The ruined temples of Brambanam memorialise that phase of Java's
religious history, when the altars of Buddha were finally deserted, and
Hinduism became the paramount creed of the fickle populace. An
archæological report sent to Sir Stamford Raffles a century ago,
describes the remains of Brambanam as "stupendous monuments of the
science and taste belonging to a long-forgotten age, crowded together
in the former centre of Hindu faith." A rough country road leads from
the little white railway station, perched on a desolate plain, to these
far-famed temples. A brown village, shaded by the dark foliage of
colossal kanari-trees, shows the usual fragility of structure in
basket-work walls and roofs of plaited palm-leaves, but the humble
dwellings, destroyed and rebuilt myriad times on the ancient site of
Java's Hindu capital, have supplemented native workmanship by a
multitude of carven stones, broken statues, and moss-grown reliefs, for
the ruins, theoretically guarded from the spoiler's hand, are still
inadequately protected, and the grey _recha_ have been used as seats,
landmarks, or stepping-stones over muddy lane and brimming
water-course. The conversion of Java to the materialistic creed for
which she forsook the subtleties of an impersonal Buddhism, though
shallow was complete, and the doctrine of impermanence, inculcated by
the discarded faith, continued an essential factor in spiritual
development, for the inconstancy of the national mind only found a
temporary halting-place in each successive creed which arrested it. The
seed was sown, the bud opened, and the flower faded, with incredible
rapidity, but the growth while it lasted, showed phenomenal luxuriance.
The erection of these Hindu sanctuaries signalised the zenith of
Javanese power; their fame travelled across the seas, and numerous
expeditions sailed for this early El Dorado of the Southern ocean.
Kublai Khan came with his Mongol fleet, but was repulsed with loss, and
branded as a felon. A second and stronger attempt from the same quarter
met with absolute defeat. Marco Polo, compelled to wait through the
rainy season in Sumatra for a favourable wind, came hither in the palmy
days of mediæval Portugal, but returned discomfited. Goths from the
Northern bounds of Thuringian pine forests followed in their turn, but
the power and prestige of Hindu Java remained invincible until
destroyed by the wayward fickleness of her own children. Brahminism
was finally discarded for the specious promises of Arabian invaders,
and the lightly-held faith succumbed to the creed of Islam. Mosques
were built, Hindu temples were forsaken, and Nature's veil of
vegetation was once more suffered to hide altar and statue, wall and
stairway, until every sculptured shrine became a mere green mound of
waving trees, strangling creepers, and plumy ferns. The memory of the
past was entirely obliterated from the hearts of the people, and every
year buried the relics of the former religion in a deeper grave.
Siva the Destroyer, and also the Life-Giver, the Third Person of the
Hindu Trinity, together with Parvati and Brahma, were worshipped here
in their original character, and an exquisite statue of Lora Jonggran
(Parvati in her Javanese guise) remains enshrined in a richly-decorated
chapel, surrounded by dancing houris, inspired in their sacred measure
by the flute-playing of Krishna. A further instance of the mode already
mentioned by which sentiment survives dogma in the Malay races, is
shown by the fact that Lora Jonggran still receives the homage of
Javanese women. Flowers are laid at her feet, love affairs are confided
to her advocacy, and as the shadows deepen across the great quadrangle,
a weeping girl prostrates herself before the smiling goddess, and,
raising brown arms in earnest supplication, kisses the stone slab at
the feet of the beautiful statue, popularly endowed with some occult
virtue which the loosely-held Mohammedanism of a later day has failed
to discredit or deny. The temples of Brambanam were erected shortly
after the completion of that upper terrace in the great sanctuary of
Boro-Boedoer which marks the traditional epoch between Buddhism and the
later Hinduism, including Sakya Munyi among the _avatars_ of Vishnu.
The sacred trees and lions carved here on the walls of the temple
quadrangle, give place in the galleries to scenes from the great Hindu
epic of the Ramayan. The familiar form of Ganesh, the elephant-headed
God of Wisdom, looms from the shadows of a vaulted shrine; Nandi, the
sacred bull, stands beneath a carven canopy, and the great memorial of
a bygone faith contains the identical galaxy of gods found in the
Indian temples of the present day, for the thin veil of Javanese
thought is a transparency rather than a disguise, softening rather than
hiding the clear-cut outlines of the original idea. The "fatal beauty"
of the graceful waringen-tree has played an ominous part in the
destruction of the Brambanam temples, for the interlacing roots, like a
network of branching veins, make their devious way through crevice and
cranny, splitting and uplifting the strongest slab, wherein one tiny
crack suffices for the string-like fibres to gain foothold. Masks and
arabesques, fruit and flowers, fabulous monsters and sacred emblems,
encrust the grey balustrades and bas-reliefs of the noble stairways.
