Old Javanese charters speak of a kind of upland community bound to a mountain sanctuary instead of to a district officer: hulun hyang, 'the god's people', who serve the god and are freed from ordinary tax and labour (the campaign board).
The campaign board strings them along the volcanic chain from Arjuno to Semeru and says the plates name far more of them than anyone can now put on the ground, so its dot stands for the class and not for one village. We did not read the plates. The word hyang (god, ancestor, mountain spirit) is the one in the name Dieng (en.wikipedia), and the sanctuaries on Penanggungan run from 977 to 1511 on en.wikipedia's range, so mountain sanctuaries are certainly there in 1200; whether the charters of Kertajaya's day use the term hulun hyang is not pinned, and the dated example we can recall is a Majapahit-era grant in the Tengger country (later than 1200, not rechecked).
The outline is a sample: the flank of Arjuno-Welirang and Penanggungan, where the campaign board puts the dot and where the hermitages cluster.
Who holds it
- Title
- Elders of the god's people and the priests of the sanctuary they serve
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
The village elders who receive grants in the Old Javanese charters are called rama (recalled, not checked against a plate of this reign). No community or elder of 1200 is named in anything we read.
Overlord
the king of Kediri, who frees the land by plate; the sanctuary is the real master
What it holds
- Upland villages bound to sanctuaries, with the god's service in place of tax and labour
- Hermitage terraces on the mountain flanks
How things stand that morning
In being as a class if the Kediri charters used the term as later ones do; no community is named for 1200.
Wealth
Mountain produce and the sanctuary's dues; no figures.
Military
None attested.
Places of note
- Arjuno-Welirang flank (the campaign board dot): The campaign board's sample point for the class.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry hulun-hyang-districts treats the class as established for the Kediri period. The term is attested to me only for later charters; we mark it as inferred for 1200.
Evidence: A class known from charters, not shown in any source we read for the winter of 1200.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: A sample outline for a class of communities, not a measured territory.
Primary sources for Kediri
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
- Old Javanese Charters (the Brandes and Krom corpus), including the Kediri inscriptions of Kamesvara and Srngga, Various (the Kediri kings and their officers), edited by J. L. A. Brandes and N. J. Krom (inscriptions of the 8th to 15th centuries; edited 1913). Kediri (Panjalu) in 1200 is known from a few royal charters on stone and copper, which this corpus first printed: the records of Kamesvara (about 1182 to 1194) and of Srngga, that is Kertajaya (from about 1194 to 1222), among them the Kamulan charter of 1194 and the Palah (Panataran) record of 1197, with the king's titles, his seal, the officials of the court and the villages freed from tax.
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. Read online
- Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
- The Description of the Country, called the Nagarakretagama, Mpu Prapanca (1365 at the Majapahit court). A Majapahit court poem of 1365 listed here only for its retrospect. Read online
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia (en), Dieng Plateau (read in this pass): temples of the 8th to 9th century, build date 'not known exactly'; inscriptions Gunung Wule 783 Saka (861), Kapuhunan 800 Saka (878), Indrakila 804 Saka (882), Wintang Mas II 841 Saka (919); about 2,100 m; active craters Sileri and Sikidang
- Wikipedia (en), Mount Penanggungan (read in this pass): summit 7 37 S 112 38 E, 1,653 m; sanctuaries on the western slope dating from AD 977 to 1511
- General knowledge of Old Javanese and Old Balinese epigraphy and the archaeology of Java, recalled and not re-read in this pass (Boechari, Poerbatjaraka, Soekmono, Bernet Kempers)
- OMNIA board notes for the place (a lead, not a source)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.