Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c18: Appendix IV. Java and Cambodia

Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarát c18

Language
English

Contents

Appendix IV. Java and Cambodia

c18.2

AN incident redeems the early history of Gujarát from provincial narrowness and raises its ruling tribes to a place among the greater conquerors and colonisers. This incident is the tradition that during the sixth and seventh centuries fleets from the coasts of Sindh and Gujarát formed settlements in Java and in Cambodia. The Java legend is that about A.D. 603 Hindus led by Bhruvijáya Savelachála the son of Kasamachitra or Bálya Achá king of Kujrát or Gujarát settled on the west coast of the island.¹ The details of the settlement recorded by Sir Stamford Raffles² are that Kasamachitra, ruler of Gujarát, the tenth in descent from Arjun, was warned of the coming destruction of his kingdom. He accordingly started his son Bhruvijáya Savelachála with 5000 followers, among whom were cultivators artisans warriors physicians and writers, in six large and a hundred small vessels for Java. After a voyage of four months the fleet touched at an island they took to be Java. Finding their mistake the pilots put to sea and finally reached Matarem in the island of Java. The prince built the town of Mendang Kumulan. He sent to his father for more men. A reinforcement of 2000 arrived among them carvers in stone and in brass. An extensive commerce sprang up with Gujarát and other countries. The bay of Matarem was filled with strange vessels and temples were built both at the capital, afterwards known as Brambanum, and, during the reign of Bhruvijáya's grandson Ardivijáya that is about A.D. 660, at Boro Baddor in Kedu.³ The remark that an ancestor of the immigrant prince had changed the name of his kingdom to Gujarát is held by Lassen to prove that the tradition is modern. Instead of telling against the truth of the tradition this note is a strong argument in its favour. One of the earliest mentions of the name Gujarát for south Márwár is Hiuen Tsiang's (A.D. 630) Kin-che-lo or Gurjjara. As when Hiuen Tsiang wrote the Gurjjara chief of Bhinmál, fifty miles west of Abu, already ranked as a Kshatriya his family had probably been for some time established perhaps as far back as A.D. 490 a date by which the Mihira or Gurjjara conquest of Valabhi and north Gujarát was completed.⁴ The details of the help received from Gujarát after the prince's arrival show that the parent state had weathered the storm which threatened to destroy it. This agrees with the position of the Bhinmál Gurjjaras at the opening of the seventh century, when, in spite of their defeat by Prabhákaravardhana (A.D. 600-606) the father of Śrí Harsha (A.D. 606-641) of Magadha, they maintained their power at Broach and at Valabhi as well as at Bhinmál.¹ The close relations between the Gurjjaras and the great seafaring Mihiras or Meds make it likely that the captains and pilots who guided the fleets to Java belonged to the Med tribe. Perhaps it was in their honour that the new Java capital received the name Mendan, as, at a later period it was called Brambanum or the town of Bráhmans. The fact that the Gurjjaras of Broach were sun-worshippers not Buddhists causes no difficulty since the Bhinmál Gurjjaras whom Hiuen Tsiang visited in A.D. 630 were Buddhists and since at Valabhi Buddhism Shaivism and sun-worship seem to have secured the equal patronage of the state.

c18.3

¹ Sir Stamford Raffles' Java, II. 83. From Java Hindus passed to near Banjar Massin in Borneo probably the most eastern of Hindu settlements (Jour. R. A. Soc. IV, 1851). Temples of superior workmanship with Hindu figures also occur at Washoo 400 miles from the coast. Dalton's Diaks of Borneo Jour. Asiatique (N. S.) VII, 163. An instance may be quoted from a palace at Gondar in Abyssinia. Keith Johnson's Africa, 209.

c18.4

² Raffles' Java, II, 85-88. Compare Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, II. 10, 40; IV, 460.

c18.5

³ Raffles' Java, II. 87.

c18.6

⁴ Compare Tod's Annals of Rájasthán (Third Reprint), I. 87. The thirty-nine Chohán successions, working back from about A.D. 1200 with an average reign of eighteen years, lead to A.D. 498.

c18.7

¹ Compare Note on Bhinmál page 467.

c18.8

Besides of Gujarát and its king the traditions of both Java and Cambodia contain references to Hastinagara or Hastinapura, to Taxila, and to Rumadesa.² With regard to these names and also with regard to Gandhára and to Cambodia, all of which places are in the north-west of India, the question arises whether the occurrence of these names implies an historical connection with Kábul Pesháwar and the west Panjáb or whether they are mere local applications and assumptions by foreign settlers and converts of names known in the Bráhman and Buddhist writings of India.¹ That elaborate applications of names mentioned in the Mahábhárata to places in Java have been made in the Java version of the Mahábharata is shown by Raffles.² Still it is to be noticed that the places mentioned above, Kamboja or Kábul, Gandhára or Pesháwar, Taxila or the west Panjáb, and Rumadesa apparently the south Panjáb are not, like Ayodhya the capital of Siam or like Intha-patha-puri that is Indraprastha or Dehli the later capital of Cambodia,³ the names of places which either by their special fame or by their geographical position would naturally be chosen as their original home by settlers or converts in Java and Cambodia. Fair ground can therefore be claimed for the presumption that the leading position given to Kamboja, Gandhára, Taxila, and Rumadesa in Javan and Cambodian legends and place-names is a trace of an actual and direct historical connection between the north-west of India and the Malay Archipelago. This presumption gains probability by the argument from the architectural remains of the three countries which in certain peculiar features show so marked a resemblance both in design and in detail as in the judgment of Mr. Fergusson to establish a strong and direct connection.⁴ A third argument in favour of a Gujarát strain in Java are the traditions of settlements and expeditions by the rulers of Málwa which are still current in south Márwár.⁵ Further a proverb still well known both in Márwár and in Gujarát runs:

