Salaḍū, Lord of Pikatan (reigned 847–855) was a king of the Mataram Kingdom in Central

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

who built the Prambanan temple, dedicated to

Shiva Shiva (; , ), also known as Mahadeva (; , , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐh and Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the God in Hinduism, Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions w ...

. He is commonly referred to as ''Rakai Pikatan'', which is a title meaning "Lord of Pikatan". His personal name was ''dyah'' Salaḍū, where ''dyah'' is a personal article indicating noble status. Salaḍū was a Shivaite Hindu. According to th
Wanua Tengah III
inscription, Salaḍū was responsible for dissolving a benefice (''sīma'') that had previously been dedicated to a Buddhist monastery in Pikatan. He is recorded in the Shivagrha inscription as having married a daughter of another religion. This is most likely Pramodhawardhani, the Mahayana Buddhist daughter of Samaratungga, a previous king of Java belonging to the Shailendra dynasty. The circumstances of Salaḍū's reign are highly conjectural, due to the limited amount of primary source material available. George Coedès hypothesised that Salaḍū fought his brother-in-law Balaputra, forcing him to move to

Srivijaya Srivijaya (), also spelled Sri Vijaya, was a Hinduism, Hindu-Buddhism, Buddhist thalassocracy, thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia) that influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important ...

in 856. Other interpretations based on the Kayumwungan inscription put Balaputra as Pramodhawardhani's uncle rather than her brother as inscriptions only list Pramodhawardhani as a child of Samaratungga. In this hypothetical scenario, Balaputra went to Srivijaya not because of force but because he had no claim as a brother of the monarch. According to the interpretation of Loro Jonggrang legend, Pramodhawardhani's likeness was the model for Durga's image in the Prambanan temple.

References

* Marwati Poesponegoro & Nugroho Notosusanto. 1990. ''Sejarah Nasional Indonesia Jilid II''. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka. * George Coedès. 1968. ''The Indianized States of Southeast Asia''. Translated by Susan Brown Cowing. Canberra: Australian National University Press. {{Indonesia-stub Maharajas of Mataram Shailendra dynasty Central Java 9th-century Indonesian people