
35. See, for example, P. J. F. Louw, De Derde Javaansche Successie-Oorlog (Batavia: Albrecht & Rusche, 1889). To avoid inconvenience to the reader, I have used "MangkunSgara" throughout, even at the risk of an occasional anachronism— though it should be noted in this connection that Javanese (as opposed to Dutch) sources claim that this title and dignity were assumed very early, at the end of the Chinese war and certainly before they were "bestowed" by the V .O .C . in 1757. (See, for example, Babad Petjina [Semarang: van Dorp, 1874], p. 412.)
36. On the nature and value of the unit cacah, see below PP- 27-28.

10
ruler's half-brother Pangeran Arya Mangkubumi undertook. Though Mangkubumi was successful, Pakubuwana's Javanese and Dutch advisers counseled him against fulfilling the promise he had made; and so his half-brother left the court and joined forces with MangkunSgara.37 This was a formidable alliance: in the field Mangku­ nSgara had acquired exceptional skill in the art o f war, and his vivid personality drew men to him; 38 he and Mangkubumi attracted the larger part of elite support away from the ruler who had unwisely allowed Mangkubumi to be publicly humili­ ated. In the first two years of the war which followed, the V .O .C ., with little help from the wretched ruler it was supporting, made very slight overall progress, despite victories in individual engagements. In 1748 the situation went from bad to worse. The alliance between the two rebel princes was confirmed by the mar­ riage of MangkunSgara to Mangkubumi's eldest daughter. The "fear" and "super­ stitious reverence" which, according to Dutch contemporaries, they evoked among the common Javanese insured that large numbers of followers could be enlisted to their cau se.39 On July 28, 1750, MangkunSgara and Pangeran Singasari40 attacked Surakarta: though the attack was beaten o ff, twenty-five Dutch troops and a large number of the Javanese auxiliaries were lo s t.41 After this, the two princes changed to a tactic of isolating Surakarta. Though the fortunes of war were mixed and the Company's forces inflicted a number of defeats, the situation in Surakarta itself was wretched, with rice and other basic commodities fetching exorbitant p rice s.42 At one period, indeed, the Company's governing body considered abandoning the kingdom of Mataram to the enemy forces. But the alliance whose force then seemed irresistible did not hold. In the last months o f 1752 there were reports of differ­ ences arising between the two princes, a development which might almost have been predicted, since their alliance had been based on Mangkubumi's self-interest rather than on shared principles or objectives, and neither man was of the temper­ ament to contemplate taking second place in whatever settlement would be made. At this juncture the Dutch commandant, von Hohendorff, began to enter into cor­ respondence with MangkunSgara with a view to winning him over; these negotiations were protracted, and though the prince did not break them off neither did he call a halt to the war. On February 10, 1753, the crown prince himself, Pangeran Buminata, fled the capital to join forces with MangkunSgara.43
Von Hohendorff now suggested to the Raad van IndiS that MangkunSgara might be offered the position of crown prince (since Buminata had conveniently forfeited his claims to this), and this proposal was accepted. At the conference of July 28, however, MangkunSgara demanded to be installed not as crown prince but as ruler. He had just defeated Mangkubumi and his forces in an engagement east of Surakar­ ta, and seems to have felt that he was well placed to dictate the terms of peace to the Company, whose prospect of imposing a military solution he absolutely dis­ c o u n t e d .44
37. On the developments which led Mangkubumi to take this step see Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, pp. 39-46.
38. Hartingh described him as a small, well-made man whose eyes shone with fire and vivacity. See Louw, Derde . . . Oorlog, p. 17.
39. See ib id ., pp. 18-33, for the developments o f these years.
40. Half-brother o f Pakubuwana II.
41. Louw, Derde . . . Oorlog, p. 38.
42. Ibid. , pp. 54-55.
43. Ibid. , p. 73.
44. Ibid. , pp. 80-81.

11
Though this confidence in his military superiority and in his ability to attract followers was not unreasonable, the hard line and inflexible demands MangkunSgara pursued in these negotiations seem to show a certain lack of awareness of the dan­ ger presented by rivals who were more willing to compromise. He had been told more than once by V . O.C . representatives that there was already a ruler; and he should have realized that the Company was irrevocably committed to maintaining Pakubuwana III, whom it had installed as ruler on his father's death: actual depo­ sition (as opposed to a reduction in his territory or authority) was not to be con­ templated. MangkunSgara's insistence on a price higher than the Company felt it could pay opened the way for another, more realistic, claimant, to, in Louw's words, "pluck the fruits of his initiative."45 When Mangkubumi asked for only half the realm as the price of making peace, the Company saw him as the better prospect. It seems that, after negotiations between the V .O .C . and Mangkubumi were clearly under way, MangkunSgara sent a letter to his former ally, attempting to bring about a reconciliation and suggesting that they should attempt to parti­ tion Java between them; but Mangkubumi refused to reestablish relations,46 and the enmity between the dynasties founded by the two princes was to become a Javanese legend. Warfare between MangkunSgara and Mangkubumi continued in earnest, with both sides suffering heavy losses; the V .O .C . saw that the best op­ tion open to them was to agree to Mangkubumi's demand for half of Mataram; and at the beginning of 1755 the kingdom was formally and finally divided into tw o.47
Despite the fact that the rulers of both the half-kingdoms thus created (the Sunan of Surakarta and the Sultan of Yogyakarta), and the V .O .C ., all directed their military forces towards MangkunSgara's defeat, this was a surprisingly long time in coming. Indeed, he nearly succeeded in burning the new kraton at Yogya­ karta48 and inflicted heavy losses on a Dutch force in the Blora woods, the com­ mander himself, Captain van de Poll,4950being among the dead. The situation can be described as a stalemate, in which MangkunSgara was unable to prevail against the combined forces standing in the way of his conquest of Java, while these forces could not succeed in overwhelming him. During the continuing negotiations, Mang­ kunSgara now reduced his demands, asking only for equal treatment with Pakubu­ wana III and Mangkubumi—that is, for a division of the kingdom into three, rather than two, parts. Such an arrangement was unacceptable to the two princes who had had the political realism to make a bargain with the V .O .C . earlier; and the Company therefore refused to allow this rearrangement, perhaps calculating that to annoy two princes in order to accommodate one would be an unprofitable move. Eventually, MangkunSgara agreed to submit to Pakubuwana III, becoming a sub­ ject of Surakarta in return for a grant from the Sunan of 4,000 cacah situated in the Kaduwang, MatSsih, and Gunung Kidul regions, and the "high title" of Pangeran Adipati (A)MangkunSgara, Senapati Ing A yuda.51 He and his followers built the MangkunSgaran kraton in the city of Surakarta itself.
45. I b id ., p. 81.
46. Ibid. , p. 91.
47. On the details of the partition, see Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, pp. 61-95.
48. I b id ., p. 91.
49. See J. K. J. de Jonge, De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indie (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1878), 10, p. LXXVII.
50. See Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, p. 91.
51. The terms of the settlement with MangkunSgara are to be found in Hartingh's letter of March 29, 1757, reporting the outcome of their talks (KA 2802, VOCOB, 1758).

12
***
It is already more than twenty-six years since MangkunSgara laid down his weapons when the diary begins, yet we find in it strong echoes of those mid­ century years of war. His court would still have included some who in their youth had chosen to fight by his side, and, even apart from this, something of the char­ acter o f the period when court and army were on the move seems to have persisted. We see this in the descriptions of the great ritual celebrations of its unity: the tournaments where the MangkunSgaran soldiery competed in horsemanship and other military arts, and the theatrical and dance performances which now, three decades later, still reenacted in dramatic form the victories of past battles.52 Naturally enough much of the diary focuses on MangkunSgara himself—on his deeds rather than his thoughts (only in moments o f acute political crisis do we hear him express his feelings, usually, in these times, of bitterness or resigna­ tion)—and especially on his role in maintaining this corporate life. Much of the regular ceremonial of the court, not only in the MangkunSgaran but presumably also in the other Javanese courts, was to honor the ruler himself, most notably the celebrations to mark his birthdays. There were two kinds o f birthday, the "big" or annual birthday and the "little" birthday which occurred once every thirty-five days on the occurrence of the particular combination of five-day-week and sevenday-week days on which he was b o rn .5354 MangkunSgara himself was a ruler whose personality made a particularly strong impression on those around him.5lf It was he who maintained the court's standards for war (still at this period personally drilling his men), the arts (he himself instructed his court dancers), and for reli­ gion, the third area in which MangkunSgaran unity expressed itself.
2. The Religious Life o f the Kraton
The religious life of the MangkunSgaran occupies a surprisingly large and prominent proportion of the material recorded. We see that MangkunSgara himself, occupied as he was with so many other activities, used to write out the Kuran55 (and that his cousin's son, the future Pakubuwana IV, asked for, and received one of the copies he had m ade),56 as well as the Kitab Turutan and Tasbeh.57 He
52. See below pp. 24-25.
53. These are the tingalan agSng and the tingalan alit ( ngoko forms wSton gSde and w8ton cilik) noted frequently in the diary. MangkunSgara's tingalan alit (small birthday) was on the day Akad-Manis (Sunday-Manis; according to the system used, Manis, or LSgi, is either the first or second day o f the five-day w eek).
54. Even on his Dutch adversaries o f the mid-century wars: see the account given o f the occasion of his final submission to the Sunan ( Kort Verhaal van de Javasche Oorlogen Sedert den Jare 1741 tot 1757, Verhandeh'ngen van het Bataviaasch Cenootschap [henceforth VBG] , 12 [1830], pp. 239 f f . ), when Hartingh was sur­ prised at the vitality the prince retained at the conclusion of years of warfare which had brought hardship, sickness and hunger to his forces.
55. He also, on occasion, wrote jimat, that is , phrases, formulae (usually Arabic) and diagrams written on pieces o f paper or cloth and thought to convey special protection. They were carried by soldiers or people engaged in risky undertakings and were specially valued if made by a person who had reached a high level of re­ ligious knowledge and practice.
56. 117R. On another occasion MangkunSgara assembled 400 santri to recite the Kuran for the benefit of the ailing Pakubuwana III, after dreaming that this would

13

was a generous patron of the mosques and of the kaum community.578 Even more striking is his maintenance of ibadat, the public observances o f Islam. He in­ structed his people on the correct procedure for performing the prayers, and in­ deed the whole framework of the diary itself is organized around the periodicity of the weekly jumungahan, the observances of Friday prayer. The diarist has kept count o f the occasions on which MangkunSgara attended the jumungahan in the period covered by the diary: 388 times in all, over about ten-and-a-half Javanese years.
Her descriptions of these jumungahan always record certain things: the num­ ber of times MangkunSgara had now attended Friday prayer since the time the diary began; the number of worshippers present at the mosque; and the person or persons for whose spiritual benefit the slamStan ( sidSkah) given after the mosque service was dedicated (except o f course in the fasting month, when the common meal was not partaken of and instead money was distributed as an act of charity59). The Friday ritual was, however, sometimes observed with more cere­ mony than at others. MangkunSgara and his followers frequently kept watch the preceding night, listening to santri reciting the Kuran or performing the dikir60 in unison, as well as enjoying more secular amusements. Translated below* are two descriptions, one of a simple and one of a more elaborate jumungahan.

malih asalat jumungah wus ping satus tigang dasa ngabSkti sasanga ing pujulipun ing kaliwon jumungah ing rabiyolakir pitu tanggalipun

He performed the Friday prayer again, worshipping for the hundred-and-thirtyninth time, on Friday-Kliwon61 the seventh of Rabingulakir.62

cure the Sunan's illness (127R).
57. The Kitab Turutan were schoolbooks for children who had mastered Arab script, and contained simply a small part (at most one j'uz) of the Kuran. See L. W. C. van den B erg, "Het Mohammedaansche Godsdienstonderwijs op Java en Madoera en de daarbij gebruikte Arabische boeken," Tijdschrift voor Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde (henceforth TB G ), 31 (1886), pp. 518-55; esp. p. 519. The Tasbeh is the rosary, with which the names, or eulogies, of Allah are re­ peated, usually 100 times.
58. See, for example, 115R and 238 for gifts o f money, rice, and clothing ( klambi and jubah, the latter a garment worn by mosque officials) to mosques in and around Surakarta. The kaum community were Javanese and people of other nationalities especially devoted to Islam, and living in the mosque quarter.
59. For example, 150L, 240.
60. D ik ir (Ar. dhikr, "reminding oneself" of God): a sort of Islamic litany, of which both the form and the content vary. The dikir may be said loudly or to oneself; as a solitary exercise or in a group or circle, as here. The content o f the dikir may be simply the name o f God (Al-lah) or one o f its synonyms, or may include a number of verses o f the Kuran. Finally, different techniques (breathing exercises, body movements) may be performed in order to facilitate the inner ex­ perience which the dikir is designed to produce. For a treatment o f dhikr, which is of special importance in Muslim religious practice, see G. C. Anawati and Louis Gardet, Mystique Musulmane', 2nd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1968), pp. 187-234.
61. Kliwon is the fifth or first day o f the five-day week (according to the system used).
62. The fourth o f the twelve Muslim (lunar) months.

14

tumpSng tigang dasa sanga
ujude ingkang kanduri salamSta pangran d’ipatya salamSta putra wayahnya sami
salamSt sabalanipun wong salat gangsal
bSlah pujul siji . . .

