a prelude

In 1894, a priceless volume of an ancient manuscript was found at the Puri Cakranegara in Lombok by a Dutch historian by the name of Brandes. Soon enough, this manuscript was identified as the only surviving and most important record of the ancient Hindu era of Majapahit, a vast kingdom that was the most prosperous of all times and reigned through most of the archipelago. The manuscript is known as the Negara Krtagama.

The manuscript recorded years of history telling from mouth to mouth; hundreds-years-old archeological findings; discoveries among villages in Lombok which were sequentially Buddhist, Hindu, and Bayanist among a predominantly Moslem community around the island and the Chinese Peranakan community in the town of Ampenan.

Within a period of 35 years following that, there had been discoveries among the minor communities that had been deemed 'unimportant', although actually showed a strong cultural pluralism in Lombok in the past.

In bringing back to life these ancient Hindu times in Lombok before the occupation of the Dutch and the Balinese, Hotel Tugu Lombok surrounds itself with chapters from the romantic epic of the Mahabharata.