ABSTRACT
For a thousand years the Malay was under the influence of Hinduized courts, that were centres of Buddhism and Saivism, Hindu magical science, Hindu art and literature. During that time he borrowed two Indian scripts, the Pallavan from which Java as early as the 8th century a.d. evolved its kawi alphabet, and the nagari script brought in the 8th century by the Palas from Bengal. A guild of Tamil traders in the same century left scraps of their Buddhist story of Manimekalai in Sumatran folk-tales that have been re-told in the Malay peninsula and written down in modern times.
