The preceding chapter has argued that the law of the Independent Kingdoms was unique. Yet within the contextual perspectives of time and space considered here this was only partially so. What appears to be a break with the institutions of its immediate predecessor, Old Java of the Singosari-Majapahit era (c. eleventh to fourteenth centuries), seems to be due as much to lack of knowledge as the realities of institutional contrasts. Dated references to Old Javanese legal concepts as the astha corah, astha dustha, and sad-atatayi, as well as a law book termed the Kutara Manawa, exhaust the available sources with established provenance and date. None of them, however, provide substantial information on the law of which they were a part or expressed. This is not to ignore the possibility that at least some of the Middle Javanese texts copied by Balinese scribes contain authentic selections of Old Javanese law. Yet which sections and how much of them are such remains unclear. The apparent gap, if indeed it can be proved to be such, is most likely connected with the rise of the Demak federation under Radèn Patah (aka Senapati Jimbun). A number of texts, whose contents are similar to those drawn upon here are attributed to just the Demak period. Again, just how much of that tradition is retrospective or ex post facto attributions of younger material to older texts has yet to be established. Moving forward in time, that is, from the Independent Kingdoms era, is somewhat easier due to the existence of more information, albeit as unprocessed raw material contained in manuscripts.

No matter how well or poorly the sloka phenomena performed within Independent Kingdoms society, they were doomed to be replace by something deemed more fitting by what had by the end of the period become Java's colonial master. In retrospect the reasons seem clear. Even under the form of indirect rule exercised by the Dutch East India Company down to its demise in 1799, traditional Javanese law did not fare well within the joint Javanese-Company legal system, one increasingly dominated by Dutch fiat and Company innovations.