c18.9

² According to Cunningham (Ancient Geography, 43 and Beal's Buddhist Records, I, 109 note 92) the site of Hastinagara or the eight cities is on the Swát river eighteen miles north of Pesháwar. In Vedic and early Mahábhárata times Hastinapura was the capital of Gandhára (Hewitt Jour. Roy. As. Soc. XXI. 217). In the seventh century it was called Pushkalávatí. (Beal's Buddhist Records, I, 109.) Taxila, the capital of the country east of the Indus, was situated about forty miles east of Attok at Shahderi near Kalaka-sarai (Cunningham's Ancient Geography, 105). According to Cunningham (Ditto 109), Taxila continued a great city from the time of Alexander till the fifth century after Christ. It was then laid waste apparently by the great White Húna conqueror Mihirakula (A.D. 500-550). A hundred years later when Hiuen Tsiang visited it the country was under Kashmir, the royal family were extinct, and the nobles were struggling for power (Beal's Buddhist Records I, 136). Rumadesa. References to Rumadesa occur in the traditions of Siam and Cambodia as well as in those of Java. Fleets of Rúm are also noted in the traditions of Bengal and Orissa as attacking the coast (Fergusson's Architecture, III, 640). Coupling the mention of Rúm with the tradition that the Cambodian temples were the work of Alexander the Great Colonel Yule (Ency. Brit. Article Cambodia) takes Rúm in its Musalman sense of Greece or Asia Minor. The variety of references suggested to Fergusson (Architecture, III, 640) that these exploits are a vague memory of Roman commerce in the Bay of Bengal. But the Roman rule was that no fleet should pass east of Ceylon (Renaud Jour. As. Ser. VI, Tom. I, page 392). This rule may occasionally have been departed from as in A.D. 166 when the emperor Marcus Aurelius sent an ambassador by sea to China. Still it seems unlikely that Roman commerce in the Bay of Bengal was ever active enough to gain a place as settler and coloniser in the traditions of Java and Cambodia. It was with the west not with the east of India that the relations of Rome were close and important. From the time of Mark Antony to the time of Justinian, that is from about B.C. 30 to A.D. 550, their political importance as allies against the Parthians and Sassanians and their commercial importance as controllers of one of the main trade routes between the east and the west made the friendship of the Kusháns or Sakas who held the Indus valley and Baktria a matter of the highest importance to Rome. How close the friendship is shown in A.D. 60 by the Roman General Corbulo escorting the Hyrkanian ambassadors up the Indus and through the territories of the Kusháns or Indo-Scythians on their return from their embassy to Rome. (Compare Rawlinson's Parthia, 371.) The close connection is shown by the accurate details of the Indus valley and Baktria recorded by Ptolemy (A.D. 150) and about a hundred years later (A.D. 247) by the author of the Periplus and by the special value of the gifts which the Periplus notices were set apart for the rulers of Sindh. One result of this long continued alliance was the gaining by the Kushán and other rulers of Peshawar and the Panjáb of a knowledge of Roman coinage astronomy and architecture. Certain Afghán or Baktrian coins bear the word Roma apparently the name of some Afghán city. In spite of this there seems no

c18.10

¹ reason to suppose that Rome attempted to overlord the north-west of India still less that any local ruler was permitted to make use of the great name of Rome. It seems possible that certain notices of the fleets of Rúm in the Bay of Bengal refer to the fleets of the Arab Al-Rami that is Lambri or north-west Sumatra apparently the Romaniz of the Chaldean breviary of the Malabar Coast. (Yule's Cathay, I, lxxxix, note and Marco Polo, II, 413.)

c18.11

¹ Compare Fergusson's Architecture, III, 640; Yule in Ency. Brit. Cambodia.

c18.12

² Java, I, 411. Compare Fergusson's Architecture, III, 640.

c18.13

³ See Yule in Jour. Roy. As. Soc. (N. S.), I, 356; Fergusson's Architecture, III, 631.

c18.14

⁴ Of the Java remains Mr. Fergusson writes (Architecture, III, 644-648): The style and character of the sculptures of the great temple of Boro Buddor are nearly identical with those of the later caves of Ajanta, on the Western Gháts, and in Sálsette. The resemblance in style is almost equally close with the buildings of Takht-i-Bahi in Gandhára (Ditto, 647). Again (page 637) he says: The Hindu immigrants into Java came from the west coast of India. They came from the valley of the Indus not from the valley of the Ganges. Once more, in describing No. XXVI. of the Ajanta caves Messrs. Fergusson and Burgess (Rock-cut Temples, 345 note 1) write: The execution of these figures is so nearly the same as in the Boro Buddor temple in Java that both must have been the work of the same artists during the latter half of the seventh century or somewhat later. The Buddhists were not in Java in the fifth century. They must have begun to go soon after since there is considerable local element in the Boro Buddor.

c18.15

⁵ Traditions of expeditions by sea to Java remain in Márwár. In April 1895 a bard at Bhinmal related how Bhojrája of Ujjain in anger with his son Chandraban drove him away. The son went to a Gujarát or Káthiáwáda port obtained ships and sailed to Java. He took with him as his Bráhman the son of a Magh Pandit. A second tale tells how Vikram the redresser of evils in a dream saw a Javanese woman weeping, because by an enemy's curse her son had been turned into stone. Vikram sailed to Java found the woman and removed the curse. According to a third legend Chandravan the grandson of Vir Pramár saw a beautiful woman in a dream. He travelled everywhere in search of her. At last a Rishi told him the girl lived in Java. He started by sea and after many dangers and wonders found the dream-girl in Java. The people of Bhinmal are familiar with the Gujarát proverb referred to below Who goes to Java comes not back. MS. Notes, March 1895.

c18.16

Je ját Jáve te kadi nahi áve,
A've to lákh pidhi baithke kháve.
Who to Java roam ne'er come home.
If they return, through seven lives
Seated at ease their wealth survives.¹

c18.17

Once more the connection with Gujarát is supported by the detail in the Java account which makes Laut Mira the starting point for the colonising fleet. This Sir S. Raffles supposed to be the Red Sea but the Mihiras' or Meds' sea may be suggested as it seems to correspond to the somewhat doubtful Arab name Baharimad (sea of the Meds?) for a town in western India sacked by Junaid. Against this evidence two considerations have been urged²: (a) The great length of the voyage from Gujarát to Java compared with the passage to Java from the east coast of India; (b) That no people in India have known enough of navigation to send a fleet fit to make a conquest. As regards the length of the voyage it is to be remembered that though Sumatra is more favourably placed for being colonised from Bengal Orissa and the mouths of the Godávari and Krishna, in the case either of Java or of Cambodia the distance from the Sindh and Káthiáwár ports is not much greater and the navigation is in some respects both safer and simpler than from the coasts of Orissa and Bengal. In reply to the second objection that no class of Hindus have shown sufficient skill and enterprise at sea to justify the belief that they could transport armies of settlers from Gujarát to Java, the answer is that the assumption is erroneous. Though the bulk of Hindus have at all times been averse from a seafaring life yet there are notable exceptions. During the last two thousand years the record of the Gujarát coast shows a genius for seafaring fit to ensure the successful planting of north-west India in the Malay Archipelago.³

c18.18

² Compare Crawfurd (A.D. 1820) in As. Res. XIII, 157 and Lassen Ind. Alt. II. 1048.

