12 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
organization were the only ones able to resist Spanish 
subjection for any considerable time. The Hindu how- 
ever, though he had long been familiar with the insti- 
tution of kingship, did not establish kingdoms, nor did 
he introduce his distinctive system of caste. His 
greatest contributions to the civilization of the Philip- 
pines were clearly on the side of knowledge and thought 
and religion, as has been characteristic of his part 
in the history of culture at all times. 
Contemporaneous with these contacts or indirect 
transmissions from India, and long surviving them, 
was a set of relations between southern China and the 
Philippines. China is very much nearer than India and 
has enjoyed a high measure of civilization for at least 
as long. As far back as the ninth century, the Chinese 
are likely to have visited the Philippines; and from the 
thirteenth on, their records tell of trade and describe 
the habits of the natives. For many hundreds of years, 
pottery vessels of certain special types continued to be 
exported from China to the Philippines and Borneo and 
came to constitute the most treasured heirlooms even 
of interior tribes that had never set eyes on a junk. 
Today, the gongs which the uncivilized Filipinos use as 
one of their chief musical instruments, or at least their 
bronze, is said to come from China. Many other 
instances of trade relations might be cited; yet it is 
curious that with all this prolonged contact only 
material objects seem to have been carried from the 
more civilized to the less civilized country. There is 
not a single institution, piece of knowledge, or religious 
belief current in the Philippines that can be derived 
with any certainty from China. The difference in this 
respect between India and China is very remarkable, 
and illustrates significantly the distinctive tempers of 
these two great nationalities. 