There were thirty-nine tumpSng,6364 and the purpose of the slamStan was the welfare of the Pangeran Dipati and of all his sons and grandsons and o f all his army. Those at the prayer numbered four
hundred and fifty one. . . .

(100R-101L)

satSnipun [sontSnipun] malSm jumungah ing dalu
mSlek malih ingkang bala kang sSpuh pangran dipati
ander munggeng palataran jSmparingan dalu sami den-tohi samya dikir wadya
kaum sindenan gagamSlan gongsa kSndang papanganan
tSngah dalu watSn [wonten] ingkang tatayungan enjinge asalat
malih
wus ping kalih atus salat pujul ping salawe prah
angabSkti

In the evening and through the night before Friday
a vigil was kept by the army o f the senior Pangeran Dipati6t*
who circled the courtyard. They placed bets on their skill at archery, while the kaum soldiers65 said the dikir
in unison. There was singing, and playing a gamSlan66 o f gongs and drums, and there was a meal
at midnight. Some performed a tayungan67 In the morning they went to the prayer
once again—
it was the two hundred and twenty-fourth time the worship had been
done,

63. A tumpSng is a cone o f rice surrounded by side dishes, prepared for a slamStan or banquet.
64. MangkunSgara is referred to here as "the senior" Pangeran Dipati because at this period the same title was borne by the crown prince of Surakarta, the future Sunan Pakubuwana IV.
65. On the kaum or santri component of MangkunSgara's army, see below p. 21.
66. The word " gamSlan" is used by the diarist for any sort o f musical ensemble, including an orchestra or ensemble o f European instruments. It seems that on specially festive occasions both Javanese and European gamSlan played, sometimes overlaid by cannon salutes (see, for example, 265R-266L for a description o f a large party given by Pakubuwana IV to mark the restoration o f good relations with the Company).
67. The tayungan dance was a dance of ornately-costumed archers: see Th. Pigeaud, Javaanse Volksvertonfngen (Batavia: Volkslectuur, 1938), p. 427. In the twentieth century it was performed by a group of courtiers, but in the diary it is performed by the soldiery.

kaliwon jumungahipun bSsar tanggal sawSlas salawe prah tumpSng ing
sidSkahipun ulam sapi lir kurSban
salamSt pangran dipati

15
on Friday-Kliwon the eleventh of BSsar. There were twenty-four tumpeng at the
sidSkah68 with the meat of the cow as the sacrifice for the welfare of the Pangeran Dipati.

kehnya kang salat ing masjid69
pan tigang atus sawidak pujul papat ingkang asalat masjid

The number of those who performed the prayer at the mosque
was three hundred and sixtyfour, performing the prayer at the mosque.

............................................ (166R)
It will be noted that this observance took place on the night o f 10th BSsar, the date of the GarSbSg BSsar,70 which would have been the occasion for a spe­ cially festive gathering.
The "dedication" of the slamStan following the Friday prayer varies: MangkunSgara himself is most frequently named, either alone or in combination with his children and grandchildren and/or with his army. The army’s welfare is often independently nominated; next in order o f frequency come the ancestors.71 Less frequently the slamStan is dedicated to one or more of the following: the different classifications of nabi—the six nabi kalipah and the 313 chosen nabi72—the four Companions,73 and the different classifications of wali—the nine wali;74 the "ten
68. The ritual meal after the Friday prayer is referred to either as a kSnduri (from the Persian) or as a sidSkah (from the A rabic), as in the first passage.
69. The five lines omitted give details o f wages paid by MangkunSgara to his sol­ diers.
70. The GarSbSg BSsar, one of the three main annual court festivals, celebrates the pilgrimage and Abraham's offering up o f Isaac. See J. Groneman, De garSbSg's te Ngajogyakarta (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1895), p. 40.
71. "Luhur sadaya": see, for example, 167R, 183L, 244L, 251L, 265L.
72. In Sunni tradition the following enumeration of prophets has become accepted (though it is not found in the Kuran): there are 124,000 nabi in all, of which 313 have been chosen (in Javanese, sinSliran) to be messengers ( rasul); the six fore­ most are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, after whom no more prophets appear. See C. Snouck Hurgronje, Verspreide Geschriften (Bonn, Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder, 1923), 1, p. 405.
73. Sahabat sakawan: the Companions o f the Prophet who subsequently became the first four caliphs (see, for example, 243L, 263R).

16
wali of the north and west" and the "twenty w ali."745 Also mentioned specifically are Nabi Kilir and Umar Maya,76 as well as the Sultan of Pajang and Kyai Ageng Lawiyan.77 Others occasionally nominated are the cultivators o f the soil and the original settlers;78 the girls of the court and the priyayi; 79 or simply "all those performing the p r a y e r ."80
3. The Kraton as a Household
Despite this marked commitment to Islam, MangkunSgara was neither ascetic nor puritanical. Indeed, he was frequently in breach of the Kuranic prohibition on the drinking of alcoholic beverages. 81 The diarist records on numerous occa­
74. See, for example, 154R, 243L, 247R, 263R. The nine wali are the apostles of Islam on Java. Javanese lists o f these wali do not always name the same nine: see Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, n. 12, pp. 4-5, for an account of these variations. The lives o f some o f the wali have been described in D. A. Rinkes' series of articles in TBG, 52-55 (1910-13).
75. 55L. As the veneration o f wali (representatives of God or "saints") became more and more widespread in Islam, the idea of a hierarchy (or rather, a number of different hierarchies) o f saints also developed. The pinnacle of these hierar­ chies was usually the "pole" wali (the kutb). The present writer does not know of any system in which there are ten wali at each of the cardinal points o f the com­ pass, though in some Turkish and Algerian systems one finds a disposition o f four "pillar" wali at these points; and in other systems one finds also a classification of forty wali. On the different wali systems, see M. Th. Houtsma, A. J. Wensinck et al. , The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, London: Brill/Luzac, 1934), 4, pp. 1109-10.
76. 55L. On the cult of Nabi Kilir (Ar. Al-Khadir or al-K hidr), the "green im­ mortal," and its origins in the Kuran and the Alexander romances, see H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, eds. , Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957), pp. 232-35. In Java, Nabi Kilir is best known in his role of presiding over the sphere o f water. Umar Maya is the most faithful and constant companion of Amir Hamzah in the Hamzah ep ic, known in Java as the Menak.
77. 266R. According to Javanese tradition, Pajang has the distinction of being the first Islamic sultanate in central Java. Kyai AgSng NgSnis (father of Ki Pamanahan, the first ruler of Mataram in traditional accounts) was buried at Lawiyan and is presumably the "Kyai AgSng Lawiyan" honored here. See Babad Tanah Djaw i, ed. W. L. Olthof (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1941), Jav. text p. 46. Another possibility is Pakubuwana II, whose grave is at Lawiyan. See H. J. van Mook, "Koeta Gede," Koloniaal Tijdschrift, 15, p . 359.
78. Sakehingbumi, cakal-bakal sadaya: for example, 216R, 253R, 278L.
79. 249L, manggung-katanggung priyayi. J. F. Gericke and T. Roorda ( Javaansch-Nederlandsch Handwoordenboek [Amsterdam: Muller, 1901]) define the manggung as young girls taken into the kraton with a view to their later becoming s8lir (see below p. 18 ) of the ruler. J. W. Winter, in his description of Surakarta in 1824, ranks them as "concubines o f the third class" in the court hierarchy. J. W. Winter, "Beknopte beschrijving van het hof Soerakarta in 1824," Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde (henceforth B K l) , 54 (1902), p. 52.
80. For example, 243R.
81. There are, of course, differing interpretations o f the Kuran. In seventeenth-

17
sions that he was "drunk" or "very d r u n k ,"82 on one occasion rather charmingly noting that on his return from a celebration he was "not drunk, only rather t ir e d ." 8384 The following two passages are examples of a number o f descriptions of Mangkunggara entertaining his sons and soldiers:

pSpSk dSmang tumSnggung pra punggawa pra lurah sami miwah kang para putra sarwi ngabSn sawung larih anginum adahar sis[n]denan gamSian tur
den-si [n] deni sadaya wuru panjang
kalih rancak gamSlan mandapi salendro pelog ganti tinSmbang sinelanan susuluke sisinden sarta suluk wuru kangjSng pangran dipati kang putra pranaraga datSng estri jalu tumut wuru-wuru panjang sarawuhnya ngabSn sawung
den-si [n] deni sukan-sukan s*adina (133R)

Assembled were all the dSmang and tumSnggung and all the punggawa and the lurah,61* as well as the [Pangeran Adipati’ s] sons. They joined together in cockfighting; drinks were served and they ate and drank to the accompaniment of gamSlan music and
sinden singers. They were all far gone in drink.
There were two sets o f gamSlan on the mandapa, 8586 a slendro and a p elo g ,66 played in turn, and alternated with suluk songs, [so that there was both] sinden and suluk.87 The Pangeran Adipati was drunk. His son, the lord of Pranaraga, came with his wife, and became very drunk too. After he arrived they began cockfighting,
accompanied by sinden singers. They took their pleasure for the whole day.

century Aceh, according to an English visitor, alcohol from rice (rather than grapes or fruits) was not considered as prohibited: see Albert Hastings Markham, ed. , The Voyages and Works o f John Davis (London: Hakluyt Society, 1880), p. 151.
82. For example, 98R, 102L, 133R, 161L, 162R, 169L, 264R, etc. Governor Greeve also noted on one occasion that MangkunSgara had excused himself from talks on the grounds that he had drunk too much: see Greeve to Batavia, Septem­ ber 24, 1790 in KA 3833, VOCOB, 1792.
83. Pangran dipati tan wuru/amung ragi kSsSl kewala (269L).
84. Titles of officers in MangkunSgara’ s armed forces: tumSnggung is the most senior, followed by punggawa, dSmang, and lurah.
85. A pavilion (with roof but without enclosing walls) in front of the ^raton used for reception of guests and entertainment: modern form pSndapa.
86. Slendro and pelog are the two main tone systems of Javanese music.
87. Sinden usually refers to vocal music (in tSmbang macapat, the same type of verse in which the diary is written) sung by a female singer in conjunction with dance movements. Suluk (also in tSmbang macapat) are best known as the set pieces sung by the dalang at prescribed intervals during a wayang performance (see, for example, J*. Kunst, Music in Java, 3rd ed. [The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973], 1, pp. 318 f f . ), but there are also self-contained songs, not part o f a dramatic per­ formance, called suluk, which often express religious or philosophical concepts. A number of collections have been published.

18

ngabSn pSksi nginum wedang wusya wedang nginum awis sami wuru-wuru panjang nginum pangran adipati anulya dahar larih pangran adipati tumut tumut nginum dadahar sawusya adahar sami para putra dadu lan pangran
dipatya *

They set b ird s88 to fight and drank tea, after the tea, rice brandy (arak): they were all far gone in drink. The Pangeran Adipati drank too; and then food and drink was served, in which the Pangeran Adipati joined, joined in eating and drinking. After they had eaten together his sons played dice with the Pangeran
Adipati.

punggawa lurah pra dSmang

rongga tumSnggung ngabei

ngabSn sawung munggeng

ngandapa

yen larih salompret muni

putra pangran dipati

ngagamSlan munggeng luhur

pangeran adipatya

kang nggndang tur

den-si[n]deni

langkung rame pukul gangsal

wisan bubar.

(222R)

The lurah, and the dSmang, rangga, tumSnggung and ngabei set cocks to fight on the
mandapa; they became quiet as soon as the oboes sounded. The Pangeran Adipati's sons played the gamSlan on the platform89 and it was the Pangeran Adipati who played the kSndang, 90 accompanied by a
sinden singer. It was very lively; at five o'clock they stopped
and dispersed.

The diary contains a large amount of interesting material on the structure of MangkunSgara's family and of his household and army. His own family was very large, as was usual for a Javanese aristocrat. Although the diarist does not re­ cord their exact number, it is clear that the kraton housed a considerable popula­ tion o f sSlir. The position of these women requires some further definition. Some European writers have often translated the term sSlir, an abbreviated form of sinSliran "chosen (ones)" as "concubine" (in Dutch works, bijzit or bijwijf), while others have seen some such term as "secondary wife" as preferable. Neither usage gives a satisfactory representation of the actual position of the sSlir. It is clear from the diary that it was the practice to marry a sSlir only when she became pregnant: this is recorded on a number of occasions,91 sometimes involving more than one sSlir. Only then did she become a "wife" 92 and might be divorced after some time if it was necessary for the prince to marry another woman, since his marriages had to be kept within the Muslim limit of four at any one time. On the other hand, the designation "concubine" wrongly suggests that there was a social

88. Female quails ( gSmak) as well as cocks were used as fighting birds.
89. This refers to the raised inner square stone floor o f the open audience hall where the festivities are taking place.
90. The kSndang, either alone or together with the rSbab (two-stringed bowing lute) guides the tempo of the gamSlan, and, because o f this function, is "the in­ strument par excellence of the lurah gSnding, the leader o f the orchestra." (Kunst, Music o f Java, 1, p. 212.)
91. See, for example, 144L, 202L (more than one sSlir taken in marriage), 226R.
92. J. W. Winter, writing of the Sunan's court in 1824, says that it was customary for a sSlir to be married when pregnancy was first clearly evident, at about three months. (Winter, "Beknopte Beschrijving," p. 51.) She would then be known as a garwa sSlir (sSlir wife).

