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 Saka 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 Nagari characters records the erection of a temple to Tara 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 Seng Chuan (519 A.D.) or Biographies of Eminent Monks, if the country there called She-p’o can be identified with Java.[385] It is related that Gunavarman, son of the king of Kashmir, became a monk and, declining the throne, went first to Ceylon and then to the kingdom of She-p’o, which he converted to Buddhism.  He died at Nanking in 431 B.C.

Taranatha[386] states that Indo-China which he calls the Koki country,[387] was first evangelized in the time of Asoka and that Mahayanism was introduced there by the disciples of Vasubandhu, who probably died about 360 A.D., so that the activity of his followers would take place in the fifth century.  He also says that many clergy from the Koki country were in Madhyadesa from the time of Dharmapala (about 800 A.D.) onwards, and these two statements, if they can be accepted, certainly explain the character of Javanese and Cambojan Buddhism.  Taranatha is a confused and untrustworthy writer, but his statement about the disciples of Vasubandhu is confirmed by the fact that Dignaga, who was one of them, is the only authority cited in the Kamahayanikan.[388]