Our meagre knowledge of Javanese history makes it difficult to estimate the spheres and relative strength of the two religions. In the plains the Buddhist monuments are more numerous and also more ancient and we might suppose that the temples of Prambanan indicate the beginning of some change in belief. But the temples on the Dieng plateau seem to be of about the same age as the oldest Buddhist monuments. Thus nothing refutes the supposition that Brahmanism existed in Java from the time of the first Hindu colonists and that Buddhism was introduced after 400 A.D. It may be that Boroboedoer and the Dieng plateau represent the religious centres of two different kingdoms. But this supposition is not necessary for in India, whence the Javanese received their ideas, groups of temples are found of the same age but belonging to different sects. Thus in the Khajraho group[441] some shrines are Jain and of the rest some are dedicated to Śiva and some to Vishṇu. The earliest records of Javanese Brahmanism, the inscriptions of Pûrnavarman, are Vishnuite but the Brahmanism which prevailed in the eighth and ninth centuries was in the main Śivaite, though not of a strongly sectarian type. Brahmâ, Vishṇu and Śiva were all worshipped both at Prambanan and on the Dieng but Śiva together with Ganeśa, Durgâ, and Nandi is evidently the chief deity. An image of Śiva in the form of Bhaṭâra Guru or Mahâguru is installed in one of the shrines at Prambanan. This deity is characteristic of Javanese Hinduism and apparently peculiar to it. He is represented as an elderly bearded man wearing a richly ornamented costume. There is something in the pose and drapery which recalls Chinese art and I think the figure is due to Chinese influence, for at the present day many of the images found in the temples of Bali are clearly imitated from Chinese models (or perhaps made by Chinese artists) and this may have happened in earlier times. The Chinese annals record several instances of religious objects being presented by the Emperors to Javanese princes. Though Bhaṭâra Guru is only an aspect of Śiva he is a sufficiently distinct personality to have a shrine of his own like Ganeśa and Durgâ, in temples where the principal image of Śiva is of another kind.