[1]See, among others, H. Kern’s “Geschiedenis van het Boeddhisme”, II, page 308 and following ones, and Dr. S. Lefman’s “Geschichte des alten IndiËns”, Berlin 1880, page 768 and following ones, and the engravings on page 769 and the picture “Der AÇokafelsen van Girnaroden JunÀgadh im Jahre 1869”, in the 3d number of this work opposite to page 257.
[2]See my illustrated work published in 1893 by “het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van N. I.” entitled: “Tyan?i Parambanan na de ontgraving” and therein the photo’s of many deities represented as Bodhisatthvas, and my “Boeddhistische tempel- en klooster-bouwvallen in de Parambanan-vlakte”. Surabaya 1907.
[3]In the Buddha pagodae I visited in Ceylon, at Colombo and its environs, I saw badly hewn or coloured images of Shiva and of Ganesja. The monks called these images the representations of Buddha.
[4]See the English translation of his “Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India and the Malay Archipelago (A. D. 671-695)” by the Japanese scholar I Takakusu., provided with a preface of prof Max MÜller and published by the Clarendon press at Oxford in 1896. Pages XXII, XXV, XXXIX and XLVIII of the “General Introduction.”
[5]In a temple at Kandy in Ceylon is kept a tooth which, though of animal origin, took the place of a former so-called Buddha-tooth which has been destroyed by fire. This tooth, named Dalada, is taken care of, and honoured too. And the holiest pagoda in this island, the Thuparama, possesses one of Buddha’s clavicles, according to the assertion of its believers certainly with as much right as the Catholic Christians maintain the genuineness of many a relic of Jesus and the apostles.
[6]Even the ashes of other saints, princes and noble men, of gurus or teachers, of priests or monks, were occasionally put away in such graves upon which arose the glorious mausolea the ruins of which we still admire at this day.
[7]It won’t do maintaining that these dagobs should have been formed after the lotus, the holy padma, and that its openings in the transparent dagobs on the round terraces above the BÅrÅbudur must represent the empty seed-holes of the nursery of the ripe lotus. The leaves of a lotus (Nelumbium speciosum Willd) fall off before bending downward, and then the pericarp only remains on its stem like a urned cone or cupola whose flat, uprighted and afterwards, by the sagging of the withering stem, downrighted base has been stung by the seed-holes. Not the bell-shaped sides, for they remain closed. So these openings must have quite another sense than the one derived from the natural form of the lotus-plant.
Only the red lotus, the Nelumbium speciosum referring to all this, and recognisable by its peduncles and leaf stalks rising high above the water, has been frequently represented on Hindu temples. But not the white lotus, the Nymphae Lotus Linn., the leaves and flowers of which are floating on the surface of the water.
[8]Professor Kern wrote to me that the alphabetical writing of the inscriptions we see on some demi-relievoes on the outer-walls should date from the year 800, or thereabouts, of the Shaka era, thus our ninth century. And this rather corresponds to the age of the Buddha temples in the plain of Parambanan. Does not a stone of one of these tyan?is testify to this temple’s having been built in the year 701 of the shaka era, and dedicated to the service of TÂr in honour of the prince’s guru or teacher, who may have been buried there? And in the year 415 the Chinese Buddhist, Fa Hien, when in Java, came across many a brahmin Hindu. He didn’t speak about Buddhists, but this circumstance alone does not prove his not having met co-religionists, nor does it produce any evidence of their non-existence in the interior of Java he didn’t visit probably. I Tsing see note says that the inhabitants of Java and of the other islands of the Archipelago principally embraced HÎnayÂnism. “Buddhism was ... chiefly the HÎnayÂna” (page XLVII), and “the ten or more islands of the Southern Sea (Sumatra, Java etc.) generally belong to the HÎnayÂna.” (page XXX). Such happened in our seventh century.
[9]See his essay about Aymonier’s: “Le Cambodge”, I, written in the “Bulletin de l’Ecole franÇaise d’ExtrÉme-Orient”, II, page 83 note 4.
[10]Attap means palm-fronds used for thatch by the Javanese (Chambers).
The scaffolding has been removed since, and the stone roof was rebuilt by the major engineer Van Erp. 1911.
[11]This prabha has been also restored. 1911.
[12]The heavy colonnades of which will be sacrificed to the swelling waters of the river Nile. But they are doomed to destruction because this stream must vivify the rainless country.
