Prince Mangkunegoro IV who reigned in the Mangkunegaran area of Surakarta at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries ordered his court artists to compose afresh wayang, which he called the Wayang Madya. It was intended to provide a link between the Wayang Purwa and the Wayang Gedhog, and utilised stories derived from a book of mythology named Hajipamasa. It deals with the coming of the Hindoos to Java before the Wayang Gedhog era (the period of Jenggala, Kediri). The stories are thence much older than those of the Wayang Gedhog, although their use in wayang performance is of course later. Performances of this kinda wayang are very rare, and there are only a few Dhalangs, who can narrate the stories, left in Solo.

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Narasumber: Moerdowo,R.M.