1. Introduction

The present paper is a thoroughly revised and rearranged version of a small honours thesis which was originally submitted in the Department of Indonesian and Malayan Studies, University of Sydney, in 1962. The topic was suggested by the then Head, Dr F.H. van Naerssen, who was an expert in the early history of Java, and managed to inspire some of his young students with the same interest.

The period chosen for discussion is a narrow one, AD 1292–1294, but is appropriate because of the range of sources available and because of the momentous nature of the events described there. The events were an invasion of Java and the foundation of a new capital. These events were also significant in view of the involvement of two different Asian societies, the Chinese (Mongols) and the Javanese, one a major power in continental Asia and the other located in the island world of what is now Indonesia. This juncture in early Javanese history has also been discussed in detail by N.J. Krom, in his Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis [Hindu-Javanese History] (1931, pp. 346–68).

The paper aims to review, and quote at some length from, the sources, namely Javanese inscriptions, Javanese literary works and Chinese histories, and then to draw some conclusions regarding the course of events, bearing in mind the different nature of the various sources. In this way it is hoped to contribute to knowledge of a particular moment in the history of Java.

It may be useful first to situate the discussion. Geographically, we are looking at the eastern part of Java. For some centuries, this had been the site of successive centres of royal power and a civilization termed ‘Hindu- Javanese’; somewhat earlier, from the mid 8th to the mid 10th century, the same also applied to Central Java. We find ourselves thus in a period before the establishment of Islam in Java in the 16th century.