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'Ratu Joyoboyo', also 'Sri Mapanji Jayabaya' or 'Jayabhaya', reigned over the Indianized kingdom of Kediri in East Java from AD1135 to 1157. He reunified the kingdom after a split that occurred with the death of his predecessor Airlangga. He is also remembered for his just and prosperous rule, and reputed to have been an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu. He is the archetypal Ratu Adil the just king who is reborn during the dark age of reversal ''"Jaman Edan"'' at the end of each cosmic cycle to restore social justice, order, and harmony in the world.
The ''manggala'' ("prologue") of the famous Kakawin Bhāratayuddha names Joyoboyo as the patron of the two poets, Mpu Sedah and Mpu Panuluh who wrote this work. Joyoboyo is also described as author of the ''Pralembang Joyoboyo'', a prophetic book that played an important role in the Japanese occupation.
When Japan occupied the Netherlands East Indies, in the first weeks of 1942, Indonesians danced in the streets, welcoming the Japanese army as the fulfillment of the prophecy ascribed to Joyoboyo, who foretold the day when white men would one day establish their rule on Java and tyrannize the people for many years – but they would be driven out by the arrival of yellow men from the north. These yellow men, Joyoboyo had predicted, would remain for one crop cycle, and after that Java would be freed from foreign domination. To most of the Javanese, Japan was a liberator: the prophecy had been fulfilled.
The Japanese freed Indonesian nationalists from Dutch prisons and hired them as civil servants and administrators. In the waning days of 1944, however, it was clear that Japan could not win the war. The Japanese officially granted Indonesia its independence on 9 August 1945, and the commander of Japan's Southeast Asian forces appointed future President Sukarno as chairman of the preparatory committee for Indonesian independence. As one account of Indonesian history puts it, ''"With the minor exception that three crops had been harvested, Jayabaya's prophecy had been realized."''
Many believe that the time for the arrival of a new ''Ratu Adil'' is near (as the prophecies put it, ''"when iron wagons could drive without horses and ships could sail through the sky"''), and that he will come to rescue and reunite Indonesia after an acute crisis, ushering in the dawn of a new golden age.