historyof_klungkung.htm

Klungkung, once capital of a powerful kingdom, lies at the foot of a region of gently undulating hills, with the volcano of Gunung Agung forming an impressive backdrop in clear weather. It is now a busy medium-sized town forming an important link between central Bali and the eastern part of the island, which after the devastating eruption of 1963 and the accompanying earthquakes was cut off both physically and economically from the rest of the island for some considerable time.

History

Among the Hindus from Java who sought refuge on Bali towards the end of the 15th century to escape persecution was Batu Renggong, son of Prince Widjaya. In order to escape imprisonment his father had burned himself alive - a fate which his son did not wish to share. With a few hundred followers, including many priests, he fled to Bali and built a palace at Gelgel, a little town 5 km (3 mi.) south of Klungkung, assuming the style of Dewa Agung (Grand Prince) and declaring Gelgel his capital.

About 1710 the royal court moved to the more conveniently situated town of Klungkung, where Prince Di Made, a great-grandson of Widjaya, built a new palace. The town's principal sight, the Kerta Gosa (Court Hall), probably also dates from this period. Thereafter Klungkung grew steadily in importance, to such an extent that all important legal disputes from anywhere on Bali were dealt with, and criminals from all over the island were tried, in the Court Hall in Klungkung.

Klungkung also played an important part during the Dutch attempts to occupy Bali. After the Dutch landing in the north of Bali and their capture of Singaraja, Buleleng and other towns, an advance party led by Captain Cornelis de Houtman reached Klungkung, where they were welcomed as guests by the Dewa Agung, who was much interested in the European way of life. Soon afterwards it was agreed to establish trading relations.

During the 18th century Klungkung increasingly lost importance and influence to nearby Gianyar. The Dewa Agung reached agreement with the neighboring princedoms on common action against the Dutch, but he lacked the military means to resist the threatened invasion; and so, after Buleleng to the north and Amlapura to the east, Klungkung became one of the first territories to be conquered by the Dutch.

Then in 1908 occurred an event which still arouses strong emotions among the Balinese. Dutch troops occupied Klungkung and took up position before the gates of the palace, whereupon the gates opened and a procession of 250 men, women and children, led by the Dewa Agung emerged, advanced towards the invaders and halted. The Dewa Agung drew his kris and plunged it in his heart; his example was followed by his retinue, and those who survived were killed by Dutch bullets. (Note the similar event at Denpasar.)

Little is left of the one-time splendor of Klungkung, for after the conquest the Dutch pulled down almost all the major buildings. In recent years a few old buildings have been restored or reconstructed, but the pattern of present-day Klungkung is set by modern functional buildings.

Only during the 1980s were some of the buildings repaired or reconstructed. They recall the town's heyday when Klungkung was the artistic and cultural center of Bali and produced numerous important painters.

JAVANESE INFLUENCE

Over 400 years ago most of East Java was exactly like Bali is today. Prior to 1815 Bali had a greater population density than Java, suggesting its Hindu-Balinese civilization was even more successful than Java's. When Sir Stamford Raffles wrote his History Of Java in the early 19th century, he had to turn to Bali for what remained of the once-great literature of classical Java. Even today Bali provides scholars with clues about India's past religious life, clues which long ago vanished in India itself.

The Warmadewa Dynasty
Bali first came under the influence of Indic Javanese kings in the 6th to 8th centuries. The island was conquered by the first documented king of Central Java, Sanjaya, in 732; stone and copper inscriptions in Old Balinese have been found that date from A.D. 882.
From the 10th to the 12th centuries, the Balinese Warmadewa family established a dynastic link with Java. Court decrees were thereafter issued in the Old Javanese language of Kawi and Balinese sculpture, bronzes, and other artistic styles, bathing places, and rock-cut temples began to resemble those in East Java. The Sanur pillar (A.D. 914), partly written in Sanskrit, supports the theory that portions of the island were already Indianized in the 10th century.
Bali's way of life was well defined by the early part of the 10th century. By then, the Balinese were engaged in sophisticated wet-rice cultivation, livestock breeding, stone- and woodcarving, metalworking, roof thatching, canoe building, even cockfighting. The Balinese of the time were locked into feudal genealogical and territorial bondage. They were subjects of an autocratic Hinduized ruler—one of a number of regional Balinese princes—who himself acknowleged the sovereignty of a Javanese overlord.

Airlangga
The marriage of Balinese Prince Udayana of the Warmadewa dynasty to east Javanese Princess Mahendradatta in A.D. 989 led to even closer cooperation between Java and Bali. Airlangga (991-1046) was born to the royal couple around 1001. As a young man, the prince was sent to Java for his education. There, Airlangga married a princess and became a local chief in the kingdom of his uncle Dharma Wangsa. Shortly after Airlangga's arrival, Wangsa was attacked by the forces of Sriwijaya and murdered. Airlangga ascended to the throne, becoming one of the most glorious monarchs in Java's history. The dynasty he put in place—more centralized and less Indianized than any up to that time—lasted for more than 300 years. As befits an Indic hero, Airlangga ultimately renounced the kingdom he'd made great and died a hermit under the guidance of his spiritual adviser.
A fascinating legend relates how Airlangga's kingdom was nearly destroyed by a plague supposedly brought by the dreadful witch Rangda, queen of evil spirits. According to some historians, Rangda was Airlangga's own mother, Mahendradatta, whom her husband had sent into the jungle for practicing black magic. Other theorists maintain Rangda sought revenge against Airlangga because he did not side with her when his father took a second wife. Out of the mythical struggle between the magic of the witch and that of the great king arose the legend of Calon Arang, depicted today in Bali's barong dance. Rangda, who died relatively early in life, is thought to be buried in a tomb near Kutri. In Balinese myth she is forever associated with witchcraft.

