Amangkurat III

Amangkurat III, born Raden Mas Sutikna and called Sunan Mas, was susuhunan of Mataram from 1703 to 1705, the only son of Amangkurat II; both articles state his birth date as unknown.¹² Deposed by his half-uncle Prince Puger in the First Javanese War of Succession, he surrendered in 1708 and died in exile in Dutch Ceylon in 1734.¹

Nicknamed Pangeran Kencet, the Prince Heel, for a deformity of his heel, he was his father's only child — the Babad Tanah Jawi says his mother used magic to keep the king's other wives barren — and as crown prince he divorced his cousin Raden Ayu Lembah, Prince Puger's daughter, over her infidelity, forcing Puger to execute her.¹ On his accession at Kartasura in 1703 the chronicle tradition held that the heavenly mandate (wahyu keprabon) had in fact fallen on Puger, and officials who disliked the new king rallied to his half-uncle; in 1704 Amangkurat III sent men to kill Puger and his family, but Puger escaped to Semarang and Dutch protection.¹²

Puger, proclaimed Pakubuwono I, advanced with Dutch, Semarang, Madurese and Surabaya troops; Amangkurat III's uncle Arya Mataram, secretly for Puger, persuaded the king to abandon Kartasura, and the capital fell in September 1705.¹ The deposed king fled to Ponorogo with the royal heirlooms, then to Madiun and Kediri; Untung Surapati of Pasuruan sent troops to protect him and was killed at Bangil in 1706, after which Amangkurat III moved through Malang and Blitar until, worn down by pursuit, he surrendered at Surabaya in 1708.¹² The shortness of his reign was read in the chronicle tradition as the working of Amangkurat I's curse on the line of Amangkurat II — an attribution both articles report as the Babad Tanah Jawi's, written in the era of Pakubuwono I's descendants.¹

He refused to hand the royal heirlooms to anyone but Pakubuwono I himself; the Dutch moved him to Batavia and then banished him to Ceylon, where he died in 1734, twenty-six years after his surrender.¹² The Indonesian article's infobox gives his burial at the Astana Kasultan Agungan cemetery at Imogiri.²