Our meagre knowledge of Javanese history makes it difficult to estimate the spheres and relative strength of the two religions.  In the plains the Buddhist monuments are more numerous and also more ancient and we might suppose that the temples of Prambanan indicate the beginning of some change in belief.  But the temples on the Dieng plateau seem to be of about the same age as the oldest Buddhist monuments.  Thus nothing refutes the supposition that Brahmanism existed in Java from the time of the first Hindu colonists and that Buddhism was introduced after 400 A.D.  It may be that Boroboedoer and the Dieng plateau represent the religious centres of two different kingdoms.  But this supposition is not necessary for in India, whence the Javanese received their ideas, groups of temples are found of the same age but belonging to different sects.  Thus in the Khajraho group[441] some shrines are Jain and of the rest some are dedicated to Siva and some to Vishnu.

The earliest records of Javanese Brahmanism, the inscriptions of Purnavarman, are Vishnuite but the Brahmanism which prevailed in the eighth and ninth centuries was in the main Sivaite, though not of a strongly sectarian type.  Brahma, Vishnu and Siva were all worshipped both at Prambanan and on the Dieng but Siva together with Ganesa, Durga, and Nandi is evidently the chief deity.  An image of Siva in the form of Bhatara Guru or Mahaguru is installed in one of the shrines at Prambanan.  This deity is characteristic of Javanese Hinduism and apparently peculiar to it.  He is represented as an elderly bearded man wearing a richly ornamented costume.  There is something in the pose and drapery which recalls Chinese art and I think the figure is due to Chinese influence, for at the present day many of the images found in the temples of Bali are clearly imitated from Chinese models (or perhaps made by Chinese artists) and this may have happened in earlier times.  The Chinese annals record several instances of religious objects being presented by the Emperors to Javanese princes.  Though Bhatara Guru is only an aspect of Siva he is a sufficiently distinct personality to have a shrine of his own like Ganesa and Durga, in temples where the principal image of Siva is of another kind.

The same type of Brahmanism lasted at least until the erection of Panataran (c. 1150).  The temple appears to have been dedicated to Siva but like Prambanan it is ornamented with scenes from the Ramayana and from Vishnuite Puranas.[442] The literature which can be definitely assigned to the reigns of Djajabaja and Erlangga is Brahmanic in tone but both literature and monuments indicate that somewhat later there was a revival of Buddhism.  Something similar appears to have happened in other countries.  In Camboja the inscriptions of Jayavarman VII (c. 1185 A.D.) are more definitely Buddhist than those of his predecessors and in 1296 Chou Ta-kuan regarded the country as mainly Buddhist.  Parakrama Bahu of Ceylon (1153-1186)