the island, were
mentioned as being especially celebrated in the native chronicles. These
chronicles, it is true, give us the names and dates of various earlier
kingdoms, and a variety of information about their respective dynasties;
but for all practical purposes the history of the Hindu period, as at
present revealed, may be summed up in a sentence of Crawfurd. From the
latter part of the twelfth century to the overthrow of Majapahit (1478),
"a number of independent states existed in Java, and the religion of the
people was a modified Hinduism." Antiquarian research further tells us
that this series of Hindu states commenced in the centre of the island,
and that it was closed by the western kingdom of Pajajaran, which
existed as early as the first half of the eleventh century, and the
eastern kingdom of Majapahit, which was itself succeeded by the first
Mohammedan empire of Demak. Remains of the capital cities of both these
Hindu kingdoms are in existence. Those of Pajajaran, which are to be
found forty miles from Batavia, are exceedingly meagre, and appear to be
the work of a primitive epoch. Those of Majapahit, close by Soerabaia,
are numerous and magnificent.

But the chronicles which make these kingdoms the subject of their
narratives were not composed until the Mohammedan period was well
advanced; or, at least, if they had a previous existence, they were then
remodelled under the direction of the susunans, or emperors. They have,
therefore, to be regarded with considerable suspicion. In the case of
the chronicles which relate contemporary events, we are on surer ground.
But such is the nature of the Javanese, and such the literary character
of the babad, that even here we are by no means certain to meet with
actual facts.

The babad is a poem composed in a common Javanese measure, which
purports to give an account of historical persons and events.
Sometimes it relates the fortunes of empires; sometimes it degenerates
into a mere genealogical tree. Every Javan "prince" has his "babad," in
which the names of his ancestors and their deeds are recounted.
Remembering the fertility of the Eastern imagination, and the despotic
character of Eastern rulers, it is easy to understand that such babads
were more often than not reduced in point of veracity to the standard of
an average fairy tale. M. Brumund, whose remarks on this subject are
embodied in Leemans' work on the Boro-Boedoer temple, deals very
severely with the