Nyai Roro Kidul: Indonesian Queen of Southern Sea

TIMESINDONESIA, JAKARTA – Nyai Roro Kidul, also known as Nyi Roro Kidul, is an Indonesian goddess of the Southern Sea illustrated as a mermaid with a tail. Nyai Roro Kidul is a mythical creature from Sundanese and Javanese folklore that is believed to have powers of taking the soul of anyone she wished for, usually preferring handsome young men.

Nyai Roro Kidul has diverse stories of her origin in different myths and traditional folklores. According to Sundanese folklore, she is a beautiful yet ill-fated princess named Kadita who comes from the Sundanese Kingdom of Pajajaran. Meanwhile, in Javanese believes, she is considered as the spiritual wives or queens of the Sultans of Mataram and Yogyakarta.

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The story began with the existence of Pakuan Pajajaran Kingdom in West Java which was ruled by a wise King named Prabu Siliwangi. During his reign, the society was living in clover. King Siliwangi had a beautiful daughter named Princess Kadita, whose beauty was famous in the kingdom. In addition to her beautiful face, she also had a wise personality just like her father, which made her to be a prospective succession candidate.

However, knowing that Princess Kadita might be the Queen of Pajajaran Kingdom, the concubines and their children disagreed on this idea. To prevent this from happening, they sought help from a witch in an isolated village to get rid of Princess Kadita from the kingdom. They wanted the witch to curse both Kadita and her mother with leprosy.

The witch immediately helped them. One day, Kadita and her mother woke up to find ulcers and wounds all over their skin that was used to be flawless and fair. The disease could not be healed. As the days passed by, their condition got worse. Unfortunately, the Queen got weaker and died.

The King was devastated to see his daughter’s condition that showed no signs of healing. Even worse, the concubines and their children insisted the King to get rid of Kadita. Initially, the King did not want to get rid of his beloved daughter, but thinking that the disease might be contagious, he finally agreed to get rid of Princess Kadita.

Kadita overheard the King’s plan to get rid of her, which made her feel miserable. Broken-hearted, Kadita decided to live the palace secretly. She walked out the palace with no destination.

She kept on walking until she arrived at the southern coast of Java that had huge waves and big coral reefs. Feeling worn out, Kadita fell asleep on a coral reef and heard a voice in her dream that told her to jump into the seawater if she wanted to be cured from her terrible disease.

As she woke up from her sleep, she jumped into the water just like she was told to. Magically, as her skin touched the water, all the wounds and the ulcers disappeared, and her skin was flawless and fair like it used to be.

Although Kadita was already cured from the disease, she did not get back to the palace. Instead, she stayed around the coast and lived with the locals in southern coast of Java who mostly worked as fishermen. She was renown for her incomparable beauty, which made many princes from various kingdoms fall in love with her.

However, most of the princes did not want to make Kadita as their bride because Kadita challenged them to fight her powers, which they could not. Some princes accepted the challenge but none of them were successful. Those men who had proposed Princess Kadita but failed to fight her powers were kept to be her company.

Due to her supernatural powers and stunning beauty, Princess Kadita finally became as the ruler of an underwater empire located in the southern coast of Java. That’s why she is called as Nyai Roro Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Sea. (*)

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