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Monumental Jogja

Lengthy were the praises showered upon the kingdom. Honored and exalted was the authority of the King. The land of Ngastina consisted of mountain ranges bound by rice fields and rivers. The rivers led to great harbors. The land was prosperous in every way. Its harvests were bounteous and plentiful. Its subjects were wealthy, conducting their trades from morning to night without cease. Not a single person suffered from hunger on its streets. Tens of thousands of subjects lived in bustling cities, so full of people that the vast plains seemed small and narrow. Such was the prosperity of the kingdom. – A dhalang, describing a mythical kingdom of Ancient Java.

As always when reaching into the distant past, there is a blurry line between history and myth. To the Javanese, the scattered remains of the stone temples that lie on the rugged volcanic landscapes of Java are tangible proof of the stories of the wayang. The puppet master tells stories of powerful, wealthy kingdoms reigned over by just, divine rulers, served by gods and clowns; kingdoms that held sway over vast swathes of land and commanded the loyalty of hundreds upon thousands of subjects; kingdoms that attracted priests and traders from around the world. There is the proof, just out there, in the middle of the rice-fields. As former President Soekarno once said, these temples are testimony to Java’s great and glorious past. Writing in the colonialists’ prison, he declared that it also had a great and glorious future. As the Javanese watched the wayang, they did not doubt him.

In fact, these monumental remains do tell the story of old Java. The ancient kingdoms left behind no literature and few records. Palaces and other dwellings were made of wood. Nothing remains of them. Apart from some sundry artifacts and a few ambiguous written references in Chinese and Indian records, all that has lasted are the places of worship and the myths that surround them. It is not from history that we learn about the origins of the stone temples. Rather, it is from these monuments that we discover the stories of the kingdoms that built them.

Inscriptions on the temples often record the dates and names of the kings and queens who sponsored their construction. In other cases, they record the names and positions of court and village officials, arranged in hierarchical order, providing insights into the social structures of the time. The structure of the temples, the reliefs inscribed upon them, and the statues within them also tells us much about the cosmologies, beliefs and practices of the king and his courtiers, if not of his pagan villager subjects. These reliefs show us pictures of the palaces of kings and the houses of commoners, of farming practices, dancing, jewelry, and clothing. All this reveals aspects of the daily lives of both the nobility and ordinary people. Even more importantly, the construction of these monumental temples speaks volumes regarding the power and wealth of the kingdoms, their ability to muster laborers to haul massive volumes of rocks; skilled artisans to carve them; administrators to coordinate the activity; and priests and teachers to give meaning to them.

The monuments are the history of ancient Java, written in stone.

Buddhism and Hinduism in Java

The vast majority of central Java’s ancient monuments were built within something less than a two-hundred-year time span. Almost all were completed somewhere between the beginning of the eighth century and the end of the ninth.

What happened to cause such a short, intense burst of creativity and construction?

Some historians trace this exuberant flowering to the emergence of rich, agrarian inland kingdoms that differed dramatically from the mercantile kingdoms of the coast. For the mercantile kingdoms, power meant control of the ports and seaways that governed trade. For the inland agrarian kingdoms, power was measured in terms of the vassals and subjects whose loyalty a king could command. Power was the ability to mobilize labor. Power was control over people.

Two rival dynasties, the Sanjaya and Sailendra, sought to gain control of the Mataram Empire at around this time. As part of their struggles to gain the upper hand, they eagerly imported new ideologies to augment their symbolic power. They were open to the ideas of Hindu and Buddhist teachers, if these added to their power.

Compared to the old animistic traditions, the new religions provided a far more sophisticated framework to justify the power of the king. Certain strands of Buddhism supported the idea that only a Bodhisattva, an enlightened and divinely ordained leader, had the necessary spiritual power to ensure the well-being of his kingdom. Members of the Sailendra dynasty, amongst other pretenders, found this idea extremely attractive. On the other hand, certain strands of Hinduism ascribed all power to Shiva, whose avatar might incarnate on Earth in the body of a ruler. This idea was no less attractive to certain members of the Sanjaya dynasty, and others beside.

Thus, the kingdoms of the period encouraged teachers from India to reside at their courts. They borrowed and adapted the trappings of the imported religions that appealed to them and reflected their own glory. Dance, systems of writing, and literature all reflected the glory of the king. But the act of building a temple in the name of the new religion was the most splendiferous of all. By constructing an enduring stone monument in the name of his adopted religion at the cost of an enormous expenditure of labor, the king demonstrated his power to represent the divine and to muster men. He was a potent force in heaven, earth and hell.