19
stigma attached to these women. It is true, however, that their position was not conformant to Islamic law, under which a man may have sexual relationships with only two categories of women: his wives and his slaves. The sSlir of the central Javanese courts were free women to whom the princes were not married. It ap­ pears that the rulers of BantSn resolved this problem by taking their sSlir only from the villages of royal slaves, that is, those villages which during the period of Islamization had refused to embrace the new religion and had thereupon been declared to be slaves.93 This does not seem to have occurred in central Java: in fact, according to an 1824 account, the sSlir were chosen from among the daugh­ ters of Pangeran and Bupati.94 The diarist sometimes further defines the sSlir as abdi sSlir. Though use of the word abdi (subject, servant, retainer) certainly indicates that their relationship to MangkunSgara was seen as one of service rather than of any kind of partnership, it is not the word used for slaves ( budak, or some synonymous term such as wong dodolan, "sold m an"), and is used by the diarist to designate most of those who were in MangkunSgara's service, both female and male.
The diarist does not record the actual number of MangkunSgara’s sSlir (or their names: no individual personality em erges), and it is not possible to say whether he kept to the twelve the Sunan restricted himself to in 1824.95 During the decade of the diary, however, at least fifteen children were born to him. Since thirteen of the fifteen whose births are recorded were boys—a rather un­ likely sex ratio—it is probable that other, female, children were born whose births were not sufficiently memorable to be noted. Of the fifteen children whose births are recorded, six died very you n g .96 There was, of course, a very wide spread in the ages of each generation—MangkunSgara had adult sons and even adult grandsons—and a good deal of overlap between generations, so that the sons born to MangkunSgara in this period were contemporaries of some of his grandsons (such as Raden Mas Saluwat, born to MangkunSgara's son Pangeran Padmanagara and his garwa padmi—his wife of equal rank—on 17 Jumadilawal 1713 AJ/March 7, 1787 A D ).97
Very occasionally, an important event in the life of the young children is men­ tioned, such as the celebration marking the completion o f the first three years of life of one of his daughters;98 or her circumcision six years later.99 Once, Mang­ kunSgara had three carbines made as heirlooms for three o f his young son s.100
93. See P. J. Veth, Java (Haarlem: Bohn, 1875-82), 1, pp. 356-59, and L. W. C. van den Berg, Inlandsche Ranger) en Titels op Java en Madoera (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1887), p. 64.
94. Winter, "Beknopte Beschrijving," p. 52.
95. I b id ., p. 52. The Sunan kept other women as srimpi and as manggung.
96. 29L, 35L-R, 84L, 140L, 176R, 234R.
97. 103L. For this birth, the diarist notes the name of the wuku (one of a cycle of 30 seven-day weeks each supposed to have special properties like the Zodiac sign s), the patron saint (Dewa), the bird, and the tree appropriate to the time of birth, information necessary for prognostication by the traditional system.
98. 201L.
99. 192R.
100. 283R.

20
MangkunSgara's retainers (abdi) figure as prominently in the diary as do his family. They were numerous and their professional tasks varied. As well as those responsible for the more mundane domestic tasks and for waiting and serving, fetching and carrying, there were kris-makers, goldsmiths, grooms, riding-mas­ ters, payung bearers, and masters o f traditional theater on his payroll.101 The diarist claims that MangkunSgara liked to make his servants happy,102 but evi­ dently not all of them were satisfied, and there was certainly an element of com­ pulsion; some abdi who tried to decamp were seized and brought ba ck ;103104and from other sources it seems that MangkunSgara was vexed by an exodus of retain­ ers to the Sultan of Mataram's cou rt.101* By far the most prominent group among MangkunSgara's retainers, at least in the picture o f his court presented here, were the bala. MangkunSgara's army was large, and it was growing. The diarist records the creation over this period of no less than twenty-four corps of prajurit105 (fighting men). All of these corps had their own names, either denoting martial qualities ("Ferocious Lions"), or associated with legendary heroes.106 The number of men per corps seems to have varied between thirty and forty-fou r, usually with two lurah in charge. In some cases, the lurah were blood relations of MangkunSgara.107
MangkunSgara clearly spent much time with his army, training them in horse­ manship108 and in the use of traditional and modern weapons.109 One incentive for the cavalry to learn accuracy in their movements was MangkunSgara's custom of throwing money from a stage to the riders below: those lacking in coordination
101. 268L.
102. 81R.
103. See also 68R where two MangkunSgaran headmen are dismissed for receiving "Mataram spies," presumably sent to foment trouble and discontent.
104. See Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, pp. 232-34. Ricklefs attributes the trickle of court musicians, artisans, e tc ., away from MangkunSgara's court to his diminished appeal for elite support in terms of legitimation and status. It would seem however that his economic position must have been the main reason for this phenomenon for, as we shall see below, MangkunSgara's finances were stretched beyond their limit and his followers were continuously asking for advances on their wages. In general, it seems that the flight of retainers from one court to another was for personal rea­ sons (money, love affairs, e tc .) and major figures did not change sides for purely political reasons. In December 1783 the Sultan's secretary Setrawiguna, who had been embezzling money, fled from Yogyakarta. He was expected to seek refuge with MangkunSgara but was actually apprehended in CirSbon (see Siberg to Bata­ via, December 20, 1783, KA 3545.VOCOB, 1784).
105. 10L, H R , 12R, 15L, 15R, 23L, 26L, 37L, 39R, 40L, 135L, 204L, 209L, 215L, 216L, 238L, 246R, 248R, 258R, 265L, 269L.
106. For instance, "Perang tanding," "Wong Prawira," "Menakan," "Dasamuka," "Dasarata," "Kanoman," "Tanuastra," "Trunasura," "Singakurda," etc.
107. See, for instance, 201R and 204L, where the lurah were all grandsons of MangkunSgara. At this time and throughout the nineteenth century, it was com­ mon for lesser ranking members of the large families o f Javanese princes to be em­ ployed in posts of greater or lesser prestige in the kraton.
108. See, for instance, 86L, 103L, 117R, 134R, 144L, etc.
109. See, for instance, 144L.

21
of eye and hand missed the bon us.110 He also made every effort to see that his armed forces were well equipped, acquiring larger horses to replace the cavalry's current mounts,111 and at least trying to acquire the most modern firearms, by soliciting the good offices of Company officials.112
It is noteworthy that MangkunSgara had at least three corps of prajurit re­ cruited exclusively from the santri/kaum community. These were the "Wong Prawira" (forty men under two lurah and two kabayan), the "Trunaduta" and the "Suragama" (also apparently forty in num ber).11314 They are described as "santri ngiras p r a j u r i t e santri also serving as soldiers, and, as the "bala kaum," appear in almost all descriptions of the jumungahan observances, reciting the Kuran, and performing dikir.
Although the primary duty of the prajurit corps may have been to keep them­ selves in training and ready for action—which some of them did in fact see during this decade—they also performed nonmilitary tasks, such as planting rice, repair­ ing the buildings of the kraton, carrying out irrigation works, and even removing night soil.115 Court followers in general lent a hand where it was needed; even the sSlir were not merely mistresses and mothers but helped in such tasks as feathering arrows and painting arrow sheaths.116 And although they received wages for their work—their military duties, their other labors, their role in main­ taining the ceremonial eclat of the kraton—there was little of the modern division between time-bought-by-the-employer and private hours: as we have seen, Mang­ kunSgara and his soldiers not only regularly performed the observances of Islam together, but they also enjoyed "after hours entertainment" in company. In this culture, dancing for an audience did not carry the suggestion of doubtful mascu­ linity it has had in ours: on the contrary, a real man was expected to cut a good figure in the bSksa or tayungan, and the MangkunSgaran soldiery frequently gathered for performances of these martial dances. The following passage de­ scribes a special celebration, the kSnduren mulud, one of the observances held
110. See, for instance, 103L, 169L, 253L, 259L, 265L, 266L, etc.
111. The Kanoman, Miji, and Nyutra or Nyutrayu corps were cavalry corps; see 47L and 137L.
112. On one occasion (186L) the then Resident of Surakarta promised to obtain 200 "Company carbines" for MangkunSgara on his forthcoming trip to Semarang. This was after MangkunSgara had lost many firearms in a serious fire in the Mang­ kunSgaran complex of buildings. The prudent Governor Greeve, however, decided to postpone the supply of these weapons (in his letter, 140 pair carbines, 60 rifles with bayonets, and 100 pistols) until after the succession to the throne of the heir to the Sultanate of Mataram (Greeve to Batavia, March 14, 1789, KA 3754). This was a precaution against MangkunSgara's attempting forcibly to obtain this throne for himself. (These events will be dealt with in Part II of this article on the politi­ cal history of the period.) This succession did not in fact take place until April 1792, three years later.
113. See HR and 15L (the second passage is not completely legible).
114. 11R. These companies of santri soldiers must have been part of MangkunS­ gara's formidable armed following during the mid-century wars, for an account of these campaigns mentions on one occasion a "band . . . consisting entirely of priests" under his command. See Kort Verhaal, p. 200.
115. 208L.
116. 144L, 222L.

22
during the month o f Mulud in commemoration o f the death, as also the birth and life, of the Prophet.117

nulya ing sSnen kang dina nSm likur mulud kang sasi pangeran adipati kang bala mangan anginurn dSmang punggawa lurah lurah ISbSt lurah jawi lan sasabSt gajihyan miwah
kang sawah

223L

sarSng masjid ler muludan
kaum satus sami (Jikir sawusya dikir ko[n]dangan tuwuk tur barkat
kanduri sarSng pangran dipati miyos ningali kang nayub kang kasukan mandapa pinarSk nginggil ing kursi paringgitan pra sSlir katah
angayap

busana rSmpSg sadaya babadongan cana sami pra sSlir larih sadaya tarap pra putra lit-alit wayah kanan lan keri atap pra sSlir ing pungkur ningali kang kasukan

Then on the day Monday the 26th of the month o f Mulud the Pangeran Dipati's army took food and drink together; the dSmang, punggawa, and lurah, both inner and outer lurah,11819 and the sabSt119 both those who were paid in
wages and those holding rice-land,
gathered in the north mosque for the Mulud ceremonies.
A hundred of the kaum recited dikir mulud120 and afterward were invited to eat their fill and gain blessing from the
slamStan. When the Pangeran Dipati came from his rooms to see the dancers and revellers on the mandapa he was seated in state on a chair in the paringgitan;121 all his sSlir
attended him.
They were dressed all alike, wearing white badong.122 All the sSlir were* present, along with the young children, the grandchildren o f the right and of the le ft.123 The sSlir sat behind in orderly formation, watching the revellers,

117. The kSnduren mulud is a slamStan held, as is clear from the passage quoted, on the 26th of*the month, thus some days later than the more public ceremony of the GarSbSg Mulud.
118. In Javanese classifications of official position, it was common to divide a given category of official into inner vs. outer, right vs. left, or north vs. south.
119. sabSt, with a literal meaning o f sword, is clearly used by the diarist as the title of a junior military functionary, attached to a lurah.
120. The dikir mulud is a special feature of the Mulud celebrations, involving the recitation of Muhammad's life in verse, with members of the mosque congregation joining in the recital during the refrains and eulogies.
121. The paringgitan, "place of the ringgit" ( i . e . , of the wayang) is situated be­ tween the mandapa and the royal or princely residence.
122. The badong is a sort o f breast-plate, part of ceremonial court and wayang dress.
123. Grandchildren of the right are descendents through the primary wives, and of the left, descendents of sSlir.

23

bala kasukan mandapi titindihe pangran ‘surya prang
wadana

the soldiery enjoying themselves on the mandapa. Their leaders were Pangeran Surya Prang
Wadana121*

lan tumSnggung ing kaduwang sadaya tan pSgat larih sarta mangap dadaran tumut larih kang]5ng
gusti yen larih salpret [slompret] muni ingkang amSdal rumuhun ingkang badaya priya suka pratama kang gSnding
alit-alit pipitu sisi[n]den priya

and the TumSnggung of Kaduwang.12425 All served drinks without pause, and they were continuously eating. The Pangeran Dipati took a turn at serving the
drinks. With the sound of oboes the first to appear were the male badaya.126 The gSnding was‘ "With Highest R ejoicin g,"127 and the singers were seven small boys

kayuyun ing polahira sarta urmat mriySm muni murub muncar kang busana nulya ringgit munggeng kSlir alit-alit pawestri kang busana abra murub sakawan pelag-pelag ingkang ringgit munggeng kSlir akSkSjSr anglir parjak [prenjak]
tinajenan

charming in their movements, saluted by the sound of the cannon. Their clothing caught the light like the glow of fire. Then as figures on a screen128 came small girl dancers their clothes a glowing red, four in number, all extremely beautiful. These figures on the screen fluttered as swiftly as a pair of spurred warblers
set to fig h t.129

mandah agSng adiwasa jogede mSmSt tulya sri

If they should be fully grown, how captivatingly beautiful would their
dancing be!

