BORO-BOEDOER.

The archæological interest of Java culminates in the mysterious temple

known as Boro-Boedoer, "the aged thing," with an actual history lost in

mist and shadow, though recorded in imperishable characters on this

spellbound sanctuary of a departed faith. The little tramway from

Djokjacarta traverses fields of rice and sugar-cane, indigo and pepper;

a range of dreamlike mountains bounds the view, crowned by the

turquoise cone of Soemboeung, the traditional centre of Java, a green

knoll at the base of the volcanic pyramid being regarded as the "spike"

which fastens the floating isle to some solid rock in unfathomed depths

of ocean. The fitful fancy of a wandering race, ever drifting across

the changing seas, reflects itself in the legendary lore of the Malay

Archipelago, often represented by weird traditions as though in

perpetual motion. The vicissitudes of volcanic action, whereby islands

were sometimes submerged or created, gives a colouring of fact to the

vague ideas entertained by these nomads of the sea. Merbaboe, the

"ash-ejecting," and Merapi, the "fire-throwing," flank the loftier

crest, honeycombed with dim cave temples, now deserted and forgotten,

but formerly sanctifying those watch-towers of Nature which guard the

hoary shrine of Boro-Boedoer. At Matoelan we hear that the swift river

separating the great Temple from the secular world is in flood, the

bridge broken down, and the supplementary raft impossible through the

swirling current. This untoward event involves a further expedition to

Magelang, a sordid town of continuous markets, the Javanese population

being of pronounced Hindu type, silent and sad, according to the

idiosyncracy of their mysterious ancestors across the sea. The

conversational difficulties presented by the Dutch and Malay languages,

combined with the incapacity of our brown driver, eventually land us at

Mendoet, on the wrong side of the turbid stream--the Jordan which

divides the weary traveller from his Land of Promise. Evening draws on,

the clear sky flushes pink above the darkness of the palm-woods, and

hope sinks apace, for the surging flood shows no sign of abatement.

Suddenly the apathetic driver rouses himself from what proves a

profitable meditation, and, with folded hands, breathes the magic word

_pasteur_, whipping up his sorry steeds to fresh exertions. We draw up

at a white bungalow on the roadside, close to a rustic church, and find

a friend in an English-speaking Dutch priest, who, after giving us tea

on his verandah, suggests inspection of Mendoet's little moated

temple, on the edge of the forest. An ever-growing tangle of lianas and

vines buried this ancient shrine through the lapse of ages, until

accident revealed the entombed sanctuary about eighty years ago. A

processional terrace surrounds the walled pavement supporting the grey

edifice, and the sculptured bas-reliefs denote the transitional stage

of Buddhist faith, as it materialised through Jainism into the Puranic

mythology of Hindu creed. The central chapel contains the famous

picture in stone known as "The Tree of Knowledge," and represents the

Buddha beneath the sacred Bo-Tree of Gaya. A fluted _pajong_, propped

against the boughs, canopies his head, one hand being raised in

benediction over kneeling converts, offering rice and incense.

Listening angels hover overhead, birds peep out from nests among the

leaves, and kids lean with necks outstretched over fretted crags,

magnetised by the mystic attraction of the inspired Teacher. Long-eared

statues show Nepalese influence, even the Buddhist images being girt

with the sacred cord of Brahma. A controversy exists as to their

identification with the Hindu Trinity, but as Eastern cults frequently

bestow Divine attributes on mortals, the mysterious figures may

possibly represent the murdered wives of the Rajah who founded the

Mendoet temple in expiation of his crime. Another legend suggests the

petrification of a princely family, as a punishment for marrying

within the forbidden degrees, but myth grows apace in this haunted

land, and every century offers fresh variations of old-world stories,

until original form is lost beneath a weight of accretion, like the

thick moss blurring the chiselled outlines of some carven monument.

After careful scrutiny of the miniature temple which suggests so many

interpretations of symbolic imagery, we return to the little presbytery

to hear of the subsiding river, and the good priest, announcing that

the raft can now be safely negotiated, accompanies us to the tottering

structure, a straw matting laid over three crazy boats punted across

the turbulent stream. A half-hour's stroll beneath the arching boughs

of a kanari avenue, ends at a picturesque Rest House, facing the

temple-crowned hill. Surely we have reached the peace and silence of

Nirvana at last! and the exquisite beauty of the surrounding landscape,

mountain and forest, park-like valley and winding glen, transfigured in

the deepening gold of sunset, stamps an ineffaceable impression of

Boro-Boedoer in that mystic gallery of imagination and memory which

retains earth's fairest scenes as eternal possessions of mind and soul.

