Candrasangkala : The Balinese Art of Dating Events

The present study is concerned with the historiography of the Island of Bali, Indonesia. It has long been recognized that the chronicle texts (babad) of Bali are unreliable as conventional historical sources; they have a strongly legitimizing purpose and are arranged according to other criterions than strictly chronological ones. Precise dates are rarely found in the ordinary texts. There is, however, a category of texts that furnishes annal-like information, with years set out in the form of chronograms (candrasangkala). In this study a number of such lists of dates have been published, translated and commented. Comparing the dates with external, mostly Dutch, materials, it is apparent that they display a degree of reliability from at least the late sixteenth century. The early dates would generally seem to be fictitious, but are interesting as culturally constructed imaginations of history and geography