Although the theory of Gautama the Sugata’s life-story being only a repolished solar myth has broken down, its vital element of emancipation from Brahmanic bonds is certainly much older than Buddhism and the traditional Buddha but an incarnation of ideas long germinating and attaining fruition in his teachings, precisely as happened with other religious reformers who came and went before and after. The thirty-three gods of the three worlds, “eleven in heaven, eleven on earth and eleven dwelling in glory in mid-air,” with their three supreme shining ones, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, creating, maintaining, destroying and creating anew, began to pall on the human trimoorti of brain, heart and bodily wants; the moral dispensation on which the social edifice was founded, began to need revision. Neither did the orthodox, at first, refuse admittance to the spirit of emendation. At the sangharama[108] of Nalanda the Vedas were taught together with the Buddhist doctrine according to the tenets of the Greater and the Lesser Vehicle À choix. The Buddha had to be accepted and was accepted equally by eastern tolerance and western necessity; while ranking as a divine teacher among his followers in the legendary development of his precepts, he received honour as an incarnation of Vishnu among the Hindus, says Sir William W. Hunter,[109] and as a Saint of the Christian Church, with a day assigned to him in both the Greek and Roman calendars. Truly, the Hindus regarded him as the ninth and hitherto last incarnation of Vishnu, the Lying Spirit let loose to deceive man until the tenth and final descent of the god, on the white horse, with a flaming sword like a comet in his hand, for the destruction of the wicked and the renovation of the world, but he was reckoned with and acknowledged in their mythology, and the remarkable conformity between Prince Sarvarthasiddha’s lineage, adventures and achievements, and those of the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity in the Ramayana are certainly more than accidental. The law of mercy to all, preached by the blissful Bhagavat, the Buddha, the Saviour, affected the Brahman creed profoundly; so profoundly in its deductions, that apprehensive priests resolved to extirpate Buddhist heresy. But since religious persecution always defeats its purpose, Buddhism throve with oppression and holds fully its own against the two other great religions of the present day, al-Islam and Christianity.

To define the Buddhism which, parallel and entwined with HinduÏsm, preceded the Muhammadanism of Java, is no easy matter, if it is possible at all. For the sake of convenience Javanese Buddhism may be classified as mahayanistic, conformable to the northern canon or doctrine of the Greater Vehicle, versus hinayanistic, i.e. conformable to the southern canon or the doctrine of the Lesser Vehicle. But the geographical division proposed by Burnouf, hardly meets the case of our more advanced knowledge, which points rather to chronological distinctions. Javanese Buddhism of the younger growth was strongly impregnated with modified Brahmanic conceits,[110] in fact a compromise between the hopeful expectation of the Metteya Buddha, the Messiah promised by Bhagavat, and resignation to the decrees of the Jagad Guru whom the Saivas of Hindu Java had chosen for their ishta-devata, the fittest form in which to adore the Ruler of the Universe, Param Esvara. Siva lost under Buddhist influences his terrorising aspect as Kala, and the two creeds, giving and taking, lived in perfect concord. The statues of the Dhyani Buddhas partook of Siva’s attributes; those of their sons, the Bodhisatvas, the Buddhas in evolution, and of their saktis, showed the characteristics of other Hindu gods and goddesses; Siva, conversely, assumed the features of Avalokitesvara or Padmapani, the Buddhist lord of the world that is now. I have already spoken of the enthroned Bodhisatvas represented at the SivaÏte temples of Prambanan and the more or less SivaÏte exterior of the Buddhist chandi Mendoot. Also of this remarkable syncretism, born from inbred tolerance, leading to new transactions with the Islam, exacting as it may be everywhere else; of the deference still shown to deities of the Hindu pantheon in the shape of jinn; of the adjustment of Muhammadan institutions to usages of Hindu origin; etc. And Buddhism, doubtless, prepared the mystically inclined mind of the Javanese Moslim for the acceptance of the mild Sufism of the school of Gazali, which guides him in submission of will to ma’ripat, full knowledge, and hakakat, most hidden truth, while he lacks the conviction, to quote Professor L. W. C. van den Berg, that his neglect of the prescribed daily prayers will make him lose his status as a true believer.

