Another heritage which the Indonesians would never have had without Sanskritization is of course the Indian-based writing system and written literature derived from, or inspired by, Sanskrit literary works. This script and the literature are without doubt the most enduring elements of the adopted Indian culture.

Written literature, like Buddhism and Hinduism, entered the Malayo-Indonesian archipelago through the main gates of the kraton (palaces). Merchants may have introduced Indian script for the first time, perhaps inadvertently, when they brought merchandise such as seals, rings and other precious objects, engraved with Sanskrit names, into a trading port. Thus, for instance, different types of Brahmi script (datable from the second to the fifth century AD) engraved on such precious objects have been discovered at Oc Eo, the site of an ancient trading port in southern Vietnam (Coedès 1968:7; de Casparis 1975:12), while a type of Brahmi or Kharoshthi script datable from the third century BC to the fourth century AD inscribed on the body sherd of an open dish-like vessel was recently found at Sembiran on the northern coast of Bali (Ardika and Bellwood 1991:225-226). More systematic dissemination of literacy, however, must have been carried out by the Hindu Brahmans and the Buddhist monks, for whom the study of books was always a significant part of daily activities. We read in a Chinese record, for instance, that in the third century kingdom of Tun-sun (in the Malay peninsula) there were more than a thousand Brahmans. The record tells us that they did “nothing but study the sacred canon, bathe themselves with scents and flowers, and practise piety ceaselessly by day and night” (Wheatley 1961:17). Those Brahmans came to certain kingdoms by invitation of the kings, then for one reason or another decided to stay and become guru. People would have gathered to hear their teachings and to study under their personal guidance.

In the beginning, disciples must have been limited to a small number of people, drawn mainly from what Srinivas (1989:63) calls “some ambitious local group” who aspired to become Brahmans, and probably also from other members of the royal courts. This constituted the nucleus of the local learned men. Proficiency in the Sanskrit language and literature must have been one of the primary requirements for those aspiring to be allowed into those elite groups. This is evident from the earliest inscriptions found in the archipelago — from Kutai (around AD 400), western Java (fifth century) and central and eastern Java (seventh and eighth centuries) —all of which are written in Sanskrit, using Sanskrit metres, and are either religious or eulogistic in nature. Comparing the Kutai inscriptions with those found in India, Vogel (1918:216-218) says that the former indicate “a very fair knowledge of Sanskrit”, and that as far as metrical exigencies are concerned they are “irreproachable”.

It was among such small groups of learned men that literacy evolved, slowly at first, but gradually gaining momentum and spreading to the wider circles of society. The importance of writing as a medium of communication must have soon been recognized by the rulers. Using writing, a king would be able to put his orders in a concrete, visible form, transportable to a distance, so that he would always be symbolically present among his subjects. As a Javanese author of an inscription dated 1296 expresses it, “They [the receiver of the ‘supreme favour of His Majesty the King’ and his descendants] will keep the Sacred Royal Order as physical protection: this charter sealed with the emblem of Kṛtarājasa Jayawardhana, to be written down on one of the three kinds of material, bronze, ripta (palm-leaves?), or stone; [is] to be worshipped once a year, placed under a yellow parasol, to the accompaniment of music, as though it were the king himself” (de Casparis 1975:7).

While literacy by itself would not necessarily result in the increased political power of the king and the expansion of the state, it would no doubt facilitate effective control of the whole realm. A local power, or even a regional kingdom, may be able to do without it, but for an imperial kingdom, literacy must be a crucial factor in maintaining its territorial integrity.^[7] As Gough (1968:71) argues, “It does seem improbable, that centralized states containing more than about a million people can exist, or can hold together easily, without some use of writing for political administration”. While the number of one million may be somewhat arbitrary, there seems to be little doubt that writing “provides a reliable method for transmitting information between the centre and the periphery, and hence mitigates the fissive tendencies of large empires” (Goody 1968:1-2).

Thus by the seventh century literacy appears to have spread to wider circles of the population. A Chinese record says that in the kingdom of P’an-p’an (located in the Malay peninsula): “The people all learn the brahmanical writings and greatly reverence the law of Buddha” (Wheatley 1961:48). Although it seems very unlikely that the whole population of P’an-p’an was really literate, the accounts indicate a certain degree of widespread literacy in that kingdom and probably in some other parts of the Malayo-Indonesian archipelago as well. We know from other Chinese accounts that in the seventh century, Holing (Walaing in central Java) and Fo-shih (Śrīwijaya in southern Sumatra) were famous centres of Buddhist learning. Chinese travelling to, or returning from, a pilgrimage to India often stopped there, and sometimes stayed for a considerable length of time, during which they may have studied Sanskrit grammar and copied or translated religious texts, sometimes under the guidance of local scholars (Coedès 1968:79-82).