HINDU 150 HINDU
enumerated ®S * hu?dred later< however, we find them
C r i l i g Ro,mali Lawa> At this time> then>nave been carrying on a commercial intercourse with the Archipela gtoh,e fHori ntdhueys mwuerset
conveveTtidH, “ T °f transPort b7 which the clove and nutmeg were
“ mTote mM oil ucca and! £Ba nda0 tTIhs,learn adPsP caoreunldt mhaevaen sre baych wedh itchhe t Whee sntaetrinv ew porrlodd. ucItns osof fthare
“ f “* 88 the clove and nutmeg axe concerned, the Hindu intercourse with the Archipelago
may be said to have existed for at least seventeen centuries. But it may have
S S i i “ “ oat probably did exist, much earlier; for besides the clove and nutmeg,
1 3 Archipelago produces several other commodities much in demand in the
t in ^ o n e o fw t l f S’ -T-i f , bellzolu or frankincense, camphor, cubeb pepper, gold and
t t e V l l i S T y i id! d byaDy Part of Hindustan. Tin, in particular, is one which
sLnd obtamed (rom any other quarter, and which, as we now understate
of sornety among the Hindus, they could hardly have dispensed with.
dn^r+Yo H' r -0 hypothesis of the T&lugus being the people who intro-
&§§!J he - du religion and its language into the Archipelago, that if such had
vri+fi Y ! v,ase' af f f 'd r,ould hav! found its way into the vernacular languages along
with the idiom of the Taiugus, and not in the state of comparative purity in which we
find it. But if it came m with, and had been intermixed with that language, such a
t u l Z n t ' f ^P b e d either a conquest by the Tfilugu nation and an extensive
Mttlement, and of this there is certainly no trace. It is not true, however, that no
— words are found m Malay or Javanese, for there is a considerable number
o tw T Y ^ c T v ^ “ T n°e ezerflsed by *bis people,-some pure Talugu, and
! t r ng f ldence ° { tbeir having passed through the medium of that
language. The settlers, few in number, would naturally have acquired the language of
the natives, but rehgion wouid be taught in the sacred tongue. 8 8
HncTTTrT. rebglon and Sanscrit language were, in all probability earliest intro-
“V w e s t e r n part of Sumatra, the nearest portion of the Archipelago to the
continent of India. Java, however, became eventually the favourite abode of Hin-
dmsrn, and its language the chief recipient of Sanscrit. Through the Malays and
Javanese, Sanscrit, with some tmts of the Hindu religion, appears to have been
disseminated among the other nations of the Archipelago, extending even to those of
the Philippines. This is to be inferred from the greater amount of Sanscrit in the
Malay and Javanese than in the other tongues, especially in the Javanese,—from the
Sanscrit existing m greater purity in Malay and Javanese, and from the errors of
tfiese two languages, both m sense and orthography, having been copied in all the
other tongues. An approximation to the proportions of Sanscrit existing in some of the
principal languages of the islands will show that the amount is constantly diminishing
as we recede from Sumatra and Java, until all vestige of it disappears in the Polynesian
dialects. In the ordinary written language of Java the proportion is about
n ? far M^ay about 50; in Sunda, about 40; in the Bugis of the Celebes,
about 17; and in the Tagala of the Philippines, about 1J. To show the superior
punty of the Sanscrit, as it exists in Malay and Javanese, and the adoption of the
errors of these two languages by the others, I shall adduce a few examples. Kut’a is
a wall or a house in Sanscrit; but in Malay and Javanese, it is a fortress, and so it is
in every other language of the Malay and Philippine Archipelagos. Sutra, in Sanscrit,
is a thread; but m Malay, Javanese, and all the other tongues, it signifies silk,
Avatara, in Sanscrit, is a descent, or a coming down; but in Malay and Javanese, it
signifies a principal Hindu deity, and so it does in all the other languages. This
word m Malay and Javanese, is corrupted into bat’ara, written with a palatal t In
the other tongues the i is a dental, and in the language of the Philippines we have
an i for it; so that the word becomes batala. In Sanscrit, the word laksa is a
hundred thousand; but in Malay and Javanese, followed by all the other languages
it is ten thousand. Tapas, in Sanscrit, signifies ascetic devotion, and has the same’
sense in all the insular languages; but the Malays and Javanese elide the sibilant
makmg the word tapa, and in this they are followed by all the other languages. Guda
isi sugar; ghura, a horse; tamraka, copper; and karpasa, cotton, in Sanscrit: but in
Malay and Javanese, followed by the other tongues, they become gula, kuda, tambaga,
and kapas. Sanscrit words are found in greatest purity in Javanese, and, next to it, in
Malay; corruption increasing as we recede from Java and Sumatra. The word wartta
news or intelligence, m Sanscrit, is in Javanese warta; in Malay, bftrita; and in Tagala
bafita. 1 he Sanscrit swarga, heaven, is the same in Javanese; in Malay, surga; and in
-bugis, suruga. Chantra, a narration, is written correctly in Javanese ; but in Malav
it becomes chanta; and in the Tagala of the Philippines, salita. See History.
