The Treaty of Giyanti (1755)

The Treaty of Giyanti was signed in February 1755 between the VOC, Pakubuwana III and Prince Mangkubumi, ending the succession war by dividing Mataram's territory in two: the Kasunanan of Surakarta under Pakubuwana III and the Kasultanan of Ngayogyakarta under Mangkubumi, titled Hamengkubuwana I. That division followed and was followed by further ones — the Mangkunagaran in 1757 and the Pakualaman in 1813 — so that the former Mataram lands came to be held in four positions.

The divider was a third party. The VOC stood as guarantor of the treaty and thereby became the party to whom disputes among the four were subsequently brought. That arrangement placed the highest adjudication outside the contending house, and it is what the treaty achieved for the party that brokered it.

The treaty divided territory, revenue and courtiers, but could not divide what is indivisible: regalia, musical repertoires, dances and ceremonial cycles. Each court consequently built its own repertoire on the same base, and the differences that have grown since 1755 — in gamelan practice, in dress, in the order of dances, in terminology — are differences less than three centuries old and traceable.

This makes south-central Java one of the places where two repertoires descended from one parent can be compared from a certain starting date. The Surakarta and Yogyakarta styles are treated as two equal styles, and using either as the measure of the other is a statement about standing and not about authenticity.