Central Java is richer yet in the quality than in the quantity of its Buddhist monuments, whose builders and decorators, like the true artists they were, told what they knew and believed, nothing but that, and therefore told it so well.[111] To examine their work, beautiful even in decay, beginning with the smaller structures, we wend our way again to the plain of Prambanan. Travelling from Jogjakarta to Surakarta by rail, the first stopping-place, reached in about twenty minutes, is Kalasan, the chandi of that name, otherwise called Kali Bening, being visible from the train. Once it must have been one of the finest and most elaborately wrought in the island; now only the south front, nearly tumbling down, witnesses to its former splendour. It was built in 700 Saka (A.D. 778), a date preserved in a Nagari inscription which settles that point,[112] and names a Shailandra prince as its founder in honour of his guru (teacher), doing homage to Tara[113] who, seeing the destruction of men in the sea of life, which is full of incalculable misery, saves them by three means ...; it speaks of a grant of land to the monks of a neighbouring monastery, contains several particulars of practical value with an admonition to keep a bridge or dam in repair, etc. The building, in the form of a Greek cross, had four apartments, reached by a terrace and four staircases, the stones of which have been carried away long ago. The four gates, judging by the little left on one of them, were profusely decorated with the kala-makara motive dominating the ornament. The roof bore images of Dhyani Buddhas in 44 niches and was crowned with 16 dagobs so called, the principal one rising probably to a great height. Time and rapine have reduced this magnificent realisation of a glorious conception, this masterpiece of measured luxury, as Rouffaer styles it justly, to a melancholy heap of debris. The statuary which adorned the exterior is gone, save three images in their niches, examples of the gorgeous but never too florid ornamentation; the interior pictures desolation, ruin within ruin! A disfigured elephant, driven by a horned monster, its mahout, protrudes from the wall above the throne it protects, but the cushioned seat is empty. The statue taken from it was presumably a representation of the beatific Tara glorified in the inscription, the noble and venerable one, whose smile made the sun to shine and whose frown made darkness to envelop the terrestrial sphere. It has been surmised that the mysterious female deity in the residency grounds at Jogjakarta originally filled the throne of Kalasan, but the vanished Tara left her cushion behind and the unknown goddess, whose lovely body rivals the lotus-flower in august sweetness, holds firmly to her padmasana in addition to her attributes defying identification as the mother of the Buddha who is to be.

The short distance between the chandi Kalasan or Kali Bening and the chandi Sari must have been often traversed by the seekers of the noble eight-fold path, inquirers into the four truths and examiners of the three signs, mortifiers of their flesh in the practice of the ten repugnances. Bikshus, living on the alms they collected without asking by word or gesture, without unduly attracting attention, passing in silence those inclined and those not inclined to charity, avoiding the houses and people dangerous to virtue, never tarrying anywhere and never presenting themselves more than three times at the doors of the uncharitable, eating the food received in solitude before noon, the only meal allowed to them, they must have awakened a good deal of pity in their tattered robes, but one suspects that the mendicant brethren of Java, notwithstanding their individual vows of poverty, were exceedingly wealthy as a community after the wont of their kind everywhere and of whatever religious denomination. Their viharas or monasteries, to judge from the ruins, were well appointed and the inmates apparently well provided for by princes who took a pride or found their interest in befriending religion and the religious. If strictly adhering to their monastic rules, the Buddhist monks had to live in the open, but the wet monsoon is not a pleasant season in the woods without adequate protection against storm and rain, and avec le ciel il y a des accommodements, a motto acted upon long before le Sieur Poquelin formulated it. The chandi Sari is supposed to have been the main structure of the residential quarter destined for the accommodation of the clergy connected with the chandi Kalasan, the abode of the monks who knew the greater vehicle of discipline as the inscription has it, the monastery built by command of the Shailendra king for their venerable congregation and recommended to his successors in order that all who followed their teachings might understand the cause and effect of the positive condition of things and attain prosperity. The rectangular building had a lower and an upper storey, both divided into three rooms, lighted by windows; the absent roof had niches for statuary, capped with diminutive domes in the manner of dagobs. In the decoration extensive use has been made of the elephant and the makara, the fabulous fish with an elephant’s head; images of saints with and without aureoles, of celestial beings more suggestive of the Hindu pantheon than of Buddhist atheism,[114] of the bird-people and divers animals, enliven the rich, flowery ornament of the well proportioned facings, cornices and window-frames. Rising gracefully from its solid yet elegant base, the edifice creates an impression of airiness and stability cleverly combined, the dark gray colour of the weatherbeaten andesite blending harmoniously with the tender green of the bambu-stools which transport our thoughts to the garden of Kalandra where the Buddha, preaching the lotus of the good law, made converts foreordained to rank among his most famous disciples: Sariputra, Maudgalyayana, Katyayana.... And the officially licensed sinners against the ancient monuments of Java, hardened, habitual criminals in that respect, expressly appointed to do their worst at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, pretended their horrid botch in the Park of the TrocadÉro to be a reproduction d’une puretÉ irrÉprochable of this rare gem of architectural workmanship, the chandi Sari!

