Not anything do we know about the Buddhists of eleven centuries ago who
once populated these regions where afterwards arose the Mohammedan
empire of _Mataram_. We only know that there formerly must have existed
a _Hindu_ empire of this name because of a found copper engraving all
covered with ancient-javanese writing which contained in a oath-formula
the words: “_Sri mahârâja i Mataram_.”
We understand them to have come from India, probably from the North, but
we don’t know when this happened, and when they first began to deposit
their Buddha ashes worthily.
It may be easily imagined however, that also the _Båråbudur_ must have
been such a depository, and so much the more, because of its being too
large to think of a mausoleum built in honour of even the most powerful
prince of that empire.
In flat defiance of _Rhys Davids_’s opinion who declared the Båråbudur
to be only 7 centuries old, we, on the other hand, are inclined to give
this monument, according to later data, more than eleven centuries[8].
That the Buddhists of Central Java were a powerful nation at that period
of time may fully appear from the extent and splendour of the building
which surpasses all other Buddha- and Hindu temples on all the earth.
And though it may be true that the grouping of the rock temples of
_Alara_ (vulg. _Ellora_) and _Ajunta_ in India occupies more room, and
granting _Angkor_ in _Kamboja_ (which wasn’t a Buddhist temple) to seem
more majestic when seen at a distance, still, according to competent
judges who also visited these ruins, the Båråbudur is grander by far as
well for the unity of its whole as for the harmony of its different
parts, and for both the nobleness of the schemer’s thought and the
excellence of the execution.
This harmony supports the opinion of this building’s having been built
after the scheme of one and the very same architect; a man of a
surprising intellectual capacity indeed, who could have conceived such a
scheme to be carried out in an incalculable number of years by hundreds
of thousands of labourers.
We cannot possibly believe that so much labour and time would have been
spent on the building of a prince’s mausoleum, however powerful he might
have been.
Moreover, there are reasons enough to suppose that _the_ prince of
_this_ empire, at whose command the Båråbudur must have been built,
commenced or partly achieved, should have died before the finishing of
this colossal work, and that his ashes were buried in the sumptuous
grave temple, at that period of time most likely already finished, and
the ruins of which we shall visit in the _desså_ (native village) of
_Mĕndut_. Or more exactly: that his successor or children or
blood-relations, or perhaps his people, built this _tyanḍi_ on the pit
in which those ashes had been put away, and that as a worthy mausoleum
to the king who once presented his subjects with the Båråbudur.
Some unfinished parts of both the Båråbudur and the ruins in the valley
of _Parambanan_, especially the unfinished imageries at the foot (hidden
again under the outer-terrace) on the outer-wall of the large temple,
make us suppose that these products of art had been _scarcely_ achieved,
and the imageries _hardly_ finished and placed on their walls, when the
buddhistic empire of Central Java fell into a state of decay or became
ruined at all.
Upwards of a thousand years have rolled since over these colossal ruins.
Earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions replaced their masses of stone,
solar heat and torrents introduced and supported their decay, parasitic
plants dispersed their foundations, and narrow-minded slaves of
ignorance and fanaticism damaged or spoilt many of their produce of
art—still the ruins stand there as an impressive fact scarcely no less
uncredible than undeniable; a majestic product of a master-mind of the
past, a stone epic immortal even in its decline.
On account of its general form (“_par le dessin général, mais par là
seulement_”) the French scholar about Indian matters _A. Barth_ called
the Båråbudur the only _stûpa_ in Java[9], and this may be just when we
understand a _stûpa_ to be only those barrows where were buried some
ashes or another relic of the Buddha himself, and when we consider all
other _tyanḍis_ in this island—with the exception of the monasteries
which are no _tyanḍis_—to be nothing else but the mausolea of sons of
Princes, or of _gurus_ and monks, or belonging perhaps to other noble
men and women.