124. MangkunSgara I's grandson and successor.
125. Probably MangkunSgara's deputy in his appanage lands in Kaduwang, and apparently second-in-command of the MangkunSgaran armed forces.
126. The best known court badaya dance is that performed by a group of nine fe­ male dancers, but male dancers*also performed dances known by this name. For some information on these dances, see Pigeaud, Volksvertoningen, pp. 273 ff.
127. This gSnding (gamSian melody) does not appear in the list o f gSnding given in an anonymous article in Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-lndie (henceforth T N I), 14, 2 (1852), pp. 257-80, 346-67 and 393-434 (see pp. 419-21), nor in the later list in Kunst, Music of Java, 2 (see index). It is probably one of the older and more elaborate gSnding.
128. This type of dance—of a group of girls or women before a screen—is de­ scribed by the diarist on a number of occasions, but does not appear to have been noted in European accounts of the different dance forms of the Javanese courts; nor is it known to Dr. Th. G. Th. Pigeaud from his extensive experience o f the present century (personal communication). Nevertheless, the fact that the krama word ringgit (here translated as "figures") is used both for wayang puppets and for female dancers suggests that it was the screen (kSlir) which was once seen as the link between the live and the inanimate figures whose performance it displayed.
129. "lir prenjak tinajenan," "like the prenjak bird fitted out with spurs" is a literary simile frequently used to describe dancers whose movements are too swift to be pinned down by an adversary.

24

maksih rare tan sama lir kadi tan ngambah siti kSbat cukat tarampil kacaryan sakeh kang dulu wusya nulya kang mSdal kang badaya jalSr malih pan diradamSt sisindene
priya
duk mSnang prang pranaraga badaya ingkang ginSnding rakit ing prang kasatriyan pangran dipati jSmparing susunan mangkubumi kawon kang bala keh lampus nulya ganti kang mSdal pawestri ringgit sarimpi kang ginSnding duk aprang
yogya mataram
duk aprang pangran dipatya angamuk ngagSm jSmparing kang mungsuh mayor walanda 223R kumpni lan bugis bali wong jawa pra dipati prang ngayogya kang arubut wusya sarimpi nulya

For already as children they have no peers: their feet seem not to touch the ground, so swift and well-trained they are. All who saw them were entranced. When they had finished, there appeared another male badaya, DiradamSt,130 whose accompaniment was provided
by a male singer.
The victory in battle in Pranaraga131 was portrayed in song and dance, when the knightly warriors joined battle, and the Pangeran Dipati loosed his arrows.132 Susunan133134Mangkubumi was defeated, and many o f his army killed. Next appeared four female srimpi131* dancers. They sang of the time of the battle of
Yogy akarta-Mataram
when the Pangeran Dipati fought, attacking fiercely, with bows and arrows. His opponents were a Dutch Major, the Company troops, the Buginese and Balinese, the Javanese and their Dipati.135 It was the battle for possession of Yogyakarta.136 After the srimpi dancers,

130. DiradamSt appears to have been something of a star among the MangkunSgaran dancers: he is mentioned by name also on 146R (depicting the same battle) and 277L.
131. Ponorogo and Madiun, then the two most populous and prosperous districts of Java, were conquered by MangkunSgara in the first half of 1752. In the follow­ ing year, after his alliance with Mangkubumi had changed to a lasting enmity, the two princes fought several engagements in east Java, and Mangkubumi was deci­ sively defeated (see Louw, Derde . . . Oorlog, pp. 57-66; Kort Verhaal, pp. 160206; and de Jonge, Opkomst, 10, pp. lxix-lxxiii). Ponorogo and Madiun were taken by a combined effort of Mangkubumi and the V .O .C . in 1755. After the wars, however, the MangkunSgaran retained a connection with Ponorogo, where MangkunSgara's sons were granted appanage lands by the Sunan of Surakarta.
132. It seems that MangkunSgara was renowned for his skill as an archer.
133. The ruler of Yogyakarta's official title was Sultan, rather than Sunan (that of the rulers of Surakarta).
134. A court dance, usually performed, as here, by four female dancers. Mang­ kunSgara himself instructed his srimpi dancers (see, for example, 202).
135. (A)dipati (Sanskrit adhipati, commander, ruler) was a title of high-ranking regional commanders. The Javanese referred to are those who by this stage were fighting under Mangkubumi.
136. This would refer to one of two attacks on Mangkubumi's new royal residence made by MangkunSgara's forces (now significantly depleted) in 1756: see Kort Ver­ haal , pp. 219, 228.

25

taledek tiga kang mijil kang 15bSti rumiyin ingkang
ngabSksa
pangran surya prang wadana sarta kang mariySm muni nulya tumSnggung kaduwang punggawa lurah gumanti pra dSmang ganti-ganti ganti lan papatihipun putra ma[n]cana-
gara pangajSng majSgan
ganti wusya ganti kang para lurah
balanjan
kang para raden sakawan wong jayengasta sinSlir miji nyutrayu kanoman mung sasabStira sami ganti-ganti ISbSti wusya kandSg mangan sSkul ko [n]dur pangran dipati

three dancing women appeared.137 The first to join in the
bSksa138
was the Pangeran Surya Prang Wadana. After the cannon was sounded then came the TumSnggung of Kaduwang, succeeded by the punggawa and lurah and the dSmang, turn by turn, followed by the Patih139140 and the younger generation from the outlying
regions. llf0 The headmen and those holding land in lease
followed, and afterwards the lurah who were paid money
for their upkeep;141
The four Raden,142* the select Jayengasta corps, the Miji, Nyutrayu, and Kanoman co rp s,11,3 with just the sabet 144 together, entered the dance turn by turn. When the dance finished they had a meal of rice,145 and the Pangeran Dipati retired.

137. taledek is a general term for dancing girls and women without the same spe­ cialization in courtly dance forms as the badaya and srimpi dancers.
138. The bSksa described here involved all the males present in taking a turn to dance with the taledek. The order of the dance was determined by rank, with each dancer "handing over" to the person immediately junior to him. Hence the dance is begun by Pangeran Surya Prang Wadana, followed by the other command­ er of the army. See anonymous article, T N I, 14, 2 (1852), p. 278.
139. It is interesting to see that MangkunSgara's Patih (the highest ranking "civil" official) takes his turn after the first four ranks of military officers.
140. Putra ma[n]canagara: the sons of the mancanagara, the regions beyond the area of the court and its immediate region ( nagara agung) . It is also possible that this is a slip of the pen for "putra mangkunSgaran," MangkunSgara's sons.
141. The diarist classifies the lurah, here as elsewhere, by the form of payment they received: sawah land, or money wages.
142. This probably refers to the four lurah o f the Samaputra corps, all grandsons of MangkunSgara and bearing the noble title o f Raden (see 204L).
.143. These were cavalry corps.
144. On the term sabSt, see note 119 above. Because they were the most junior of the military officers, they take their turn last here.
145. That is , rice with the usual accompanying dishes.

26
4. The MangkunSgaran Finances
Clearly, the maintenance of such a large establishment must have been expen­ sive. One of the most interesting features of the diary is that it includes a record of much of the monetary expenditures MangkunSgara incurred. With this and in­ formation from outside the court we can go some way towards establishing the rela­ tionship between MangkunSgara's income and his expenditures, though the data are not always as precise as one would wish.
On the subject of MangkunSgara's income, the diarist gives very little informa­ tion indeed; and the information available from the records of the V .O .C . is not as useful as that provided for the two major Javanese principalities. This is be­ cause at this period the MangkunSgaran was not yet recognized as an independent, hereditary principality, as it was later to be. MangkunSgara, though a mighty subject, was nevertheless still in the service of the Sunan of Surakarta; and there was therefore no separate contract between the MangkunSgaran and the V .O .C . such as bound the Sunan or the Sultan of Yogyakarta.11*6 Hartingh’ s letter of March 29, 1757, reporting the outcome o f his talks with MangkunSgara, notes sim­ ply that he had promised to obey the Sunan and to appear at court on the days required by custom, and had accepted in return 4,000 cacah situated in Gunung Kidul, MatSsih and Kaduwang. He had also requested the "high title" of Pangeran Adipati MangkunSgara.*11*7 There should have been a charter ( piagSm) from the Sunan confirming this grant, but this appears to have been lost (as indeed were almost all of the documents regulating the MangkunSgaran's economic relationship with the other principalities or with the Dutch government).11*8 According to Rouffaer, MangkunSgara actually received 4081 cacah;11*9 and in 1772 a conference was held between Pakubuwana III, MangkunSgara, and Governor J. R. van den Burgh, on which occasion MangkunSgara promised to obey faithfully the orders of the Sunan and of the Company; to appear at the Sunan’ s court whenever required; and not to assemble more followers—especially armed followers—in the kraton or Dutch factory than was allowed according to "old Javanese custom." In return, the Sunan appointed him wadana of the districts of "Pandjerlan" ( i .e ., PanjSr) and Pamarden.14678950 According to the report of this conference, he already held the
146. For the contracts signed during this period by the Sunan and the Sultan, see KITLV H [Hollands: Western language manuscript] 363, Tractaten gesloten met de zelfbestuurders van Surakarta en Yogya Batavia 1755-1830. See also vol­ ume 5 of F. W. Stapel, Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-lndicum, BKI 96 (1938), and ib id ., vol. 6 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1955).
147. Hartingh to Batavia, March 29, 1757 in KA 2802, VOCOB, 1758.
148. The deeds whereby the MangkunSgaran in 1813 received another 1000 cacah (from the Sultan's lands?) and 500 more from the Dutch government in 1830, as well as the documents relating to the rationalization of the MangkunSgaran and Sunanate lands in c . 1903, are all missing. See G. P. Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden," Adatrechtbundels 134 (1931), pp. 258-59 and 269.
149. Ib id ., pp. 240-41.
150. Letter of F. van Straalendorf, P. Boltze, Raden Adipati Sasradiningrat and Adipati Suradimenggala, in van den Burgh to Batavia, August 20, 1772, KA 3256, VOCOB 1773. The reason for the strange form in which the district of PanjSr ap­ pears here is perhaps that the two districts (which are adjacent) were described in Javanese as "Panjer lan Pamarden," that is, "PanjSr and Pamarden."

27
wadana-ship of Banyumas;151 at this period the Bupati o f Banyumas held the office of wadana mancanagara kilen, that is, the official in charge o f collecting the tribute payable by the western mancanagara. (The lands o f the Javanese principalities were classified into two groups: the nagara agung, regions immediately adjacent to the capital, in which the appanage lands of princes and office-holders were concen­ trated; and the mancanagara, more distant regions where the land was theoreti­ cally the ruler's own property but was managed for him by local governors (the Bupati and their subordinates) who received a percentage of its yield.) The three regions delegated to MangkunSgara by 1772 were of the following sizes, reckoned in cacah: Banyumas 2,029 cacah; PanjSr 1,180 cacah; Pamarden 504 cacah—thus, a total of 3,713 cacah over and above his original grant.152
Calculating a notional income from these lands is, as will become apparent, not entirely straightforward. The Javanese system o f landholding and taxation regu­ lations was as complicated as any, and is made unusually inaccessible by the lack of adequate records. We may begin with a statement of the general principles in operation, as set out by Rouffaer.153 The produce of village land was conceptually divided into five parts. One part was allotted to the bSkSl,or village head. The remaining four-fifths was equally divided between the cultivator and the monarch— or, as we may prefer to put it, the "state treasury." For it is clear that the twofifths to which the ruler was entitled did not, in fact, all accrue to his personal income; and it is in attempting to calculate who shared in this royal two-fifths and in what proportions, that the real difficulty lies.
Rouffaer also gives a formula by which the income from land—which would be, it goes without saying, largely in kind—can be converted into a money figu re.15** In the seventeenth century, one jung155 of land was estimated to produce one Spanish dollar, or rea l,156 in tax per annum—being the value of the two-fifths
151. Ibid.
152. The figures are taken from the land settlement of 1773: see Schrieke, Indo­ nesian Sociological Studies, 2, p. 367, n. 311. Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, discussing the meaning of cacah in terms o f manpower (p . 425 n . ) , has not noted this increase in the number of cacah under MangkunSgara's control.
153. Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden," pp. 299-311.
154. Ib id ., pp. 301-2.
155. Rouffaer gives one jung = 2500 square Rhenish rods [Rijnlandse roeden of 3.767 m] (ib id .), but there seems to have been considerable local variation—up to a factor of 10—until Daendels introduced a standard "government jung" (see Thos. Stamford Raffles, History o f Java, 2 vols. (1817; reprint e d ., Kuala Lumpur, New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 2, Appendix M.
156. The hard Spanish dollar (peso duro) was for long the standard unit o f ex­ change on Java and the surrounding regions, where it was generally known as the real, an abbreviation of real de a ocho, "eight-real piece." (Other names include Jav. ringgit; pasmat, a corruption of Spaansche mat; and piaster.) In Europe, it was very close in value to the Dutch rijksdaalder: both maintained a value which varied only between £0.22 and £0.23 over the period 1651-1781 (see John J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America 1600-1775: A Handbook [Williams­ burg, V a.: University of Carolina Press, 1978], Table 1.1). In the Indonesian region, however, the Spanish dollar was the preferred currency and always enjoyed an advantage (c . 25-40 percent) over its official value vis-a-vis Dutch monies. (See Robert Chalmers, A History o f Currency in the British Colonies [London:

