Mangkunegara I

Mangkunegara I (7 April 1725 – 28 December 1795), born Raden Mas Said and famed as Pangeran Sambernyawa, "the Life-Reaping Prince", was the founder and first ruler of the Mangkunegaran principality in Surakarta ¹. Indonesia proclaimed him a National Hero in 1988 ¹.

He was born at Kartasura, a son of Prince Mangkunegara of Kartasura — the eldest son of Amangkurat IV, born to a concubine, who had been crown prince of Mataram — and of Raden Ayu Wulan ^{1 2}. His parents were first cousins: his maternal grandfather was a younger brother of Amangkurat IV ¹. He was brought up by his mother ¹. His byname Sambernyawa came from his battle banner, which bore the same name ¹.

Said's war grew out of the storming of the Kartasura palace on 30 June 1742 by Raden Mas Garendi, called Sunan Kuning, which drove Pakubuwono II from his capital ¹. At nineteen he joined his uncle Mangkubumi — the future Hamengkubuwono I — in arms, built a fortress at Randuwalang north of Surakarta and rose to warlord ¹. In 1747 he married Raden Ajeng Inten, Mangkubumi's daughter by his primary consort, who was later styled Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Bendara ¹; he had earlier married Raden Ayu Kusumapatahati, a daughter of the cleric Kyai Kasan Nur Iman ¹.

When Pakubuwono II died and Mangkubumi had himself declared Sultan Hamengkubuwono, Said was made his warlord — but the alliance broke down into political rivalry, and Said fought on alone ¹. He rejected the Treaty of Giyanti of 13 February 1755, which divided Mataram, because it ruined the unity of the Mataram people, and over sixteen years he fought 250 battles against the Dutch East India Company ¹. The Dutch called him the Soul Reaper, and even their governor of East Java, Baron van Hohendorff, admitted his brilliance in war ¹.

By the Treaty of Salatiga in 1757 Said was recognised as a prince of the Mataram house with his own domain, and from 28 December 1757 he ruled the principality of Mangkunegaran from Surakarta ³. His later years were marked by rivalry with Yogyakarta: when his eldest son Prabuhamijaya married Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Alit, the daughter of Pakubuwono III whose hand the crown prince of Yogyakarta had sought and failed to win, Yogyakarta read it as a humiliation, and Ratu Bendara returned to Yogyakarta and divorced him ¹. He died at Surakarta on 28 December 1795 and was buried in the Mangadeg royal cemetery at Matesih ^{1 2}.

No source read names a legal school or an order for Mangkunegara I himself. He was a prince of the Mataram court world, where Islam was held within the Javanese Kejawen synthesis; he married a daughter of the cleric Kyai Kasan Nur Iman ¹, and a chronicle tradition even proclaimed him with caliphal style in his youth ³. The Indonesian article's infobox files his religion as Islam ³ and Wikidata carries no religion value ². A court's tradition and a father-in-law's learning are context, not a naming of the man's school, so the museum records his faith as unknown.

His birth year is split between two well-carried readings: 1725 in the English article's lead, in both of Wikidata's birth statements and in the categories ², and 1726 in Ricklefs's 2018 monograph Soul Catcher, in the English article's infobox and in the Indonesian article's infobox, the last citing the 1973 princely genealogy ^{1 3}. The day and month, 7 April, and the place, Kartasura, agree everywhere. The English article's category files him under 1796 deaths against its own text and against Wikidata, both of which give 28 December 1795 ².