Most – but not all – of the many temples found on the Prambanan plains to the East of Jogja attest to the power of the cult of Shiva within the courts in the eighth and ninth century. In particular, the famous Loro Jonggrang complex is known for its central Siva temple, almost fifty meters tall. The construction of this temple is said by many to have been sponsored by King Rakai Pikatan in 856, to mark his victory over his Buddhist rival.

Inscriptions on Borobudur and elsewhere reveal that construction began late in the eighth century, at around the time that the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty seems to have become the dominant political force in the Mataram Empire, gaining ascendance over the Hindu Sanjaya dynasty. In the last quarter of that century, the construction of an enormous number of monuments influenced by Buddhist beliefs and symbols took place. These include the lesser temples scattered across the Kedu plain, the best known of which are Candi Mendut, Candi Pawon and Candi Canggal.

After this fervent burst of temple building, the kingdoms of Central Java of this period suddenly disappear from history. Despite speculations regarding plagues, invasions, and volcanic eruptions, there is no clear explanation for this sudden end. Power shifted to the East, and the great age of temple building in Central Java ceased as abruptly as it began.

Uncovering Borobudur: The Active and Judicious Sir Stamford Raffles

“The antiquities of Java have not, till lately, excited much notice; nor have they yet been sufficiently explored. The pursuits of commerce have been too exclusive to allow there being much interest in the subject.” Sir Stamford Raffles, The History of Java

By the time the Dutch East-Indies Company established a plantation economy on the island of Java in the seventeenth century, the ancient temples of Java had been forgotten for almost a thousand years. The kingdoms that built them had long since faded, and the religion of Islam held nominal sway. The early Dutch merchants, being practical people, had little use for the stories of the puppet masters or for the ruins of heathen temples in the far off jungle. There was sugar to be grown, quotas to fill. If the Javanese remembered, they said nothing.

But in 1811, the shifting sands of European alliances brought a British expeditionary force to the island. After a short, sharp engagement with the Dutch forces, this force, under the command of Lord Minto, the Governor-General of British India, occupied the island. Minto gave much of the credit for his campaign to his underling, the young Stamford Raffles, “a very clever, able, active and judicious man,” who had already conducted an intensive exploration into the language, history, and culture of the Malayan peoples. Minto appointed him governor and sailed away. Stamford was thirty years old. He governed for four years. He would be remembered for centuries.

Unlike the Dutch, Raffles paid attention to stories and rumors of nebulous things. When he heard tell of a sacred hill-top on the Kedu Plains of Central Java, somewhere near the obscure village of Boro, he sat up and listened. The rumors spoke of an ancient man-made mountain, encrusted with crumbling stone carvings and covered with trees and weeds. In 1814, he sent out a team of two hundred coolies and surveyors. They slashed and hacked at the overgrowth for six weeks. Then they summoned Raffles. When he arrived, he gasped. Before him, out of the jungle, rose a colossal, squat, grey mass of stone, topped by many spires and a huge bell-shaped pinnacle.

This structure came to be known as Borobudur.

Restoring Borobudur: A Masterpiece of the Conservationist’s Art

Raffles’ discovery placed the temple in more danger than did a thousand years of neglect. The sediment and growth that had covered Borobudur had protected it, not only from the elements, but from the depredations of collectors, souvenir seekers, tourists and local villagers. While the collectors hacked off the heads of the Buddha to ship back to Europe, the villagers carted away larger rocks to build walls and houses of their own. To serve thirsty tourists after their weary tramp up the structure, a tea-house was built on the already suffering central stupa.

Serious efforts at preservation and restoration only began in 1907, when a Dutch engineer, Thadeus van Erp, was appointed to take charge of the project. He spent seven months trying to solve the problem of sinking floors and collapsing walls, reinforcing the structure with cement and rebuilding the terraces and stupas. Despite his best efforts, the monsoon rains continued to make their way through the cracks and into the ground. The monument continued to erode and crumble.

It was only in 1975 that more effective attempts at restoration began. At the instigation of the Indonesian government and under the leadership of Dr. R. Soekmono, the head of the Indonesian Archeological Service, a massive campaign began, involving archeologists and experts from around the world. To install a complex drainage system, they pulled the structure apart, removing more than a million pieces of stone. These were cleaned, cataloged, and treated to ensure their preservation. Then, as though working on a giant jig-saw puzzle, the team put the structure back together again. They labored for almost ten years. The project cost well over $25 million. The result was an acclaimed masterpiece of the conservationist’s art, setting new standards for the preservation and restoration of monuments around the world.