Roof and column teem with richest ornament, for Hindu art had reached
the climax of splendour when the great city, formerly surrounding the
monumental group of stately temples, attained to her utmost power and
fame. The Greek influences which prevailed in Northern Hindustan were
translated to Brambanam in their attributes of dignity and grace, for
the flowing robes and easy postures of the sculptured figures correct
and modify the grotesque and over-laden character of original Hindu
art. The great stone-paved court once contained an imposing group of
twenty pyramidal shrines, but only three remain in the original contour
of the so-called "pagoda style," peculiar to the Dravidian temples of
Southern India, from whence Java derived her special form of faith. The
ruins on the opposite side of the grey quadrangle are mere cone-shaped
piles of rubbish, dust, and broken stone, but the tapering pyramids,
with their graceful galleries and processional terraces, richly carved
and adorned with images, enable us to reconstruct in imagination the
stately beauty of the architectural panorama once displayed by the
temple courts. Scenes from the Ramayan and Mahabharata adorn the great
blocks of the boundary wall, sculptured in high relief. The Vedic
Powers of Nature, with Indra as the god of storm and hurricane,
manifest the recognition of that earlier belief which became submerged
in the vast system of Pantheistic mythology. The faith of further India
takes form and colour from the idiosyncracy of Java, and the goddess
Parvati, or Kali, worshipped under these different names according to
her attributes of glory or terror, becomes Lora Jonggran, the benignant
goddess of Java, popularly known as "the maiden of the beauteous form."
Four lofty stairways ascend to the hoary chapels within each sculptured
pyramid, every dusky vault containing the broken image of the tutelary
_Deva_.
Only separated from Brambanam by a winding path and a green belt of
jungle, stands the great Buddhist temple of Chandi Sewon, and the
colossal figures flanking the entrance gate indicate a decadent phase
of the ancient creed which Boro-Boedoer illustrates in the purity of
earlier developement. Chandi Sewon, the "thousand temples," includes in
the number myriad unimportant shrines, ruined, overthrown, or covered
with a green network of interlacing creepers. The great architectural
pile, built at a uniform level, surrounds the central sanctuary with
five great enclosures. All the ancient faiths of the world contain
foreshadowings or reflections of Christian truth, and the cruciform
temple which forms the climax of this monumental erection shows the
mystic value attached to the sacred Sign so frequently encountered in
Buddhist shrines, and known as the _Shvastika_. The numerous chapels
of Chandi Sewon contained the galaxy of Tirthankas or Buddhist saints
which the materialism of the Jains added to the impersonal subtleties
of esoteric Buddhism. The blank emptiness and desertion of this vast
sanctuary produces an impression of unutterable desolation. The
weed-grown courts, the ruined altars, and the moss-blackened arches,
encumbered with indistinguishable heaps of shattered sculpture, lack
all the reposeful charm of Boro-Boedoer, still a sermon in stone which
he who runs may read. The degenerate creed memorialised by Chandi
Sewon, has failed to impress itself on the colossal pile which bears
melancholy witness to the evanescent character of the heretical
offshoot from the parent stem. Jungle and palm-forest in Central Java
contain innumerable vestiges of pyramidal temples, palaces, and
shrines; vaults hidden beneath the shrouding trees have yielded a rich
store of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments, household utensils, and
armour. For many years the peasants of the region between Samarang and
Boro-Boedoer paid their taxes in gold melted from the treasure trove
turned up by the plough, or dug from the precincts of some forgotten
sanctuary, buried beneath the rank vegetation of the teaming soil. The
discarded Hindu gods still haunt the forest depths, and the
superstitious native, as he threads the dark recesses of the solemn
woods, gazes with apprehensive eyes on the trident of Siva, or the
elephant's trunk of Ganesh emerging from the trailing wreaths and
matted tapestry of liana and creeper, veiling the blackened stone of
each decaying shrine. Nature has proved stronger than Art or Creed, in
the eternal growth beneath an equatorial sun, of the kingdom over which
she reigns in immortal life. Silently and insidiously she undermines
man's handiwork, and realisation of his futile conflict with her
invincible power enters with disastrous effect into the popular mind,
lacking that immutable force without which the spiritual temple of
faith rests on a foundation of shifting sand. Kawi literature,
popularised by translation, and familiar through the medium of national
drama, interprets Javanese creeds and traditions. This "utterance of
poetry" derived from Sanskrit, fell into disuse after the Mohammedan
conquest, though a few Arabic words became incorporated into the
two-fold language comprising _Krama_, the ceremonial speech, and
_Ngoko_, the speech of "thee and thou," or colloquial form of address.
The island of Bali, and the slopes of the Tengger range, retain a
modification of Hinduism, and Bali treasures a Kawi version of the
Ramayan and Mahabharata epics. Many inspiring thoughts and noble
sentiments, expressed in story and song, have become well-known maxims
identified with Javanese life. "Rob no man of due credit, for the sun,
by depriving the moon of her light, adds no lustre to his own." "As
the lotus floats in water, the heart rests in a pure body." "Ye cannot
take riches to the grave, but he who succoureth the poor in this world
shall find a better wealth hereafter." A _babad_ or rhythmical ballad
of semi-religious character belongs to every province, but though many
details of temple worship--Buddhist, Hindu, and Mohammedan--may be
gathered from the lengthy scroll, heroic and princely exploits, myths
and traditions, encumber the sacred text, which Eastern imagination
transforms into a fairy tale. Creeds lose their chiselled outline, and
crumble away in the disintegrating medium of Javanese thought, which
blends them into each other with changing colour and borrowed light.
The inconstant soul of the Malay knows nothing of that rigid adherence
to some centralising truth which often forms the heart of a living
faith, and his religious history is an age-long record of failure,
change, desertion, and oblivion, repeated in varying cadences, and
inscribed in unmistakeable characters on the ruined sanctuaries of old
Mataram.