Sometime before the 5th century AD Hinduism and Buddhism spread from Southeast Asia to the islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The first stone temples, Hindu shrines of the 8th century, are found on the Dieng plateau of Java. The greatest concentration of Javanese sacred architecture however, lies near the city of Yogyakarta. Here stand the Hindu temple complex of Prambanam and the Hindu/Buddhist temple of Borobudur.

Borobudur is commonly considered a Buddhist structure, yet its first and second terraces were Hindu constructions begun in 775 AD. From 790 to 835 AD, the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty completed the great stupa. Soon thereafter, the Hindu Sanjaya dynasty took over the Buddhist monuments of the Sailendra. Although the Sanjaya were Hindu, they ruled over a Buddhist majority and Borobudur remained a Buddhist site. During the 10th and 11th centuries the great stupa fell into decline and lay forgotten, buried under volcanic ash and jungle growth. Europeans cleared the site in 1815, the Dutch began its restoration in the early 1900’s, and a US project begun in 1973 completed the work.

Borobudur is a massive, symmetrical monument, 200 square meters in size, sitting upon a low hill. The stupa represents a Buddhist cosmological model of the universe organized around the axis of mythical Mt. Meru. Beginning at the eastern gateway, pilgrims circumambulate the stupa in a clockwise direction. Walking through five kilometers of open air corridors while ascending six square terraces and three circular ones, the pilgrim symbolically spirals upward from the everyday world to the Nirvanic state of absolute nothingness. The first six terraces are decorated with panels showing Buddhist doctrines and a panorama of 9th century Javanese life. Upon the upper three terraces are 72 smaller stupas, each of which once contained a statue of the Buddha. Crowning the entire structure is a great central stupa. Representing Nirvana, it is empty.

Borobudur Information on Sacred Sites.

Written by  Martin Gray.

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