Babad Sindujoyo

Sindujoyo was of the disciples of the legendary Javanese Islamic scholar and ruler Sunan Prapen. This manuscript turns Sindujoyo into a legendary warrior who roamed through Java from battle to battle half a century after Sunan Prapen’s death. Facing armies, winning cockfights, and riding crocodiles, he defeated the reputedly invulnerable lord of the Central Javanese Banyumas region in the name of the Mataram sovereign. In the tale, royal rewards are bestowed upon him, but the kyai only wishes an albino buffalo in whose stomach he meditates for forty days. This act of asceticism impresses the Mataram sovereign so much that he grants a royal title to the kyai as a token of his superior supernatural wonders. The two graves of Kyai Sindujoyo still testify the exceptional military strength believed to have derived from his piety and both of them probably were pilgrimage sites in the early seventeenth century already. This manuscript was likely copied by Ki Tarub Agung from an even older version of this tale.