c18.19

³ The following details summarise the available evidence of Gujarát Hindu enterprise by sea. According to the Greek writers, though it is difficult to accept their statements as free from exaggeration, when in B.C. 325, Alexander passed down the Indus the river showed no trace of any trade by sea. If at that time sea trade at the mouth of the Indus was so scanty as to escape notice it seems fair to suppose that Alexander's ship-building and fleets gave a start to deep-sea sailing which the constant succession of strong and vigorous northern tribes which entered and ruled Western India during the centuries before and after the Christian era continued to develope.* According to Vincent (Periplus, I, 25, 35, 254) in the time of Agatharcides (B.C. 200) the ports of Arabia and Ceylon were entirely in the hands of the people of Gujarat. During the second century after Christ, when, under the great Rudradáman (A.D. 143-158), the Sinh or Kshatrapa dynasty of Káthiáwár was at the height of its power, Indians of Tientso, that is Sindhu, brought presents by sea to China (Journal Royal Asiatic Society for January 1896 page 9). In A.D. 166 (perhaps the same as the preceding) the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius sent by sea to China ambassadors, with ivory rhinoceros horn and other articles apparently the produce of Western India (DeGuignes' Huns, I. [Part I.] 32). In the third century A.D. 247 the Periplus (McCrindle, 17, 52, 64, 96, 109)

c18.20

¹ Another version is:

c18.21

Je ját Jáve te phari na áve
Jophari dee te párya paya kháve
Etalu dhan láve.
Who go to Java stay for aye,
If they return they feast and play
Such stores of wealth their risks repay.

c18.22

∗ Alexander built his own boats on the Indus. (McCrindle's Alexander, 77.) He carried (pages 93 and 131) these boats to the Hydaspes, on the Jhelum (134 note), where he found some country boats he built a fleet of galleys with thirty oars; he made dockyards (pages 156-157) his crews were Phoenicians, Cypriate, Karians, and Egyptians.

c18.23.1

That the Hindu settlement of Sumatra was almost entirely from the notices large Hindu ships in the east African Arab and Persian ports and Hindu settlements on the north coast of Sokotra. About a century later occurs the doubtful reference (Wilford in Asiatic Researches, IX, 224) to the Divai or pirates of Diu who had to send hostages to Constantine the Great (A.D. 320-340) one of whom was Theophilus afterwards a Christian bishop. Though it seems probable that the Kshatrapas (A.D. 79-400) ruled by sea as well as by, land fresh seafaring energy seems to have marked the arrival on the Sindh and Kathiavad coasts of the Juan-Juan or Avars (A.D. 390-450) and of the White Hunas (A.D. 450-550). During the fifth and sixth centuries the ports of Sindh and Gujarat appear among the chief centres of naval enterprise in the east. How the sea rated the religion of the newcomers is shown by the fame which gathered round the new or revised gods Siva the Poseidon of Somnath and Krishna the Apollo or St. Nicholas of Dwarka. (Compare Tod's Annals of Rajasthan, I, 525.) In the fifth century (Yule's Cathay, I, lxxviii,) according to Hamza of Ispahan, at Hira near Kufa on the Euphrates the ships of India and China were constantly moored. In the early sixth century (A.D. 518-519) a Persian ambassador went by sea to China (Ditto, I, lxxiv.) About the same time (A.D.

c18.23.2

526) Cosmas (Ditto, I, clxxviii.) describes Sindhu or Debal and Orhga that is Soratha or Veraval as leading places of trade with Ceylon. In the sixth century, apparently driven out by the White Hunas and the Mihiras, the Jats from the Indus and Kachh occupied the islands in the Bahrein gulf, and perhaps manned the fleet with which about A.D. 570 Naushirvan the great Sassanian (A.D. 531-574) is said to have invaded the lower Indus and perhaps Ceylon. About the same time (Fergusson Architecture, III, 612) Amaravati at the Krishna mouth was superseding as the port for the Golden Chersonese by the direct voyage from Gujarat and the west coast of India. In A.D. 630 Hiuen Tsiang (Beal's Buddhist Records, II, 269) describes the people of Surashtra as deriving their livelihood from the sea, engaging in commerce, and exchanging commodities. He further notices that in the chief cities of Persia Hindus were settled enjoying the full practice of their religion (Reinaud's Abulfeda, ccclxxxv.) That the Jat non the Arab was the moving spirit in the early (A.D. 637-770) Muhammadan raids against the Gujarat and Konkan coasts is made probable by the fact that those seafaring ventures began not in Arabia but in the Jat-settled shores of the Persian Gulf, that for more than fifty years the Arab heads of the state forbad them, and that in the Mediterranean where they had no Jat element the Arab was powerless at sea.

c18.23.3

(Compare Elliot, I, 416,417.) That during the seventh and eighth centuries when the chief migrations by sea from Gujarat to Java and Cambodia seem to have taken place, Chinese fleets visited Diu (Yule's Cathay, lxxix,) and that in A.D. 749 Arabs and Persians besieged Canton and pillaged the storehouses going and returning by sea (DeGuignes' Huns, I, Pt. II, 503) suggest that the Jats were pilots as well as pirates.† On the Sindh, Kachh and Gujarat coasts besides the Jats several of the new-come northern tribes showed notable energy at sea. It is to be remembered that as detailed in the Statistical Account of Thana (Bombay Gazetteer, XIII, Part II, 433) this remarkable outburst of sea enterprise may have been due not only to the vigour of the new-come northerners but to the fact that some of them, perhaps the famous iron-working Turkas (A.D. 580-680), brought with them the knowledge of the magnet, and that the local Brahman, with religious skill and secrecy, shaped the bar into a divine fish-machine or machiyantra, which, floating in a basin of oil, he consulted in some private quarter of the ship and when the stars were hid guided the pilot in what direction to steer. Among near seafaring classes were, on the Makran and Sindh east coast of India and that Bengal Orissa and Masulipatam had a large

