lapse of time, while the; Kawi retained all the obsolete constructions
and expressions which a language of poetry, and
even one of daws and legislation, ever affects do retain and even
to revive. During the times when the Indian influence in Java
was at its zenith, the Kawi was perhaps intelligible to the
people, nearly as the Doric chorus was understood more or
less by the Athenians; bid when this influence began >to decline,
which happened long before the age when the latest
Brahmans retired from Majopahit to their last refuge in the
island-of Bali, everything connected with the Hindoos became
gradually foreign in Java, and the old compositions in the
Kawi, which contained not only much that was. of continental
origin, but likewise abundant archaisms and obsolete
expressions of genuine Javanese origin, were at . length no
longer understood, and their place was supplied by versions
into the popular Javan dialect.
In this adoption of foreign expressions into the language of
Java, the old grammatical forms being preserved, the Kawi
may be compared with the modern English arising into existence
under almost similar circumstances, and engrafting
on a basis of native Saxon and on a grammatical type peculiar
to it, a great number of French or Norman words.
The results of this external influence are not confined
to the language of Java; it.h as manifestly left vestiges
of different kinds. For the most part. Java may be looked
upon as the intermediate point of intercourse and communication
from which the other parts of the Archipelago have
been influenced, but this influence has been exerted on Java
much longer and more extensively than on other countries.
This is indicated by the alphabets of the Archipelago. The
letters used by the Tagalas of the Philippines, by the Btigis
of Celebes, and by various nations in Sumatra, were plainly
not derived from Java but from older forms, which perhaps
were the original foundation of the Javanese and even of the
Kawi ; but the alphabets of Java approach so much more
nearly to the Devanagari as to prove a later and more extensive
intercourse of that island with the continent.
Moreover, the religious and historical traditions of Java,
its political institutions, the literature, and national arausemeats,
display evdry where an Indian character.* That the
beginning of this’ foragneulture of the Javanese mind seems
not to be limited evën .to the epoch of Salivahana and the
Javanese era is demonstrable; as Humboldt thinks, from one
phenomenon, which has bpen admitted by all those who
'since the time of Marsden and Jie^ién have paid any attention
to the languages of the insular nations. Allthe Indian
words which can be defected dnphelanguages óf the Archipelago,
and even the remote Polynesian di aleefe/ were certainly
derived, not from any popular1 language of India, but
from the p ure n »corrupted Sanskrit; Non©;"of the many corrupt
modifications of the Sanskrit language existing on-the
continent of Asia,' and therefore norm of thedanguageS which
are spoken there in the present age, has exerted any tsoniiiter-
able influence on* the insular dialects. Whatever changes
from their original grammatical forto Sanskrit words/ at# found
to dtóplhy in the idiom of Java, have arisen* merely from the
addition of Javanese iaffixes* or from -èhaiigeé in pronunciation
arisihg from the same catLsèi
l!wThie great antiquity- of Iédian colonfeation óf Java is further
supported by a survey of Javanese literature and mythology.
ThetPuranas are unkhoWn in Java. The Javanese ,
code of laws, termed after that of Menu, Menuvê S&y, has
been so named, as Baffles; Observed, in imitation, sinefe it
contains the proper domestic institutions of the island
where it was plainly composed. The Indian Sastra does not
appear even to have been translated into Javtoese, yet; as
M. de Humboldt remarks, it cannot be maintained that the
contents of Menu’s work were unknown in Java, since in the
Javanese history of the creation of the world heaven and
earth are formed fey the bursting of a greatHbai% agin Mena’s
Sastra by that of an egg. In the Indian myth* Brahma
comes out of the egg; in the Javanese, thetfirst man, Ma-
ne-kmaya. Also the parts ofrthö'bursting body are differently
divided. The Indian egg separates into two parts, viz. heaven
and earth, between which are the air, the parts of the world,
* This a ^ t e k ’;lib-:i^eea 'ÜlfristttUei! with 'grekt learning1 arrd ability by
A. W, Schlegel in the first part of his Indische Bïbliöttók, 40CM42S,: