Kertajaya

Who he is

Name

Kertajaya (Srengga; the Pararaton calls him Dandhang Gendis)

Title

Maharaja (haji) of Kediri (Panjalu)

Since

by Saka 1116 (1194); accession 1185, 1190 or 1194 not pinned

Born

not known

Family

Airlangga's Panjalu line; wives and children not named in the plates we could read.

Confidence

high

A king in the sixth year of the dated record on 1 January 1200: Kamulan (Saka 1116, 1194), Palah (Saka 1119, 1197), Wates Kulon (Saka 1127, 1205). The Palah plate founds the sanctuary of the mountain god of Kelud (Hyang Acalapati, as the plate is usually read; recalled). He is the last king of Kediri only in hindsight.

What it holds

• The court district of Dahanapura and the middle Brantas
• The Gurah country and the temple town buried under ash at Tondowongso
• The Palah sanctuary he founded in 1197 and its estate
• Rights to the tax, labour and fines of the plain; the sima villages he or his fathers freed

How it was acquired

By succession in Airlangga's Panjalu line; the throne passed Gandra (1181), Kameswara (Ceker, 1182 or 1185) and then to him.

Allies and rivals

Not recorded for 1200. The one dated trouble of the reign is the war behind the Kamulan plate of 1194.

How things stand that morning

Reigning and, as far as any record shows, secure. The Palah foundation (1197) and the silence of the plates until Wates Kulon (1205) are the whole evidence for his state of mind and strength in the winter of 1199 to 1200.

Wealth

Rice and river tolls, the delta port, salt and teak, market and shipping dues; no figures.

Military

His guard, the senapati and the fleet of the Jaring plate's title; see the army record.

Threats

• Any rival kinsman or district head (none named for 1200)
• A fall of ash from Kelud
• A quarrel with the brahmins (dated 1222 in the chronicles)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1205 (Saka 1127)Wates Kulon plate, the last of the reign.Depends on: Kertajaya reigning. Stopped by: Death or deposition before 1205.
2. 1222Ganter: Kertajaya is beaten by Ken Arok of Tumapel (Pararaton and Nagarakretagama story).Depends on: A quarrel over brahmin privileges and Tumapel's rebellion; later chroniclers, partly legend. Stopped by: He leaves the brahmins alone, or Tumapel stays loyal.

Places of note

• Dahanapura: The court; no palace found.
• Palah (Penataran): The sanctuary founded in 1197.
• Tondowongso (Gurah): A temple complex of the Kediri period buried under ash, found in 2007 (the campaign board).

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry kamulan-charter: 'enemies out of the east drove him from his palace and he took it back'. We could not read the plate; we give the campaign board's reading as the campaign board's.
• The campaign board entry penataran-palah calls it 'the state sanctuary of the mountain god of Kelud'. That agrees with the usual reading of the plate (Hyang Acalapati).

Evidence: Three dated plates and two lists of kings; the rest is chronicle. The plate texts did not open in this pass.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Places recipe round the court; the king's demesne is not mapped in any source.

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