Among the ancient monuments of Insulinde[125] the chandi Boro Budoor stands facile princeps. Situated in the Kadu, it is easily reached from Jogjakarta, about twenty-five miles, or from Magelang, about eighteen miles distant, by carriage or, still more easily, by taking the steam-tram which connects those two provincial capitals and leaving the cars at Moontilan where an enterprising Chinaman provides vehicles, at short notice, for the rest of the journey via the chandi Mendoot on the left bank of the Ello, just above its confluence with the Progo. No better approach to the most consummate achievement of Buddhist architecture in the island or in the whole world, can be imagined than this one, which leads past the smaller but scarcely less nobly conceived and conscientiously executed temple, a commensurate introduction to the wonderful, crowning edifice across the waters, portal to the holiest in gradation of majestic beauty. The Kadu has been well styled the garden of Java, as Java the pleasance of the East, full of natural charms which captivate the senses, abounding in amenities soothing to body and soul; but if it had nothing more to offer than the Boro Budoor and the Mendoot, it would reward the visitor to those central shrines of Buddhism far beyond expectation.

Behind the horses, a mental recapitulation of the characteristics of Hindu and Buddhist architecture in the golden age of Javanese art will not come amiss, and there may be some wonder that with so much veneration for the Bhagavat in friendly competition with the Jagad Guru, nowhere in the negri Jawa an imprint is shown of the blessed foot of promise, with the deliverer’s thirty-first sign, the wheel of the law on the sole. If, in explanation, it should be adduced that he never travelled to those distant shores, what does that matter? Has he been in Ceylon? And how then about the sripada, the record left there as in so many other countries, with the sixty-five hints at good luck? While we revolve such questions, our carriage rolls on; the coachman cracks his whip, evidently proud of his skill in turning sharp corners without reining in; the runners jump with amazing agility off and on the foot-board and crack their whips, rush to the front to encourage the leaders of the team up steep inclines, fall again to the rear when it goes down hill in full gallop. The exhilarating motion makes the blood tingle in the veins. How lovely the landscape, the valley shining in the brilliant light reflected from the mountain slopes, ...

Another turn and we dash like a whirlwind past the kachang-oil[126] and boongkil[127] mill of Mendoot; still another turn and, with a magnificent display of his dexterity in pulling up, our Jehu brings us to a sudden standstill before the temple. Opposite is a mission-school conducted for many years, with marked success, by Father P. J. Hoevenaars, in his leisure hours an ardent student of Java’s history and antiquities, ever ready to apply the vast amount of learning accumulated in his comprehensive reading on a solid classical basis, to the clearing up of disputed points, though his modesty suffered the honours of discovery to go to the noisy players of the archaeological big drum. His large stock of information was and is always at the disposal of whoever may choose to avail himself of it and, writing of the chandis Mendoot and Boro Budoor, I acknowledge gratefully the benefit derived from my intercourse with this accomplished scholar, lately transferred to Cheribon.

The exact date of the birth of the chandi Mendoot is unknown but there are reasons for believing that it was built shortly after the chandi Boro Budoor, at some time between 700 and 850 Saka (778 and 928 of the Christian era), in the glorious period of Javanese architecture to which we owe also the Prambanan group, the chandis Kalasan, Sewu and whatever is of the best in the island. There are additional reasons for believing that the splendour loving prince who ordered the Boro Budoor to be raised and under whose reign the work on that stupendous monument was begun, founded the Mendoot too as a mausoleum to perpetuate his memory, and that his ashes were deposited in the royal tomb of his own designing before its completion. If so, he was one of the most prolific and liberal builders we have cognisance of; but his memory is nameless and all we know of him personally, besides the imposing evidence to his Augustan disposition contained in the superb structures he left, rests upon two pieces of sculpture at the entrance to the inner chamber of the mortuary chapel, if such it be, which represent a royal couple with a round dozen of children, just as we find in some old western churches the carved or painted images of their founders’ families.[128] We are perhaps indebted for the preservation of these suggestive reliefs to the circumstance of the chandi Mendoot having been covered, hidden from view during centuries and to a certain extent protected against sacrilegious hands by volcanic sand, earth and vegetation. Almost forgotten, its slumbers were, however, not wholly undisturbed for, when Resident Hartman, his curiosity being excited by wild tales, began to clear it in 1836, he found that treasure-seekers, out for plunder, had pierced the wall above the porch and that by way of consolation or out of vexation at missing the untold wealth reported to be buried inside, they had carried off or smashed the smaller, free standing statuary. The process of cleaning up rather stimulated than prevented new outrages: stripped of its covering of detritus, which had shielded it at least against petty, casual pilfering, the chandi Mendoot excited by its helpless beauty the most injurious enthusiasm. Fortunately, the statues which formed its chief attraction were too big for the attentions of the long-fingered gentry whose peculiar methods in dealing with native art strongly needed but never experienced repression by the local authorities.