As in India, pious foundations for the benefit of those under bond to serve religion, disregarding worldly considerations, must have been numerous in Java, especially in the plain of Prambanan, once studded with viharas like Asoka’s kingdom, the “Behar” of to-day. Passing over the monastic claims advanced for some ruins in the southern mountains, those of Plahosan cannot be ignored. There we find the remains of two buildings, formerly enclosed by a wall, portions of which are recognisable, and surrounded by smaller structures arranged in three rows, the inner ones reminding of the style conspicuous in the chandi Sewu, about a mile to the west-southwest. Close together, but originally perhaps divided by a second wall, they are situated due north and south from each other with their entrances to the west; the roofs have succumbed; of the two storeys only the lower ones, containing sufficient space for three rooms, are tolerably preserved. Of a composite nature, the chandi Plahosan was presumably rather a sangharama than a vihara and the doorkeeper at the gate, when all those scattered stones and the smashed, stolen or otherwise removed statues were still in place, may have welcomed the wayfarer, seeking shelter on a tempestuous night, with such difficult questions as barred access to the hospitality of Silabhadra, the superior of Nalanda, and his flock. Hiuen Tsiang, the Chinese pilgrim, who could answer them all and a good many more, has left us a description of the sangharama, the six consolidated viharas of Nalanda with their towers, domes and pavilions, embellished by the piety of the kings of the five Indies; their gardens, splashing fountains and shady groves, where he spent several years learning Sanskrit and the wisdom of the holy books, never thinking the days too long; their life of ease, scarcely conducive to the austere observance of pristine discipline by the ten thousand brethren under vows and novices who crowded thither to seek purification and deliverance from sin in study and meditation,—a description which, for want of any better, our fancy takes leave to apply to Plahosan. Though separated by months of travel from Bodhimanda, where Sakyamuni entered the state of the perfect Buddha and the proximity of which gave Nalanda its holy character, the zeal of its scholars and saints, no less tolerant than Hiuen Tsiang’s temporary co-students, who sifted with laudable impartiality the truth from the Vedas, from the doctrines of the two vehicles and from the heresies of the eighteen schismatics, undoubtedly stimulated religious life in the best sense of the word, religion disposing the mind to kindliness and goodwill, as it should, strengthening social ties, fostering science and art.

The walls of the chandi Plahosan, in so far as preserved, are beautifully decorated with sculpture in bas-relief. The delicate tracery of the basement is divided by slender pilasters and the frieze beneath the symmetric cornice is richly festooned, parrots nestling in the foliage among the flowers. Bodhisatvas, standing between, formed the principal ornament of panels bordered by garlands with pendent prayer-bells; the remaining ones grasp lotus-stems springing up to their left; gandharvas (celestial singers) float over the garuda-heads of the portals. The reliefs represent scenes familiar to the observer of native life: here a couple of men seated under a bo-tree or waringin and saluting a person of rank, raising their folded hands to perform the sembah; there a mas[115] with his attendants, one of whom holds the payoong (sunshade) over his head while another carries a senteh[116] leaf. Four stone figures guard the approaches to the viharas, armed with cudgel and sword; in one hand they hold the snake which, after the manner of their kind, should be worn over one shoulder and across the breast, replacing the upawita. The statuary which adorned the inner rooms, was of large dimensions, finely chiselled and garnished with profuse detail, concluding from what we know of it. Part has been removed to the “museum” at Jogja, part has been broken to pieces by treasure-hunters who dug holes and sunk shafts, disturbing the foundations of the chandi Plahosan in their ignorance of the difference between Buddhist monasteries and Hindu mausolea built round funeral pits; the sorely damaged images of holiness which were suffered to keep their stations by frankly destructive and even more pernicious official or semi-official soi-disant “preservation and conservation,” are truly pitiful to behold. It seems, indeed, as if the monuments specially recommended to official care, are singled out for the most irreparable injury. On a par with the wild feast of plaster, cement and whitewash at Panataran was the wonderful planning of a restoration of the chandi Plahosan after faulty drawings and the simultaneous disappearance of the staircase and a portion of the substructure of the northern vihara.

