t, erected an image of Manjusri at Tjandi Djago and in
1375 one of Amoghapasa.

4

The Liang and T'ang annals both speak of a country called Po-li,
described as an island lying to the south-east of Canton. Groeneveldt
identified it with Sumatra, but the account of its position suggests
that it is rather to be found in Borneo, parts of which were
undoubtedly known to the Chinese as Po-lo and Pu-ni.[406] The Liang
annals state that Po-li sent an embassy to the Emperor Wu-ti in 518
bearing a letter which described the country as devoted to
Buddhism and frequented by students of the three vehicles. If the
letter is an authentic document the statements in it may still be
exaggerations, for the piety of Wu-ti was well known and it is clear
that foreign princes who addressed him thought it prudent to represent
themselves and their subjects as fervent Buddhists. But there
certainly was a Hindu period in Borneo, of which some tradition
remains among the natives,[407] although it ended earlier and left
fewer permanent traces than in Java and elsewhere.

The most important records of this period are three Sanskrit
inscriptions found at Koetei on the east coast of Borneo.[408] They
record the donations made to Brahmans by King Mulavarman, son of
Asvavarman and grandson of Kundagga. They are not dated, but Kern
considers for palaeographical reasons that they are not later than the
fifth century. Thus, since three generations are mentioned, it is
probable that about 400 A.D. there were Hindu princes in Borneo. The
inscriptions testify to the existence of Hinduism there rather than of
Buddhism: in fact the statements in the Chinese annals are the only
evidence for the latter. But it is most interesting to find that these
annals give the family name of the king of Poli as Kaundinya[409] which
no doubt corresponds to the Kundagga of the Koetei inscription. At least
one if not two of the Hindu invaders of Camboja bore this name, and we
can hardly be wrong in supposing that members of the same great family
became princes in different parts of the Far East. One explanation of
their presence in Borneo would be that they went thither from Camboja,
but we have no record of expeditions from Camboja and if adventurers
started thence it is not clear why they went to the _east_ coast of
Borneo. It would be less strange if Kaundinyas emigrating from Java
reached both Camboja and Koetei. It is noticeable that in Java, Koetei,
Champa and Cambo