In 1894, the Dutch East Indies launched a military expedition against the Cakranegara royal house of Lombok. That year, the Dutch took the manuscript as part of the valuable "Lombok treasure", war-booty from the destroyed palace of Mataram-Cakranagara in Lombok. The first western scholar to study the manuscript was , a Dutch philologist. He accompanied the KNIL expedition to Lombok in 1894, and is credited with saving the valuable manuscripts collection of the Lombok royal library from being burnt in the chaos of the battle. A generation of Dutch scholars participated in translating the poem.