Hereabove we already saw reasons enough to make us suppose that _Tyanḍi
Mĕndut_ had been built on the ashes of the prince of the buddhistic
empire of which we don’t know anything but its having been supreme in
Central Java for at least eleven centuries ago.
These ruins stand in the village after which they have been named, along
the road leading from _Jogyåkartå_ to the _Båråbudur_, not far from the
_Magĕlang_ route, and as they are the first we reach on our way from one
of the two capitals, and generally visited, we shall therefore first
describe this most interesting grave temple.
Tyanḍi Mĕndut.
Leaving Jogyåkartå by steamtram or by carriage, and driving through the
dessa of _Muntilan_—properly speaking a Chinese settlement—,turning two
or three miles farther on near the stopping-place of _Kalangan_, 8 miles
south of _Magĕlang_, into a by-path leading westward to the Båråbudur,
we, within an hour, shall arrive at the real javanese village of
_Mĕndut_, which is situated on the left bank of the river _Élo_. On this
spot, as it were under the shadow of the Buddha temple, eleven centuries
old at least, a Roman Catholic mission built a little church and
parsonage, and opened a school for javanese children.
Living Christianity near the ruins of dead Buddhism!
Heavy teak wooden scaffoldings surrounded these ruins on all sides, and
on the north-western frontside solid wooden stairs lead upward till
under the _attap_[10] temporary roof. This was to protect the
Båråbudur’s pyramidical roof (at that time not yet shut off again) and
protect also the three almost undamaged gigantic images from rain and
sun-blaze. This scaffolding still appeared as a witness of _W. A. van de
Kamer_’s clever diligence. Some eleven years ago, when in Government’s
service as official for ways and roads, he got the order given to him by
choice, to begin the work of restoration, and that above his own work as
overseer in service of the Department of Public Works. Notwithstanding,
he continued for three years this enterprise trusted to him, and without
any other reward but the title of architect the diploma of which he had
already got in Netherland for many years ago. Under his command, and
without any accident, he had the heavy and badly menaced pyramidic roof
brought downward, and he succeeded in having the decaying and declining
walls erected again, and that in a manner (as I once witnessed)
unconditionally admired by competent experts, among whom I know
high-placed engineer officers. But his work became unjustly objected by
the philological president of a newly appointed Båråbudur committee he
saw suddenly placed above him (_van de Kamer_), and the pitiable manner
in which the former official induced him to ask for exemption from the
labour dear to him, and to retire from Government’s service some years
afterwards, I already explained and blamed in 1901 by means of some
non-published writings, because the latter, still subordinate at that
time, could not defence himself, and above all, because of my being
competent and obliged to do so as an honest man, loyal to the ancient
device: “_Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra_”. Even to me this deed
became a source of misunderstanding and grief.
The first striking thing we see is that, in contravention to almost all
other buddhistic buildings, the frontage of these ruins have not been
placed opposite to the East, the sun-rise, but strange enough, opposite
to the Northwest. When I first visited this temple in 1875 I saw that
the porch which had been built before this frontage, had partly
disappeared. Only its side-walls, the greater part at least, and
fortunately, the two interesting sculptures had remained. This was also
the case with the 14 large stone steps leading from without to the same
porch, and flanked by heavy holds in the form of the _garuḍa-nâga_
ornament we are going to know by-and-by.
The colossal pyramidic roof, and part of the front wall above and north
of the entrance to the inner-room were greatly lost.
The two sculptures before the entrance show us, to the left, a princess
in a garden of fruit-trees, with a suckling at her breast, and many
playing children all round about her. And opposite to them, to the
right, we see an Indian,—_not_ buddhistic—prince with much more children
in such another garden.
All the children wear a crescent of the moon on the hind part of their
heads, but both the children and their parents miss everything that
might have spoken of a buddhistic character. The prince himself wears a
three stringed cord of a caste (_upavîta_), and is therefore
characterised as a _not_ buddhistic one. Buddhism doesn’t know any
caste.