Less than a mile to the south of the stopping-place Prambanan on the railroad from Jogja to Solo, are the ruins of a group of chandis which may or may not have borne a monastic character,[117] Sajiwan and Kalongan being the names connected with it. One of the structures was cleared in 1893 by the Archaeological Society of Jogjakarta and to its statuary applies what has been said of the atrocities perpetrated at Plahosan: besides downright spoliation the same errors of omission and commission. From Prambanan proper, i.e. from the Loro Jonggrang group, it is a short walk to the chandi Sewu, which means the “thousand temples”. They are situated in Surakarta, the boundary between the Susuhunan’s and the Sooltan’s domains, indicated by two white pillars, running just behind the smaller structures which face the shrines of Brahma and Vishnu flanking that of Siva. But, though the walk is short, it may be a trifle too sunny for comfort even if it be morning and the roads lively with the women returning from market, the surroundings of the houses of prayer and death gladdening the eye, presenting a spectacle full of colour and light, the matrons treading their way statelily and steadily, the maidens, decorous and modest, gliding behind their elders like the devis, the shining ones descended from the Ramayana reliefs, to exhibit their exquisite forms, bashful however conscious of their worth in that golden, sweet-scented atmosphere. They have no business at the chandi Sewu and on the unfrequented by-path thither we proceed alone, save for a few children with no more to cover their nakedness than the loveliest innocence—a garment quite different from the western cache-misÈre of mawkish prudery—, curious to find out what the strangers are about. Under their escort we reach the chandi Loomboong (padi-shed), thus called from the size and form of the ruins which compose it. They are sixteen in number, arranged in a square round the principal structure, its once octagonal roof, shaped like a dagob, attesting to its Buddhist character, though it is not unmixed with SivaÏte elements as the funeral pits plainly indicate. They were already empty when examined some years ago and the fine statues tradition speaks of, can nowhere be found. The little ornament left in place and one single fragment of a bas-relief give a high idea of the decoration when the beauty of these temples had not yet faded away, exactly as in the case of the chandi Bubrah,[118] another shrine on the via sacra which connects the Loro Jonggrang and Sewu groups. To quote Major van Erp again: The state of affairs here is very sad; of the chandis Ngaglik, Watu Gudik and Geblak, which the memory of the oldest inhabitants puts somewhat farther north, even the site cannot now be located.

By the time we reach the thousand temples, Surya, the sun-god, has driven his fiery carriage to the zenith of his daily course through the air and the fire-eyed raksasas, who guard the enclosure of holiness; two for each of the four entrances, stretch their gigantic limbs with dreadful menace in the warm brilliancy of indefinite space, tangible terror. Down on one knee to strike, snakes hanging from their left shoulders as poisonous baldrics, they seem to mark the transition between the worship of Kala, quickening destruction personified, and the creed which hails in death the portal to nirvanic nothingness, the liberation from life’s miseries. Behind them reigns the stillness of a tropical noon, subduing heaven and earth to silent but intensely passionate day-dreams. The kingly sun, the sun of Java, wide-skirted Jagannath, having mounted to the summit of the fleckless sky, pauses a moment before descending, he, the light of the world, exciting to generative emotion all that dwells below. The fructifying charm of his touch is manifest in the exuberant fertility of this island fortunate; in the vitality of its people, unrestrained in creative capacity by centuries of spoliation; in their mental make-up, revealed in their history, their beliefs, traditions and legends. The legend of the chandi Sewu may be adduced as an instance in point, though nothing but a different version of the legend of the chandi Loro Jonggrang. One ancient effort to account for architectural wonders deemed of supernatural origin, by an explanation whose Indian basic idea was transplanted from the fields of eastern to those of western folk-lore too, serving at first, perhaps, for all the monuments in the plains of Prambanan and Soro Gedoog, became the framework of different tales adapted to the requirements of different localities. Here it is the story of Mboq Loro Jonggrang repeated, and her lover Raden Bandoong Bondowoso is the son of the beautiful Devi Darma Wati, daughter of Prabu Darmo Moyo, king of the mighty empire of Pengging, whose two brothers, Prabu Darmo Haji and Prabu Darmo Noto, were kings respectively of Slembri and Sudhimoro.

