Authorship
All manuscripts of Kidung Sunda are of Balinese provenance. However it is not known where this work was composed, either in Java or in Bali. The identity of the author is not known either. Neither is the date of composition known. In this story there are mentions of firearms. But these don’t prove to be a valid criterion to date the text. The Indonesian people already knew the firearms relatively early. At least after the Portuguese came to the archipelago in 1511, but probably much earlier from the Chinese. It is a known fact that the Portuguese were greeted by salvos when they arrived in the Molluccas.
In any case, this poem has to be composed after 1540 as there is a description of the horse of Anepakěn, the Sundanese vizier. His horse is compared to the horse of Rangga Lawe, a well-known character from another Javanese poem; Kidung Rangga Lawe. The latter was composed in 1540.
Islamic influences are already discernible. Kidung Sunda contains some Perso-Arabic loanwords such as kabar (news) and subandar (harbourmaster).
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