Mpu Dusun was a Javanese Buddhist guru and writer who lived in the later Majapahit period, in the late 14th to early 15th century period.[1]
Personal life
[edit]The name Mpu Dusun is a pen name, his birth name is unknown. He is identified as Mpu Dusun in his work Kakawin Kunjarakarna in the final stanza when he states "kīrti sira mpu Dusun" - this is a work of mpu Dusun. He is theorized to have come from a rural background, and did not spend much of his life in a court, unlike other poets of the time. He was a Buddhist monk or a priest, but much of his work was syncretic with the dominant Hinduism of the time.[2]
Works
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Teeuw, Robsson, A, S.O. Kunjarakarna Dharmakathana, Liberation through the Law of the Buddha.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Teeuw, Robsson, A, S.O. Kunjarakarna Dharmakathana, Liberation through the Law of the Buddha.
If this is more than an unusual form of self-depreciation, and should be accepted as the poet's nom de plume, we might perhaps conclude that the author was not a man belonging to court circles, but rather one with a rural religious background; for he is mpu and therefore we might trace his background to religious circles, and identify him as a monk or priest living in a patapan or mandala, etc., of the type which he describes in his poem and which we know from many other kakawins as well
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)