47

SYNOPSIS, PART ONE

RELIGION AND ETHICS 10.000 Old Javanese Religious Literature.*

In the pre-Islamic period of Javanese cultural history, Indian religious rites were performed at Court and elsewhere in the country where expert officiants were avail able. It is impossible to ascertain the extent of the common people’s participation in rites and offerings, nor do we know anything about common freemen’s and bondmen’s devotion to the Indian gods. Perhaps it is safe to assume that for several centuries between 900 and 1500 A.D., and in large areas of the country (which was sparsely populated), common country people, either freemen or bondmen, had a small interest in strange rites and offerings to' gods with unfamiliar names. For a considerable majority of the Java nese people, living in the restricted circle of small rural communities, rites connected with ancient indigenous myths, ancestor- worship and cults of local spirits of moun tains, sources and rivers probably were suf ficient religious bindings with the Unseen (see 48.600 and 49.200). In 14.000 attention is drawn to the probable analogy of Indian religion and Islam as foreign ideologies which for a long time remained the spiritual prop erty of a cultural elite, not spreading nor appreciated among the common people in the country.