c18.24

† Reinaud's Mémoire Sur L'Inde, 155. The statement that Naushirvan received Karachi from the king of Serindip (Elliot's History, I, 407; Tabari, II, 221) throws doubt on this expedition to Ceylon. At the close of the sixth century Karachi or Debal cannot have been in the gift of the king of Ceylon. It was in the possession of the Saharai kings of Aror in Upper Sindh perhaps of Shahi Tegin Deva's shortened to Shahinlev, (Compare Cunningham Oriental Congress, I, 342.) According to Garrez (J. As. Ser. VI, Tom. XIII, 382 note 2) this Serendip is Sarandeb that is Syria and Antioch places which Naushirvan is known to have taken. Several other references that seem to imply a close connection between Gujarat and Ceylon are equally doubtful. In the Mahabharata (A.D. 100-300) the Sinhala bring sabharjas (rubies?) elephants housings and heaps of pearls. The meaning of Simhalaka in Samudragupta's inscription (A.D. 350) Early Gujarat History page 64 and note 5 is uncertain. Neither Mihirakula's (A.D. 500) nor Lalitaditya's (A.D. 700) conquest of Ceylon can be historical. In A.D. 1033 when Abul Fatha the Carmathian ruler of Multan was attacked by Mahmud of Ghazni he retired to Ceylon. (Reinaud's Mémoire, 225). When Somnath was taken (A.D. 1026) the people embarked for Ceylon (Ditto, 270).

c18.25

† Compare at a later period (A.D. 1545) the Fatuia's great ship sailing from Kandahar (Gandhar north of Broach) to China with its guard of Abyssinians as a defence against pirates. Reinaud's Abulfeda, clxxv.

c18.26

coasts the Bodhas Kerks and Meds and along the shores of Kachh and Káthiáwád the closely connected Meds and Gurjjaras. In the seventh and eighth centuries the Gurjjaras, chiefly of the Chápa or Chávadá clan, both in Dwárka and Somnáth and also inland, rose to power, a change which, as already noticed, may explain the efforts of the Jats to settle along the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. About A.D. 740 the Chápas or Chávadás, who had for a century and a half been in command in Dwárka and Somnáth, established themselves at Anahilaváda Pattan. According to their tradition king Vanarája (A.D. 720-780) and his successor Yogarája (A.D. 806-841) made great efforts to put down piracy. Yogarája’s sons plundered some Bengal or Bot ships which stress of weather forced into Verával. The king said "My sons with labour we were raising ourselves to be Chávadás of princely rank; your grog throws us back on our old nickname of Chóras or thieves." Yogarája refused to be comforted and mounted the funeral pyre. Dr. Bhagvánlál’s History, 151. This tale seems to be a parable. Yogarája’s efforts to put down piracy seem to have driven large bodies of Jats from the Gujarat coasts. In A.D. 834-35, according to Ibn Alathir (A.D. 834), a fleet manned by Djaths or Jats made a descent on the Tigris. The whole strength of the Khiláfat had to be set in motion to stop them. Those who fell into the hands of the Moslems were sent to Awacarbe on the borders of the Greek empire (Reinard’s Fragments, 201-2). As in the legend, the Chávadá king’s sons, that is the Chauras Mers and Gurjjaras, proved not less dangerous pirates than the Jats whom they had driven out.* About fifty years later, in A.D. 892, Al-Biláduri describes as pirates who scourged the seas the Meds and the people of Sauráshtra or Devpatan or Somnáth who were Chóras or Gurjjaras.† Biláduri (Reinard Sur L’Inde, 159) further notices that the Jats and other Indians had formed the same type of settlement in Persia which the Persians and Arabs had formed in India. During the ninth and tenth centuries the Gujarat kingdom which had been established in Java was at the height of its power. (Ditto, Abulfeda, cclxxxviii.)‡ Early in the tenth century (A.D. 915-930) Masudi (Yule’s Marco Polo, II, 344; Elliot, 1, 65) describes Sokotra as a noted haunt of the Indian corsairs called Bawárij which chase Arab ships bound for India and China. The merchant fleets of the early tenth century were not Arab alone. The Chóras of Anahilaváda sent fleets to Bhot and Chin (Rás Málá, I, 11). Nor were Mers and Chauras the only pirates. Towards the end of the tenth century (A.D. 980) Grahtri the Chudásama, known in story as Graharipu the Ahir of Sorath and Girnár, so passed and repassed the ocean that no one was safe (Ditto, I, 111. In the eleventh century (A.D. 1021) Alberuni (Sachau, II, 104) notes that the Bawárij, who take their name from their boats called báhria or bira, were Meds a seafaring people of Kachh and of Somnáth a great place of call for merchants trading between Sofala in east Africa and China. About the same time (A.D. 1025) when they despaired of withstanding Máhmud of Ghazni the defenders of Somnáth prepared to escape by sea, and after his victory Máhmud is said to have planned an expedition by sea to conquer Ceylon (Tod’s Rajasthan, I, 108). In the twelfth century Idrisi (A.D. 1185) notices that Tatariya dirhams, that is the Gupta (A.D. 319-500) and White Húna (A.D. 400-580) coinage of Sindh and Gujarat, were in use both in Madagascar and in the Malaya islands (Reinard’s Mémoires, 226), and that the merchants of Java could understand the people of Madagascar (Ditto, Abulfeda, cdxxii).§ With the decline of the power of Anahilaváda (A.D. 1250-1300) its fleet ceased to keep order at sea. In A.D. 1290 Marco Polo (Yule’s Ed. II, 325, 328, 341) found the people of Gujarat the most desperate share in colonising both Java and Cambodia cannot be doubted.¹

c18.27

∗ As an example of the readiness with which an inland race of northerners conquer seamanship compare the Franks of the Pontus who about A.D. 270 passed in a few years from the Pontus to the Mediterranean ports and leaving behind them Malta the limit of Greek voyages sailed through Gibraltar to the Baltic. Gibbon, I, 404-405.

