Kediri kingdom

Kediri, also called Kadiri or Panjalu, was a Hindu-Buddhist kingdom in East Java that lasted from about 1042 to 1222. Its capital, Daha or Dahanapura, lay in the fertile Brantas river valley near the modern city of Kediri, although no remains of it have been found. Kediri is best remembered as the golden age of Old Javanese literature, and in its later years it grew rich on the spice trade with the eastern islands of the archipelago.

Kediri grew out of the kingdom of Kahuripan, ruled by Airlangga, and is regarded as a continuation of Java's Isyana dynasty. In 1042 Airlangga divided his realm between two heirs, creating Janggala and Panjalu, and withdrew to live as an ascetic; he died some seven years later. The later court poem Nagarakretagama tells how the priest Bharada split the land of Java in two, and an inscription of 1264 places the border at a river. Panjalu, centred on Daha, became the stronger of the two halves and is the kingdom known as Kediri. The name Kadiri is thought to come from an Old Javanese word meaning able to stand alone or self-sufficient.

The first ruler, Samarawijaya, had been Airlangga's crown prince. Little is known of the early reigns beyond royal inscriptions, each king using a distinctive seal: Bamesvara, who issued at least ten inscriptions between 1112 and 1135, used a skull and crescent, a symbol of Shiva. The best known king, Jayabhaya, reigned from 1135 to 1159 under the emblem of Vishnu's lion-headed avatar Narasimha. A prophetic book attributed to him, which foretells the coming of a just king, Ratu Adil, remains famous in Java. Under Gandra, an inscription of 1181 records officials with animal names and a naval commander, evidence that Kediri maintained a fleet.

Kediri flourished as the hegemony of Srivijaya, the Sumatran trading empire, weakened after raids by the Chola ruler Rajendra I in the eleventh century. Its wealth first rested on rice farming, livestock and irrigation works inherited from Kahuripan, and the court issued silver coins. With its navy it later came to control spice routes to Maluku, collecting spices from tributaries in southern Borneo and the Moluccas. The Chinese writer Chou Ju-kua, writing around 1225, described two rich and powerful realms in the archipelago, Srivijaya and Java, and listed many places, from Bali to Timor and parts of Borneo, said to be subject to the Javanese maharaja; how far such claims reflected real control is uncertain.

A Chinese account of 1178 by Chou K'u-fei describes Kediri people in long clothing living in clean houses with stone floors, raising silkworms and paying fines in gold for most crimes, though robbers were put to death. It mentions a river festival with boats and a mountain festival with music on flutes, drums and wooden xylophones. Literature flourished at court: the poet Mpu Sedah began the Kakawin Bharatayuddha, a Javanese retelling of the Mahabharata, which Mpu Panuluh completed, and Mpu Dharmaja's Smaradhana praised King Kamesvara and his queen as incarnations of the god and goddess of love, themes later developed in the Panji tales that spread across Southeast Asia.

The last king, Kertajaya, came into conflict with the Brahmins, who turned for protection to Ken Arok, the ruler of Tumapel. In 1222 Ken Arok defeated Kertajaya at Ganter, and Kediri became a vassal of the new kingdom of Singhasari, governed by Kertajaya's descendants. One of them, Jayakatwang, rebelled in 1292, killed the Singhasari king Kertanegara and briefly restored Kediri, but he was overthrown in 1293 by an alliance of Yuan dynasty troops and Raden Wijaya, who went on to found Majapahit. Daha later served again as a seat of power in the closing years of Majapahit.

Our 1100 and 1200 maps draw this part of Java with the label "East Java", during Kediri's rule. The kingdom lies today in Indonesia.