Lutung Kasarung

Purbasari, youngest daughter of the king of Pasir Batang, is banished to the forest by her jealous sister Purbararang, who wants the throne. In the forest she is accompanied by a langur who is in truth Guruminda, a being of the upper world descended in that shape. The langur helps her through a series of contests set by Purbararang, and in the end resumes his own form.

The contests set at the close are the most interpreted part: what is compared is length of hair, beauty, and finally the handsomeness of each sister's betrothed. The story therefore settles a contest for power by comparisons that are entirely bodily, and some interpreters read this as mockery of the measures used rather than an endorsement of them.

Lutung Kasarung is among the longest and most often performed pantun Sunda repertoires, and a performance may run several consecutive nights. It opens with the rajah pamunah, an opening utterance asking leave and safety, and closes with a closing rajah; neither belongs to the story and both are almost always lost in publication.

The recording of a juru pantun cited in this entry was made under oral permission on condition that the complete recording is not published. The condition is recorded because it bears on precisely the part missing from print: the opening and closing are what tellers are most reluctant to release, and their absence from the printed literature is not merely an editor's oversight.