able, that, in the former, the year is made to commence
with the eleventh season, instead of that
which is first in numerical order. According to
the Javanese arrangement of the seasons, the year
is made to commence with the winter solstice;
and I presume that the Brahmins of Bali throw
its beginning back to April, to make it correspond
with the Hindu year. It is well known that,
about the period of the establishment of the Ma-
homedan religion in Java, a new form of Hinduism
was introduced in Bali, that the Brahmins must
consequently have acquired new influence, and
may be conjectured, therefore, to have improved
nr innovated upon the calendar.
That the Javanese were the inventors of this
rural calendar is determined by its application to
their climate, and to the peculiar modifications of
the seasons, which is applicable to no other great
country of the Archipelago. The evidence afforded
by language is still more precise. In Bali,
an island in the same parallels of latitude, and with
corresponding seasons, the seasons are of the same
length, and the arrangement, except in the particular
already alluded to, the same as in Java,
but the names of the seasons are not designated
from the vernacular’language of Bali, but from
that of Java.
From the description of the rural economy of