Appendix IV.
Java. Java.An incident redeems the early history of Gujarát from provincial narrowness and raises its ruling tribes to a place among the greater conquerors and colonisers. This incident is the tradition that during the sixth and seventh centuries fleets from the coasts of Sindh and Gujarát formed settlements in Java and in Cambodia. The Java legend is that about a.d. 603 Hindus led by Bhruvijáya Savelachála the son of Kasamachitra or Bálya Achá king of Kujrát or Gujarát settled on the west coast of the island.[1] The details of the settlement recorded by Sir Stamford Raffles[2] are that Kasamachitra, ruler of Gujarát, the tenth in descent from Arjun, was warned of the coming destruction of his kingdom. He accordingly started his son Bhruvijáya Savelachála with 5000 followers, among whom were cultivators artisans warriors physicians and writers, in six large and a hundred small vessels for Java. After a voyage of four months the fleet touched at an island they took to be Java. Finding their mistake the pilots put to sea and finally reached Matarem in the island of Java. The prince built the town of Mendang Kumulan. He sent to his father for more men. A reinforcement of 2000 arrived among them carvers in stone and in brass. An extensive commerce sprang up with Gujarát and other countries. The bay of Matarem was filled with stranger vessels and temples were built both at the capital, afterwards known as Brambanum, and, during the reign of Bhruvijáya’s grandson Ardivijáya that is about a.d. 660, at Boro Buddor in Kedu.[3] The remark that an ancestor of the immigrant prince had changed the name of his kingdom to Gujarát is held by Lassen to prove that the tradition is modern. Instead of telling against the truth of the tradition this note is a strong argument in its favour. One of the earliest mentions of the name Gujarát for south Márwár is Hiuen Tsiang’s (a.d. 630) Kiu-che-lo or Gurjjara. As when Hiuen Tsiang wrote the Gurjjara chief of Bhinmál, fifty miles west of Ábu, already ranked as a Kshatriya his family had probably been for some time established perhaps as far back as a.d. 490 a date by which the Mihira or Gurjjara conquest of Valabhi and north Gujarát was completed.[4] The
Appendix IV.
Java. details of the help received from Gujarát after the prince’s arrival show that the parent state had weathered the storm which threatened to destroy it. This agrees with the position of the Bhinmál Gurjjaras at the opening of the seventh century, when, in spite of their defeat by Prabhákaravardhana (a.d. 600–606) the father of Śrí Harsha (a.d. 606–641) of Magadha, they maintained their power at Broach and at Valabhi as well as at Bhinmál.[5] The close relations between the Gurjjaras and the great seafaring Mihiras or Meds make it likely that the captains and pilots who guided the fleets to Java belonged to the Med tribe. Perhaps it was in their honour that the new Java capital received the name Mendan, as, at a later period it was called Brambanum or the town of Bráhmans. The fact that the Gurjjaras of Broach were sun-worshippers not Buddhists causes no difficulty since the Bhilmál Gurjjaras whom Hiuen Tsiang visited in a.d. 630 were Buddhists and since at Valabhi Buddhism Shaivism and sun-worship seem to have secured the equal patronage of the state.
Besides of Gujarát and its king the traditions of both Java and Cambodia contain references to Hastinagara or Hastinapura, to Taxila, and to Rumadesa.[6] With regard to these names and also with regard to Gandhára
Appendix IV.
Java. and to Cambodia, all of which places are in the north-west of India, the question arises whether the occurrence of these names implies an historical connection with Kábul Pesháwar and the west Panjáb or whether they are mere local applications and assumptions by foreign settlers and converts of names known in the Bráhman and Buddhist writings of India.[7] That elaborate applications of names mentioned in the Mahábhárata to places in Java have been made in the Java version of the Mahábhárata is shown by Raffles.[8] Still it is to be noticed that the places mentioned above, Kamboja or Kábul, Gandhára or Pesháwar, Taxila or the west Panjáb, and Rumadesa apparently the south Panjáb are not, like Ayodhya the capital of Siam or like Intha-patha-puri that is Indraprastha or Dehli the later capital of Cambodia,[9] the names of places which either by their special fame or by their geographical position would naturally be chosen as their original home by settlers or converts in Java and Cambodia. Fair ground can therefore be claimed for the presumption that the leading position given to Kamboja, Gandhára, Taxila, and Rumadesa in Javan and Cambodian legends and place-names is a trace of an actual and direct historical connection between the north-west of India and the Malay Archipelago. This presumption gains probability by the argument from the architectural remains of the three countries which in certain peculiar features show so marked a resemblance both in design and in detail as in the judgment of Mr. Fergusson to establish a strong and direct connection.[10] A third argument in favour of a Gujarát strain in Java are the traditions of settlements and expeditions by the rulers of Málwa which are still current in south Márwár.[11] Further a proverb
Appendix IV.
Java. still well known both in Márwár and in Gujarát runs:
Je jae Jáve te kadi nahi áve
Áve to sáth pidhi baithke kháve.
Who to Java roam ne’er come home.
If they return, through seven lives
Seated at ease their wealth survives.[12]
Once more the connection with Gujarát is supported by the detail in the Java account which makes Laut Mira the starting point for the colonising fleet. This Sir S. Raffles supposed to be the Red Sea but the Mihiras’ or Meds’ sea may be suggested as it seems to correspond to the somewhat doubtful Arab name Baharimad (sea of the Meds ?) for a town in western India sacked by Junaid. Against this evidence two considerations have been urged[13]: (a) The great length of the voyage from Gujarát to Java compared with the passage to Java from the east coast of India; (b) That no people in India have known enough of navigation to send a fleet fit to make a conquest. As regards the length of the voyage it is to be remembered that though Sumatra is more favourably placed for being colonised from Bengal Orissa and the mouths of the Godávari and Kṛishṇa, in the case either of Java or of Cambodia the distance from the Sindh and Káthiáváḍa ports is not much greater and the navigation is in some respects both safer and simpler than from the coasts of Orissa and Bengal. In reply to the second objection that no class of Hindus have shown sufficient skill and enterprise at sea to justify the belief that they could transport armies of settlers from Gujarát to Java, the answer is that the assumption is erroneous. Though the bulk of Hindus have at all times been averse from a seafaring life yet there are notable exceptions. During the last two thousand years the record of the Gujarát coast shows a genius for seafaring fit to ensure the successful planting of north-west India in the Malay Archipelago.[14]
Appendix IV.
