PREPACE. XIII 



given a Komanized version of these words , they are to me, as to most other people, very 

 learned but also very unmeaning sign's. 



The Javanese dictionary of P. P. Koorda van Eijsinga J 835 , has also frequently been 

 consulted , but more nicety of discrimination was often here incumbent, as from the closer 

 affinity of the two hmguages of Java , it was necessary to be careful not to admit words 

 which had no right to a place, or perhaps only varied slightly from whafc are used in 

 Sunda. 



One work alone I have carefully eschewed , viz ; the Sunda Dictionary of A. de Wil- 

 de, published by Roorda 1841. A casual glance down its pages soon convinced me 

 that it would rather lead me astray than afford information , and so I was forced to lay 

 it aside , although anxions to avail of all the light which T could find. It may even yet 

 contain some words which I have not given , but to sift thein out would be a labour of 

 considerable extent , and probably a loss of time in the end. The work of -Mr. de Wilde 

 did not see the light, till many years after he had left Java, and was thus of course 

 without the natives at his elbow to put him to rights when in any doubt , and without 

 other authorities for reference or help. 



Even in Java living in the interior, surrounded by natives who speak the language 

 as their mother tongue, it often requires , with many words, some judgment to select the 

 right meaning, and words are current in different districts which are not known agaïn in 

 others , or which have a somewhat modified meaning, and are sneered at when used diffe- 

 rently from what is usual with any particular set of people. The Sunda people possess no 

 literature to which reference can be made, and it is consequently a purely oral language 

 spoken by a little bettér than two millions of people, at the west end of Java, to and 

 with the greater part of Chribon. 



The influx of words from that great classical language of the East — the Sanscrit — 

 has also been considerable into the Sunda , where they have been retained with great ac- 

 curacy during a long period of years, probably not less than 1000 or 1200 years. The 

 same early intercourse with the natives of India, as that which took place with Sumatra 

 and Java proper, or the Eastern parts of uur island , no doubt extended also to the Sunda 

 districts, but of this neither written history nor tradition preserves any remembrance , and 

 with few trifling exceptions the Sunda districts retain no traces of temples or stone images 

 indicating the presence of artists from Continental India, but with which the East end of 

 the island so plentifully abounds. The Budhists were driven out of Continental India in 

 the Seventh Century of the Christian Era, when a great trade was carried on with the 

 Indian Isles, for those valuable products which found a ready market in the West — and 

 from the conflicting ascendency of one sect or the other on the Indian Continent, we may 

 fairly conclude that the worsted party had to fly and seek a safe refuge in foreign parts, 

 and no country would offer them a more inviting refuge than the Indian isles. The 

 Budhists were eventually the worsted party and settling in great numbers in Java built 

 boro bodur, and many other old monuments and temples of which we still find the ruins, 

 introducing at the same time the Sanscrit literature and holy books which descending 



