Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/47

 DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE. 35 mention the titles of office, as several of the names of the sovereign himself, as Bqjaj Nare}idra, and Naradipay with Senapati, commander of the anny, &c. The third class, or priesthood^ is next to be con- sidered. Religion, even the Hindu religion, seems never to have established, among the Indian island- ers, that extraordinary influence upon the minds of men which has accompanied it in some other coun- tries, and particularly in the country of the Hindus themselves, whom we are most naturally led to com- pare with the Indian Islanders. The Hindu religion does not appear, among the latter, to have been artfully interwoven with the political institutions of the country, nor to have mixed with all the common offices and common business of life In the wonderful manner it does In continental India. The ministers of religion seem, therefore, never to have acquired an undue and pernicious Influence in society, and the veneration for absolute power seems, In all ages of the history of these countries, to have superseded that for the priesthood. At the period of the conversion of the Javanese, and for some time afterwards, the priests exercised un- usual authority, and the government was a sort of theocracy, but the civil authority soon regained its natural ascendancy, and the powers of the priesthood were absorbed Into those of the so- vereign, who assumed and maintained the title