Hindu art had lost its vitality when the second empire of Mataram arose in Central Java and the cult of the ideal was effected by modernising currents from the eastern part of the island. Sanskrit, as the vehicle of thought in Venggi and Nagari characters, made place for Kawi which, related in its oldest forms to Pali and in its symbols to the Indian alphabets, evolved soon afterward into a specific Javanese type. Sivaïte literature paved the way for the _Manik Maya_, the _Bandoong_, the _Aji Saka_, the _Panji_- and the _Menak_- or _Hamza_-cycles, the _Damar Wulan_; as to Buddhist literature, Burnouf’s comment upon its inferiority holds also good for Java: no trace exists even of a life of the Buddha, of _jataka_-tales, except such as have originated in the eastern kingdoms at a comparatively late date. Literary culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a continuation of and throve on the efforts of the great authors hospitably entertained at the Courts of Mojopahit and Kediri. The Javanese language with the wealth of words it acquired and the diversity of expression it developed,[65] exercised and still exercises in its four dialects[66] a vivifying influence upon the Soondanese speech in the west and the Madurese in the east. Its script, like the people who speak and write it, and cling to their _hadat_, the manners and customs of the _jaman buda_, which, notwithstanding their Islāmitic veneer, they prefer to the law of the Prophet,--its script rejects Moslim interference and refuses to employ the Arabic characters, sticking to its equally beautiful _aksaras_ and _pasangans_. Religions succeeding one another, generally without discourteous haste, Muhammadanism penetrated Central Java but slowly from the north, first by the conversion of the great and mighty who profited by the example of Mojopahit, then by grafting the idea of the one righteous god upon the godless Buddhist or pantheistic Hindu creed of the _orang kechil_, the man of slight importance who, up to this day, though fervent in his outward duties as a Moslim, shows in every act that his individual and national temperament is rooted in pre-Islāmic idiosyncrasies. The heroes of the _Brata Yuda_ and _Ramayana_ are just as dear to him as the pre-Islāmic saints whose legends are gathered in the story of _Raja Pirangon_ and the _Kitab Ambia_, as the forerunners, companions and helpers of the Apostle of God.