V. cap. 1.)
There is some reason to believe that the application of the name Java to
Sumatra is of very old date. For the oldest inscription of ascertained
date in the Archipelago which has yet been read, a Sanskrit one from
Pagaroyang, the capital of the ancient Malay state of Menang-kabau in the
heart of Sumatra, bearing a date equivalent to A.D. 656, entitles the
monarch whom it commemorates, Adityadharma by name, the king of "the First
Java" (or rather Yava). This Mr. Friedrich interprets to mean Sumatra. It
is by no means impossible that the Iabadiu, or Yavadvipa of Ptolemy may
be Sumatra rather than Java.
An accomplished Dutch Orientalist suggests that the Arabs originally
applied the terms Great Java and Little Java to Java and Sumatra
respectively, not because of their imagined relation in size, but as
indicating the former to be Java Proper. Thus also, he says, there is a
Great Acheh (Achin) which does not imply that the place so called is
greater than the well-known state of Achin (of which it is in fact a
part), but because it is Acheh Proper. A like feeling may have suggested
the Great Bulgaria, Great Hungary, Great Turkey of the mediaeval
travellers. These were, or were supposed to be, the original seats of the
Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Turks. The Great Horde of the Kirghiz Kazaks
is, as regards numbers, not the greatest, but the smallest of the three.
But the others look upon it as the most ancient.