A shadowy garden, fragrant and dim, stretches up to the pyramidal pile

which covers the hill. A frangipanni grove scents the air, with

gold-starred blossoms gleaming whitely amid the silvery green of

lanceolated leaves, and a shaft of ruby light striking the stone

Buddhas which guard the portico, emphasises the inscrutable smile of

the tranquil faces. Like all stupendous monuments of Art or Nature,

Boro-Boedoer at first sight seems a disappointment, simply because the

mind fails to grasp the immensity of the noblest Temple ever dedicated

to the gentle Sage whose renunciation typified the greater Sacrifice

offered by the Saviour of the World. Who that reads the story of Sakya

Munyi can doubt that through the Prince who gave up kingdom, throne,

and earthly ties for the sake of downtrodden humanity, a prophetic

gleam of heavenly light pierced the darkness of the future, and pointed

to the distant Cross? Twenty-five centuries have rolled away since

Prince Siddartha closed his unique career, and twelve centuries later

the wondrous sanctuary of Boro-Boedoer was erected in honour of the

creed eternally dear to the heart of the mystic East. The eight stately

terraces which climb and encircle the sacred hill rise from a spacious

pavement of blackened stone, and the walled processional paths display

a superb series of sculptured reliefs, which would measure three miles

in length if placed side by side. The grey and black ruins, with their

rich incrustations of sacred and historic scenes, remain in such

splendid preservation that fancy easily reconstructs the bygone glory

of the golden age, when this mighty Altar of Faith witnessed the

glittering pageantry of Oriental devotion; when gaily-clad crowds

flocked to the morning sacrifice of flowers and music, while monarchs

brought their treasures from far-off lands to lay at the feet of the

mystic Sage, prophetically revealed as an incarnation of purity and

peace vouchsafed to a world of oppression and sorrow. Life-size

Buddhas, enthroned on the sacred lotus, rise above the crumbling altars

of five hundred arcaded shrines, and stone stairways ascend from every

side, beneath sharply-curved arches bordered with masks or gargoyles.

The last three terraces form sweeping circles, flanked by bell-shaped

_dagobas_ resembling gigantic lotus-buds. Each open lattice of hoary

stone reveals an enthroned Buddha, mysteriously enclosed in his

symbolical screen, for these triple terraces typify the higher circles

of Nirvana. Each dreamy face turns towards the supreme Shrine of the

glorious sanctuary, a domed _dagoba_ fifty feet high, and once

containing some authentic relic of the Buddha's sacred person. Certain

archæologists recognise in this spire-tipped cupola a survival of

Nature-worship, incorporated with the later Buddhism in a form derived

from the tree temples of primeval days, and built over a receptacle for

the cremated ashes of the Buddhist priesthood. A touch of mysticism

added by an unfinished statue in the gloom of the shadowy vault,

suggests the unknown beauty of the soul which attains Nirvana's

supremest height, for the supernal exaltation of purified humanity to

Divine union may not be interpreted or expressed by mortal hands, but

must for ever remain incommunicable and incomprehensible. From the

central _dagoba_, ascended by a winding stair, the intricate design of

the spacious sanctuary discloses itself with mathematical precision,

and the changing glories of dawn, sunset, and moonlight idealize the

sacred hill, rising amid the palm-groves and rice-fields of a matchless

valley, sweeping away in green undulations which break like emerald

waves against the deepening azure and amethyst of the mountain heights.

The solemn grandeur of Boro-Boedoer blinds the casual observer to many

details which manifest the ravages of time, the ruthlessness of war,

and the decay of a discarded creed. Headless and overthrown figures,

broken _tees_, mutilated carvings, and shattered chapels abound, but

the vast display of architectural features still intact conveys an

impression of permanence rather than of ruin.

