DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.75620#0091
CHAPTER VI
GANE^A IN JAVA, BALI, BORNEO
THERE are no ancient records either in India or Java which throw light on the
early exodus of the Hindus across the seas to the Malay Archipelago, carrying
with them their culture and religion and imposing the worship of their gods.
Java may have been known to the Hindus, nevertheless, at a very early date, for
the Sanskrit name ' Yava-dvipa', found in the ancient texts of the Rdmdyana, refers,
it is believed, to the 'island of Java'.1 The word occurs in the text of the epic poem,
after the account of the abduction of Sita, by the ten-headed god Havana, when
Hanuman, chief of the monkeys, orders them to seek for the wife of Rama; and
among other places he suggests that they look for her in 'Yava-dvipa'.
It is not known at what time the Hindus actually established themselves in Java,
but the Buddhist traveller Fa-hsien on his way back to China from India in the year
A.D. 414 stopped at 'Yava-dvipa' and describes the island as peopled by 'heretics
and Brahmans'.2 From this, it is evident that Brahmanism was flourishing there
as early as the fifth century; but no inscription testifies to Brahmanic rites until the
eighth century, when a stone inscription dated A.D. 7323 found at Chantal gives an
account of the consecration of a Higa, with invocations to 'Siva, Brahma, and
Visnu'. The fact that Siva is mentioned first in the Trimurti shows that he took
precedence over Brahma and testifies to his popularity in Java, even were it not
plainly evident from the many sanctuaries dedicated to the Lord of the Trident
which were found on the island.
It is thus not surprising that statues of Ganesa, son of Siva, should be met with
in great numbers throughout the Malay Archipelago. There is, however, no evidence
of an ancient Ganesa cult, no temples seem to have been dedicated to him alone;
but his images are sometimes to be found, as in the rock-cut temples of India, in a
niche beside the Siva sanctuaries.
In Java as in India, no transitional form of Ganesa has as yet been met with
unless the roughly carved elephant-headed deity discovered in west Java4 and a
small bronze image now in the British Museum5 be accepted as primitive concep-
tions of the Elephant-faced god.
According to Krom,6 the crude stone sculpture may be only an unfinished attempt
to produce an image of Ganesa; but the representation is so primitive even in its
unfinished state that one is tempted to give it a very early date.
The figure is two-armed; the legs are missing, and there is no head-dress; but
above the forehead is incised an uneven line evidently to indicate the hair. The one
eye is not round and staring as in the early Indian forms but elongated, and, although
traced by a simple incision, resembles a human eye. The ears are large, human in
1 B. and B., Sir Charles Eliot, vol. iii, p. 152, 3 A. of I. and J., Vogel, p. 20, and B. and B.,
and Buddhist Records, Legge, p. 133. Sir Charles Ehot, vol. iii, p. 154.
2 Idem, p. 133, and v. Pour 1'Histoire du Rama- 4 v. Pl. 29 (b). 5 v. Pl. 29 (a),
yana, by Sylvain Levi. 6 Inleidung, vol. ii, pp. 391-4.
GANE^A IN JAVA, BALI, BORNEO
THERE are no ancient records either in India or Java which throw light on the
early exodus of the Hindus across the seas to the Malay Archipelago, carrying
with them their culture and religion and imposing the worship of their gods.
Java may have been known to the Hindus, nevertheless, at a very early date, for
the Sanskrit name ' Yava-dvipa', found in the ancient texts of the Rdmdyana, refers,
it is believed, to the 'island of Java'.1 The word occurs in the text of the epic poem,
after the account of the abduction of Sita, by the ten-headed god Havana, when
Hanuman, chief of the monkeys, orders them to seek for the wife of Rama; and
among other places he suggests that they look for her in 'Yava-dvipa'.
It is not known at what time the Hindus actually established themselves in Java,
but the Buddhist traveller Fa-hsien on his way back to China from India in the year
A.D. 414 stopped at 'Yava-dvipa' and describes the island as peopled by 'heretics
and Brahmans'.2 From this, it is evident that Brahmanism was flourishing there
as early as the fifth century; but no inscription testifies to Brahmanic rites until the
eighth century, when a stone inscription dated A.D. 7323 found at Chantal gives an
account of the consecration of a Higa, with invocations to 'Siva, Brahma, and
Visnu'. The fact that Siva is mentioned first in the Trimurti shows that he took
precedence over Brahma and testifies to his popularity in Java, even were it not
plainly evident from the many sanctuaries dedicated to the Lord of the Trident
which were found on the island.
It is thus not surprising that statues of Ganesa, son of Siva, should be met with
in great numbers throughout the Malay Archipelago. There is, however, no evidence
of an ancient Ganesa cult, no temples seem to have been dedicated to him alone;
but his images are sometimes to be found, as in the rock-cut temples of India, in a
niche beside the Siva sanctuaries.
In Java as in India, no transitional form of Ganesa has as yet been met with
unless the roughly carved elephant-headed deity discovered in west Java4 and a
small bronze image now in the British Museum5 be accepted as primitive concep-
tions of the Elephant-faced god.
According to Krom,6 the crude stone sculpture may be only an unfinished attempt
to produce an image of Ganesa; but the representation is so primitive even in its
unfinished state that one is tempted to give it a very early date.
The figure is two-armed; the legs are missing, and there is no head-dress; but
above the forehead is incised an uneven line evidently to indicate the hair. The one
eye is not round and staring as in the early Indian forms but elongated, and, although
traced by a simple incision, resembles a human eye. The ears are large, human in
1 B. and B., Sir Charles Eliot, vol. iii, p. 152, 3 A. of I. and J., Vogel, p. 20, and B. and B.,
and Buddhist Records, Legge, p. 133. Sir Charles Ehot, vol. iii, p. 154.
2 Idem, p. 133, and v. Pour 1'Histoire du Rama- 4 v. Pl. 29 (b). 5 v. Pl. 29 (a),
yana, by Sylvain Levi. 6 Inleidung, vol. ii, pp. 391-4.