King Ken Arok Analysis

This chapter will discuss the journey of King Ken Arok in building Singasari kingdom and assess his life story as depicted in Kitab Pararaton according to Joseph Campbell’s outline of Hero’s Journey. The epic hero of Kitab Pararaton is Ken Arok, an incarnation of Wisnu who was born of a poor widow. Through ups and downs and a lot of crime-committing, Ken Arok succeeded in becoming the first king who built the Singasari Kingdom. Unfortunately, his past of hurting people to achieve what he was ‘destined’to do finally caught up to him and made him pay the price. Ken Arok was stabbed to death by his stepson, Anusapati, using a magical blade that the former once used to kill other people after Anusapati learned the fact that Ken Arok was not his biological father. Ken Arok was the father of kings because his biological son from his concubine, Ken Umang, revolted against Anusapati. Therefore, Ken Arok’s bloodline was considered the royal blood that produced kings throughout centuries, including Hayam Wuruk, the greatest king of

Because of this chronological problem, scholars are not sure whether Kitab Pararaton is supposed to be used as a primary source to study Indonesian medieval history of kingdoms in Java (Anon). They compare Kitab Pararaton to Kakawin Negarakertagama which was written by Mpu Prapanca, an eyewitness of Majapahit kingdom when Hayam Wuruk was the ruler. The problem is, events that are written in Kitab Pararaton, especially the ones that contain the flaws of the royal family, are not written in Kakawin Negarakertagama. The latter is said to be written as a present to the current sovereign in that time, with a purpose to gain favor from the royal family. Because of this, both literary works are considered not reliable and accurate to be the primary source to learn and discover the truth of Nusantara’s ancient