c18.28

† Reinard’s Mémoire Sur L’Inde, 200. The traders of Chorwar, that is of the old Chaura or Chápa country near Virával and Mangrol, are now known in Bombay as Chápadias. The received explanation of Chápadia is the roped men it is said to derive allusion to their large and heavy headdress. But as the Periandar headdress is neither specially large nor ungraceful the common explanation can hardly be more than a pun. This suggests that the name Chápadia is a trace of the early Chápa tribe of Gurjjaras who also gave their name to Chápanir. Tod’s (Western India, 250, 251) description of the Chouras race with traditions of having come from the Red Sea and a nautical Arabia is the result of taking for Sokotra Sankodwára that is Bet to the north of Dwárka.

c18.29

‡ According to Abulfeda A.D. 1334 (Reinard’s Abulfeda, ccxliix) some of the besieged fled to Ceylon. Farishtah (Briggs’ Muhammadan Powers, I, 75) remarks that after the fall of Somnáth Máhmud intended to fit out a fleet to conquer Ceylon and Pegu. According to Bird (Mirát-i-Ahmadi, 140) Ceylon or Sirandip remained a dependency of Somnáth till A.D. 1290 when the king Vijayabahu became independent.

c18.30

§ The common element in the two languages may have been the result of Gujarat settlements in Madagascar as well as in Java and Cambodia. This is however doubtful as the common element may be either Arabic or Polynesian.

c18.31

¹ Crawfurd (A.D. 1820) held that all Hindu influence in Java came from Kalinga or north-east Madras. Fergusson (Ind. Arch. 103, Ed. 1876) says: The splendid remains at Amravati show that from the mouths of the Krishna and Godavari the Buddhist of north and north-west India colonised Pegu, Cambodia, and eventually the Island of Java. Compare Tavernier (A.D. 1666: Ball's Translation, I. 174.) Masulipatam is the

c18.32

pirates in existence. More than a hundred corsair vessels went forth every year taking their wives and children with them and staying out the whole summer. They joined in fleets of twenty to thirty and made a sea cordon five or six miles apart. Sokotra was infested by multitudes of Hindu pirates who encamped there and put up their plunder to sale. Ibn Batuta (in Elliot, I. 344-345) fifty years later makes the same complaint. Musalman ascendancy had driven Rajput chiefs to the coast and turned them into pirates. The most notable addition was the Gohils who under Mokheraji Gohil, from his castle on Piram island, ruled the sea till his power was broken by Muhammad Tughlak in A.D. 1345 (Rás Mála, I. 318). Before their overthrow by the Muham-madans what large vessels the Rajput sailors of Gujarat managed is shown by Friar Odoric, who about A.D. 1321 (Stevenson in Kerr's Voyages, XVIII. 324) crossed the Indian ocean in a ship that carried 700 people. How far the Rajputs went is shown by the mention in A.D. 1270 (Yule's Cathay, 87 in Howorth's Mongols, I. 247) of ships sailing between Sumena or Somnath and China. Till the arrival of the Portuguese (A.D. 1500-1508) the Ahmedabad Sultans maintained their position as lords of the sea.* In the fifteenth century Java appears in the state list of foreign bandars which paid tribute (Bird's Gujarat, 131), the tribute probably being a cess or ship tax paid by Gujarat traders with Java in return for the protection of the royal navy.† In east Africa, in A.D. 1498 (J. As. Soc. of Bengal, V. 784) Vasco da Gama found sailors from Cambay and other parts of India, who guided themselves by the help of the stars in the north and south and had nautical instruments of their own. In A.D. 1510 Albuquerque found a strong Hindu element in Java and Malacca. Sumatra was ruled by Pars-meshwara a Hindu whose son by a Chinese mother was called Rajput (Commentaries, II. 63; III. 73-79). After the role of the sea had passed to the European, Gujarat Hindus continued to show marked courage and skill as merchants seamen and pirates. In the seventeenth century the French traveller Mandelslo (A.D. 1638, Travels 101, 103) found Achin in north Sumatra a great centre of trade with Gujarat. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Sanganians or Sangar Rajputs of Mandvi in Kachh and of Navanagar in north Kathiawada were much dreaded. In A.D. 1750 Grose describes the small cruisers of the Sanganians troubling boats going to the Persian Gulf, though they seldom attacked large ships. Between A.D. 1803 and 1808 (Low's Indian Navy, I. 274) pirates from Bet established themselves in the ruined temple at Somnath. In 1820, when the English took Bet and Dwarka from the Waghela among the pirates besides Waghelas were Badhels a branch of Balitors, Bhatias, Kharwas, Lohanas, Makwanas, Rahtors, and Wagharis. A trace of the Chauras remained in the neighbour-ing chief of Aramra.‡ Nor had the old love of seafaring deserted the Kathiawada chiefs. In the beginning of the present century (A.D. 1825) Tod (Western India, 452; compare Rás Mála, I. 245) tells how with Biji Singh of Bhavnagar his port was his grand hobby and shipbuilding his chief interest and pleasure: also how Rao Ghor of Kachh (A.D. 1760-1778) built equipped and manned a ship at Mandvi which without European or other outside assistance safely made the voyage to England and back to the Malabar Coast where arriving during the south-west monsoon the vessel seems to have been wrecked.§

c18.33

* When in A.D. 1533 he secured Bahadur's splendid jewelled belt Humayun said These are the trappings of the lord of the sea. Bayley's Gujarat, 380. † Compare in Bombay Public Diary 10, pages 197-202 of 1736-37, the revenue bondings Surat and Cambay with entries of two per cent on all goods imported and exported from either of these places by traders under the Honourable Company's protection. ‡ These Badhels seem to be Hamilon's (A.D. 1720) Warels of Chance (New Account, I. 141). This Chance is Chach near Diu apparently the place from which the Bhatias get their Bombay name of Chachia. Towards the close of the eighteenth century Bhatias from Chach seem to have formed a pirate settlement near Dahanu on the Thana coast. Major Price (Memoirs of a Field Officer, 372) notes (A.D. 1792 June) the cautionary speed with which in travelling from Surat to Bombay by land they passed Dahanu through the Chaniah jungle the district of a piratical community of that name. § According to Sir A. Burnes (Jl. Bombay Geog. Soc. VI. (1836) 27, 28) the special skill of the people of Kachh in navigation and ship-building was due to a young Rajput of Kachh, Ramsingh Malam, who about a century earlier had gone to Holland and learned those arts. See Bombay Gazetteer, V. 116 note 2.

