Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/341

 ANCIENT HISTORY OF JAVA, ^97 The latter portion of the twelfth century is the earliest period of Javanese history to which I can with any confidence refer. From this time, down to the establishment of Mahomedanism, at the close of the fifteenth century, a number of consi- derable, but independent states, existed in Java, and the religion of the people was a modified Hin- duism, according to the doctrines ascribed to Bud- dha, as is shown in the chapter on Ancient Religion. The theory of a great monarchy, and of an antece- dent state of high civilization and improvement, so often pretended by the Brahmins, has also been forg- ed by the national vanity of the Javanese, unsupport- ed, as already remarked, by a shadow of proof, and xjontradicted by unquestionable internal evidence. The different independent states now alluded to, are conjectuFed by the Javanese writers to have been so many seats of this great monarchy, and genealogical lists of the sovereigns of Java are fabricated, where the patriarchs of Jewish history, — the saints of Ma- homedan legends, — and the heroes of the Mahaharat, are, as occasion requires, employed to fill up a gap. Even in the more recent portions of them, these ge- nealogical lists are equally irreconcilable with reason and each other. Some of them go as far back as the utmost extent of the established era, or 17^7 years, while others modestly stop short at two, three, or five hundred. The most disordered discrepan- cy prevails in these pretended chronologies. By