For six centuries, Boro-Boedoer was blotted from the memory of the

people, and the heavy pall of tropical verdure which veiled the vast

Temple remained unlifted. Superincumbent masses of trees, parasites,

and strangling creepers wove their intricate network of root, branch,

and stem round the monumental record of a dead faith and a buried

dynasty. The riotous luxuriance of tropical Nature triumphed over the

glories of Art, hewn with incalculable toil and skill in the living

rock. Seeds borne on the wind, or sown by wandering birds, filled

every interstice of the closely-matted verdure; stair and terrace, dome

and spire, sank out of sight into the forest depths, and when English

engineers arrived to excavate the monumental pile, the task of clearing

away the tangled masses of foliage occupied two hundred coolies during

six weeks of arduous toil. The brief English occupation of the island

necessarily left the work unfinished, but Dutch archæologists continued

the labour, though with slower methods and feebler grasp of the

situation. A transient cult sprang up among the Javanese populace as

the ancient sanctuary revealed itself anew. The statues were invoked

with reverential awe, incense was offered; the saffron, used as a

personal decoration on festive occasions, was smeared over the

impassive faces, unchanged in the eternal calm of a thousand years, and

fragrant flower petals were heaped on the myriad altars. Vigils were

kept on the summit, and the sick were laid at the feet of favourite

images. This spurious devotion, hereditary or instinctive, sprang up in

responsive hearts with simultaneous fervour, though the forgotten

doctrines of Buddhism were never reinstated. Sentiment survived dogma

in the subconscious soul, and the faint shadow cast by an immemorial

past indicates the depths plumbed by the early creed in the abyss of

Eastern personality. The vague simulacrum quickly faded, like a

flickering flame in the wind which fanned it into life; but simple

souls, as they pass Boro-Boedoer in the brief twilight, mutter

incantations, and brown hands grasp the silver amulets which ward off

the powers of evil, for the deserted temple is still regarded as the

haunt of unknown gods, who may perchance wreak vengeance on the world

which has forsaken them.

The long scroll of ancient history, unrolled by the sculptured

terraces, represents the birth, growth, and development of Buddhist

faith. Queen Maya, jewelled and flower-crowned, with the miraculous

Babe on her knee, sits among her maidens, the earth breaking into

blossom at the advent of her star-born child. His education in the

mental and physical achievements imperative on Eastern royalty, when

the sword-pierced heart of the mother who typified the Virgin Queen of

Saints was translated to Nirvana's rest, is contrasted with the sudden

realisation of life's vanity when brought face to face with the world's

threefold burden of sorrow, sickness and death. The renunciation of

power, wealth and love follows, liberating the soul for the pilgrimage

along the mystic "path," pursued until "the dew-drop fell into the

shining sea" of Eternity. The manifold details of the Buddha's

traditional career are vividly pourtrayed on the hoary walls of

volcanic trachyte in outline clear and sharp, as though the sculptors

of the eighth century had just laid down burin and chisel. The indented

leaves of the Bo-Tree, beneath which the Sage meditates, are so

exquisitely carved that they almost seem to flutter in the breeze. The

scene of the deer-park wherein he judges beasts and men, carefully

weighing the tiniest birds in the balance of the sanctuary, suggests a

prophetic vision of the greater Saviour, Who declared that even the

humble sparrow is remembered by the Creator. Countless scriptural

truths throw their anticipatory shadows across the life of the Eastern

mystic who approached so closely to the Christian ideal of a later age,

for the Buddha's spiritual experiences became the inspiration of

unnumbered hearts, and exercised a purifying influence over every creed

of the philosophic East. The social life of ancient Java, comprising

public ceremonials, domestic occupations, architecture, agriculture,

navigation, drama and music, is memorialised by succeeding terraces of

the igneous rock which sufficed for the old-world sculptor as the

medium of his Art. An unknown King and Queen, the traditional founders

of Boro-Boedoer, appear in varied guise, throned and crowned, walking

in religious processions beneath State _pajongs_, kneeling before

Buddha with open caskets of treasure, and receiving the homage of the

people, accompanied by bearers of smoking censers and waving fans.

Armed warriors guard the jewelled thrones, and the popular attitude in

every scene of the royal progress evidences the semi-sacred character

awarded to Indian sovereignty. The eighth century A.D. was the meridian

of the Javanese Empire, and in the subsequent changes of nationality

the facial type of the past has altered beyond recognition, for in the

ancient civilisation depicted on these sculptured terraces,

archæologists assert that every physiognomy is either of Hindu or

Hellenic character. Ships of archaic form, with banks of rowers;

palm-thatched huts built on piles, in the unchanging fashion of the

Malay races; graceful _bedayas_, the Nautch girls of Java, performing

the old-world dances still in vogue; and women with _lotahs_ on their

heads, passing in single file to palm-fringed tanks, might be

represented with equal truth in this twentieth century. Seedtime and

harvest, ploughing and reaping, bullock-carts and water-buffaloes,

fruit-laden wagons and village _passers_, pass in turn before the

spectator in this wondrous gallery of native art. Richly-caparisoned

elephants suggest Indian accessories of royal life and State

ceremonial, an occasional touch of humour enlivening the solemn

pageantry. In one grotesque relief a _bedaya_ and an elephant stand

_vis-a-vis_, the ponderous monster imitating the steps of the slim

maiden in floating veil and embroidered robes, her slender limbs

contrasting with the outflung feet of her clumsy partner. Weird myths

of the great fishes which guided and propelled the coracle-like boats

of the first Buddhist missionaries to the shores of Java are

perpetuated in stone, and the forest, sloping down to the wave-beaten

coast, shows the rich vegetation which still clothes this island of

eternal summer. The _sumboya_ or flower of the dead, droops over

stately tombs; bamboo and palm, banana and bread-fruit, mingle their

varied foliage; mangosteen and pomegranate, mango and tamarind, acacia

and peepul, show themselves as indigenous growths of the fertile soil;