Borobudur: Mountain, Mandala, Stupa

Hear me, gracious ones, for I offer you knowledge of the path to Enlightenment. This is the first noble truth: life is suffering. The second noble truth: suffering is caused by human fears and desires. Third: suffering can be eliminated. And the fourth noble truth is that the elimination of suffering can be achieved by following the Noble Eight-fold path. Gautama Buddha,

At Raffle’s first sight of Borobudur, he described it as ‘a massive, man-made mountain.’ As always, Raffles had made an astute observation. In the native Javanese belief system, even before the influence of Buddhism, the mountains have always been a symbol of the sacred, place of the gods, abode of the holy. The sea is profane, the underworld, home to spirits, sharks and devils. Borobudur sits on the top of the hill, and its form suggests a continuation of the hill, its concentric terraces rising like steps to reach a central peak. The space beyond the peak of the mountain is marked by a pure, unadorned, geometrical shape: a huge bell-like stupa.

At Borobudur, the journey upwards represents the journey of the human soul. To reach the final goal, the pilgrim first passes through four square lower levels, walking in straight lines through claustrophobic galleries. There is no escape from the scenes depicted on the walls, nowhere else to look. The walls of the lowest galleries are decorated with reliefs describing scenes from the Mahakarmavibhangga, a Pali text that describes the passions and follies of humanity and their karmic consequences. Reliefs show hells where men are punished for murder, where they are impaled on spikes and thorns; where they are pecked by birds with metal beaks; where they tear each other apart with their bare hands. Others show the lower heavens, where people may reside for awhile as reward for the lesser virtues. This is the realm of the ten thousand distracting things.

On the highest of the first four levels, these scenes begin to be replaced by depictions of Janaka stories, a series of tales that describe the adventures and spiritual growth of Gautama Buddha in his earlier incarnations. In one tale, the future Buddha strolls through the forest, a hunter in this incarnation. He comes across a ravenous tiger. Rather than killing it, he lies down and peaceably offers himself. The beast assuages his hunger. The future Buddha is reborn, and the stories continue. These parables and fables are a lesson and a symbol of the human who has begun the journey towards enlightenment.

Ascending further onto the first circular terrace, the pilgrim enters a new realm of existence. Suddenly, she achieves clarity of vision. No longer is she trapped by the ten thousand things. There are no walls. The pilgrim gazes out at the world stretched out below her.

The elaborate reliefs describing the endless cycle of existence are replaced by simpler geometrical forms, stone lattice-work stupas. Always, the journey upwards is a journey toward simplicity and purity of form. On the first of the three circular levels, there are thirty-two stupa. On the second, there are twenty-four. On the third, there are only sixteen.

Inside each stupa sits a statue of the Buddha. Each shows the Buddha performing a classic mudra, a symbolic gesture of the hands and fingers that affirms a mystical or magical vow or utterance. The Buddha extends his right hand, palm up: Charity. The Buddha raises his hand to shoulder height, palm outward: Freedom from Fear. The Buddha holds his thumb and index finger to form a circle: Teaching the Wheel of Law.

The final destination at the highest point of the monument is a single, huge stupa. It is sixteen meters in diameter. When the first explorers struggled to the top of Borobudur, they could barely contain their excitement. What treasures would it contain? Would they find a golden statue encrusted with diamonds? A tooth of the Buddha? They looked and saw – nothing.

Gautama Buddha might smile. At the end of the long journey: nothingness, emptiness, obliteration of the individual soul. As the Buddha once said: “There is an unborn, an always, an unmade, an infinite. If nothingness did not exist, neither would the infinite. There would be no escape.” The greatest treasure was nothing.

A small minority of Javanese and other Indonesians still practice Mahayana Buddhism. Once a year, on Waisak day, Buddhist monks and lay people from across Indonesia gather at Borobudur. The monks, wearing orange robes and carrying candles and offerings, ascend Borobudur in search of this treasure.

Loro Jonggrang and the Prambanan Plains:

Valmiki the Poet held all the moving world inside a water drop in his hand.

The gods and saints looked down from heaven on Lanka.

And Valmiki looked down at the gods in the morning of Time

All Heaven’s stars may fall

And Earth may break apart,

Fire may burn cold

And waters run uphill –

But Sita never turns from Rama

As it is practiced in India, Hinduism might better be described as complex set of interrelated and complementary religions, incorporating all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any, rather than a single, coherent doctrine. Even more than with Buddhism, the courts of central Java were able to pick and select elements of the new religion that merely augmented ancient beliefs.

