The Soul Taker & Universal Sweeper

King Raden Mas Said (King Mangku Negara the First), the ancestor of the Suryo-di-Puro family, (suryo.net) was a descendant of one of the "Wali Songo", the 9 religious leaders who brought Islam in the 11th. century to what is now Indonesia*. He ruled several hundred years ago as Prince "Samber Nyowo", the soul taker, because of his supernatural and legendary abilities to kill his enemies that were at that time the Dutch colonial ruling power, their Dutch soldiers, and their local henchmen (local people who preferred to work for the enemy against their own kind, a phenomena always available in any war situation).

Legend says he did that by just observing rows of enemy soldiers at a distance, extending his hands and taking a swipe and wrenching their souls, killing his enemies – just like in the Kung Fu movies. Firearms and cannons didn't kill him, and legend says bullets and cannon balls would just deflect, sometimes at near point blank range. That is the legend. Even though he is not around any longer, no one has seen him die or know where his remains are located, if any!

He was also known as Prince "Sapu Jagat", the universal sweeper, because of his ability to clean corruption and anything else that was dirty (also supernaturally) during his reign. For those who know Indonesia intimately and the multi-dimensional corruption of tens of billions of dollars during the former Soeharto government and the incapability of the present Gus Dur government to solve the problem, this is something we really need now.

The King Still Plays A Modern Role

In this modern day King Mangku Negara still plays an active role because it is claimed, he can still talk to people, although most people who wish to converse with him have to do it through the medium of an "orang pintar" (literally translated into a 'clever person', meaning a paranormal).

People who are quite advanced in their arts through meditation, purity of their religion and so on, claim they can meet with many illustrious departees, one of them King Mangku Negara and to converse with him just as he was a flesh and blood person. One can see him, hear his voice, touch him, feel the warmth of his flesh just like any ordinary person.

It is understood that a person's religious purity is not necessarily confined to a Moslem person, but can be of any other religion because King Mangku Negara holds to the Moslem tenet that all religions lead to one God and that the Islam religion recognizes all religions. (Moslem fundamentalists, like Christian fundamentalists during the Christian crusades – military crusades against non-Christians in the 11th. century like the Holy War crusades of some narrow minded people – represent a small percentage of the Moslem community).

Adji & Minou had their own similar experience on direct communications with the King. One day after being prodded to go to Mangadeg, Solo, central Java, to pay his respects to his ancestor by Pak (mister) G. Dwipayana (nationally known as Pak Dipo because of his children's TV programs called Si Unyil in the late '80s-early 90s), an army major general at the Sekretariat Negara or State Secretariat, or the Indonesian equivalent of the White House, Adji and Minou went to Mangadeg and was told to pick up a 23 year old young woman, Endang, at the Sahid Hotel in the town of Solo who was supposed to be a descendant of King Mangku Negara the IIIrd (there are now 9 Mangku Negara kings?).

This young woman Endang, General Dipo said, is supposed to be pure (whatever that meant), and therefore can converse with the King. Adji ofcourse played along. So, off the two of them flew to Solo at 6 a.m. on an hour and 15 minutes jet flight in central Java, and looked for Endang who was expecting them. The moment she saw Adji, she said, she was taken aback because Adji looked like a spitting image of Prince So-and-So. And Adji replied, "I want to meet this guy." To which she replied, that's why she was taken aback because she thought Prince So-and-So had risen from the dead after passing away a year ago.

And, she also added, "King Mangku Negara was angry with Adji" because it took years for him to come to Solo to pay his respects. Adji was skeptical about this info because although many paranormals told him of his illustrious and rather fearsome forefather – and his own Father, Raden Mas Suyoto Suryo-di-Puro, told him he, too, was a descendant – and although there exists a Committee of Mangku Negara Families that represented 250,000 "family heads" (some 1,250,000 million people direct descendants??) whose chief showed him the 4 meter long family tree chart – Adji had an opinion of himself that basically meant,  who is Adji anyway that the King paid any attention to him or whether he had come or not to pay his respects out of the hundreds of thousands of other descendants. In short, Adji was not really convinced that the King even acknowledged him as a descendant, never mind that the King "was angry" Adji did not pay the necessary respect (which, by the way, is an old Javanese tradition to visit the last resting place of one's forefathers).