28
due to the ruler. By the period with which we are concerned, however, one bau —that is, one quarter of a jung157—now produced a real per annum.158 Since, for purposes of calculating production and taxation, a cacah was equivalent to a ba u ,159 each cacah also produced one real per annum for the state treasury. Mangkunegara's lands, therefore, produced 4081 + 3713 real in tax per annum.
But to whom did this tax go? Turning again to Rouffaer, we find that differ­ ent systems for the allocation of taxes allegedly operated in the nagara agung and in the mancanagara. In the nagara agung, where, as we have noted, the appanage lands of princes and office-holders were located, the ruler ceded his entire right to tax to the appanage-holder. In the mancanagara, the royal two-fifths (calcula­ ble at one real per cacah per annum) was divided up as follows: one-fifth of this tax to the Bupati; one-fifth to the district heads (ngabei, dSmang, e tc.) and the remaining three-fifths to the ru ler.160
MangkunSgara's lands lay initially partly in the nagara agung and partly in the mancanagara. Those in the MatSsih and Gunung Kidul areas were in the nagara agung; those in Kaduwang, Banyumas, PanjSr and Pamarden were in the mancana­ gara. His power to*draw tax from these lands should, therefore, have differed between the two categories. In the 1773 land settlement, however, all the latter regions were reclassified as nagara agung.161 According to Rouffaer's systemiza-
Eyre & Spottiswoode, ( c .) 1893], pp. 281-83, Appendix A; John Crawfurd, A De­ scriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent Countries [London: Brad­ bury & Evans, 1856], p. 285; and E. Netscher and J. A. van der Chijs, De Munten van Nederlandsch Indie, VBG, 31, 2 [1864].)
157. Strickly speaking, there are five bau to a jung, but since the one-fifth of a jung allotted to the bSkSl does not produce tax, the Javanese land registers do not take it into account and reckon four bau to the jung. Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden," p. 301.
158. Rouffaer attributes this to a decline in value o f the Spanish dollar ("Vorsten­ landen," p. 303) in central Java. This is contrary to all other evidence (see references in n. 156 above), which indicates that the real maintained its value. Rouffaer has probably been confused either by the fact that what was called the "real" in Java was actually the piece-of-eight, a multiple of the Spanish unit of currency known in Europe as a real. Though this latter real did indeed decline throughout the eighteenth century, the piece-of-eight was maintained at its old value (by calculating its worth as equivalent to 10 and then 11 rea l); or by the fact that the exchanges in Spain used a "notional" ( i . e . , noncoin) piece-of-eight as a unit o f accounting. This notional piece-of-eight (known as the peso de cambio) declined in value at the same rate as the (European) real. (See McCusker, Money and Exchange, pp. 99-100.) It is clear that in Java we have to do with the silver dollar itself and not with the notional accounting money used in Spain. There is no evidence that the silver dollar was accepted at a lesser value: it was certainly not reduced to anywhere near a quarter of its value, which would have had to be the case if its devaluation was the reason for the increase in taxation noted here. It is more likely that we have to do with an increase in taxation pure and simple: itself an interesting phenomenon.
159. On the nature o f the equivalence o f these terms, see Rouffaer, "Vorsten­ landen," p. 301.
160. Ibid ., p. 304.
161. Ib id ., p. 240; Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies, 2, p. 366 n. 311.

29
tion, therefore, MangkunSgara should then have been ceded by the ruler the en­ tire right to the tax payable in all his lands, which were now entirely within the nagara agung category.
Unfortunately, the evidence of the diary contradicts this formula. In 1788— well after the reclassification took place—MangkunSgara made a request for an extra 600 cacah, or, if this was not possible, to be allowed to hold his existing lands tax-free. Clearly, then, he could not have enjoyed the exclusive right to tax his landholdings at that time, but must have paid a certain proportion to the Sunan. But what proportion? Rouffaer's formula is now clearly inapplicable, but perhaps a rough guide can be obtained by the following reasoning: if MangkunS­ gara requested either an extra 600 cacah (from which the tax revenue would pre­ sumably be shared by him and the Sunan in the same proportion as b e fo re ), or to have the tax due to the Sunan on the earlier 7,794 cacah remitted, we may assume that this was a "trad e-off," and that the revenue sums involved were roughly equal. (It is unlikely that they would be exactly equivalent: 600 cacah looks very much like a "round fig u re.") Using the following procedure, let A stand for the Sunan's share and B for MangkunSgara's.
A + B = 1; A = 1 - B A's share of 7794 is
7794A = 7794(1 - B)
B's share of 600 is 600B. Since B's share of 600 compensates to B for A's share of 7794, equate the two:
600B = 7794(1 - B) ,
or (600 + 7794)B = 7794.
B = 7794/8394 = 0.93.
Hence, B's (MangkunSgara's) share is 93%.
Thus, it seems that about 7 percent of the tax revenue of MangkunSgara's lands went to the Sunan. The majority of MangkunSgara's lands162 had recently been reclassified as nagara agung. This reclassification had been greatly to Mangku­ nSgara's economic advantage as the Sunan claimed a much larger proportion of the tax (three-fifths) on mancanagara. The Sunan apparently, however, continued to exact a small proportion of the tax, even though all MangkunSgara's lands were now in the nagara agung where, according to Rouffaer, the ruler had ceded his taxing rights to the appanage holder.
We may calculate, then, that 7 percent of the 7,794 real produced by these lands went to the Sunan, and a further 20 percent would have gone to pay those of MangkunSgara's lurah and other officers who were paid in land.163164 It seems that a lurah in MangkunSgara's army might expect to receive about 17 jung in lease, plus the loan of a buffalo to work this land.161* Deducting the Sunan's
162. I .e ., Kaduwang (1,150 cacah), Banyumas (2,029 c . ) , PanjSr (1,180 c . ) , and Pamarden (504*c.)—a total of 5,213 cacah out of the 7,354.
163. See Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden," p. 304, for the basis of this calculation. In fact, MangkunSgara had difficulty in preventing these men from retaining more than the percentage due to them (see n. 164).
164. 102L. Given the traditional saying that one bau (one-fifth or one-quarter of a jung, according to the method o f calculation) o f sawah land or 2 bau of dry land provides a sufficient living for a farmer and his family, 17 jung is a very large

30
7 percent (= 546 real) and the lurah's 20 percent (= 1559 real) from the original sum of 7,794 real we arrive at the figure of 5,689 real as the sum MangkunSgara himself may be thought to have derived from taxing his landholdings.
One other source of monetary income should be mentioned: it appears that MangkunSgara received a share of the 10,000 real per annum which the Sunan re­ ceived from the V .O .C . for the lease of the pasisir. His share was apparently 400 real.165 Adding this to the income from his lands, we arrive at a figure of 6,089 real per annum. This income was to be considerably augmented when in the second half of 1790 the V .O .C . granted him an annual allowance of 4,000 real.166
This calculation o f an "annual cash income" from MangkunSgara's lands is, however, an oversimplification of the actual situation. Since harvests varied from year to year, so too did the money value of the tax levied. One writer notes that a gandek (envoy from the capital) was sent out to the region concerned to make an assessment of the tax due, based on the actual total production, for each har­ v e s t.167 Thus there was considerably variation in the amount of produce coming in, particularly in a period including some years of poor harvests, as was the case in the late 1780s to early 1790s.168 Secondly, the amount of produce arriving at the capital was divided out in a rather complex fashion, which was probably ad­ justed according to the perceived needs o f the time. An example taken from the diary illustrates the complexities o f distribution: in the second half of the month of BSsar 1717 AJ169 (August 1791), thirty amet170 o f rice arrived from the MangkunSgaran lands and was divided out as follows: to the abdi balanjan (that is, those retainers who were paid in cash and kind as opposed to those paid in lan d); to the Resident; and to the Chinese and small traders (presumably for sale). A few days later more rice (quantity unspecified) arrived and was divided out among Mangku­ nSgara's servants, the Patih and the wadana, family members,171 the army, and re­ ligious functionaries, namely the pSngulu, m a r b o t , 2 kStib,173 and jamsari.17* Again,
parcel of land. It seems that MangkunSgara had some difficulty in ensuring that his subordinates paid their share o f the tax, since dismissals and replacements among his lurah and dSmang are often recorded, and the reasons, where given, seem usually to be that they have not fulfilled their obligations, are behind in their payments, or have sold (or otherwise "lost") the buffalo loaned to them (see, for example, 154R and 185R).
165. 296.
166. It should be noted that MangkunSgara had asked for 4,000 cacah, confirming Rouffaer's calculation that one cacah = one real in tax revenue.
167. See "Vorstenlanden: Gegevens betreffende bestuur en rechtspraak in het prinsdom Mangkoenagaran (1867-1913)," Adatrechtbundels, 25 (1926), p. 79.
168. See below p. 31.
169. 289R.
170. The amet was the chief unit of measurement for husked rice. Like the jung it exhibited considerable variation even within one region. Daendels introduced a standard measure here too, the "government amet" of 266-2/3 English pounds. (Raffles, History o f Java, 2, Appendix M.) Previously it might have weighed up to three times this amount.
171. The santana, that is, the family members o f more distant relations than chil­ dren and grandchildren.
172. The mosque custodian, responsible for beating the bSdug (great drum) at the times of prayer.

31
early in Mulud 1718173475 (late October 1791), one amet o f rice was delivered to the Resident. At this time Mangkunggara himself and the prajurit estri went out to the villages to watch the harvesting. More rice was later given to the Resident and second Resident, and some to the Sunan and to Mangkunggara's sons in their own districts. Immediately after this distribution was made, however, MangkunSgara had to buy rice from the market: the diarist explains that there was a short­ age o f rice at this time176 (perhaps also the reason behind Mangkunggara's des­ patch of rice to his sons in their appanages). One thousand one hundred and forty tompo177178o f rice were bought at a cost o f 114 real. Half this quantity was distributed among the dgmang, lurah, rangga, punggawa and tumgnggung in Mangkunggara's service and among his sons and grandsons, and the other half was offered in a slamgtan.
We see therefore that the rice was distributed on different bases: to those of Mangkunggara's servants and officers who held no land in lease, as a supplement to their money wages (curiously similar to the system in use for Indonesian bureau­ crats today); to the Sunan, in payment of his share of the land's produce; and to the Dutch, Chinese, and traders, for sale. On this occasion, there was not suffi­ cient rice to meet the obligations to retainers and to the Sunan, and to fulfill "con­ tracts" to the Dutch and Chinese for a certain quantity, and Mangkunggara ended up by having to purchase rice in the market.
The yield of the harvest which came in from Sura 1715 (October 1788) had also been insufficient, and rice had to be bought. In a letter of July 1790 Greeve men­ tions that the rice harvests of the preceding years had been poor, and predicted (the above evidence shows wrongly) that this one would be better.170
We can conclude, therefore, that Mangkunggara's income from his lands was subject to considerably fluctuations depending on the size o f the harvest in a par­ ticular year. Yet his cash commitments were substantial.
To get some idea of his annual monetary expenditure, we may take the figures given for 1717 AJ (1790/91 AD). He made the following payments:
173. Usually a number of kStib were assigned to assist the pgngulu in his duties.
174. No dictionary lists this word, which the context clearly shows must denote a religious functionary. It does not occur among the titles of religious functionaries in the nineteenth century Mangkunggaran (see "Vorstenlanden: Gegevens," Adatrechtbundels, 25 (1926), pp. 75-76 and 91-92). One may tentatively suggest a derivation from Turkish yeniceri, "janissary," since military corps modeled on these Turkish ones existed in the Javanese principalities and the Janissary corps had historical connections with religious orders (see, for example, J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971], pp. 8081). In the local context, this functionary is very likely to have been associated with "Jamsaren" ("place of the Jamsari"), an old-established pgsantren whose clientele was mainly the sons of the Surakarta aristocracy (and which is still in existence).
175. 302R-303L.
176. 303R (mila an&mpur bSras/sSmana kang b8ras awis).
177. A tompo is another measure of rice, also exhibiting considerable local varia­ tion in actual weight. In Surakarta usage there were 24 tompo to 1 amet (see Gericke and Roorda, Javaansch-Nederlandsch Handwoordenboek, and Raffles, History of Java, 2, Appendix M).
178. See Greeve to Batavia, July 29, 1790 in KA 3802, VOCOB, 1791.