Speaking of the statuary and comparing it with Indian models, more particularly a four-armed image, seated cross-legged on a lotus, the stem of which is supported by two figures with seven-headed snake-hoods, Fergusson says: The curious part of the matter is, that the Mendoot example is so very much more refined and perfect than that at Karli. The one seems the feeble effort of an expiring art, the Javan example is as refined and elegant as anything in the best age of Indian sculpture. Of the Mendoot carvings, however, more anon. I shall first endeavour to give a general idea of this temple which, according to the same writer, though small, is of extreme interest for the history of Javanese architecture. Rouffaer calls it the classic model of a central shrine with substructure and churchyard, while observing that the principal statue of the Boro Budoor, the rest of whose statues are turned either towards one of the cardinal points or towards the zenith, faces the east and the Mendoot opens to the west, the two temples therefore fronting each other. Closely observed, the latter proved of double design since it consists of a stone outer sheath, built round an older structure of brick, the original form with its panellings, horizontal and perpendicular projections, having been scrupulously followed. The neatly fitting joints, both of the hewn stones and of the bricks of the interior filling, show a mastery of constructive detail rarely met with at the present day and certainly not in Java. To this wonderful technique, adding solidity to a graceful execution of the ground-plan, belongs all the credit for the Mendoot holding out, notwithstanding persistent ill-usage. An ecstatic thought brightly bodied forth by a daring imagination and astonishing skill, a charming act of devotion blossoming from the flower-decked soil as the lotus of the good law did from the garden of wisdom and universal love, it must have looked grandly beautiful in its profuse ornament, which taught how to be precise without pettiness, how to attain the utmost finish without sacrificing the ensemble to trivial elaboration. Yet this gem of Javanese architecture seemed destined to complete destruction. Its pitiful decay did not touch the successors of Resident Hartman. When, in 1895, after several years’ absence from the island, I came to renew acquaintance, it had visibly crumbled away; official interference with “collectors” limited itself to notices, stuck up on a bambu fence, warning them of the danger they ran from the roof falling in. It needed two years more of demolition, the walls bulging out, the copings tumbling down, before the correspondence, opened in 1882 anent a desirable restoration, produced some result; before the Mendoot, the jewelled clasp of that string of pearls, the Buddhist chandis pendent on the breast of Java from the Boro Budoor, her diamond tiara, was going to be refitted.

