Babad Dipanagara

Dipanagara wrote his life in macapat, the Javanese verse form with fixed line counts, syllable counts and end sounds for each of its kinds. To write a report in such a form is to fit sentences to a rule, and the choice of verse kind itself carries a register — pangkur for what is harsh, asmaradana for what is tender, and so on.

The manuscript therefore cannot be read as a diary. It is testimony composed under literary rule, and what is most valuable in it to a historian — the order of events, names, dates, and the reasons its author states — must be taken from within that form and not as though the form were not there.

The autograph was completed at Manado in February 1832, and a copy made under its author's supervision was sent to Java. The autograph later lay in the Netherlands and was returned to Indonesia; it is now held at the National Library and has been listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World since 2013.

The small number of manuscripts makes every variant reading significant. A complete edition with translation appeared only in the twenty-first century, and before that the use of this text in historical writing rested on summaries and selected quotation. The difference between history written before and after the edition became available is observable, and it is one reason this encyclopedia records the publishing state of a text as part of the record about it.