c18.34

Reasons have been given in support of the settlement in Java of large bodies of men from the north-west coasts of India and evidence has been offered to show that the objections taken to such a migration have little practical force. It remains to consider the time and the conditions of the Gujarát conquest and settlement of Java and Cambodia. The Javan date S. 525 that is A.D. 603 may be accepted as marking some central event in a process which continued for at least half a century before and after the beginning of the seventh century. Reasons have been given for holding that neither the commercial nor the political ascendancy of Rome makes it probable that to Rome the Rúm of the legends refers. The notable Roman element in the architecture of Java and Cambodia may suggest that the memory of great Roman builders kept for Rome a place in the local legends. But the Roman element seems not to have come direct into the buildings of Java or Cambodia; as at Amrávati at the Krishna mouth, the classic characteristics came by way of the Panjáb (Táhia) only, in the case of Java, not by the personal taste and study of a prince, but as an incident of conquest and settlement. Who then was the ruler of Rúm near Taxila, who led a great settlement of Hindus from the Panjáb to Java. Names in appearance like Rome, occur in north-west India. None are of enough importance to explain the prince's title.² There remains the word *rum* or *rum* applied to salt land in the south Panjáb, in Márwár, and in north Sindh.³ The great battle of Kárur, about sixty miles south-east of Multán, in which apparently about A.D. 539 Yasodharmman of Málwa defeated the famous White Húna conqueror Mihirakula (A.D. 500-550) is described as fought in the land of Rúm.⁴ This great White Húna defeat is apparently the origin of the legend of the prince of *Rúm* who retired by sea to Java. At the time of the battle of Kárur the south Panjáb, together with the north of Sindh, was under the Sáhrais of Aror in north Sindh, whose coins show them to have been not only White Húnas, but of the same Jávia family which the great conquerors Toramána

c18.35

² Idrisi A.D. 1135 (Elliot, I. 92) has a Romaka a middling town on the borders of the desert between Multán and Seistan. Cunningham (Ancient Geog. 252) has a Romaka Bazaar near where the Nára the old Indus enters the Ran of Kachh.

c18.36

³ Cunningham's Num. Chron. 3rd Ser. VIII, 241. The Mahábhárata Romakas (Wilson's Works, VII. 376; Cunningham's Anc. Geog. 187) may have taken their name from one of these salt stretches. Ibn Khurdádbeh (A.D. 913) mentions Ramala (Elliot, I. 14, 87, 92, 98) as one of the countries of Sindh. In connection with the town Romala Al Idrisi A.D. 1153 (Elliot, I. 71, 93) has a district three days' journey from Kallala.

c18.37

⁴ Cunningham's Numismatic Chronicle 3rd Ser. VIII, 236. The date of Kárur is uncertain. Fergusson (Arch. III. 746) puts it at A.D. 544. It was apparently earlier as in an inscription of A.D. 532 Yasodharmman king of Málwa claims to hold lands which were never held by either Guptas or Húnas. Cunningham Num. Chron. 3rd Ser. VIII, 236. Compare History Test, 76,77.

c18.38

only place in the Bay of Bengal from which vessels sail eastwards for Bengal, Arrakan, Pegu, Siam, Sumatra, Cochin China, and the Manillas and west to Hormuz, Makha, and Madagascar. Inscriptions (Indian Antiquary, V. 314; VI. 356) bear out the correctness of the connection between the Kalinga coast and Java which Java legends have preserved. As explained in Dr. Bhandarkar's interesting article on the eastern passage of the *Sakas* (Jour. B. B. R. A. S. XVIII) certain inscriptions also show a Magadhi element which may have reached Java from Sumatra and Sumatra from the coast either of Bengal or of Orissa. Later information tends to increase the east and south Indian share. Compare Notices et Extraits des Manuscripts de la Bibliotheque Nationale Vol. XXVII. (Partie II) 2 Fascicule page 350.

c18.39

Compare Hiuen Tsiang in Beal's Buddhist Records, II. 222 note 102. Tahia may be Tochara that is Baktris, but the Panjab seems more likely. Compare Beal's Life of Hiuen Tsiang, 126 note 2.

c18.40

and Mihirakula adorned. So close a connection with Mihirakula makes it probable that the chief in charge of the north of the Aror dominions shared in the defeat and disgrace of Kārnr. Seeing that the power of the Sābaráis of Aror spread as far south as the Kāthiāwāda ports of Somnāth and Diu, and probably also of Diul at the Indus mouth, if the defeated chief of the south Panjāb was unable or unwilling to remain as a vassal to his conqueror, no serious difficulty would stand in the way of his passage to the seaboard of Aror or of his finding in Diu and other Sindh and Gujarāt ports sufficient transport to convey him and his followers by sea to Java.¹ This then may be the chief whom the Cambodian story names Phra Tong or Thom apparently Great Lord that is Mahārāja.²

c18.41

¹ Jour. As. Soc. Bl. VII. (Plate I. 298; Barnes' Bokhāra, III. 76; Elliot's History, I. 405. Diu which is specially mentioned as a Sāharsi port was during the seventh and eighth centuries a place of call for China ships. Yule's Cathay, I. lxxix.

c18.42

² Phra like the Panjāb Porus of the embassy to Augustus in B.C. 30 (though this Porus may be so called merely because he ruled the lands of Alexander's Porus) may seem to be the favourite Parthian name Phraates. But no instance of the name Phraates is noted among White Hūna chiefs and the use of Phra as in Phra Bot or Lord Buddha seems ground for holding that the Phra Thong of the Cambodia legend means Great Lord.

