During the last sixty years the Dutch have done a good deal to redeem the neglect of the previous centuries, but, as has happened in the sister island of Ceylon, it has been without system, and no master mind has arisen to give unity to the whole, or to extract from what is done the essence, which is all the public care to possess. The Dutch Government have, however, published, in four great folio volumes, 400 plates, from Mr. Wilsen’s drawings, of the architecture and sculptures of Boro Buddor; and the Batavian Society[590] have published sixty-five photographic plates of the same monument; and as Dr. Leemans of Leyden has added a volume of text, historical and descriptive, there is no monument in the East so fully and so well illustrated as this one, and probably none that better deserves the pains that have been bestowed upon it.[591] The same Society have also published 332 photographs of other Javan antiquities and temples, but, unfortunately, for the most part without any accompanying text. A thoroughly well qualified antiquary, Heer Brumund, was employed to visit the localities, and write descriptions, but unfortunately he died before his task was half complete. A fragment of his work is published in the 33rd volume of the ‘Transactions’ of the Society, but it is only a fragment, and just sufficient to make us long for more. At the same time an Oriental scholar, Dr. Friederich, was employed by Government to translate the numerous inscriptions that abound in the island, and which, without doubt, would explain away all the difficulties in the history of the island and its monuments. Some of these were published in the 26th volume of the ‘Verhandelingen’ in 1856, and more were promised, but ill-health and accidents have hitherto prevented this being done, and if he should happen to die before publishing the results, the accumulations of half a century may perish with him.
From the above it may be gathered that a considerable amount of information exists in English and Dutch publications regarding the antiquities of Java, but it is rudis indigestaque moles—descriptions without illustration, and drawings and photographs without description, very few plans, and, except for Boro Buddor, very few architectural details; no statistical account, and no maps on which all the places can be recognised. It is provoking to think when so much has been done, how little more is required to bring order out of chaos, and fuse the whole into one of the most interesting and most easily intelligible chapters of architectural history.
History.
Amidst the confusion of their annals, it is rather fortunate that the Javans make no claim to more remote political history than the fabled arrival in the island of Adji Saka, the founder of the Saka era of the Buddhists, in A.D. 79. It is true that in the 8th or 9th century they obtained an abridged translation of the ‘Mahabharata,’ and, under the title of the ‘Brata Yudha,’ adopted it as a part of their own history, assigning sites on the island for all the principal scenes of that celebrated struggle which took place in the neighbourhood of Delhi and Hastinapura, adding only their own favourite Gendara Desa (Gandhara), to which they assigned a locality on the north of the island.[592] It is thus, unfortunately, that history is written in the East, and because it is so written, the Javans next thought it necessary to bring Salivahana, the founder of the Saka era, to their island also. Having, as Buddhists, adopted his era, their childish vanity required his presence there, but as it is certain he never saw the island, his visit is fabled to have resulted in failure, and said to have left no traces of his presence.
The next person who appears on the scene is one of the most mysterious in Indian history. In the annals of Siam,[593] of Cambodia,[594] of Java,[595] and at Amravati,[596] a prince of Rom, or Rum, coming from Taxila, plays a most important part, but without apparently any very permanent result. Nowhere is his name given, nor any particulars; most probably it is only a reminiscence of King Commerce. Nothing is more likely than that the ships of the Roman or Byzantine emperors, with their disciplined crews, should have made an impression on the semi-civilized communities of these remote lands, and the memory be perpetuated in fabled exploits to modern times.[597]
Leaving these fabulous ages, we at last come to a tradition that seems to rest on a surer foundation. “In the year 525 (A.D. 603), it being foretold to a king of Kuj’rat, or Gujerat, that his country would decay and go to ruin, he resolved to send his son to Java. He embarked with about 5000 followers in six large and about 100 small vessels, and after a voyage of four months, reached an island they supposed to be Java; but finding themselves mistaken, re-embarked, and finally settled at Matarem, in the centre of the island they were seeking.” “The prince now found that men alone were wanting to make a great and flourishing state; he accordingly applied to Gujerat for assistance, when his father, delighted at his success, sent him a reinforcement of 2000 people.” “From this period,” adds the chronicle, “Java was known and celebrated as a kingdom; an extensive commerce was carried on with Gujerat and other countries, and the bay of Matarem was filled with adventurers from all parts.”
During the sovereignty of this prince and his two immediate successors, “the country advanced in fame and prosperity. The city of Mendang Kumulan, since called Brambanan, increased in size and splendour: artists, particularly in stone and metals, arrived from distant countries, and temples, the ruins of which are still extant, were constructed both at this place and at Boro Buddor, in Kedu, during this period by artists invited from India.”[598]
All this is fully confirmed by an inscription found at Menankabu, in Sumatra, wherein a king, who styles himself Maha Raja Adiraja Adityadharma King of Prathama—the first or greatest Java—boasts of his conquests and prowess, and he proclaims himself a Buddhist, a worshipper of the five Dyani Buddhas, and records his having erected a great seven-storeyed vihara in honour of Buddha.[599] This inscription is dated fifty years later, or in A.D. 656, but its whole tone is so completely confirmatory of the traditions just quoted from Sir S. Raffles, that there seems little doubt the two refer to events occurring about the same time.
The only other event of importance in these early times bearing on our subject is Fa Hian’s visit to the island in A.D. 414, on his way from Ceylon to China by sea. The more, however, I think of it, the more convinced I am that Java the Less, or Sumatra, was really the island he visited. It certainly was the Iabadius, or Yavadwipa, of Ptolemy, and the Java the Less of the Arab geographers and of Marco Polo;[600] and all the circumstances of the voyage seem to point rather to this island than to Java proper. His testimony is, however, valuable, as they seem to have been united under one emperor in A.D. 656, and may have been so two centuries earlier. “In this country,” he says, “Heretics and Brahmans flourish; but the Law of Buddha is not much known.”[601] As he resided there five months, and had been fourteen years in India, he knew perfectly what he was speaking about.
That there were Brahmans in these islands before the advent of the Buddhist emigrants in the 7th century seems more than probable from the traditions about Tritrésta collected by Sir S. Raffles[602] and others; but, if so, they were Aryan Brahmans, belonging to some of the non-building races, who may have gone there as missionaries, seeking converts, but hardly as colonists or conquerors. Indeed, all over the island circles of stone are found, either wholly unfashioned or carved into rude representations of Hindu deities—so rude that even Ganesa can hardly sometimes be recognised; and it frequently requires an almost Hindu trustfulness to believe that these rude stones sometimes represent even Siva and Vishnu and other gods of the Hindu Pantheon.[603] It seems as if the early Brahmans tried to teach their native converts to fashion gods for themselves, but, having no artistic knowledge of their own to communicate, failed miserably in the attempt. The Buddhists, on the contrary, were artists, and came in such numbers that they were able to dispense with native assistance, nearly if not altogether.