Daha

Daha, also called Dahanapura, was a royal city in the Brantas valley of eastern Java, near Kediri. Its name, “city of fire”, appears in a charter of King Airlangga in 1042. The kingdom of Kediri, or Panjalu, made this region a centre of Javanese literary culture: poets composed works including the Bharatayuddha and Smaradhana at its court.

Daha remained an important royal seat after the rise of Majapahit. In the late fifteenth century a rival court established itself here under Girindrawardhana, while the old Majapahit centre at Trowulan declined. The Muslim port kingdom of Demak contested the authority of Daha and campaigned against its ruler Patih Udara in the early sixteenth century. Demak's victory brought the inland court into a changing political world in which the coastal powers of Java played an increasingly prominent part.