c18.43

The success of the Javan enterprise would tempt others to follow especially as during the latter half of the sixth and almost the whole of the seventh centuries, the state of North India favoured migration. Their defeats by Sassanians and Turks between A.D. 550 and 600 would close to the White Hūnas the way of retreat northwards by either the Indus or the Kābul valleys. If hard pressed the alternative was a retreat to Kashmir or an advance south or east to the sea. When, in the early years of the seventh century (A.D. 600-606), Prabhākaravardhana the father of Srī Harsha of Magadha (A.D. 610-642) defeated the king of Gandhāra, the Hūnas, the king of Sindh, the Gurjaras, the Lāṭas, and the king of Malwa,³ and when, about twenty years later, further defeats were inflicted by Srī Harsha himself numbers of refugees would gather to the Gujarat ports eager to escape further attack and to share the prosperity of Java. It is worthy of note that the details of Prabhākaravardhana's conquests explain how Gandhāra and Lāṭa are both mentioned in the Java legends: how north-erners from the Panjāb were able to pass to the coast: how the Mārwār stories give the king of Malwa a share in the migrations: how the fleets may have started from any Sindh or Gujarāt port; and how with emigrants there may have sailed artists and sculptors acquainted both with the monasteries and stupas of the Kābul valley and Peshāwar and with the carvings of the Ajanta caves. During the second half of the seventh century the advance of the Turks from the north and of the Arabs both by sea (A.D. 637) and through Persia (A.D. 650-660),⁴ the conquering progress of a Chinese army from Magadha to Bannian in A.D. 645-650⁵; the overthrow (A.D. 642) of

c18.44

³ Epigraphia Indica, I. 67.

c18.45

⁴ In A.D. 637 raiders attacked Thāna from Oman and Broach and Sindh from Bahrein. Reinaud's Mémoire Sur L'Inde, 170, 176.

c18.46

⁵ The passage of a Chinese army from Magadha to the Gandhāra river about A.D. 650 seems beyond question. The emperor sent an ambassador Ouang-h-wuentse to Srī Harsha. Before Ouang-h-wuentse arrived Srī Harsha was dead (died A.D. 642), and his place taken by an usurping minister (Se)na-fu-ti) Alana-chun. The usurper drove off the envoy, who retired to Tibet then under the great Songbtsan. With help from Tibet and from the Rāja of Nepāl Ouang returned, defeated Alana, and pursued him to the Gandhāra river (Khien-to-wei). The passage was forced, the army captured, the king queen and king's sons were led prisoners to China, and 580 cities surrendered, the magistrates proclaimed the victory in the temple of the ancients and the emperor raised Ouang to the rank of Tch'ao-san-ta-fore. Journal Asiatique Ser.

c18.47

Appendix IV. JAVA.

c18.48

the Buddhist Sáharás by their usurping Bráhmanist minister Chach and his persecution of the Jats must have resulted in a fairly constant movement of northern Indians southwards from the ports of Sindh and Gujarát.¹ In the leading migrations though fear may have moved the followers, enterprise and tidings of Java's prosperity would stir the leaders. The same longing that tempted Alexander to put to sea from the Indus mouth; Trajan (A.D. 116) from the mouth of the Tigris; and Mahmúd of Ghazni from Somnáth must have drawn Saka Húna and Gurjjara chiefs to lead their men south to the land of rubies and of gold.²

c18.49

¹ IV. Tom. X. pages 81-121. The translator thinks the whole war was in the east of India and that the mention of the Gandhára river is a mistake. The correctness of this view is doubtful. It is to be remembered that this was a time of the widest spread of Chinese power. They held Balk and probably Bamian. Yule's Cathay, I. lxviii. Compare Julien in Jour. As. Soc. Ser. IV. Tom. X. 289-291.

c18.50

² Regarding these disturbances see Beal's Life of Hiuen Tsiang, 155; Max Müller's India, 288. The Arab writers (A.D. 715) notice to what a degraded state Chach had reduced the Jats. In comparing the relative importance of the western and eastern Indian strains in Java it is to be remembered that the western element has been overlaid by a late Bengal and Kalinga layer of fugitives from the Tibetan conquest of Bengal in the eighth century, the Babu with the Gurkha at his heels, and during the ninth and later centuries by bands of Buddhists withdrawing from a land where their religion was no longer honoured.

c18.51

Of the appearance and condition of the Hindus who settled in Java during the seventh and eighth centuries the Arab travellers Sulaimán A.D. 850 and Masúdi A.D. 915 have left the following details. The people near the volcanoes have white skins pierced ears and shaved heads: their religion is both Bráhmanic and Buddhist; their trade is in the costliest articles camphor aloes cloves and sandalwood.³

c18.52

³ In A.D. 116 after the capture of Babylon and Ctesiphon Hadrian sailed down the Tigris and the Persian Gulf, embarked on the waters of the South Sea, made inquiries about India and regretted he was too old to get there. Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, VI. 313. Renaud's Abulfeda, ccxc.

Cambodia

c18.s1.1

The close connection between Java and Cambodia, the alternate supremacy of Cambodia in Java and of Java in Cambodia, the likelihood of settlers passing from Java to Cambodia explain, to a considerable extent, why the traditions and the buildings of Java and Cambodia should point to a common origin in north-west India. The question remains: Do the people and buildings of Cambodia contain a distinct north Hindu element which worked its way south and east not by sea but by land across the Himalayas and Tibet and down the valley of the Yang-tse-kiang to Yunnan and Angkor. Whether the name Cambodia proves an actual race or historical connection with Kamboja or the Kábul valley is a point on which authorities disagree. Sir H. Yule held that the connection was purely literary and that as in the case of Inthasatha-puri or Indraprastha (Dahli) the later capital of Cambodia and of Ayodhya or Oudh the capital of Assam no connection existed beyond the application to a new settlement of ancient worshipful Indian place-names. The objection to applying this rule to Cambodia is that except to immigrants from the Kábul valley the name is of too distant and also of too scanty a reputation to be chosen in preference to places in the nearer and holier lands of Tirhut and Magadha. For this reason, and because the view is supported by the notable connection between the two styles of architecture, it seems advisable to accept Mr. Fergusson's decision that the name Cambodia was given to a portion of Cochin-China by immigrants from Kamboja that is from the Kábul valley. (Traces remain of more than one migration from India to Indo-China. The earliest is the mythic account of the conversion of Indo-China to Buddhism before the time of Asoka (B.C. 240). A migration in the first century A.D. of Yavanas or Sakas, from Tamluk or Ratnávate on the Hugli, is in agreement with the large number of Indian place-names recorded by Ptolemy (A.D. 160).¹ Of this migration Hiuen Tsiang's name Yavana (Yen-mo-na) for Cambodia may be a trace.² A Saka invasion further explains Pausanias' (A.D. 170) name Sakas for Cochin-China and his description of the people as Skythians mixed with Indians.³ During the fifth and sixth centuries a fresh migration seems to have set in. Cambodia was divided into shore and inland and the name Cambose applied to both.⁴ Chinese records notice an embassy from the king of Cambodia in A.D. 617.⁵ Among the deciphered Cambodian inscriptions a considerable share belong to a Bráhmanic dynasty whose local initial date is in the early years of the seventh century,⁶ and one of whose kings Somafarmman (A.D. 610) is recorded to have held daily Mahábhárata readings in the temples.⁷ Of a fresh wave of Buddhists, who seem to have belonged to the northern branch, the earliest deciphered inscription is A.D. 953 (S. 875) that is about 350 years later.⁸ Meanwhile, though, so far as information goes, the new capital of Angkor on the north bank of lake Tale Sap about 200 miles up the Mekong river was not founded till A.D. 1078 (S. 1000),⁹ the neighbourhood of the holy lake was already sacred and the series of temples of which the Nakhonwat or Nága's Shrine¹⁰ is one of the latest and finest examples, was begun at least as early as A.D. 825 (S. 750), and

