hina. The Hinayana, he
says, was the form of Buddhism adopted "except in Malayu, where there
are a few who belong to the Mahayana." This is a surprising statement,
but it is impossible to suppose that an expert like I-Ching can have
been wrong about what he actually saw in Sribhoja. So far as his
remarks apply to Java they must be based on hearsay and have less
authority, but the sculptures of Boroboedoer appear to show the
influence of Mulasarvastivadin literature. It must be remembered that
this school, though nominally belonging to the Hinayana, came to be
something very different from the Theravada of Ceylon.

The Sung annals and subsequent Chinese writers know the same district
(the modern Palembang) as San-bo-tsai (which may indicate either mere
change of name or the rise of a new city) and say that it sent
twenty-one envoys between 960 and 1178. The real object of these
missions was to foster trade and there was evidently frequent
intercourse between eastern Sumatra, Champa and China. Ultimately the
Chinese seem to have thought that the entertainment of Sumatran
diplomatists cost more than they were worth, for in 1178 the emperor
ordered that they should not come to Court but present themselves in
the province of Fu-kien. The Annals state that Sanskrit writing
was in use at San-bo-tsai and lead us to suppose that the country was
Buddhist. They mention several kings whose names or titles seem to
begin with the Sanskrit word Sri.[403] In 1003 the envoys reported
that a Buddhist temple had been erected in honour of the emperor and
they received a present of bells for it. Another envoy asked for
dresses to be worn by Buddhist monks. The Ming annals also record
missions from San-bo-tsai up to 1376, shortly after which the region
was conquered by Java and the town decayed.[404] In the fourteenth
century Chinese writers begin to speak of Su-men-ta-la or Sumatra by
which is meant not the whole island but a state in the northern part
of it called Samudra and corresponding to Atjeh.[405] It had relations
with China and the manners and customs of its inhabitants are said to
be the same as in Malacca, which probably means that they were
Moslims.

Little light is thrown on the history of Sumatra by indigenous or
Javanese monuments. Those found testify, as might be expected, to the
existence here and there of both Brahmanism and Buddhism. In 1343 a
Sumatran prince named Adityavarman, who was apparently a vassal of
Madjapahi