Balinization
For a long time Airlangga was forgotten in Java, whereas in his native Bali he has always been much revered. With the royal compound established near Batuan, his court's language became the common language of Bali. Another feature of these early times was the practice on Bali of both Hinduism and Buddhism (with a strong Tantric element) side by side.
This early period of Balinese history has long been perceived as an age of darkness, but based on an analysis of royal charters (prasasti) this is incorrect. Village communities started to take part in masked dances, dramas, and puppet performances staged by the royal courts. Tantric magical beliefs and rites surfaced, building upon and infusing the native animism. This period was the origin of the contemporary Balinese preoccupation with leyak (witches) and such supernaturally charged characters as Rangda in the tale of Calon Arang. Artistically, the style of the cliff candi of Gunung Kawi was largely derived from East Javanese 11th-century architecture. The early monuments of Bali from this era, exemplifed by the ghostly Gunung Kawi tombs, have fascinated religious, social, and cultural anthropologists the world over.

Division of the Kingdom
After the division of Airlangga's empire under his sons, Bali's next indigenous ruler was Anak Wungsu, who became one of the island's greatest kings. He and his predecessors are specifically connected by their monuments with the remarkably rich stretch of land between the Petanu and Pakerisan Rivers in south-central Bali.
According to Javanese court records, in 1284 the mysterious last king of the East Javanese Singosari dynasty, Kertanagara (1268-92), sent a military force against Bali. During this expedition, the last descendant of the Warmadewa dynasty was taken prisoner, and Bali again became a vassal state of Java—yet another fluctuation in the turbulent relationship between the two islands. When Kertanagara was assasinated in 1292, the fierce Balinese took advantage of the confusion to rebel against their Javanese overlords.

The Gelgel Period
In the 14th century a Javanese settlement was established at Samprangan, at the foot of Gunung Agung. The capital was then moved to the south coast at Gelgel in Klungkung Regency. Gelgel did not wield direct political power over the other courts but became the passive and much respected nucleus around which the other kingdoms revolved. Its powerful succession of rulers were distinguished by the semidivine title of Dewa Agung ("Grand Lord") and were no less than the titular leaders of Bali.
Here, for two centuries, successive kings of Bali resided, developing unique Bali-Hindu customs and institutions and welding together the traditions of East Java and old Bali. Complex death rituals, offerings, and high ceremonial language were all probably introduced during this period. The greatest ruler ot Bali's Gelgel dynasty, Dalem Batu Renggong, expanded the island's influence east by conquering and colonizing Lombok and Sumbawa, and the Blambangan Peninsula of East Java.
Whole colonies of court artisans, carvers, men of letters, painters, architects, and gold- and silversmiths created the lavish trappings of royalty. Theater associations and orchestras sprang up, folk art flourished. The arts were indistinguishable from the life of the courts and the religious activity of the people. Art was never executed for its own sake but presented as an offering or prayer in service to the community and the gods. A woodcarver carved the eaves on a royal bale from an almost client-like obligation to his lord, an architect designed a stone altar in the temple as an act of faith in his religion. Gratuity for the craft, product, labor, or service was given in the form of rice, privileges, and/or political patronage.
During Dalem Batu Renggong's rule, the saka calendar of Hindu Java and 30-week Balinese wuku calendar were combined into the intricate schedule of religious ceremonies that exists today. Cremations, until the Gelgel period the privilege of the nobility, began to be practiced by the common people. The Dewa Agung also constructed nine great temples throughout the land, with Pura Besakih serving as the island's "mother temple." Numerous present-day Balinese temples—Gunung Kawi, Pura Penulisan—are actually memorial shrines to ancient rulers and their families.
Around the mid-17th century, the dynasty moved north to Klungkung. Countless micro-revolts erupted among Bali's seven principalities, sparked by conflicts over status relationships, prestige, and pressure from upwardly mobile commoners. A state of constant war prevailed throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and ended only when the various kingdoms were forced to integrate into the Netherlands East Indies in the early 20th century.
Gelgel remained the island's center of political power, if only in name, until its final defeat at the hands of the Dutch. The Balinese consider this dynasty their great classical period. Even after the Dutch conquests of 1906 and 1908, the local regents of the Gelgel and Klungkung districts retained their autonomy into the 1950s, when finally the Indonesian republican government stripped them of their lands and feudal authority.
Yet seven of the secondary principalities of Batu Renggong's time survive as administrative districts today: Badung, Gianyar, Bangli, Tabanan, Karangasem, Buleleng, and Jembrana, all based on the seven kingdoms that emerged from the 17th-century Gelgel dynasty. The metropolitan area of Denpasar, Bali's largest urban area and government center, was declared a regency in the early 1990s.

The People

The people of Klungkung still claim a cultural and social superiority over other Balinese. One of every three Ksatriya priests hails from Klungkung. The area is home to the island's most strict and traditional caste rules. Klungkung nobles may use the formal Balinese language to speak down to everyone else. The regency's rigid class structure is evident in such societal extremes as the Resi Bhujangga sect of Takmung, a priestly class of Vishnu worshippers, and the desa of Anjingan, inhabited by dog eaters, scavengers, beggars, and corpse-robbers.

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