Wonder of the world
A Buddhist monument of nine stacked terraces crowned by a stupa, built under the Sailendra kings of Java. Pilgrims climb past 1,460 story panels and 72 latticed stupas, each holding a seated Buddha. Abandoned under ash and jungle, it was cleared from 1814 and restored twice.
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Borobudur, also transcribed Barabudur (Indonesian: Candi Borobudur, Javanese: ꦕꦤ꧀ꦝꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ, romanized: Candhi Barabudhur), is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, near the town of Muntilan, northwest of the city of Yogyakarta, in Central Java, Indonesia.
Constructed of gray andesite-like stone, the temple consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. It is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and originally 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa. The monument guides pilgrims through an extensive system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades. Borobudur has one of the world's most extensive collections of Buddhist reliefs.
Built during the reign of the Sailendra dynasty, the temple design follows Javanese Buddhist architecture, which blends the Indonesian indigenous tradition of ancestor worship and the Buddhist concept of attaining nirvāṇa. The monument is a shrine to the Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. Evidence suggests that Borobudur was constructed in the 8th century and subsequently abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Hindu kingdoms in Java and the Javanese conversion to Islam. Worldwide knowledge of its existence was sparked in 1814 by Thomas Stamford Raffles, then the British administrator of Java, who was advised of its location by native Indonesians. Borobudur has since been preserved through several restorations. The largest restoration project was completed in 1983 by the Indonesian government and UNESCO, followed by the monument's listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, and ranks with Bagan in Myanmar and Angkor Wat in Cambodia as one of the great archeological sites of Southeast Asia. Borobudur remains popular for pilgrimage, with Buddhists in Indonesia celebrating Vesak Day at the monument. Among Indonesia's tourist attractions, Borobudur is the most-visited monument.
In Indonesian, ancient temples are referred to as candi; thus locals refer to "Borobudur Temple" as Candi Borobudur. The term candi also loosely describes ancient structures, for example, gates and baths. Dutch scholar J. L. Moens says the court poet Mpu Prapanca referred to a holy sanctuary at "Budur" in 1365.
Stamford Raffles mentioned "Bóro Bódo" and described the temple in his 1817 work, The History of Java. In a footnote, Raffles says, "Bóro is the name of the district, and bódo means ancient."
Most candi are named after a nearby village. If it followed Javanese language conventions and was named after the nearby village of Bore, the monument should have been named "BudurBoro". Soekmono says Raffles thought that Budur might correspond to the modern Javanese word Buda ("ancient")—i.e., "ancient Boro". However, another archaeologist suggests the second component of the name (Budur) comes from Javanese term bhudhara ("mountain").
Another possible etymology by Dutch archaeologist A. J. Bernet Kempers suggests that Borobudur is a corrupted simplified local Javanese pronunciation of Biara Beduhur written in Sanskrit as Vihara Buddha Uhr. The term Buddha-Uhr could mean "the city of Buddhas", while another possible term Beduhur is probably an Old Javanese term, still surviving today in Balinese vocabulary, which means "a high place", constructed from the stem word dhuhur or luhur (high). This suggests that Borobudur means vihara of Buddha located on a high place or on a hill.
The construction and inauguration of a sacred Buddhist building—possibly a reference to Borobudur—was mentioned in two inscriptions, both discovered in Kedu, Temanggung Regency. The Karangtengah inscription, dated 824, mentioned a sacred building named Jinalaya (the realm of those who have conquered worldly desire and reached enlightenment), inaugurated by Pramodhawardhani, daughter of Samaratungga. The Tri Tepusan inscription, dated 842, is mentioned in the sima, the (tax-free) lands awarded by Çrī Kahulunnan (Pramodhawardhani) to ensure the funding and maintenance of a Kamūlān called Bhūmisambhāra. Kamūlān is from the word mula, which means "the place of origin", a sacred building to honor the ancestors, probably those of the Sailendras. Johannes Gijsbertus de Casparis suggested that Bhūmi Sambhāra Bhudhāra, Sanskrit for a mountain of combined virtues after the ten stages of Boddhisattvahood, was the original name of Borobudur.
