Hinduism elsewhere in the archipelago

Before the arrival of dharmic religions, the natives of Indonesian Archipelago has their root in indigenous animism and dynamism beliefs of austronesian people. Native pre-Hindu Buddhist Indonesian venerated and revered ancestral spirit, they also believe that some spirit may inhabit certain places such as large trees, stones, forests, mountains, or any sacred places. This unseen spiritual entity that have supranatural power is identified by ancient Javanese and Balinese as "hyang" that can be either divine or ancestral. In modern Indonesian, "hyang" tends to be associated with gods, devata, or God. This indigenous spiritual concepts has been fused together and syncretized with adopted Indian Hinduism resulted in ancient Java Hinduism that incorporated many local elements. Many native deities, such as Semar and Dewi Sri, has been incorporated into ancient Java Hinduism. Dewi Sri or Pohaci Sanghyang Sri, the native pre-Hindu goddess of rice, was incorporated into ancient Java-Bali Hindu pantheon and identified as Lakshmi or the amalgam goddess Devi. This historic openness for syncretism and its adaptability to cater the indigenous belief systems is the factor that led Indonesian Hinduism to be the umbrella of myriad native ancestral beliefs.

Hindu influences reach the Indonesian Archipelago as early as first century. In 4th century, the kingdom of Kutai in East Kalimantan, Tarumanagara in West Java, and Holing (Kalingga) in Central Java, is among the early Hindu states eastablished in the region. Several notable ancient Indonesian Hindu kingdoms are Mataram, famous for the construction of the majestic Prambanan temple, followed by Kediri and Singhasari. Since then the Hinduism along with Buddhism spread across archipelago and reach the peak of its influence in the 14th century the last and largest among Hindu Javanese empires, Majapahit, reached far across the Indonesian archipelago. This accomplishment is interpreted in modern nationalist discourses as an early historical beacon of Indonesian unity and nationhood, a nation with Java still at its center. That the vast majority of contemporary Javanese, and all Indonesians, are now Muslims is the outcome of a process of subsequent Islamization.

Like Hinduism before it, Islam first advanced into the archipelago along powerful trade networks, gaining a firm foothold in Java with the rise of early Islamic polities along the northern coast. Early sultanates such as Demak Sultanate and Banten Sultanate was established on northern coast of Java in expense of inland Hindu kingdoms. Hinduism finally lost its status as Java's dominant state religion during the 15th and early 16th century, as the new sultanates expanded and the great Hindu empire Majapahit collapsed in eastern Java, followed by the fall of Hindu Sunda Pajajaran in western Java. Even then, some smaller Hindu polities persisted; most notably the kingdom of Blambangan in eastern Java, which remained intact until the late 18th century. Hinduism survives and persists as the main religion on the small island of Bali well until now.