In the fifteenth century the ritual called the Night af siwa was well-known in South India, more specifically in the Empire of Vijayanagara, which was flourishing at that time. A Javanese poet of those days, Mpu Tanakun by name, who had become acquainted with the ritual, wrote a didactic poem which aimed to make it known and have it accepted in his own country. For this religious message he employed the form of the kakawin, the court poem or kavya of Java, and in imitation of Indian nxxlels he clad his message in the tale of the hunter, Lubdhaka, who despite his sinful existence was able to...