Sundanese

The Sundanese are the Austronesian people of western Java; their Tatar Sunda homeland runs from Banten and Sunda Kelapa across the Parahyangan highlands, its dry-field rice villages keeping an egalitarian society. Indian influence came with Tarumanagara in the fourth to seventh centuries, and the name Sunda first appears in a 932 inscription.

The Hindu Sunda Kingdom held court at Pakuan Pajajaran. Gajah Mada made it a Palapa oath target, and the Bubat incident embittered Majapahit relations. Its golden age came under Sri Baduga Maharaja, remembered as King Siliwangi, who reigned at Pakuan in 1482–1521 and received the Portuguese Tome Pires.

As Cirebon and Demak embraced Islam, Sunda lost Sunda Kelapa and Banten, and in 1579 the last rump of Pajajaran fell to Banten, ending a millennium of Hindu rule in western Java; inland Sumedang Larang kept Sundanese aristocrats alive until the seventeenth-century Mataram conquest. Under Dutch rule the highlands became coffee country; the angklung bamboo orchestra and wayang golek puppetry kept Pajajaran's memory.