In 2018, Titi Surti Nastiti, a researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency, proposed that the name Borobudur originates from boro, meaning "monastery" as suggested by Poerbatjaraka, and budur, which comes from a type of palm tree that served as the namesake for the village of Budur mentioned by Raffles and the Nagarakretagama.
Borubudur is located approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Yogyakarta and 86 kilometres (53 mi) west of Surakarta. It is also located in an elevated area between twin volcanoes, Sindoro-Sumbing and Merbabu-Merapi, and two rivers, the Progo and the Elo. According to local myth, the area known as Kedu Plain is a Javanese "sacred" place and has been dubbed "the garden of Java" due to its high agricultural fertility.
During the restoration in the early 20th century, Theodoor van Erp discovered that three Buddhist temples in the region, Borobudur, Pawon and Mendut, are positioned along a straight line from east to west.
Jan Lodewijk Moens hypothesized a ritual connecting the three temples. However, the exact process remains unknown due to a lack of written records about the ritual. He hypothesized that the ritual was done by doing pilgrimage following the sun path where it starting with Borobudur as the sunset following with Pawon as the zenith and ending with Mendut as the sunrise. Giulio Magli also identified that the ritual is following the event of the zennith passage that happening on October 11 and February 28. He also compared Borubudur with One Hundred and Eight Stupas where the building itself is built around ritual related to the winter solstice. In 1991, the three temples was designated as world heritage site by UNESCO under the name Borubudur Temple Compounds.
Speculation about a surrounding lake's existence was the subject of intense discussion among archaeologists in the 20th century, and while the idea was explored, experts concluded that a lake was not present or never surrounded the temple. Advancing the lake hypothesis in 1931, Dutch painter W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp thought Borobudur represented a lotus flower floating on a lake in what is now the Kedu Plain. Examining samples from excavations in 1974 and 1977, Ganapathi Thanikaimoni could not find any pollen or spores that would indicate vegetation endemic to a water environment; Jacques Dumarçay published this work in 1977, as did Thanikaimoni in 1983. Caesar Voûte and J.J. Nossin made field studies in 1985–86 that confirmed the absence of a lake around Borobudur when it was built.
In 2004, Murwanto et al reiterated the theory from Nieuwenkamp that Borobudur was built above the floor of a dried-out paleolake. In 2015, the lake was hypothesized to be existed from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene before disappearing due to volcanic and tectonic activity. Aquatic plant pollen, such as Nuphar and Nymphaea was also identified within black clay deposits found in the area. In 2023, the existence of ancient lake was strengthened based on finding of the alluvial deposit that located between 50 and 525 meters below the kedu plain.
Hindu clerics appealed to the people of Java for generations, a fact that architect and author Jacques Dumarçay finds first mentioned in 450 AD. Influence of the Sailendra and Sanjaya dynasties followed. Dumarçay says that de Casparis concluded that Sanjaya and Sailendra shared power in central Java for a century and a half, and that de Casparis traced alternating succession from 732 until 882. During this time many Hindu and Buddhist monuments were built on the plains and mountains around the Kedu Plain. Buddhist monuments, including Borobudur, were erected around the same period as the Hindu Prambanan temple compound. In 732 AD, King Sanjaya commissioned a Shivalinga sanctuary to be built on the Wukir hill, only 10 km (6.2 mi) east of Borobudur.
There are no known records of construction or the intended purpose of Borobudur. The duration of construction has been estimated by comparison of carved reliefs on the temple's hidden foot and the inscriptions commonly used in royal charters during the 8th and 9th centuries. Comparison of an Indian architectural process across temples, and acknowledgment of who was in power, enabled Dumarçay to approximately date the construction of Borobudur in five stages. Loosely, the Sailendra began c. 780, and continued stages two and three c. 792 through to an unremarkable fourth stage during their decline c. 824. The Sanjaya completed Borobudur's fifth stage c. 833.
