Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/301

 i RELIGION OF BALI. 257 made anxious inquiry respecting their existence in India. The religion of Siwa was introduced in Bali be- tween three and four hundred years ago, previous to which the reigning religion was Buddhism. The followino- is the account of this revolution fur- o nished to me by the Brahmins themselves. A few years previous to the Mahomedan conversion of the Javanese, there arrived in Java, from Kalinga, a num- ber of Brahmins, of the sect of Siwa, who received pro- tection from Browijoyo, the last Hindu sovereign of Mojopahit. Soon after the overthrow of that state, they fled to Bali under their leader Wahu Baku, and there disseminated their doctrines. The pre- sent generation are, by their own account, the tenth in descent from Wahu Baku and his com- panions. The fact of the Hindu religion existing in the little island of Bali, after the conversion to Maho- medanism, appears at first sight singular. This phenomenon is to be ascribed to a variety of circum- stances, such as hostility to the Mahomedan re- ligion, on the part of the Hindu refugees from Java, who are known, when persecuted, to have fled to Bali in considerable numbers, — the adop- tion of another new religion on the part of the Ba- linese, but probably, above all, the inaccessibili- ty of the shores of Bali, the only civilized and po- pulous country of the Archipelago, destitute of VOL, II. B