Indian Shipping/Book 1/Part 2/Chapter 5

Perhaps the most interesting and conspicuous fact in connection with the Indian maritime activity towards the East is the Hindu colonization of Java, one of the most glorious achievements recorded in the entire history of the country. And yet the first impulse to this colonizing activity and expansion of India had its origin in the obscure kingdom of Kalinga, whose early history nobody knows or cares to know. As far back as the 75th year of the Christian era a band of Hindu navigators sailed from Kalinga, and, instead of plying within the usual limits of the Bay of Bengal, boldly ventured out into the open limitless expanse of the Indian Ocean and arrived at the island of Java. There the adventurous navigators planted a colony, built towns and cities, and developed a trade with the mother country which existed for several centuries. The history of this Hindu colonization of Java is thus briefly put by Elphinstone: "The histories of Java give a distinct account of a numerous body of Hindus from Clinga (Kalinga) who landed on this ​island, civilized the inhabitants, and who fixed the date of their arrival by establishing the era still subsisting, the first year of which fell in the 75th year after Christ. The truth of this narrative is proved beyond doubt by the numerous and magnificent Hindu remains that are still existing in Java, and by the fact that, although the common language is Malay, the sacred language, that of historical and political compositions and of most inscriptions, is a dialect of Sanskrit. The early date is almost as decisively proved by the journal of the Chinese pilgrim in the end of the 4th century who found Java entirely peopled by Hindus, and who sailed from the Ganges to Ceylon, from Ceylon to Java, and from Java to China in ships manned by crews professing the Brahminical religion."^[1]

That Kalinga had a large share in the colonization of Java and the adjacent islands is hinted at not only in the native chronicles of Java but is also accepted as truth by many competent scholars. Crawford (A.D. 1820) held that all Hindu influence in Java came from Kalinga or North-East Madras. Fergusson^[2] also observes: "The splendid remains at Amravati show that from the mouths of the Krishna and Godavari the Buddhists of North and North-West India colonized Pegu, Cambodia, ​and eventually the island of Java." Tavernier^[3] in A.D. 1666 remarked that "Masulipatam is the only place in the Bay of Bengal from which vessels sailed eastwards for Bengal, Arrakan, Pegu, Siam, Sumatra, Cochin China, and the Manillas, and west to Hormuz, Makha, and Madagascar." Inscriptions also bear out the correctness of the connection between the Kalinga coast and Java which Java legends have preserved.^[4] Besides, as Dr. Bhandarkar has pointed out^[5] in his article on the eastern passage of the Sakas, certain inscriptions also show a Māgadhi element which may have reached Java from Sumatra, and Sumatra from the coast either of Bengal or Orissa. It is further observed, in the Bombay Gazetteer, that "the Hindu settlement of Sumatra was almost entirely from the east coast of India, and that Bengal, Orissa, and Masulipatam had a large share in colonizing both Java and Cambodia cannot be doubted."^[6]

There is, however, another legend preserved in the native chronicles of Java which transfers the credit of its colonization from Kalinga on the eastern coast to Gujarat on the west. According ​to this legend, a great and powerful prince from Gujarat named Aji Saka made his descent on the island about A.D. 75, but was soon compelled to withdraw in consequence of a pestilence or some other calamity. This story was perhaps invented only to show the connection of the ancient royal dynasty of Java with the Saka kings of Northern India. The Javanese chronicles, however, record, besides this abortive attempt, another more successful attempt^[7] at colonization, made again from the west coast of India, about A.D. 603, when a ruler from Gujarat, forewarned of the coming destruction of his kingdom, started his son with five thousand followers, among whom were cultivators, artisans, warriors, physicians, and writers, in six large and a hundred small vessels towards Java. After some difficulty they got to the western coast of Java, and built there the town of Mendang Kumulan. The son soon sent for more men to his father, who dispatched a reinforcement of 2,000, including carvers in stone and brass. An extensive commerce sprang up with Gujarat and other countries, and the foundations were laid of temples that were afterwards known as Prambanam and Borobudur, the grandest specimens of Buddhist art in the whole of Asia. These legendary facts are probably connected with some central event in a process which continued ​for at least half a century before and after the beginning of the 7th century, a process of Saka migration that was stimulated by the then condition of Northern India, and was almost a sequence of the final collapse of the Saka power at the beginning of the 5th century, when the Saka kingdom of Surashthra or Kathiawar was conquered by Chandra Gupta II.,^[8] and Brahmanism supplanted Buddhism as the dominant State religion in India. Then "the Buddhist art-traditions went with the Saka immigrants into Java, where they reached their highest expression in the magnificent sculpture of Borobudur."^[9] There were, however, other forces at work which conspired to bring about a general movement among Northern Indians. The defeat of the White Hunas by Sassanians and Turks between A.D. 550 and 600 intercepted their retreat northwards; secondly, there were the conquests of Prabhākaravardhana, the father of Śrī-Harsha of Magadha, who defeated the king of Gāndhāra, the Hunas, the king of Sindh, the Gurjjaras, the Latas, and the king of Malava; and thirdly, there followed close upon them the further defeats inflicted by Śrī-Harsha himself about twenty years later (A.D. 610-642), so that there would be quite swarms of refugees at the Gujarat ports eager to escape further ​attack and to share in the prosperity of Java. If we add to these the following further events which all took place during the second half of the 7th century, viz. the advance of the Turks from the north, and of the Arabs both by sea (A.D. 637) and through Persia^[10] (A.D. 650-660), the conquering progress^[11] of a Chinese army from Magadha to Bamian in A.D. 645-650, the overthrow (A.D. 642) of the Buddhist Saharais by their usurping Brahmanist minister Chach, and his persecution of the Jats, we have a concatenation of circumstances which sufficiently explains the resulting movement, fairly constant, of Northern Indians southwards from the ports of Sindh and Gujarat, a movement which, though caused by fear, would be strengthened by the tidings of Javan prosperity reaching the leaders. For the same enterprise and ambition that led Alexander to put to sea from the mouths of the Indus, Trajan from the mouth of the Tigris, and Mahmud of Ghazni from Somnath, must also have driven the ​Saka, Huna, and Gurjjara chiefs to lead their men south to the land of rubies and gold.^[12]