ury. All these buildings indicate the
existence from the eighth to the tenth century of a considerable
kingdom (or perhaps kingdoms) in middle Java, comprising at least the
regions of Mataram, Kedoe and the Dieng plateau. From the Arabic
geographers also we learn that Java was powerful in the ninth century
and attacked Qamar (probably Khmer or Camboja). They place the capital
at the mouth of a river, perhaps the Solo or Brantas. If so, there
must have been a principality in east Java at this period. This is not
improbable for archaeological evidence indicates that Hindu
civilization moved eastwards and flourished first in the west, then in
mid Java and finally from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries in the
east.

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 Saka 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
Nagari characters records the erection of a temple to Tara 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 we