Mpu Dusun Explained

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

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

• Kakawin Kunjarakarna

Notes and References

1. Book: Teeuw, Robsson, A, S.O . Kunjarakarna Dharmakathana, Liberation through the Law of the Buddha.
2. Book: 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.