And how? It is an unpleasant tale to tell: after two decades of consideration and reconsideration, in the fourth year of the preliminary labours of restoration, the local representative of the Department of Public Works, put in charge of the job as a side issue of his already sufficiently exacting normal duties, aroused suspicions concerning his competency in the archaeological line. An altercation with Dr. Brandes, followed by more controversy de viva voce, in writing and in print, led to compliance with his request that it might please his superiors to relieve him from his additional and subordinate task as reconstructor of ancient monuments. From that moment, January 2, 1901, until May 1, 1908, absolutely nothing was done and the scaffoldings erected all round the building were suffered to rot away, symbolic of the extravagant impecuniosity of a Government which never cares how money is wasted but always postpones needful and urgent improvements till the Greek Kalends on the plea of its chronic state of kurang wang.[129] When most of the fl. 8600, fl. 7235, fl. 25142 and fl. 4274, successively wrung from Parliament for excavations and restoration, had been squandered on what Dr. Brandes considered to be bungling patchwork, the expensive, useless scaffoldings, becoming dangerous to the passers-by in their neglected state, necessitated the disbursement, in 1906, of fl. 350 for their removal. On the continuation of the work, in 1908, by other hands, of course a new one, also of teak-wood, had to be erected. And, the restoration once more being under way on the strength of fl. 6800 grudgingly allotted, Parliament decided finally that no sufficient cause had been shown to burden the colonial budget with the sum which, according to an estimate of 1910, was required to bring it to an end! The profligately penurious mandarins of an exchequer exhausted by almost limitless liberality in the matter of high bounties, subsidies, allowances, grants for experiments which never lead to anything of practical value; in the matter of schemes which cost millions and millions only to prove their utter worthlessness,—the penny-wise, pound-foolish heads refused, after an expenditure of fl. 52401 to little purpose, to disburse fl. 21700 or even fl. 7000 more for the completion of the work commenced, this time under guarantee of success. Arguments advanced to make them revoke their decision, were met with the statement that the Government did not intend to deviate from the line of conduct, adopted after mature deliberation in regard to the ancient monuments of Java, restricting its care to preservation of the remains ... a characteristic sample of Governmental cant in the face of grossest carelessness and the kind of preservation inflicted on the chandi Panataran or wherever its officials felt constrained by public opinion to act upon make-believe circulars from Batavia and Buitenzorg before pigeon-holing them. And so the perplexing inconsistencies of Dutch East Indian finance, parsimony playing chassez-croisez with boundless prodigality, are faithfully mirrored in the tribulations of the chandi Mendoot: the reauthorised work of restoration was stopped again, on the usual progress killing plea of kurang wang, after the adjustment of the first tier above the cornice, and the temple, bereft of its crowning roof in dagob style, calculated to fix the basic conception in the beholder’s mind, has in its stunted condition been aptly compared to a bird of gorgeous plumage, all ruffled and with the crest-feathers pulled out.

The operations were hampered by still other contrarieties. A tremendous battle was waged apropos of the question whether or not gaps in the layers of stones of the front wall above the porch pointed to the existence of a passage or passages for the admittance of air and light to the inner chamber; if so, whether or not those passages inclined at an angle sufficient to let the sun’s rays illumine the head of the principal statue in that inner chamber. To rehearse the heated dispute is not profitable: as usual, after the chandi had fallen into ruin and an endless official correspondence had lifted its ruin into prominence, archaeological faddists of every description tried to acquire fame with absurd suggestions and crazy speculations. Leaving their theories regarding the inclinations of the axes of probable or possible transmural apertures for what they are, more instruction is to be derived from the decorative arrangements. The inherent beauty of the ornament survived happily the injurious effects of changing monsoons, of ruthless robbery, of preservation in the Government sense of the word. When the sun caresses it, the Friendly Day, under the blue vault of the all-compassing sky, smiling at this gem of human art, offered in conjugal obedience by the earth, which trembles at his touch, it seems a sacrificial gift of reflowering mortality to heaven. In art, said Lessing, the privilege of the ancients was to give no thing either too much or too little, and the remark of the great critic, as here we can see, applies to a wider range of classic activity than he had in mind. Wherever the ancient artist wrought, in Greece or in Java, we find moreover that he drew his inspiration directly from nature; that his handiwork reflects his consciousness of the moving soul of the world; that the secret of its imperishable charm lies pre-eminently in his keenness of observation. To Javanese sculpture in this period may be applied what Fergusson remarked of Hindu sculpture some thousand years older in date: It is thoroughly original, absolutely without a trace of foreign influence, but quite capable of expressing its ideas and of telling its story with a distinction that never was surpassed, at least in India. Some animals, such as elephants, deer and monkeys, are better represented there than in any sculptures known in any part of the world; so, too, are some trees and the architectural details are cut with an elegance and precision which are very admirable. Turning to the Mendoot we notice how the sculptors charged with its decoration, always truthful and singularly accurate in the expression of their thoughts and feelings, portrayed their surroundings in outline and detail, wrote in bas-reliefs, ornament and statuary the history, the ethics, the philosophy, the religion of the people they belonged to and materialised their splendid dreams for. What conveys a better knowledge of the Tripitaka, the Buddhist system of rules for the conduct of life, discipline and metaphysics, than their imagery, coloured by the very hue of kindliness and effacement of self in daily intercourse; what inculcates better the paramitas, the six virtues, and charity the first of them, than their carved mementos of the reverence we owe to the life of all sentient creatures, our poor relations the animals, striving on lower planes to obtain ultimate delivery from sin and pain but no less entitled to benevolence than man?

