Kutukan Joko Bandung >> Versi Indonesia
Folklore from Yogyakarta
A long time ago, there were two kingdoms. They were Pengging Kingdom and Prambanan Kingdom. The king were fighting. They were at war! Pengging's king was Joko Bandung. He was very strong and powerful. He had great martial art skill. He led the soldiers and fought bravely.
Meanwhile, Prabu Boko, the king of Prambanan sent a giant to fight against Joko Bandung. The Giants name was Bandawasa.
Bandawasa was very big. Joko Bandung was not afraid with the giant. They were fighting. And finally Joko Bandung won the fight. Before he died, Bandawasa's spirit joined Joko Bandung's spirit. That made Joko Bandung became more powerful. He then added Bandawasa's name into his name. His name changed into Joko Bandung Bandawasa.
Joko Bandung and his soldiers were attacking the palace of Prambanan Kingdom. Joko Bandung was looking for Prabu Boko. He wanted to kill the king of Prambanan Kingdom. Joko Bandung was more powerful. He killed Prabu Boko.
Joko Bandung occupied the palace. He asked all Prabu Boko's family to gather. He met Prabu Boko's beautiful daughter. Her name was Roro Jonggrang. he fell in love with her. He wanted to marry her.
Roro Jonggrang did not want to marry him. She hated Joko Bandung. However she was afraid and did not have any courage to refuse the marriage proposal. She had an idea how to refuse the proposal.
She would ask Joko Bandung to build 1.000 temples only in one night. If he could build the temples, Roro Jonggrang would marry him. Joko Bandung agreed. He accepted the challenge. He was not worried, he would asked the genies and the spirits to help him.
Joko Bandung and his genies started to work. They build the temples one by one. Roro Jonggrang was really worried. She knew Joko Bandung could not finish building 1.000 temples before sun rose.
She was thinking very hard. She had to find a way how to stop the genies and the spirit fro building the temples. Suddenly she had an idea.
She asked all the girls to make a lot of noise by grinding the rice in the mortar. She also asked them to make fire. She hopped that the spirits and the genies would think that sun was going to rise.
It worked! The noise and the fire woke the cocks up. The cocks were crowing. The spirits and the genies thought that morning would come soon.
And they also thought the sun would rise soon. The spirits and the genies were afraid of the sunlight. They left Joko Bandung alone. Joko Bandung was very angry! He knew Roro Jonggrang was plying a trick on him.
"Why did you do that? If you do not want to marry me, why don't you just say it? You are just looking for an excuse to refuse me!" said Joko Bandung.
He continued, "You are so stubborn like a stone. I curse you to become a statue!"
Joko Bandung's magic power had changed Roro Jonggrang into a statue! Since then people named the temples that the spirit and the genies build as Sewu Temple. And the people also named the Prambanan Temple as Roro Jonggrang Temple.***
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Moral Message:
The story of Joko Bandung teaches us that power and strength must be accompanied by wisdom and understanding. Joko Bandung's anger and impulsive actions led to the irreversible consequence of turning Roro Jonggrang into stone, demonstrating that reacting with anger can cause harm to others and lead to regret. It emphasizes that true strength lies in patience and the ability to listen to others' feelings and perspectives.
The Prambanan temple is still known as Prambanan temple only, all around the world. Most of the people are not aware of such a story. Yogyakarta is a very noted place for its Ramayana ballet that is performed at most of the nights in the temple.
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