If Pak Dipo (who seemed to know much more about Adji's descendancy than Adji himself) had not prodded and paid for Adji and Minou's airfares and hotel bills to Solo and back, Adji would have probably not gone (and the King would be even angrier). But as Endang during the course of the conversation informed him of some "secrets" of his company that the King told her should convince Adji, Adji half believed that Endang could probably talk to King Mangku Negara. The chances that this info and its details were correct, was known only to the notary public and the 2 parties who concluded the agreement was a thousand to one, and she hit that thousand to one.

Adji & Minou's own Experience & "Meeting" With the Long Gone King

So after an hour's road journey from the town of Solo to his mountain resting place in Mangadeg, they arrived, climbed several hundred meters up a thousand stairs or so, signed the guest book, and explained to the gate keeper who they were and what business they had, etc. all written down in the guest book. They then reached the vast graveyard complex on the top of a hill, complete with a small covered open gazebo for people to rest their feet, eat their lunch or dinner, and change to the appropriate dress, that is the sarongs and so forth (no shorts, and certainly no mini skirts).

King Mangku Negara's main resting place in Mangadeg is a covered and enclosed gazebo complete with a tiled roof, a small 3 x 4 meter walled and covered ornate crypt enough for only 4 or 5 people where his marble grave was laid out about 1 foot above the beige marble floor right in the middle of this room. This small gazebo is then placed in the middle of a larger, marble-covered open 50 x 50 meter gazebo which contains dozens of gravestones containing the remains of his court and his "mini wives" called "selir" in Javanese. More on his "selirs" below. The two gazebos are in turn surrounded by a very elaborate open complex of grave stones of several levels, a kind of a hill of graves.

The three beings after going through a prayer ceremony (to pray to God and ask for his blessings because it is akin to asking a priest – in this case the King – to put in a good word to God on their behalf), entered the inner sanctum of the Mangku Negara King's resting place. The three then knelt in front of the grave, Adji, Endang in the middle, and Minou at Endang's right facing the gravestone.

Endang then in her normal voice started conversing with the unseen king and addressing the gravestone and sort of introduced his descendant and his wife, just as if she was introducing them to a real live person. Adji and Minou in the meanwhile casting side glances at each other. Then she fell silent and started to nod her head as if holding a conversation. Then, after a minute or two Endang turned to Minou and said: "I just asked grandfather, 'Who is this lady on my right? Who is she really?' And grandfather replied, 'The lady on your right is not an ordinary lady. She is the great grand daughter of the king, but not the present king, of a country now called Iran, from her mother's side.' Is this correct Tante (auntie)?"

Minou didn't even reply to Endang. She turned to Adji and admonished him in English, "Why did you have to tell her about me?" to which he replied, "We just met her. I didn't tell her anything! Why should I tell her anything? And as far as I know, only Bapak (that's Grand Dad) knows this. The kids probably don't know even about it. Dipo and Budi Lestari (another of Dipo's colleague) certainly didn't know it." Adji said.

So, that was that.

After that event, Adji and Minou left the King's presence convinced that there are many things in this world that people do not know about. The more experiences and more knowledge one has, the more one feels his knowledge of this world is really nothing compared to the other things one might learn. Especially about the King's statement "from her Mother's side"  because, after all, everybody is descended from somebody. But the accuracy of that statement sort of floored him.

And, he won't bother to be a smart aleck and give some sort of unprofound explanation – like some people would say "it's the work of the devil", not realizing that the devil himself, God's fallen angel, is God's creation too – when his knowledge or experience base on supernatural knowledge is not even up to it. And unlike the attitude of some people when they try to explain something, basing it only on their knowledge base which is usually narrow and very limited anyway.

Or basing their beliefs on some books which they read and consider it the only authority on the matter which is usually written by a single person anyway, when the true explanation can only be understood if they had a different – and a wider – knowledge and actual experience base. It's like if an electronics and video engineer with his 2000 knowledge base goes back in time and explains to the wise and scientific people in the year 1800 about television technology, who would likely burn him at the stake as a witch for claiming instantaneous color pictures and sound can be transmitted through the air.

So, Adji thought, as he doesn't have this experience or knowledge base of communicating with spirits (like James Praagh demonstrated to television viewers all around the world through the Larry King Live program), or even the foggies notion of how to communicate with unseen beings, he better behave himself. Otherwise, the King would be really angry and that just won't do.

