Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c10.25

c10.25

The history of Kambuja and Champā on the one hand, and that of Java on the other, exhibit two parallel developments. In the first case, Sanskrit was the dominant language and long cultivated as the form of literary expression, while the indigenous dialect gradually grew under its aegis till it superseded the former as a vehicle of literary expression after the Hindu culture had spent its force in the twelfth or thirteen century A.D. In Java, on the other hand, Sanskrit never attained a dominant position, and the indigenous dialect, though strongly influenced by Sanskrit, attained a highly developed literary form at an early stage. It has left no evidence of original composition in Sanskrit, but bequeathed a large legacy of Indo-Javanese literature. Champā and Kambuja on the other hand can boast of a rich crop of Sanskrit literature, but have left no idigenous literature worth the name.