32
1. 6 Sapar: wages (amount specified) paid to newly created prajurit c o rp s.179
2. 20 Mulud: payment of anggris and duwit to the value of 1,560 [real?]180 (to the abdi in general).
3. 24 Mulud: 1,408 real181 (to the soldiery)* 4. 28 Mulud: wages (amount unspecified) paid to newly created prajurit
c o rp s.182 5. 17 Rabingulakir. As above, number 4 .183 6. 7 Jumadilawal. 345 [real?] to the bala kaum. 184 7. 12 Arwah. 200 real to the soldiers; 6,000 duwit to the lurah.185 8. 11 Sawal. 1,600 [real]: half were real anggris, half real batu , 186 (to
the soldiery). 9. 17 Sawal. 1,000 real in the form of duwit (to the soldiery).187 10. 17 Sawal. 300 real (to the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and to
the serving g irls). 188
179. 258R.
180. 264L: Ka[ng] jSng pangeran adipati gagajih kang abdi-abdi / a[ng]gris kalawan duwit / tSlas sewu gangsal atus pujul sSket kang arta. . . . For a dis­ cussion of these coins ( anggris and duwit), see below.
181. 264: mulud tanggal salawe prah / kala dina kSmis manis / kangjSng pangeran dipatya / paring bala ngSmping gajih / gagajihe ing be[n]jing / bakda siyam mangke nuhun / prandene pinaringan / sewu arta kang gagajih / pujul kawan atus lawan walung [wolung] reyal / /
182. 265L.
183. 269L.
184. 269R: nulya dina kSmis kang tanggal pipitu / jumadelakir [error for jumadila­ wal] kang wulan / kangjSng pangeran dipati / / gajih bala kakauman / dasarambat kalawan dasawani / pijigan panamSngipun / lawan wong dasamuka / dasarata sami ngSmping gajihipun / tigang atus kawan dasa / gangsal ing siyam sapalih / /
185. 277R: . . . nulya e[n]jingipun di[n]tSn akad paing / ing wah tanggal ping rolas / / paparing kangjSng pangran dipati / pasumbang pamalSm sangu siyam / mring bala bala[n]jan kabeh / kang arta kalih atus / reyal sami awarni duwit / sarSng paring panSbas / banon be[n]jang katur / lurah bala[n]jan sadaya / tSlas nSnSm ewu ingkang arta duwit / para lurah sadaya / / dene sangu paring siyam be[n]jing / sajajare bala[n]jan sadaya / kaum mahas sajajare / kang sabin datan antuk / . . .
186. 282L: salasa inggara [anggara] kasih / sawal tanggal ping sawSlas / gagajih wadya balane / jSng gusti pangran dipatya / jajar gajihyan jaba / tSlas arta sewu pujul / nSm atus sewu pujulnya / / sapalih kinarya anggris / sapalih batu kang arta / seos wong ngSmping gajihe / seos gajih wulan bSsar / jumadilakir wulan / seos bakda siyam mulud / saking katahe kang bala / /
187. 282L: nulya sSnen manisipun / sawal tanggal ping pitu las / / ka[ng]jSng pangeran dipati / gagajih kang bala-bala / bala kang ngSmping gajihe / gajihe mulud ing be[n]jang / sawal nuhun empingan / gajih bebas benjang mulud / nuhun mangke pinaringan / / sewu real warni duwit / sarta pujul sangang real / maksih watSn [wontSn] ingkang dereng / ngSmping gajihe mulud / saking katahe kang bala / . . . The meter (Asmarandana) o f the middle verse lacks two lines but the sense seems unimpaired.
188. 282R: sarta sarSng ngSmping gajih / para putra buyut wayah / manggung

33
11. 24 Sawal. 400 real and 700 anggris (to the lu ra h ).189 12. 14 BSsar. 1,025 real (to the sold iery ).190
Two patterns are apparent in this table: first, the concentration of payments in the months of Mulud and Sawal. Taking the record of the diary as a whole, a pattern of half-yearly payment of salaries is confirmed. The second of these two payments was known as the gajihing (wulan) Siyam (Ramadan/fast month salary) but was actually paid in the following month, Sawal. Second, it is clear that the wages of the soldiery comprised a very large proportion o f the total: in compari­ son, the amounts received by the other court servants (the a b d i), and by MangkunSgara's own sons and further descendants, are quite small.
Totaling up the payments for 1717 AJ, we come up against the problem posed by the different currencies in which these are given. Unfortunately, the second half of the eighteenth century was a time of considerable confusion in the mone­ tary situation in Java, when a great number of different types of specie, locally struck or imported from abroad, were in circulation without any well-established mutual relationships.191
Secondly, the precise meaning of all o f the Javanese terms used by the diarist may need some reconstruction. Most o f the payments are specified in real, that is, in the Spanish dollars which were for so long the standard unit of exchange on Java and in the neighboring regions.192 As noted above, the annual payment made to the Sunan, and the Sultan as rent for the pasisir and its incomes was made in Spanish dollars (10,000 to each ruler). In some entries the diarist describes the real more specifically as "real batu," or "real anggris." The first term may be taken to indicate the very rough, unfashioned pieces of silver which were provided with a stamp and exported from Spanish America, even as late as the eighteenth cen tu ry.193194 They were known to the English as " c o b s ." 19,t What exactly the diarist means by real anggris is uncertain. According to Crawfurd, this term was used for the Spanish dollar in general, because, in his opinion, it was much used by English traders.195 It is possible, however, that the diarist uses it for a spe­ cific type of Spanish dollar.196 In any case, the different types of Spanish dollar
katanggung sakabeh / gajihe mulud ing be[n]jang / pinaring wulan sawal / t£las arta tigang atus . . .
189. 282R: nulya sSnen kang dina / salawe prah tanggalipun / ing sawal pangran dipatya / / gajih bala ngSmping gajih / lurah lan sasabStira / lurah ISbSt jawi kabeh / ngSmping sawal pinaringan / mulud kang gajih bebas / nora gajih b e [n ]jang mulud / sakawan atus kang reyal / / pujul pitung atus anggris / reyal lan duwit sadaya / . . .
190. 288L: sarSng gagajih kang bala / sSmana pangran dipati / / tSlas arta sewu reyal / mapan pujul salawe genya gajih / . . .
191. The situation was not finally corrected until the introduction in 1854 of a new regulation which brought about a notable improvement.
192. On the value of the Spanish silver dollar, see note 156 above.
193. See Netscher and van der Chijs, Munten, pp. 1-2.
194. See Chalmers, History of C urrency, pp. 390-91.
195. Crawfurd, Dictionary, p. 285, sub "money."
196. Different mintings of the Spanish silver dollars carried different devices, for example, the earlier "pillar" dollars, the later "globe" dollars, and still later ones with the Spanish arms. See Chalmers, History of C urrency, pp. 391-92; William D. Craig, Coins of the World 1750-1850 (Racine, Wis.: Whitman, 1966),

34
noted by the diarist were in circulation at equivalent values, and were accepted by her as such (see, for example, entry no. 8).
We find a total of at least 6,633 real (Spanish dollars) o f different types paid out here; but much more probably a total of 8,538, adding in the two payments (nos. 2 and 6), where the amount is noted but the coinage is apparently not specified. In the present writer's opinion, the diarist uses the word arta, which is commonly used to mean money in general, to denote the real specifically, and has done so in these two entries. In addition, there is the single payment where the amount is given in duwit (6,000). The Java duwit, unlike the Dutch coin after which it was named, was accounted at 4 to the stuiver, 197 thus 320 to the real, so that this amount comes to the quite small sum of 18.75 real, bringing the total amount of wages for which the actual amount is recorded to 8,556.75. There re­ main, however, three entries (nos. 1, 4, and 5) for which neither the amount nor the coinage is recorded. One may suppose that the total wage bill, allowing for these amounts and possible incompleteness in the diarist's records, must have been in the vicinity of 10,000 real. It is also worth noting that a majority of the wage payments recorded in the diary seem to have been advances ( " ngSmping gajih"— see entries 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10), often at the request of those concerned, so that we may conclude that MangkunSgara's men did not regard their wages as adequate, and the old prince must have been under constant, if respectful, pressure for further payments.
Furthermore, the wage bill was not MangkunSgara's only regular commitment. The diarist records a continuing and considerable expenditure on presents, an inescapable requirement of the life o f the period,which will be discussed below. He had in addition other expenses which, though not recurrent, might involve very large amounts. In 1787, for instance, he had to pay gold to the value of 3,816 (real?) to the Sunan as the paningsSt198 for his daughter, who was being given in marriage to MangkunSgara's son.
What does this analysis of MangkunSgara's finances reveal? First, a perhaps surprising degree of monetization: wages in cash amounting to c. 10,000 real; and other large money payments, such as the gold coins as marriage-payment for the Sunan's daughter. Presumably the means whereby MangkunSgara's income, which would have been for a large part in kind, was converted into cash for his expendi­ ture was via the sale of agricultural produce, principally rice, to Chinese and other buyers.1978
sections on Spain and the Spanish colonies; and Aldo P. Basso, Coins, Medals and Tokens of the Philippines (Menlo Park, C al.: Chenby, 1968), p. 19.
197. Netscher and van der Chijs, Munten, p. 66. The Dutch duit was accounted at 8 to the stuiver.
198. The paningsSt is a present made to the bride when she is the daughter o f a Pangeran (o r, as here, o f the Sunan himself) and the groom is o f lower rank. C. F. Winter's article ("Instellingen, Gewoonten en Gebruiken der Javanen te Soerakarta," TNI , 5, 1 (1843), pp. 459-86, 546-613 and 690-744) describes the paningsSt as comprising a few items of silverware (p . 573); but in the present case it involves a large sum o f money (and is termed "arta pamapag," money-ofthe-meeting, i . e . , of the bride). The amount is given (100L-R) as ardana rSginira 8mas sadaya pan pangaji tigang ewu walung [wolung] atus n8m belas, "riches en­ tirely in gold to the worth of 3816," and, as in other places where the currency is not specified, it seems that the amount is understood to be in real. If, however, 3816 gold coins were paid, the sum would be anything from about 1£ to 8£ times greater than 3816 real, depending on which gold coinage was involved.

35
Second, a rather dangerous balance between income and expenditure. With an income of about 6,000 real from his lands, MangkunSgara was paying out about 10,000 real per annum on wages, not to speak o f the sums required for partici­ pating in the obligatory round of present giving described below, and for other expenses unavoidable for a man of his station. Even when he began to receive a further 4,000 real per annum from the V .O .C ., this sum would barely have closed the gap between his previous income and his wages bill.
The fact that the largest amounts for wages were paid to the soldiery raises another interesting point. At this period, MangkunSgara was apparently losing more followers to the Sultan than he was attracting to his own kraton. Ricklefs has suggested that the preponderant direction of the movement o f courtiers is an indication of which court was "stronger in terms of legitimation."199 The above analysis suggests that it should perhaps rather be explained in terms of relative economic strength and the ability to meet a large wages bill, which was clearly taxing MangkunSgara's finances to their utmost. Particularly important was the capacity to pay the soldiery—who, as we have seen, received the lion's share of wages—in view of the implications this had for the relative military strength of the rival courts. One should note, however, that MangkunSgara's court was not suf­ fering from a large-scale exodus, that significant numbers of followers (who were subsequently enlisted in the MangkunSgaran military forces) did come over to him from the Sultan's people, and that, as we have seen, a strong esprit de corps existed among MangkunSgara's dependents.
Given the unhealthy relationship between his income and expenditure, what could MangkunSgara do? It was not in his power to increase the size of his landholdings and, though he might have tried to obtain for himself a larger share of the tax-bearing capacity of his existing lands, it is questionable how far he could succeed in this. One way of increasing his income was to adapt to new opportuni­ ties and changed circumstances by beginning to produce those cash crops which could be sold to the V .O .C ., and this he did. In a letter of 1792, we find him requesting the Company to provide instruction in the cultivation o f pepper and indigo, which his men did not then know how to grow .200 In the nineteenth cen­ tury, the cultivation and processing of sugar and coffee was a major element in the MangkunSgaran's finances.201 Another way in which the economic fortunes of MangkunSgara's descendants became dependent upon the colonial government was through the transformation of the highly developed military and equestrian exper­ tise which we have already noted into the institution of the "MangkunSgaran Le­ gion." This was established by Daendels in 1809 as a sort of cavalry reserve for the colonial army, and Raffles subsequently agreed to pay 1,200 real per month towards the maintenance of this force, which then consisted of 900 footsoldiers, 200 cavalrymen, and 500 mounted artillerymen. During the course of the nine­ teenth century, however, the Legion lost its potential serviceability as a real fighting unit, and by 1910 neither the infantry nor the cavalry could be consid­ ered fit to see service.202 Even with these new developments, however, the MangkunSgaran fortunes went through some difficult times in the course of the nineteenth century.203
199. Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, p. 234.
200. See van Overstraten to Batavia, November 3, 1792, KA 3859, VOCOB, 1793.
201. See Rouffaer, "Vorstenlanden," p. 273.
202. On the MangkunSgaran Legion see S. A. Drijber, "Het Legioen van Mangkoe Negoro," Indisch M ilitair Tijdschrift, 31, 7-12 (1910), pp. 306-11.
203. In the 1880s, government loans to the MangkunSgaran could not be repaid,

36
So from the late eighteenth century onwards, the economic viability of the MangkunSgaran became increasingly dependent on its connection with the colonial government, with obvious implications for its political independence. It would be wrong to conclude at once that the same economic forces pushed the two larger principalities in the same direction. They had larger resources than the Mangku­ nSgaran, and a separate investigation is necessary to establish whether these larger resources were a buttress of comparative independence (at least until the series of territorial annexations culminating in the truncation of 1830), or whether they merely produced MangkunSgara's problems on a larger scale. Certainly, it is clear that the Sunan shared some of these problems, in particular the constant difficulty of exerting effective control over his subordinates, with all that this implied for economic strength or weakness. The diarist repeatedly records royal decrees issued by the Sunan and his Patih providing for the chaining, beating, or imprisonment of officers and officials holding land in excess of the amount to which they were entitled,201t and this suggests that these decrees were not very effective. When the eastern mancanagara lands belonging both to Surakarta and to Yogyakarta were annexed by the colonial government in 1830, an investigation was made into the amount of taxation which the two courts had actually drawn from these lands. The figure arrived at represented less than 20 percent of the total revenues of the regions concerned, a notable contrast to the 40 percent which was claimed.20405 This effectively demonstrates, in the economic sphere, how very far theoretical formulations such as those given by Rouffaer may be from actual practice. The diarist does not, however, provide the same detailed information on the Sunan's finances as she gives for the MangkunSgaran, and no more can be said on the subject here.
5. Surakarta Court Life
The diarist does not concentrate exclusively on the internal affairs o f the MangkunSgaran kraton, and the diary gives many fascinating sidelights on the general pattern of life, at least in the ambiance of the courts. The daily round and common task—especially building work in the kraton, and the maintenance of irrigation works206—are described, as is the ceremonial surrounding special fes­ tivities such as royal marriages. On 14 Jumadilakir 1713 AJ (April 3, 1787)207 MangkunSgara's son, Raden Suryakusuma, married the Sunan's daughter, Raden Ayu Supiyah, a marriage of considerable political importance. MangkunSgara had dedicated two slamStan to his future daughter-in-law, and Suryakusuma had put away his various sSlir and three children in order to receive the princess "with a
and MangkunSgara V had to surrender the management of his financial affairs to the colonial government during the 1890s. Financial autonomy was retained thanks to the able management of MangkunSgara VI. (See Mailrapporten 1890 no. 578; 1891 nos. 58, 320, 382, and 471; 1893 no. 197; and the Kolonfale Verslagen for the 1890s sub "Java en Madoera."
204. See, for example, 24R-25L, 30R, 32R.
205. The results o f this investigation can be found in P. J. F. Louw and E. S. de Klerck, De Java-Oorlog van 1825-30, 6 vols. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1894-1909), 6, p. 168.
206. Notably the PSngging canal, which appears to have been a constant source of trouble, needing frequent repairs: see 66L, 96R, 101L, 127L, 185L.
207. 104R.

