Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/496

 414 FURTHER INDIA. BOOK VIII. CHAPTER IV. JAVA. CONTENTS. History Boro-Budur Temples at Mendut On the Dieng Plateau- At Jabang Prambanan Suku Near Melang, and at Panataran. THERE is no chapter in the whole history of Eastern art so full of apparent anomalies, or which so completely upsets our pre- conceived ideas of things as they ought to be, as that which treats of the architectural history of the island of Java. In the Introduction, it was stated that the leading phenomenon in the history of India was the continued influx of race after race across the Indus into her fertile plain, but that no reflex wave had ever returned to redress the balance. 1 This seems absolutely true as regards the west, and practically so in reference to the north, or the neighbouring countries on the east. Tibet and Burma received their religion from India, not, however, either by conquest or colonisation, but by missionaries sent to instruct and convert. This also is true of Ceylon, and partially so at least of Cambodia. These countries being all easily accessible by land, or a very short sea passage, it is there that we might look for migrations, if any ever took place, but it is not so. The one country to which they over- flowed was Java, and there they colonised to such an extent as for nearly 1000 years to obliterate the native arts and civilisa- tion, and supplant it by their own. What is still more singular is, that certain of the traditions assert that it was not from the nearest shores of India that these emigrants departed, but from the western coast. We have always been led to believe that the Indians hated the sea, and dreaded long sea voyages, yet it seems not improbable that the colonists of Jclva came not from the valley of the Ganges, but from that of the Indus, and passed 1 "As for the Indian kings none of them ever led an army out of India to attempt the conquest of any other country, lest they should be deemed guilty of injustice." Arrian, 'Indica,' ch. ix.