an examination of these books, formed a very low opinion of
their value for the purposes of history. He says that the
native history of Java is an absurd mixture of the wild
fictions of Hindu mythology with the puerile legends of the
Mohammedans. A dawning of historic truth is alone perceptible
in the age when the Moslims first gained a footing
in the island. This in his opinion was in the later part of
the twelfth century. Islam became the established religion,
according to the same writer, not till the dose of the
fifteenth.
Sir T. Stamford Raffles had formed a somewhat more favourable
opinion of the writers on Javanese history. He
considered the accounts which they have handed down as
deserving of credit as far back as the ninth century. This,
in bis opinion, was the era of a very general diffusion
of Indian civilisation, literature, 'and religion over the
island. But even during the ages reckoned historical, a
great diversity exists in all the assigned dates, and no
agreement can be made out in the lists, of dynasties. It
is, however, remarkable that no Javanese record or pretended
record carries back the memory of events before the
seventy-fourth or seventy-eighth year of the Christian era.
It was in the seventy-fourth year after Christ that the Javanese
era, the Aji Saka, is said to havebeen introduced from
Java. The greatest contradictions exist as to the person of
Aji Saka, and some represent him as a chieftain, others as
the emissary or ambassador of an Indian prince; sometimes'
he is a saint, at others a god. M. de Humboldt doubts
whether there ever was a man of that name, and participates
in the opinion of Schlegel and Crawfurd that it was only the
designation of an era or chronological period. The Javanese
era is* manifestly the same as the continental Indian era
of Salivahana, since the difference of four years between
them# may be accounted for by reference to the confusion
between the Indian and the Arabian computations'of time.f
According to the Javanese historians a Brahman named
* The era of Salivahana begins 78 a. d., and that of Aji Saka a. d. 74.
f Humboldt, Kawi-Sprache.
Tritresta firsts introduced. intp -the island a Hindu colony
consisting o f about a hundred' persons, me«, women, and
children, Tritresta is telexed tito the age above mentioned.
From that time to the middle o!^ the^fourth century of our
era the* names of many oth^r leaders > of Colonies are mentioned,
but without pa^^ A more orcgmstantial and
credible rplatiorit is given • of the settlement ofo Madang
Kamplan, the oldest kingdom in Java that obtained any
permanent duration. It was founded» ^ a colony of five
thousand menwho came to Java from Hastina in, the I>2i5th
year of the national era, and became the capital of an
extensive kingdom- r Even this account is= sapposed% the
learned A. W* Schlegel to ;fee a recent interpolation,* and
M. de Humboldt was inclined , fei adopt, the same opinion.
Under prineesof this dynasty, who reigned from 846^ to 1000;
the arts and culture of India attained in Java, according to
the native historians, the highest perfection. Such is the
evidence of historical records, if that name is to fee given to
any of the annals of Java. The more authentic testimony
afforded by the works of ancient art go back, as we shall
perceive, only to the end of the twelfth century of Javanese
* chronologyt.,.
It was the opinion of M. de Humboldt that no data can
be discovered in the written, annals of Java which enable us
to determine any thing with certainty as to the initial period
of intercourse between Java and the continent of India, or
that of. the introduction into the island of Indian arts and
mythology and literature. All the historical; accounts which
go . back to an earlyperiod rest upon imperfect evidence^ or
are, rather, manifestly spurious and fictitious. Oa tbe other
hand those which are authentic and of demonstrable evidence
extend to so short a distance of time as to leave us under a
conviction that the influence of the Hindoos must have been
established over Java for some centuries before the period to
which they refer.t
* Indischfe Bibliothek ion A. W. von Schlegel, 1.40,6.—Humboldt, Kawi
Sprachtj l. 12s .
f Humboldt, ubi supra, p. 1$.