37
pure h ea rt."208 Two of the children (like their mothers "in a pitiful state")209 were adopted by MangkunSgara himself, and the third by Pangeran Surya Mataram.210 The marriage was followed by a number o f receptions, and on 22 Jumadilakir, cannon salutes from the MangkunSgaran and the senior kraton announced that the consummation of the marriage had now taken place.211
While the rhythm of MangkunSgara's life seems to have been dominated by the observances of the weekly jumungahan (Friday p ra y e r), the Sunans appeared as regularly for the sSton as the mosque.212 The sSton was a spectacle which usually began with a watangan (lance tournament) and ended with a rampogan sima, in which the Sunan's men, armed with pikes, formed a square around a tiger, ad­ vanced on it together, and killed it.
Very occasionally, a sima-maesa (tiger vs. buffalo) fight was held. In view of the symbolism often ascribed to this combat—the tiger representing the Dutch, the buffalo the Javanese213—it may be worth noting that the future Pakubuwana IV arranged such a performance for Greeve, the Governor of the northeast coast, while his father lay dying. If this was really a sinister sign of his future attitude towards the Company, it appears to have had no effect on the Governor, who imme­ diately afterwards promised the old Sunan that he would ensure his son's succes­ sion . 214
The royal tigers were also used as a form of execution for rebels and crimi­ nals:215 certainly, a cruel punishment for the victims, but surprisingly enough not always fatal. On one occasion two men, accused of entering the kraton with­ out authorization, were set to fight three tigers. Though they were armed only with clubs, and "tired" tigers were exchanged for "fresh" and even "fierce" ones, they survived, though wounded, to be exiled, "knowing what life and death w ere." 216
208. Eklas kang galih (100L).
209. Saklangkung kawlas ayun (100L).
210. MangkunSgara's grandson. These happenings will be discussed in Part II of this article.
211. 110R. This cannon salute—which seems to have been standard ceremonial to mark the consummation of royal marriages (see 90R on the occasion of the marriage of Pakubuwana IV when still heir-apparent)—is described as pratonda bSdah kuta, "sign that the citadel is breached."
212. SSton is derived from sVptu, Saturday. In Yogyakarta similar spectacles were held on Mondays, and hence called sSnenan.
213. See Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, pp. 274-75, 303-4, 345-46. An alternative explana­ tion, however, sees the buffalo as representative of royal authority and cosmic order, and the tiger of chaos and chthonic forces, or the underworld.
214. 157R.
215. For example, 61L, 77L, 213L.
216. 272R-273L. The practice of setting criminals to fight tigers continued into the early years of the nineteenth century, and Raffles ( History of Java, 1, p. 388) reports that if the man concerned escaped comparatively unscathed this was taken as proof of innocence by ordeal, and he was freed and even sometimes given the position of mantri.

38
The drama of these spectacles was not enjoyed in the MangkunSgaran. When the Sunan held the rampogan sima, MangkunSgara usually arranged for cock or quail fighting217 to be held for his army. This spectacle was greatly valued, not only for the enjoyment it offered, but also because cock and quail fighting were among the awisan: the prerogatives of the Sunan and his family, forbidden to anyone else.218 On two occasions the diarist notes with pride MangkunSgara's exemption from this prohibition, an exemption which was, she claims, obtained for him by the intercession of the "KumpSni" (the V .O .C .) .219 The exemption was perhaps a matter of particular pride because Pakubuwana III otherwise insisted on the rigorous observance of the prohibition on cock fighting, and on one occasion a number of his own abdi were imprisoned for a time for infringing i t .220
The aristocracy was extremely conscious of the need to maintain the external signs of gradations of rank—a typically aristocratic concern which was in this case somewhat unexpectedly reinforced by the attitude o f a structurally nonaristocratic institution, the V .O .C . Perhaps because, once having committed itself to the maintenance of a certain constellation of Javanese princes, it saw the utility of allowing each star to shine with the appropriate luster, the company was punc­ tilious in observing protocol.221 Invariably, when the Governor of the northeast coast visited Surakarta, he, the highest Dutch official present, would place him­ self by the Sunan, while the Resident accompanied MangkunSgara.222 Within kraton society a breach of protocol was deeply resented, as when MangkunSgara's sons were seated at a reception given by Pakubuwana IV in a position which did not take account of the fact that they were attending not in their personal capaci­ ties but as representatives (wakil) of their father.22324
The Javanese courts and the Dutch representation to the princely capitals participated in a number of joint functions, and at the period of the diary these seem not to have been the stuffy, formal affairs we know of from the second half of the following century. The musical background provided by both Javanese and Dutch ensembles has already been commented upon;229 and the last descriptive
217. Bets were usually placed on the outcome of these contests: see, for example, 99R, 183.
218. Most accounts of the awisan deal exclusively with the items of clothing which were reserved for royal usage: see, for example, Winter, "Beknopte Beschrijving," pp. 77-78, and Rouffaer's notes, pp. 161-64; also Ricklefs, Jogjakarta, pp. 163-65. At least at this period, however, the awisan were of wider scope.
219. 31R: lan sawarnane kasukan / nagri sala den-awisi / amung saw8wSngkonira / kangjSng pangeran adipati / kang batSn [botSn] den-awisi / kasukan sadayanipun / linilan tan awisan / atas parentah kumpni / . . . s.a . 101L.
220. 94R-95L.
221. It should be recognized, however, that the V .O .C . was equally concerned to regulate the state allowed to its different employees when they appeared in public: see the numerous edicts issued under the heading "Pragt en Praal" in Realia. Register op de Generate Resolution van het Kasteel Batavia 1632-1805 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1886), 3, pp. 82-83.
222. See, for example, the description of Governor Jan Greeve's visit (156-57 and 251R) where Pakubuwana IV and Greeve travel together in one carriage and Mang­ kunSgara and Resident Johan Fredrik, Baron van Rede tot de Parkeler, in another.
223. 267R.
224. See above p. 14.

39

passage o f any length in the diary describes an al fresco entertainment, a pleasure trip taken by Pakubuwana IV in company with the Dutch contingent, after his re­ conciliation with the V .O .C .225 This passage falls into two separate parts, with the diarist returning to the subject after a couple o f pages of recording domestic matters. It seems that she must have received more information of events during the outing and its aftermath. As a sketch of court life under the young Sunan, it has its own interest and humor, and is reproduced here in full:

akad pon sapar kang sasi taun je tanggal sadasa prabu sala e[n]jing miyos ameng-ameng acangkrama mSndSt ulam bangawan dumatSng rantan sang prabu pukul pitu angkatira

On Sunday-Pon, 226 Sapar227 the tenth, in the year Je228 the ruler of Sala came out [from his palace] to go on a pleasure trip, intending to catch fish in the Sala river at the royal fishing-grounds.229 The time of his departure was seven o'clock.

miyosipun saking puri
tan ngangge urmat sanjata narendra ical urmate ical wawanguning nata miyose sasaking pura kori ing pasowan kidul tumut sang ratu kancana

He left the palace
without the salute o f guns: the king put aside all ceremony and regal distinctions. He came out o f the palace by the door o f the south audience-hall. The Ratu Kancana230 went with him.

upruk lan para upSsir tumut dragundSr kapalan patih wadana mantrine pra sSntana estri priya lan sagagamanira nitih tandu lawan ratu sang nata nitih turongga

The Resident and all the officers went too, the dragoons on horseback. The Patih, the wadana and mantri and the royal relatives, female and male, with an armed escort, rode in palanquins, as did the queen. The ruler rode on horseback.

225. The relationship between Pakubuwana IV and the V .O .C . will be described in Part II of this article.
226. Pon is the third or fourth day of the five-day week, according to the system used.
227. The second (lunar) month of the Muslim year.
228. Je is the fourth year of the Javanese eight-year (windu) cycle. In this case it was 1718 AJ and the date here is equivalent to October 9, 1791 AD.
229. Rantan sang prabu: "rantan" in any possible sense is not listed in any dic­ tionary, but from the context here may be conjectured to mean a place in the river where a pool had been artificially created to draw fish for the ruler's pleasure.
230. The Sunan's third wife. The marriage was arranged for him through the good offices of Greeve, Governor of the northeast coast and in charge of the V .O .C 's relations with Surakarta, after Pakubuwana IV abandoned his plan to marry a prin­ cess of Yogyakarta (see Part II). The bride was a daughter of the Tum§nggung of PamSkasan (Madura) and thus a sister of the Sunan's first wife. A third sister was married at the same time to the Sunan's brother Mangkubumi, who had also re­ quested the V .O .C . to find him a wife. According to the diarist, neither marriage was happy, though the Sunan put a better face on things than his brother, and both feared to incur the Company's displeasure by a public breach (287-291; see also Greeve to Batavia, February 28 and May 10, 1791 in KA 3833, VOCOB, 1792).

40

tamtama kapalan sami carangan wong prawirengan darat wong kawan dasane jajarira tumalatar satus lan wong macanan wong nyutra usar ing ngayun lampahe mantri wadana
watSn [ wontSn] sargng watSn [wontSn] kari
santana datan atata salang tu[n]jang ing lampahe pangeran ing purubaya nusul kantun lampahnya mangkudiningrat tan tumut tumut santana sadaya
jSng gusti pangran dipati datan tumut acangkrama eca aneng dalSme dewe caosan dalSm baita* pipitu ginubahan kajang ing papayonipun gamSian munggeng baita
sarancak samargi muni sarancak muni ing darat pangran purubayan*e kang sinepa panSmbahan kantun ing puri pisan tan dangu ( ? illegible)
praptane nusul ISnguk-lSnguk pasanggrahan
lir pendah sarana sSkti . . . . 23tf kahe pangran purbaya kinSdep-kSdepa tyase

The Tamtama231 corps were all on horseback; a section o f the Prawirengan corps, forty men, were on foot, beside the men of the Tumalatar, a hundred in number, and the Macanan men. The Nyutra men and the hussars were in front. The mantri and wadana proceeded along,
some staying together and some getting left behind;
the royal relatives did not keep in order but went along kicking into each other. Pangeran Purbaya followed later, for he was left behind. Mangkudiningrat did not go along; all the [other] royal relatives were there.
Our revered Pangeran Dipati was not in the party: he took his pleasure in his own residence. The royal boats were fitted out, seven o f them, with curtains, palm-leaf walls and roofs. There was a set of gamSlan on the boats
which played as they went along, and another set playing on land. Pangeran Purbaya, who may be compared to a PanSmbahan232 was at first left in the palace, and followed on not long
afterwards (? ). He sat down to rest in the pasanggrahan.233342
As if by magical means was Pangeran Purbaya's . . . His feelings were made clear:

231. The Tamtama, as also the Tumalatar, Macanan, and Nyutra, mentioned below, were all prajurit corps of the Sunan's armed forces.
232. PanSmbahan, "he who is revered" is a higher title than Pangeran, "Prince," and the diarist sarcastically suggests that it would be appropriate to Purbaya's exalted position in Surakarta. He had been of considerable assistance to the Com­ pany in persuading Pakubuwana IV to surrender his unreliable counsellors and restore the relationship with the V .O .C . and in return for these services he had been presented with a ring. He did not write and thank Greeve for this gift: he had apparently expected a more considerable reward, perhaps in the form of title or lands (see Greeve to Batavia, December 13, in KA 3833, VOCOB, 1792). Pur­ baya was dead by March 1792 (see Governor van Overstraten to Batavia, March 2, 1792, in KA 3859, VOCOB, 1793) and the V .O .C . lost an ally.
233. A temporary shelter or rest-house erected for armies on the move, or for pleasure parties.
234. The first syllable of this line is illegible.

41

wong salakarta sadaya ja na wani maringwang ingsun kang ju[n]jung prabu aja na ingsun pan sirna

"All you people o f Salakarta235 be not bold with me! It was I who raised the ruler; without me the king will disappear!"