The babad chandi Sewu describes a public function at the Court of Prabu Darmo Moyo, who sits on his throne of ivory, inlaid with the rarest gems. The aloon aloon outside swarms with his warriors and while he pronounces judgment and invests and displaces, ambassadors from Prambanan are announced. They deliver a letter from Prabu Karoong Kolo, in which the Boko, the giant-king, asks Prabu Darmo Moyo’s daughter, Devi Darma Wati, in marriage. The Princess, acquainted with his suit, declares that she will marry no one but the man, be he king or beggar, able to rede a riddle which is given, written on a lontar-leaf, to the ambassadors who thereupon depart. On their arrival at Prambanan, Prabu Karoong Kolo breaks impatiently the seal of the communication; learning its meaning, his eyes dart flames, his mouth foams and, tearing the lontar-leaf into pieces and trampling upon it, making the earth tremble and disturbing the sky with his noisy wrath, he collects his army and marches against Pengging to raze the kraton of Prabu Darmo Moyo and carry Darma Wati off. The King of Pengging, warned of the approaching danger, implores his brother Darmo Noto, King of Sudhimoro, to assist him; with his brother Darmo Haji, King of Slembri, an odious tyrant, he has broken long ago. Prabu Darmo Noto orders his son, the Crown Prince Raden Damar Moyo, to lead his troops against the giant-king. Traversing the woods at the head of his men, scaling cliffs and climbing mountains, crossing rivers and ravines, attacked by evil spirits and wild animals, Damar Moyo, strenuous in the cause of his uncle and his fair cousin, hastens to their defence but, leaving every one behind, he loses his way and, tired out at last, falls asleep. A strange sensation of heavenly joy awakens him and, opening his eyes, he beholds the supreme god, Bathara Naradha, who presents him with the celestial weapons of the abode of the immortals, Jonggring Saloko, salves his forehead with the divine spittle to make him invulnerable and invincible, and puts into his hand the flower Sekar Joyo Kusumo which will enable him to rede Devi Darma Wati’s riddle. Strengthened and more enthusiastic than ever, Raden Damar Moyo, having rejoined his army, engages the giants of Prambanan and defeats them, astonishing friend and foe with his acts of superhuman prowess. He redes the riddle, marries Darma Wati, and his father-in-law, Prabu Darmo Moyo, appoints him senapati, i.e. commander-in-chief of the forces of Pengging.

The legend being too long for insertion in full, besides its containing details too candidly illustrative of the generative emotion engendered by the wide-skirted Jagannath, a summary of the events which led to the foundation of the chandi Sewu must suffice. Boko Prabu Karoong Kolo, King of Prambanan, loses his life in another attempt at the subjugation of Pengging, and Raden Damar Moyo, having nothing more to fear from that side, but naturally inclined to strife and contest, resolves to take part in the wars then raging among the kings of the Thousand Empires, Sewu Negoro. So he leaves his wife and the son born to them, Raden Bandoong, who grows into a comely youth. Arriving at manhood and still in complete ignorance of his sire’s name and lineage, the prince questions his mother on that subject but, in obedience to an express order from the gods, she refuses to tell him. Vexed and suspicious, he equips himself from the armoury of his grandfather, Prabu Darmo Moyo, and eludes maternal vigilance, escaping from the kraton in search of his father. After many adventures, culminating in a conflict with his parent in the Sewu Negoro, the two meeting and exchanging hard blows and parting as strangers, he reaches Prambanan, kills Tumenggoong Bondowoso, left in charge of that realm, and falls in love with Devi Loro Jonggrang, daughter of the late Boko Prabu Karoong Kolo. But he has been forestalled in her favour by his cousin Raden Boko, who is to become her husband on condition of the overthrow of Pengging and Sudhimoro. Suspecting a rival while maturing his plans for conquest, this Raden Boko takes a mean advantage of the lady by a trick learnt from a recluse who lends him a tesbeh (string of prayer-beads) which possesses the power of transforming its temporary owner into a white turtle-dove. So disguised, he flies to the women’s quarter of the kraton of Prambanan and attracts the attention of Loro Jonggrang, who responds to the lovely bird’s advances, puts it in her bosom and pets and fondles it to her heart’s content until, alas! it is killed by an arrow sped from the never erring bow of Raden Bandoong, thanks to the busybodies of the palace having informed him of the idyllic progressive cooing. Woman-like, the bereaved Devi submits to the inevitable after a period of passionate mourning, and promises her heart and hand to the stronger if not more dexterous suitor on condition of his building a thousand temples in one night between the first crowing of the cock and daybreak. With the help of the gods of Jonggring Saloko he accomplishes the task, but at the moment that he whispers astaga[119] chandi Sewu, struck by the sight of the moonlit plain blossoming into a city of holiness, the immortals change him for his arrogant prayer into a monster of horrible aspect. Woman-like again, the Devi declines to keep her promise, pleading that she engaged herself to a man and not to a brute, and seeks refuge on the banks of the river Opak. Frightened by the persecution of Raden Bandoong, who tracks her from cave to cave, she gives untimely birth to a daughter, the fruit of her affection for turtle-doves, and dies. The brutal, baffled lover still haunts the neighbourhood, which therefore native mothers-to-be scrupulously avoid, though it is not observed that the virgins derive much instruction from the legend as far as concerns the consequences of Devi or Mboq Loro Jonggrang’s amours at an earlier stage.

