Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3Eliot, Charles
Religion
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3
Eliot, Charles
Asia -- Religion; Buddhism; Hinduism
The evidence at our disposal points to the fact that Java received
most of its civilization from Hindu colonists, but who were these
colonists and from what part of India did they come? We must not think
of any sudden and definite conquest, but rather of a continuous
current of immigration starting perhaps from several springs and often
merely trickling, but occasionally swelling into a flood. Native
traditions collected by Raffles[382] ascribe the introduction of
Brahmanism and the Śaka era to the sage Tritresta and represent the
invaders as coming from Kalinga or from Gujarat.
The difference of locality may be due to the fact that there was a
trade route running from Broach to Masulipatam through Tagara (now
Ter). People arriving in the Far East by this route might be described
as coming either from Kalinga, where they embarked, or from
Gujarat, their country of origin. Dubious as is the authority of these
legends, they perhaps preserve the facts in outline. The earliest
Javanese inscriptions are written in a variety of the Vengi script and
the T'ang annals call the island Kaling as well as Java. It is
therefore probable that early tradition represented Kalinga as the
home of the Hindu invaders. But later immigrants may have come from
other parts. Fa-Hsien could find no Buddhists in Java in 418, but
Indian forms of Mahayanism indubitably flourished there in later
centuries. The Kalasan inscription dated 778 A.D. and engraved in
Nâgari characters records the erection of a temple to Târâ and of a
Mahayanist monastery. The change in both alphabet and religion
suggests the arrival of new influences from another district and the
Javanese traditions about Gujarat are said to find an echo among the
bards of western India and in such proverbs as, they who go to Java
come not back[383]. In the period of the Hunnish and Arab invasions
there may have been many motives for emigration from Gujarat. The land
route to Kalinga was probably open and the sea route offers no great
difficulties[384].
Another indication of connection with north-western India is found in
the Chinese work _Kao Sêng Chuan_ (519 A.D.) or _Biographies of
Eminent Monks_, if the country there called Shê-p'o can be identified
with Java[385]. It is related that Guṇavarman, son of the king of
Kashmir, became a monk and, declining the throne, went first to Ceylon
and then to the kingdom of Shê-p'o, which he converted to Buddhism. He
died at Nanking in 431 B.C.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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