INDONESIA: Borobodur
Borobudur Temple rising up from the plains of Central Java is one of
the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world. It was built during the
Sailendra dynasty ( 750 and 842 AD) by what was clearly a huge workforce of
sculptors, master masons and painters needed to shift and carve the
2 million blocks of bluish-grey andesite stone. It is not known when it ceased to be an
active Buddhist pilgrimage centre. Possibly its inhabitants fled
volcanic eruptions or perhaps it was
abandoned when the population converted to Islam in the 11th
century. For whatever reason for centuries Borobodur lay buried under layers of volcanic
ash until an expedition mounted in 1814 by Sir Stamford Raffles,
British Governor of Java, slowly began exposing the awesome monument. Borobudur is a stepped pyramid, with a central apex rising nearly 30 metres
above ground-level via six concentric terraces each representing
an aspect of the Buddhist cosmology. A pilgrim`s journey begins at the base
ascending steadily upwards via narrow corridors and stairways adorned
with thousands of panels featuring bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Buddha. The top terrace originally featured 500 statues of Buddha
seated in the lotus position and a further 72 of Him meditating in small,
bell-shaped stupas. Belief says
that touching the finger and toe of a particular Buddha through holes in the
stupa wall brings good luck. A side effect of Raffles` expedition
was that thousands of pieces of the temple were filched for construction
projects and in 1896, the Dutch sent eight wagon loads of Buddha
artefacts to King Chulalongkorn of Siam. The Borobodur Temple complex
has been restored by UN funding and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1991.