The sloka genre is introduced by legal texts associated with kingdom of Medhang Kamulan. In addition to the first ever sloka formulated by Aji Saka himself, the main source of early sloka comes from the Jugul Muda. According to Javanese tradition attributed to the sixteenth century, it constitutes the earliest title of the period concerned with law. Hence, the Jugul Muda and those texts belonging to that tradition provide the material for capturing the main features of the genre. On the more practical level, sloka provide the basis for resolving suits.

Both sloka and the means of communication, aksara, are common Javanese terms. Aksara as the twenty letters comprising the Javanese writing system can be traced back literally to the beginning of time. The ha-na-ca-raka alphabet composed of aksara is attributed to Aji Saka, who also invented the Javanese saka calendar. In order to relate the tragic story of his two loyal servants, Dora and Sembada, he breathed life into the abstract symbols, through which the aksara – here in the standard dictionary meaning of letters of the alphabet – were arranged into stanzas thereby creating the first sloka. The story is as follows.