On the way up, the Gate Keeper said that as a descendant, Grand Dad's name 'Suryo-di-Puro', (spelled "Soeryodipoero", the old fashioned way based on Dutch spelling, in Mangadeg) was registered 3 times, twice as a descendant of MN I, and once as a descendant of MN III in a miniaturized family tree.  Grand Dad placed the dashes in the the 1950s – replacing the "oe" in "Soeryodipoero" with a "u" making it "Suryodipuro" the modern non-Dutch spelling – when he was in Rome in late '49-early '50 so people won't have a hard time pronouncing it. But also, as Grand Dad said, his "suryo-di-puro" spelling is the correct form of spelling because one should not join different meanings of 'suryo' (sun) 'di' (of) 'puro' (city or place or home), making it "city (or home) of the sun. It's like that street in New York named "Fifth Avenue" should not be joined as "Fifthavenue".

The Gate Keeper (not 'gatekeeper' if one wants to be picky about it) added also, "when you wish for something, this wish would be granted if it rains".

When Adji and Minou arrived at around 11 a.m., the mountain top grave site was bright and sunny. When they left the inner gazebo an hour later it was dark like 5-6 pm early evening, raining, thunder and lightning and they were drenched visiting two dozen graves which the King (through Endang) said Adji must visit, including those outside the covered gazebos. But when they walked half way the 1,000 steps down the mountain after completing a two hour visit-the-grave ceremony the mountain top was shining brightly at it should be at 2:30 p.m. without a cloud in the sky, and the remainder of the stairway was dry. So, how does one figure that one out? Well ...  never mind.

When they got inside their rented car, Adji's trousers and shoes were missing (they had to wear open sandals and sarongs to go up the mountain) but the car doors were locked. The cameras, cassette player (no new fangled electronic gadgets or picture-taking at the grave site) and other valuable things, including  spare cash kept in some bags were intact. So, they flew to Jakarta*, he in new shorts he bought at the airport and sandals. Adji, Minou and Endang couldn't figure it out why only the trousers and shoes were missing. Maybe the King was telling him something, because Adji was sort of grumbling to Endang about visiting so many graves and getting drenched in their tight sarongs to which she said, "better do what Grand Father wants you to do".

The History of the Javanese Kingdoms - the Java Man as the Forefathers

King Mangku Negara was one of many Javanese kings, and among his cousins and relatives were the kings of Yogjakarta, the Hamengku Buwonos, the Paku Bumis, the Paku Buwonos, the kings in Cirebon and Surya Kencana, both in west Java and in Bali to name a few. Before Indonesia became a Republic in 1945, the territory was covered in kingdoms, and the territory comprising Indonesia now had some 125 kingdoms some 1,500 years ago. Some wealthier than others, some modest and some ostentatious.

It is therefore no surprise during the 5th. century A.D., more so after the 11th. century, kingdoms like Brunei Darussalam, the Malaysian Kings and Thai kingdom were part of a relations of kings based in Java. More on this below.

The King's Image Cannot Be Painted

Legends say artists of old can never paint King Mangku Negara's face because it disappeared from the canvas the next day leaving only his kingly figure minus his face each time somebody painted him. To this day there are no likeness or image of his face, so his court people hundreds of years ago just use a crown (above) to symbolize his likeness.

The King's Grave Sites

Birds which fly over the King's grave site where hundreds of royal Mangku Negara graves are located in the mountain of Mangadeg, near Solo in central Java, would fall from the sky and die, legend says.

King Mangku Negara is reputedly to have had "several graves", that is if one dug up his grave, there are no skeletal remains. Likewise with the other grave sites. His resting place in Mangadeg, Solo, also has no skeletal remains (they found this out when they first built this complex). His grave sites, therefore, were his usual favorite meditation and resting places spread throughout Indonesia, and as his remains were never found by his own court, they made each favorite resting place his grave site, Mangadeg in Solo being his favorite and most elaborate one.

His main resting place in Mangadeg is adorned with valuable items (which nobody dares to steal even though it is out in the open on pedestals) around his marble gravestone

His Queen & Selirs

A selir is a "lower" or mini wife, superseded by the "Permaisuri" or queen who is the senior of the wives. Obviously, one cannot have many queens. So, one queen and many mini wives. These selirs are not just any ordinary ladies. They are usually young women, daughters, younger sister, cousins or whatever of neighbouring kings. So one should not underestimate the quality and the role a selir can play in a Javanese king's life.

