THE APPROACH TO THE BORO BUDOOR
The goodly works, and stones of rich assay,
Cast into sundry shapes by wondrous skill,
That like on earth no where I reckon may;
EDMUND SPENSER, _Faerie Queene_, Canto X.
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.
[Illustration: XXIII. _CHANDI_ MENDOOT BEFORE ITS RESTORATION
(Cephas Sr.)]
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.
[Illustration: XXIV. _CHANDI_ MENDOOT AFTER ITS RESTORATION
(Archaeological Service.)]
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.
[Illustration: XXV. INTERIOR OF THE _CHANDI_ MENDOOT
(Cephas Sr.)]
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!
[Illustration: XXVI. THE _CHANDI_ PAWON AND THE RANDU ALAS
(C. Nieuwenhuis.)]
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,
[Illustration: XXVII. THE _CHANDI_ PAWON DIVORCED AND RESTORED
(Centrum.)]
... _in un tepor di sole occiduo
ridente a le cerulee solitudini_.[142]
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.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[125] The very appropriate name bestowed on the Dutch East Indies by
EDUARD DOUWES DEKKER (MULTATULI), Holland’s greatest writer of the
preceding century.
[126] General name given to various plants of the bean family; the
_kackang_ here meant, is the _kackang china_ or _tanah_ (_Arachis
kypogaea_) the oil of which is used as a substitute for olive-oil.
[127] The beans or nuts pressed into cakes and used as manure,
especially in the cultivation of sugar-cane.
[128] According to another explanation they represent King Sudhodana and
Queen Maya with Siddhartha, the future Buddha, as a baby in her arms,
which leaves us in the dark about the other children.
[129] Lacking money and wanting money, always more money: a summary of
Dutch colonial policy as it strikes the native.
[130] The influence of eastern fables on western literature and art in
all its branches cannot be overestimated as exemplified for instance,
with special relevance to the one just referred to, by the late
EMM. POIRÉ (CARAN D’ACHE) when he made our old friend Marius imitate
the snail’s braggadocio in his delightful cartoon _Les Pantoufles en
peau de tigre_ (_Lundis du Figaro_). And the story of the vulture and
the turtles found its way, via American plantation legends, into J. C.
HARRIS’ tales of Uncle Remus. Concerning the manner of the “Migration of
Fables” from East to West, most interesting particulars can be found in
MAX MÜLLER’S _Chips from a German Workshop_, iv., p. 145 ff.
[131] The Buddha’s characteristic tuft or bunch of hairs between the
eyebrows.
[132] In consequence of the young enthusiast Sarvarthasiddha cutting
his long locks with his sword when leaving his father’s palace to adopt
the life of a recluse as Sakyamuni, the solitary one of the Sakyas, and
meditate upon the redemption of the world.
[133] The words _chaitya_ and _dagob_ are often used indiscriminately
and every _dagob_ is, in fact, a _chaitya_, but a _chaitya_ is a _dagob_
only if it contains a relic.
[134] _De Tjandi Mendoet vóór de Restauratie_, publication of the
_Bataviaasch Genootschap_, 1903.
[135] Major VAN ERP, in the _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-,
Land- en Volkenkunde_, 1909.
[136] _Dapoor_ means “a producer of heat”, “a place where things are
produced by heat”, hence an oven, a kitchen, the priming-hole of a gun.
[137] Before the road was relocated to correspond with the relocation
of yet another new bridge after the last but one’s tumbling down, the
_chandi_ Dapoor stood almost at the wayside; its having been smuggled
out of sight has not improved its chances of preservation.
[138] _Bombax malabaricum_ of the numerous _Malvaceae_ family.
[139] By the architect VAN DER HAM.
[140] _Canarium commune_, fam. _Burceraceae_.
[141] Or _ramelan_ (_ramadhan_), the great yearly fast.
[142]
... in the soft rays of the setting sun
Smiling at the cerulean solitudes.
[Illustration]