center of Java moved to the east. During the Majapahit
period (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), S ́iva and
the Buddha were worshiped, both with tantric texts
and rituals.
Today, most of the population of Indonesia and the
Malay Peninsula is Muslim. Islam appeared in Suma-
tra by the ninth century C.E. and by the sixteenth cen-
tury had come to dominate most of the Indonesian
islands and the Malay Peninsula up to about the bor-
der with modern Thailand. Although Thailand is to-
day overwhelmingly Buddhist, its southern peninsular
region has a large Muslim minority. Modern Thai
Buddhism is not related to the earlier Buddhism of the
peninsula, but is connected to that of Burma and Sri
Lanka. Buddhism is also practiced in Singapore, but
this is Buddhism of the large expatriate Chinese com-
munity. It is only on the tiny island of Bali that echoes
of the region’s early Buddhism remain today, blended
with Hinduism in a unique local religion and culture.
See also:Hinduism and Buddhism; Indonesia, Bud-
dhist Art in; Islam and Buddhism; Southeast Asia,
Buddhist Art in
Bibliography
Coèdes, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia,tr. Su-
san Brown Cowing. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968.
Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Michel. The Malay Peninsula: Crossroads of
the Maritime Silk Road (100 B.C.–1300 A.D.),tr. Victoria
Hobson. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
Miksic, John N., ed. The Legacy of Majaphit.Singapore: National
Heritage Board, 1995.
Soekmono, R. The Javanese Candi: Function and Meaning.Lei-
den, Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
ROBERTL. BROWNINDONESIA, BUDDHIST ART IN
The oldest Buddhist objects in Indonesia date from
around the seventh century C.E. The major early focus
of Buddhist activity in the archipelago lay in southeast
Sumatra, where the kingdom of S ́rvijaya was centered.
By the late seventh century this kingdom had attained
an important position in conducting trade between the
Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The Chinese
Buddhist pilgrim YIJING(635–713), who traveled to In-
dia in ships belonging to the ruler of this kingdom in
672 C.E., described Buddhism as flourishing in S ́rvi-
jaya’s capital, with a large monastery where he learned
Sanskrit.
A large granite standing Buddha image has been
found at Seguntang Hill, on the fringe of the city. Such
stylistic elements as emphasis on the folds of his robe
are reminiscent of art from the Amaravatarea in In-
dia, but it is more likely that the earliest Indonesian
Buddhist art was influenced by Sri Lanka, where this
style lasted longer than in southern India. Two other
important bronze Buddha images found much farther
east, at Sikendeng on Sulawesi and Kota Bangun on
east Borneo, share these same features. They date from
approximately the same period and demonstrate the
extent to which Buddhism had already spread. Bronze
images from the eighth century indicate that Bud-
dhism made its presence felt as far east as Lombok dur-
ing this period.
The corpus of art directly associated with Sumatra
during this period is scanty, but combined with statu-
ary found in politically and culturally allied areas of
the Malay Peninsula around the Isthmus of Kra and
Kedah, images of Avalokites ́vara enable us to draw the
inference that a generalized cult of this bodhisattva was
common in this region. A bronze of the bodhisattva
Taraand an Avalokites ́vara presumably from this pe-
riod have also been found in Lombok.
By the late eighth century, MAHAYANABuddhist im-
agery also began to appear in central Java. Between
about 780 and 850 C.E., this region produced unsur-
passed works of sculpture and architecture. Some im-
ages bear indications of continued connections with
centers of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and south India, such
as Negapatam, while by the late ninth century con-
nections with the monastery at Nalandain what is now
Bangladesh are also visible.
Among the important complexes of Buddhist ar-
chitecture constructed in central Java, the best known
is the great site of BOROBUDUR. Few free-standing
STUPAwere built; instead most Javanese structures con-
sisted of temples with chambers for statuary. The main
image at Kalasan, erected around 780 C.E., was a large
Tara(now lost). Around 800 C.E. a major revolution
in Javanese Buddhism marked by intense interest in
MANDALAs resulted in the reconstruction of all major
sites. At Sewu, an earlier complex was altered to cre-
ate a cruciform building with enclosed circumambu-
lation pathway. A group of over two hundred stone
structures formed a huge three-dimensional mandala.
Major deities worshipped there may have included the
bodhisattva Mañjus ́rand the buddha Vairocana.INDONESIA, BUDDHISTART IN