while palace and temple, carven stairway, and flower-girt pavilion,

suggest the wealth and prosperity of the ancient empire. The mighty

Temple of Boro-Boedoer, built up through successive ages, indicates the

gradual change from the simplicity of the early faith, at first

supplanting, and eventually becoming incorporated with, the Brahminism

which succeeded it in modified form, as though rising from the ashes of

the earlier Hindu creed which Buddhism virtually destroyed. In the

higher terrace, the last addition to this stupendous sanctuary, the

images of Buddha represent the ninth _Avatar_ or Incarnation of the god

Vishnu, though he still sits upon the lotus cushion and holds the

sacred flower in one hand. This inclusion of Sakya Munyi within the

Puranic Pantheon was a masterly feat of strategy accomplished by

reviving Brahminism, the heresy of the Jains supplying the link between

the rival creeds. All the sculptured figures, leaning forward in

veneration of the mystic statue in the central cupola, are invested

with the sacred thread of the Vishnavite Brahmin. The images of the

highest circular terrace are carved in four symbolical attitudes. The

"teaching" Buddha rests an open palm on one knee; in the posture of

"learning" his hands are outstretched to receive the gift of knowledge.

In "exposition," one hand is raised towards Heaven, and in the act of

"demonstration," thumbs and index fingers are joined. Ferguson points

out that within the grey lattice of each lotus-bell _dagoba_, the right

palm of the enthroned Buddha curves over the left hand. This restful

posture indicates the state of final comprehension, when the aspiring

soul, raised to the different spheres of Nirvana by steps of ascending

sanctity, receives increasing peace and satisfaction from gradual

absorption into the Infinite. No creed passes unaltered through any

crucible of national thought; Indian Buddhism borrowed both form and

colour from races which, in accepting the new faith, retained their own

individuality and modes of assimilation. They gave as well as received,

and the value of the gift depended on the character of the giver.

No inscriptions exist on the stones of Boro-Boedoer. The sculptured

reliefs tell their own story, which admits of diverse interpretations.

The relics of the world-renowned Mystic were dispersed throughout Asia

in the sudden impulse of missionary enterprise three centuries after

his death, and every Buddhist temple received some infinitesimal

treasure. No record is found of the date when the precious relic,

probably a hair or an eyelash, was deposited in the great _dagoba_ of

Boro-Boedoer, but an Indian prince sailed with an imposing fleet to

found a Buddhist empire in Java at the opening of the 7th century A.D.,

and a subsequent inscription discovered on the coast of Sumatra

commemorates the completion of a seven-storeyed _Vihara_, evidently the

colossal Temple of Boro-Boedoer, by the contemporary King of "Greater

Java," the ancient name of Sumatra. In the tenth century, a reigning

monarch sent his sons to India for religious education. They brought

back in their train artists, sculptors, monks, priests, and the

gorgeous paraphernalia then used in the ceremonial of Buddhist worship,

but the heart of the ancient faith was atrophied by the indifference of

the people, and the zealous attempt to galvanise a moribund creed into

fresh life failed even to arrest the progress of decay. National

thought, fickle as the wind, had turned from an impersonal philosophy

to the materialistic cult of Hindu deities, as the Israelites of old

hankered after the visible symbol of Isis and Osiris in the Golden

Calf. No definite creed succeeded in gaining a permanent hold upon the

wandering minds and shallow feelings of a race whose deepest instincts

reveal the fleeting fancies and inconstant ideas indigenous to a

sea-faring stock, imbued with the spirit of change and unrest. A

magical charm broods over the mysterious Temple, the materialised dream

of a mighty past rescued from the sylvan sepulchre of equatorial

vegetation, and restored to a vivid reality beside which the paintings

of Egyptian tombs sink into comparative insignificance. The seclusion

of the memory-haunted pile enhances the thrill of an unique experience.

Vista after vista opens into the world of long ago so graphically

depicted on the monumental tablets of the processional paths, while

type and symbol point also to the infinite future intensely realised by

Eastern mysticism. Mortal life was but a fleeting mirage besides this

vision of the life beyond. For the words "_Shadow_, _Unreality_,

_Illusion_," perpetually repeated by the yellow-robed monks on the

beads of the Buddhist Rosary were inscribed on the inmost heart of the

faithful disciple, who strove to attain that detachment from the world

of sense inculcated by the creed expressed on the hoary stones of

Boro-Boedoer.