Java. That the Hindu settlement of Sumatra was almost entirely from the
Appendix IV.
Java. east coast of India and that Bengal Orissa and Masulipatam had a large
Appendix IV.
Java. share in colonising both Java and Cambodia cannot be doubted.[26]
Appendix IV.
Java. Reasons have been given in support of the settlement in Java of large bodies of men from the north-west coasts of India and evidence has been offered to show that the objections taken to such a migration have little practical force. It remains to consider the time and the conditions of the Gujarát conquest and settlement of Java and Cambodia. The Javan date S. 525 that is a.d. 603 may be accepted as marking some central event in a process which continued for at least half a century before and after the beginning of the seventh century. Reasons have been given for holding that neither the commercial nor the political ascendancy of Rome makes it probable that to Rome the Rúm of the legends refers. The notable Roman element in the architecture of Java and Cambodia may suggest that the memory of great Roman builders kept for Rome a place in the local legends. But the Roman element seems not to have come direct into the buildings of Java or Cambodia; as at Amrávati at the Kṛishṇa mouth, the classic characteristics came by way of the Panjáb (Táhia) only, in the case of Java, not by the personal taste and study of a prince, but as an incident of conquest and settlement.[27] Who then was the ruler of Rúm near Taxila, who led a great settlement of Hindus from the Panjáb to Java. Names in appearance like Rome, occur in north-west India. None are of enough importance to explain the prince’s title.[28] There remains the word raum or rum applied to salt land in the south Panjáb, in Márwár, and in north Sindh.[29] The great battle of Kárur, about sixty miles south-east of Multán, in which apparently about a.d. 530 Yaśodharmman of Málwa defeated the famous White Húṇa conqueror Mihirakula (a.d. 500–550) is described as fought in the land of Rúm.[30] This great White Húṇa defeat is apparently the origin of the legend of the prince of Rúm who retired by sea to Java. At the time of the battle of Kárur the south Panjáb, together with the north of Sindh, was under the Sáharáis of Aror in north Sindh, whose coins show them to have been not only White Húṇas, but of the same Jávla family which the great conquerors Toramáṇa
Appendix IV.
Java. and Mihirakula adorned. So close a connection with Mihirakula makes it probable that the chief in charge of the north of the Aror dominions shared in the defeat and disgrace of Kárur. Seeing that the power of the Sáharáis of Aror spread as far south as the Káthiáváḍa ports of Somnáth and Diu, and probably also of Diul at the Indus mouth, if the defeated chief of the south Panjáb was unable or unwilling to remain as a vassal to his conqueror, no serious difficulty would stand in the way of his passage to the seaboard of Aror or of his finding in Diu and other Sindh and Gujarát ports sufficient transport to convey him and his followers by sea to Java.[31] This then may be the chief whom the Cambodian story names Phra Tong or Thom apparently Great Lord that is Mahárája.[32]
The success of the Javan enterprise would tempt others to follow especially as during the latter half of the sixth and almost the whole of the seventh centuries, the state of North India favoured migration. Their defeats by Sassanians and Turks between a.d. 550 and 600 would close to the White Húṇas the way of retreat northwards by either the Indus or the Kábul valleys. If hard pressed the alternative was a retreat to Kashmir or an advance south or east to the sea. When, in the early years of the seventh century (a.d. 600–606), Prabhákaravardhana the father of Śrí Harsha of Magadha (a.d. 610–642) defeated the king of Gandhára, the Húṇas, the king of Sindh, the Gurjjaras, the Láṭas, and the king of Malava,[33] and when, about twenty years later, further defeats were inflicted by Śrí Harsha himself numbers of refugees would gather to the Gujarát ports eager to escape further attack and to share the prosperity of Java. It is worthy of note that the details of Prabhákaravardhana’s conquests explain how Gandhára and Láṭa are both mentioned in the Java legends; how northerners from the Panjáb were able to pass to the coast; how the Márwár stories give the king of Málwa a share in the migrations; how the fleets may have started from any Sindh or Gujarát port; and how with emigrants may have sailed artists and sculptors acquainted both with the monasteries and stupas of the Kábul valley and Pesháwar and with the carvings of the Ajanta caves. During the second half of the seventh century the advance of the Turks from the north and of the Arabs both by sea (a.d. 637) and through Persia (a.d. 650–660);[34] the conquering progress of a Chinese army from Magadha to Bamian in a.d. 645–650[35]; the overthrow (a.d. 642) of
Appendix IV.
Java. the Buddhist Sáharáis by their usurping Bráhmanist minister Chach and his persecution of the Jats must have resulted in a fairly constant movement of northern Indians southwards from the ports of Sindh and Gujarát.[36] In the leading migrations though fear may have moved the followers, enterprise and tidings of Java’s prosperity would stir the leaders. The same longing that tempted Alexander to put to sea from the Indus mouth; Trajan (a.d. 116) from the mouth of the Tigris; and Mahmúd of Ghazni from Somnáth must have drawn Śaka Húṇa and Gurjjara chiefs to lead their men south to the land of rubies and of gold.[37]