Nevertheless, there are Dutch scholars who suppose this prince to be
_Buddha_’s father, this woman _Buddha_’s mother. Even professor _Kern_
wrote to me that this woman with her suckling should be nobody else but
_Mayâ_ with her son in _Lumbini_ garden. The Indian prince however,
remained inexplicable.
The buddhistic king of Siam, _Chula Longkorn_, gave me in 1896 another
and far better explanation which solved all difficulties, and to which
I’ll come back again after having first given a superficial description
of the gigantic images we see in this temple.
Let us therefore enter through the opened iron railing now replacing the
wooden inner door, which for more than some 70 years ago, was used
perhaps, as fire-wood.
The space before the unadorned south-easterly back-wall is occupied by a
heavy altar-shaped throne not yet long ago newly built in an exceedingly
simple style.
And on this throne sits a colossal _Buddha_ image, by no means however,
a nude one, so as professor _Veth_ wrongly wrote in his standard work:
“_Java_,” but this is dressed in the cowl of the _southern_ Buddhists
uncovering his right shoulder and arm; his two legs dangling and resting
on a small cushion with his two hands before his breast in such a
posture (_mudrâ_) as the Mahâyânists, the followers of the “_Big
Carriage_” of the _northern_ church, generally (not always) give to the
_first_ of their five _Dhyâni-Buddhas_. In Ceylon and in Farther India
however, there where _Hînayânism_ of the _southern_ church still exists,
which doesn’t know any Dhyâni-Buddha, this posture simply means
“_blessing_.”
To the right of this Buddha nearly 4 yards high, we see a _buddhistic_
prince seated on a throne abundantly decorated with nâgas, lions, and
elephants, and ornamented with lotus-cushions and feet cushions. The
monk’s hood, the bottom of which goes under the princely garb over his
left shoulder and breast, and the small _Buddha_ image in his crown
characterise him as a _Buddhist_, and that in contradistinction to the
other prince we see opposite him, to the left of the Buddha. And though
this prince also has his seat on an equally richly ornamented throne,
yet we don’t see any image in his crown, and then he doesn’t wear a
monk’s hood, but only the three-stringed _upavîta_ which characterises
him as _not_ buddhistic.
On this ground professor Kern thought this Indian prince as inexplicable
as the other one we saw in the porch before the entrance.
The two kings wear the _prabha_, or disk of light, on the back part of
their heads. _Buddha_ does not, or no more; for this may have been fixed
to the wall of the temple, and afterwards fallen down after that the
image itself had slidden from its seat, or before its having been placed
there[11].
On account of the posture of his hands before his breast there are some
Dutch scholars who suppose this _Buddha_ to be the first _Dhyâni-Buddha
Vairotyana_, and the two other princes they think to be _Bodhisattvas_
or future Buddhas, whilst the one on the north-easterly wall is said to
be the _fourth_ Dhyâni-Bodhisatthva, _Padmapâni_ because of his being
provided with a small image of the fourth Dhyâni-_Buddha_, _Amitâbha_,
in his crown.
Which Bodhisatthva we then must see in that other image nobody could
tell us, because it misses all attributes.
This however, is also the case with the buddhistic king’s image, and
though it may be provided with a Buddha image in its crown, occasionally
given to some Bodhisatthvas, yet it doesn’t characterise every wearer as
such.
Moreover, I more than once demonstrated that _all_ the crowns are
provided with no other image but the one of the Buddha himself in his
posture of _meditation_ (or rest after death), and therefore we can’t
accept these images to be Bodhisatthvas, or more especially _Padmapâni_,
the Bodhisattva of the fourth Dhyâni-Buddha who, after all, should have
been characterised by this Bodhisatthva’s usual attribute, the _padma_
or lotus placed near his face. But these two images also miss this
flower and the stem of the lotus which the Bodhisatthvas generally keep
in their _left_ hands. Sometimes however, we see them in their _right_
hand, and the flower with the symbol above one or two leaves.