As in the decoration of the younger chandis Panataran and Toompang, fables occupy a prominent position in that of the chandi Mendoot. Among the twenty-two scenes spread over the nearly triangular spaces to the right and left of the staircase which ascends to the entrance, eleven on each side, partly lost and wholly damaged, are, for instance, reliefs illustrative of the popular stories of the tortoise and the geese, of the brahman, the crab, the crow and the serpents, etc. Of one of them only a small fragment is left, representing a turtle with its head turned upward, gazing at something in the air, whence Dr. Brandes infers its connection with the following tale, inserted in the account of the concerted action of the animals which conspired to kill the elephant, as rendered in the Tantri, an old Javanese collection of fables: Once upon a time there were turtles who took counsel together about the depredations of a ravenous vulture and their kabayan (chief of the community) asked:—What do you intend to do to escape being eaten by that bird? Accept my advice and lay him a wager that you can cross the sea quicker than he; if he laughs at your conceit, you must crawl into the sea where the big waves are, except two of you, one who stays to start on the race when he begins to fly, and one who swims across the day before and waits for him at the other side. What do you think, turtles? You cannot lose if you manage this well.—Your advice is excellent, answered they, and while the kabayan was still instructing them, the vulture arrived and demanded a turtle to eat.—What is your hurry, spoke the kabayan for them all; I bet you that any one of us can swim quicker across the sea than you can fly.—I take that bet, replied the vulture, but what shall I have if I win?—If you win, you will be at liberty to eat me and my people and our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on and so on to the end of time; but you must pledge your word that if you lose, you will move from here and seek your food elsewhere. It is now rather late but to-morrow morning you can choose any one of my people you please to match your swift flight with.—All right, said the vulture and he went to his nest to sleep, but the kabayan sent one of his turtle-people across the sea. The vulture showed himself again a little after dawn, not to waste time, for he felt pretty hungry and the sooner he could win the race, the sooner he would have breakfast. He did not even take the precaution to select an adversary among the decrepit and slow, so sure was he of his superiority, and, besides, all the turtles were so much alike. The kabayan counted one, two, three, go! and the vulture heard one of them plunge into the water and he unfolded his wings and alighted at the other side in an instant, when, lo! there he saw the beast calmly waiting for him. The vulture felt ashamed and moved to a distant country for he did not know that he had been cheated. And there was only one vulture but there were many turtles. And the boar told this event to his friends, exactly as the reverend Basubarga saw it happen.

Another fable, still more widely distributed and clinching the same moral, is that of the kanchil (a small, extremely fleet species of deer) and the snail; travelling to Europe, it is there best known in its German form recorded by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. Of its many variants in the Malay Archipelago we may mention the wager between a snail and a tiger as to which could most easily jump a river; the snail, attaching herself to one of her big competitor’s paws, wins, of course, and convinces the terror of the woods by means of his hairs adhering to her body, that she is accustomed to feed on his kind, two or three per diem, freshly killed, whereupon the tiger leaves off blustering and sneaks away.[130] The prose version of the Tantri which, somewhat different from the two metrical readings known to us, contains the vulture and turtle incident, dates probably from the last half of the Mojopahit period and is therefore at least four centuries younger than the chandi Mendoot, so that its author and the sculptors of the scenes from popular beast-stories on the temple’s walls, must have had access to a common stock of ancient fables. All turned it to best advantage and the decorators of this splendid edifice seized their opportunity to let the men and animals they carved in illustration of their national literature, express what they had to say in their passionate overflow of the creative instinct. They gave their narrative a frame in ornament of dazzling beauty, sweetly harmonious with the moral of the lessons they taught, stirring to deepest emotion; they cased thoughts of happiest purport in shrines embossed and laced with fretwork more suggestive of ivory than of stone. They adorned the Mendoot as a bride, to be displayed before her husband, the Boro Budoor, revelling in the fanciful idea which makes the saktis of the Dhyani Buddhas carry budding flowers to honour incarnate love. The wealth of statuary, while orthodox Buddhism did not admit the worship of images either of a saintly founder of temples or of his saintly followers; the deities with the attributes of Doorga, Siva and Brahma, who diversify the ornament of the exterior walls, from which right distribution of lines and surfaces may be learnt in rhythmical relation to contour and dimension, are further indications of the syncretism signalising the tolerance, the fraternal mingling of different creeds in the distant age of Mataram’s vigour and artistic energy.

