146 NOTES OX MALAY HJSTOKY. 



our of the then reigning sovereign of Majapahit. The king in 

 question was Hayam Wuruk, known by the royal style of king 

 Eajasanagara and also as Sang Hyang Wekasing Sukha, not 

 to mention all his other titles. This monarch, who was a 

 son of the queen already mentioned, appears to have ascended 

 the throne at the age of 16 in the year 1350 A.D., his mother 

 (who till then had acted as regent) having handed over the 

 government to him in that year ; and he reigned till his death in 

 the year 1389 A.D. It was during his reign that the power of 

 Majapahit really culminated and its political expansion reach- 

 ed its widest extent. 



The poem, written in the Javanese language of that period, 

 is an important historical document. The unique manuscript 

 containing it was discovered by the late Dr. Brandes among the 

 hooks of the last Balinese ruler of Lomhok, when that island 

 was taken under the immediate control of the Dutch colonial 

 government. Dr. Brandes published it in Deel LIV of the 

 Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten 

 en Wetenschappen in 1902. Unfortunately he only gave the poem 

 in the original Balinese script, without transliteration, translation 

 notes or commentary, a circumstance which leaves it a sealed 

 book except to an extremely limited number of specialists ; for 

 it is given to few (even amongst Dutch scholars) to understand 

 14th. century Javanese and read the Balinese character readily. 

 Under the circumstances one must be thankful that Professor 

 Kern has given some information on the subject for the bene- 

 fit of the general reader, who is not a Kawi scholar. In the 

 Indische Gids for 1903 (I, pp. 341-360) he gave a general ac- 

 count of the contents of the poem, with particular reference to 

 some of its geographical data, and in Deel LYIII (1905) and 

 Deel LXI (1908) of the Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Vol- 

 kenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie he returned to the subject 

 and dealt more particularly with some of the genealogical and 

 chronological details contained in the poem. Colonel G. E. 

 Gerini further dealt with some of the geographical data of the 

 Nagaraketfigama, especially those connected with Siam and 

 the Malay Peninsula, in a paper published in the Journal of 

 the Eoyal Asiatic Society (July 1905), to which I wrote a 



Jour. Straits Branch 