So the meaning of the mentioned scholars _doesn’t explain these 3
images_ whereas Siam’s king, on his visiting this temple in 1896,
satisfactorily interpreted the north-westerly image, wearing, like he
does himself, a Buddha image in his crown, to be perhaps the king of the
buddhistic empire, under whose reign the Båråbudur was built.
Further he supposed the other image to be the latter’s not-buddhistic
father and predecessor whilst both father and son (the latter afterwards
became a buddhist), might have been honoured by their descendants who
brought together the two images in this sanctuary under the _blessing_
of the only Buddha, the redeemer of this world. So this Buddha image has
nothing to do with any _Dhyâni-Buddha_, and by no means with the _first_
of them.
[Illustration: Tyanḍi Mĕndut.
Imagery in front of the entrance of the ruin.
_Hâritî_, the goddess of the _Yakshas_, with some of her 500
children.]
This explanation of the king-Buddhist became so comprehensible and
logical to me that I could not but accept and defend it against others,
and so I came to the hypothesis that the ashes of the two kings (but
certainly the _son’s_ ashes) must have been buried in this _tyanḍi_.
Their urns may be found back again in a deep pit under the throne of the
Buddha, or under the seats of the other images, just as we had found
such urns of ashes in other tyanḍis, in square pits, under the pedestals
of the images, and generally adorned with some figures of precious metal
and provided with some coloured precious stones, the emblems of the
_seven treasures_, the _sapta ratna_ which were given to the dead.
These pits occupied the whole depth of the foundation of these temples,
under the floor of the inner-rooms which may have been intentionally
built so high above the surface of the earth. This, perhaps, is also the
reason of the heavy substructure of _tyanḍi Mĕndut_.
Had _Van de Kamer_ remained charged with the work of restoration to
these ruins the Resident of Ked̆u would then have granted us to examine
this affair more closely before the throne was rebuilt again, and the
Buddha image replaced upon it.
But this didn’t happen.
That Siam’s king declared the two images before the entrance to be the
representations of the buddhistic king’s parents with their children
seemed more than reasonable to me, especially, because of all
difficulties being solved then. Didn’t _Mayâ_, like any other mother of
Buddha, die seven days after his birth? And then, all writings known to
me, don’t mention anything about _Siddhârta_’s brothers or sisters. And
all these children can’t possibly be angels or celestials, because in
the smaller panels, above the groups in the porch, we always see them
hewn floating in the air.
However reasonable this idea of the hînayîstic king may have seemed to
me, yet I could not maintain this when I was told by Mr. A. Foucher, the
great knower of the ancient Indian Buddhism, that in Old _Gandhâra_ he
often saw the Buddha, just as is the case here, sculptured in the
_mudrâ_ of preaching, standing between the two Bodhisatthvas,
_Avalokitésvara_ and _Manjusri_. This, among others, is to be seen at
_Sârnâth_ in the northern environs of _Bénarès_ which passes for the
very place where the _Buddha_ should have preached for the first time.
This is ordinarily indicated by means of the tyakra between two
gazelles, and consequently hewn at the foot of Buddha’s throne. Mr. _A.
Foucher_ also taught me that my fellow-country-man, Dr. _J. Ph. Vogel_,
leader of the archaeological service in British India, rightly declared
the two demi-relievoes in the porch (volume 4th of the “_Bulletins de
l’école française d’Extrême-Orient_”) to be the representations of
_Hâritî_ and _Kuvera_, the goddess and the god of the _Yakshas_ with
some of their children. In many a cloister in _Gandhâra_ he saw the
Yakshî _Hâritî_ represented with one child at her breast, and that,
after she herself, who is said to have been the former personification
of small-pox (_variolae_), had been converted by the _Buddha_.
