Muarakaman

Muara Kaman lies on the Mahakam River in eastern Borneo, near a group of stone sacrificial posts bearing some of the oldest inscriptions known in the Indonesian archipelago. Written in Sanskrit and an early Indian script, the #italic yupa#! praise King Mulawarman and record his gifts to Brahmins. They reveal a court that adopted Indian religious forms while ruling in the river country of Borneo.

The inscriptions name Mulawarman's father Aswawarman and grandfather Kundungga, preserving a rare glimpse of a fourth-century dynasty. Later traditions identify the area with Kutai Martadipura. In the seventeenth century the neighboring kingdom of Kutai Kartanegara subdued that polity, joining its name to the victorious realm. The stones remain a witness to a much earlier age of kingship on the Mahakam.