The great god Śiva, the Auspicious One, is the most complex and contradictory of the gods in the Hindu pantheon: he is the destroyer and the restorer, the fearsome ascetic and the sensuous pleasure-monger, the benevolent herdsman and the wrathful avenger. His symbol is the erect phallus, and he is the source of fertility and power.

There are many indications that the earliest religion of Java was essentially a fertility cult in which the powerful forces of nature were central. Śiva was the personification of these forces. It is no surprise, then, that the cult of Śaivism was readily adopted by the Javanese kings, nor that it has continued to influence the arts, religious beliefs and culture of Java and Bali, even to the present day.

The Lara Jonggrang is the largest Śiva temple in Indonesia. Built near the sacred Opak River on the Prambanan plain, it was constructed on a four-square plane. Forty-seven meters tall, it is surrounded by four walls with four gates. On the higher terraces are shrines to Vishnu and Brahmā. The highest of all is dedicated to Śiva. On the lower terraces, lesser shrines are dedicated to the gods’ female manifestations: in the northern chamber, there is statue of the fierce, fertile Durga, Śiva’s consort. Like the Javanese animist belief system, Śaivism recognizes both the male and the female aspects of the divine.

If the gods create and destroy the universe, the heroes live and die within it, providing an ideal model to which humans aspire. The epic Ramayana is the oldest of the world’s great love stories. It describes the kidnapping of the beautiful Sita, wife and consort to the divine Prince Rama, by the satanic archenemy Ravana and her rescue with the assistance of a league of animal allies led by Hanoman the Monkey King. In no less than 25,000 verses, it describes courtly intrigue, fierce battles, heroic renunciation and the triumph and good over evil. On the inside of the low wall that runs around the walkways of the shrines to Siva and Brahma in Lara Jonggrang, this story is carved in stone. Panel by panel, the narrative reliefs illustrate this story, creating the most beautiful abbreviated visual depiction of the epic in Java, if not the world.

While some claim that King Rakai Pikatan ordered the construction of the temple in 856, there are others who say it was built almost a hundred years later by a certain King Dhaksa of the Mendang-Mataram Empire. However, while the historians argue into the night, the anthropologists are unanimous regarding the ongoing influence of the epic that captured the imagination of whichever king it was. Even after the kingdoms of central Java of this era faded, the stories lived on. The classical dances of the courts and the wayang performances of the village continue to tell tales of the great king Rama and his beautiful bride.

The Lara Jonggrang temple first came to the attention of the modern era in 1733, when its existence was noted by C.A. Lons. While desultory efforts to clear the site of weeds and grass began as early as 1885, serious attempts at restoration only began in 1937, under the supervision of Bosch, followed by Stuuerheim, van Ramound and others. The restoration of the main complex was completed in December 20, 1953. However, the process has been slow and ongoing, and the restoration of the Brahma Shrine began in 1978. The restoration of the Wisnu Shrine only began in 1982. Work on surrounding structures continues today.

The connection between the ancient past and the modern present has been accentuated by the construction of a large stage in Prambanan, with the Lara Jonggrang temple in the background. On this stage, in the evenings around the full moon, some of Java’s greatest dancers perform the Ramayana Ballet, a musical drama that mixes classical and modern dance styles to present the ancient epic.

The Other Temples of Java: Mountains and Mole-Hills

In the immediate vicinity of Borobudur on the Kedu plains, there are ruins of both Hindu and Buddhist origin. Some have been preserved and restored, including Candi Mendut, Candi Pawon and Candi Canggal. Similarly, in close proximity to Lara Jonggrang are Candi Sambisari, Candi Kalasan and Candi Sari. Somewhat further away, near the steep-sided edge a limestone ridge not far from Jogja’s airport, is the ambiguous Ratu Boko ‘Palace’ – while serious historians claim that it probably served a religious purpose, its walls and gates suggest, to the popular imagination, the abode of a king. Even further a field, on the high, isolated Dieng Plateau, lie a cluster of the oldest known temples in Java. Relatively small and simple compared to their temples that followed a century later, these were built in the late seventh century.

There are many hundreds of other ancient temples in Central Java. Many of these are obscure and disregarded, and even more probably lie under the ground. Most were little more than a pile of stones, built under the sponsorship of a minor noble or village chief. The people who live nearby still leave flowers and offerings upon the remains.