From legendary lore we return to fact in the matter of the foundation of the chandi Sewu by taking cognisance of an inscription, mahaprattaya sangra granting or sang rangga anting, unearthed near one of its 246 (not thousand) temples,[120] extolling the munificence of the magnanimous Granting or Anting. The style of writing justifies the conjecture that the buildings date from about the year 800 and are consequently of one age with the Boro Budoor. If not erected by one architect at the command of one bounteous prince, and the gifts of several pious souls who possessed the wherewithal for devotional works, they were at least constructed according to one plan steadily kept in view, a good deal more than can be said of many religious edifices in western climes, which owe their existence less to co-operative than to contentious piety. In respect of area the largest of the temple groups in Java, the first impression received from it is that of a chaos of ruins, confusion being worse confounded by the quarries opened here and there, and partly filled again with earth and rubbish, while a luxuriant vegetation, regaining on the inroads of mattock and pickaxe, quickly covers what they disturbed. Looking closer, the separate shrines with their elaborate tracery appear in the fiery embrace of the sun like sparkling jewels, trembling with delight in the luminous atmosphere beneath the immaculate sky; the very marks of decay and ravaging time are beautiful; the weeds clustering round the broken ornament, the toppling walls, rouse to fanciful thought. No sound is heard; nothing stirs while we make our way to the principal structure, once lording it over the smaller ones which stood squarely in four lines, 28 for the inner, 44 for the next, 80 for the third, 88 for the outer circumvallation. Excepting those of the second row, their entrances faced inward and amidst their scanty remains the foundations have been uncovered of five somewhat larger ones: two to the east, two to the west and one to the north; like the outlying buildings, these are, with regard to their superstructures, as if they never existed. Of the terraces and staircases no other trace is left than the telltale unevenness of the ground. The resemblance in constructive methods between the chandi Sewu and the chandi Prambanan strikes one at the first glance; the same builders, it is surmised, strove here to do for the Triratna[121] what there they did for the Trimoorti; and if not the same, they discerned equally the one truth bound up in the old creed and the new, and expressed it with equal skill and conviction in these twin litanies of stone—so the workers wrought and the work was perfected by them.

