Carita Parahyangan
Text Jawa Barat
Attenuated
A sixteenth-century Old Sundanese manuscript on the kings of Sunda and Galuh, the principal written source for Sundanese history before Islam, and the only manuscript to mention the Bubat affair from the Sundanese side.
A history written to judge
The Carita Parahyangan names the kings of Sunda and Galuh in succession, but its measure is not length of reign or extent of territory: it is whether a king held to the teaching. A king who kept the rule is named with brief praise; a king who abandoned it is named with a note that his realm subsequently met difficulty.
Such an arrangement makes the manuscript a valuable source for the order of kings and a source to be handled carefully for the causes of events. It also makes it a direct source on what its sixteenth-century author took good rule to be, and evidence of that second kind is often firmer than evidence of the first.
Bubat from the Sundanese side
The manuscript carries the Sundanese notice of the Bubat affair, and the notice is brief: the party set out, and what returned was news of deaths. The absence of elaboration is itself worth noting, since the Javanese and Balinese sources — the Pararaton and the Kidung Sunda — treat it at length.
A difference in the length of treatment between the party that suffered the loss and the party named as its cause is a recurring feature of historical material, and it cannot be resolved by choosing one as correct. The related event entry sets both tellings side by side; what is recorded here is that the oldest Sundanese manuscript to mention it mentions it in few words.
Full entry 3 / 3
2 sections, 4 sources, one of them primary.
Full does not mean finished. It means this record clears the bar this encyclopedia sets before it will speak at length.