c18.s1.2

⁴ The origin of the name Kamboja seems to be Kámbojápura an old name of Kábul preserved almost in its present form in Ptolemy's (A.D. 160) Kaboura. The word is doubtfully connected with the Achaemenian Kambyses (B.C. 529-521) the Kambujiya of the Behistun inscription. In the fifth of the Aśoka edicts (B.C. 240) Kamboja holds the middle distance between Pesháwar and Yena or Baktria. According to Yáska, whose uncertain date varies from B.C. 500 to B.C. 200, the Kámbojas spoke Sanskrit (Muir's Sanskrit Texts, II. 355 note 145). In the last battle of the Mahábhárata, A.D. 100 to 300 (Jl. Roy. As. Soc. [1842] VII. 139-140), apparently from near Bamian the Kámbojas ranked as Mlechchhas with Sakas Daradas and Húnas. One account (Fergusson, III. 685) places the original site of the Kámbojas in the country round Taxila east of the Indus. This is probably incorrect. A trace of the Kambojas in their original seat seems to remain in the Kaumojas of the Hindu Kush.

c18.s1.3

¹ See Hunter's Orissa, I. 310.

c18.s1.4

² Yavana to the south-west of Siam, Beal's Life of Hiuen Tsiang, xxxii.

c18.s1.5

³ Quoted in Bunbury's Ancient Geography, II. 669. Bunbury suggests that Pausanias may have gained his information from Marcus Aurelius' (A.D. 165) ambassador to China. *Jour. Bengal Soc. VII. (I.) 317.*

c18.s1.6

⁴ Remusat Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques, I. 77 in Jour. Asiatique Series, VI. Tom. XIX. page 199 note 1; Fergusson's Architecture, III. 678.

c18.s1.7

⁵ Barth in Journal Asiatique Ser. VI, Tom. XIX, page 150.

c18.s1.8

⁶ Barth in Journal Asiatique, X. 57.

c18.s1.9

⁷ Barth in Jour. As. Ser. VI. Tom. XIX. page 120; Journal Royal Asiatic Society, XIV. (1882) cii.

c18.s1.10

⁸ Barth in Journal Asiatique Ser. VI. Tom. XIX. pages 181, 186.

c18.s1.11

⁹ Mr. Fergusson (Architecture page 666) and Colonel Yule (Ency. Brit. Cambodia) accept the local Buddhist rendering of Nakhonwat as the City Settlement. Against this it is be noted (Ditto ditto) that nagara city corrupts locally into Angkor. Nagara therefore can hardly be the origin of the local Nakhon. Farther as the local Buddhists claim the temple for Buddha they were bound to find in Nakhon some source other than its original meaning of Snake. The change finds a close parallel in the Nága that is snake or Skythian now Nágara or city Bráhman of Gujarat.

c18.s1.12

Appendix IV. CAMBODIA.

c18.s1.13.1

Nakhonwat itself seems to have been completed and was being embellished in A.D. 950 (S. 875).¹ During the ninth and tenth centuries by conquest and otherwise considerable interchange took place between Java and Cambodia.² As many of the inscriptions are written in two Indian characters a northern and a southern³ two migrations by sea seem to have taken place one from the Orissa and Masulipatam coasts and the other, with the same legend of the prince of Râm land, from the ports of Sindh and Gujarát.⁴ The question remains how far there is trace of such a distinct migration as would explain the close resemblance noted by Fergusson between the architecture of Kashmir and Cambodia as well as the northern element which Fergusson recognises in the religion and art of Cambodia.⁵ The people by whom this Panjáb and Kashmir influence may have been introduced from the north are the people who still call themselves Khmers to whose skill as builders the magnificence of Cambodian temples lakes and bridges is apparently due. Of these people, who, by the beginning of the eleventh century had already given their name to the whole of Cambodia, Alberuni (A.D. 1031) says: The Kumairs are whitish of short stature and Turk-like build. They follow the religion of the Hindus and have the practice of piercing their ears.⁶ It will be noticed that so far as information is available the apparent holiness of the neighbourhood of Angkor had lasted for at least 250 years before A.D.

c18.s1.13.2

1078 when it was chosen as a capital. This point is in agreement with Mr. Fergusson's view that the details of Nakhonwat and other temples of that series show that the builders came neither by sea nor down the Ganges valley but by way of Kashmir and the back of the Himalayas.⁷ Though the evidence is incomplete and to some extent speculative the following considerations suggest a route and a medium through which the Roman and Greek elements in the early (A.D. 100-500) architecture of the Kábul valley and Pesháwar may have been carried inland to Cambodia. It may perhaps be accepted that the Ephthalites or White Húnas and a share of the Kedarites, that is of the later Little Yuechi from Gandhára the Pesháwar country, retreated to Kashmir before the father of Sri Harsha (A.D. 590-606) and afterwards (A.D. 606-612) before Sri Harsha himself.⁸ Further it seems fair to assume that from Kashmir they moved into Tibet and were the western Turks by whose aid in the second half of the seventh century Srongbtsan or Srongdzan-gambo (A.D. 640-698), the founder of Tibetan power and civilization, overran the Tarim valley and western China.¹ During the first years of the eighth century (A.D. 703) a revolt in Nepal and the country of the Brahmans was crushed by Srongdzan's successor Donsarong,² and the supremacy of Tibet was so firmly established in Bengal that, for over 200 years, the Bay of Bengal was known as the sea of Tibet.³ In A.D.

First 67 of 107 passages. Read on

Cites (7)