The religious principles underlying that empire’s greatness and providing a basis for a firm sense of duty to guide a temperament of fire, are nobly embodied in the three gigantic statues placed in the inner chamber of the Mendoot or, to be quite exact, round which that chandi was reared, for the entrance is too small to let them through, especially the largest of them which, miraculously undamaged save one missing finger-tip, has slid down from its pedestal and consequently occupies a lower station between the subordinate figures than originally intended. All three are seated and the first in rank, of one piece with his unembellished throne, measures fourteen feet; the two to his right and left, of less grave aspect, wearing richly wrought necklaces, armlets, wristbands, anklets and tiaras, measure eight feet each. If the oorna[131] more excellent than a crown, identifies the master among them, the position of whose fingers reminds of Vajrochana, the first Dhyani Buddha, the others have been taken respectively for a Bodhisatva and for a devotee who attained by his meritorious life a high degree of saintliness but whose Brahmanic adornment flatly contradicts the Buddhist character of such perfection. This explanation is therefore considered unsatisfactory and unacceptable by many, as, for instance, his Majesty Somdetch Phra Paramindr Chulalongkorn, the late King of Siam, who, by the way, when visiting the chandis Mendoot and Boro Budoor in 1896, claimed those masterpieces of mahayanistic art for his own, the southern church, to use the incorrect but convenient distinction. According to this royal interpreter, the idea was to represent the Buddha in the act of blessing the Buddhist prince who ordered the Boro Budoor to be built, here placed at his right with an image of the deliverer in his makuta and carrying no upawita but a monk’s robe under the insignia of his dignity; the third statue, directly opposite, at the Buddha’s left, without Buddhist accessories but with an upawita hanging down from its left shoulder, might impersonate him again in his state before conversion, or his unconverted father on whom, after death, he wished to bestow a share in the deliverer’s benediction. However this may be, there is no doubt of the Enlightened One’s identity in one of his many personifications and, leaving the eighty secondary marks unexplored (three for the nails, three for the fingers, three for the palms of the hands, three for the forty evenly set teeth, one for the nose, six for the piercing eyes, five for the eyebrows, three for the cheeks, nine for the hair, ten for the lower members in general,—without our entering into further detail!), the thirty-two primary signs are all present: the protuberance on the top of the skull; the crisped hair (of a glossy black which the sculptor could not reproduce) curling towards the right;[132] the ample forehead; the oorna, which sheds a white light (also unsculpturable) as the sheen of polished silver or snow smiled upon by the sun; etc. Though the colossal statue of the welcome redeemer, like those of the worshipping kings, does not recommend itself by faultless modelling, it breathes the spirit which sustains the arahat, him who becomes worthy; it radiates the tranquil felicity of annihilation of existence, sin, sorrow and pain; it promises the final blowing out of life’s candle, the Nirvana, when the understanding will be reached of the Adi-Buddha, the primitive, primordial, immeasurable. And the lowest of the four degrees of the Nirvana, it seems to say, is already attainable on earth by emancipation from the bondage of fleshly desire and vice, by avoidance of that which taints and corrupts.... The noonday glare, subdued by the heavy shadow of the porch, fills the sanctuary with a golden haze and upon its dimly gleaming wings a faint music descends, a song of deliverance. The psalmist’s visions of the covering of iniquity compass us about and invite to recognition of a common source of divine inspiration in mankind of whatever creed. The scent of the melati and champaka flowers, strewn at the feet and in the lap of the deity—the image of him who taught that there is none such, and revered by professed believers in the Book which consigns idolaters to hell-fire!—mingles with the pungent odour of the droppings of the bats, fluttering and screeching things in the dark recesses of the roof, disturbed in their sleep. Truly there ought to be a limit to syncretism and this last mentioned mixture of heterogeneous elements soon affects the visitor in a manner so offensive that retreat becomes a matter of necessity.

