JAVANESE kings were the expression of an ideal. Primarily, the ideal of stability. Think of their names: Amangkurat and Mangkubumi mean ‘cradling the earth’. Hamengku Buwono means ‘cradling the world’. Paku Buwono is the ‘spike’ (paku) that keeps the world (buwono) steady, staked to stop it from shaking.

We often forget that these names are relatively new, appearing in the history of Javanese monarchy only in the 17th century. Befor