He had taken away one of her 500 children, and remonstrated with her on
the sorrow she gave the mothers of the children killed by her, in
consequence of which she totally changed her character, became truly
converted and afterwards honoured as a patroness of children.
I am not going to expatiate about the artistic value of this produce of
the ancient plastic arts in Old India. One should see them oneself and
then judge whether the Indian sculptor knew how to chisel out living
thoughts which are not less striking and beautiful than those of the
Greeks in the age of _Pericles_, and much better hewn than those of the
Egyptians in the time of the hieroglyphics, of _Memphis_ and _Thebae_,
of _Carnak_ and _Philae_[12].
But there are more things to be seen in the sanctuarium of tyanḍi
Mĕndut.
The space within the four heavy walls is not a square or rectangular
one, but rather a trapezoid with parallel front- and back walls. Its
side-walls somewhat join each other from front to back. I don’t know any
other example of deviation from the rectangular form, and therefore try
to find its meaning in the sculptor’s effort to increase the impression
the large images make upon the visitor, by slightly supporting its
perspective.
[Illustration: Tyanḍi Mĕndut.
Imagery in front of the entrance of the ruin.
Kuwera, the god of riches and of the _Yakshas_, with some of his
children.]
Two niches have been spared in each of these side walls, but not
symmetrically like we see them hewn before the impressive image-group,
and not behind it or on the back wall. Half way between the entrance and
the two corners however, two similar niches adorn the front wall. All
these six niches have been framed with the _garuḍa-nâga_ ornament, that
is, with two composed serpent’s bodies whose tails disappear into the
mule of a monstrous _garuḍa_ head we see above the vault of these
niches, and whose outward turned heads are provided with a proboscis.
In each niche there lies a small lotus cushion but without any image.
Even in 1834 during the digging up of the ruin buried under an overgrown
mound, no images were found in- or outside these niches.
What then was the meaning of them?
They were explained to us by the French Indian architect _Henry
Parmentier_ who spoke of analogical cases in Farther India [_Bulletins
de l’école française d’Extrême Orient_][13]. Even there the temples
closely related to the Hindu ruins in Java had _no_ windows or openings
outside the entrance which opened into an equally dark porch; and as it
was very dark inside the walls were provided with niches for lamps to
light the images throning in these sanctuaries.
After mature consideration I came to the conclusion that the niches of
tyanḍi Mĕndut must also have had this destination, and this may be the
reason why all of them were affixed in front and opposite (not behind)
the three images, so that I never doubted the four walls to have had
_any other opening_ than the door which opened through the front wall
into the almost equally dark porch.
This conviction of mine has been confirmed by some corresponding cases,
among others, by the fact that the four still undamaged walls of the
comparatively large inner-rooms of _tyanḍi Sévu_ in the plain of
Parambanan, have no other opening but the door which gives entrance to
the (eastern) porch. However, we don’t see any niche in the inner-room
of _tyanḍi Kalasan_, perhaps because there was room enough in these two
sanctuaries to place one or more lights before or on the altars which
carried the _Buddha_ or _Târâ_ image.
In the main temples of the _Parambanan_ group, with the exception of
_tyanḍi Shiva_, there was no place for these lights. The altar-shaped
pedestals of the images were much smaller there, and round about them
there was but little room.
This temple’s walls hewn with exquisitely modelled festoons had also no
niches, and could not have had them unless one would have partly
sacrificed its panels. But in all other, less spacious temples whose
walls were unadorned, are still to be found simple and square formed
stones, 2 of which we see in each side-wall, and 1 on every side of the
entrance through the front wall, consequently just as the 6 niches in
_tyanḍi Mĕndut_ and equally fit to the same purpose. Had not the front
walls of these sanctuaries partly fallen down I am sure we then could
see that they also had no windows above the entrances, and that neither
the inner-rooms of _tyanḍis Sévu_ and _Kalasan_, nor the sanctuary of
_tyanḍi Mĕndut_ ever had them till before some years when the president
of the “_Oudheidkundige Commissie_” (board of antiquarian science)
ordered these openings to be pierced through the front wall scarcely
rebuilt by Van de Kamer. And that, _contrary_ to this architect’s
official objections, and against my not-official but well argued
warning. An irresponsible _deforming_, a _violation_ of the original
architecture, a _desecration_ of a primevally pure style!