HISTORY
WTKTOBY In the sense of a rational narrative of public events, history is a
species of composition unknown to the most civilised nations of the Ariatic Arehipehigo^
hTmadebythe Javanese, in the writings which they called babad, sajarah, and pakam;
thffirst of these words signifying, literally, the hewmg or cutting down of a forest.
Narratives of tS s descripfionTre all in verse, and have all, more or less of the cast of
romance their object being to amuse and not to instruct. They are hardly to be
relied on beyond the era of the conversion of the principal nations of Java to the
Mahommedau rehgion, the year of our time, 1478. The Javanese possess, however,
bald chronological lists of events, which go as far back as the era of Saka or Salivana,
corresponding to the year 78 of Christ. These are incontestable fabrications, often
differing widely from each other, and containing gaps of whole centuries.
The presence of the Hindus in Java, and to a less extent in Sumatra, is attested by
the remains of temples, and by inscriptions on stone and brass, and some of these
contain real dates in figures; for the most part, however, going no further back than
the 13th century of our time. These monuments include many inscriptions, containing
a considerable infusion of the language of the Hindus, and even the modern
language contains from 10 to 12 words of Sanscrit in every 100; and these facts point
to an intercourse with the Hindus of an antiquity far beyond what actual dates will
°ai/wa s through the medium of commerce that the Hindus found their way into the
Archipelago; and a few incidental facts can be adduced to show that thi3 intercourse
must have been of considerable antiquity, although it is impossible to determine how
or when it originated. In its character it did not, probably, differ greatly for several
centuries from what it was when the Portuguese first arrived in India,, towards the
end of the 15th century. The commodities peculiar to the Malay Archipelago, which
were at this time found at the emporia of the western coast of India were, benzoin,
nutmegs, cloves, cubeb pepper—perhaps Malay camphor, and tin. If benzoin was
the Malabathrum of the ancients, this peculiarly Malayan product is named in the
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as an article found at the emporia of Malabar, about 63
years after the birth of Christ; and thus we have evidence of a trade between India
and the Malay Archipelago, nearly 15 centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese
in the waters of the latter.
The question as respects the article of tin is, however, of a more decisive character.
This is stated in the Periplus to have been an article of export at two of the emporia
of Western India, and to have been brought to these from countries further east,—
that is, not to have been local products. India now, and at all known times, has
been supplied with tin from the Malayan countries only. I t has no tin of its own.
nor do any of the countries in its immediate neighbourhood furnish it. The tin,
referred to could, therefore, be no other than Malayan, imported most probably into
the emporia of the Coromandel coast, and conveyed by land to those of Malabar, to
be from thence carried to Western Asia and Egypt. This fact, then, proves the
existence of a commercial intercourse between India and the tin-producing countries
of the Archipelago in the first century of the Christian era.
But we can go much further back by means of the same commodity. The ancient
Egyptians used tin some 15 centuries before the Christian era, as is shown by their tools
and implements of bronze, which are known to be of this antiquity; and Sir Gardner
Wilkinson is reasonably of opinion that this tin was far more likely to have been Indian
—that is, Malay—than British or Iberian. This commodity would be received by the
traders of the western ports of Malabar; so that we have here by this Bingle link the
indication of a direct trade between the Malay countries and India, and of an indirect
intercourse between them and Egypt of three-and-thirty centuries standing.
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea names another, although not a peculiar
product of the Malayan Archipelago, as being found at the emporia of Malabar.
This is tortoise-shell, which, although'the produce also of other parts of India, is
produced in largest quantity and of the best quality in the Archipelago. The
Periplus states the article to be brought from Khrus6 or the Golden Islands. This
would apply to Sumatra and the Peninsula, which produce gold, but could not well
refer to the Maldive or Laccadive Islands, as some have supposed, since neither of
these yield gold ; and are, in fact, little better than coral banks.
As before observed the clove and nutmeg are not named in the Periplus of the
Erythraean Sea, as among the commodities found at the emporia of the western
coast of India. This may, however, refer to their not being articles dealt in by the