Construction of Buddhist temples, including Borobudur, at that time was possible because Sanjaya's immediate successor, Rakai Panangkaran, granted his permission to the Buddhist followers to build such temples. In fact, to show his respect, Panangkaran gave the village of Kalasan to the Buddhist community, as is written in the Kalasan Charter dated 779 AD. This has led some archaeologists to believe that there was never serious conflict concerning religion in Java as it was possible for a Hindu king to patronize the establishment of a Buddhist monument; or for a Buddhist king to act likewise. The 856 battle on the Ratubaka plateau was much after and was a political battle. There was a climate of peaceful coexistence where Sailendra involvement existed in Prambanan.
Borobudur lay hidden for centuries under layers of volcanic ash and jungle growth. The facts behind its abandonment remain a mystery. It is not known when active use of the monument and Buddhist pilgrimage to it ceased. Sometime between 928 and 1006, King Mpu Sindok moved the capital of the Mataram kingdom to the region of East Java after a series of volcanic eruptions; it is not certain whether this influenced the abandonment, but several sources mention this as the most likely period of abandonment. The monument is mentioned vaguely as late as c. 1365, in Mpu Prapanca's Nagarakretagama, written during the Majapahit era and mentioning "the vihara in Budur".
Raden Soekmono mentioned the assumption of the temple abandonment, which occurred after the population had converted to Islam in the 15th century. The monument was not forgotten completely, and folk stories gradually became superstitious beliefs associated with bad luck and misery, which Soekmono relates. According to the Babad Tanah Jawi (or the History of Java), the monument was a fatal factor for a rebel who revolted against the king of Mataram in 1709. The insurgent was defeated and sentenced to death. In the Babad Mataram (or the History of the Mataram Kingdom), the monument was associated with the misfortune of the crown prince of the Yogyakarta Sultanate in 1757. In spite of a taboo against visiting the monument, the prince "took such pity on 'the knight who was captured in a cage' (i.e. the statue in one of the perforated stupas) that he could not help coming to see his 'unfortunate friend'". Upon returning to his palace, the prince fell ill and died one day later.
Following its capture, Java was under British administration from 1811 to 1816. Britain's representative and governor-general was Stamford Raffles, who took great interest in the history of Java. He collected Javanese antiques and made notes through contacts with local inhabitants during his tour throughout the island. On an inspection tour to Semarang in 1814, he was informed about a big monument deep in a jungle near the village of Bumisegoro. He sent Hermann Cornelius, a Dutch engineer who, among other antiquity explorations had uncovered the Sewu complex in 1806–07, to investigate. In two months, Cornelius and his 200 men cut down trees, burned down vegetation and dug away the earth to reveal the monument. Due to the danger of collapse, he could not unearth all galleries. Cornelius reported his findings to Raffles, including various drawings. Although Raffles mentioned the discovery in only a few sentences in his book, and did not visit the site himself, he has been credited with the monument's rediscovery, as the one who had brought it to the world's attention.
Christiaan Lodewijk Hartmann, the resident of the Kedu region, continued Cornelius's work, and in 1835, the whole complex was finally unearthed. His interest in Borobudur was more personal than official. Hartmann did not write any reports of his activities, in particular, the alleged story that he discovered the large statue of Buddha in the main stupa. In 1842, Hartmann investigated the main dome, although what he discovered is unknown and the main stupa remains empty.
The Dutch East Indies government then commissioned Frans Carel Wilsen, a Dutch engineering official, who studied the monument and drew hundreds of relief sketches. Jan Frederik Gerrit Brumund was also appointed to make a detailed study of the monument, which was completed in 1859. The government intended to publish an article based on Brumund's study supplemented by Wilsen's drawings, but Brumund refused to cooperate. The government then commissioned another scholar, Conradus Leemans, who compiled a monograph based on Brumund's and Wilsen's sources. In 1873, the first monograph of the detailed study of Borobudur was published, followed by its French translation a year later. The first photograph of the monument was taken in 1872 by the Dutch-Flemish engraver Isidore van Kinsbergen.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Borobudur”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.