298L

lampahe sri narapati sarawuhe pasanggrahan baris gagaman rakite mung kadok [kodok] ngorek
kang ngurmat tedak sri naranata pinarak pinggir ing banyu upruk upSsir sadaya

The king proceeded on and when he arrived at the pasanggrahan the armed escort drew up in their ranks. Only the kodok ngorek236 gave a ceremonial
welcome! The king went down to the edge of the water, escorted by the Resident, and all the officers.

lan ratu munggeng ing kursi patih wadana santana tarap munggeng ngandap ander dawuh timbalan sang nata panjalan mSndStana ulam ruru[m]pon ing banyu sawusya tSlas kang ulam

The queen sat on a chair. The Patih, wadana, and royal relatives sat in packed rows in the royal presence. The ruler gave the order: "Fishing boats, take
the fish in the dam out of the water." When the fish were finished,

tedak nata mring banawi lan upruk lumban baita lan para upSsir kabeh sang nata munggeng baita marang ruru[m]pon ngandap sarta gamSian tinabuh papatih mantri wadana

the ruler went down to the river, and boarded a boat with the Resident and all the officers. As the ruler traveled by boat down to the dam, the gamSian was struck. The Patih, mantri,and wadana

darat sami ajagani yen kandas gered baita gamSlan sarta sindene kasukan lumban bangawan
Snti tyas sukanira gagaman malatar
agung jajari pinggir bangawan

kept watch on shore, and if the boat ran aground they pushed it off. A singer sang with the gamSlan as they took their pleasure on the river; their delight knew no bounds. The arm-bearing men were spread out in large
numbers, lining the edge of the river.

buminata mangkubumi rayi nata langkung
suka sarawuh ruru[m]pone pinarak pinggir ing
toya

Buminata and Mangkubumi, the younger brothers of the ruler, were
greatly delighted. When they arrived at the dam, they were ceremonially escorted along the edge
of the waters.

235. The Sunan's capital is usually referred to either by its official name, Sura­ karta, or by the name of the old village which was its site, Sala (pronunciation and modern spelling Solo). In the diary, however, it is often referred to as Sala­ karta, a combination of the two forms.
236. The kodok ngorek ("croaking frog ") ensemble can be described as a primi­ tive or archaic form o f gamelan. It continued to be used at the Javanese courts for certain ceremonial purposes. For a description of the kodok ngorek, see Kunst, Music in Java, 1, pp. 260-65.

42

ruru[m]pon pinSndStan wusya tSlas ulamipun nata kondur masanggrahan

The dam was emptied, and when the fish were finished
the ruler went back into the pasanggrahan.

gamSlan kang darat muni mapag watSn [wontSn]
masanggrahan barung tambur salomprSte anulya sang nata dahar
upruk pSsir sadaya sSntana kang agSng tumut
babangku kursi adahar

The gamSian on land sounded to receive them at the
pasanggrahan, in concert with drums and oboes. Then the ruler was served a meal; the Resident and all the officers and the senior royal relatives joined him, sitting on benches and chairs.

dahar tan pSgat alarih tan ngangge urmat sanjata wusya dahar sigra badol [bodol] ko[n]dur anitih baita
upruk pSsir sadaya sami anunggang parahu gagaman lumampah darat

As they ate, drinks were served without pause but with no ceremonial salutes.237 When they had finished eating they set out, returning by boat. The Resident and all the officers went by boat, [but] the armed men traveled by land.

sarawuhe batu radin tSdak saking ing baita nitih kuda sakondure nata anitih kareta datan urmat sanjata angadaton wanci surup bala kang ngiring bubaran

When they arrived at mBatu Raden they descended from the boats and proceeded back by horse, the ruler traveling in a carriage, without ceremonial salutes. They came into the palace at sunset, and the accompanying army dispersed.

«|C 9$C2jC

299L

amangsuli caritane duk sunan sala acangkrama mring bangawan rarantan duk arsa ingangkatipun kapal dalSm kinambilan

returning to the story of the Sunan o f Sala's pleasure trip to the dam on the river: when they were about to leave, the royal mount was being saddled

daragSm ulSs turanggi pun palugon wastanira dSlalah budi betate kakapal [error tor kakapa]
dalSm wasiyat ki rSmSng wastanira tiba tugSl pScah rSmuk langkung duka prabu sala

—it was a chestnut horse called Battlefield— and as luck would have it, it was in a temper. The saddle was a royal
heirloom called "The Dark One," and it fell, and broke all to pieces. The ruler was greatly angered.

duk wontSn ing rantan malih wSlandi angrSbut
dSgan

Again, when they were at the dam some Dutchmen were scrambling for young
coconuts,

237. From descriptions in the diary it is clear that it was customary for a salute to be fired when a round of drinks was served, both at the ruler’s kraton and at the Dutch factory.

43

katiban dSgan endase walandine kulabakan malih wong kawan dasa kasepak kuda kang batuk kang nepak kapal barangan

and one was hit on the head as the coconut fell. The Dutchman fell all of a heap. Also, fo rty 238 people were kicked in the head by a horse. It was the horse of some traveling players,

wasta maesa malati kasepak batuke pScah prabu sala sarawuhe kapal ginantung ing latar wiwit ga[n]tung salasa ing jumungah dereng lampus tan sinungan ngumbe mangan

called Jasmine Buffalo. [One who] 239240was kicked in the head died. When the ruler of Sala arrived [back] he hung the horse in the courtyard. It was hung there from Tuesday and by Friday it was still not dead, [though] it had not been given food or drink.

duk rumiyin anglSrSsi septu miyos
pawatangan kag8m dalSm turanggane petat ucul kakambilan pan kal§b§t dilalah umangkat sako[n]duripun cangkrama tan ngangge
urmat

Once, it happened that on a Saturday, when the royal party was
leaving for the tournament, one of the royal horses broke loose, and threw o ff its saddle, seized by an unlucky whim. Both leaving and returning on the pleasure trip were without the ceremonial
forms

ical wawangunan narpati pangran purbaya winarna marang papatih dglinge
sun-dSnda patih janingrat jaran*siji* ta sira mulane tan aweh wSruh 299R duk mangkat nata cangkrama

and the regal distinctions. About Pangeran Purbaya: he said to the Patih: "Patih Jayaningrat, I fine you one horse, since you did not inform me when the ruler was leaving on the pleasure-trip,

ingsun iki mangkat kari purbaya ana ing sala kapadakSn tunggak bae ature patih janingrat milanipun kawula tan kabSr [kobSr] ngaturi wSruh bingung katah padamSlan

and my departure was delayed. Purbaya o f Sala was made to look like a ca s t-o ff!" Patih Jayaningrat said:
"The reason that I did not have the opportunity to inform you [is that] I was distracted by so much work,

tan kabSr [kobSr] atur udani lan angger mongsa
kilapa otSr wong sanagarane yen sunan mangkat cangkrama pami kula matura

so I had no chance to inform you. And, young w orthy,21,0 how could you be
mistaken? All the people in the city were in a bustle about the Sunan's pleasure-trip. If I had told you,

238. Sic. Perhaps the "forty" is an error for some other qualifier of wong, "man, person."
239. The Javanese does not make it clear how many, but it is hard to believe that the horse managed to despatch more than one person with a kick in the head.
240. Angger: form of address, usually for a younger person of higher rank. Pre­ sumably Jayaningrat was older than Pangeran Purbaya.

44

winastan wong sasarsusur
manawi kang paribasan

I would be called a man who does not know the proper thing,
like the proverb,

ingsun den-wehi udani ingsun wus wSruh piyambak kalingane purbayane kaparentah mring janingrat gede kandel janingrat kalawan ta malihipun pangran purbaya neng sala

' I am given to know [what] I already know myself.' How strange that Purbaya should be commanded by Jayaningrat! Great and trusted is Jayaningrat! And moreover, Pangeran Purbaya of Sala

mangke wus nampni kardi barang prakawis ing praja wSnang macot [mocot] lan agawe janingrat mangke kasimpar lir kadi wong galadag yen sampeyan maksa mundut dSnda kang kapal satunggal

has now been given authority over all matters of state, having power to dismiss and to appoint. Jayaningrat is now cast aside like a serving-man.21,1 If you insist on taking the fine of one horse,

saking barkating narpati janingrat tan kirang kapal dinenda nuhun dukane malah'purbaya kadSnda kantun angkat narendra neng sala sinSpuh-sSpuh kinarya gSdig manggala

by the beneficence of the king, Jayaningrat will not lack a horse, craving the king's mercy over this punishment. In fact Purbaya has been punished, by being left behind when the king departed. In Sala he is considered so very senior, and has been made the champion.

punapa ta kongsi kari wong kinarya panSmbahan mokal tan mirsa angkate wong sanagara pan mirsa kendSl pangran purbaya kalSresan sauripun kiya patih jayaningrat

How could he have been left behind, someone made a PanSmbahan? How could he possibly not hear the departure? Everyone in the city heard it." Pangeran Purbaya was silent: well-placed was the reply of Patih Jayaningrat.

One mode in which relationships between the different parties represented in Surakarta were formally expressed was exchanges of presents, which are recorded in great detail throughout the diary. According to the circumstances, they were statements of alliance, requests for advancement from a patron, rewards for ser­ vices rendered, or efforts to conciliate the loser at the end of a round of political maneuvers. When a new Resident, Andries Hartsinck, arrived in Surakarta on June 19, 1788, accompanied by his young daughter and by the Resident o f Semarang, he presented MangkunSgara with a carbine and gold cloth. MangkunSgara himself gave a diamond ring to each of the two Residents, and to Hartsinck's daugh­ ter; and a couple of days later, on the occasion o f the Resident's installation, a piece of batik and a Balinese kris to Hartsinck himself and some fragrant oil to his daughter. According to the diarist, Hartsinck was very impressed by the favor done to him, and showed great honor to MangkunSgara. More was to follow:

241. The term used is wong g(a)ladag. The gladag were a specific classification with the obligation of providing transport for the*ruler and his entourage, and other services, in return for which they were exempt from the usual levies. See Soeripto, Vorstenlandsche Wetboeken, p. 4.

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MangkunSgara's sons, SuryamSrjaya and Suryakusuma, now gave Hartsinck a horse, complete with saddle and other accoutrements, and an ornate kris. Two days later, the diarist ingenuously records, the Resident sent a letter to Mangku­ nSgara announcing that SuryamSrjaya would be appointed in Wirasaba and Surya­ kusuma would receive the title of Pangeran. This favor cannot have come unex­ pectedly, but must have resulted from the "discussions" which the diarist notes that MangkunSgara had been having with the Resident in the preceding days, but whose content is not recorded. SuryamSrjaya and another o f his brothers imme­ diately called on the Resident to present a gold bowl worth 140 [real] and to ex­ press the pious hope that the advancements would indeed be made.21*2 When Governor Greeve came to Surakarta about a month later, MangkunSgara sent four o f his daughters to present a silver and gold tray worth 140 real and ten broad and narrow kain with 10 headcloths; the sons gave Greeve a horse worth 60 real and a gold-ornamented kris worth 50 real, as well as making various gifts of clothing to those in his entourage.21*3
When the Governor did meet the dying Sunan, the latter asked him to guaran­ tee his son's succession. Greeve agreed, but followed this with a request for the appointment of SuryamSrjaya to Wirasaba, and elevation o f Suryakusuma (whose appanage was in Ponorogo) to the rank of Pangeran. When the Sunan agreed to this, the Governor apparently added, in the diarist's rapportage, "What about T[r]Snggalek as well?"21*1* Even at this the Sunan did not demur, and this region was added to the appanage of Suryakusuma, who received the title Pangeran Purbanagara.21*5 MangkunSgara was then summoned by the Sunan and informed of the lands and rank bestowed on his sons, which he received with appropriate expres­ sions of gratitude. Afterwards he joined the heir apparent on the mandapa: the future Pakubuwana IV asked his uncle for a gold bow and arrow, and promised that Suryakusuma's appanage would indeed be increased to include TrSnggalek. In the event, MangkunSgara gave him two gold bows, a quiver of arrows, and the saddle and other accoutrements of a horse.
So far, the direction of the present giving may suggest a one-way exchange or even bribery, but the Governor reciprocated MangkunSgara's favor with a re­ turn gift of lace clothing, a pair of fine rifles, and six bottles of rosewater, esti­ mated by the diarist to be worth a total o f 690 [re a l]. The Dutch on their side also considered present giving as one of the routine expenses of their representa­ tion at the courts, and adjusted the value of the gift to the political status of the recipient: see, for example, the entries under "schenkagie" in the accounts of the period.21*6 Perhaps there is something symbolic of the increasing divergence be­ tween the two civilizations in that in these exchanges of presents we find the Dutch requesting the hand-painted arrows and quivers which were a curiosity in their culture, and MangkunSgara and his fellow princes the modern firearms which were unobtainable in theirs.21,7
242. That is, that the V .O .C . would ensure that the Sunan—in whose jurisdiction such appointments strictly speaking fell—duly announced the sons' promotions.
243. 150-56.
244. 158L lan TSnggalek awawuh.
245. The Sunan officially appointed the brothers on 24 Sawal 1714 AJ (July 28, 1788). The reason for the conferring of the rank of Pangeran on Suryakusuma was that he was married to the Sunanfe daughter, who was at the same time given the title of Ratu.
246. As for instance in the volume KA 7035, VOCOB, 1789.
247. 207R.

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This all-round exchange o f presents (which certainly went back and forth in probably even greater measure between the Sunan's kraton and the V.O.C. fac­ tory, though this is not recorded in the diary) was an attempt by those involved to maintain smooth relationships, at least on a personal level, and to ensure that no unnecessary offense or slight exacerbated the tensions occasioned by conflict­ ing material interests. It could not, of course, permanently reconcile those inter­ ests , and one of the most interesting aspects o f the diary is the wealth of evidence it gives o f what considerations did in fact draw the chief actors in Surakarta poli­ tics into positions of conciliation or alliance towards some parties, and o f aggres­ sion towards others. This evidence, and the implications it may carry for patterns of political behavior outside the years of the diary itself, will be examined in the second part of this article.