Expansion and Internalization of Modes of Warfare in Pre-colonial Balistructures, at least in parts of Lombok. Second, violent competition
among the Balinese rajas led to one petty domain swallowing up the
other. In this predatory process Sengkongo fell in 1803, Kadiri in 1805,
Pagesangan in 1836, Pagutan in 1838, and Singhasari in 1839. There
remained Mataram, whose rajas had been placed on Lombok in about
- They would govern entire Lombok until their demise at the hands
of the Dutch colonial state in 1894.^64 Third, it was a matter of Karangasem
on Bali against Karangasem on Lombok. A Lombok prince governed the
Balinese homeland in 1806–28 before being expelled. A few decades later
the Raja of Lombok supported the Dutch during their third expedition
against the Balinese kingdoms in 1849, and was able to kill his mainland
cousins and place Karangasem under the viceroys from his close family.
The Balinese Lombok rajas of the period from 1838 to 1894 attempted
a forced integration of their realm, as can be seen from numerous regula-
tions issued by the court, detailing the lives of the subjects.^65
The permanence of infightingThe imposition of Dutch direct rule in easternmost Java made an effec-
tive end to the ambitions of political expansion towards the west. The
situation in the east was more complicated, but the strengthening of a
Lombok state in the nineteenth century anyway rendered it off-limits for
the rajas on the Balinese home island. The question is, what effects this
may have had for the political stability, or lack thereof, on Bali. Could the
narrowing political arena have increased military competition? First, it
should be noted that there was nothing like “stability” during the entire
period from 1651 to 1908. We have babad texts dealing with the nine
kingdoms, and with various prominent lineages and personalities. They
confirm what is also known from a variety of Dutch reports, namely that
warfare was a perennial part of the Balinese reality. Time and again we
find the rajas as war leaders, either acting against each other or attacking
minor lords or villages. From that point of view it is hazardous to speak of
trends in the intensity of violence in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
- Hägerdal, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects, 149–50, 157–58.
- F. A. Liefrinck, De Landsverordeningen der Balische vorsten van Lombok, Vols I–II
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1915).