As we step outside, our eyes are blinded by the burning light inundating the valley, the fiery furnace ablaze at the foot of mountains flaming up to the sky, a terror of beauty: Think of the fire that shall consume all creation and early seek your rescue, said the Buddha. It speaks to us of the cataclysm which shook Java on her foundation in the waters and upset the work of man, killing him in his thousands and burying his temples, the Mendoot and many, many more, under the ashes of her volcanoes, some such upheaval as when the conflict began between the Saviour of the World and the Great Enemy, to quote from the sacred scriptures; when the earth was convulsed, the sea uprose from its bed, the rivers turned back to their sources, the hill-tops fell crashing to the plains; when the day at length was darkened and a host of headless spirits rode upon the tempest. Though the ground has also been raised by the drift down the slopes of the Merapi, by the overflowing runnels discharging their load of mud into the Ello and the Progo, the magnitude of volcanic devastation can be gauged from the difference in level between the base of the chandi and the site of the kampong higher up, under which the platform extends whereon its subsidiary buildings stood. Excavations in the detritus have already resulted in the discovery of portions of a brick parapet once enclosing the temple grounds; of vestiges of smaller shrines in the east corner of the terrace and of a cruciform brick substructure to the northeast with fragments of bell-shaped chaityas;[133] of a Banaspati, probably from the balustrade of the staircase, and detached stones with and without sculptured ornament, which revealed the former existence of several miniature temples surrounding the central one. At the time of my last visit (which came near terminating my career in my present earthly frame, through the rotten scaffolding giving way under my feet when ascending to the roof), more than half of the space conjecturally encompassed by the parapet, still awaited exploration, and since then restoration, within the limits of the scanty sums allowed, seems to have superseded excavation. In connection with both, the names should be mentioned of P. H. van der Ham, who did wonders with the little means at his disposal, and C. den Hamer, who showed that the decoration of the Mendoot too was not completed before the great catastrophe which devastated Central Java and stopped architectural pursuits.[134]

Reviewing the history of the ancient monuments of the island, not one can pass without a repetition of the sad tale of spoliation. However unpleasant it be to record in every single instance the culpable negligence of a Government stiffening general indifference and almost encouraging downright robbery, the rapid deterioration of those splendid edifices allows no alternative in the matter of explanation. When officials and private individuals of the ruling race set the example, the natives saw no harm in quarrying building material on their own account for their own houses, and they had no time to lose in the rapid process of the razing of their chandis for the adornment of residency and assistant-residency gardens, the construction of dams, sugar-mills and indigo factories. Temple stones have been found in many villages round the Mendoot and particularly in Ngrajeg, about two miles distant on the main road, there is no native dwelling in the substructure of which they have not been used.[135] Though the wealth of the dessa Ngrajeg in this respect may be explained by its once having boasted its own chandi, of which nothing remains but the foundations, there is abundant proof that the chief quarry of the neighbourhood on this side of the river was the Mendoot as the Boro Budoor on the other. From a juridical standpoint, the natives in possession of such spoil, acquired by their fathers or grandfathers, have a prescriptive right on it not disputable in law, averred the administration at Batavia, and so whatever the architects in charge of the restoration needed, had to be bought back and diminished still further the disposable funds. Leaving the doubtful points of this legal question and the enforcement in practice of the theoretical decision for what they are worth to Kromo or Wongso, ordered to part with his doorstep or coinings, there is no doubt that it is illegal and highly censurable to demolish temples, and temples like the Mendoot at that, to secure building material for Government dams and bridges. What happened in Mojokerto with the bricks of Mojopahit and has been complained of elsewhere, I saw happen in 1885 with Mendoot stones, freely used for abutments, piers, spandrel fillings, etc., when near by the spanning of the Progo was in progress. That bridge has since succumbed like the railway bridge then in course of construction farther down the Progo, a warning which, if heeded, might have prevented, for instance, the chronic misfortunes of the railway bridge in the Anei gorge, West Coast of Sumatra.

