Madjapahit (or Wilwatikta) now became the premier state of Java, and had some permanency.  Eleven sovereigns, including three queens, are enumerated by the Pararaton until its collapse in 1468.  We learn from the Ming annals and other Chinese documents[398] that it had considerable commercial relations with China and sent frequent missions:  also that Palembang was a vassal of Java.  But the general impression left by the Pararaton is that during the greater part of its existence Madjapahit was a distracted and troubled kingdom.  In 1403, as we know from both Chinese and Javanese sources, there began a great war between the western and eastern kingdoms, that is between Madjapahit and Balambangan in the extreme east, and in the fifteenth century there was twice an interregnum.  Art and literature, though not dead, declined and events were clearly tending towards a break-up or revolution.  This appears to have been consummated in 1468, when the Pararaton simply says that King Pandansalas III left the Kraton, or royal residence.

It is curious that the native traditions as to the date and circumstances in which Madjapahit fell should be so vague, but perhaps the end of Hindu rule in Java was less sudden and dramatic than we are inclined to think.  Islam had been making gradual progress and its last opponents were kings only in title.  The Chinese mention the presence of Arabs in the seventh century, and the geography called Ying-yai Sheng-lan (published in 1416), which mentions Grisse, Soerabaja and Madjapahit as the principal towns of Java, divides the inhabitants into three classes:  (a) Mohammedans who have come from the west, “their dress and food is clean and proper”; (b) the Chinese, who are also cleanly and many of whom are Mohammedans; (c) the natives who are ugly and uncouth, devil-worshippers, filthy in food and habits.  As the Chinese do not generally speak so severely of the hinduized Javanese it would appear that Hinduism lasted longest among the lower and more savage classes, and that the Moslims stood on a higher level.  As in other countries, the Arabs attempted to spread Islam from the time of their first appearance.  At first they confined their propaganda to their native wives and dependents.  Later we hear of veritable apostles of Islam such as Malik Ibrahim, and Raden Rahmat, the ruler of a town called Ampel[399] which became the head quarter of Islam.  The princes whose territory lay round Madjapahit were gradually converted and the extinction of the last Hindu kingdom became inevitable.[400]

3

It is remarkable that the great island of Sumatra, which seems to lie in the way of anyone proceeding from India eastwards and is close to the Malay peninsula, should in all ages have proved less accessible to invaders coming from the west than the more distant Java.  Neither Hindus, Arabs nor Europeans have been able to establish their influence there in the same thorough manner.  The cause is probably to be found in its unhealthy and impenetrable jungles, but even so its relative isolation remains singular.