CHAPTER XL
JAVA AND THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO
1
In most of the countries which we have been considering, the native civilization of the present day is still Indian in origin, although in the former territories of Champa this Indian phase has been superseded by Chinese culture with a little Mohammedanism. But in another area we find three successive stages of culture, indigenous, Indian and Mohammedan. This area includes the Malay Peninsula with a large part of the Malay Archipelago, and the earliest stratum with which we need concern ourselves is Malay. The people who bear this name are remarkable for their extraordinary powers of migration by sea, as shown by the fact that languages connected with Malay are spoken in Formosa and New Zealand, in Easter Island and Madagascar, but their originality both in thought and in the arts of life is small. The three stages are seen most clearly in Java where the population was receptive and the interior accessible. Sumatra and Borneo also passed through them in a fashion but the indigenous element is still predominant and no foreign influence has been able to affect either island as a whole. Islam gained no footing in Bali which remains curiously Hindu but it reached Celebes and the southern Philippines, in both of which Indian influence was slight[369]. The destiny of south-eastern Asia with its islands depends on the fact that the tide of trade and conquest whether Hindu, Moslim or European, flowed from India or Ceylon to the Malay Peninsula and Java and thence northwards towards China with a reflux westwards in Champa and Camboja. Burma and Siam lay outside this track. They received their culture from India mainly by land and were untouched by Mohammedanism. But the Mohammedan current which affected the Malays was old and continuous. It started from Arabia in the early days of the Hijra and had nothing to do with the Moslim invasions which entered India by land.
2
Indian civilization appears to have existed in Java from at least the fifth century of our era[370]. Much light has been thrown on its history of late by the examination of inscriptions and of fairly ancient literature but the record still remains fragmentary. There are considerable gaps: the seat of power shifted from one district to another and at most epochs the whole island was not subject to one ruler, so that the title king of Java merely indicates a prince pre-eminent among others doubtfully subordinate to him.
The name Java is probably the Sanskrit Yava used in the sense of grain, especially millet. In the Ramayana[371] the monkeys of Hanuman are bidden to seek for Sîtâ in various places including Yava-dvîpa, which contains seven kingdoms and produces gold and silver. Others translate these last words as referring to another or two other islands known as Gold and Silver Land. It is probable that the poet did not distinguish clearly between Java and Sumatra. He goes on to say that beyond Java is the peak called Śiśira. This is possibly the same as the Yavakoṭi mentioned in 499 A.D. by the Indian astronomer Aryabhaṭṭa.
Since the Ramayana is a product of gradual growth it is not easy to assign a definite date to this passage, but it is probably not later than the first or second century A.D. and an early date is rendered probable by the fact that the Alexandrian Geographer Ptolemy (c. 130 A.D.) mentions[372] Νῆσος Ἰαβαδίου ἢ Σαβαδίου and by various notices collected from inscriptions and from Chinese historians. The annals of the Liang Dynasty (502-556 A.D.) in speaking of the countries of the Southern Ocean say that in the reign of Hsüan Ti (73-49 B.C.) the Romans and Indians sent envoys to China by that route[373], thus indicating that the Archipelago was frequented by Hindus. The same work describes under the name of Lang-ya-hsiu a country which professed Buddhism and used the Sanskrit language and states that "the people say that their country was established more than 400 years ago[374]." Lang-ya-hsiu has been located by some in Java by others in the Malay Peninsula, but even on the latter supposition this testimony to Indian influence in the Far East is still important. An inscription found at Kedah in the Malay Peninsula is believed to be older than 400 A.D.[375] No more definite accounts are forthcoming before the fifth or sixth century. Fa-Hsien[376] relates how in 418 he returned to China from India by sea and "arrived at a country called Ya-va-di." "In this country" he says "heretics and Brahmans flourish but the law of Buddha hardly deserves mentioning[377]." Three inscriptions found in west Java in the district of Buitenzorg are referred for palæographic reasons to about 400 A.D. They are all in Sanskrit and eulogize a prince named Pûrṇavarman, who appears to have been a Vishnuite. The name of his capital is deciphered as Narumâ or Tarumâ. In 435 according to the Liu Sung annals[378] a king of Ja-va-da named Shih-li-pa-da-do-a-la-pa-mo sent tribute to China. The king's name probably represents a Sanskrit title beginning with Śrî-Pâda and it is noticeable that two footprints are carved on the stones which bear Pûrṇavarman's inscriptions. Also Sanskrit inscriptions found at Koetei on the east coast of Borneo and considered to be not later than the fifth century record the piety and gifts to Brahmans of a King Mûlavarman and mention his father and grandfather[379].
It follows from these somewhat disjointed facts that the name of Yava-dvîpa was known in India soon after the Christian era, and that by the fifth century Hindu or hinduized states had been established in Java. The discovery of early Sanskrit inscriptions in Borneo and Champa confirms the presence of Hindus in these seas. The T'ang annals[380] speak definitely of Kaling, otherwise called Java, as lying between Sumatra and Bali and say that the inhabitants have letters and understand a little astronomy. They further mention the presence of Arabs and say that in 674 a queen named Sima ascended the throne and ruled justly.
But the certain data for Javanese history before the eighth century are few. For that period we have some evidence from Java itself. An inscription dated 654 Śaka ( = 732 A.D.) discovered in Kĕdoe celebrates the praises of a king named Sanjaya, son of King Sanna. It contains an account of the dedication of a linga, invocations of Śiva, Brahmâ and Vishṇu, a eulogy of the king's virtue and learning, and praise of Java. Thus about 700 A.D. there was a Hindu kingdom in mid Java and this, it would seem, was then the part of the island most important politically. Buddhist inscriptions of a somewhat later date (one is of 778 A.D.) have been found in the neighbourhood of Prambânam. They are written in the Nagari alphabet and record various pious foundations. A little later again (809 and 840 A.D.) are the inscriptions found on the Dieng (Dihyang), a lonely mountain plateau on which are several Brahmanic shrines in fair preservation. There is no record of their builders but the New T'ang Annals say that the royal residence was called Java but "on the mountains is the district Lang-pi-ya where the king frequently goes to look at the sea[381]." This may possibly be a reference to pilgrimages to Dieng. The inscriptions found on the great monument of Boroboedoer throw no light on the circumstances of its foundation, but the character of the writing makes it likely that it was erected about 850 and obviously by a king who could command the services of numerous workmen as well as of skilled artists. The temples of Prambânam are probably to be assigned to the next century. All these buildings indicate the existence from the eighth to the tenth century of a considerable kingdom (or perhaps kingdoms) in middle Java, comprising at least the regions of Mataram, Kĕdoe and the Dieng plateau. From the Arabic geographers also we learn that Java was powerful in the ninth century and attacked Qamar (probably Khmer or Camboja). They place the capital at the mouth of a river, perhaps the Solo or Brantas. If so, there must have been a principality in east Java at this period. This is not improbable for archæological evidence indicates that Hindu civilization moved eastwards and flourished first in the west, then in mid Java and finally from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries in the east.