220 THE ETJINS OP BOKO BTJDTTR IN JAVA. 



Dr. Leematsts and those whose works he has utilised believe it to 

 "be — a monument of the religion of Buddha, and one of the most re- 

 markable monuments of that religion that exist in the world, 



M. Britmitmd, who has exhausted all the sources of informa- 

 tion, is of the opinion that the Buddhist religion and indeed a great 

 Buddhist empire was established in the centre of Java and that its 

 golden age may be placed in the eighth or ninth century of the 

 Christian era. It was no doubt surrounded by other States profes- 

 sing Sivaistic Brahmanism ; and there is evidence that the Sivaism 

 of the coast borrowed something from Buddhism, and that, on the 

 other hand, the Buddhism of the centre had some Sivaistic elements 

 mixed with it. But of the existence of a very pure Buddhism in the 

 neighbourhood of Boro Budur, he considers there is no room for 

 doubt. He conjectures that it was introduced into Java at a very 

 early period, possibly soon after the third great Buddhist council 

 which took place under Azoha B.C. 264 — at which it was resolved 

 that the doctrine of the Buddha should be propagated in foreign 

 parts. 



It is true that the Chinese traveller Fa Hian" tells us that in 

 the beginning of the fifth century after Christ there were many 

 Brahmins in Java, but that the law of Buddha had no adherents 

 there. But some doubt is thrown upon his evidence by the fact 

 that his informants were Brahmins who were possibly anxious to 

 conceal the truth, and who shewed their hostility to the religion of 

 the Buddha by requesting the Captaiu of the ship in which they 

 sailed to abandon Fa Hian, during a storm, upon the inhabited 

 coast of an island which they sighted, as the probable cause of 

 their danger, he being a heretic Buddhist. 



There is reason to believe that Buddhism was decaying during 

 the period of the last great Hindu Empire in Java — that of Maja- 

 pahit — and it disappeared finally wmen Islam triumphed over that 

 last refuge of Hinduism in a.d. 1400. M. Wilsen indeed attri- 

 butes the ruinous condition into which Boro Budur had fallen to 

 injuries received by the building during the wars of religion be- 

 tween the supporters of the old and the new faith. He supposes 

 the Buddhists driven by the victorious Moslems within the sanc- 

 tuary of Boro Budur and pursued from gallery to gallery, not 

 knowing how else to defend themselves, to have used as projec- 



