129

21.700 Early Javanese versions of the Sacred History of Islam.*

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Islam was introduced into East Java by Muhammadan traders coming from Champa, in Javanese called Cëmpa, in Further India. Before that time Muslims had been known in Javanese centres of administration and commerce, but their religion was put on a par with the rites and beliefs of other for eigners, Indians and Chinese, who * 1 fre quented the seaports of the Archipelago. Evidently a long time was needed for Islam and Muhammadan culture to become accli matized in Java. In the fifteenth century Muhammadan mercantile kingdoms on the North Coast superseded the ancient inland realm of the Majapahit-Kadiri Kings. According to seventeenth century Central Javanese histor ical tradition, the old East Javanese capital was taken and sacked by a combination of forces from the maritime districts of Central Java. Before the catastrophe Majapahit’s political power had been steadily declining. Probably there is truth in the later Javanese an d Balinese historical tradition saying that m that period the Majapahit Court and many ecclesiastical gentlemen and scholars preferred exile to becoming Muslims. They fled the country and went to Bali. By that immigration the anti-Islam faction in Bali was straightened, and so the native rulers °f the island were able to maintain the old pne-Islamic social and religious order. The historical and mythological texts which are registered in the following paragraphs (21.700— 25.440) belong mainly to Era C of Javanese cultural history, the Pasisir period (see 00020). I he literary idioms are mainly East Javanese and Pasisir Javanese (see 00030, groups 3 and 4).

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries most of the islands of the Archipelago were converted to Islam. Bali was an exception. Desire for mercantile expansion in combi nation with zeal for the spread of the Faith drove Muhammadan traders from young maritime kingdoms on the North Coast of Java to establish or re-establish connections with countries oversea, in Sumatra (Palém- barj), Borneo (Tan jut) Pura), Celebes (Makasar) and Lombok. Probably in many cases Muslims continued and expanded where in the pre-Islamic period others had laid foundations of interinsular commerce and cultural relations. The culture which, radiating from the young Muslim mercantile communities in Javanese North Coast towns, spread along the coasts of the islands bor dering on the Java sea, is called Pasisir (i.e. Coast) culture (see 00020). Pasisir culture preserved many elements of pre-Islamic culture, especially in the pro vinces of social order, law, art and belles- lettres. New elements, of Islamic origin, were added. In the field of religion Islam superseded pre-Islamic religious speculation and ritual. In the countries reached by Ja vanese Pasisir culture Muslim religious in fluence never was strong enough to oust all remnants of pre-Islamic times, though. On the contrary, in the Pasisir period the blending of elements of culture of different origin, indigenous, Indian and Islamic, was a striking feature. It resulted in the national Javanese civilization of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The blending of ele ments of culture of different origin is illus trated by the various kinds of script in use