A "gundik" is a western's concept of a concubine, a sort of mistress without the weight of a selir. The gundik's offspring is not formally recognized as a member of the royal family, although the King made him/her. A gundik can come from any level of society, from maids to royals. But royals, obviously, don't want to be a gundik preferring to be a selir with the weight of being formally married to the King.

When the King had a favorite, this selir would enjoy more attention and certainly more perks. It is human after all. Even though the Islam religion dictates that if one can afford to have more than one wife (four maximum), each wife must have equal attention and equal of everything (which is next to impossible to achieve, especially the attention). Having more than one wife is similar to the American Mormons' practice of multiple wives.

Each selir's children has just about an equal status in the King's eyes, that is to say, the son of the third selir, for example, can be nominated as the next king and the first son of the Queen would not necessarily be its next king. The next king was chosen based on voting by chosen family members which is kind of democratic in royal lives (the king holding veto power if he deemed the family's choice as improper) because the Queen's first born can be a nincompoop. Sultan Hamengku Buwono the Xth. is an example of a king who was chosen by a family vote who ascended to the Hamengku Buwono throne when his father, Sultan Hamengku Buwono the IX, took ill and passed away before any definite succession was established.

The King's Servants

A king would reward a long serving servant with a royal title, usually beginning with the word "Kanjeng ... ". An example of this was the father of Indonesia's former First Lady, Mrs. Soeharto, whose father was rewarded with this title by one of the Mangku Negara kings. Although not of royal blood, Mrs. Soeharto had played a role in the development of Indonesia's society along with her husband, former president H.M. Soeharto.

Raden Mas

The King himself, and most of the king's descendants, usually do not have long winded titles, like King Mangku Negara the First whose original name was Raden Mas Said (pronounced saa .. id), the Raden Mas being the title.

Fifth generation "Raden Mas'" do not carry the "Mas" title ("Mas" meaning "gold" or "senior"). Just plain old "Raden". For the "she" version, the Raden Mas is "Raden Ayu", "Ayu" meaning beautiful or pretty in Javanese. The 5th. generation "raden ayu" becomes "raden roro".

Hence, Javanese people with a fore title of R.M. (Raden Mas) can be assumed to be more "junior" than those with a plain old R. (Raden) along that particular blood line.

The King's Perks Would Be Perfect for Some People

This Javanese king arrangement would have been just perfect for one of this world's leaders who is being hounded by a prosecutor who is probably guilty (if not in his mind maybe in real life) of some of the things he is accusing this poor man. Had this world leader been a Javanese king living during those days, the more Monica Lewinskys and Jennifer Flowers he had, the better it would have been for his prestige because in those days the leader, now called presidents, had to have these perks, like presidential helicopters and bulletproof limousines of today. The more selirs he had, the better it was for his prestige. If he didn't, his nation would consider this as most improper (like most national leaders in today's world would consider it lacking if their presidents and prime ministers didn't have certain perks like limousines and palaces).

The modern Sultan Hamengku Buwono the IX, of Jogja who was Grand Daddy's old friend and buddy  before the 1945 War of Independence, lived until the '90s also had selirs, except that he did no did not flaunt it, and kept it low profile because modern Indonesian society now think it is out of place. He left instructions that there would be no more selirs (in his kingdom anyway) after he passed away.

King Mangku Negara was reputedly to have had some 32 selirs. Yep, that was the kingly life in the old days. Let a modern day Javanese try this selir business today, however, and his Javanese wife, or any other wife, would have the sky fall on his head.

You Can Learn the King's Martial Arts

On King Mangku Negara's supernatural abilities to dispatch his enemies, many Javanese in these modern times still practice a martial art developed from the old days called Pentjak Silat, similar to King Mangku Negara's soul-taking abilities but not as drastic or fatal. The advanced Pentjak Silat practitioner after years of training can knock down 10 or more opponents (or completely rendering them unconscious) from a distance of 10 feet or more without even touching them. The attackers from all sides (behind his head, too) seem to hit an invisible wall and are then knocked down, irrespective of how big or heavy they are. The advanced modern practitioner can be immune from knife wounds, or when hit by a steel bar when one's art is more developed. Don't know about bullets though, although some people say bullets did not faze the King, or other modern day practitioners of the pentjak silat or other Javanese-sourced martial arts.