And this becomes much clearer to us when we raise our eyes, and fully
_see_ how this polygonal hole spoils the harmony of the character of the
pyramidical vault so beautifully thought, and which I mean to have once
known as a closed whole.
Those who contemplate this pseudo-vault unprejudicedly will no more
regret than I do, that such a thing could have happened without having
been redressed up to this date. It is true, it would cost much labour
again, and money too, but this labour and money would undoubtedly be far
better accounted for than that which was uselessly spent to commit such
an unpardonable mistake.
_Dr._ Brandes may have been deceived by the form of the hole the
dropping stones had made _outside_ in the front wall above the entrance,
and which he knew from engravings only, for, when he first visited this
temple Van de Kamer had this wall erected again just as it once was, and
without any other opening but the door. On account of analogical Indian
ruins pictured in Fournerau’s and Porcher’s works, I stated elsewhere
how the falling asunder of such walls which had been run up with hewn
stones without mortar, are to form the very same angular lines of breach
_Dr._ Brandes unrightly ascribed to the architect’s intention to build
them so.
It is true that the front wall of the inner-room of _tyanḍi Sévu_ makes
us think, from its inside at least, of such a _relievo vault_, but this
had been entirely shut off to its outside, and consequently not likely
to have ever done duty as a “light-case”[14]. Had _Dr._ Brandes taken
van de Kamer’s objections and my warning into unprejudiced
consideration, this meaning of his would not have been possible.
_Tyanḍi Mĕndut_ has the outward appearance of a quadrangle with a
somewhat rectangular wing in the centre of each of its four sides.
Consequently an icosahedral resting on an equally polygonal foundation
of larger extent. The north-western forebuilding, which reached much
farther, and formerly had been separately roofed in, contained the porch
to which a broad and fourteen-tread staircase will lead us even now.
This staircase is flanked by heavy banisters formed of composed _naga_
and _garuḍa_ heads we are going to know somewhere else.
However, among the sculptures we see on the outer-wall, Mr. M. Foucher
recognised not without some reserve the main image on the _northeast_
side as the eight-armed mahâyânistic deity _Tyundâ_ or _Tsyundâ_,
standing between the _Bodhisattvas Avalokitésvara_ and _Manjusri_; on
the wall to the _south-east_ (the hind-part thus) he thought he saw
_Avalokitésvara_ himself, four-armed, and between two _Taras_; and on
the _south-western_ side he saw _Tsyundâ_ once more, but now four-handed
and standing between the very same two _Bodhisattvas_ we see on the
north-easterly outer-wall. On the side-panels of _this_ wall he
recognised the _Bodhisattva_ _Manjusri_, on the _south-east_ side
_Vajrâpani_, the _Bodhisattva_ of the _second_ _Dhyâni-Buddha_; and on
the outer-wall to the _south-west_ he saw _Manjusri_ again, the former
with his sword and the latter with his book on a blue lotus. All the
small series sculptured on the outsides of these heavy stairs refer to
ancient legends.
The king of _Siam_ told us that in the whole of his buddhistic empire
there was only one image which, though much more damaged, could be
compared to the colossal Buddha image we see here, whilst his brother,
prince _Damrong_, called the Mĕndut Buddha _priceless_.
In 1896, and afterwards in 1901, H. M. rendered due homage to the
_Buddha_ image by a devout _sĕmbah_ (salaam) and by strewing
_sĕmboja_-flowers (_Plumeria acutifolia_ Poir) in its lap; and so did
the Queen.
Tyanḍi Pawon.