The Pararaton, also known as the Book of Kings or Pustaka Raja, is a Javanese chronicle in the Kawi language. The comparatively short text of 32 folio-size pages contains the history of the kings of Singhasari and Majapahit in eastern Java. Pararaton opens with a formal incarnation of the founder of Singhasari kingdom, Ken Arok. Almost half of the manuscript is the story of Ken Arok's career before his accession to the throne in 1222. This part is clearly mythical in character. There then follow a number of shorter narrative fragments in chronological order. Many of the events recorded here are dated. Towards the end the pieces of history become shorter and shorter and are mixed with genealogical information concerning the members of the royal family of Majapahit. The edition of the text published by J.L.A. Brandes furnishes an alternative title: Serat Pararaton atawa Katuturanira Ken Angrok, the final part of the text must have been written between 1481 and 1600 CE.
Prelude
Pararaton commences with a brief prelude telling how Ken Arok incarnated himself in which he became the king. He offered himself as a human sacrifice to Yamadipati, the Javanese Door God, in order to save himself from death. As a reward, he was promised that upon his death he would return to Vishnu's heaven and be reborn as a superior king of Singhasari. The promise was fulfilled. Ken Arok was begotten by Brahma of a newly-wed peasant woman. On his birth, his mother laid him in a graveyard where his body, effulgent with light, attracted the attention of Ki Lembong, a passing thief. Ki Lembong adopted him, raised him and taught him all of his arts. Ken Arok indulged in gambling, plunder and rapine. In the manuscript, it is written as such that Ken Arok was saved many times by divine intervention. There is a scene in Mount Kryar Lejar wherein gods descend in conference and Batara Guru declares Ken Arok his son. Ken Arok is also destined to bring stability and power to Java. The prelude of Pararaton is followed by the meeting of Ken Arok with Lohgawe, a Brahmin who came from India to make sure Batara Guru's instructions were fulfilled. It was Lohgawe who asked Ken Arok to meet Tunggul Ametung, ruler of Tumapel. Ken Arok then killed Tunggul Ametung to gain possession of Ametung's wife, Ken Dedes, and also the throne to Singashari.
Analysis of the manuscript
Some parts of Pararaton cannot be accounted as historical facts. Especially in the prelude, fact and fiction, fantasy and reality go together. Scholars such as C. C. Berg argued that texts such as these are entirely supernatural and ahistorical, and intended not to record the past, but instead determine future events. However, the majority of scholars accept some historicity in the Pararaton, noting numerous correspondences with other inscriptions and Chinese sources, and accept the manuscript's frame of reference within which a valid interpretation is conceivable. The manuscript was written under the nature of Javanese kingship. For Javanese, it is the function of the ruler to link the present with the past and the future and to give human life its appropriate place in the cosmic order. The king, in the Javanese realm, is the sacral embodiment of the total state, just as his palace is a microcosmic copy of the macrocosmos. The king possesses an innate divinity to a far higher degree than ordinary men. Ras compared the Pararaton with the Sanskrit Canggal inscription, the Śivagŗha inscription, the Calcutta Stone and the Babad Tanah Jawi. These show clear similarities in character, structure and function and also similarity with texts from the Malay historiography. It describes a violent volcanic eruption in 416 AD in the Sunda Strait area, though the known eruption nearest this date was that of Krakatoa in 536: see 416 AD eruption of Krakatoa.