The decorators in charge of the finishing touches, embellished this city of temples with a wealth of ornament which in the quivering glare of day, despite ravage of time and pillage, clothes sanctity in robes of encrusted winsomeness. The sculpture of the chandi Sewu, says a visitor of a century ago, is tasteful, delicate and chaste. Much of what he based his judgment on, has since been carried off or demolished, but what remains fully bears him out: foliage and festoons, garlands and clustered flowers, distributed over facings divided into lozenges and circles by pilasters and fantastically curved lines, with lions, tigers, cattle and deer in ever varying abundance, awaken reminiscences of the carvings which excited our admiration at Prambanan and lead to the question: Did the richly framed panellings of the twenty-four external wall-spaces of the central temple exhibit scenes from the epics and fable-books, besides this sumptuous adornment, to match the almost uniform bas-reliefs of the lesser structures? If so, they must have rivalled the artistic excellence of the Ramayana reliefs which beautify the shrines of Siva, Brahma and Vishnu. And a second question arises: Was the central temple the depository of a relic? In connection with this query it deserves to be noticed that, generally speaking and excepting statuary, the internal wall-spaces of the chandi Sewu lack ornament, evince a soberness in marked contrast to the extravagant representations of the abode of bitterness, as if sign- or house-painters had been entrusted with the illustration of Dante’s Inferno, repulsive attempts À la Wiertz minus the talent to be admired in the Rue Vautier at Brussels, nightmares of crude drawing and cruder colouring to depict perverse torture, I found in eastern edifices raised to satisfy priestly conventions, even in Ceylon, the island of the doctrine that the Buddha next to dwell on earth is the Metteya Buddha, the Buddha of Kindness. More in harmony with the soul’s yearning for his kingdom to come, is the lotus motive happily adapted to the decoration of the chandi Sewu, especially in one of the partially preserved small temples of the outer file, to the east of the southern entrance: from a strong stem which separates into three branches, on three of the sides, the entrance taking up the fourth, three lotus-flowers spring from the soil to carry, in a finely chiselled niche, the (vanished) image of the expected one, the gone-before and coming-after. A few of the outlying buildings have plain facings without any ornament at all, from which it has been concluded that here too something happened to stop the labour in progress. Where completed, the plump-bellied flowerpot, a familiar feature in Javanese ornament, enters largely into the decorative design and its frequent repetition bestows on the sculpture of the chandi Sewu, otherwise so very similar to that of Prambanan, a character all its own.

It has already been remarked that the interiors of the structures which together form this group, are almost bare of decoration. The recesses of the central temple, whose external ornament surpasses in luxuriance everything met elsewhere in Java, three small interconnected apartments projecting on the west, north and south, while the eastern front is broken by the porch, have only empty niches[122] framed by pilasters with flowery capitals. The inner chamber, no less soberly decorated and stripped of the statuary it possessed, en nÉgligÉ as it were,

has on its western side a raised throne of ample dimensions, once perhaps occupied by the large image without head and right hand, dug out of the debris and carried off to the “museum” at Jogja. It still awaits identification and the difficulty is increased by the impropriety of speculating on the likelihood that representations of the universal spirit were admitted in a temple built for the ritual of a creed which acknowledges neither a god nor a soul aspiring to communion with the divine essence in prayer, desiring nothing but annihilation. Yet the Buddhists did learn to pray and to give transcendental ideas a tangible expression in human shape, though they never sank to idolatry. And in Java, mixing freely with Brahmanism, not impermeable to the Sankhya doctrine, Buddhism seems to have swerved occasionally from its longings for extermination in the Nirvana to entertain vague, confused notions of something more hopeful, witness the oft repeated Banaspatis. Herein lies, perhaps, the explanation of otherwise embarrassing peculiarities observed in the conception, the attributes and attitudes of many Buddhist statues in the island which, for the rest, are distinguished by great simplicity of execution. So is the throne which extends over half the floor of the inner room of the central temple of the chandi Sewu, and the same applies to the few headless Dhyani Buddhas lying round, sundered from their stations where they faced the cardinal points, the four quarters of the world, and the first of them, the very elevated, facing the sky. A gigantic finger of bronze, found in the chapel of the throne, supports the theory that the principal statue was of that alloy, an additional incentive to plunder—ancient images of bronze have become scarce indeed: the form of the cushioned pedestal in the chandi Kalasan too betokens a captured metallic Tara, to the further detriment of the domiciliary rights there claimed for the homeless Lady of Mystery in the residency grounds at Jogja.

