
INTRODUCTION ll 
In Java, where this imported civilization reached its 
culmination, its introduction is put in the period from 
the second to the sixth centuries after Christ. The first 
beginnings may have been made even before. What one 
island knew, it tended to impart to the next. It is 
quite conceivable that in this way a large proportion 
of Indian culture reached the Philippines without a 
single Hindu having ever set foot upon them. It is of 
course also possible that expeditions led by Indian 
princes or adventurers now and then established them- 
selves on the islands and thus aided in the more gradual 
diffusion that was taking place. We know, however, 
that very few Arabs accompanied the expeditions which 
first carried Mohammedanism to the Philippines. The 
immigrants were Mohammedanized Malays from Johore 
and Sumatra, and, relatively to the indigenous popula- 
tion, few in numbers. As the Hindus have never been 
a maritime nation, it is likely that the manner in which 
their civilization reached the Philippines was even less 
direct than Mohammedanism—that is, more completely 
dependent upon native channels of transmission. 
The Indian influence, perhaps because it was older 
and continued longer, was much more pervasive than 
the Mohammedan one. It was most profound, of 
course, along the coast and in the lowlands, but pene- 
trated even to the mountainous interior of the larger 
islands. There is no tribe in the Philippines, no matter 
how primitive and remote, in whose culture of today 
elements of Indian origin cannot be traced. 
Only the structure of society seems to have been 
affected very little. The Mohammedan brought the 
idea of kingship—of the sultan or dato—and with it 
that of the state. Thus it was that the Mohammedan 
tribes were the only ones in the Philippines who pos- 
sessed any political organization, and through this 
