ETUDES

Kenneth R. HALL

Ritual Networks and Royal Power in Majapahit Java*

The Majapahit Kraton

The Pararaton, the Old Javanese chronicle that was composed around 1500 C. E., and provides capsulated focus on the story of Ken Angrok (King Râjasa, c. 1222) and his successors up to the foundation of Majapahit, accounts for the establishment of the Majapahit kraton in 1293 as the consequence of an intervention by the gods. Prince Vijaya (soon-to-be King Kërtarâjasa Jayavardhana), expelled from an earlier royal residence at Singasari that was destroyed by rivals in 1292, traveled about with his followers until he discovered and sampled a majang fruit, which had a bitter taste. The bitterness was proclaimed to be a sign of the gods' approval (in the Indie tradition fruit is the symbol of the goddess Laksmï, goddess of good fortune). The not totally ripe fruit was held to be appropriate to a new state that would be founded in a time of upheaval, and thus the name Majapahit, "bitter fruit", was selected as the name for the new royal kraton.

Aerial photographs show why the new kraton site was deliberately selected as the successor to previous Singasari and Kadiri centers. Majapahit was on the edge of the slopes of adjacent volcanic mountains, walking distance to a navigable river with easy access to the sea, and at the southern edge of the fertile Brantas River delta ricelands. Majapahit was just below the Malang volcanic plain that had been the kraton center of its Singasari successor to its east, and was adjacent to the core of the Kadiri kraton's territories that lay upriver to its west.

Archipel 52, Paris, 1996, pp. 95-1 18