Although the bulky raksasas which keep her company in that place of exile, prove that official vandalism did not hesitate to avail itself of facilities of transportation afforded by forced labour, the uncommonly heavy guardians of the chandi Sewu balked even the absolute decrees of local despotism. Everything desirable that could be detached and removed, is, however, gone. Those in authority having exercised their privilege by helping themselves, mere private individuals gleaned after their reaping, with or without permission, and exceedingly interesting collections of antiquities were formed by owners of neighbouring sugar-mills. What they appropriated, did, at least, remain in the country, but, among other sculpture, the lion-fighting elephants which lined the fourteen staircases, ten feet high and eight feet wide, still in place as late as 1841, cannot even be traced—they are dissolved, battling animals, staircases and all. It is always and everywhere the same story: statuary and ornament are stolen, treasure-seekers smash the rest, the stones are prime building material and who cares for the preservation of worthless, because already looted and demolished, tumble-down temples? The monuments in the plain of Soro Gedoog have suffered exceptional outrages; at this moment hardly anything is left because there exists absolutely no control, says Major van Erp. His investigations disclosed that stones taken from the chandi Prambanan and, when this was stopped, from the chandi Sewu, were used for the building of a dam in the river Opak. Had not public opinion made itself heard, both these temples might have shared the fate of the chandi Singo, once one of the finest in that region, whose gracefully decorated walls excited the admiration of Brumund in 1845, whose substructure with damaged ornament still held out until 1886, while now the ground-plan cannot even be guessed at and deep holes, dug to get at the foundations, are the only indications of the razed building’s site. To give an idea of the quantity of material used for the dam in the river Opak, I transcribe the measurements of its revetments: 35 metres on the left and from 50 to 60 metres on the right bank; the facings, running up to a height of 6 metres, make it evident beyond doubt where the stone for that work was quarried. Neither are we quite sure that such frightful spoliation belongs wholly to the past. The value of Government solicitude, so eloquently paraded in circulars and colonial reports, can be gauged from the fact, stated by Mr. L. Serrurier, that, during officially sanctioned excavations among the ruins of the chandis Plahosan and Sewu, the stones brought to the surface were simply thrown pell-mell on a heap without their being marked as to locality and position, quite in keeping, it should be added, with the prevailing custom.

This accounts for the sad desolation, more pitiful since soi-disant archaeologists got their hands in, shone upon at the chandi Sewu as at the chandis Plahosan, Sari, Kalasan, Panataran, to restrict myself to one name from East Java,—shone upon by the sun, the egg of the world, whose yolk holds the germ of creation, Surya, the solar orb personified, is a companion wonderfully, grandly suggestive among the “thousand temples” of life accomplished, decaying into new birth, whether he scorches the earth and withers the drooping flowers, or climbs a dim, hazy sky to attract the vapours that descend again in precious showers when the clouds collect and cover the stars, charming from darkness the lovely dawn and budding day. The meditations he disposes the mind to are mostly directed to the future, dreams of coming happiness, and even the contemplative Buddhist images under the Banaspatis seem agitated by their knowledge of a promise excelling the hope of Nirvana, which cannot satisfy the aspirations of the children of this island, full of the joy of existence. What will the future bring to them, the people cradled in tempest, who were taught forbearance by a creed profoundly imbued with the inner nature of things, and submission when misery of war and pestilence came as the harbingers of bondage to an alien race? Too trustful, they sacrificed their birthright for a mess of pottage and after the encroachments of the Company, past ages crowding on their memory, the felicity of the jaman buda assumes to their imagination a tangible shape in the ancient monuments founded by the rulers of their own flesh and blood, edifices so widely different from the meretricious Government opium-dens and Government pawn-shops in which the predatory instinct of the present masters manifests itself—layin dahulu, layin sekarang.[123] Resigned to fate, which wills the mutability of earthly relations, the Javanese philosopher—and all Javanese are philosophers in their way—takes the practical view of the Vedantins, considering that calamities mean purification to the victor in moral contest, and looking for a serene morning after a night of distress. He has more beliefs than one to draw upon when seeking refuge in his cherished maxim, his phlegmatic apa boleh buwat,[124] and doubts not the possibility of obtaining a Moslim equivalent for the Buddhist arahat, the perfect state, irrespective of outward conditions, by the help of a Hindu deity, Ganesa, who knows what is to happen and, as Vinayaka, the guide, conquers obstacles hurtful to his votaries in the course of events preordained according to their Islamic doctrine—syncretism yet more complex than that of their forefathers of Old Mataram! Watch well the heart, commanded the master. As to the watched heart dominating the senses, the Javanese, rather a mystic than an ascetic, and predominantly a child of nature, whence he proceeds and whither he returns in his search of the divine, prefers enjoyment of the world’s fullness to mortification of the flesh. He feels much more closely drawn to Padmapani, the lord of the world that is, than to any other of the emanations of the essence of the Universe, be it Diansh Pitar or the One, the Eternal, who sent Muhammad as a mercy to all creatures, or the Adi-Buddha, the primitive, the primordial, the incarnate denial of god and soul together. Whatever he prays by, the deity involved is one of overflowing gladness, who presents a flower with each hand, like Surya when circling land and sea and air in three steps; and, notwithstanding his sorrows, he rests content with his portion for, though the light of day sets, it will rise again in glory.