The evidence at our disposal points to the fact that Java received most of its civilization from Hindu colonists, but who were these colonists and from what part of India did they come? We must not think of any sudden and definite conquest, but rather of a continuous current of immigration starting perhaps from several springs and often merely trickling, but occasionally swelling into a flood. Native traditions collected by Raffles[382] ascribe the introduction of Brahmanism and the Śaka era to the sage Tritresta and represent the invaders as coming from Kalinga or from Gujarat.
The difference of locality may be due to the fact that there was a trade route running from Broach to Masulipatam through Tagara (now Ter). People arriving in the Far East by this route might be described as coming either from Kalinga, where they embarked, or from Gujarat, their country of origin. Dubious as is the authority of these legends, they perhaps preserve the facts in outline. The earliest Javanese inscriptions are written in a variety of the Vengi script and the T'ang annals call the island Kaling as well as Java. It is therefore probable that early tradition represented Kalinga as the home of the Hindu invaders. But later immigrants may have come from other parts. Fa-Hsien could find no Buddhists in Java in 418, but Indian forms of Mahayanism indubitably flourished there in later centuries. The Kalasan inscription dated 778 A.D. and engraved in Nâgari characters records the erection of a temple to Târâ and of a Mahayanist monastery. The change in both alphabet and religion suggests the arrival of new influences from another district and the Javanese traditions about Gujarat are said to find an echo among the bards of western India and in such proverbs as, they who go to Java come not back[383]. In the period of the Hunnish and Arab invasions there may have been many motives for emigration from Gujarat. The land route to Kalinga was probably open and the sea route offers no great difficulties[384].
Another indication of connection with north-western India is found in the Chinese work _Kao Sêng Chuan_ (519 A.D.) or _Biographies of Eminent Monks_, if the country there called Shê-p'o can be identified with Java[385]. It is related that Guṇavarman, son of the king of Kashmir, became a monk and, declining the throne, went first to Ceylon and then to the kingdom of Shê-p'o, which he converted to Buddhism. He died at Nanking in 431 B.C.