With Government bridges lacking the strength to resist the impetuosity of more than ordinarily boisterous freshets, there may always be a surprise in store for the pilgrim to the Boro Budoor who has arrived at the first station, the Mendoot: will he or will he not find the means to cross? For, in time of banjir, i.e. when the river is in spate, the primitive ferry which maintains the communication in lieu of better, a bambu raft or two frail barges fastened together, fails as to both comfort and safety, and after heavy rains large groups of men and women can often be seen waiting for the turbulent waters to quiet down a bit. Lord Kitchener visited the Mendoot in December, 1909, during a bridgeless spell and conditions generally inauspicious to his proceeding a mile and a half farther to the Boro Budoor. Otherwise the being ferried over in company of gaily dressed people going to or coming from market with fruit, garden produce and all sorts of merchandise for sale or bought, has its compensations; rocked by the eddying stream which glides swiftly between its steep banks, our dominating sensation is one of joy in the splendour of unstinted light, of freedom from the petty torments of everyday routine,—and let worry take care of itself! As we climb the opposite shore, comes the mysteriously grateful feeling of being enveloped in the soil’s genial exhalation of warm contentment, the fertile earth’s response to the passionate embrace of the sun. Their espousal, their connubial ardour appears incorporate in the chandi Dapoor,[136] a petrified spark of universal love, a wonder of structural and decorative skill in a shady grove some hundred paces to the right of the road.[137] And again the spiritus mundi is symbolically interpreted in the story of yond temple betrothed and wedded to the tree. They were very much smitten with each other, the chandi Pawon and a randu alas[138] living in the hamlet Brajanala. They married and the pretty comedy of affection turned into tragedy: as chances very often in the case of a weaker and a stronger partner in the matrimonial game, the latter throve and prospered at the expense of the former. Now of his brothers there were and still are many exactly like him, but of her sisters there were only few and none of her peculiar kind of beauty, and since it seemed a pity that she should waste her singular comeliness in supporting a husband of no particular worth for all his bigness and parade of protecting her, a divorce was resolved upon which meant his sentence of death. Voices in favour of reprieve or commutation of the penalty were disregarded: what did one randu alas more or less matter compared with the preservation of the exquisite chandi Pawon, sole surviving representative of her class? So the tree was cut down and she escaped happily the fate which overtook the chandis Perot and Pringapoos. The chandi Pawon was even wholly restored; its foundations, sapped by a tangle of roots, relaid; its roof reconstructed.[139] In its graceful proportions a striking illustration of the truth that a great architect can show the vast range of his art in a very small building, may it stand many centuries longer between Mendoot and Boro Budoor as the typical expression of Javanese thought in Dravidian style!

All is quiet and still in the stately avenue of kanaris[140] and few wayfarers are likely to be met, except after puasa.[141] “Than longen folke to gon on pilgrimages,” and the Boro Budoor attracts a goodly crowd bent on sacrifice to the statue in the crowning dagob or to lesser images held in special veneration. Such travelling companions, merrily but sedately intent on devotional exercise conformable to ancestral custom, notwithstanding Moslim doctrine, their forefathers’ imaginations tingeing their conceptions of life seen and unseen because of their forefathers’ blood running in their veins, increase the cheery solace of abandon to nature, facilitate the attainment of a higher sublime condition than reached as yet, the third Brahma Vihara improved upon by the Buddha, joy in the joy of others while earth and vapoury atmosphere mingle in fullness of delight,

We turn a corner and the road winds up a hill. That hill is the base of the Boro Budoor, the long desired, suddenly extending his welcome, majestic, overwhelmingly beautiful. It is a repetition on a much grander scale, much more magical, of the effect produced by the chandi Derma bursting upon our view in its sylvan frame, reality taking the semblance of a glorious dream. In the waning light of evening the polygonous pyramid of dark trachyte appears as a powerful vision of the mystery of existence shining through a veil of translucent gold. Gray cupolas, raised on jutting walls and projecting cornices, a forest of pinnacles pointing to heaven, gilded by the setting sun, reveal perspectives of boundless immensity, vistas of infinite distance. The brilliancy of heaven, reflected by this mass of forceful imagery, this conquering thought worked in solid stone, receives new lustre from the dome-encircled fundamental idea so mightily expressed. Nowhere has art more ably availed herself of the possibilities of site and more felicitously combined with natural scenery, created a more harmonious ensemble than in the amazingly original design and delicate execution of this puissant temple, this gift of the Javanese Buddhists to posterity, a source of spiritual quickening to whoso tries to understand.