African looking people are also found here in this Shiva temple at Prambanan

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Sri Mapanji Garasakan: inscription of Garaman (1053 AD) 4 Copper plates

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Taken from: Javanese Markets and the Asian Sea Trade Boom of the Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries A.D. by JW Christie 1998.

Taken from: Melacak Sejarah Kuno Indonesia lewat Prasasti By Boechari.

 

The inscription is about the founding of a sima (freehold) in Garaman by king Mapanji as thanks for the help given by the villagers during the war against his brother Haji Pangjalu.

In addition to granting a range of sumptuary privileges and lifting taxes on a range of market traders, the charter restricted access to the village by groups of tax farmers (wargga kilalan), including indigenous and mainland Southeast Asian and South Asian individuals.

 

Because two descendants of Airlangga felt entitled to the royal throne, Airlangga was forced to divide his kingdom into the kingdom of Janggala in the north and the kingdom of Pangjalu in the south; so that there would be no attempts to fight over the throne. But the war between the two kings was inevitable. The Garaman inscription also commemorates the outbreak of this war between Mapanji Garasakan from Janggala and Haji Pangjalu from Pangjalu. Between the two king there is a family relationship, namely, where Mapanji Garasakan is the eldest son of Airlangga but the younger brother of Sanggramawijaya, the eldest daughter of Airlangga while Haji Pangjalu is her son.

 

 

Backside of plate 2

……Because the grant of his Majesty the king to the village elders of Garaman was already made irrevocable to establish their village as a sima. It was not to be intruded upon by the nayaka (notary) of Air Thani (=holy baths). All kinds of taxes from the village of Garaman, the source for all offerings to Siwa who was worshipped by the villagers from the past to the present. The village of Garaman did not again belong to the jurisdiction of Air Thani. Its status was exclusively a sima swatantra (freehold), and was not to be intruded upon by officials of the three mana (ministers), i.e. the pankur, the tawan……

 

Frontside of plate 3

(Nothing but a list of officials that are not allowed to show up in the sima which is continued on the backside.)

 

Backside of plate 3

The pobhaya, the pakarapa, the pacandana, the pawulun wulun, the kedi, the walyan, the king’s servants (=hulun haji), the jengi, the singah, the pamrsi, and all the court-attendants (=watek I jro) attached to the inner part of the palace, etc, they do not enter the village of Garaman. Only (the village elders of Garaman) had the right to all kinds of its taxes and all fines……

 

Front of plate 4(line8)- Back (2) ... [the other inhabitants] of the sima of Garaman who may trade (free of royal tax) are the bakul traders: two specialists in areca nuts and sirih leaves, two specialists in sesame oil, two specialists in all the produce of the marshes, two specialists in tamarind, two specialists in cotton. They may gather their merchandise from other, distant regions [and] may sell in the immediate region without being subject to the orders of the merchant groups of all regions (banigradma parawulu sapaficadesa).

See note on: The Crisis of Civil War at the End of King Airlangga's Reign.

 

See note on Inscriptions in Java