From a distance, through the clutter of houses and roadside stalls, it looks like a hill covered in rocks and short trees. Closer, the “”trees” are better defined. They are stupas … stone constructions … at the top of Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple on earth, in central Java.
It is strange that it should have been built at the very fringe of Buddhism’s influence, not its centre, and that shortly after its completion in 830AD, after 70 years of construction, it was neglected, became overgrown and buried, not to be disturbed for almost a thousand years.
Around it today are hundreds of traders who hound foreign tourists with the usual range of carved models, whistles, cloth, hats, drinks and guides.
Borobudur is different from other great religious structures because it has no inside chamber. It is not like a church, mosque, the nearby Hindu temple of Prambanan, nor the Egyptian or Mexican pyramids which have rooms inside for bodies or precious things.
Rather, Borobudur is a series of four ramparts with stone stairs between them. It was built over an existing hill. Very clever, because it gives the impression of a great building rather than the stacking stone on solid terraces cut into the hill. The visitor walks over the structure not within it.
The three-metre-high walls around each of the four ramparts contain intricate carvings that tell the story of Buddha in various incarnations. The stories on the lower levels are mainly fables with higher levels of religious abstraction on the higher levels. To see them all a pilgrim would have to travel 10 times around the structure … a walk of about 8 kilometres. Unlike pilgrims, tourists head straight for the top, a climb of 25 metres.
It’s a good idea to go early. My wife, Lynne, and I arrived before the gates opened at 6am, so we had a brief chance to see the temple in solitude … a rare commodity in Indonesia. The vast majority of the million visitors a year are Indonesians, especially school groups from throughout the nation. The schoolkids are fascinated by Europeans and want you to join their group photographs. “”Hello, mister,” is the favourite call. One school group seemed to take more photos of us than the temple itself.
For Indonesians, 90 per cent of whom are Muslim, it is not a religious experience, but a cultural and historic one.
Borobudur tells us more about the history of Java than the history of Java tells us about Borobudur. Javanese culture had risen to such a high state by the eighth century that it could engineer such a project and supply the food for the people to lug a million blocks of stone many kilometres and for others to spend years carving them. Nor was the skill imported from India as many of the carvings have exclusively Javanese elements.
Moreover, just 50 years later about 50 kilometres away, construction was going on at the great Hindu temples at Prambanan. They, too, have intricate carvings and a huge quantity of stone. The largest is 47 metres high. Again the Indonesian Government has spent a large amount of money in restoration.
Incidentally, I remember how to pronounce the name Borobudur because it sounds like “”borrow a Buddha”. And there has been plenty of borrowing of Buddhas from Borobudur over the centuries.
The original temple had 350 stone Buddhas. About 70 metre-high statues were covered in the perforated stupas at the top. Vandals smashed them open and took anything of value. Carvings have been found in houses, used as ornaments or doorstops. In the 19th century, the Dutch allowed carvings to be taken away to museums around the world.
There are some references to Borobudur in Javanese scripts in the 18th century. Its true splendour was not rediscovered until 1814 when Sir Stamford Raffles sent H. C. Cornelius to strip away the vegetation and soil to reveal the stone. It took 200 men six weeks to do the job.
They should have left it alone. Once exposed, the high rainfall did huge damage over the next 90 years until the Dutch gave 28-year-old Lieutenant Theodore van Erp the task of restoration in 1902. It took three years. He had to replace a lot of stone for the base and to reconstruct the stupas, but he wisely did not attempt to re-carve artistic stone, preferring to put blank pieces in, each marked with an inlaid lead bead (which were later stolen by fishermen and have now been replaced with plastic).
But van Erp’s job did not stop the water.
The Great Depression, war and the 1960s coup attempt prevented work. Finally the Suharto Government decided to act in 1969. Fourteen years later, in 1983, after Indonesia spent a remarkable $18.5 million (given the nations other pressing problems) and UNESCO a further $6.5 million the restored temple was opened.
Nearby is a museum that details the work. It makes an oblique reference to the most recent piece of vandalism at Borobudur. It refers to the explosions in 1985 that wrecked nine stupas. It does not say how or why they happened.
A helpful guide told us that Muslim fanatics did it, planting 13 small bombs. He was Muslim, but like virtually every other Indonesian we met in our two weeks in the country, hastened to add he was not a fanatic.
I sense the gentler messages of Buddhism depicted in the wall of Borobudur still have an influence on Indonesian society and whatever the nation’s political problems, the people will not turn to Islamic fundamentalism to provide the answer.
PICS:
1. Some of the 72 stupas containing statues of Buddha on the top level of Borobudur.
2. The Buddhist temple of Borobudur.
3. Schoolchildren pose between the stupas at Borobudur.
4. Schoolchildren more interested in photographing Europeans than a Buddhist temple.
5. A king and queen discuss matters of state in a scene from Buddha’s earlier incarnations on the lower level of Borobudur.
6. One of the galleries at Borobudur with intricate carvings showing the lives of the Buddha.
7. The Hindu temples at Prambanan. (can be used as a small vertical, change caption to the main Hindu temple at Prambanan.