1850.] 



of Continental India, fyc. 



131 



form of the Tamil character ; yet the copying is so imperfect that it 

 cannot be read ; but that it might be read off from the original 

 sculpture, if preserved, I am moderately certain. This inscription 

 appears to me to indicate the existence of some colony in Java from 

 the southern part of the Peninsula of India. 



Proceeding from the antiquities to the history of Java, we have 

 first to do with tradition. This indicates that Java, and the eastern 

 Islands, were first peopled from the vicinity of the Red sea, from 

 which people came in vessels, that coasted the shores : the peninsu- 

 la of India then forming it is stated " an unbroken continent with 

 the land in the Indian (that is, I suppose, the eastern) Archipelago, 

 from which it is now so widely separated, and which according to 

 the tradition has since been divided into so many distinct islands, by 

 some convulsions of nature, or revolution of 



* Vol 2, p. 65. 



the elements."* I have made this subject the 

 matter of a separate inquiry ; and I am satisfied that the Peninsu- 

 la of India, and Peninsula of Malacca, were anciently different from 

 their present form. 



Whether these colonists came from Egypt 

 as is stated,* or from Phenicia ; or from the 

 ancient Sabean kingdom in Arabia, as I think very possible, is not 

 of much consequence ; at least as regards our present object. 



Javanese history begins, properly speaking, with the commence- 

 ment of the Javanese era; that is A. D. 75, at which period the is- 

 land is said to have been discovered by the minister of Praba Jaya 

 Baya a sovereign of Hastinapuri, fifth in descent from Arjuna. The 

 island before that period bore the name of Nusa Kenclang ,- but from 

 a species of grain called Jawa-wut growing on it, the aforesaid min- 

 ister gave the island the name of Nusa-Jawa. The report of this 

 minister, after his return, seems to have been the occasion of subse- 

 quent colonies going thither from India. An account, quoted by 

 Raffles, states that in the first year of the Javan era the prince of 

 Rom sent twenty thousand families to Java all of whom perished, 

 ^ except twenty families who returned* to Rom. 



This word Rom^ in a comparatively modern 

 composition, is loose, and indefinite ; even if the statement itself be 

 accurate. The Greek empire of Constantinople to which the word 



