Expansion and Internalization of Modes of Warfare in Pre-colonial Balitering cotton cloth, rice, cattle, horses and female slaves for household
utensils and luxury goods.^21
What is clear is that a considerable expansion of royal power took
place in the course of the sixteenth or the early seventeenth century. A
VOC document from 1603 asserts that Bali’s eastern neighbour Lombok
belonged to the Balinese king and was still “heathen” (that is, non-Chris-
tian and non-Muslim).^22 Other documents from 1633 contain the some-
what unlikely information that the Gelgel ruler lorded over an extended
area from Blitar in East Java to Bima on Sumbawa.^23 All this may reflect
claims that were lodged by Balinese grandees when they met with VOC
diplomats, but at a minimum easternmost Java (Balambangan) and parts
of Lombok were under Balinese suzerainty for periods. The claims are
reflected in the eighteenth-century history of the Gelgel Dynasty, Babad
Dalem, that tells that the model of Indic kingship, Dalem Baturenggong,
acquired these lands, presumably in the mid-sixteenth century. Details
about the binding of Lombok and Sumbawa to his kingdom are missing.
As for Balambangan, the chronicle gives a minor incident of a personal
nature – the refusal of an East Javanese princess to marry the king, as
the reason for the Balinese invasion and takeover.^24 The reduction of
the causes for wars to similar incidents is quite common in Indonesian
historiography.
In the first half of the seventeenth century Bali was therefore one of
the 10–12 polities of greater consequence in what is today Indonesia,
and it did not lack self-assurance. A document from 1633 testifies to the
condescending attitude of the Gelgel ruler vis-à-vis the Muslim lord of
Mataram on Java.^25 Moreover, it was the only one that was not formally
Muslim. The uniqueness of the religious affiliation of the Balinese king-
- B. Schrieke, Indonesian Sociological Studies, Vol. I, 20–21; J. E. Heeres, “Onze
betrekkingen met de kleine Soenda-eilanden 1640–1648”, in Feestbundel van taal-,
letter-, geschied- en aardrijkskundige bijdragen aan Dr. P. J. Ve t h (Leiden: Brill, 1984):
179. - J. K. J. de Jonge (ed.), De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag in Oost-Indië, Vol. III
(The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1865): 160–61. - P. A. Leupe, “Het gezantschap naar Bali onder den Gouverneur-Generaal Hendrik
Brouwer in 1633”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 5 (1856): 13, 30. - I Wayan Warna, et al. (eds), Babad Dalem: 81–82.
- A. F. Prévost (ed.), Histoire générale des voyages (The Hague: Pierre de Hondt,
1763): 17–60.