Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/262

218 ANCIENT RELIGION OF THE much can be said. They cannot be translated, and are in fact in an unknown character. They are all found in the country of the Sundas, and no where else, from whence there can be little doubt, but that they exhibit a specimen of the national character of that people, before it was superseded by that of the Javanese, so that this adds one more to the numerous alphabets of the Indian islands, and another argument in proof of the facility of inventing alphabets. Having given this account of the antiquities of Java, I shall endeavour to render an account of the ancient religion of the Javanese, — to describe the periods in which it flourisiied and decayed, — and conclude by offering some remarks on the manner and circumstances of its introduction. The most prominent features of the first class of temples are — the extraordinary preponderance of images of Siwa and his family, and of the Linga and Yoni, the emblems of his peculiar worship, — -the frequency of images of Buddha, — the pointed decency of the sculptures and ornaments of the temples, — the existence of the images of Siwa and his family, and no others, as the objects of worship in the great central temples, — and the appearance of those of Buddha in the small exterior ones, apparently in the character of devotees, and no w here, as far as my experience extends, as objects of worship. From all this it will perhaps be fair to infer, that the Hinduism of Java was the worship of Siwa and