Foreigners have also learned this art and their prowess are shown on TV, to show that non-Javanese can also master the art. None of this Kungfu or Karate stuff to disable the enemy. This ability is based on "inner strength" and can be developed in anyone. Obviously this long-distance karate and kungfu would probably not be available to murderous practitioners because of this religious purity, except perhaps if the intent was for the good of many people like the King killing a bunch of soldiers. One supposes if one had the "inner strength" derived from religious purity as the King had, a modern day martial arts practitioner could probably even kill his enemies from a distance. Although many people do not believe this art, some Germans, French and Englishmen who offended local practitioners, were put to death even when they were in far away London, Paris or Germany. Physical distance has no influence.

Belief, or non-belief, in such arts is very much dependent on one's "knowledge base". One should not go around thinking that one's knowledge and experience is the only knowledge available in this vast, wide world. One should keep an open mind as one never knows what one can learn.

Because of many long distance deaths, the Indonesian Government even has a regulation on the burners to be formulated into law on what is defined as: 'deaths by supernatural means'. It is to be formally regulated and it merits to be made into law because many people are clamoring for its regulation – once Parliament is no longer occupied with present day political and economic problems.

In September-October 1998 the Government was pre-occupied with the murder of some 160 Moslem religious men by killers who come in dressed in black ninja costumes in the town of Banyu Wangi (perfumed waters) in east Java. These religious men were accused of practicing black magic (santet, or the art of killing from a distance). These killers come in droves, not just one or two people, and the Government is having difficulties catching these black ninjas. One wonders how the police are going to handle its 'supernatural' forensics!

The Origins of the Javanese Kingdoms - From the Early Origins of Man

Java was the home of the Java Man, one of the oldest recorded ancestors of mankind. It would make sense that the Java Man, and his descendants the Javanese kings, were the ancestors of many of the kingdoms in S.E. Asia. According to many today from foreign countries, members of the aristocracy of these "foreign" kingdoms still pay their homage to their ancestors in Java. The Javanese as descendant of the million-year old Java Man (even though the majority of Indonesians were descended from the Melanesian race), had plenty of time and opportunity throughout thousands of years in mankind's history to be experienced in making kingdoms because, after-all, the so-called Java Man was the forefathers of the Javanese.

And in these modern days the "Java" computer language was invented by smart guys from Sun Micro Systems in the U.S. who were probably influenced by their stay in the town of Magelang in Java and the gonged instrument called the Gamelan (an 'orchestra' of dozens of gongs of all sizes and strips of tuned brass metal very much like a xylophone instrument), and well ... maybe because of the tropical sun, the name Sun Micro Systems came to be. For an accurate story though, one should send Sun Micro Systems an email. And if the above estimates are correct, maybe they should visit their old hideouts again and renew their inspiration. You never know, they may come up with another popular invention like the Java computer language.

These Javanese of old reputedly went gallivanting all over the globe even before the times when Columbus discovered America sailing their vessels to what is now Surinam, Hawaii, Madagascar, and New Zealand planting their seeds and leaving descendants who are, well ... Javanese like (like indigenous Hawaiians and Polynesians).

Closer to home there was the Majapahit Empire which had spread to as far as what is now Thailand and Cambodia in the 1100s. Thai and Cambodian writing is somewhat similar to old Javanese script. One couldn't decipher what's written, unless one is either an old-fashioned Thai or Javanese. But you'll have to ask the experts on this because as far as history is concerned this is not a hard and fast rule.

Even present day Thais, Malays, and Cambodians do not look any different than the Javanese (if one watched modern Thai or S.E. Asian films) ... even to this cultural thing of bowing down lower than one's elders practiced by millions in Java, or as seen on CNN when Thai and Cambodian subjects bow down in front of their King while approaching him.

One bows lower because one who is younger and 'lower' in social stature should not be 'higher' physically than an elder's head. It is also applicable between a Javanese servant towards her employer, and between a highly educated youngsters towards somebody older. So one shouldn't think it strange Thais  and Javanese 'crawling' in front of their elders. It's a cultural thing.

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