[13]I, number 3, p. 249 and II, number 1, p. 20 and 30.
[14]“Oudheidkundige Aanteekeningen” IV, p. 59 and 60.
[15]This cone’s top has been removed again because of Mr. van Erp’s having been unable to prove his reproduction of this cone with its umbrellas to be incontestably true.
[16]This idea of mine about the graduation of the BÅrÅbudur’s origin is given as a questionable hypothesis. However great the consequences were, we can not know until we have compared the alto-relievoes of these and other Javanese Hindu-temples with the artless wall-paintings I saw in the Ceylon pagodae.
[17]Buddha himself thought it useless to pray, but the Buddhists of later times prayed however, but didn’t worship the images themselves. The Chinese—very degenerated Buddhists—light their pipes on the flames of the consecrated waxcandles burning on the altar, and consider this no sacrilege.
[71]When the sky is not overclouded we see from this point 9 volcanoes with the exception of the SindÅrÅ and DiyÈng which hid themselves behind the Sumbing-giant. This old volcano still rises 3336 Metres above sea-level, the M?rbabu and SindÅrÅ (or S?ndÅrÅ) reach a height of 3145 Metres, the M?rapi 2875 Metres, the far, not always visible Slam?t 3472 Metres; the adjacent neptunian M?noreh (or Minoreh) doesn’t reach more than 1000 Metres.
Never shall I forget the first night I partly spent on this full moon lit spot, a death past under, and over me the immortal light. This happened more than 37 years ago.
[72]The last mentioned estimation of name I got from a former Mag?lang regent, now called haji or kaji Danu ning Rat. The Javanese generally wrote and write buddÅ, in Javanese characters: Javanese script
[73]According to Kern the word Ûrn means a symbol of both the sun and lightning.
[74]A young Dutchman, whom I met in 1898 in the BÅrÅbudur’s pasanggrahan, thought he saw a mutual difference in the posture of the hands of these 72 dagob-Buddhas. This difference really exists, but only in the manner in which the different sculptors interpreted the positively meant posture of the two hands.
This very same difference in the execution of one and the same task is also to be seen on other Buddha images. Should it have another meaning the thesis that these sculptures are to represent the different five DhyÂni-Buddhas would then be frustrated, because there would be much more than five, indeed.
The man appealed to the official draughtsman accompanying him, an absolutely unscientific fellow.
[75]The other objects were a little metal vase with cover—formerly containing some ashes, perhaps—; some ancient javanese coins and another small metal image. In the pits of other tyan?is in Java we also found stone urns with ashes, and coins or other objects of precious metal, and some coloured precious stones which were given to the dead in their graves, and symbolically representing the sapta ratna or seven treasures. See my “Boeddhistische tempel- en klooster-bouwvallen in de Parambanan-vlakte” and my “Tjan?i Idjo” in the “Tijdschrift v. Ind. T., L. en V. K.” published in 1888.
[76]Out of the six Buddhas of the BÅrÅbudur we don’t see any trace of a sixth Buddha such as we found in a different form at NipÂl: four-armed, in a mythical dress, crowned and provided with peculiar attributes.
[77]See my “Een Boeddhisten-koning op den BÅrÅbudur” appeared in “het Tijdschrift van Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde” of 1896, and the manuscript of the interpreting second part, not published by the editors, but of which I afterwards sent a copy to professor Kern and other learned men.
[78]On the twenty-seventh sculpture (W. L. 53).
[79]I for me don’t know any analogue of these three groups though they may exist elsewhere in the mainland, so that this explanation of mine will be a questionable thesis only.
[80]See Oldfield’s “Sketches from Nipal” p. 90 and 157 and the pictures opposite p. 219 and 260 of the second volume.
[81]See my apologetics mentioned in VI note 14 and my “Oudheidkundige Aanteekeningen”, I.
[82]Notes of the “Kon. Instituut” (Royal Institute) from 1887, p. XCIV and following ones.
[83]G 5 has been wrongly marked with 6, just as the following one has been numbered G 6.
[84]Each dagob is a tyaitya, but not each tyaitya is a dagob. This word is only given to the depositary of one or more than one relic. See Kern’s “Geschiedenis van het Boeddhisme in IndiË”, II p. 139 and following ones.
In the same manner I saw Ceylon Buddhists render due homage to the dagob at Kelany.
[85]I’m not a Buddhist myself though I highly esteem the undegenerate Buddhism of the southern church.
