Kota Djawa — also Kota Jawa — is the “Javanese fortification” at Deli-Toewa, on the road from Medan to Belawan, whose remains Anderson recorded in his Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825) as “remains of a Javanese fortification”, and which De Roo de la Faille would rather read as “of Djawaka” — i.e. of the Sumatran-origin Javanese whose ancestral land of Taroema lay at the bay of Aroe. It is built, the Deli and Asahan traditions hold, on the name of the fairy-tale queen Putri Hijau.
Anderson’s record (1825)
In his Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825), Anderson records (p. 293) “remains of a Javanese fortification” along the road from Medan to Belawan, at Deli-Toewa. De Roo de la Faille notes that Anderson read these as Javanese in the narrow sense — i.e. as built by Javanese from the great island of Java — but argues that they should rather be read as Djawaka, i.e. as built by the Hindu-Javanese of the Sumatran Overwal whose Madjapahit at Langsar is the local counterpart of the great Majapahit of East Java.
The Puteri Idjo connection
The Deli and Asahan traditions record that the Kota Djawa was built on the name of the fairy-tale queen Putri Hijau — the queen whose rejection of the Sultan of Atjeh’s marriage suit, whose subsequent illness and death, and whose “glass coffin” voyage to Atjeh (lost at sea en route) are the central Acehnese legend of the east-coast polities. De Roo de la Faille reads the idjo of her name as a bedekte taal form for the Kawi sijama — the goddess Cyama-Tara, the “Redster out of all Woe” whose patroness-ship covered Sumatra itself.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Kota Djawa is the principal architectural monument of the Djawaka east-coast complex — the “Javanese fortification” whose remains Anderson recorded in 1825, and whose dedication to Putri Hijau ties it to the Atjehnese sultanate’s design on the Deli-Asahan-Aroe cultural zone. Its identification as Djawaka rather than narrowly Javanese also marks it as the local counterpart of the Madjapahit at Langsar — the Sumatran “Java” of the chronicle tradition.
See Also
- Puteri Idjo
- Deli
- Asahan
- Djawaka
- Madjapahit in Langsar
- Anderson’s Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825)
- Cyama-Tara
- Sultan of Atjeh (16th century)
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
Source
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), chapter “Over Sjahroe’n Noewi”, p. 29.